Changes, optimizations and proposals in SteemNova

The preparations for the new version of SteemNova are in progress. We want the new version of SteemNova not only to be better than the old one, but also to be the best experience of its kind.

It's worth to write such a simple report on the work in progress.

Combat engines

One of the biggest problems with SteemNova is the battle engine. Generally there are not many battle engines for the engine 2moons / SteemNova, but there are also not good battle engines.

The best has SteemNova, gives the best results, but at the expense:

• High hardware requirements
• Additional modules to optimize the workflow.

Other engines like Opbe are fast and lightweight, but give poor results.

What we want to do is a hybrid engine, i.e. the SteemNova engine would work for battles up to 250,000 fights (with time the number of ships would be increased), and the Opbe engine would work above this value.

The Opbe engine has been tested for the last few days, which has led to the discovery of such errors:

• The death star is too strong
• The simulator does not work properly (we have an alternative simulator for Opbe)
• Opbe's results are weird.

We are aware that the Opbe is not perfect, but the best after the SteemNova engine.

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What we want to do for now is try to optimize the SteemNova engine, which will be difficult. Mainly because SteemNova engine (battle engine written by mys) is really well written and it will be difficult to find alternative functions that will give the same result in a faster time.

Meanwhile I have redesigned PHP configuration for opcache, which is a tool preparing the code for execution (optimizes it), I hope this will solve some of the problems.

Another thing we are waiting for is PHP 7.4 (our engine is being adapted to new language versions compared to the competition), which introduces "JIT" for Opcache, which will further optimize the code (execute it). If nothing changes, the new PHP version can be installed on the server somewhere in December or January.

Another change is for SteemNova 2. Of course here the game starts again and my idea is this (please answer either in a post or on Discord) or set the speed to x1. The game will be slower than the current one (twice), but at the same time the fights will be smaller (at the same time), because the planets will develop slower.

This will allow us to look for other ways to speed up the game (maybe we'll get a better hardware or something new).

Minor improvements

In the meantime, we have managed to solve a few minor problems. You can send unicode signs to other people (e.g. via chat) or sort the results of points in the alliance correctly.

Proposal: Move from Discord SteemNova to Discord IntinteDAO

SteemNova although it lives quite well (we cooperate with other people and their servers although they live, are much smaller than ours). It's not as big as it used to be and it seems to me that having a separate Discord from Discord IntinteDAO doesn't make any sense anymore.

Our suggestion is to turn off the old Discord (encourage people to switch to the new Discord and then switch off writing) and encourage people to switch to the new one. Two in one ;)

Many departments on SteemNova's Discord are empty, except for the main and perhaps development / bug hunting sections.

Dedicated Token

This is one of the proposals that we want to introduce in SteemNova 2 and that we have been talking about for a long time.

Now dark matter is given away for free to everyone. I have been thinking for a long time that maybe the whole system should run differently.

We would get dark matter for different tasks:

• Being in TOP10 players (or TOP20?)
• Performing tasks (e.g. build the first deuterium extractor, build the first ship).
• From events
• From exploration, of course.
• If you manage to "fix" the system, it's from inviting people
• Maybe small amounts of dark matter will be given away, but only if a number of conditions are met (e.g. level 15 of the mine, so that unused accounts can't get it).

Here's the idea. Each unit of Dark Matter can be exchanged for a Dark Matter token on one of the platforms (I'll tell you about it right away). This token can be sold (or bought) to someone if he wants to. With these tokens, however, you will be able to buy various services, such as games for the Steam platform.

We have 3 possible platforms here:

• Steem Engine. The cost of creating your own token costs 100 Steems. In my opinion it's a lot, because we don't have any guarantees (the project is very centralized).
• SMT, we don't know a lot about it except that it's supposed to be next year. However, Steem himself has financial problems, which you can probably see.
• RSK, which is a platform on Bitcoin. Here the architecture is a beginner (there is no DEX yet), and in addition there are transaction fees (I would have to provide a system in the type of cantor cryptocurrency Steem -> SBTC). However, the platform does not have any financial problems, quite the contrary. Creators invest a lot in various projects, even bought a Spanish social network. In case of Steem network problems, the game can continue without any problems.

Which system do you prefer? For me it doesn't make much difference, I think about RSK, because in case of Steem network problems, you can easily continue the game (RSK is a modified ETH for Bitcoin, so the wallet is e.g. MyEtherWallet).