PC Alpha 20 Dev Diary

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Why can the gravedigger and ironbreaker mods be used on a stun baton but burning shaft and barbed wire mods cannot?
Well, IMO it makes sense because the fire or the barbed wire would create problems to the electrical part.

 
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Bandits in vehicles is near the bottom of my list of what they need to do. You know what happens to the bottom of game dev lists? They generally get cut, but it could happen.
I'm hearing what you're saying... but as a problem solver I feel the idea has already been solved: Scrap all the bandit work, and ... simply make the vehicles the bandits!  I made a quick demo video of how this would look, using a lot of the horror/darker/gritty elements of 7D2D, with a small backstory and a few up and coming from my local theater group who are obviously working without pay for the exposure. From my perspective, all you would need to do is add the AI to the vehicles. its so simple it .. just... might... work!





 
loving everything new with the random gen but the amount of tier 4 and tier 5 pois seems to be lacking when i generate worlds for example in a18 and a19 i would get like 7 factory's, 4 apartments and a few skyscrapers but seeing in a world gen previewer tool most worlds i generate only have like 4 or 5 tier 5 pois 

 
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It had nothing to do with the map or blocks. It was raycasts failing briefly from mesh colliders updating, so the turret would see "ground" father below and rapidly move to it. The more a mesh was being updated by say damage, the more often it happened. This fix will be in our next experimental.
I think something related to this has been causing players to keep "bumping up" during the more intense hours of blood moon, looking like the camera is shaking. At least it has been my experience that turrets feel through the blocks after these "bumping" episodes.

 
Wonder how the AI for bandits will be handled. Adding a more intelligent enemy to this kind of game really hasn't ever been done before.


zeds w/ voice lines and guns. expect nothing, still get disappointed. life motto.

I heard a lot of people complaining about intelligent enemies during A17 ;)


cant wait 4 intelligent enemies™ running up ramps and falling down pits in endless loops :^)

 
zeds w/ voice lines and guns. expect nothing, still get disappointed. life motto.

cant wait 4 intelligent enemies™ running up ramps and falling down pits in endless loops :^)


Zombies get into that loop because they are mindless monsters just trying to get at you. Bandits won't need to have a simple target and attack player as the AI task. They can have coding to have them give up and retreat or fire rocket launchers from a distance. If bandits just run loops, I will be surprised and disappointed but I'm willing to keep some hope in my heart. :)

 
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Maybe a few weeks.

Bandits in vehicles is near the bottom of my list of what they need to do. You know what happens to the bottom of game dev lists? They generally get cut, but it could happen.
Well, you did the vehicle code an will do the bandit behaviour. I think you are the right person to buttlick in order to get to that bottom-list feature. And bandits on rafts and helicopters for second from the bottom !! . Make sure to snatch some animators to work with for those features, lol. 

Trader Rekt eating a big earn of corn while sitting on a pink chair musn't be at the bottom list either. That feature should be up top right below bandits IMHO.

 
meh...when you hope but then are disappointed you only suffer once. When you worry and then your worries are confirmed you suffer twice. :)


Do you hope next year your students will be better than the last?

I'm sure you heard this one: A teacher said he loves teaching, he just hates the students!

Don't worry my dad was a teacher, I know everything!

 
A teacher said he loves teaching, he just hates the students!
Nah, it is not a hate, but understanding and tolerate the human form in front of you.

Everyone have it`s moments, no matter age. Kids also, and they have many, minding the complicated world they grew up in, rather than many, for who is easy to just judge them and put them aside from their goals. Dad was a teacher also.

P.S. When are A21 release notes going out ? 

*running away* 

 
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Fun fact: There's no video game out there with a vanilla non-scripted general-purpose bandit AI that seeks cover, surrounds, throws grenades, heals/retreats when damaged, communicates between each other, targets and follows the player through a Multiplayer voxel world in a believable manner.

Most advanced ones just move to the player and target him/her while following him/her with significant glitches, like Empyrion. There are also scripted ones , that have a bit of brain but within a very limited area. Some non-voxel games do achieve some of those features, like Rust, with scripted and area-limited NPC AI working in Multiplayer.

 
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It's been a long time since I played it, but half Life's soldiers seemed to make a decent effort at cover, etc. I know that wasn't a voxel game, though.

 
@faatal : I think you guys might be interested in resolving this (minor) but flabbergasting issue!

(I linked a Steam discussion where the exploit/bug is explained)
That's a lot of effort someone would have to go through for no gain whatsoever.  Of course, you can use the same knowledge of the spawn radius to control exactly where the Zs will spawn and where they won't e.g., a 30m long pier out into a lake, a 100x100 paved over area with soil cutouts surrounded by turrets to kill them the moment they spawn... I've built both and neither are particularly rewarding experiences other than knowing that I can.

I mean sure it's a little exploit-ish, but the obvious fixes would be game breaking. Allow them to spawn on top of player blocks and there's no longer any protection for crafting bases and everyone is forced to build them underground or well outside of the spawn radius. Allow them to spawn in the water and you end up with a lag fest as entire waves slowly swim through a much more complicated pathing scenario. Allow them to spawn in the air and LOL. Force more super vultures to spawn and you've got another easy turret farm. Make the vultures even more super and you break every base type that's not a pit drop. See the Succubi in Darkness Falls on max settings in the Wasteland for example.  Increase the spawn radius and you've got another ram chewing lag fest.

I'm a huge fan of the AI in this game, the 'intelligence' randomization [chefs kiss]. It's really quite good and I enjoy finding ways to exploit it, but all intelligences are exploitable. Which is why there were "killing corridors" in castles for thousands of years. I can tell you already that the more 'intelligent' bandit ai will also be exploitable because of similar spawning constraints, maximum pathing lengths per cycle, detection limits and lines of sight. Their only saving grace being the random spawn mechanic of wandering hordes and catching the player in the field unprepared.

There will always be exploits and I don't honestly think that it's worth the time and effort to attempt to address the ones that aren't super easy and convenient for the player to achieve like the "zombie force field" or the more common "drop loop", both of which can be built before the first blood moon and allow the player to profit in exp and loot in complete safety.  Building a 51m high platform is the equivalent of ticking off horde nights and doesn't allow profit, so why bother?

 
Holy BMX Bikeriding Murder Bike, Batman! It's alive!

Fun fact: There's no video game out there with a vanilla non-scripted general-purpose bandit AI that seeks cover, surrounds, throws grenades, heals/retreats when damaged, communicates between each other, targets and follows the player through a Multiplayer voxel world in a believable manner.

Most advanced ones just move to the player and target him/her while following him/her with significant glitches, like Empyrion. There are also scripted ones , that have a bit of brain but within a very limited area. Some non-voxel games do achieve some of those features, like Rust, with scripted and area-limited NPC AI working in Multiplayer.
so close... other than the grenades and a few pesky voxels... never, ever give these things grenades

pacman-ghosts.jpg


 
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