PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[Aurelius]

The law of thermodynamics is called a law for a reason. Feel free to air quote it as much as you like, but that doesn't change the fact it's been tested and retested repeatedly over the past 100+ years, and has yet to be broken.

I suspect what MM is really saying, is that the system being designed/built is very efficient in using common materials to provide electricity - but a machine providing *free* energy is simply another name for a perpetual motion machine.

-A

 

[beerfly]

my current a17 game I have no base, day 10. all my stuff is placed in the ground. dug a trench 1 m deep, placed workstation, forge, and storage boxes in there. low game stage so was doable. not sure about higher gamestages yet.

Ya, same as me, I just add some roof 5x5 and wait for fun. If you are aware of the surroundings and mostly looting, should not worry for higher gamestages I think.

 

[Mechanimal]

The law of thermodynamics is called a law for a reason. Feel free to air quote it as much as you like, but that doesn't change the fact it's been tested and retested repeatedly over the past 100+ years, and has yet to be broken.
I suspect what MM is really saying, is that the system being designed/built is very efficient in using common materials to provide electricity - but a machine providing *free* energy is simply another name for a perpetual motion machine.

-A

Well yeah, I'm not some believer in perpetual motion machines ever being possible. That is why I said it's likely just very efficient and/or extracting that energy from fields of science we are still figuring out. I put the word "law" in quotes(did it again, and will continue to do so) because, believe it or not, our understanding of science is, again, not complete. You can't break a "law" that really isn't fully understood, not to the extremes a word like law implies. It's more about discovering and understanding these new areas, mostly dealing with quantum mechanics, which will give us a much deeper understanding of phenomenon classical physics(the Standard Model) can't. Don't make the same mistake Einstein did, he hated Quantum Mechanics(even though he played a role in opening the door to it) because he couldn't wrap it up into simple equations, and he was wrong for doing so.

 

[Goldman_dk]

Would it be possible to make agressive wildlife flee as first reaction to lowlevel players, eg until a certain level?

In that way if u encounter wulfs, its your own fault if u place a stone arrow in its rear

 

[Aurelius]

I put the word "law" in quotes(did it again, and will continue to do so) because, believe it or not, our understanding of science is, again, not complete. You can't break a "law" that really isn't fully understood, not to the extremes a word like law implies.

While I agree there are many areas of science we've only scratched the surface of, and it's a *good* thing to be willing to revisit and change (when appropriate) your understanding of the universe, I'm going to stick to my guns and say the laws of thermodynamics are sufficiently understood and tested to be called laws. Agree to disagree on a minor point.

As an aside - some of your comments on robotics and computing have really piqued my curiosity. I'm definitely going to run down some of the ideas you've mentioned in passing.

-A

 

[Mechanimal]

While I agree there are many areas of science we've only scratched the surface of, and it's a *good* thing to be willing to revisit and change (when appropriate) your understanding of the universe, I'm going to stick to my guns and say the laws of thermodynamics are sufficiently understood and tested to be called laws. Agree to disagree on a minor point.
As an aside - some of your comments on robotics and computing have really piqued my curiosity. I'm definitely going to run down some of the ideas you've mentioned in passing.

-A

I can admittedly be kind of harsh on science sometimes, I just try to avoid thinking in absolute terms that words like "law" imply. I don't have any major doubts about the laws of thermodynamics being solid and useful, I just think there's more to understand. Unlike Albert E. I love quantum mechanics because it, to me, explains the why/how behind the standard model, as well as many things it cannot explain. Otherwise we're mostly on the same page, agree to *agree. The * sticking point is more of an annoyance with the term law, but it's admittedly a personal sticking point more than anything.(yells at brain to chill out)

I never expected to bring up robotics whilst talking about a zombie game, it's the voxels fault. I learned a ton from studying graphic cards and super computers years ago(the NEC Earth Simulator was my first, and still my fav specimen). Oddly enough the hurdle seems to mostly be caused, unintentionally, by the fields of computer science getting a major case of tunnel vision. Not realizing how specific what we've adopted into use actually is, but I knew long ago that the realm of machine learning would inevitably return to neural nets... slowly at first via simulation inside serial machines, but it's still far more of a hardware problem, first, then the software follows. It's a cart-horse thing, peeps been doing it backwards for years, but like I said it is finally starting to turn around now. And when it does game engines like this are going to be able to handle a ton more detail all at once as a result. I want it for robot brains, to provide an internal simulation, a type of "minds eye", among many other things.

 

[Survager]

MM, I read a lot of posts about the indestructible landscape and I have 3 questions (I want to tell my viewers the right information).

Garden boxes, ore blocks, the presence of these blocks fits very well in a world with an indestructible landscape. MM, do you smoothly prepare the game so that players can’t change the landscape?

MM, you said that indestructible terrain would be optional at some point. Is it planned after gold?

MM, is there any chance that on gold, 7 Days To Die will have only an indestructible landscape, and it will not be possible to choose the old (current at the moment) option?

 

[The Gronk]

The law of thermodynamics is called a law for a reason. Feel free to air quote it as much as you like, but that doesn't change the fact it's been tested and retested repeatedly over the past 100+ years, and has yet to be broken.
I suspect what MM is really saying, is that the system being designed/built is very efficient in using common materials to provide electricity - but a machine providing *free* energy is simply another name for a perpetual motion machine.

-A

Thermodynamics, like Newtonian physics, isn't perfect. They both tend to break down in extreme places such as black holes. They are proven to a 5-Sigma level of certainty only within certain parameters... such as not near a black hole

I think the generator everyone is on about is the system where someone has managed to generate electricity using the temperature differential between the Earth and space. I can hunt down a link if you need it but I'm still on mobile for a few days and I frikkin' hate typing on these things.

 

[unlike them]

MM told us that even if the solid terrain is implemented, it will happen post gold and only as an option. He assured us the voxel terrain will always stay in 7d2d.

 

[Zombie_Jam]

I can admittedly be kind of harsh on science sometimes, I just try to avoid thinking in absolute terms that words like "law" imply. I don't have any major doubts about the laws of thermodynamics being solid and useful, I just think there's more to understand. Unlike Albert E. I love quantum mechanics because it, to me, explains the why/how behind the standard model, as well as many things it cannot explain. Otherwise we're mostly on the same page, agree to *agree. The * sticking point is more of an annoyance with the term law, but it's admittedly a personal sticking point more than anything.(yells at brain to chill out)
I never expected to bring up robotics whilst talking about a zombie game, it's the voxels fault. I learned a ton from studying graphic cards and super computers years ago(the NEC Earth Simulator was my first, and still my fav specimen). Oddly enough the hurdle seems to mostly be caused, unintentionally, by the fields of computer science getting a major case of tunnel vision. Not realizing how specific what we've adopted into use actually is, but I knew long ago that the realm of machine learning would inevitably return to neural nets... slowly at first via simulation inside serial machines, but it's still far more of a hardware problem, first, then the software follows. It's a cart-horse thing, peeps been doing it backwards for years, but like I said it is finally starting to turn around now. And when it does game engines like this are going to be able to handle a ton more detail all at once as a result. I want it for robot brains, to provide an internal simulation, a type of "minds eye", among many other things.

Just a point on 'why.'

Asking why implies intent. You're discussing science. I wouldn't go there

 

[DaVegaNL]

Rip the mole

 

[Mechanimal]

Just a point on 'why.'
Asking why implies intent. You're discussing science. I wouldn't go there

Ah, good point, need to be careful with that word, it can be implied in different ways, agree. I meant the more how, technical, inference, not the more religious version. Though I am an Agnostic Seeker, I have a list of possibilities I'm still working through, albeit all with a grain of salt or two. I agree it can unnecessarily derail scientific discussion though, so kudos for pointing that out.

 

[Haidrgna]

I rage quit and started a new character on the same map. Not sure why the 2nd one went just as bad lol, although I did spawn in the forest instead of the desert. So I died 3 times on day 1, then quit, restarted a new character and died 3x by day 3. I've got an AK and pistol now, doing fine, but getting attacked by wolves is just nasty early game. I want to remove all nasty things from biome spawing in a future alpha, and then do random encounters, which are leveled. Of course nasty biomes would have a raised game stage on these encounters but we could spare new players any hostile animals the first 5 levels or so and slowly add in nasty stuff, and increase the challenge as you level.

Maybe it is time to just gamestage the biome spawns so very low level characters can get a smaller chance to encounter wolves. Gamestaging of the Biomes does not need to be as extreme as hordes or sleepers are atm (where almost all zombies are super powered radiated at some point), but they can shift to more dangerous enemies having a bit higher chance, or a chance at all, to appear. You guys might also want to consider having at least one more stage of power of zombies in between normal and feral. Zombies that are tougher like ferals but do not run all the time, just so you can also up the challenge in biomes without constant runners at some stage. Ideally code could handle the actual toughness, feralness and radiatedness of a zombie spawning, then it could always take the average level of players nearby into account and only need one entry per zombie model in the xml where you can configure all these stages of the zombie...

 

[Mechanimal]

Just a point on 'why.'
Asking why implies intent. You're discussing science. I wouldn't go there ��

Ha, just realized, I bet you watched the most recent Rogan podcast with Neil D, he did a good job of breaking down how asking why can cause problems. So I shoulda known better, though again I'm agnostic, so I can't actually rule out many things I wish I could. Like, who's running this simulation, if that happens to be the case. The fun part about this forum is that we can actually talk to those who run this one and occasionally get a response

What's neat about Simulation Theory is that, if hypothetically that is the case, then the voxels of our reality are actually really simple to identify: the atom. That one subatomic construct happens to make up everything, and that in itself has only 3 ingredients. Thinking of the elements as different things is actually really distorting of this fact, they are all the same thing that merely act differently, mainly with each other, depending on the number of protons/neutrons(and resulting electron count). But knock out or add a few of those in any atom and you can turn any element into any other, like lead into gold, etc. Totally possible, just far from practical, for now

 

[RipClaw]

Maybe it is time to just gamestage the biome spawns so very low level characters can get a smaller chance to encounter wolves. Gamestaging of the Biomes does not need to be as extreme as hordes or sleepers are atm (where almost all zombies are super powered radiated at some point), but they can shift to more dangerous enemies having a bit higher chance, or a chance at all, to appear.

Tying the biomespawns to the gamestage can be a bit tricky because in multiplayer players with extremely different gamestages can be in the same chunk. Imagine a level 200 player and a level 1 player in the same chunk and the level 1 player has to cope with what was actually meant for the level 200 player.

 

[Mechanimal]

Tying the biomespawns to the gamestage can be a bit tricky because in multiplayer players with extremely different gamestages can be in the same chunk. Imagine a level 200 player and a level 1 player in the same chunk and the level 1 player has to cope with what was actually meant for the level 200 player.

I was just thinking that same thing, it would be tricky to handle in MP worlds. Imagine spawning n a server as a noob a few blocks from a player with a super high game stage and being greeted by a pack of dire wolves and rads. Ha, hmm, how to solve?

 

[beerfly]

I was just thinking that same thing, it would be tricky to handle in MP worlds. Imagine spawning n a server as a noob a few blocks from a player with a super high game stage and being greeted by a pack of dire wolves and rads. Ha, hmm, how to solve?

Run

I hated that part in pvp, joining a server full of savages. Was fun tho, once because I found a minibike in a whole, 5 mins after joined. Of course I took it and attracted a lot of attention. Final scene on this server was 3-4 mins later, when I got stuck in some half destroyed wall of a tin garage or something like a shed. The two guys that wacked me, much have been laughing a lot.

 

[ZombieHorde]

If I could do it all over again I'd have thrown out the diggable terrain. Alpha 1 could have had static Unity terrain, a simple water plane, ran 30% better, used way less ram, console wouldn't have been so beat down, allowed faster vehicles, looked as good as 18's terrain does now, (Minus the Justin talent) and we wouldn't have wasted energy on mining, cave systems, multiple versions of trees, etc. Mining could have been mining POIs with respawning nuggets like rust/skyrim/subnautica with a nice model. We'd anger 10% and gain 200% new players that don't give a ♥♥♥♥ about deformable terrain and buggy water.
At some point we might release a static terrain option for 7 days just to see the performance gains. IMO most people would run it for the performance gains and better pvp, none of this wimpy underground base business, fight like a man like in TWD. You don't see those guys living in caves/mines.

What may have made us great has also slowed us down and kept us indy looking/performing. I think mining is ok but its not part of the secret sauce, we'd still have mining it just wouldn't be ugly 3d mining. At this point we'd kind of solved it mostly but it could have saved us a lot of time and headaches, allowing us to focus on cool stuff like we are able to now.

Hmmm....considering zombies don't spawn below ground and underground is really not applicable to the game when you're simply travelling the surface, the game be accelerated by turning off the sub-terrainian details unless:

a) You're within 50m of an area the game knows there is a mine

b) are underground

c) another player is underground - but then only that chunk loads the sub-terrain details.

Likewise, many above-ground things like weather, sun, trees, etc, could also be turned off when underground.

I know this would mainly help single player games. I wonder what % of players that is?

 

[ZombieHorde]

We patched 17 on 5.30.19. You've been a whole 3 months and a week without an update not a year.

Yes, but here in Australia that date doesn't exist, so we're VERY due for a release.

 

[ZombieHorde]

LOL sorry you have it backwards. There is so much technique now that has been passed down from generations, and all the world styles knowledge available to all, even guys from 5 years ago are nothing in todays meat grinder. Like now you can learn kung fu, ju-jitsu, boxing, wrestling etc all under one roof and have all those tools at your disposal. Plus we're so much bigger and stronger from nutrition and weight training. A badass 1000 years ago was 5'4" and 120 lol. People were tiny from lack of food and didn't even live to be 40 in most cases.

Hey, MM. I believe maybe a year ago there was a discussion going on about your training diet but I forget any big secrets you had to share. Same as most pro body builders of 80% protein, 10% carb and fat? I was on this diet for maybe a year of body building back 7 years ago. Not a particularly fun time for me.

Having said that, have you heard of this?

Coming out this month, I believe.