PC Alpha 20 Dev Diary

[faatal]

Oh, that sucks. Is it still on the roadmap for A21? Or is it one of those things that is just too impractical to do properly? (Sorry if I missed that conversation, it's a big thread.)

Yes, we would like to improve it. I've already spent time changing how water data is stored, but that is disabled for A20 and I don't like wasting my time, so I do plan on finishing it. There are water simulation changes we would like to make, but another programmer will probably be doing that.

 

[Fanatical_Meat]

It would be nice to have water that is less clunky and it would be great to see a waterfall (with a cave) in the game.

However I don’t see much value to super realistic water flow in this game. There simply isn’t a good use for it.

edit: to be clear if the choice is realistic water & water flow vs more performance and more zombies.

Ill choose more performance & zombies every time.

 

[AtomicUs5000]

Could someone summarize what the "Wandering Sleepers" are (as listed in the A20/21 roadmap)?
... or direct me to where it was talked about, please.
 
I must have missed discussion about it, and I tried searching but couldn't find mention of it.
 

 

[Adam the Waster]

iv been digging from in art station and found the person who dose the 7dyd zombies

and i found a few cool things some are not done but. oh well!

I also found a shark but.... i don't think thats real LMAO
 

Spoiler

Trader Noah(Up)
trader Bob(Down

thick boi

haz mat

Nurse

 

 

[Orville Tootenbacher]

It is not a percent. Destroy area mode is when they can't reach you, but it can also happen when they fall. The blocks chosen are not totally random. It looks for supports and it is randomly between the player and zed, but supports are often not near the player, so it looks in a 10x10x10 area. That is already fairly slow trying to make a quick decision on what to destroy.

Zombies types have random weighting for how much they care about block health. It creates some path variation, not radically different paths like some people want. That would require some very different rules.

Door are already weighted so zombies prefer them over walls with equal health.

The game does not know if a block is player placed. Each block only uses 8 bytes of data. With the amount of blocks in the world, it quickly adds up. I have thought about adding a bit to tell of any player placed/changed the block, but I don't even think any of those 64 bits in the 8 bytes are free. Adding a another byte means it gets slower for code to pass around because it is now bigger than the magic size of 64 bits that our processors like.

Is it possible to have some zombies not care at all about getting to player height and are in destroy area mode by default? It just seems like when they have that path up to you (usually by design) the conga line starts and everything else is ignored making it super easy to game the AI and to get them to go exactly where you want. Predicable zombies are just not very realistic

 

[faatal]

Is it possible to have some zombies not care at all about getting to player height and are in destroy area mode by default? It just seems like when they have that path up to you (usually by design) the conga line starts and everything else is ignored making it super easy to game the AI and to get them to go exactly where you want. Predicable zombies are just not very realistic

That is not as simple as it sounds. Is that a hill or a staircase or a bunch of blocks placed like a stair case or a combination of all of it. Should the AI beat the side of the hill because you are 5m up it? No. It would not make sense. So you have to looks at all those blocks, which is slow and try to figure out what the 3d cube of blocks around and between the zombie and you mean. Tons of edge cases for nonsensical behavior.

Could someone summarize what the "Wandering Sleepers" are (as listed in the A20/21 roadmap)?
... or direct me to where it was talked about, please.
 
I must have missed discussion about it, and I tried searching but couldn't find mention of it.
 

They are sleepers that move about in a small area. The will cause more overhead, but hopefully that can be balanced by optimizations that allow them to say, follow a rarely generated path with world collisions disabled.

iv been digging from in art station and found the person who dose the 7dyd zombies

and i found a few cool things some are not done but. oh well!

I also found a shark but.... i don't think thats real LMAO

We have several artists that do zombies.

There is a shark model and animations in the project, but not being used.

 

[AtomicUs5000]

They are sleepers that move about in a small area. The will cause more overhead, but hopefully that can be balanced by optimizations that allow them to say, follow a rarely generated path with world collisions disabled.

Thanks.
Will they still be tied to the POI sleeper volumes?
What gap is this idea filling? Is it for when you might look inside a POI window just to visually stir things up, or is it more about adding some difficulty for players trying to be stealthy, or something else?

 

[Adam the Waster]

There is a shark model and animations in the project, but not being used.

Yeah i had to find a few people who did it and wanted to share but..... 



Why is their a Shark model! the base game is set in Arizona. AKA a place with no ocean! a Gator would make sense but why is the shark not being uses?

Spoiler

jaws theme!

 

 

[Blake_]

That is not as simple as it sounds. Is that a hill or a staircase or a bunch of blocks placed like a stair case or a combination of all of it. Should the AI beat the side of the hill because you are 5m up it? No. It would not make sense. So you have to looks at all those blocks, which is slow and try to figure out what the 3d cube of blocks around and between the zombie and you mean. Tons of edge cases for nonsensical behavior.

They are sleepers that move about in a small area. The will cause more overhead, but hopefully that can be balanced by optimizations that allow them to say, follow a rarely generated path with world collisions disabled.

We have several artists that do zombies.

There is a shark model and animations in the project, but not being used.

Interesting [spanish accent]. Btw, what are you working on at the moment, I mean aside from optimizations?

 

[faatal]

Will they still be tied to the POI sleeper volumes?
What gap is this idea filling? Is it for when you might look inside a POI window just to visually stir things up, or is it more about adding some difficulty for players trying to be stealthy, or something else?

Yes since spawns in POIs are controlled by sleeper volumes.

So enemies can wander around. Like bandits would move about.

Why is their a Shark model! the base game is set in Arizona. AKA a place with no ocean! a Gator would make sense but why is the shark not being uses?

Because someone added it to the project many years ago. I can find all kinds of models and anims on the internet and slap them in, but artists generally like to do high quality specific case assets for their games.

Interesting [spanish accent]. Btw, what are you working on at the moment, I mean aside from optimizations?

Besides some bugs, trying to get client side block stability to be calculated to work with changes to block placement visuals.

 

[ricp]

Don't see the need for wandering sleepers, tbh. They will only impact on performance while providing very little in return. IMO, anyway.

If you don't have collision on, does that mean you can go into a house, build a set of new walls and have the zombies walking through them? Disabling the collision is sensible in terms of reducing the amount of processing they need to do but, on the flip side, to me it seems to be introducing more possible problems in regard to not much game play return (again, IMO).

Obvs, I have absolutely no insight into how the logic is working so perhaps it's an easier and less impactful addition than I am imagining it might be.

 

[bdubyah]

I love this addition. Makes no sense that every zed in every house is just chilling in a closet or on the roof. I honestly hope the wandering sleepers become the most common.

 

[Jost Amman]

Sorry to change subject so abruptly, but I've got a question for @madmole or @faatal: will the "Gasser" be in A20.

Since the texture, model and rigging are already there, I was wondering if you can add the farting special ability in time for A20 release...  ainkiller:

 

[faatal]

Don't see the need for wandering sleepers, tbh. They will only impact on performance while providing very little in return. IMO, anyway.

If you don't have collision on, does that mean you can go into a house, build a set of new walls and have the zombies walking through them? Disabling the collision is sensible in terms of reducing the amount of processing they need to do but, on the flip side, to me it seems to be introducing more possible problems in regard to not much game play return (again, IMO).

Obvs, I have absolutely no insight into how the logic is working so perhaps it's an easier and less impactful addition than I am imagining it might be.

I did mention bandits.

There are actually multiple types of collision. The collision that would be disabled is the character controller collision checks. If something entered/changed the volume then collision mode would change. We do know how to make this stuff work and if it didn't, I'd have 5 testers telling me in 1.2 seconds.

Ironically, they would possibly be cheaper that the current sleepers, which do have their character controllers on while sitting there.

Sorry to change subject so abruptly, but I've got a question for @madmole or @faatal: will the "Gasser" be in A20.

Since the texture, model and rigging are already there, I was wondering if you can add the farting special ability in time for A20 release...  ainkiller:

Not on my radar. I probably have 20 or 40 things to do before that, so likely time will run out.

 

[Adam the Waster]

I did mention bandits.

There are actually multiple types of collision. The collision that would be disabled is the character controller collision checks. If something entered/changed the volume then collision mode would change. We do know how to make this stuff work and if it didn't, I'd have 5 testers telling me in 1.2 seconds.

Ironically, they would possibly be cheaper that the current sleepers, which do have their character controllers on while sitting there.

Not on my radar. I probably have 20 or 40 things to do before that, so likely time will run out.

speaking of Gasser (aka me when i eat taco bell)


Will there be any "New" types of special zombies in the near future? (not A20)

or will it be more about bandits in the later Alphas

 

[4sheetzngeegles]

Faatal

"That is not as simple as it sounds. Is that a hill or a staircase or a bunch of blocks placed like a stair case or a combination of all of it. Should the AI beat the side of the hill because you are 5m up it? No. It would not make sense. So you have to looks at all those blocks, which is slow and try to figure out what the 3d cube of blocks around and between the zombie and you mean. Tons of edge cases for nonsensical behavior. "

This is a question brought about by your answer to the above question.

Basically it's a multiple behavior scenario.

The simplified version, I copied all of the zombie profiles multiple times
changed the name by a numeric at the end of the name. Each one I varied the parameters
of awareness "sight hearing", approach speed, and the volume of their voice like suppressed
magnum vs un-suppressed magnum, then added them to the spawns. They all use same models but
I never knew the reaction they would have. This included sleepers.

All blocks in the game can be categorized into groups or hierarchy. simplest "station created,
player placed, terrain, even prefab pois have a combination of those." Player placed can be
absorbed by station created.  

Instead of adding a weight or calculation. Can they be given a binary designation of I and O.
If that zombie is spawned, and follows the basic pathing to a specific x,y perimeter and z is
not equal. then any "I" block is destroyed, as they move more "I" blocks are within sphere to
be destroyed.

Call it the "Foreman Zombie" heat is generated at an expedited rate by this type of zombie's
activities, bringing next level zombies such as wights, cops, demolishers. These zombies favor
non line of sight, so it would draw a player from safety to get rid of them before the rest come.
The crew drawn by this zombie would be cloned models, but follow the same logic as the Foreman.
Destroy area.

Would this add a lot of overhead.

 

[RBN]

I must gives my kudos to @faatal and all the coders stuff for the optimization work.

In my humble A-10 with a rx580 i get for first time over 60 sometimes and over 50 most of the time. Sometimes it fall to 30-40 during a second but....this was the normal i was having before (only above 40 in base or mines). Also when you open containers doesn't get stuck for a second like in the past.

I don't have a blood moon yet but the first impression of this alpha is very good

Very good work.

Congratulations.

 

[MestreJoe]

Can you tell us if there's some fixes about FPS drop and crashes?

Thank you in advance!

 

[MechanicalLens]

Oy! Y'all are slacking, especially you Adam, so here ya go!

https://twitter.com/x/status/1394843596130603010

 

[hotpoon]

Really looking forward to seeing these wandering sleepers. I miss the constant moving zombies from A15. A16's combo of sleepers and movers was great too, but right now the world seems too quiet and lonely with all the zombies sleeping in cupboards and rafters.