PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[Doctor3D]

Awesome. You will find the game goes in stages where you are weak, powerful, then weak again, then powerful again, etc.

I hope that is true! The game hasn't been like that in awhile. Either way, if that is the goal for how you want the game to be - then it's a good goal to have.

 

[madmole]

really? I need to up to nomad then. played on all defaults as a request. the game has changed. but after so many years, base defense is still base defense. early on there was no challenge. I will say, this is the first time trader quests has played a role in my survival tho.

Lots of guys are getting rekt on adventurer, so it depends on skill level, luck of what you found, and tons of variables as you know. I play nomad with 16 alive on horde night, but I had to work up from 12. Air drops once a week, I don't like hand outs.

 

[madmole]

I have feeling that most of the optimization went into CPU and ram than GPU and vram this experimental. That's why a lot of people with not so great graphic cards have problems.
So far i turned my textures to half and everything to low or off and its around 30-70 now.

Still I'm having a blast using new spear and club. Game does not have those weird stutters as before in a17. Blades feels like they are viable now. Food is not a problem (i through it will be) as it seems. Trader quests feels like they were buffed but for me it works. Stone tools also looks like they get buffed. I dunno if intentional but stone axe seems to work and yield the same as wrench.

Only a wrench will give you good harvests though. You can't gain mech parts from a stone axe, or a radiator.

 

[madmole]

Had to log in just to say - Well done. This is by far the best Alpha since the square stepped hills. I have worries when I eat or drink, Zombies are scary on day 1, and I have reason to loot like a Visigoth. Best of all I feel like I have control of my playstyle again, and feel that planning a character matters.

Awesome to hear, one of my main goals was to get people creating fun and interesting player builds.

 

[unlike them]

A question about Hidden Strike perk. The first rank says "sneak attack with knives", the rest ranks don't mention knives. Can someone clarify? Does it work with bows or any other weapons?

 

[madmole]

We are. Post 11:00 AM I still saw a spider zombie wandering around my base.

Yes spiders spawn at night, and a rarer chance for feral version of it. Was it feral?

 

[Wulf]

A question about Hidden Strike perk. The first rank says "sneak attack with knives", the rest ranks don't mention knives. Can someone clarify? Does it work with bows or any other weapons?

It works with any weapon. Melee or ranged.

The knives part looks to be a left over bug.

 

[MechanicalLens]

Yes spiders spawn at night, and a rarer chance for feral version of it. Was it feral?

I have no idea if it was feral or not. I ended up blasting its head with my hunting rifle just as it turned to face me. Didn't bother to check. All that mattered was that it was dead. Well, double dead. Lol

 

[Moonflower]

if you aggro a zombie at night it will keep running when its daytime. Is it a bug or works as intended?

 

[meganoth]

I'm having 30fps on ultra settings, 16 ddr4 ram//6gb gtx1060//Samsung EVO 960// I5 9600k. I'm a little bit sad, do you think this will improve when Stable branch comes out?

No. They said they are done. Thats the "ex" of "experimental" :cocksure:

 

[unlike them]

if you aggro a zombie at night it will keep running when its daytime. Is it a bug or works as intended?

He probably was feral (if you have feral running settings).

 

[KuriousTurtle]

Iآ’ve been a lurker here for the past 2021 pages but I figured Iآ’d give some feedback on a18e.

I love it, but I am getting some FPS issues like a majority of people.

Specs

CPU - ryzen 7 2700x

Gpu - nvidia gtx 1070 founders edition

Ram - 16Gb ddr4 3200

HDD - 1Tb for games

SSD - 250Gb for system

Running game at full textures and varying levels of other settings to my visual liking.

So I have not not tried the gfx dt yet, will when I get home. But in cities/pois I get 60+ FPS with/out vsync. Looking at terrain in forest the FPS drops to 50s. However, when I enter the snow biome, my FPS tanks to the 20s. Iآ’m not sure what it is, but the snow biome is the only one that bottoms out my FPS.

EDIT: tested on both maps Pregen1 and on Nav

 

[Laz Man]

Are you using some older Nvidia drivers, by chance? I ask because I tested out a huge assortment of drivers last night and found that a lot of the 399's and early 4's would cause EXACTLY what you described..
If so..update the driver and it will fix that input delay.

I will try updated drivers tonight and report back my experiences.

 

[Skippy5]

Yes I'm totally fine with it. Hide in your base until they die at noon ish, out run them, kill them etc. We might kill them off sooner, but a little wariness is what the doctor ordered in this game IMO.
Wandering hordes are random, so it can be dogs, a horde, etc.

And the tougher zombies and non-formulaic pattens keep me on my toes... Great choice IMO... Day 6, doing blades and archery - just need to freaking remember the Z’s have an amazing reach and the hit timing seems different than A17. Trying to get that down still...

 

[madmole]

yea im late here, but were we not promised BETTER performance? I had a 40% decrease in FPS same settings as A17.4...? Plus random FPS drop to 10 when in a crafting menu

No I have said some people get worse performance, most people get better performance. There are so many cpu/gpu/software configurations out there its impossible know until you release. We will keep looking at it.

 

[Ayrton]

Madmole, a query? How far are we from a stable version of A18? People enjoy this experimental, but we want longer games for more pleasure.

 

[captaine]

Question: Are vitamins supposed to prevent dysentery? If they are, I was able to get it drinking murky water after consuming vitamins. If not, perhaps the description on the vitamins should be updated to make that clear.

 

[madmole]

Naz is a pre generated world, hence it knows whats going on, the RWG is random generated, so it needs to bild as it goes, load times are more, the terrain is not predetermined by the system etc etc

Nope. Once random world is generated it is identical to Nav.

 

[Laz Man]

MadMole, remember what I said months ago when it seemed A18 would be harder. Don’t let the vocal whiners convince you to nerf the difficulty in everything, please

I agree, that is what the difficulty setting is for.

 

[madmole]

Anybody else seeing massive RAM usage for the game, even after quitting the game back to the main menu? I noticed temperature spikes of the GPU/CPU during the game, and after getting back to the main menu the game still kept on using ~9 GB of RAM.

Make sure to close the application to free up all memory.