Period: August 28, 2025 Total Commits: 8

Daily Dev Update: Deterministic Sync & Aura Glows

Quick one today. We focused on two things: making the simulation deterministic (so resyncs don’t shuffle your match) and improving how events confirm for high-latency players. Also added a clean visual for damage-boost auras and tidied up the build.

What’s New

• New Aura Glow for damage-boosted towers
  • Added a dedicated AuraGlow entity and a lightweight Effect type for clean rendering.
  • Smooth red gradient that pulses, shared texture for performance.
  • Proper team filtering: damage boosters now only buff same-team towers.
  • Hooks into tower placement/removal so glows appear and disappear predictably.

[screenshot: red aura glow around boosted towers at df31f44]

[screenshot: boosted tower cluster pulsing glow during a wave at df31f44]

What Got Fixed

• Deterministic simulation and resync

  • Replaced timestamp-based tower IDs with a deterministic blockNumber scheme.
  • Consistent spawn ordering for towers and minions across clients.
  • Removed all Math.random() usage from the simulation.

• High-latency event flow

  • Direct event subscriptions with retries and transaction tracking to prevent “temp” entities from lingering.
  • Duplicate block handling and better event matching via transaction hash fallback.

• Castle HP now respects config

  • Uses MATCH_CONFIG.CASTLE_HP (20) instead of the old 1000 hardcode. Clearer pacing and earlier finishes for aggressive pushes.

• Build stability

  • Cleaned up deprecated aura code paths.
  • Fixed TypeScript errors (unused vars/imports, missing status props, etc.).
  • Corpse exploder now tracks exploded corpses correctly to avoid double pops.

[screenshot: multiplayer battle with synchronized spawns after resync at b39a5c0]

What’s Still Broken

• We’re watching for edge-case desyncs under weird event ordering or packet loss. If you see units flicker or disappear during replay/resync, let us know what was happening on screen.
• Aura glow performance should be fine, but very large clustered builds might cause minor GPU spikes. We’ll profile bigger matches.
• No balance tuning in this pass. Damage booster visuals are in; number tweaks are coming later.

Under the Hood

• Deterministic IDs and order

  • Tower IDs now derive from blockNumber; towers spawn by (blockNumber * 1,000,000) + logIndex.
  • Minions spawn by wave and grid: (waveNumber * 10,000) + (y * 100) + x.
  • Why: ensures every client builds the exact same world state during resync, regardless of CPU speed or event arrival timing.

• Event sync for high-latency players

  • watchContractEvent with 500ms polling and a retry/backoff system (up to 10 retries, 1s delay).
  • Track pending transactions across the entire pipeline and wait for expected events before processing blocks.
  • Reduced block batching delay from 100ms to 10ms now that retries are reliable.
  • Result: temp towers/minions are properly cleared the moment confirmations arrive, even if your connection is far from the server.

• Cleaner rendering path

  • Split effects from sprite-based VFX.
  • Shared static glow texture saves memory and cuts draw overhead.
  • Works in both instanced and non-instanced modes.

[screenshot: wave start with stable aura visuals and unit spawns at 57cb38c]

What’s Next

• Stress-test deterministic resync in longer PvP matches and replays.
• Profile aura glow clusters and cull when off-screen.
• Start on matchmaking and early PvP balance passes (damage booster numbers, stack rules).
• Bot practice improvements are on deck after sync stability holds.

Try It Out

We’ve fixed a few issues with the alpha server. If you want to help hammer on the new sync path (especially if you’re far from the server), jump in:

• alpha.towerstorm.com

If you hit weird confirmations or lingering “temp” units, a short clip and your approximate ping helps a lot. Thanks for all the reports—keep them coming.