PC Alpha 19 Dev Diary

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madmole said:
I'm designing character outfits and their perks. I have a beard and big muscles so nobody dares to argue with me! But seriously we don't generally disagree and if we do, we tend to land on something no one hates but most people like or love. It's typically a bigger conversation than just Rick and I though.

All bugs need to go to the bug forum. Thanks.
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So I gather that you guys will make fully dressed npcs. Or will they be able to get naked ? 

Npcs dressed in sections like the player are cool and, honestly, while coders are in short supply when game systems are still developing, you guys have an amazing 3d artist team to invest time in those armor/clothing sets without cheaping off and using just fully dressed people. 

NUMBERS: The 3d artist team pulled off more than 350 assets and entities in less than 9 months. Some of those models were way more than just props. The current total amount of dressing assets  is LESS THAN 100 pieces including armour, wearables and clothing. It's doable.

So I understand that making fully dressed npcs can seem easier in the medium term, but it isn't really because you MUST create/tweak 1 more npc model each time you want a different clothing/armour applied. A character creation tool made from scratch will result in the problem being solved quite fast. From there it's just a little time invested on a proportion standard for all 3d models to avoid body clipping with hair and body and between other pieces of wearable stuff .  

Creating a human entity will be extremely fast with a character creator tool. Clothing is never easy, but achievable using the asian guy artist for armour to avoid clipping problems, LOL (I've seen his work, and I am impressed with the modularity of the assets) . 

 
So side comment. What is the name of the channel and where do the devs stream? I just catch the replays on YouTube and would like to catch it live. 

Thank you!

 
Blake_ said:
So I gather that you guys will make fully dressed npcs. Or will they be able to get naked ? 

Npcs dressed in sections like the player are cool and, honestly, while coders are in short supply when game systems are still developing, you guys have an amazing 3d artist team to invest time in those armor/clothing sets without cheaping off and using just fully dressed people. 

NUMBERS: The 3d artist team pulled off more than 350 assets and entities in less than 9 months. Some of those models were way more than just props. The current total amount of dressing assets  is LESS THAN 100 pieces including armour, wearables and clothing. It's doable.

So I understand that making fully dressed npcs can seem easier in the medium term, but it isn't really because you MUST create/tweak 1 more npc model each time you want a different clothing/armour applied. A character creation tool made from scratch will result in the problem being solved quite fast. From there it's just a little time invested on a proportion standard for all 3d models to avoid body clipping with hair and body and between other pieces of wearable stuff .  

Creating a human entity will be extremely fast with a character creator tool. Clothing is never easy, but achievable using the asian guy artist for armour to avoid clipping problems, LOL (I've seen his work, and I am impressed with the modularity of the assets) . 
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It might not even go into A20 so I'm not really going to talk about it yet. Its concepts and paper design at the moment and requires code to work. I'm just saying what I'm working on and it could be A21.

 
Adam the Waster said:
tenor.gif

i feel for it!
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But A19.2 Stable is out, good progress so far, enjoy and thank you Pimps ! 🤠

Btw, Pimps, are you having a plan to add Razer devices support ? 

 
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Just want to say thanks to the devs for being so active and responding to forum comments. It's so nice compared to many other early access devs that basically ignore all feedback and don't interact with their player base at all.

19.2 has been great so far IMO, only issue I have run into is still the stamina drain on mining being so high it makes it pretty hard to really do. I think if Blackstrap coffee / the recipe for it wasn't so rare there might actually be a way to mine pre-Auger but atm on all my A19 runs I have basically stopped mining until late game when I've got an auger.

In my current run I've found like 2 total blackstrap coffee, no recipe for how to make it, and eggs  for bacon and eggs / decent food are too rare to really make mining feasible. Instead off spending a night in a mine, I'm way better  off just spending that time wrenching cars or looting houses and scrapping everything metal I find, even with Rock busters.  Gunpowder mining takes way longer than just finding / buying bullets and buying the gunpowder outright, same with cement and cobblestone etc. Currently in A19, you can essentially never touch a mine and probably be further along than someone who actually mines

I'm loving the Junk Sledges now, I honestly use them more than the Junk Turret most of the time to conserve resources. Stun Baton is also less off a meme thanks to junk sledges. Dual Junk Sledge + Stun Baton can work pretty well, although I think Stun Baton requiring a unique candy just for it is kind of weird since all the other weapons just get buffed from their perks + skulll crushers. The Stun baton candy being a max rank perk reward  instead would make the baton a bit more appealing than clubs

Just a small nitpick, only thing I've been running into is basically just mining being a bit more work than it's really worth / needed.

 
Zombiepoptard said:
please tell me you guys are going to have bandits in alpha 20?
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Bandits are probably the last thing they'll add to the game since they'll need to keep into account most of the stuff in the world around them. Imagine if they added bandits and after that reworked water... they'd need to change the way they deal with water afterwards (swimming, voiding it or using it in some way) and waste a lot of time.

 
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Jost Amman said:
Bandits are probably the last thing they'll add to the game since they'll need to keep into account most of the stuff in the world around them. Imagine if they added bandits and after that reworked water... they'd need to change the way they deal with water afterwards (swimming, voiding it or using it in some way) and waste a lot of time.
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I disagree. I don't see any serious connection between bandits and water. I'm sure they want bandits and NPcs generally in the game as early as possible to balance them against 10k players and to debug their pathfinding. Also the story depends on NPCs and bandits and therefore would have to be later than bandits.

 
Zombiepoptard said:
please tell me you guys are going to have bandits in alpha 20?
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Not likely, but there could be some initial bandit work done during a20 that ends up in a21, just like Robotic drone was worked on in a19, but won't be out until a20 (probably).

meganoth said:
I disagree. I don't see any serious connection between bandits and water. I'm sure they want bandits and NPcs generally in the game as early as possible to balance them against 10k players and to debug their pathfinding. Also the story depends on NPCs and bandits and therefore would have to be later than bandits.
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The main contention with anything in the game is people. I will probably do some bandit work, but am working on water now. Our other programmer doing AI will probably do bandit work, but is working on the Robotic Drone.

 
faatal said:
Not likely, but there could be some initial bandit work done during a20 that ends up in a21, just like Robotic drone was worked on in a19, but won't be out until a20 (probably).

The main contention with anything in the game is people. I will probably do some bandit work, but am working on water now. Our other programmer doing AI will probably do bandit work, but is working on the Robotic Drone.
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How is the drone doing ? Your sidequick doesn't drop by the forums like ever so a little info wouldn't hurt. He is close to finish the 6 months of hell for newly hired minions (applies to any job or company) , so I expect huge things from that gentleman .

 
Blake_ said:
How is the drone doing ? Your sidequick doesn't drop by the forums like ever so a little info wouldn't hurt. He is close to finish the 6 months of hell for newly hired minions (applies to any job or company) , so I expect huge things from that gentleman .
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It is coming along. I assume it will get previewed eventually.

 
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