PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[madmole]

@mm
Slightly off topic (ok fine, entirely, but this is your area of expertise):

What would it take to be able to use the paint system on custom imported blocks?

Feel free to be technical.

Should work fine, I make new shapes constantly and they are paintable.

 

[Roland]

A good idea. It’s been on my list for a long time, but, as I’ve said all along, I acknowledge it’s a lot of work. Since it’s too late in my view to start an A17 mod now, I'd have to make it work for A18. And players would not like it if weaker shapes take the same amount of material to produce as stronger shapes, so I'll have to keep thinking about how it could work now that there's a shape selector that makes all shapes take equal resources.

Maybe placing partial blocks could give wood.

And also some wood resources...

#IfIdidntsnowdogwouldve

 

[Crater Creator]

The great Mole was right when he said you can exploit that system in some scenarios, I'm pretty certain that's why it was changed to everything having the same HP.

So mod it it, we removed it for reasons I'm not interested in debating further.

So both of you have said shape-based HP was "changed" or "removed". Can someone tell me which Alpha had this feature? I was unaware it was ever in the game, and assumed the effort required was never taken.

 

[Guppycur]

Should work fine, I make new shapes constantly and they are paintable.

Well you get to put them into the base game, we have to refer to them from .unity3d files which more or less makes them models (like doors, boulders, and other non paintable objects).

 

[madmole]

It’s how they keep lines like “Joel has man boobs instead of pecs” from sneaking into the Polish translation…

(Let someone like guppycur volunteer to do translation and oh the humanity)

Lets have a man boob showdown. 200 bucks says you win.

 

[madmole]

You can make game staging be based on the day for that specific player by basing it on something that advances daily. In A18 that would be player max health and stamina since those advance by one each day automatically. So gamestage could be easily recalculated to be:
(max health + days alive) x difficulty multiplier

instead of the way it is now:

(level + days alive) x difficulty multiplier

This makes the gamestage progress daily independent of what the player does so that all the player wants to do is keep getting stronger without worrying about directly making the gamestage higher as well. Plus, the gamestage would still be low for a new player joining the game on day 100.

In my mod I changed it so the player levels up daily because I can't change the gamestage formula. But it doesn't really matter what you tie it to as long as it progresses daily. It should also be noted that I've had to increase the difficulty multiplier for all difficulty levels because most players do level up at a faster rate than once per day. Add gear and mods and perks from leveling and it will take some balancing to come up with fair but challenging pacing of the gamestage curve to keep things interesting. BUT...I have to say that disconnecting the gamestage from player achievement does make a difference in how the game feels-- for the better, IMO.

That would produce identical results as how we do it now. Max health = level.

 

[Roland]

That would produce identical results as how we do it now. Max health = level.

My bad. I thought the max health just increased each day. I thought that is what you originally stated when you changed it from being tied to Fortitude.

But in any case you could base gamestage on days since initial spawn and then it would be customized to each player and disconnected from their level.

(Days since initial spawn + Days since last death) x modifier

 

[Roland]

Lets have a man boob showdown. 200 bucks says you win.

True dat! No bet!!!!

 

[The Gronk]

So both of you have said shape-based HP was "changed" or "removed". Can someone tell me which Alpha had this feature? I was unaware it was ever in the game, and assumed the effort required was never taken.

I think I remember it around A15-ish? I may be mistaken though. I may have just assumed such a system was in place because it seemed like a glaringly obvious balance. That is definitely why I didn't realise everything was the same HP... I wasn't looking for it.

 

[Crater Creator]

Most modern shells are made from plastic so I made that change.

Nice change! I also did some materials-based research for my own mod, and it stood out to me that football and mining helmets have been made of plastic since the 1950’s, as are most shopping baskets. Also, cigars should be made of plant fibers.

 

[Tin]

Level design realizes this and have been making some adjustments. We have ammo piles now that help compensate for ammo loss during the mission.

:/ Hopefully we can remove this.

Id really wouldn't like to know, that I can count on having a stash of ammo waiting for me in every poi, and that I might need to go out of my way sometimes to restock my supply.

 

[Crater Creator]

Yes expect at least a 20% reduction in zeds in POIs and loot rewritten from scratch. There is a lot of new micro loot too so hopefully its worth it.

When you say loot rewritten from scratch, do you mean like via the placement of containers, or in xml?

 

[Haidrgna]

Should work fine, I make new shapes constantly and they are paintable.

Sadly it does not work that way at the moment, there are at least two problems that prevent us from doing this.

- We cannot add meshes like you and other devs can, we can add models exported with Unity but those come with their own texture and are model blocks or model entities and thus do not work along with the painting system. I tried importing just a mesh from the mods folder but no luck so far.

- No access to block textures so we cannot add anything or change anything there, not even by supplying it as external assets in the mods folder.

It probably is not a priority of A18 or even A19 but it would be nice if this would be opened up for modders just like importing unity assets and xpath was opened up in A17.

 

[DUST2DEATH]

Sadly it does not work that way at the moment, there are at least two problems that prevent us from doing this.
- We cannot add meshes like you and other devs can, we can add models exported with Unity but those come with their own texture and are model blocks or model entities and thus do not work along with the painting system. I tried importing just a mesh from the mods folder but no luck so far.

- No access to block textures so we cannot add anything or change anything there, not even by supplying it as external assets in the mods folder.

It probably is not a priority of A18 or even A19 but it would be nice if this would be opened up for modders just like importing unity assets and xpath was opened up in A17.

 

[Guppycur]

All of that and a bag of Cheetos.

 

[madmole]

My bad. I thought the max health just increased each day. I thought that is what you originally stated when you changed it from being tied to Fortitude.
But in any case you could base gamestage on days since initial spawn and then it would be customized to each player and disconnected from their level.

(Days since initial spawn + Days since last death) x modifier

No you get 1 hp and 1 stam every time you level in A18.

I don't see that as offering anything better. Some players who level fast would out grow it and be bored and say its too easy, and players who level slower would get hosed.

 

[meganoth]

Are you referring to the fact that a lower gamestage means fewer 'strong' zombies that carry the better loot bags? Or something else?

I am saying that a quest that reduces gamestage does not give the impression that you are winning back territory from zombie infection since the number of zombies stays the same.

 

[faatal]

People should like this one:

Added changing the held item during weapon reload cancels reload (anim speed x30, no ammo change).

 

[Roland]

No you get 1 hp and 1 stam every time you level in A18.
I don't see that as offering anything better. Some players who level fast would out grow it and be bored and say its too easy, and players who level slower would get hosed.

It probably is true that there are only a relatively few players who sense that the world progression is tied to what they do and are bothered by it. The advantage is having a world that operates independently of the player which feels more alive and less controllable. As for bored players, they would choose a higher difficulty which has a higher multiplier which ramps the gamestage up faster. With six levels of difficulty it wouldn't be hard to pick a good multiplier for players of various skill and efficiency to find a challenge that is doable for them. Changing the gamestage multiplier is pretty much what the levels of difficulty do as it is.

But...it also makes for a good mod for variety of experience.

 

[faatal]

Animals got some attention this week:

Changed: Improved boss Grace (AI aggressive to players, destroy area, territorial. Slightly smaller. Moves slower. Longer range and more damage)

Changed: Decreased wolf attack delay, range and damage

Changed: Increased dire wolf attack delay, range and damage

Changed: Decreased bear attack range/sphere values

Changed: Reduced bear, boar, canine and vulture hit check delays

Fixed: Mountain Lion ragdoll NRE

Fixed: Mountain Lion neck snap from death anim or ragdoll

Added: Animal leap ability

Changed: Improved Mountain Lion (moves faster, leaps, 3 part jump anim, shorter zombie aggro range)

Changed: Improved AI RunawayFromEntity

Fixed: AI RunawayWhenHurt never triggering with default values

Changed: Timid animals run from hostile animals

Changed: Improved Coyote (attacks chickens and rabbits, short chase times, mostly retreats when taking moderate damage)