published on August 03, 2026 in devlog
In this week's devlog Michi talks about the recent database troubles and how he plans to improve stability.
Michi (molp)
An already short week (I had a couple of days off) got even shorter due to database issues. After a regular maintenance update, the servers' performance was unusually bad. It took a while before I realized that the database was also struggling. Sometimes one of the three database instances would even get killed due to failing a liveness check (a regular check that makes sure the database is still there and responding). That of course didn't help with the performance, as losing a database instance means that a third of all game objects (users, companies, admin centers, planets, ..) have to be reloaded as well, putting additional strain on the system. In the end I found out that there was a rogue game object that kept writing to the database in a tight loop. I admit, that was a bug I introduced, and it was somehow enough to send the database over the edge. After fixing the underlying issue, I looked into the database configuration and found room for improvement. We'll change how much memory is allocated for various parts of the database and will also reduce the load introduced by the liveness checks I mentioned. It turns out these checks are not free at all, the way they are wired up right now. I'll deploy these configuration changes over the course of the next updates.
We are currently also ramping up our marketing efforts, looking for YouTube channels willing to add a sponsored segment to their videos, similar to what we have done in the past. This of course also takes away a chunk of time from actual development work, but will help the game as a whole in the long run.
A new month just started, so there is a new economic report as well:
Click the image for the full report
As always, we'd love to hear what you think: join us on Discord or the forums!
Happy trading!