With thanks to @phong we managed to play the first representative game on the FAF Develop branch. See also the first post. You can find the replay 19044295 in the vault.
Performance
It clearly shows the performance improvements, where we now have a new record of 1500 units + a battle being processed in 17ms, and 3000 units + a battle being processed in 40 ms.
For those unaware: the game is processed in ticks. Each tick has a 'budget' of 100ms. If we can't meet that budget, the game starts slowing down.
To put that into numbers: my computer has a Ryzen 5 3600. You can buy one of those brand new for 100 to 160 euro CPU. This relatively cheap CPU is now able to process games up to 6K units without any problems, which is where it would start slowing down the game on the current release branch.
1500 units at 17ms / tick
2900 units at 38ms / tick
Terrain deformations
There are no visible terrain deformations, even at places where there used to be factories. I'll post a few screenshots.
Air base at a slight slope
Various units at a slight slope
There used to be a full base here, but there's no trace of it when you look at the terrain
Destroyed air base at a slope, but the terrain is not deformed
Full array of SAMs with no terrain deformations whatsoever
Entire base with air grid build on a slight slope, no issues with terrain
But moreover:
- During play, nobody noticed that structures were slightly tilted
- During play, even I did not notice structures were slightly tilted
And looking at the terrain: there are basically no noticeable deformations even though entire bases got destroyed and rebuild. I'd say this is a grand success. And with a bit more tweaking for individual edge cases (like a radar) we can make it even better.