PC Alpha 19 Dev Diary

Status
Not open for further replies.
I'm not sure how much background you have in software development, so I'll keep it simple, maybe too simple for you, sorry. Ideally shorter dev cycles won't change anything about when bandits arrive. Shorter dev cycles have some undeniable advantages and might even speed up development of everything, including bandits (because it might speed up debugging a bit).
This development model doesn't exclude bigger features, it just means they don't get merged with the (public) alpha until they are ready. Compare it to a train depot with more than one parallel track. Only the trains (=features) that have been finished servicing leave the depot and enter the station. Whether trains wait on other trains or leave immediately doesn't change the speed of servicing them.

You could hypothetize that Fataal as one of the bottlenecks because of bandits-AI, might have to add time for vehicle mods as well, but whether those vehicle mods get released in an alpha or not they will be developed in the mean time and Fataal will have to put some time in there as well. There is no big difference here. Generally the alphas we see do not dictate development enough to make a difference, it is the other way round.
Click to expand...
Yes. It all comes down to man hours. Tasks take the same amount of time with shorter or longer time between alphas. Shorter alphas just mean less stuff in each alpha, but with a somewhat fixed time cost in doing each release.

I work on a lot of different stuff these days, which is why I'm hoping our new programmer will be able to do a lot of the bandit work, but he is still part time for at least a few months.

 
OMG am I the only female that plays this obsessively? Please may I have some new paint effects/ Lots of them. i want to make my house look really nice. Once I wash the zomb blood off...
Click to expand...
Yes!! More color!! I want to paint everything.

 
Any chance to show what crafting will give you on average?
Essentially, if I have a quality 5 item, and can craft a quality 5 item, I want to know if it is worth it or not. (based on if I can actually craft something with better specs.)
Click to expand...
At best we could print the range of possibilities, but we can't guarantee what random roll you get. I don't see it as a big deal, just craft it and find out.

 
And some say you can't make a room look good in the apocalypse.

NQLBJ0A.jpg
Click to expand...
Nice.

 
Any way we could get an ingame reference for what an item's base stats are? Sometimes that level 3 item you find can rival a level 5 and you don't have a reference to know it.
Click to expand...

Compare will show base stats in the future, when comparing.
Click to expand...
Seeing the range of numbers in item creation would help. Say I get a tier 3 weapon and can only make tier 3 weapons at the moment, when I goto craft another tier 3 weapon it would be great to see if its even worth it before I waste resources. For example:

Stat......................Current value.......Possible

Ranged Damage.....67......................60-80

Magazine Size........59......................55-65

Rounds / Minute.....402....................400-450

Effective Range......67......................65-75

Max Durability........560....................525-560

Kinda in line with what Diablo and other games do. You hover over item, hold like ALT, and it shows you the range of numbers the weapon is capable of for that tier. Knowing this before crafting would help save resources. If I have the best tier 3 weapon and I dont know it, I'll be sitting there forever wasting resources thinking I "could" make better. This is just an example, hopefully I explained my view correctly.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
No new station. Does that mean the hope for a wood stove as an upgrade to the campfire also out of picture? There is a great model for it in game already...
Click to expand...
No it doesn't. Adding an alchemy set though is redundant. We already have a beaker in the campfire for primitive alchemy and a chem station for advanced alchemy.

 
Can we please get rid of microsplat for A19?
I was disabling it manually until SphereII made a patch to put the A17 distant terrain back. Some important points.

1) It allows players to do farming the 'old' way (take hoe, hoe ground) like they asked for in A18.

2) HUGE FPS gain. I mean 30-50fps when tested on my laptop (i7-4710MQ, 32GB RAM, GTX 980M), god knows how much on my desktop but I've been pegging the 165hz refresh rate of my monitor... vs sitting at 80 with occasional dips to 20.

In terms of graphical fidelity? I see no major difference between Microsplat on and Microsplat off.
Click to expand...
LOL no. Maybe you should get your eyes checked.

What we are doing is adding a high performance switch to change to something better than the A17 hacked terrain that has huge fps gain, but is being patched to A18 so is off topic here as well as the farming nobody wants.

 
hence, working ones. I know why they were removed. I would like to see if they can make ones that dont mess up the AI. or an equivalent of an iron door with bars. one on hinges instead of a slide. one we can shoot through .
say 75% of the hp of an iron door, top half barred, bottom half solid.

Joel is an artist, I am sure he can come up with something that looks right.
Click to expand...
The only thing I can think of is a swinging jail door since the sliding one has AI issues.

 
Quick note on new tool art:
Iron pick should have rusty look. Steel pick should not, would not rust, right?? I'm not expert though.
Click to expand...
All of them rust eventually. Steel has iron, so it eventually rusts too. The better the quality the longer it takes for it to rust. If It's a static quality wall of stainless steel it could take decades for it to start showing signs of rust.

If it's a tool ... well... if pure stainless with perfect alloy percentages in a couple of years of hard use it could start showing spots. Standard grade can rust in two weeks if treated poorly and recklessly.

 
RNG breakdowns on the vehicles doesn't sound like fun to me (not mention we do have it already with that 0% bug that happens every so often). I'd be ok with it if we were able to drive some of the cars we find in the wasteland, but you went down the route of only alllowing us to drive vehicles we've made or bought from traders.

As far as making changes to vehicles go, I'd like to see the 4x4 handle a lot more like a 4x4 in all fairness. Right now it feels like it has no springs.

 
Snowtrankitas at your service, m'lord.
Click to expand...
Don`t tease me with snow, man. I love winter and will even take advantage of latest faatal`s additions for some settings in 18.2 (when have time to), to see how long gonna survive in winter biome only, insane, 120min/day, SP, notnomad style.

#backontopicnow

 
Well Well Well... Looks like I missed out of the debut of the A19 Dev Diary, lol. Promising stuff, can't wait to see what makes it in. A few quick questions regarding what you've posted:

"Vehicle break down and collision system"

About the collision system, does this mean that we will get things like shopping carts and trash bags/cardboard boxes that when hit, will move? Or does this mean something else?

"Player arms in third person will no longer be stiff when moving with one handed tools, fists or weapons, instead their arms will move more naturally when they walk and run."

Always happy to see better animations, both third person and first person. Will we see better weapon animations (mainly firearms) such as better reloading for some guns, better casing ejection (the AK-47 releases 9mm casings, and the Double barreled shotgun doesn't release or have any shotgun shells in the chamber), and fixing the issues with the reloading animations going out of sync? I know that this is just an issue for some weapons, such as the bolt-action rifle and the SMG. Hopefully you guys could add in sprinting animations for when you run with weapons and tools, too.

 
I know you mentioned player animations, so would love some further attention on also dog/wolf animations so they can jump up and over blocks and maybe shake up the zombie animations so they get up and fall down more randomly.

 
Don`t tease me with snow, man. I love winter and will even take advantage of latest faatal`s additions for some settings in 18.2 (when have time to), to see how long gonna survive in winter biome only, insane, 120min/day, SP, notnomad style.
#backontopicnow
Click to expand...
Good luck with that, I'm currently living on the burned forest, but the ambiance sounds are kinda depressing lol.

 
Oh yes, one major request for Faatal,

Please optimize the trees! For the love of God, they are so intense on computers! It may be just my rig, namely my CPU as I'm running an 8th gen i3 with 3.60 GHz, but everything else should be fine as I meet (and exceed) the system requirements as they are on the steam page. Not sure if the requirements are outdated, however.

 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top