Visual Entertainment And Technologies LLC

January 2024 Update

Added 2024-01-04 17:24:31 +0000 UTC

Greetings Everyone,

I hope everyone had a wonderful December and New Year. Let's jump into the news for the new year.

I've changed my accounting methods to make it less work for me. Before the FBS reached its first milestone, Patreon billed at the first of the month. Since paying for Patreon grants you access to the DLC, I switched the system to charge at subscribing. This change offset my reported numbers by four days. For example, the numbers in the December update were for November 4th to December 4th. But Patreon and Paypal systems only report monthly. So I had to do the math to remove the 1st-4th payments, etc. So, with the new year and the adjustment to only credit the money I receive after fees to the milestone funds, this was the time to fix that.

So, from December 4th to December 31st, we raised a net of $313.83. We are now at $324.56 toward our $2500 goal for Milestone #4. The numbers look lower than normal because it's missing the 1st-4th numbers of this month that I used to put in the previous month's report. The first few days of January are currently sitting at about $289. Also, remember if Serhey can not complete the Milestone #2 artwork before you all fund Milestone #4, I'll add $1000 to the Milestone funds myself. And I will continue to do so until I cover the labor owed to you for Milestone #2.

As many of you know, we've held voting for Milestone #3 over December. The community has funded Four bounties, including two large $1000 bounties. I also self-funded an additional bounty. I'm pleased to announce that I have successfully upgraded the 64-bit Linux libraries and ported the game to C++17. We now build the Linux on Debian 11. Debian 11 is Steam's basis for their upcoming "Sniper" runtime libraries. Previously, we used Kubuntu 12 for the 64-bit Linux, as Ubuntu 12 is the basis of Steam's current runtime libraries.

The Linux upgrade still has several minor issues that I need to address in the next few days. But it is running stably.

As soon as I finish writing this, I'll begin upgrading the Windows port. I expect this upgrade will go more quickly and smoothly than the Linux port since I have most of the kinks worked out in the code I maintain. After that, I will do the OSX upgrades, which will likely be more burdensome. The Linux and Windows 32-bit upgrades will come after I complete the remaining bounties.

I have not benchmarked yet, but the game feels somewhat snappier.

In AeroMogul news, I completed moving the financial data between client and server, and now some of it is displayed in-game. I stopped just before the conclusion of Milestone #3 voting to contemplate and study real-world slot dynamics, and I believe I have a path forward to make the slot system the most realistic system seen in a game. I will also have a couple of other variants more akin to what is in other games for folks who don't want to deal with the complexity of slot negotiations. I have also drawn up plans to improve the passenger routing system by having advanced ticket sales play a more critical factor in the game. The Airline industry is all about forward planning. Deferred Revenue is a critical component of that. Work on AeroMogul and the AeroMogul monthly update is postponed until I complete Milestone #3.

Here is a list of changes to the engine:

[b]64-bit Build[/b]

[list]

[*]C++11 / C++03 stdext ➡ C++17

[*]Ogre 1.11.5 ➡ Ogre 14.1

[*]OgreOggSound 1.27 ➡ OgreSound 21.09

[*]SQLite 3.24.0 ➡ SQLite 3.44.2

[*]KompexWrapper 1.11.14 ++Custom Patches ➡ KompexWrapper 1.12.15 +Custom Patches

[*]CEF 3.3578.186 / Chromium 71.0 ➡ CEF/Chromium 120.0

[*]FreeImage ➡ Ogre14 stb_image

[*]FreeType 2.6.11.1 ➡ FreeType 2.13.2

[*]zlib ➡ zlib 1.3