PC Alpha 19 Dev Diary

Status
Not open for further replies.
Can we get scrap on workbench to yield 100% material? It always irked me that I could melt stuff down to get 100% material back, but there was no way of doing so for non-forge materials such as leather, mechanical and electric parts.

 
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...
Not at all. Ravenhearst's mod author's wife (hi shorty!) plays it obsessively, and there's a few other women active in the Ravenhearst community, more than elsewhere in my experience. Maybe all the decoration options it gives attracts them? Maybe it's just confirmation bias. And don't get me wrong, that's one of the main reasons I am attracted to it. See

I'd rotate the tree trunk table 180 degrees. It's unbalanced that way, and you can always bolt it to the wall for stability.

 
Just use Nitrogen. I'm playing a sp 12k map with compopack, and just found both Dishon and and Hitachi Pharmacuticals across from each other and I'm not seeing any significant framerate issues, and great rwg generation.
What I don't get is why vanilla rwg hasn't improved on any of the point releases. I thought those guys were dedicated to the rwg work, and they must have been doing something in the last 2 months.

I really dislike the barren hills and mountains, making some parts of the world look like a throwback to 1995 when they couldn't add deco to games. I live in the mountains, and at 3200 feet above sea level and am surrounded by trees and bushes.

I hated resorting to Nitrogen to get a bigger and improved world gen because I couldn't really provide test world gen feedback anymore, but the barren slopes are just so damned ugly.

@Madmole Has rwg development made any progress or improvements that can be added to the release branch? Make me want to try it again.

Also, if any of the new zombie normal maps are done that would make a nice visual upgrade advert for the holiday season. Toss santa hats on them in a group pose, and your holiday advertising is done.

Hmm.. along those lines, for the holiday season maybe unlock the santa hat and candy cane shiv again, and maybe reskin the loot bag to look like its gift wrapped with a bow?
Click to expand...
RWG changes always force a restart which is not something TFP will do for point releases. Anything that would require people to abandon their current save will be kept back until the next major release.

 
One of my vehicle test mods increases headlight brightness, so that is pretty much done.
Click to expand...
It can even be spawned on alpha 18 and used...

- - - Updated - - -

Very nice. Does that mean we can fiddle with brightness via XML now?
Just because you know someone will say they want it brighter.
Click to expand...
I have used it on alpha 18. This is what the mod does:

Code: 
              <effect_group tiered="false">
                       <passive_effect name="LightIntensity" operation="perc_set" value="1.8"/>
               </effect_group>
- - - Updated - - -

Will the traders have a black friday sale?
Click to expand...
In 7d2d, every day is black friday. You never have to go to work in the next day, and everyone is acting crazy.

 
I do not think you should be able to pickup a vehicle once it has been placed (bicycle yes). Cars get stuck, and you have to dig it out. And sometimes they can not be. I have a friend that will drive the 4x4 through mountain terrain, and then when he gets stuck just pick it up and put it down and of he goes. Sorry that is BS. Terrain should be a factor, and unforgiving if abused. Will I be pissed when it happen to me... yep, but I tested fate and lost.
Click to expand...
What about getting stuck between the road and the curb, due to the block/terrain dip? And then have it start to destroy the gravel until it's lying on top of stone. Has that ever happened to your friend? And then you can't destroy the terrain to move it, because the hitbox of the vehicle is overlapping the terrain, so you can only hit the vehicle. I bet your friend doesn't have that problem. And nothing hypothetical here, all of this happened in game to me.

 
What about getting stuck between the road and the curb, due to the block/terrain dip? And then have it start to destroy the gravel until it's lying on top of stone. Has that ever happened to your friend? And then you can't destroy the terrain to move it, because the hitbox of the vehicle is overlapping the terrain, so you can only hit the vehicle. I bet your friend doesn't have that problem. And nothing hypothetical here, all of this happened in game to me.
Click to expand...
The picking up of vehicles doesnt bother me mostly since I play SP. Also, since game is still in Alpha, the function is helpful. Perhaps once gold it can be removed if loss of vehicles due to world geometry is mostly non exisitent.

 
RWG changes always force a restart which is not something TFP will do for point releases. Anything that would require people to abandon their current save will be kept back until the next major release.
Click to expand...
Not really.

There are two parts to the world generation:

Creating the world files (static once a world was created) and the local details such as vegetation, ores etc (generated at runtime when entering a new area).

The part that generates the world files only needs to run when a gameworld was started the first time. After that its not relevant anymore.

So updates to it would not break existing games. As long as the world file formats dont change, but they are almost the same since A17.

Once the server has the world files, the clients can later download the maps again - without RWG having anything to do with it.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Not really.There are two parts to the world generation:

Creating the world files (static once a world was created) and the local details such as vegetation, ores etc (generated at runtime when entering a new area).

The part that generates the world files only needs to run when a gameworld was started the first time. After that its not relevant anymore.

So updates to it would not break existing games. As long as the world file formats dont change, but they are almost the same since A17.

Once the server has the world files, the clients can later download the maps again - without RWG having anything to do with it.
Click to expand...
Interesting. I'm curious, what would cause an update sorta break my rwg made by your tool? By breaking, I had weird... textures... like marble plates, random blocks and the like that yo ucould walk right through aroudn the poi house I took over and in a large radius of POIs. Also, at bedrock under my house and base, there was... I can't describe it... like ground and roads waay down there. They weren't even textured fully really, but they were there. My memory usage increased by a good 1.5 to 2 gigs too. The weird textures (most) went away after a couple reloads, but the rest of it all stayed.

Just curious.

 
OMG I love Nitrogen! I am playing in a MASSIVE city, sky-crappers everywhere. Too sweet! And OMG I have stores again, working stiff, pill, the old big crack a book, town-hall. All those buildings I never see in RGW anymore!
Click to expand...
Yeah Nitrogen is the best!

All praise to Damocles! :)

 
Madmole, how do you like the idea of ​​adding perk, you press the book on ctrl: go to stealth mode, go to the mine and by clicking on it neutralize it.

 
there's an ETA for the vulkan api support? it's just been implemented but never finished

and the alpha 19 will be an addition of things (just that) or a major optimization update?

 
I do not think you should be able to pickup a vehicle once it has been placed (bicycle yes). Cars get stuck, and you have to dig it out. And sometimes they can not be. I have a friend that will drive the 4x4 through mountain terrain, and then when he gets stuck just pick it up and put it down and of he goes. Sorry that is BS. Terrain should be a factor, and unforgiving if abused. Will I be pissed when it happen to me... yep, but I tested fate and lost.
Click to expand...
The moment you're trying to dig out your 4x4 and all you hit is the vehicle itself because: hitboxes.

As most people like to write it like a mantra: "this game is still in alpha" and "maybe if it's gold".

 
RWG changes always force a restart which is not something TFP will do for point releases. Anything that would require people to abandon their current save will be kept back until the next major release.
Click to expand...
This is new then because in the past on older alphas rwg did change and did force restarts.

RWG itself though shouldn't force a restart, but you wouldn't atually see the generational improvements unless you rolled a new world. If blocks or density changes were made that would make sense to firce a restart, but not just a world with road, landscape or placement improvements.

(That said, the last update DID change something because 1 hit trees are overpopulating existing worlds right now causing another performance hit.)

Microsplat is obviously causing a lot of performance issues with a lot of the user base. At what point do you evaluate its appearance benefits vs the performance hit? A prettier environment is nice, but not at the sacrifice of world entity population an navigation woes. Lack of things like rivers and such that did work in older alphas should also be considered.

It sounds like a19 won't have rwg improvements as well from the OP of features, but I can now seak to using Nirogen Vs vamilla, and while the world might not look as realistic, having a better road generation system and having to navigate or deal with rivers makes a HUGE difference play wise.

I've had to build bridges again to cross rivers, and was encouraged to get the gyro to deal with them even easier. I always considered the gyro a recon vehicle until a18, but now its my go to vehicle because cross country navigation is a PITA with microsplat bumps, and it'll be even worse with vehicle damage in place. Gas is so precious now I'm even ignoring the 4x4, because I don't want to spend half a day mining or wrenching cars to feed it.

The other play systems like looting are the best they have ever been, but the world generation (while it looks nicer) is almost the worst it been in years, with pois not being generated (or are so rare you never see them) with roads being impassible combined with terrain thats also difficult to traverse. Hillsides devoid of deco look like something from 15 years ago, and the tiled textures from the distance look like something from the nes.

You've done a massively good job with optimization in the a18 cycle, but if microsplat was removed we could have bigger hordes and lifeless cities teeming with the undead again. The world feels very empty while traversing it, and I'm not sure the event system will help with that when you are covering ground.

Nitrogen has also showed me that 12k worlds DO work and will play just fine, and make vehicular travel worthwhile again. Crossing a map in a day feels like the old console versions we upgraded to get away from.

Maybe the team needs to divert resources to rwg improvements to get it up to snuff with the rest of the game now?

At the least I'd like to see hill deco return (we can barely navigate them with vehicles anyway as it stands now) and something needs to be done with that tiled distant terrain texture.. maybe add flip, rotate, and mirror to its tiling texture generation to break it up some like Minecraft does?

Once the luster of looting starts to fade, the lack of world entity population world generation shortcomings starts to become more and more apparent and annoying.

Sorry for the longish post (I know Madmole dislikes them) but I've been getting these opinions more and more in the last few weeks of a18 gameplay.

Gameplay is far more important that cosmetic appearance, and the rwg shouldn't take a backseat to appease an artist who doesn't realize that.

 
I do not think you should be able to pickup a vehicle once it has been placed (bicycle yes).
Click to expand...
While I agree, the fact is the game still has world generation issues and there are still vehicle bugs so we need the option. A gyro can hang a wheel on a deco on the ground, or wonky flying can land you vertical on top of a trashbin next to a building. Vehicles and get stuck underwater and water physics don't allow for that to be drained.

There are numerous reasons why we still need to be able to pick up vehicles, and its very beneficial to drop the motorcycle in the gyro, fly over that bumpy terrain with umpassable road inclines, and then replace it and explore a new area on the motorcycle.

Once we don't have those issues it could be revisited, but not in the state of alpha we have now.

You can (if I'm not mistaken) remove vehicle pickup in easy xml text edits, but I promise you that your server moderator will be dealing with player's vehicle issues a LOT.

 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top