PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[faatal]

I wonder if diagonal running is possible on the fastest zombie speed settings to ignore or make them miss hits. Since they should catch up to us pretty easily? Either that or perhaps 90 degree turns every couple of seconds. Now zombies take some time to adjust to sudden change of direction.

I would think turns and cutting corners around obstacles would help, since AI movement is generally on 45 degree angles. You guys have fun trying that, because I'm not playing on nightmare.

 

[SickPuppy]

Agree with the sledgehammer missing a lot, for a slow heavy weapon it feels like it should be easier to hit to compensate.

 

[HungryZombie]

Yup yup, only unperked turrets.
I actually did think about the combined arms DPS though and I tested this a good number of times. When I ran my tests on this I did not get that result UNLESS I also skilled into the other weapon significantly. Baseline AK + 2 turrets for instance took me longer to kill 25 feral bikers (there with AI turned off just to be a wall of meat) than fully spec'd AK. Same T6 AK with same mods. Weapons get massive damage, headshot, and reload bonuses with their skill ups so when you're using the baseline weapon and then losing half your firing time due to reloading turrets you end up losing alot of DPS.

I'm not sure it's fair to just compare pure dps using both sets of weapons beacuse the turrets also stun and stagger which is way helpful.

 

[NukemDed]

That's definitely a way to temporarily offset your reload penalty and gain about 6 double reloads worth of DPS (about 72 seconds as each pickup/reload/replace takes about 6 seconds). But in the grand scheme of a full horde night that's going to be a drop in the bucket and it requires alot of space.
TBH this sounds infinitely more useful for non-turret spec than it does for turret spec because non-turret specs are the ones who suffer the most from the reload time since they outdps the turrets by so much. Turret spec would prolly prefer 4 turrets and always be reloading 2 turrets while the other 2 are firing. No way I'd do this without keeping rows of junk turret ammo in a chest nearby though. I'm planning on bringing 5,400 junk turret ammo to the Day 26 horde as it is. If I was to do this I'd bump that up to 7,000 and it still might not be enough.

Not to mention that this makes the "gameplay" in turret spec would literally just be 20 minutes of doing nothing but reloading . The amount of downtime you spend manually reloading turrets already kind of sucks even maintaining 2 of them.

kite them from a to b to c

with 10 int (or any attribute) you get the big headshot dam bonus.

with a few pistols with extended mags and some gunslinger pistol pete bonuses, up to 15 or 20 one shot kills from one mag shouldnt be entirely impossible. I am mowing most normal zds over with two hip shots - spray and pray seems to work just fine. bits fly everywhere too. great fun.

turrets are the cream on top, protecting me from sides and vultures etc (and when reloading pistols)

 

[faatal]

What does a perk have to go with how fast an automated turret shoots, or how powerful it is?
... crafting better ones, sure... But... ??

- - - Updated - - -

Are y'all hopefully considering removing microsplat?

No. It was specifically added to A18 to improve the look of terrain. It just has teething pains.

 

[ZombieSurvivor]

@faatal

I just wanted to say thank you for all your hard work. Ever since you were hired one can see the positive impact you have had. *fist bump* keep up all the hard work my dude.

 

[TSRViper]

Anyone tried a stealth build? I've put 3 points into From The Shadows, I'm wearing leather hood, leather chest armor and leather gloves, no flashlight, crouching, i inch forwards in pois and I consistently wake up everything in the room.

Use your axe to remove debris off the floor. Stepping on broken glass, rubbish etc will wake Zeds even if you are creeping.

 

[Gareee]

For sure.
I don't think it's random.

When you set up a killing corridor correctly.

they will all run up and fall off the ledge, rinse and repeat.

I'm saying 50% of the zombies do that. And 50% attack your base and don't run up and do that.

I understand that would be difficult to code. Just an idea ♥

But before the zombies had this improved AI you didn't see stuff like this.

Because they just attacked all over.

if there was a mix of AI from a15 for example and AI now. That wouldn't be too bad.

As Fataal described it, there IS a mix. The thing is you can't program the ai for one specific exploit, because then it'll most likely be pen for a different exploit.

At end game its just going to so hard that no combination will allow you to maintain repairs and ammo production by yourself.

And adjusting it for MP is a whole different can of worms.

Can it be improved? Probably. Is it good enough for now? Yup.

 

[Laz Man]

thinking of building two big rings of them (like a donut), taking all my armour and clothes off on horde night and just running around and around and let the turrets take care of them.
death by streaking

I would expect that from snow but not you sir lol...

 

[Drithyl]

Has anyone seen the effect of the glancing blows? They were supposed to make melee more reactive but to me it still feels like to hit a zombie you have to have your crosshair on it at the moment of impact, and it's either hit or miss. I have not noticed anything related to the glancing blows that were described here. Wondering if I'm the only one.

 

[MechanicalLens]

that's what I believe to, but if you saw that skill and wanted to go rifles you could put points into it not realizing that AK's arn't "rifles". by changing the wording to single fire rifles the reader would more clearly know what it was for.

AK-47's are now classed as machine guns, for whatever reason.

 

[Laz Man]

That's definitely a way to temporarily offset your reload penalty and gain about 6 double reloads worth of DPS (about 72 seconds as each pickup/reload/replace takes about 6 seconds). But in the grand scheme of a full horde night that's going to be a drop in the bucket and it requires alot of space.
TBH this sounds infinitely more useful for non-turret spec than it does for turret spec because non-turret specs are the ones who suffer the most from the reload time since they outdps the turrets by so much. Turret spec would prolly prefer 4 turrets and always be reloading 2 turrets while the other 2 are firing. No way I'd do this without keeping rows of junk turret ammo in a chest nearby though. I'm planning on bringing 5,400 junk turret ammo to the Day 26 horde as it is. If I was to do this I'd bump that up to 7,000 and it still might not be enough.

Not to mention that this makes the "gameplay" in turret spec would literally just be 20 minutes of doing nothing but reloading . The amount of downtime you spend manually reloading turrets already kind of sucks even maintaining 2 of them.

*Edit: I'll do it for my next horde defense. I don't promise to enjoy it but it'll prolly amuse those watching the video at least. Now to farm all that iron :X. 4 Turrets, reloading always the empty ones to keep full turret uptime.

I challenge you to put the numbers aside and simply just play organically. You might just enjoy it.

 

[faatal]

Hey guys, if you're having trouble getting headshots with the sledgehammer like I am, just aim for the legs. Get sexual tyrannasaurus, open every fight with a power attack to the legs. I find as long as I keep power attacking the legs, I can juggle zombies until they're dead. But honestly this isn't a 100% thing, because sometimes you miss the legs and end up getting splash damage again. Even just slightly having the cursor between their legs instead of directly facing a leg does a splash damage proc which gives them a chance to enter rage mode. I suppose using knife-based bleed stacks would be the best recourse? Slash them once or twice with a power attack then run like hell, that type of thing.

I tried knifes a few months ago after rage was in the game and the bleed was brutal, since it could trigger rage with every tick. Reduced that to a tenth of the normal chance and it works pretty well. Bleed and run or bleed and switch targets.

 

[MrSamuelAdam]

As Fataal described it, there IS a mix. The thing is you can't program the ai for one specific exploit, because then it'll most likely be pen for a different exploit.
At end game its just going to so hard that no combination will allow you to maintain repairs and ammo production by yourself.

And adjusting it for MP is a whole different can of worms.

Can it be improved? Probably. Is it good enough for now? Yup.

Yeah. I hear that.

I guess my issue is, I enjoy watching YouTubers and stuff when relaxing.

And all their horde bases are just exploiting the AI. Which stinks

 

[MechanicalLens]

I expected multiple radiateds to show up in tonight's horde, and I was not disappointed. It wasn't a sea of toxic green by any means, but they nonetheless came in impressive fashion and, unlike last time, the zombies only focused on the weakest point of my base: one set of bars on one side, rather than both sides. It wasn't the health or defense of the zombies that sent me down to their level, but rather their sheer numbers and ferocity. I expended 1,200 bullets this night and a half dozen grenades.

Spoiler

The Day 35 horde's end. They almost broke through. Improvements are definitely needed before day 42. (The gamestage tonight was 122.)

 

[stallionsden]

2 fps at times still. With gfx af 0 I get 15. 3 iterations and still nothing been fixed in regards to fps..........

 

[MrSamuelAdam]

2 fps at times still. With gfx af 0 I get 15. 3 iterations and still nothing been fixed in regards to fps..........

What's the exact command you're using for increased fps?

 

[faatal]

For sure, totally.
Here's one more to put a ticket in too.

I'm sure you're aware, but just in case. Makes it so zombies don't path correctly when hatches are placed.

When I get to it, I plan on adding more cases where destroy area gets triggered, which will make ramp/stair jump designs less effective.

 

[MrSamuelAdam]

When I get to it, I plan on adding more cases where destroy area gets triggered, which will make ramp/stair jump designs less effective.

Cool, I appreciate looking in to it eventually.

I just want people to suffer ♥

 

[Ralathar44]

kite them from a to b to cwith 10 int (or any attribute) you get the big headshot dam bonus.

with a few pistols with extended mags and some gunslinger pistol pete bonuses, up to 15 or 20 one shot kills from one mag shouldnt be entirely impossible. I am mowing most normal zds over with two hip shots - spray and pray seems to work just fine. bits fly everywhere too. great fun.

turrets are the cream on top, protecting me from sides and vultures etc (and when reloading pistols)

Placed turrets almost never headshot so you don't really get to use that bonus and only the handheld turret dismembers, not the placed ones. Int Headshot bonus and dismemberment bonus effectively only applies to Stun Baton. But consider what I'm saying about how much Junk Turret Ammo I'm going through for a horde. 3,000 ammo for Day 20 (plus AK rounds plus shotgun rounds). Even if I placed 10 additional turrets to my main 2 that's 500 of the 5,400+ rounds I'm expecting to use on Day 26 and they are shot from turret with low to no mods and prolly lower quality.

Also, with that sort of kiting scheme it'd almost certainly compromise their directed entrance to my base. Right now I've got 3 sides heavily fortified with double layer walls and an open door towards that front that leads into a small room of fricken death and gore. No mazing, just thick walls with one entrance and alot of guns trained on it and electric fences . Because turret effective range is about 5 blocks. At 7ish blocks they are missing noticeably more and already suffer -15% damage from range falloff and that only gets worse the further out you go. Even Pistol has full damage until like 12 blocks.

Having kiting areas means creating alot of potential weakpoints and potentially borking their AI. That's not much of an issue if you're playing with weapons suited to that or with multiple people like you are where people can react and clear, but if the kiting derps out their AI and they break through in another direction I'm utterly hosed.

Because turrets are my spec'd weapon I don't have near as much flexibility with build types. Their limited range and limited firing arc is just too much of a limitation. You need to be 5 blocks up minimum to shoot from above (and I've had zombies break bars and scale that even by standing on each other's heads). That's already past their effective range.

If things go south I'd be Benny Hilling it around my turrets and eve if that ends up working I personally consider that defeat. The point is for my base to stand against the tides. I'll go down fighting and eat my death if the base is non-salvagably compromised. I do plane on having a retreat to the second floor eventually for a second killing room, but that's for later later .