You managed to propose 4.0 to the Evocati before CitizenCon, so congratulations on that, but aren't you disappointed that it's only happening now, whereas your goal for 2023 was a summer 2024 release?
TL;DRThe developer admits disappointment with the timing, blaming a difficult 3.24, old problematic systems, server meshing complexity and a detour for a networking system, but is happy the technology works and prioritizes stability over numbers.
Yes. Of course we're not super happy with the timing, which is to say that 3.24 was a really difficult patch. It brought a lot of features (persistant personal hangars, freight elevator systems...) that really touched on a lot of systems already in place that were problematic.
I talked a bit about this on SC-Live last time: there are really 3 systems in the game that are problematic. The traffic control system, the ASOP terminal system, and the transit system (we all know what's wrong with that). Because they're a bit old, we try to update them, but we never have priority over them.
And then server meshing adds to the complexity, so 3.24 really slowed us down. Then in March, during performance testing, we identified that we had to make a detour to install the RMQ system, which gives us better networking performance.
So we're not entirely happy with our timing, but we're happy with the result in the sense that we can see that the technology is functional, and it's really just a first step. As I said in my last action reports, we're not chasing numbers, we're chasing a real quality of gaming experience. We'll go with what's most stable and functional.