PC V2.0 Storms Brewing Dev Diary

@faatal

I am not trying to catfish you, I swear on...on...the Precious.
These are legitimate questions, in response to posts you've made.

What does terrain water not do well, that you want to do better?

Can you add a "follow", in entities similar to decoy, but on the bandits.
............AKA The Whisperers, and Land of the dead.............

What was the property setting for blowing the player around on the
bicycle in the first iteration of storms, and does it still exist
in xml?

There is one animation, it is the side cork screw animation knock down,
is it possible to adjust the timing delay? I think it is a legacy animation.
If not it's okay but I wanted to ask. It kind of reminds me of this when it
happens.
1. Water to path like a road across the map with river crossings like bridges. Not crappy little stamps we have now.
2. Why are they following? Bandits would act in groups, so it is not as simple as follow the leader.
3. I think it was in code.
4. I would like to adjust the timing to never as I and others hate it. Retro gaming.
 
Ah, so like animals, if you put them in a sleeper volume a bandit block will be a bandit. The zombie blocks still use a setting to tell it which group of zombies to pick from. The only zombie choice is their starting posture. Yeh?

In a volume that contains both, when a wanderer is picked, is it then completely random... could be a bandit... could be a zombie... could be an animal. If nobody is wandering, will we see sleeping zombies standing next to sleeping bandits?

When you place a bandit, are you placing a specific type of bandit, such as a rifleman, a guy with a pistol, etc? Or, like the zombies is there some choice about what group of bandits to use?
Typically we would not pick zombie and bandit blocks in same volume or even POI. We would be in a mode where the POI is one or the other.

In the end, it will work however we want it to work. Code will change. We are not stuck with how it currently works. Even if a POI was bandits, that would not stop a designer from scripting a zombie spawn.
 
1. Water to path like a road across the map with river crossings like bridges. Not crappy little stamps we have now.
And hopefully some method to create waterfalls. :)

Stack of meat: Zombie turns to look at you...
Stack of fibers: Animal turns to look at you...
Stack of porn: Bandit turns to look at you...
Stack of jars: Players turns to look at you...
Stack of missed deadlines: Hammer turns to look at you...
Stack of PVP: Grandpa Minion turns to look at you...
 
1. Water to path like a road across the map with river crossings like bridges. Not crappy little stamps we have now.
2. Why are they following? Bandits would act in groups, so it is not as simple as follow the leader.
3. I think it was in code.
4. I would like to adjust the timing to never as I and others hate it. Retro gaming.
Thank you for the answers.
When I make my maps in PS and want waterways, In the DTM grayscale, I use a gradient high on both
ends and variably curved in the middle. Then apply a blur to make it varied depths. Can the
water that you want, follow depth, to auto-generate? The two things I am talking about are
<biome_spawn_rule name="water">
<terrain_generator range="-31,-1"/>
</biome_spawn_rule>
and
Biomes.xml <layer fillupto="58" filluptorg="58" blockname="water"/>
My layman thought: What you just posted, sounds like the potential direction, If you render a road or path, that you
now have following terrain, but that road height is below a specific fillupto height on the terrain map, and has a different
texture or terrain block, could that not possibly auto fill. Like, if I load all splat layers, outline the road, and paint over the
road, but on the grayscale dtm layer then export it, with a low gradient, and load up a map, water.xml automatically fills it
in. Your tools make it easy and fun for me to terraform. For bridges I use a varied elevated height above the fillupto point
to make a natural crossing or broken landmass, plus no coding algorithm just painting, Yay me. By the way thanks for that.
I know it's not as simple to do it having to maneuver around pois and terrain using code vs a paint brush.
It would be cool and useful if Unity, advanced to using PS plugins.
2 Bandits emu human traits, game has given constant nods to TWD, the whisperers lured and
used zombies to cause mayhem.
3 I thought of combining that ability, with your storm activating zombie speed now, with the knock back
knock down mechanic, mainly for a visual to emulate directional wind, I still remember our conversation
regarding directional wind. I wanted to try to fake it as simply as possible.
4 I get it, the suspension of disbelief varies, on some of the mocap, but that one reminds me of over enthusiastic
thesbian with a bad sense of timing, kind of how Batman used to say his lines on tv. Not a complaint, but it's
right there to see.
 
I think the only way waterfalls would really work (and not be silly) would be if water in 7DTD used a true fluid simulation rather than the voxel-based method used now. Fluid simulations *can* work with voxel-based terrain, but I suspect it would require some pretty fundamental engine changes. That would just cause further delays in everything else on the roadmap.

I'm not sure if there are any plugins for Unity similar to the Fluid Flux plugin available for the Unreal Engine. If you've never seen the tech demos for it, check it out. Fluid Flux is probably the most impressive real-time fluid physics simulation I've ever seen in a game engine. If something like that exists for Unity, then that could simplify things.

But that's assuming TFP would even *want* non-voxel water in the game if they had a choice. Maybe they just really really want the water to be voxel-based just like the terrain. 🤷‍♂️
 
I can see all the haters who love the idea of underwater bases, or being able to remove water blocks going just absolutely nuts. Waterfalls would be cool. But, if I wanted that sort of cool, I'd have spent 9k hours in something like Conan or ARK, rather than 7 Days. I do, very much, hate that I can't remove water blocks any more because I'm a total dweeb that has ruined my base doing idiot stuff with water since water physics changed. But, I'm just one person, so...
 
Well, faatal said that zombies would choose a corpse and then you. No mention of them choosing bandits at all, though I'd assume they'd fight back if attacked. Bandits will choose you, then zombies, then a corpse. So unless the bandits are already in the middle of a fight, they'll target you and the zombies will target you when you're seen.
Bandits and zombies target each other.
 
I can see all the haters who love the idea of underwater bases, or being able to remove water blocks going just absolutely nuts. Waterfalls would be cool. But, if I wanted that sort of cool, I'd have spent 9k hours in something like Conan or ARK, rather than 7 Days. I do, very much, hate that I can't remove water blocks any more because I'm a total dweeb that has ruined my base doing idiot stuff with water since water physics changed. But, I'm just one person, so...
I mean, you can't build an underwater base, but there's really no point to it, no resources, no nothing. And you can drain stuff.It just takes a long time and it's not as easy as say minecraft
Post automatically merged:

Bandits and zombies target each other.
Is there any plans to make zombies attack?Other animals instead of carnivores. I know dire wolves hunt deer but like I could see ferals hunting deer at night or something
 
And hopefully some method to create waterfalls.

I wonder if this might require some other kind of water block? Maybe my memory on how water blocks work is faulty, but I thought it you put a water block on top of something like a cliff, the finite amount of water would basically migrate down the cliff and keep flowing until it got to a contained location. It would be a waterfall until all the water had... fallen.

To get a water fall, you'd need a block to act as a perpetual water source that didn't migrate, kind of like Minecraft. It's water will persist and fall forever, but only flow so far.

What you don't want is the game spending all its time making water flow/migrate across the map. Thus, you're probably going to have to accept some limitations, like the ability for players to destroy some middle section of a river and not create a flood somewhere and a dry river bed somewhere else.
 
That would be interesting but I wonder how much would have to change in RWG. I think all water in a map is now at the same elevation.
It isn't all at the same elevation on Navesgane, but RWG does use the same elevation. It wouldn't be much work to allow a river stamp to be placed at another elevation, though. But I'm thinking more about for use with POI because trying to make it work with RWG would certainly be a lot of effort. For a POI, it wouldn't be as much work for TFP to make something that looked at least decent.

I can already see how this goes...

Faatal:
You can either have Waterfalls OR Zombies and Bandits.
Pick one.
Waterfalls. :)

I think the only way waterfalls would really work (and not be silly) would be if water in 7DTD used a true fluid simulation rather than the voxel-based method used now. Fluid simulations *can* work with voxel-based terrain, but I suspect it would require some pretty fundamental engine changes. That would just cause further delays in everything else on the roadmap.

I'm not sure if there are any plugins for Unity similar to the Fluid Flux plugin available for the Unreal Engine. If you've never seen the tech demos for it, check it out. Fluid Flux is probably the most impressive real-time fluid physics simulation I've ever seen in a game engine. If something like that exists for Unity, then that could simplify things.

But that's assuming TFP would even *want* non-voxel water in the game if they had a choice. Maybe they just really really want the water to be voxel-based just like the terrain. 🤷‍♂️
There are simpler options available. They may not be as great as what you could do if water could flow freely over terrain instead of doing the current method of "flow," but it would still be enough to be usable, especially for POI. All it really needs is a decent block that is thin and has a waterfall kind of animation on it and high enough durability that it's not likely to get accidentally broken since that would look really bad. It would then need to have a top and bottom version, where they top version had a few different heights so it could align as closely as possible to the level of the water above, and then one at the bottom that can look like splashing water. It isn't perfect by any means, and it is something a mod could do, but it would still be nice in the game.

Of course, if they would be willing to make real waterfalls that had some kind of property that prevented draining of the water above or filling of the water below, but instead just showed water if there was water above, that would be wonderful. But I doubt we have any chance of something like that.

Bandits and zombies target each other.
Okay, so what is the priority for zombies then? You hadn't included bandits in their attack priority; you just said corpses them players. Do zombies attack corpses then bandits then players, or bandits then corpses then players, or corpses then players then bandits? I'm not asking if they defend themselves if a bandit attacks them, but what is their target priority?

I mean, you can't build an underwater base, but there's really no point to it, no resources, no nothing. And you can drain stuff.It just takes a long time and it's not as easy as say minecraft
I assume you meant that you can build an underwater base. In any case, the point to it is for fun. It certainly isn't the easiest or fastest option for building a base and can be really annoying to deal with leaks, but it can be fun to do. And it's nice having an all-glass underwater base (I use the bulletproof glass so it's at least a little sturdy). As long as you have automated turrets all around your base and don't use it for horde night, you really don't have to worry about it being broken after you are done making it.
 
I wonder if this might require some other kind of water block? Maybe my memory on how water blocks work is faulty, but I thought it you put a water block on top of something like a cliff, the finite amount of water would basically migrate down the cliff and keep flowing until it got to a contained location. It would be a waterfall until all the water had... fallen.

To get a water fall, you'd need a block to act as a perpetual water source that didn't migrate, kind of like Minecraft. It's water will persist and fall forever, but only flow so far.

What you don't want is the game spending all its time making water flow/migrate across the map. Thus, you're probably going to have to accept some limitations, like the ability for players to destroy some middle section of a river and not create a flood somewhere and a dry river bed somewhere else.
Yes, it would need a special block that likely just doesn't have flow and works as a block against the water above so it's not draining, but where it looks like it's flowing down the cliff or whatever. That isn't the best option, but it's the easiest option and would still look good. It would mainly be for POI since trying to do it with RWG would require a fairly significant change to how RWG does things.

A potential alternative could be that the special blocks actually have a 2-way flow. On one half of the block, it flows down, and then on the other half, if flows up. So it turns into a loop and water ends up draining into the waterfall and then refilling the river/lake/etc. at the top again, so it never empties out and never floods below. But that sounds very difficult to set up.
 
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