December 2024: Dev Update #6

As I mentioned in our previous dev update we are working on simulating how networks operate. From Layer 1 up to Layer 7. This past weekend we had a big breakthrough in our programming. We accomplished the following:

MAC Address Assigning Patch Panels Wireless

Let’s talk about each one for a moment and why this is a big deal for us.

MAC Address Assigning.

If you’re familiar with the world of IT, every single device that connects to a network has a MAC Address (also known as a physical address). So when you connect a device to a switch, that switch will learn that devices’ MAC address and put it in a table to reference. But also, on each switch, each port has its own unique MAC address as well.

So what this means is we have accomplished auto MAC Address assigning of switches and their ports as well as allowing our switches to learn MAC Addresses from devices. We’re very excited about this and hoping it speeds up the IP Addressing programming.

Patch Panels

Wait a minute, patch panels are a big deal? Yes, yes it is. To reiterate what a patch panel is, it’s just a piece of hardware that is normally found in a network closet that acts as a central point to organize and manage network cables. So what kind of programming was needed for this?

In real life, a patch panel doesn’t do anything but allows termination of cables on two sides. There’s no programming on it, it just sits there. But in our game? How do we translate that? Well, we figured it out.

In our programming we had to give the patch panel some sort of logic so that it can detect when something is plugged into it and allow the other end of that termination point to detect it is online. We want to simulate the real world as much as possible but we did not want to actually run cables from the patch panel to the various termination points in our levels. So we sort of tricked it. The front side of the patch panel will detect the cable from the switch. The back side of the patch panel will then wirelessly detect that workstation across the hall if that is plugged in. With this now working, we sort of killed two birds with one stone.

Wireless

We sort of programmed wireless by accident as we were working on the patch panel logic. It’s still early in our programming logic for wireless but we’ve tested it, and we have wireless working. Of course there is still a LOT to do for wireless (like creating ranges, weak spots, wifi channels etc…etc…) and I doubt we will have wireless in the demo but I wanted to bring it up because we do plan on having wireless be present in our levels.

We are inching our way to a demo release and we know people want their hands on this. We promise you all, as soon as we have an idea when we have a date for the demo release we will shout it from the rooftops!

We know that once we get more of the network stack built and programmed, it will speed up our development of the game. Work has already begun on the level designs in Unreal. We have the pre-production visios done for the