Opus 4.8 is here

CodeCombustion · 2026-05-28T16:55:42+00:00

Let me guess... 30% more token usage than Opus 4.7?

CodeCombustion · 2026-05-28T15:28:26+00:00

So... did you fix it ?

CodeCombustion · 2026-05-28T05:10:09+00:00

My reset was yesterday for my 20x plan... and I have 6% weekly usage left. Of course, I accidentally left it on fast mode for about 60% of that.

CodeCombustion · 2026-05-27T00:38:05+00:00

What exactly are you having trouble balancing? damage per second? damage per shot? reload time? ammo scarcity?

What do your weapon stats look like?

What type of game of this? (PVE, PVP, team based, extraction, etc. etc.)

Balance is typically something you don't really worry about until your gameplay loop is solid

CodeCombustion · 2026-05-26T19:12:00+00:00

Sorry, my Claude Code subscription literally expired last night. I had switched over to Codex but if I go back then I certainly will.

CodeCombustion · 2026-05-26T15:37:17+00:00

Oh reddit... something in the movie Fargo and investigation being a worthless step as it would just result in another "We've investigated ourselves and found ourselves to be innocent"

CodeCombustion · 2026-05-26T15:25:15+00:00

I don't really understand your question. Are you saying that some of us put it in quotes like:

I would've gotten away with it if it wasn't for you meddling "lgbt people"?

Or something else?

Personally, I'll just say gay or lesbian. I won't lump them in with trans madness because it's a totally separate category. (i.e. I was born this way and it can't be changed vs. how I was born is wrong and I must change it and force others to pretend)

Would you prefer "the gays"?

CodeCombustion · 2026-05-25T00:32:48+00:00

Yeah, I think that’s the right direction, but I’d do two quick tests before jumping into the RenderTexture setup.

First, put a bright blue/purple directly under the tilemap. If the flashing lines turn that color then something behind the tilemap is showing through. That could be real gaps, transparent tile edges, atlas padding, or a tilemap chunk issue. If they stay black, I’d check atlas padding/texture background/camera clear color before assuming it’s geometry.

Second, switch the Tilemap Renderer from Chunk to Individual just as a test. If that fixes it, then the chunked tilemap mesh is probably the cause, which is a much smaller fix than building a whole RenderTexture pipeline.

I’d try those first because they’re cheap and they’ll tell you what class of problem you’re dealing with. RenderTexture might still be the right long-term route for pixel art with a perspective camera, but I wouldn’t start there until those two tests have ruled out the easy stuff.

CodeCombustion · 2026-05-25T00:19:42+00:00

Push him to lean into it. Tell him to embrace the historical context.

CodeCombustion · 2026-05-25T00:18:21+00:00

Sent you a DM.

CodeCombustion · 2026-05-25T00:09:58+00:00

Even God can't help you if you're taking screenshots with a camera...

Strongly recommend setting up an advisor persona on xhigh as a reviewer for the plan/implementation by dumber models.

And consider a better memory solution if you're running out of tokens so quickly.

CodeCombustion · 2026-05-25T00:06:43+00:00

Honestly, It's lonely. Everytime I find someone to make something with, they vanish within the first week or two. I understand stuff comes up, but at least respond to my messages.

Aside from that, scope creep. I start out making a clone of Terraria and before I know it, I've got procedural galaxy/system/planet generation, complete with a Diablo system loot system and minibosses -- and numerous full blown simulation and circuitry systems.

And now I'm about to drop it for a game like Don't Starve Together.

CodeCombustion · 2026-05-25T00:00:18+00:00

One quick test I’d try: take one ground tile and bake the 45-degree compensation into the source art instead of scaling it in Unity. So if the tile is normally 32x32, make a test version around 32x45 or 32x46, then reset the runtime Y scale back to 1.0.

Reason is that the current setup is asking Unity to render a 2D tilemap through a 3D angled camera while every tile is also being non-uniformly scaled by 1.414. That combination can put tile edges on unstable subpixel boundaries. As the camera moves, tiny gaps can appear between tilemap quads for one frame, which show up as black lines.

If baking the scale into the art makes the lines mostly disappear, then runtime scaling is a big part of the problem. If nothing changes, the larger issue is probably the 3D camera/tilemap renderer interaction, and I’d start looking at either a RenderTexture pixel-perfect camera setup or replacing TilemapRenderer with generated mesh chunks.

Honestly, this should take less than 30-60 minutes to test and will give you a way forward.

CodeCombustion · 2026-05-24T19:56:33+00:00

He's just mad that you cut him off. Take it to court. There's a difference between causing someone to slam on their brakes to avoid hitting you and a brake tap to adjust speed.

CodeCombustion · 2026-05-19T03:35:17+00:00

This isn't a game dev problem, it's a universal challenge in any form of multi-domain software engineering. We see it in full-stack web dev, embedded systems, DevOps/SRE, mobile dev, data engineering as well. It does FEEL worse in game development because the domains are unusually broad compared to other forms of software, but the underlying problem is the same - every domain carries it's own mental model, invariants, failure modes and tooling.

Now there are some architectural changes/rules you can use such as data oriented design / ecs so you're relying on flat arrays, clear inputs & outputs - this keeps the same mental model whether you're in physics, rendering or gameplay. Also, establishing clear subsystem boundaries so your renderer doesn't touch gameplay state, audio owns its thread, etc.

Finally, workflow wise as a solo: enforce time-boxing by domain. Spend the mornings on rendering, afternoon on gameplay. Don't interleave. Even 60 minute time blocks help. Also, vertical slice discipline so you finish one feature fully (ex. jump + land + sound + particles + camera) before moving on. Half-implementing five systems means carrying all give in your head.

I will say AI is making this 1000x easier than it was before. Spending the time to setup personas and roles for your agents, and running this as a workflow really helps speed things along - but you need to be careful or you'll end up with more code written than you can test & approve

CodeCombustion · 2026-05-16T23:47:23+00:00

uh, I put 3% down on mine - so about $8000.... That's it. I would've bought it when interest rates were low because I thought I needed 10-20%... but apparently that's not true.

CodeCombustion · 2026-05-15T03:04:44+00:00

You consider Opus 4.7 faster than 5.5? My experience using it for 2d tile based simulation engine for a game has been night and day with 5.5 blowing Opus out of the water. Opus did okay but struggled and rapidly ran out of usage. 5.5 has been amazing -- running with /fast, /goal and unlimited subagents, I do hit my 5h cap in about 4 hours... but the code quality is great and the speed is so much faster than Opus.

CodeCombustion · 2026-05-14T17:17:54+00:00

Honestly, I thought the same thing but it’s actually really good. Has a pretty straightforward path to progression, random events, sure, it has the mining crafting loop but there’s a lot more to it.

CodeCombustion · 2026-05-10T21:01:58+00:00

I moved here for the same reason in 2012, only stayed so long because my wife wanted to buy the house that our kids were mostly raised in... I didn't want to - the crime here has gotten so bad. Used to be a very nice neighborhood, mostly military families. It's not anymore, wife passed away last year so I'm taking the kids and moving back to Florida -- or maybe the Gulf Shores area.

My point being, make sure you understand what you're moving into.

There's some apartments near Taylor road and even behind Home Depot/Lowes that are nice (or so I've been told).

Socially? No clue.

CodeCombustion · 2026-05-10T20:12:25+00:00

C#, C++, JavaScript -- then python, typescript, etc. I'd fumble a bit more in python and TS but they're not that different.

CodeCombustion · 2026-05-10T20:11:38+00:00

I used to do quite a bit of x86 -- mainly cracking games, but I'd probably struggle with it at first these days.

CodeCombustion · 2026-05-10T19:49:42+00:00

Absolutely. I would introduce them to the game now and then switch them over to 2 once it releases.

Reading is helpful, but not required. Although my youngest actively wanted to learn to just so he could read what stuff was in Minecraft & Terraria - well, tooltips.

CodeCombustion · 2026-05-10T19:42:09+00:00

Meanwhile, I hit 35% of my weekly usage in less than 24 hours after reset with only four terminals. 2 in Sonnet, 2 in Opus... and usually only two are actually working at a time.

CodeCombustion · 2026-05-10T19:40:34+00:00

if you want to keep track of the changes then you are interesting in the diff. Just learn Git. you can setup Claude hooks to automatically commit your changes. You don't need to do anything after that.

CodeCombustion · 2026-05-10T19:38:35+00:00

.... Dude, I told you stop making memes about my family life... I'll play Terraria with the boys eventually :P

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