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I was doing different refactorings of our engine for last 1.5 years. It's allowed me to add a new backend (graphics API) - Vulkan. It's relatively new API (as D3D12) which allows us to have a more predictable and stable performance. And in some cases even better performance. But not always as we use it in a single thread yet. Vulkan drivers from different vendors are usually much lighter than GL ones. That's the way to have less driver bugs and crashes. But we still need testing how it works on different hardware. So everyone who has a Vulkan compatible device please try to enable it in options (along with feedback). If you're able to run SVN then you already can test it. Else wait for the next RC. Note: to run the game you'd need to download and install a separate mod with precompiled shaders (it'll be bundled in RCs and the Release): https://releases.wildfiregames.com/rc/0ad-spirv.zip. Vulkan can't run pure GLSL shaders (which we use for GL), it uses a special binary format for shaders: SPIR-V. Vulkan allows us to use different interesting features. For example it allows to select the most appropriate GPU to use. It means no more crashes because of wrong GPU, I hope Also Vulkan supports multithreading. If you still have some time you could run the game with validation enabled. It makes the game slower but validates a lot more different internal things. It should help to make Vulkan stable for the release. To enable validation you need to add the following lines to your usef.cfg: renderer.backend.debugcontext = "true" renderer.backend.debuglabels = "true" renderer.backend.debugmessages = "true" renderer.backend.debugscopedlabels = "true" Known issues: Screenshots aren't implemented yet, but going to be during Feature Freeze rP27552 Some precompiled shaders are missing, please report if the game says so macOS isn't supported yet, but we have plans to do so via MoltenVk rP27488 Missing silhouettes rP27418 Unsupported depth formats cause an assertion rP27421 Stretching on window resize after fullscreen switch rP27422

I got the reason, will make a patch tonight. Thank you!

The cool thing about a simple RPS system like this, with its small number of classes, is that we can do it fairly easily with no specific attack bonuses. Mechanics do most of the work. Melee ships (rammers and boarders) beat Artillery ships because they bridge the gap too quickly for the firing rate of the Artillery ship to compensate. The melee ships are soft countered by Arrow ships because the Arrow ships can fire more rapidly and more precisely than the Artillery ships. And then the Arrow ships are massacred by Artillery ships because of the way ranged combat works. Boarders throw a nice monkey into things to see if you can't capture some enemy ships. Rammers are the hard hitting, nearly suicidal, units (they survive due to some good micro). And even better, it's all pretty intuitive.

Chiming in again to explain since there seems to be some contention. I don’t necessarily disagree with anything said by @real_tabasco_sauce or @wowgetoffyourcellphone. The reason why I like what @wowgetoffyourcellphone put forward is because it gets away from our current model which is just one “type” of ship where the only strategy is to get more full ships earlier than your opponent. @wowgetoffyourcellphone’s system is more or less a rock paper scissors approach, which introduces strategy and relatively easy to balance

Increasing melee attack damage also nerfs turtling. The counter to turtling should be rush or siege weapons, right, not archer range?

Hello The old bronze shields on the Spartan Syssitia were replaced with proper shields. I wanted to mention that it would be great to have the same change for the Spartan Royal Stoa and the Persian Stoa.

People use walls and defenses much more in team games than in 1v1s. A very common strategy especially with Iberians is for the edge player to turtle up and take the 2v1 while the player’s pocket helps the other side or goes for cav. While it is largely dependent on circumstances, this level of team play is great. the pace of the game is good, age of empires games take 30 minutes to an hour even with 1v1s. Being able to quickly play a game is a great feature. I think the biggest reason players don’t use walls is how long it takes to build them, not really the cost. You can almost never build them in time for the attack they are supposed to delay.

Fixed!

Could you try D4879?

Max settings, first screen of campaign : OpenGL ARB ~145fps OpenGL ~127fps Vulkan ~98fps

I'm telling you that your form of communication isn't constructive because it doesn't say why you want anything. If you want to be helpful (and I hope you do) and you want your opinions to be considered (and I hope they are) then you must explain your reasoning.

Can't say yet, it requires MoltenVk integration. It shouldn't be hard but might take a while.

Slightly increase framerate and almost no simulation stalls. Edit: ergo playable vs unplayable

What's the difference? Working on that.

Combat demo huge runs much better than using gl. So except for missing shaders probably ok.

Fixes the segfault for me. So next one ERROR: Program 'spirv/water_high' with required defines not found. ERROR: "RENDER_DEBUG_MODE": "RENDER_DEBUG_MODE_NONE" ERROR: "SHADOWS_CASCADE_COUNT": "1" ERROR: "USE_DESCRIPTOR_INDEXING": "1" ERROR: "USE_REAL_DEPTH": "1" ERROR: "USE_REFLECTION": "1" ERROR: "USE_REFRACTION": "1" ERROR: "USE_SHADOW": "1" ERROR: "USE_SHADOW_PCF": "1" ERROR: "USE_SHADOW_SAMPLER": "1" ERROR: "USE_FOG": "1" ERROR: Failed to load shader 'spirv/water_high'

@BeTe Thank you for your reports. Yes it makes sense to report here since these reports are valuable information for everyone. Also, once one of your reports is verified the points that should have been awarded will be given to you.

Hey there, this might be a frequent question on here but I've been at this for a while now. My question is how would I unpackage a Pyromod I downloaded so that I can get at its files in Blender? If I try to extract them directly they're all cached.pmds and .xmas instead of the usual .daes and such. I'm trying to figure out the proper way to do this. Much appreciation for anyone that can help me with this! The Pyromod in question is the latest version of Hyrule Conquest for 0AD 0.25.

Alright, thanks a bunch again Stan' for giving me an answer.

Seems the same reason. The problem is that D24_S8 isn't enough and we need to use D32_SFLOAT_S8_UINT following rP27379.

Yeah, I really like the multiple armor and attack system we have for cav and inf, but it’s a huge pain to try to get right. I just don’t care enough about ships to do something more complicated and your proposal works/is a huge improvement compared to what we have

I think this looks great! Sub-classes like real-tabasco mentioned might be good if we want to have some upgrades affect more than one or all ship types. The idea of scout ship is awesome, for transporting small rushes early on or scouting. I think this would be a great first ship in p1.

In favor of (limited) range defense. I'd imagine that to be historically correct too. Oh please, NO.

I like what we have going here: I'd say a couple things: first, I think there should't be a building AI arrow count. If a ship has an attack that is player controlled, I don't see the point of adding a buildingAI arrow count. It would be best to keep that part simple. also, I am not sure of the garrison effects. I would prefer that the ships are fully functional "out of the box" and that garrisoning should be a transport concern, but I am open minded to trying these effects out. I think these classes you bring up could fit into parent classes based on ship size (light,medium,heavy) with the following characteristics: light: less health, more speed, acceleration medium: medium health, speed, acceleration heavy: more health, less speed, less acceleration scout and light warships could belong to light; ramming ships, boarding ships, and medium warships belong to medium; and siege ships belong to heavy. Each ship would have its own abilities while still belonging to a parent class. This way, I could go ahead and make the core light, medium, and heavy classes playable in the community mod for brainstorming while art and gameplay mechanic developments allow for the specialized ships to be introduced.

Indeed. Ranged damage should be a nice bonus or harrasser, not the primary damager of an army. Even range-heavy civs like Persians and Han would have had to engage with their melee troops to decide the matter, let alone the Romans and Greeks and Celts who all used ranged troops in a secondary or even tertiary role.

I think this would partially invalidate the value of infantry mercenaries. I would rather melee inf be more impactful in the first place (not just meatshield, but actually dealing damage). I have an idea for this and I will make a MR for it in the a27 community mod.