PC V2.0 Storms Brewing Dev Diary

[EvilPolygons]

God I wish we had even more biomes 

I just wish transitioning between biomes was smoother; I always find it jarring taking a single step and going from blistering desert to frozen winter wonderland. This is a common issue in MANY different games, though, so it's not something I really complain about. I think it's just the state of current technology.

Teragon has a feature that sort of "dithers" the borders between biomes. It makes for better looking maps, but gameplay-wise it doesn't really help.

Maybe in a few years games will use AI to procedurally generate seamless biome transitions, building textures and assets on the fly.

 

[4sheetzngeegles]

Teragon has a feature that sort of "dithers" the borders between biomes. It makes for better looking maps, but gameplay-wise it doesn't really help.

It's partially because of the lighting scheme and if the spectrum is different in biomes.xml. If you set all to the same, the flash does

not happen. There are about 13 plus variances, in the gradients. I've been doing  blending with my biomes for a while, so i got a

chance to test, a lot. @faatal did say that the transition speed has been slowed tor the storm, maybe he added it for the spectrum

change also.

@Roland Thank you for your narrative.

Boss zombies are okay, but I would prefer having more zombies (including tiers) that you will see regularly.

Agreed, but with a caveat, since they would be considered bosses, It would be expected that, they should have the
abilities of the screamer, that can bring their own horde or pack or flock type. Screamer zombies; Grace Zombie animals;
Direwolf Zombie animals with the dire wolf giving a blood curdling Night howl. Dogs- Dogs and wolves.
Vultures- vultures and dogs and snakes potential meat unless corpse is made edible, then its a time limit.
Of course this is mod theory.

I haven't tested it yet, but according to my calculations a 50 min day should be roughly 60 mins irl. 

Each hour ingame is approx 2mins 5seconds at 50 min days, 60 = 2 and half minutes, 120 = 5 minutes per hour.

So my storms would last about between 10 and 20 mins realtime. Time  fore me to stock up on some just in case blocks.

It does make me think about the Pup tents becoming a new remote shelter.

 

[Arez]

Each hour ingame is approx 2mins 5seconds at 50 min days, 60 = 2 and half minutes, 120 = 5 minutes per hour.

That would be true if the in-game time was linear but it's not. I tested it. I recorded a full 24 hours in-game, set at 60 mins per day, simply standing in one spot and not going into menus or anything and it clocked in at 72 mins on the video's timecode. 

I cross referenced this with streams I've done and it also showed over 70 mins per 24 hours.

 

[4sheetzngeegles]

@Arez

Cool then that means my days are 144 minutes. Thank You, I could never stand still for 2 hours, at least in game.

I just measured by the spawning decimal, and have be gauging it off of that.

 

[FranticDan]

I haven't tested it yet, but according to my calculations a 50 min day should be roughly 60 mins irl. 

50 mins = 52
60 = 68
120 = ~136

Turns out, this is due to the game not using decimals in calculations, so the longer the day cycle, the worse it gets, and eventually at around 6 hour days time stops entirely because the game rounds down and at 6 hours it is 0

It is basically the same, but is sequenced differently, so has new/changed code.

Does it look more natural, like, there's a throwing animation and the projectile spawns in from the location of the hand?
Whereas cops, they can spit from the back of their head.

 

[Arez]

60 = 68

Maybe everyone's game runs at different rates, because to the frame, the 60 min day came out to 72 mins. And judging from the timeline of YouTube streams, 60 min days were always over 70 mins. Those were too tedious to measure accurately due to periodically pausing the game during the stream, which is why I recorded it uninterrupted and checked it in the editor, starting on the exact frame at the start of the 1st hour and ending on the exact frame at the end of the 24th hour.

Try it yourself. See what number you get.

 

[FranticDan]

Maybe everyone's game runs at different rates, because to the frame, the 60 min day came out to 72 mins. And judging from the timeline of YouTube streams, 60 min days were always over 70 mins. Those were too tedious to measure accurately due to periodically pausing the game during the stream, which is why I recorded it uninterrupted and checked it in the editor, starting on the exact frame at the start of the 1st hour and ending on the exact frame at the end of the 24th hour.

Try it yourself. See what number you get.

I've done is many times already, I get around 68 - 69 using the "time alive" character stat. Perhaps the fps has something to do with higher numbers. Or maybe the time alive stat is also busted.

 

[faatal]

God I wish we had even more biomes 

@faatal

Is there anything you can tell us about the wastelands New special zombie? Or if the forest will get one.  

And will the new zombies be added to the challenge system to hunt?

The mutated zombie is the wasteland zombie.

Don't know.

 

[Arez]

I've done is many times already, I get around 68 - 69 using the "time alive" character stat. Perhaps the fps has something to do with higher numbers. Or maybe the time alive stat is also busted.

I considered that FPS might be related so I made sure not to go into menus and not move my character during the recording. Fluctuations were in the single digits. But then judging off of Youtube videos where FPS fluctuations were much greater, it still came out to over 70 mins. And when I stream a full 7 days my streams always end up being at least over 8 hours and I don't think my combined @%$#-breaks total over an hour and 30 mins.

But would consistently low average FPS vs consistently high average FPS make a difference? I guess I could test it with a frame limiter.

PS - why is the P-word for urination blocked?

 

[FranticDan]

I considered that FPS might be related so I made sure not to go into menus and not move my character during the recording. Fluctuations were in the single digits. But then judging off of Youtube videos where FPS fluctuations were much greater, it still came out to over 70 mins. And when I stream a full 7 days my streams always end up being at least over 8 hours and I don't think my combined @%$#-breaks total over an hour and 30 mins.

But would consistently low average FPS vs consistently high average FPS make a difference? I guess I could test it with a frame limiter.

PS - why is the P-word for urination blocked?

When I tested, I just spawn in, fly in the air and then come back after an hour to wait for day 2, 7am.

Ultimately, it would be ideal if TFP changed the code to not ignore decimal values. Then people, if they wanted, could play 24 hour days.

 

[Old Crow]

@faatal questing about the desert spitter, the frostclaw and the currently existing cop - will they actually spit in proper directions? Right now I often see the Cop zombie spit in a completely different direction, but somehow I get hit anyway. Example: I'm facing north, the cop is in front of me and facing east, and spits east. But his projectile still travels to me.

This isn't a latency issue - this happens in single player offline, too.

 

[4sheetzngeegles]

Turns out, this is due to the game not using decimals in calculations,

I thought that had been changed, a while ago after a modding conversation I had with

Roland. So does that mean anything below 1 is 0. like in the spawning?

 

[FranticDan]

I thought that had been changed, a while ago after a modding conversation I had with

Roland. So does that mean anything below 1 is 0. like in the spawning?

I don't know about spawning, I'm specifically talking about time scale and how fast time passes based on the setting selected.
I had a discussion with Redbeard (who made Afterlife) a few months ago, he dug into the code and discovered the decimal thing, and he changed the code so time takes decimal values.

 

[4sheetzngeegles]

@FranticDan

These are the helper notes in spawning, that is what I was using for my calculations.

biome
     maxcount: byte - the sum of all spawned entities in the group may not exceed this number in a 5 chunk by 5 chunk (80m x 80m) "biome chunk"
     respawndelay: game days - .000278 real seconds, .0167 mins
     daytime: Any,Day,Night - determines the time of day the entity spawns
     tags: restricts the spawn to areas that have any tile/POI with those tags
     notags: restricts the spawn to areas that don't have any tiles/POIs with those tags
     <property name="TotalAlive" value="3" />
     total alive means how many are alive at once.
     <property name="TotalPerWave" value="10,20" />Total per wave means a random number between the first and second. The total alive will replenish the dead ranks until TotalPerWave's random number is met.

I use this to stagger and cascade, my spawn rate, to have constant activity.

 

[FranticDan]

@FranticDan

These are the helper notes in spawning, that is what I was using for my calculations.

biome
     maxcount: byte - the sum of all spawned entities in the group may not exceed this number in a 5 chunk by 5 chunk (80m x 80m) "biome chunk"
     respawndelay: game days - .000278 real seconds, .0167 mins
     daytime: Any,Day,Night - determines the time of day the entity spawns
     tags: restricts the spawn to areas that have any tile/POI with those tags
     notags: restricts the spawn to areas that don't have any tiles/POIs with those tags
     <property name="TotalAlive" value="3" />
     total alive means how many are alive at once.
     <property name="TotalPerWave" value="10,20" />Total per wave means a random number between the first and second. The total alive will replenish the dead ranks until TotalPerWave's random number is met.

I use this to stagger and cascade, my spawn rate, to have constant activity.

Maybe these two things are interconnected with each other. I suppose you could test and see for yourself. Set your 24 hour cycle to 1440 minutes so time stands still, set time after 2pm on day 1 (so spawning can begin) and see what happens with the spawns

 

[Riamus]

The mutated zombie is the wasteland zombie.

Don't know.

Oh.  So no new zombie for the wasteland?  Just moving the mutated zombie there?  What about the burnt forest?  Will that be a new one or just another one that is moved like the burning zombie?  It had sounded like 4 new biome specific zombies (5 if forest got one, which wasn't clear).  But now it sounds like only 2 new ones? 

 

[Dark Sun]

Are we going to be seeing the rest of the updated animal models in 2.0? So far, we're only missing the boar, Grace, the snake(?), and we haven't heard anything about the return of the pig since the artwork was announced a while back.

 

[Adam the Waster]

burnt forest?

I asked and it's the burnt zombie 

 

[khzmusik]

I just wish transitioning between biomes was smoother; I always find it jarring taking a single step and going from blistering desert to frozen winter wonderland. This is a common issue in MANY different games, though, so it's not something I really complain about. I think it's just the state of current technology.

It is faded though, it's not entirely instantaneous. I the current game code it's done by a lerp (linear interpolation) of the game's weather values over time. It's not possible to mod via XML at this time, but it's not impossible to change the duration using Harmony.

Nor would it be impossible for TFP to change it relatively easily, so it's not out of the question that it will be tweaked a lot in 2.0. Assuming the same system is used.

 

[Riamus]

It is faded though, it's not entirely instantaneous. I the current game code it's done by a lerp (linear interpolation) of the game's weather values over time. It's not possible to mod via XML at this time, but it's not impossible to change the duration using Harmony.

Nor would it be impossible for TFP to change it relatively easily, so it's not out of the question that it will be tweaked a lot in 2.0. Assuming the same system is used.

Hopefully the fade is lengthened.  I was certain at some point in A21 the fade was longer, making it so if you went back and forth between biomes quickly, you wouldn't get the flashing from biomes that have very different lighting, but that was only for a short time.  Then it was back to seemingly instantaneous changes of lighting effects.  This is very noticeable if you use Teragon to make a map and use diffuse biomes, which takes the biome edges and changes them from hard edges to breaking them up into small pieces of biomes for a certain distance between the biomes so the biome itself seems to fade from one to another instead of being a very solid line.  It looks great, but if you drive through that area quickly and the biomes are ones that have very different lighting (such as snowy forest versus wasteland), it will flash really badly as you drive over biome changes every few blocks.