PC Alpha 19 Dev Diary

[faatal]

Earlier on in A19's development it was talked about that vultures will attack down on bars (and blocks?) and will shred vehicles. Is this still planned for A19?

That has been done for months.

 

[Mechanimal]

We're not removing paint, we're just not adding 500 new paints, its just not possible. I'm sure skin packs that replace certain textures will be possible at some point so users or mods can change the textures out.

No its a big atlas. We stream individual textures like zombies, block entities like doors, forges, coffee makers, etc. But paintable blocks all use the texture atlas which cannot stream. Even if it could it wouldn't offer much benefit there is almost always a block in view which would require it to be high res.

There is no doubt if you get to late game you will probably end up doing some painting, unless all you care about is pure game mechanics.

So I smashed my day 21 horde no problem. 24 alive and had them all dead by 12 something. THen I go to a T5 poi and its all going smooth and I walk into a bathroom and guys fall from the ceiling so I try to back pedal out of the door way and I can't move. I start hearing the sounds of iron armor getting smashed, and see stun and stuff, turn around and I'm sandwiched in by half a dozen zombies at my back. I tried moving forward shooting guys as fast as possible with my sawed off pump shotgun, but it was too late, I got wrecked. Now I have to pedal my bike back to get my stuff Oh well it was fun, getting wrecked can be a strong motivator... time to get some better armor I think. I've stocked up a lot of parts but I don't have any perks yet so I'll level up my armor skill and start making some better armor.

You went to a T5 POI on a Blood Moon?

Either way it's crazy how fast a @%$*#! ton of zombies can build up in those T5's, it can be like triggering an indoor mini-horde sometimes. Sounds fun tho, can't wait for experimental, and for you to start making vids until then, when ready.

 

[Guppycur]

My question: Is it a WORKING clock that shows the actual time of day, or is it only right twice per day?

TFP puts out better work than modders, so theirs probably works too.

 

[Rat]

More furniture options, food options, zombie diversity and drones. Vehicle damage to zombies would be something. I'd like to see different POIs to hammer out all the nothingness in some maps. Adding tiers to weapons sounds exciting so I am really looking forward to all future updates.

 

[faatal]

TFP puts out better work than modders, so theirs probably works too.

I think the clock is just a texture an artist made. You would not see hands moving on that.

 

[quyxkh]

Is that how long you typically survive on horde night?

Haha no, it's  how long the poor sods in whatever POI you find it in lasted.

 

[Gazz]

Rest in peace, my hopes and dreams of a robot army serving my whims.  That will put quite the constraint on the drone as it will have to compete against the turrets, and  . . .I don't see the Sledge getting used at all once you get the turret =(

If that's your ideal game, make it so. It's a single number to change in a text file. (ask a modder =))

 

[Khalagar]

I got wrecked.

Have you died much in your test run? Do deaths factor very heavily into your results for your test, like "If even I died there, how hard would that be for a noob? Are they likely to encounter a situation like that?" ?

Or do you just see it as a job well done if even a veteran player still has challenges from time to time

If that's your ideal game, make it so. It's a single number to change in a text file. (ask a modder =))

True, I guess in my mind it wasn't too OP as I was picturing the flying drones as mostly just storage bots with essentially no offense, so int focused characters would just get a couple of floating storage bays and a psuedo movable wall with the melee turrets to deploy at strategic junctions.

Can you hot swap out between your devices? Like if I go out with 2 of each Junk Item, I can just throw down a turret and a drone, then pick the drone back up and throw down a second turret, then pick it up and throw down a junk sledge etc , without any kind of "change mechanic" to decide which two I'm allowed to use?

I could see that being pretty fun, since you could always use the drones later into a PoI delve when you run out of storage and use the Sledge to block doors.

Can you guys talk DPS numbers on the Junk Sledge? Late game with perk investment, would you say it's DPS is more akin to a Stone sledge, iron sledge, or Steel Sledge? It's T1 like Stone Sledge, but it's also the only melee weapon of the Junk line and AFAIK the only other Int melee weapon is stun baton which is also 1 level (and hopefully more on par this patch) unless you've made the stun baton 3 tiers . . .in which case I'm curious and amused at the idea of a moss covered stick stunning zombies

 

[Roland]

I think the clock is just a texture an artist made. You would not see hands moving on that.

He assumed that and was just posting to troll. He said “too” Ironically meaning there is already a working clock made by modders. He was waiting for a dev to confirm that TFP’s clock is just a texture so now he hopes readers will make the connection that the things TFP add are NOT as good as what modders are doing.

Joel has warned about injecting mod chatter into this thread even casually but he keeps pushing it. But no more. 

 

[Worrun]

You drastically over estimate the number of players who paint. Its a late game luxury for those who've mastered the survival aspects few ever do. The community is .0001% of the player base. You guys are hardcore and know every system in and out, the player base is water washing over the rocks, you guys are grains of sand stuck in the rocks, watching all the water pass by.

I don't know what point was made by the guy you are replying to, nor do I wish for more paint, as your reply is very valid.

However, I am here to represent the Paint Gang, we do be painting, and I personally paint every single base I make, as do all of my friends.

We are here, we are watching, we are painting.

 

[Annihilatorza]

Yes they are all in one big atlas using unitys texture arrays, which cannot be streamed. Its one giant texture designed to keep draw calls sane, so how can you stream a texture that is almost always in view (any opaque block).

Is this a Unity limitation or a Voxel limitation that you have to do it this way?

How would you go about getting around this for the say the next game?

 

[Annihilatorza]

We're not removing paint, we're just not adding 500 new paints, its just not possible. I'm sure skin packs that replace certain textures will be possible at some point so users or mods can change the textures out.

No its a big atlas. We stream individual textures like zombies, block entities like doors, forges, coffee makers, etc. But paintable blocks all use the texture atlas which cannot stream. Even if it could it wouldn't offer much benefit there is almost always a block in view which would require it to be high res.

There is no doubt if you get to late game you will probably end up doing some painting, unless all you care about is pure game mechanics.

So I smashed my day 21 horde no problem. 24 alive and had them all dead by 12 something. THen I go to a T5 poi and its all going smooth and I walk into a bathroom and guys fall from the ceiling so I try to back pedal out of the door way and I can't move. I start hearing the sounds of iron armor getting smashed, and see stun and stuff, turn around and I'm sandwiched in by half a dozen zombies at my back. I tried moving forward shooting guys as fast as possible with my sawed off pump shotgun, but it was too late, I got wrecked. Now I have to pedal my bike back to get my stuff Oh well it was fun, getting wrecked can be a strong motivator... time to get some better armor I think. I've stocked up a lot of parts but I don't have any perks yet so I'll level up my armor skill and start making some better armor.

With the hoard nights, would be possible have an option that lets them keep coming until 4am, So if you have 24 alive it will keep spawning a max of 24 until 4am and then taper off or does it already do this.

I cant remember. 

 

[madmole]

Sounds exhilarating! ^^

So, how's this world's horde base coming along?

Also, unrelated tip/reminder: Always check all the traders' inventories before you by something quite expensive, such as anything vehicle-related. Today, Jen offered me a motorcycle chassis which I snatched up right away, however Hugh offered me a full motorcycle, so I had to sell the chassis to have just enough money to afford the motorbike from Hugh. *Rolls eyes, slap to my forehead*

I haven't put a ton of effort into it this build, with the loot progression changes and a STR character I'm having a blast looting, and when you don't opt into INT you have to find a lot more schematics and to me this is just the way to play the game. I get people like to craft but to me INT is too easy, but that is a personal preference, not a design flaw.

My backpack must have fell through the world it was nowhere to be found. Instead of cheating in my lost gear, I just role played another survivor snatched it up and I'm just crafting new tools and what I can, and I'm just going to start looting again and see what I can find and rebuild my lost stuff. So it would have been like delete all on my backpack option. Its actually kind of fun replacing my lost stuff and getting a random new challenge thrown at me. More fun than dead is dead in my opinion, rebuilding stronger/better is more fun than just quitting.

You went to a T5 POI on a Blood Moon?

Either way it's crazy how fast a @%$*#! ton of zombies can build up in those T5's, it can be like triggering an indoor mini-horde sometimes. Sounds fun tho, can't wait for experimental, and for you to start making vids until then, when ready.

No it wasn't a blood moon.

 

[MechanicalLens]

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[madmole]

Have you died much in your test run? Do deaths factor very heavily into your results for your test, like "If even I died there, how hard would that be for a noob? Are they likely to encounter a situation like that?" ?

Or do you just see it as a job well done if even a veteran player still has challenges from time to time

I rarely die unless I do a nightmare run speed during day or tweak the options to be really hard. A noob cannot do a tier 5 unless they just wander in there without direction from a trader. I enjoy a fair death. You could say I got a little careless rushing into that bathroom and not making sure the damn hallway was clear first. I haven't done a T5 in a long time because they are too tedious but this one was just fetch so I thought I'd try it. I don't like cheap deaths were you get ninja'd by something in the middle of a field, but this was a fair death and could have been prevented if I'd have not ran in there like Rambo. When they fall from ceilings now most of them fall on their asses so I was trying to take advantage of that and smash them while they were down.

I don't know what point was made by the guy you are replying to, nor do I wish for more paint, as your reply is very valid.

However, I am here to represent the Paint Gang, we do be painting, and I personally paint every single base I make, as do all of my friends.

We are here, we are watching, we are painting.

Of course you do. But the average guy might stay at a shack and not even build, let alone paint. I paint eventually on all my bases. If we could stream textures on paint I'd order up 50 new textures for players to use. Its a vram limit we can't really do anything about.

I somewhat agree with you there, yeah. It's a similar reason why I don't ever perk into Master Chef or Lucky Looter - I don't like to artificially skip progression. Regarding INT, I typically go into Advanced Engineering 1/5 since I'd rather not go without a forge for gosh knows how long, but other than that I leave it up to RNG-esus.

Likewise. I'm saving all of my build plans for when A19 hits; all I'm investing in is a 4 9x9 tower set-up with walls connecting the four of them, forming what can only be described as a child's drawing of a castle. Nothing too special.

That's been a reoccurring bug, yes; the same can happen with spears too, unfortunately. I have only died in a couple worlds in A18 so far, but I've lost countless spears, and unless they're of the stone variant, I have no issues spawning them back in.

I completely agree. That's one reason I have never been into the whole permadeath shtick.

Simply curious here, how have your spent your points in this build.

Pretty much all STR. I bought 2 ranks of engineering to get my forge and workbench, 2 ranks of barter, nothing else outside of strength. I have 4 ranks of clubs, shotgun, miner, mother lode, 2 pack mule. Grinding to get STR 10 so I can start the last 5. I only need 9 if I can find another cigar

 

[MechanicalLens]

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[Damocles]

Is this a Unity limitation or a Voxel limitation that you have to do it this way?

How would you go about getting around this for the say the next game?

There is no "Unity voxel system", its custom code running within Unity. The logic how its rendered would not be substantially different in other universial engines.

Since a block with a specific texture can be anywhere in the world, those textures need to always be in memory.

In most other games its easier to handle this, as they have premade static worlds. Its known what textures are used in which area of the gameworld. So textures that dont occur in a specific area can be removed from the memory (or using a low res version, until a high res version is needed, when the player gets close.)

 

[khzmusik]

I just role played another survivor snatched it up and I'm just crafting new tools and what I can, and I'm just going to start looting again and see what I can find and rebuild my lost stuff. So it would have been like delete all on my backpack option. Its actually kind of fun replacing my lost stuff and getting a random new challenge thrown at me. More fun than dead is dead in my opinion, rebuilding stronger/better is more fun than just quitting.

I'm a big fan of doing this myself (it's why I usually play with the "delete all" option). My own "role play" is that the character permanently died, but you're starting a new character, as if that new character had always existed in this same game world (so, same level, etc).

I've been asking around if anyone has a proper name for this play style, since it is quite different than "permadeath." Nobody seems to know of one. Do you have any idea?

EDIT: I've been calling it "dead is mostly dead" (a Princess Bride reference) but someone, somewhere, has to have already put a name to it.

 

[Roland]

Repo-Man Mode

All your @%$*#! just got repo'd!!!

 

[MechanicalLens]

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