PC Alpha 21 Dev Diary

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Neminsis said:
More bells and whistles would be nice, but the Zs were deliberately dumbed down because players were complaining about how smart they were. If I'm not mistaken, you're more likely to get those really dumb Zs if your cpu is busy doing something else when it comes time to update their pathing. I see them a lot more when people are streaming or recording than I ever do when I've only got the game running alone.
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AI are only perceived stupid or perceived intelligent. In fact AI are much simpler than we think.

For example, in the development of the first Halo, Microsoft set up two different ones for a test game. The AI was exactly the same but in one version the enemies had more HP and dealt more damage than in the other. The test players considered the AI in this version to be more intelligent.

 
Games'n'Grumble said:
@schwanz9000 perhaps you can answer? Are there plans to add new textures for coloring? Or replacing some old textures? For example, this one (in the screenshot) I can't imagine in ordinary POIs, except for some... specific. Because it is too... what should I call it... too expressive. If a farmer, a football player and several other zombies were removed from the game because they could be too rare in the world, according to this logic, and such a texture should be replaced with something? Maybe add more wallpaper for living spaces? (please) You can also consider some other textures (for example, 3 types of awning). What do you think?🙏

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Your problem is with that wallpaper but not the concrete texture right next to it being used to represent dry wall?

 
Syphon583 said:
I'm convinced that the only reason hotels choose hideous carpet patterns is to hide dirt and spills so they don't have to clean/replace the carpet as often.
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Ding ding ding ding we have a winner!

Zombiepoptard said:
Your problem is with that wallpaper but not the concrete texture right next to it being used to represent dry wall?
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Could be paint chipped off concrete wall, or drywall, or plaster.... The ceiling? Now that IS concrete! But That's common in Condo/Hotel buildings. Sometimes even in single family residential built in hurricane prone areas they use prestressed concrete slabs in construction. Expensive but nice if you can afford it.

 
Zombiepoptard said:
Your problem is with that wallpaper but not the concrete texture right next to it being used to represent dry wall?
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To be fair, @Games'n'Grumble did say "For example" referencing the red patterned wallpaper, and he didn't say he actually liked the blue texture on the other wall.  I don't care for either texture, and don't ever use them in my builds.

@schwanz9000 says we'll get other textures later, but not just yet. Kind of low on the prioriy list, But when they do roll out (or roll on) the new options I hope they won't be as weathered and stained as some of the current ones. 

 
Janarah said:
So far as rads go, Chernobyl is a good example to look at, five or so years isn't going to do much for radioactive decay, but that's a rather moot point when I am pretty sure radiation isn't even a real threat in vanilla so far as I've noticed.
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Yes, I'm no radiation-safety expert, but a failed nuclear power plant seems to present a significant continuing threat, where as with the nuclear weapons there are a number of factors at play (altitude, payload), and the radioactivity/fallout seems to fall off (decay) significantly over 15-30 days. If the game world is only to represent nuclear weapons, I think the effects of radiation on our characters would probably mean an increased chance of cancer in later life. Around Day 10,000 perhaps a debuff? :)  Or make it more aggressive. That's an "end game" folks probably weren't expecting.

We do have irradiated zombies with special abilities. I don't think that implies they are radioactive, just that past events have made them glow, etc.

 
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Janarah said:
So far as rads go, Chernobyl is a good example to look at, five or so years isn't going to do much for radioactive decay,
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Chernobyl is a great example of how radioactive particles settle into the soil and the most dangerous materials decay quickly as the area is regularly travelled through but you're warned not to dig or kick up dust.
 

Janarah said:
I can understand mutations, like on the behemoths for example, having denser bones and possible thickened skin and what not
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So, your actual issue is that the Zs don't look like they should be able to break the blocks, if they all looked like the behemoth, you'd be fine with it?
 

Janarah said:
But it should be doable.
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Well yeah, they could have artists do all sorts of special blocks that could be sat around like cooking pots, but then those artists would need to be paid, and every one of them is going to come with a performance cost.
 

Janarah said:
I have noticed the game has greatly improved on voxel loading, and I personally have no issues driving at full speed across the map
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One of the things they did that helped with that was reducing the number of voxels in the world. There are approximately 16 billion voxels in the world, most of them being non interactable air blocks, and that's after reducing the depth of the ground. Every interactable item in the game comes with a performance cost.
 

Janarah said:
So far as traps, yeah, they are kind of just nice bells and whistles, but a variety allows people to make up their defenses in unique and different ways.
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I get it, more graphical variation, everyone wants more, and there can never be enough, but we're back to paying the artists and every interactable thing coming with a performance cost. They're not going to prioritize too many bells and whistles until after the game goes gold.
 

Janarah said:
There are of course the dart traps, but so far as I can tell they aren't terribly effective
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They're more effective when combined with electric fences and more ammo efficient when set on a trigger.
 

Janarah said:
Or a floor trap which launches zeds away from the base
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Pretty much exactly what the sledgehammer turret already does.
 

Janarah said:
wouldn't mind seeing a host of new zeds
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There are mods out there that do just this, and again, I don't expect much expansion of the bells and whistles in vanilla until after the game goes gold. They have too many issues to solve before then.

 
Gosh, you guys have it all figured out on how to ‘fix’ this game. Please make a mod with all those suggestions since it’s just a little c#, some Unity assets and some art. Should be a piece of cake, right? Very easy stuff. ( /s for those who need it said).

 
Probably a Kin question...

Any way to get Biome Restrictions working in RWG yet? I know the AllowedBiomes property doesn't work and will likely be phased out as it's old code, but snooping in the DLL, there should have been a way to limit either tiles or POI's by biome, but they don't seem to work properly.

So i'm HOPING that's on the cards for an A21 fix as I kinda rely on that for progression ;)

 
NO! Never turn off Occlusion. That option needs to be removed. Turning that off will keep more things loaded making it worse. How this became a recommended thing is beyond me. 

Spiral said:
Any client performance improvements this patch the fps is actually just getting worse every patch
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Yes! The team is constantly looking at things under the hood to improve performance. As said by several devs, you need to know that there is not one simple thing that will be the magic button to better performance/FPS. It will be a ton of tiny little things from here to Gold to optimize.

 
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