PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[ZombieSurvivor]

The easiest way to settle this is, unless I’m missing something, to:
1) Spawn a deer, type in killall in the console

2) Spawn a deer, type in killall animals

Report what you see.

sorry i was in game missed this. Guppycur explained it and i ran the command again. It failed to kill a deer but killed all other animals listed as hostile

the whole point of this was just run the dang command killall every once in a while and see if it fixes animal spawning..lmfao.

EDIT: friend just responded to me. Indeed he added custom commands to the server so that killall animals will actually kill all animals regardless.

So by killing all animals on the server some how, it would seem not saying its a fact, fixes animals not spawning in. for a short time. I ran this command almost daily on the server for years.

 

[KingSlayerGM]

Rick and I agree that the ISS is too complicated. That other guy did it, not to say he was bad, he's a great designer but could make a turd sound fun in a meeting. Unfortunately now is not the time to gut ISS. A19 we'll probably do a straight forward simple health and stamina system. A lot of guys try to get tricky and think its cool but at the end of the day complicated designs always fail. If people can't understand it, its just not good for the game.

International Space Station?!

Ahah lol, I agree with you

 

[madmole]

Madmole, now that you got electricity up and running in your game you should mess around with the auto turret. It simple lacks fire power and is a waste of 9mm ammo. Could use a damage buff or redesigned.

Its 9mm, what do you want it to do? Seems to destroy zeds pretty fast IMO, at least basic ones.

 

[ZombieSurvivor]

@MM,Thank you for fixing the lights. It was such a let down to get power going and its like, um.... yeah torches are better.

Also Spot lights do suck in A17 so i hope you find the experience subpar and fix.

@MM, UnholyJoe, and Zombiesurvivor, and all other vets, thank you for your service.

Semper Fi

Your welcome

 

[Haidrgna]

A sample size of one (your experience) does not mean much. In my current game (also sample size one) I did not see a single animal from around day 4 to 8. I had zero food and was staving. Finally after wandering in the forest for a while I saw a deer and managed to kill it after having to chase it with my gimped stamina.
Randomness makes a huge difference in how people experience the game.

It is in part randomness, but also the way the animal spawning has been setup (not sure if changes are made to the xml setup in A18 though so going by what has been the norm for 2 alphas). Animals have a dummy spawn on their list, a hack that Gazz borrowed from me to thin down animal spawns. It works great if you would use a daily respawn (the way I use it). But since tfp is using a 4 day respawn system it does not work as great because each dummy spawn means the animal died, so no spawn for the rest of the 4 days. So far that is exactly what you would want, but here comes the thing: The animals the player does not kill but run of to far are despawned, put back into the pool and respawned again somewhere with a new random roll. Guess what, some spawn as dummies and die. This repeats over day 1 for while until either you killed of animals or the system did. Usually by mid day most animals in your region are dead.

If you keep exploring a lot, uncovering new chunks you will find animals there, if you stick around to the same spot you will likely not see much animals (easy to not see those rabbits, chicken or snakes).

The problem is in how biome spawners work and offer no granularity and the way entities are spawned from the list (the list offers no option for nothing, unlike Loot for example). Still hoping this system gets this option to not spawn something and to set a count per spawner rather than 1 that actually spawns a lot more than the number you used.

 

[madmole]

Amazing game, have fun.


I kind of like it. I think the game needs a better help system than the journal however.

Roland, could you make a poll in a separate thread for the Wire Hiders? I wanted to make one, but seems only moderators can do so.

Don't bother we don't use polls unless we're looking for feedback. We're not on this topic. Its completely fine as is, wires add a post apocalyptic vibe of make shift work being done, and if you want to hide them you can go to the work of hiding them by building access points.

 

[madmole]

from what is in a18 (typing in console help killall)
killall (all enemies)

killall alive (all EntityAlive types but players)

killall all (all types but players)

best to what i remember is... killall is not to kill players... that would be a major issues itself if it did.

This.

 

[ZombieSurvivor]

<snip>

Would all that explain why running a custom command of killing all animals on the server at once seemed like it fixed the spawning issue? I've always been curious if it was a coincidence or it actually did have an effect.

Not sure if you have been following the discussions that took place earlier.

 

[unlike them]

And when we are on off-topic subject (still related to gaming): an early access date for Mount and Blade Bannerlord has been announced!

Also Kerbal Space Program 2 was announced for 2020.

 

[Prisma501]

Would all that explain why running a custom command of killing all animals on the server at once seemed like it fixed the spawning issue? I've always been curious if it was a coincidence or it actually did have an effect.Not sure if you have been following the discussions that took place earlier.

It only speeds up the process of getting to the max spawns/region (all spawned and dead). So i would say it has the opposite effect.

Cheers

 

[ZombieSurvivor]

It only speeds up the process of getting to the max spawns/region (all spawned and dead). So i would say it has the opposite effect.
Cheers

Yeah, based on what he said it kinda sounds like killing all would not help in anyway. errrr I swear I can drive myself crazy not knowing how something works or why lol. I really should just spend a month and teach myself programming to help get the answers.

I'm the type of person that has to know why stuff works the way it does and or why it doesn't, its maddening sometimes. Figuring it out in the end though is very rewarding.

This whole thing about why animals do not spawn in or do for some people is going to be on my mind for the rest of the day. Now i remember why I stopped caring about this subject regarding animal spawns lmao!

 

[Guppycur]

Yeah, based on what he said it kinda sounds like killing all would not help in anyway. errrr I swear I can drive myself crazy not knowing how something works or why lol. I really should just spend a month and teach myself programming to help get the answers. I'm the type of person that has to know why stuff works the way it does and or why it doesn't, its maddening sometimes. Figuring it out in the end though is very rewarding.

This whole thing about why animals do not spawn in or do for some people is going to be on my mead for the rest of the day. Now i remember why I stopped caring about this subject regarding animal spawns lmao!

People need to move; Haid laid it out correctly as far as "how it works behind the scenes", but the net effect is that you've hunted out the area, so you need to move to a new area to find animals. How it's implemented is hacky as F, but the net effect works. Finding animals by spending half a day hunting isn't hard, you just need to take the time to do it; you can get a weeks worth of animals that way... I don't endorse the TFP method of recipes (5 meats for 1 meat), but otherwise I don't see an issue with hunger after a few days of play. Ever.

 

[Sigil_Thane]

Madmole, now that you got electricity up and running in your game you should mess around with the auto turret. It simple lacks fire power and is a waste of 9mm ammo. Could use a damage buff or redesigned.

FYI: During the last stream someone had mentioned a new turret that takes 7.62 is needed to go with the 9mm and shotty ones.

 

[ZombieSurvivor]

People need to move; Haid laid it out correctly as far as "how it works behind the scenes", but the net effect is that you've hunted out the area, so you need to move to a new area to find animals. How it's implemented is hacky as F, but the net effect works. Finding animals by spending half a day hunting isn't hard, you just need to take the time to do it; you can get a weeks worth of animals that way... I don't endorse the TFP method of recipes (5 meats for 1 meat), but otherwise I don't see an issue with hunger after a few days of play. Ever.

I find just riding a bike around for 1 full day you will get tons and tons of meat or run early game. I've never had an issue with food, except maybe day 1 or 2 of a fresh start but thats it.

 

[madmole]

People need to move; Haid laid it out correctly as far as "how it works behind the scenes", but the net effect is that you've hunted out the area, so you need to move to a new area to find animals. How it's implemented is hacky as F, but the net effect works. Finding animals by spending half a day hunting isn't hard, you just need to take the time to do it; you can get a weeks worth of animals that way... I don't endorse the TFP method of recipes (5 meats for 1 meat), but otherwise I don't see an issue with hunger after a few days of play. Ever.

Yes, get off your ass and explore and you'll have 500 meat in your boxes. I do quests and kill everything along the way. Get off the roads and go to weird corners of the map with nothing interesting and you will surely spawn new animals. You clear the chunk out and they don't respawn for some time.

 

[Ladarian]

Don't bother we don't use polls unless we're looking for feedback. We're not on this topic. Its completely fine as is, wires add a post apocalyptic vibe of make shift work being done, and if you want to hide them you can go to the work of hiding them by building access points.

I'd like to see "telephone poles" to put through our player town that extend your power range while looking good at the same time.

 

[madmole]

I'd like to see "telephone poles" to put through our player town that extend your power range while looking good at the same time.

You can mount a relay on a pole with a cross beam that would be the same thing.

 

[Thecolours]

Its 9mm, what do you want it to do? Seems to destroy zeds pretty fast IMO, at least basic ones.

Nobody uses the auto turret. No one. If you have a game mechanic that no one is using, don't you think that's an issue?

 

[madmole]

Nobody uses the auto turret. No one. If you have a game mechanic that no one is using, don't you think that's an issue?

Where did you get this information? LOL. Ok I get what you are saying, I'll have a look at it, but you shouldn't expect a pea shooter to be badass. If they feel underpowered I can certainly give them a buff, but I'm pretty sure the damage is about like a mid tier SMG.

 

[Ladarian]

You can mount a relay on a pole with a cross beam that would be the same thing.

Yeah get that - we do that. The range between them is ♥♥♥♥ though. We usually have a large town with a "power plant" with generators / solar / battery banks in it. thanks for the reply, boss.