PC Bring Back the Plains

Yeah, if it can only handle so many, they should work on that.

And Odetta, that actually looks pretty good.

 
If you mean the OLD plains, sure.

If you mean that ugly, scrubby one we had in A16 with all the little cactuses and vultures everywhere, forget it, good riddance.

 
I made this as proof of concept, It's playable but I was limited in what I could do with XML so it doesn't look that good. I replaced the burnt forest biome with this. The distant terrain is horrible looking. I wish the pimps would bring it back because I know they'd make it look super amazing.
https://ibb.co/album/h5RHBF - Original Resolution

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the distant-terrains looks bad just because you use textures from "Dirt", if you put textures from the plains there everything looked as usual. Well, some more color adjustments. When i did this, i didn't notice any problems with shaders that couldn't be solved. Do not believe them - noodles on ears hang up (i hate it....).

lying won't do any good.

my assets now contain about 40 different textures for terrans, the difficulties are simply due to adjus the color and intensity settings of normal maps.

https://7daystodie.com/forums/showthread.php?86145-HDHQ-Textures-Lighting-Environment&p=958645&viewfull=1#post958645

If you mean the OLD plains, sure.
If you mean that ugly, scrubby one we had in A16 with all the little cactuses and vultures everywhere, forget it, good riddance.
of course... very strange was to see that they have made with plains in A16. There was an opinion that they made it purposely what to show what sh*t they can make.

 
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the distant-terrains looks bad just because you use textures from "Dirt", if you put textures from the plains there everything looked as usual. Well, some more color adjustments. When i did this, i didn't notice any problems with shaders that couldn't be solved. Do not believe them - noodles on ears hang up (i hate it....).

lying won't do any good.

my assets now contain about 40 different textures for terrans, the difficulties are simply due to adjus the color and intensity settings of normal maps.

https://7daystodie.com/forums/showthread.php?86145-HDHQ-Textures-Lighting-Environment&p=958645&viewfull=1#post958645
But there is no "plains texture" in the XML. Unless it got changed to something else.

 
But there is no "plains texture" in the XML. Unless it got changed to something else.
Yes - they are absent. But some textures (which you do not use, clay as example) can be replaced by old texture from the plains with the help of UABE. This is simple way. Just load your own texture into an existing resource.

 
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In that quote provided by TSBX, Madmole said that plains could be used as a sub-biome. Is that currently the case? I’d rather see plains return as a main biome and for burnt forest to become a sub-biome of forest.

 
In that quote provided by TSBX, Madmole said that plains could be used as a sub-biome. Is that currently the case? I’d rather see plains return as a main biome and for burnt forest to become a sub-biome of forest.
No, they completely removed it from their files, along with the brown maples and birch trees. Why not just leave in there for modders? I have no idea in the slightest. They left a lot of junk in there but take out some really useful stuff. Logics

- - - Updated - - -

Yes - they are absent. But some textures (which you do not use, clay as example) can be replaced by old texture from the plains with the help of UABE. This is simple way. Just load your own texture into an existing resource.
Is there a way I can grab those files without having to re-download 16.4?

 
No, they completely removed it from their files, along with the brown maples and birch trees. Why not just leave in there for modders? I have no idea in the slightest. They left a lot of junk in there but take out some really useful stuff. Logics
Some trees are still in the resources ... you need UABE to find out their names :) .

Is there a way I can grab those files without having to re-download 16.4?
It is useful to have archives of all Alphas.

 
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If the game engine's core can only handle a few biomes seems to be a restriction of the technology... was this a consequence of the new Unity engine? If so, seems like the upgrade had a price (among others that have also been pinned on the unity engine). I know it was a long port, but it makes one wonder if the new engine is even right for the game (it should be, so it's hard to understand how Unity's newer version is less functional than the old).

 
If the game engine's core can only handle a few biomes seems to be a restriction of the technology... was this a consequence of the new Unity engine? If so, seems like the upgrade had a price (among others that have also been pinned on the unity engine). I know it was a long port, but it makes one wonder if the new engine is even right for the game (it should be, so it's hard to understand how Unity's newer version is less functional than the old).
I think the engine had nothing to do with it. Just like before. I'd say "bad carpenter blames his tools" but that doesn't quite fit our developers. Just who have the bad habit to explain everything not the actual state of affairs and made-up reasons. This isn't the first time.

...maybe it's his character, but still - i like this bearded man :) .

 
In that quote provided by TSBX, Madmole said that plains could be used as a sub-biome. Is that currently the case? I’d rather see plains return as a main biome and for burnt forest to become a sub-biome of forest.
I agree with the burnt forest. Too much of that at times. However, I would be ok with plains as a sub-biome. If I set up a base in a forest, it essentially becomes the plains in a couple of weeks anyway. I would much rather see new biomes that have significantly different features... particularly a swamp biome that actually looks like a swamp-- trees in shallow water, tons of them fallen and rotting, vines hanging down, murky water. Perhaps water snakes could be a quick an easy variation of a classic enemy if gators are undesirable to include. My biggest desire would be a new zombie covered in moss and mud.

When making POIs, you cannot place sleeper zombies in water. You can do things like spawn them in above water so that they fall into water when they spawn, and they will sleep until woken as usual... but it would be nice if they improved that. Then, they could even make outdoor swamp POIs with sleepers in the murky, shallow water. Imagine trudging through the swamp and seeing zombies stand up out of the water around you?

In the end though, even if no new biomes are added, or no biomes added back in, I do hope they at least make it reasonable for modders to create additional biomes and work them in. In the very least, it would be good if they just left some placeholders to work with.

 
I was just correcting the misinformation provided by zombo. Literally fake news.
EDIT: To hell with biome texture meshing, we need 10+ biomes. I don't care how bad it looks.
How was that fake news when madmole says it will be a sub-biome. You don't need those exact ground textures to do the plains biome, the lighting\plants, landscape design is more important then the missing old texture. And who's to say in time they won't figure out a way to have more textures anyways?

But if you need to believe they will NEVER have a new biome, I can't stop you from that, but I think you will be shown to be very wrong in due time.

 
I agree with the burnt forest. Too much of that at times. However, I would be ok with plains as a sub-biome. If I set up a base in a forest, it essentially becomes the plains in a couple of weeks anyway.
You....you...don't.....REPLANT?!?!?!!?

#virtualworlddeforestation

 
You....you...don't.....REPLANT?!?!?!!?

#virtualworlddeforestation
I make it a point to kill every tree in a slowly and ever expanded radius around my base to further my line of sight from the base, out to the limits of the distant terrain drawing (ok, I've never actually made it that far, but ONE DAY I WILL!!!!!!!) ;-)

 
You....you...don't.....REPLANT?!?!?!!?

#virtualworlddeforestation
Yes, I do... I replant a ton. I just replant a ring around my base beyond the render distance. Too many trees near base causes lag.

EDIT: They also get in the way of shots and seeing what's coming (the main reason for wanting to build in the plains)

 
A19 might see proper radiated game play and we would delete biomes before adding any more. To me its rather immersion breaking changing biomes too frequently. I hope to have a global precipitation system for A19 right now you can just leave the biome and avoid the weather and its kind of immersion breaking its raining in one biome and not the other. It would snow in the snow biome.
Not looking good...

 
A19 might see proper radiated game play and we would delete biomes before adding any more. To me its rather immersion breaking changing biomes too frequently. I hope to have a global precipitation system for A19 right now you can just leave the biome and avoid the weather and its kind of immersion breaking its raining in one biome and not the other. It would snow in the snow biome.
Not looking good...
I understand madmole's point. It truly is immersion-breaking... especially with older random gen systems. I don't think it would be as bad with the new system they are working on. We already saw examples where certain biomes cannot touch each other. Why can't this reasoning be applied to small maps? One small map could have randomly generated mostly forest with some plains and some snow. Another could be mainly desert and plains.

Like other systems, instead of targeting the issue, the focus is on eliminating features. I can't stand that. Why can't there just be more biomes that act as transitions? You set up a map with the biomes as usual but then you give it a second pass where you add the suitable transition biome at the borders extending into each side with some predetermined width. If plants, decorations, spawns, etc are biome-dependent, then just let the transition biomes take on properties of both neighboring biomes.

 
Yeah, I think their whole "If it isn't KS stuff, screw it, we're going gold." direction is hurting them some. I think maybe they're feeling pressured to finish the game so they can "release" it, or maybe they're just tired of working on it. I mean, after what, more than 5 years since the first public release, I probably would be too. But that's really just their fault for not using their time better. And now it's just become "If it isn't already working properly, remove it. If it doesn't look good, remove it."

That's part of the problem too with working on a game for so long like they have. They probably have different feelings toward certain features and want to change them now. Or they didn't have a complete vision for their game and have been winging it, which kinda makes sense looking at how they've changed things.

I also think they need to maybe update their game requirements as well to help with not having to cut stuff for performance reasons. If people have to upgrade, so be it. Just because you bought this game when it came out and can no longer play it as well isn't their fault. It's been 5 years.

 
I think we can bring it back, not essentially the same, but better. I don't know about the ground texture, but from my experience, all other elements can be modded / added, like rocks, grass, trees, etc. I'm currently working on some tropical biomes, including jungle and beach, so I don't think it's that hard to bring it back.

https://i.imgur.com/dLv1OSI.jpg

 
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