PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[AtomicUs5000]

Dumb luck.

That's the only kind of luck I get. I want IRL luck.

 

[bobross]

So steel tool parts need to be more common, or brown steel tools?

If you're comfortable with the rate of Tier 3 firearms, I would say that's accurate. Same with melee weapons though; we're on Day 26 (52 hours) and just finally came across a machete.

Actually, don't know if steel sledgehammer parts are more frequent or if it's just RNGesus being odd, but those we have a moderate amount of, even if we don't for machetes and steel tools.

 

[bobross]

FFS, Traders don't even stock these at ALL. Loot is one thing but traders should have a few on hand so you could buy them out and build up some craftable tools.

LOL!

Well, that would be one reason we're having such a hard time finding them. I mean, I'd sort of noticed it, but it took us over 30 hours just to find a beaker (and then we found three in one game day) so I figured it was just RNG at it again.

 

[4sheetzngeegles]

MM

I don't know if this can be done, if it can please

advise. If it can't please advise also. Since its

introduction I favor the spear for hunting and mass

dispatch.

Basically i have more than one in my slots, but

unless 1 is stone 1 is iron and 1 is steel, they

will not return to their slot when repaired or

picked up only the first one.

Is their a way to get the game to differentiate

between 2 stone spears to return to slot 2 and 3

respectively?

I play ring around the rosie, a pocket full of spears

when i hunt by torch light.

 

[madmole]

MM I don't know if this can be done, if it can please

advise. If it can't please advise also. Since its

introduction I favor the spear for hunting and mass

dispatch.

Basically i have more than one in my slots, but

unless 1 is stone 1 is iron and 1 is steel, they

will not return to their slot when repaired or

picked up only the first one.

Is their a way to get the game to differentiate

between 2 stone spears to return to slot 2 and 3

respectively?

I play ring around the rosie, a pocket full of spears

when i hunt by torch light.

It is a known limitation to the slot memory code, hopefully we can improve it.

 

[madmole]

TFPs have a reputation to maintain...
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Never consider having multiple weapons of the same type ready. Sounds like a good strat especially if heavily specced in one wpn type.

Edit: not to mention dual wielding shotguns is just plain badass.

Oh yeah on my 1st fort build I used one m60 with AP and rad reducer for the tougher zeds and the other used HP for normal zeds and it was shred-tastic.

 

[Drithyl]

I know the last patch made some fixes to the way heat works. Is anyone experiencing screamers every 1 real time minute with two or three forges on (not using torches either, only 4 candles or so)? I'm wondering if it's an intentional change, or a bug introduced, or an issue with keeping a save from before 18.1 exp.

 

[JaxTeller718]

I know the last patch made some fixes to the way heat works. Is anyone experiencing screamers every 1 real time minute with two or three forges on (not using torches either, only 4 candles or so)? I'm wondering if it's an intentional change, or a bug introduced, or an issue with keeping a save from before 18.1 exp.

I think the torches are giving off an insane amount of heat. its a known issue that faatal is working on for the next update. My horde night is coming up and i use torches in my build. Have not placed them yet but this should be interesting lol

EDIT - Ah i see you said no torches. Interesting as most of that convo was geared to torches. Perhaps all heat is broken?

 

[Laz Man]

Oh yeah on my 1st fort build I used one m60 with AP and rad reducer for the tougher zeds and the other used HP for normal zeds and it was shred-tastic.

Especially helpful on weapons with long reload times I would expect.

 

[Gazz]

Regarding that AP ammo, and that perk. How do both work? I read somewhere that AP ammo pierces multiple targets while the perk further augments that? Maybe I have that confused.

Both the ammo stats and the perk description differentiate between penetration and armor reduction.

These do not overlap.

That might be more work than anything, then you forget and its not crafting. I'd rather cancel everything and do my repair then re-add whatever I was crafting. 99% of the time its cobblestone rocks or flagstone shift click to max craft and go

Nah, can be done even simpler and misclick-proof.

Click on crafting queue slot 2-4 and it puts this one in the first slot.

Only the first / active slot can be canceled with a click.

 

[Damocles]

I'd just do a stripped down chunk build once a minute or two when cpu is good, and generate any changed chunks in a queue. ONly render the opaque blocks, skip railings, model entities etc. Save this mesh to disk until its changed again, and load it at a distance instead of the pre baked imposters we have now. It doesn't need to update in real time or have collision since its only seen in the distance, it can change once an hour or whatever is reasonable for performance.

Since the distant terrain is the main LODed mesh at a distance, and the POI imposters are placed ontop,

your new chunk mesh method (replacing imposters) would have to cut out any block at and below the terrain level.

(so you dont have two terrain meshes at the same spot z-fighting).

Maybe also a simple global bit mask that flags any chunks that have either a POI or any player changed block.

Something like: if the player changed more than 5 blocks, mark this chunk to have a distant mesh.

The current imposters look great for medium distance. I barely ever notice a transition to the local voxels. But I think they are still overkill (too detailed) at really long distances.

Maybe some method that can detect larger volumes, and replaces them with simple grey boxes would help.

A skyscraper would then just be a single high box for example.

 

[DaVegaNL]

Indeed. Question: How small would a piece of quartz, SiO2, have to be before we no longer call it rock/sand?

That would be when it reached the size of silt; which is usually <0.075 mm.

- - - Updated - - -

I think you and the rest of the team did VERY good with the last patch. Definitely seeing a big difference in loot and while its still a bit easier in MP we aren't swimming in gear. Where as before we had almost all blue/purple gear now we might have 1-2 pieces of blue/green mixed with quality 1 and 2 pieces or yellows.
I might have a blue AK and a green baseball bat (thank you trader) but 4/5 pieces of my armor are Quality 1 or Quality 2.

Yeah I have the same thing. Started a game on A18.1 b2, and after ~10 hours in-game I've only found a single purple item (which wasn't useful anyway).

 

[Laz Man]

First t6 drop for me. *sheds a tear of joy*

Default loot%, Day 25 (LL level 2? GS ~50), 60 minute days. Still running my save game from A18e b139.

 

[SickPuppy]

First t6 drop for me. *sheds a tear of joy*
Default loot%, Day 25 (LL level 2? GS ~50), 60 minute days. Still running my save game from A18e b139.

Oof nice, the hunt for purple and mods makes late game enjoyable.

Started a new map, day 2 found Joey's Cars, 1 car had a Q2 iron sledge, next car had a Q3 isledge, inside the workbench had a Q3 steel sledge lol.

But I was playing agility build, put some points in that tree, day 3 found a College jacket +10% run speed and High Performance running shoes lol, wicked combo, thx rng.

Day 4, 5 and 6 were all blood moons.

 

[NukemDed]

That's the only kind of luck I get. I want IRL luck.

cuz - you is after RNG luck, not IRL luck.

you know the difference dont you? IRL is much worse as it is real. but the rewards are better

 

[wolfbain5]

"♥♥♥♥s" next to a "Munchez Carpets"? You guys going down a dangerous path.
What's next, 'Hancock Tools'?, 'Get Stuffed Funerals?', 'Floater's Plumbing?', 'Heywood Jablomi Farm Animals?'

well, we also have Undie Takers. so panty thieves. I blame Snowdog's influence on MM for some of these.

 

[ReDelicious]

Anistropic Filtering. We're optimizing defaults and adding a slider.

Thank you sir! Really enjoying Alpha 18 so far and the group I play with seem to be enjoying it as well.

 

[spacepiggio]

So how are Stable Updates being introduced now;


Will we get a new Build?


Are we backwards compatible yet?


Are we going to get a new Stable Build as the XP gets updated to the next XP?


Are we going to get a Halloween Update Version?


Am I asking too many questions?


Is it Halloween Yet?

 

[mr.natural]

Same here. I started a new world and haven't had to craft anything except for a sniper rifle for my perception build. Everything else I've found or bought.

Same here, not once I crafted armor or weapons and only stone tools, it is al loot, quest and trader supply.

 

[Gareee]

Traders have a range restriction that will be adjusted.
Underground already occludes above ground stuff, occluding it isn't the problem, its generating all those vertices while driving fast and weighting the game down for very little return. On top of that it has to be engineered to look good and be interesting and worth doing. Given that roads are still a mess, towns and biomes need work and 1% of players would go oh cool for 5 minutes then find out they are just the same thing over and over with very little loot or game play so its not worth investing into. We can do anything, but not everything. We have man made caves in the game, they work fine.

Bandits need done, rgw needs improved, we can't keep adding more features that are lowest priority at best when we can clearly smash the market with the right choices moving forward: Fix bugs, polish, performance, usability, bandits and main quest, improved graphics. Please add this to the FAQ!

Sad, but makes sense. I'd much rather see proper weather (we need a thunderstorm with lightening), rivers, bridges, the return of the multi height towns and cities and the oft mentioned event system more than random caves.

I would like to see a few national park cave pois with stalactites and stalagmites since they are already in game, and maybe a mine or two. (Come to think about it, I don't think I've seen any of the mine pois in a18 at all.)

Are some pois missing in the rwg code? If so, it would be nice to see those restored to a18 vefoe moving on to a19.