Daily Dev Update: Auras, Beams, and Big Performance Wins - August 26, 2025

Period: August 26, 2025 Total Commits: 10

Hey all — here’s what we worked on today. New support tower mechanics landed, the renderer got a serious upgrade, and we cleaned up a bunch of sync and placement edge cases. It’s getting there.

What’s New

• Damage Booster Tower (Aura + Electricity Beam)

  • Adds a 10% damage aura in a 2.5-tile radius to nearby towers.
  • Shows a thin electricity beam from the booster to its target for clarity.
  • Towers inside the aura get a subtle red glow so you can tell who’s buffed at a glance.
  • Gameplay impact: this leans into tower clusters and synergy drafting. You can build compact kill zones that scale better with buffs, at the cost of vulnerability to path reroutes.
  • Note: visuals are in; numbers are conservative on purpose.

  [screenshot: damage booster aura glow + electricity beam during a wave at de3ddce]

• HUD View Toggle Revamp

  • The “Show Opponent” button is gone. The view indicator is now clickable and doubles as the toggle.
  • Added hover/active states so it’s obvious what you’re looking at and what will happen on click.

  [screenshot: multiplayer battle with new UI view toggle indicator at 6642f15]

What Got Fixed

• Gold and Wave Timer Sync

  • Moved gold income and wave countdown to per-second updates instead of per-block.
  • Added an accumulator so you get full-second income ticks, even through hiccups.
  • Fixed a case where blocks could process twice; debounce is now 100ms to prevent repeats.
  • Effect: more stable income and steady wave timers, especially during catchup.

• Minion Placement Reliability

  • You can now replace existing minion spawn assignments cleanly (old one despawns), and the visuals update correctly.

• Placement Rules for 7-Castle Layout

  • The pathing check now requires that all living castles remain reachable, not just one.
  • Temporary placements are included in the check, so it’s harder to accidentally lock a route.
  • Also adjusted internal tests to the new castle coordinates and full-height spawn bounds (0–16) for consistency.

  [screenshot: updated tower placement grid with valid/blocked highlights at 532c822]

• Board-Scoped VFX

  • VFX now carry a team tag, and the renderer filters by the active view.
  • Result: no more effects showing up on the wrong board.

• Projectile + Renderer Cleanups

  • Fixed projectile cleanup if a target dies early in the instanced renderer.
  • Corrected some missing per-instance attributes that could cause invisible towers/VFX.

• Economy Consistency

  • Level-up gold cost is now computed from config:
    • Level 1 → 2: 500
    • Level 2 → 3: 1000
    • …and so on from ECONOMY_CONFIG
  • Removed reliance on event-provided goldCost for the deduction (kept for backward compat).
  • Base income per second now uses the config value: 1.

Under the Hood

• Instanced Rendering Across the Board

  • Minions, projectiles, towers, and VFX now use instanced meshes with custom shaders.
  • Per-instance UV offsets drive sprite animations; added per-instance opacity for death fades.
  • Updated to Three.js 0.179.1 and set a high-performance GPU preference.
  • Removed the old performance throttle — we’re seeing 60+ fps in typical matches.

  [screenshot: large wave with crisp animations and stable framerate at 0cd4c9b]

• Renderer/VFX Details

  • Introduced a dedicated VFXInstancedRenderer for cleaner batching.
  • Fixed VFX frame dimensions to use actual config values instead of assuming 32x32.

• Match + Chain Integration

  • Rendering pauses during blockchain catchup to avoid stutters, then resumes clean.
  • Smart contract now stores the match creator for secure host validation.

What’s Still Broken

• Path Visualization While Placing: We’ve got a path preview in there, but it’s currently disabled while we smooth performance and readability. It’ll help you see route changes before you confirm a tower.
• Catchup Pauses: During long chain catchups, rendering pauses. It’s intentional for now. If your wave timer jumps after a long pause, let us know.
• Aura Clarity: The red glow is readable, but we’re still tuning intensity and edge cases where multiple auras overlap visually.

What’s Next

• Iterate on the aura system (more support effects, better UI indicators, and layering rules).
• Re-enable and polish the path visualization so reroutes are obvious before you commit.
• Keep tuning economy numbers now that income and costs are config-driven.
• More visual polish on beam origins and VFX timing under load.

Thanks for all the feedback on placement edge cases and sync issues — it helped narrow the fixes quickly. If you see weirdness with timers, auras not applying, or beams lingering, drop us a note with steps to reproduce.

[screenshot: clustered towers benefiting from the damage aura in a mid-wave skirmish at de3ddce]