PC Alpha 19 Dev Diary

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Jugginator said:
I am known for my Arnold impersonations lol. I did an entire shift at a Pizza Hut taking every phone order doing that voice waay back when I was younger lmao, that was a grand time.
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And you know what the new gyrocopter horn has to be in a future update. ;)




Also, those do sound like good times. ;)

 
ok... don't tell anyone I told you guys this...

On your next conference call line up a few classic movie lines and when everyone is silent and bored, play one, then quickly mute your phone.

I may or may have played this particular one at some point on a team call;  https://youtu.be/ex6tVAb3cy0?t=37

But you get the idea :)

I had my boss and team fooled for a couple months, until my cat outted me by yowling while a clip was playing... which was pretty funny by itself

 
The fire station is a very good BM base with some minor modification.

The problem is, its also a major food source!

As least get rid of one of the vending machines if not both.  (or is this an Easter Egg POI?)

Or maybe I got some crazy luck as both vending machines are working and the POI is within 100 meters of the traders vending machine!

(Oh yeah, the traders Chem Station and Forge are working too!)

I might restart because its too easy!

Maybe only restock trader vending machines?

 
Aldranon said:
The fire station is a very good BM base with some minor modification.

The problem is, its also a major food source!

As least get rid of one of the vending machines if not both.  (or is this an Easter Egg POI?)

Or maybe I got some crazy luck as both vending machines are working and the POI is within 100 meters of the traders vending machine!

(Oh yeah, the traders Chem Station and Forge are working too!)

I might restart because its too easy!
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Then don't use them? Pretend they are broken.

 
MechanicalLens said:
Then grab the forget-me-stick in that case. ;)
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I had blocked  the vending maching that's in the garage in flagstone, but I latter realized that if I peek through the shelves by the wall I could still use it!  I thought "Dang!  Those guys that restock are really dedicated!"  :)  

 
So I hop on our server with my brother for some Day 1-2 looting/exloring of our town.  Wow did RWG do us a solid.  Here is a screenshot.  I know its random but it actually feels like a town with the specific POIs that spawned lol.  Not sure if its old or new, but were probably going to fortify the fire station and use it for our home / horde base.

A19.0_2020-06-30_23-40-10.jpg

fire_station_01.jpg

 
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madmole said:
Texture streaming is making it playable for all of us, even the best pc (MINE) would run out of ram quickly. We're removing the ability to not stream because not streaming is just insane and there is no benefit to not streaming, period. Sure you might see blurry textures using streaming, but that is only if you are out of vram for some weird reason, like maybe you cooked your RWG map which doesn't release all assets from memory, so remember to quit as soon as your world is done and restart the game. EXIT, not just quit to main menu.
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New Vram algorithms (drivers) are coming up for this year's RTX releases and AMD is soon to follow. That means less bumps and more stable performance for the same amount of VRAM.

I not only have to exit just after generation in order to not see squared trashcans and extra blocks everywhere, I even run out of potato juice when exploring a bit too much sometimes and things start to get "squared" again.

I wish we had an option to delay the loading screen just after generation and let the game automatically perform the reset/vram cleaning internally.

 
Laz Man said:
So I hop on our server with my brother for some Day 1-2 looting/exloring of our town.  Wow did RWG do us a solid.  Here is a screenshot.  I know its random but it actually feels like a town with the specific POIs that spawned lol.  Not sure if its old or new, but were probably going to fortify the fire station and use it for our home / horde base.

View attachment 11038

View attachment 11039
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That is really lucky, I am so busy recording stuff not had much time to explore all that much but wow it is a stunning upgraded from A18 and I am running everything maxed out just motion blur and DOF turned off as I really dont like those and at 1440P I am still getting above 60 Fps a 2070 Super

 
madmole said:
Hard drive space was killing my performance, windows likes 30% free, it doesn't matter HOW big your HD is. Mine is 1 GB SSD and I had 100MB free and it ran like @%$*#! until I got 300 GB free. You could try dynamic resolution too if you already have lots of free space.
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I am not using windows. I am running Ubuntu and the space is not a problem, with the game running  there are 53 GB  free in the SO disc.

Dynamic resolution could be an option if the game will goes above 30 fps but it never does. Run it at 15 is not good :-P.

BTW I found a way to improve the fps. With -force-vulkan option at runtime I have 30-40 fps. It is not the same of a18 but is better than nothing.

Waiting for new builds to enable the reflection and sun rays again. I understand that is not a stable version and all the new graphics need a lot of work.

 
Annihilatorza said:
@faatal Do you have any plans to fix the killing corridor that some people use to exploit that AI?

I know its a way to play but I find it so so cheesy.
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Why does a kill corridor that you have constructed and designed feel cheesy? Kill corridors are a staple of one of the main genres that defines this game: Tower Defense.

image.jpeg

 
Roland said:
Why does a kill corridor that you have constructed and designed feel cheesy? Kill corridors are a staple of one of the main genres that defines this game: Tower Defense.

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The AI sometimes does not know how to path in it and does endless loops and so is no challange, but I suppose to each their own.

I prefer them breaking them against my defences.

 
I agree endless loops and malfunctioning AI is no fun but creating a funnel and then setting up traps that slaughter the waves as they advance is what I call a kill corridor. You can have a corridor that they follow and die that does not utilize endless loops. If, in my picture above, the enemies kept looping back after going 2/3 of the way and walking through the traps over and over again until they died with no chance of breaching the base then that would not be fun but that doesn't make the corridor itself bad. The devs just need to fix behavior that isn't acting properly.

Even in your preferred style where they just break against your defenses in a ring all around your base if they stopped advancing and walked away aimlessly for no reason then your style would be no fun as well. But we wouldn't say your style was cheesy or bad--we would say the zombies are glitching.

 
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I've got to agree with those who say the junk drone's weapon is completely out of place for this setting. 

Drones have more than enough issues with weight/power ratio and you've strapped a frikkin' tesla arc thrower to it?  Regardless of the weight of capacitors required to build up such a charge the drone should drop out of the sky after firing a single shot.

 
Roland said:
I agree endless loops and malfunctioning AI is no fun but creating a funnel and then setting up traps that slaughter the waves as they advance is what I call a kill corridor. You can have a corridor that they follow and die that does not utilize endless loops. If, in my picture above, the enemies kept looping back after going 2/3 of the way and walking through the traps over and over again until they died with no chance of breaching the base then that would not be fun but that doesn't make the corridor itself bad. The devs just need to fix behavior that isn't acting properly.

Even in your preferred style where they just break against your defenses in a ring all around your base if they stopped advancing and walked away aimlessly for no reason then your style would be no fun as well. But we wouldn't say your style was cheesy or bad--we would say the zombies are glitching.
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I do use a maze style system with traps and spikes, dart traps, blade traps and the works and turrets and me shooting as well.

 
I swear I'm cursed. Day 8, and I just got my first Junk Turret and literally have yet to see a single Junk Sledge . . .

I JUST WANT TO TEST THE JUNK SLEDGE, Y U HATE ME GAME.

Blunderbuss is so much fun, and Crafting is definitely relevant again. I had a forge up and going churning out iron tools by like day 3 while my friend is still rocking stone stuff on day 8. I guess I could be nice and craft him stuff, but then he wouldn't envy int builds!

Fun fact, Junk Turret has a new shooting sound!

Roland said:
And my point was not to play the entire game without the trader but that there is no need to get to the trader on the very first day and people who are complaining that their trader was 1.7 km away and they had to waste a day running seem to me to be assuming that you must get that trader quest resolved ASAP. The only reason to complain about running all day for 2+ km is if you think that you must do it.

That's why I would like to see the trader quest come a few days later.

What if the only trader was 30km away? Would you spend every day of the first week just running non-stop or would you take your time over a few weeks always traveling towards the destination but stopping for adventures along the way?
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I'd definitely just spend the first few days holding W and Shift to get to the trader.  I do explore a bit on the way to the trader, but the reason you have to bum rush them on day 1 is because you know, 100% chance, that you are going to build your base near the trader (unless you are doing some super hardmode no trader run).

So there's not much point in exploring a ton until you get to the trader because you can't carry everything, you'll just over encumber yourself / die / get beat half to death etc and not have a base yet to drop all your stuff off at.

Usually I'll hit up a few super quick PoI if they are on the way, but I am much more concerned about getting the startings of a base up and going by the time the first night rolls around. Then during the night I can level up and start organizing storage boxes and then make my way to where my first quest is and go break down everything that isn't bolted down to drag back home.

Pump Daring Adventurer -> Go to Quest PoI and loot it -> Activate quest and reloot it -> Limp back home with 19 over encumbrance after wrenching everything that isn't bolted down and get your improved rewards and repeat.

If you are within a few hundred meters you can make bank. I had like 9K dukes by day 3 or 4, and that's with me running there most of day 1 and with me  buying his entire stock of food and drinks and candy from the vendor every morning and buying some of his interesting items like a level 1 steel shovel that proceeded to obliterate my stamina. The reward money + daring adventurer + selling things you don't want add up super fast

May just be play style difference though. I'm a number nerd, so I'm 100% about min maxing efficiency and basically only do PoI that are part of my quest or easy enough to not significantly slow me down on the way to my objective, unless I'm just exploring for fun or am clearing out PoI near my base etc.

My friend by contrast is a textbook ADHD run and gun player where he just explores what ever random PoI catches his eye and picks up basically nothing but ammo and things he knows he needs for his "never craft ever" play style like repair kits. I just follow along behind him picking up all the top tier items like rotten meat and duct tape and glue he leaves behind.

He's poorer than dirt after spending like 8 days wages to buy a 6,000 duke AK and is using stone tools while I'm in the iron age riding around on a minibike, but he has fun in his own way I guess  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I'll be merciful and craft him some stuff . . .perhaps
 

 
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