PC Alpha 21 Dev Diary

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faatal said:
The water simulation is completely new code. It flows into neighbor blocks that are marked to allow it, like into air blocks.  Water is no longer a block. It is a water voxel, which means the water voxel can be in the same place as a block, so you could have water flowing into and past grass, a fence or a pole block.

The game is not a real water simulator. The new water sim is designed to be performant and work in a basic fashion that makes sense for our game play.
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isn't water also a voxel in minecraft?

 
faatal said:
Voxels are just cubes of data with the world being full of those cubes. Blocks are voxels, but we call them blocks. Water is no longer a block, it is separate data, so it is no longer a block voxel, but a water voxel.
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Hi faatal! I have a few questions regarding water:

1. Does it allow for you guys to create rivers and waterfalls without any visual or performance problems?

2. How does "placing a block inside the new water voxel" work? Does the voxel disappear and the other voxels go around or does it have another behaviour altogether?

3. Does the new water allow for stuff like SS Reflections, other advanced dynamic reflections,  and/or even shadow and fancy volumetric ray reflections or other post-processing shenanigans?

4. Are swimming animations or other underwater animations (like combat)  planned for players and npcs?

5. Have you guys talked about improvements for underwater gameplay, like kelp, rocks, or dangers (sharks, piranhas, Snowdog in a swimsuit)?

6. In your opinion, how much better will the new water be in terms of performace compared to the current one at top graphics?

Thank you in advance.

 
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I recall reading somewhere that the docks POI is restricted to only Navezgane. Would the water overhaul allow docks to be added to RWG?

 
Morloc said:
If I can build a gyrocopter in my base, I should be able to build a printing press!

Take THAT balance!

👻

-Arch Necromancer Morloc 💀
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Dude you can already walk around with enough steel, iron and cement to build a large almost skyscraper. Your hands should be more than strong enough to grind up and compress some wood pulp.

 
Morloc said:
If I can build a gyrocopter in my base, I should be able to build a printing press!

Take THAT balance!

👻

-Arch Necromancer Morloc 💀
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You won’t be able to build that gyrocopter until you read enough of the right magazine.
 

You will also be able to craft a printing press if you can find and read enough of that magazine. Good Luck!

 
faatal said:
The water simulation is completely new code. It flows into neighbor blocks that are marked to allow it, like into air blocks.  Water is no longer a block. It is a water voxel, which means the water voxel can be in the same place as a block, so you could have water flowing into and past grass, a fence or a pole block.

The game is not a real water simulator. The new water sim is designed to be performant and work in a basic fashion that makes sense for our game play.
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I guess this means no longer picking up water blocks in survival after an explosion dropped 'em... ;)

Although in fairness, that bug was fixed :D

 
faatal said:
Yes, I added block tech that allows some mesh "sides" to be opaque and others transparent, so a window block can have a frame and glass with each being in the chunk's combines meshes, instead of each window being a separate prop, which did make for a lot of draw calls. Allan has made many window blocks using this tech for the POIs.
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Yup! I've already converted all of the store windows to shapes which has saved 1000's of draw calls. Downtown areas should be a bit more performant now.

I've also added several other window shapes to support some new POI's coming up.

As time permits, I'd like to expand the store window set for trimming doors and different placement orientations like a 45° angle set.

All will be player usable from the shape menu. Once Shawn is done with a few pending code changes, the glass can be smashed to downgrade to a broken version, repair back to the full glass version, and upgradable to another material. 

...AND THE FRAMES CAN BE PAINTED!!! YAY!!! :D

image.png

 
so on twitter it was mentioned that all the trader compounds were getting redone and made bigger

Will A21 trader compounds still have broken crafting stations( i.e forges, chem stations, cement mixers)

And if so, will we be able to fix these stations as our trader stage goes up?

like will we get special quests to go out and get parts/items to fix the workstations so we can use them?

 
If we allowed players free access to usable workstations, they could skip over big steps of the game's progression. We've "talked" about the idea of allowing players to rent them, but that's a HUGE maybe later down the road. I'd personally like to see a repair quest for them, but we've got bigger things to finish up first.

With the new crafting system magazines, these broken workstations are a great place to find Forge Ahead magazines (improves workstation crafting skill) so you can build your own. No longer are you forced to pick up the advanced engineering perks for the workstations.

 
schwanz9000 said:
If we allowed players free access to usable workstations, they could skip over big steps of the game's progression. We've "talked" about the idea of allowing players to rent them, but that's a HUGE maybe later down the road. I'd personally like to see a repair quest for them, but we've got bigger things to finish up first.

With the new crafting system magazines, these broken workstations are a great place to find Forge Ahead magazines (improves workstation crafting skill) so you can build your own. No longer are you forced to pick up the advanced engineering perks for the workstations.
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 I am not asking for free access, but rather to have the ability to one day repair and use them.

It  would be nice if after you have unlocked tier 4 or 5 quest, you could get special quest from the traders to fix up there workstations?

I totatlly understand how it could skip early game progression, but would it be so bad if it was locked towards the later stages of the game when you would already have most of this stuff anyways?

and yeah,I don't expect stuff like this to be in A21, but maybe in the furute? A22?

what if one of the requirements for these special quest to fix the trader work benches was to already own one(proof that you know how to fix/repair it)

 
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schwanz9000 said:
Yup! I've already converted all of the store windows to shapes which has saved 1000's of draw calls. Downtown areas should be a bit more performant now.

I've also added several other window shapes to support some new POI's coming up.

As time permits, I'd like to expand the store window set for trimming doors and different placement orientations like a 45° angle set.

All will be player usable from the shape menu. Once Shawn is done with a few pending code changes, the glass can be smashed to downgrade to a broken version, repair back to the full glass version, and upgradable to another material. 

...AND THE FRAMES CAN BE PAINTED!!! YAY!!! :D

View attachment 25110
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That is awesome ! Thank you !

 
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