PC Developer Discussions: Alpha 17

[NukemDed]

ok - saturday and have just finished a good go at this alpha. until this build it was basically unplayable for me due to the missing left stick toggle run, so thank you very much for putting it back in

damn those zombies are good at finding a way in! had a wandering horde get way deep into a poi and corner me. luckily i was able to duck around the fast ones that were deeper in and get out just before the slower ones came in. its been a while since i have felt pure panic in a game.

seems the guns are coming at the right tempo this build. day 6 L25 and just got a magnum, have sub and sniper and a few pistols and hunting rifles. i so hope i get a rocket launcher before bm horde ...

im a bit nervous about the coming bmh. resource gathering is going to be an issue. got a chainsaw from an air drop so should be ok (thats a good way to level fast btw)

normally the first few bmh i will take them on in the open with a few rows of spikes or barbed wire and try to take them out with arrows. i havent been thru one yet but think the vultures may be an issue. i think i need to build a roof.

and have a few backup plans.

is it just me or would the exploding xbow bolt be an extremely effective way of dealing with the zombies as they line up to be executed in such an orderly fashion? aint that high in levels yet to try.

♥♥♥♥ its raining and my clothes are on the line...

 

[wildaxeman1]

I found these things at a camp and am curious what they might be:
View attachment 25924

They look like huge green boars but not sure?

they should not be in b208. you need to wipe all your game fails. meanwhile, find safe spot and kill them 1 by 1. those boss boars give insane amount meat, also at least 26 stonearrows to kill (headshots)

 

[faatal]

Ah very nice ty. Yeah, I wouldn't want the game to get any more strenuous on CPUs than it is already. They didn't notice me at first. They were just doing it to be doing it lol, part of the group which were just haulin ass and haven't noticed me yet. Nice on the sidestepping, it sounds like that would be rather tax-free on cpu usage. Thanks for the info!

Pretty much no game logic is free unless you stole it from something else, but a lot of logic is cheap, so no noticeable difference or moderate, but run infrequently and also not noticed.

 

[faatal]

Interesting, and good to know. What I was doing was digging straight down. Stealth meter showing the noise so taking a couple few swings then pause for stamina (and listen) and meter would go back down to 2. Was about 20 blocks below surface when I thought I heard an angry z, but sound was very faint so waited and listened. Meter back to 2. Waited & listened a good 30sec, seemed quiet. Dug again pause, z sound a little louder then started to sound like more than one so I started to nerd pole up, which makes a racket. As soon as I stood z sounds clearly indicated they were mad & coming. Got up 3 frames when they started landing on me head, heh. They weren't able to hit me from there but the smart ones dug down on the sides and I was zombie chow. Most of this happened in pitch black since I hadn't found a mining helmet. At very end I switched from club to flashlight, just in time to see the snarling faces of my killers

The stealth meter tells you the noise and light you are making now, not if someone detected you. If you hear them coming, you want to stealth walk away. Waiting does nothing but get you found, since they are already coming to where they heard you.

 

[Gobarg]

yikes... am I supposed to be getting a cop on a tier one clear out quest?

Second day and most of it has been with the grim reaper buff after a pack of dire wolves also sorted me out good and proper.

HA! Bring it on you dastardly Devs!

 

[faatal]

@faatal, have you seen this Steam thread: Passive Base Challenge?What are the thoughts on some of those designs people have put forth (I especially liked the chain lightning stairs of wire traps one person put up. Looked like it would be a nice night of fireworks.)

I had not seen that thread. Interesting.

I expect there will be many block combinations for bases that will give the AI problems. My goal is not to fix all of them, since that may not even be possible, since the game will probably be gold before I could even find every situation. I don't even want to do that, since short of making tough flying AI that drills through everything, you should get the upper hand at some point.

 

[Jugginator]

Are you sure the cars don't explode if they are hit often enough?

Yeah some of the ones up top are. I thought about that mornign of day 28 haha. I wrenched the explodey ones. Telling ya that place is a blast of a time fighting hordes, just did 28 and man it was white knuckling! Not enough spikes were gone from 21, so only a little concrete went up and half way through the night they got smart and dashed around to a weak spot and poured inside. Thankfully I knocked the ladder off the little watch platform deal and had some spare bars to plug up enough gap to prevent wrights from getting to me. Rad wrights, rad cops, soldiers -- was bleeding but kept my no-death streak going. The non wrenchable cars have like 3k HP a piece.

 

[faatal]

I'd also like to see a scaled down version of the behemoth make a return. Maybe 1/5th bigger than current zombies, with reduced damage capability? I'd hate to see the work on him wasted, and I could see him fitting in better now.

That would be cool and allow it to fit in the current pathing size limitations. Baby behemoth.

 

[Jugginator]

That would be cool and allow it to fit in the current pathing size limitations. Baby behemoth.

Awww! Can I keep him? But really though, that would be awesome.

 

[Guppycur]

That would be cool and allow it to fit in the current pathing size limitations. Baby behemoth.

Call him the jugginator.

 

[faatal]

The AI might be better now, but it has become more predictable. Instead of taking the shortest path now they run around through a doorway. This can be exploited on horde night.

Predictable, yes it has. Why would you bash through a wall if there is an opening?

Variety is polish and polish is not done. Just today we were discussing doing a variety of zombie speed and block damage types, but that takes time to implement, test, tweak and retest, so you won't see it tomorrow.

 

[Jugginator]

Call him the jugginator.

Lmao. Hey, it's not trademarked and fits. I dig it.

 

[faatal]

@Faatal
Unity question.

Whenever I assign rigidbody's to entities, they still don't ragdoll. I have both Gravity and Kinematic checked. Would you mind posting your Rigidbody Inspector screen?

Is Kinematic is set in code.

This is zombieStandardArleneRagdoll prefab:

 

[faatal]

Sorry if this has been asked recently, but should we expect a new build tonight?

We had a new test build yesterday, that I started a new game on last night, but no builds today, so it probably won't be until next week when a new experimental gets released.

 

[faatal]

View attachment 25922
Found this POI for Day7, had so much fun in it I've decided to make it home-camp. Having an absolute blast with A17 -- thank you Pimps! Need to lay out more spikes, and luckily a trader right next to me has a cement mixer so concrete blocks are going up. Those cars are rather tough for walls, and are rather cool for atmosphere. Dug myself an entrance/exit tunnel. Hitting gamestage 85 or so, no deaths so far; gonna see if the new difficulty can keep up with me

That is the same place I setup camp last night in the new game I started.

 

[Guppycur]

Is Kinematic is set in code.
This is zombieStandardArleneRagdoll prefab:

View attachment 25927

Why set Kehematic in code? Hm, must be some other disconnect... Custom imported models plank when dead. And I have to set Kenematic there or they fall through the earth.

I really appreciate you taking the time for the capture though.

 

[Jugginator]

That is the same place I setup camp last night in the new game I started.

Nice, it's awesome. Just survived the day 28 horde in it. I'm going to make it my permanent base for this run. Surrounded it with spikes and made a tunnel to get in and out of. Working on putting concrete around the outside to keep the cars alive. Make sure you take care to make the platform around the radio tower mostly unreachable by zombies haha. Was my mistake on day 14. I love that POI

 

[faatal]

Feedback/balance issue: punishing me for wanting to mine and build? Single Player perspective.
I feel like a17 208 is punishing me for choosing to want to mine and build up my base. at first i felt like the game was encouraging us to slay and explore, and it is...but when i want to build, mine, and gather resources for the purpose of just wanting to build things, try a base early-mid game base, and so on...

i feel like i'm being forced to instead level exploration perks and other things. we don't get much of any XP for mining, building, upgrading, and i don't even get XP if i'm not watching the forge or workbench.

We just discussed this today. I agree there is little incentive to build vs just taking over a strong building. We have ideas to balance that out, but that will take time. Experimental is not a polished version of the game. Polish takes implementation, testing, discussing and repeating as many times as it takes.

 

[Jugginator]

We just discussed this today. I agree there is little incentive to build vs just taking over a strong building. We have ideas to balance that out, but that will take time. Experimental is not a polished version of the game. Polish takes implementation, testing, discussing and repeating as many times as it takes.

Yeah, although I get a ton of xp for upgrading iron or concrete walls, wood and such gives little to nothing. Maybe give a little boost there? Would be tricky to balance crafting XP, but that may help a lot.

 

[faatal]

Yes, Random Gen worlds are garbage compared to A16.. and yes the vehicles are SLOW as crap, but that's easy to mod. I wonder why they are so slow. I mean is that the fix for them falling through the world? All this new vehicle code and they had to slow them to down to a crawl to get them to not fall through the ground?

Vehicles may seem slow to you, but the faster speed ones are faster than the A16 minibike was. We can't just make them any speed we feel like, because at some point they will out run chunk loading speed and halt movement. Now imagine 8+ people driving in different locations on a server and it can make for a bad experience.