Hi Truckers,

We did some things. Cool things, we think. Here’s a list of those things:

• Added sound effects to multiple UI elements including Scrapping, Smashing, and Crafting
• Added an additional Paint recipe to Ascension 0 (A0)
• Added two additional recipes to A0 with multiple effects — yay!
• Added logging to gather a lot more info in real time on travel bugs being reported
• Added a part-time, trusted dev to the team to help Mike before he literally dies
• Additional optimization (it never ends, damnit) including scaling the Truck for better clarity

We’ve been busy, and there’s something I’m going to address, so I’d like to put on my serious pants for a second.

There’s been a mild and not-really-worth-addressing disturbance in the force. As we’ve said, we always appreciate constructive feedback and criticism. Seriously, we’ve got thick skin, but referring to the devs as “jerk offs” or the game as “shit” isn’t really that helpful other than making us cry a lot. I mean, we know this game isn’t Skyrim: Browser Edition but it’s A) In beta, B) Updated every week, C) Basically Skyrim Browser Edition so keep that in mind next time you feel motivated to crush Mike’s dreams (jokes on you, mine died years ago). Also, we love ya’ll.

Alright, cool, now that we’re done being weird and my pants are back off, let’s chat about the whole “background tab” thing ya’ll are not at all annoyed about. For those of you not in the loop, running STL in a background tab or minimized is going to cause some problems. Namely, serious desyncs and effectively pausing the game. It is always best to run the game in a dedicated tab/window.

Here’s the deal. Browsers like Chrome and Firefox do something called background tab throttling. Basically, if a browser tab is inactive or minimized, the browser is going to minimize the hell out of the requests in order to save your computer from bursting into flames. For WebGL games, this is kind of a problem, but more of a problem for us for a variety of reasons. Sure, some games still seem to function just fine in those states, but it’s often because those games don’t make that many requests or they simply simulate the progression. The former isn’t the case for us, and the latter is a huge undertaking. We have a race track with generated results. Multiple inventories (crafting, storage, garage). Crates. Friending. Chat. DMs. Notes. Crafting. Scrapping. Smashing. Gifting. Attachments. Multiple timers. Colliders. An actual physics system.

Maybe you read that whole paragraph, maybe you rolled your eyes and didn’t. The short version is, we effectively built an MMO with a social network layer. There are a lot of requests going on and simulating progress is essentially a nightmare. That being said, there are things you can actually try to circumvent these issues depending on your browser:

Let me be really, really clear. DO THIS SHIT AT YOUR OWN RISK. We take 0% responsibility for anything that happens. By that, we just mean if things start running like farts it’s not on us. However, here’s how to disable throttling: https://www.likeitall.com/throttle

Hope that helps. Seriously, I hope it helps. And yes, we’re always working towards alleviating any issues we can. There are things we can do to make things better, but we’re not there yet, and like I said, it’s a huge undertaking.

Oh yeah and also we’re working on Badges (Achievements/Trophies) or whatever for our next big feature. NBD.

That’s all for now, Truckers.

Throttled,

Dan/Mike