PC Developer Discussions: Alpha 17

[Lonestarcanuck]

So your PC is slower than a console? I think there are memory leaks and other crap going on, we've tested bikes on minimum hardware and they should keep up with chunk loading under normal rules. Add some mods in or have more than 8 players on a server, or a server that isn't fast enough, and sure there could be problems.
But to answer your question, the old minibike was probably the "top speed" and the new one will be nerfed some so that there is a noticeable upgrade for the motorbike.

Right now we're just hooking up the new stuff. There hasn't been any balance, but nobody has fallen through the world once with the new system, and there are some other very nice surprises I will reveal soon that came with some of the framework changes we made to support real vehicles.

On the servers I run, we ask users to use engines lower than 250. My game server is high end machine with lots of memory and the game runs on an SSDs and we restart the game every 6 hours to deal with memory leaks.

still if you get 4+ minibikes on the game with engines over 400-600 you will notice lag spikes (chunk loading).

as a server owner/admin features in the serverconfig.xml to set speed limits on bikes/vehicles would be really great.

 

[meganoth]

I mean White river has trading post all over Naz. Plus they are hostile with the Duke faction.

Are you planning to rearrange the White river traders then so that they occupy only part of the map while the Duke controls another part?

Very unlikely I'd say. If a player has his starting location deep inside such a part he might never talk to the other faction(s) and never have a real choice which one to join. Or he would be forced to relocate his base just because there is no trader of his faction anywhere near. Remember games like Fallout 3, you could find settlements of any faction anywhere on the map, it wasn't like there was a front line anywhere.

And especially when the factions have

A) bussinesses, casinos, farms to operate, settlements and shops to guard,

B) not really a surplus of workers and guards to throw into a fullblown war... (apocalypses tend to reduce the work force massively)

C) their prime directive is making money and stay alive

D) to defend against zombies who really own the surrounding land

then it isn't likely that there is anything more than a cold war happening. A "hot" war is bad for bussiness, costs a lot of money to operate and would only be sensible if you are sure you have a massive advantage and can win in a relatively short time.

Sure, they might pay YOU to remove a successfull trader of a different faction, but they also would make sure that nothing leads to them as the culprits.

Will you be able to trade with the Duke's faction?

I think they said something about Duke's Casino. So at a minimum you can use your money to play poker with marked cards :fat:

 

[KronosKronight]

I would love a van that could hold the basic work stations (forge and workbench) and 3 or 4 boxes. Then you could have a real nomad experience.

Have like a mini mobile base. This idea is cool but maybe get disabled on the 7th day so you get stuck defending it against the zombie hord night. Also would be good to do a raid on a town or city with a few people. Maybe add a building where you can attach power to the van so you can loot it with lights working or needed power to unlock special doors etc.

 

[KronosKronight]

On the servers I run, we ask users to use engines lower than 250. My game server is high end machine with lots of memory and the game runs on an SSDs and we restart the game every 6 hours to deal with memory leaks.
still if you get 4+ minibikes on the game with engines over 400-600 you will notice lag spikes (chunk loading).

as a server owner/admin features in the serverconfig.xml to set speed limits on bikes/vehicles would be really great.

I think some major debugging and memory work is needed but I think that will happen as they approch Beta testing. Alpha is mainly to get content in and to make the game more of a game. I dont know if they have changed to latest version of unity either as I think there was a memory leak. Also new version of unity supports VR better as well.

 

[fj4080]

My computer is much faster than a console (i5-4690k, 32gb ram, 1080 gpu, SSD drive for the game install, not a potato at all). However when driving looking for towns and new chunks loading it will start to lag up even with vanilla as I had it happening at the beginning of a16 before I did my simple mods. The server was the BGG sub server running vanilla at the time and I just gave up exploring as I was worried I was lagging the other couple of players out. Anyway thanks for the answer. Good to know you are keeping the top speeds. Even though the minibike will go slower to do so.

My computer is pretty beast and I have the same problem while riding the mini bike.

 

[Roland]

If there is going to be faction controlled territory I'm sure it will be limited to Navezgane. Random gen will just be random.

 

[Maharin]

If there is going to be faction controlled territory I'm sure it will be limited to Navezgane. Random gen will just be random.

It would be nice if they could throw in a kind of "regional faction" system of some sort. So a town gets generated and there is a chance for bandits and the like with most of them in a single faction or a couple of rival factions. That would be a neat feature.

 

[Red Eagle LXIX]

Will A17 bring more ways to trigger buffs (sounds like some new kinds of buffs and attributes with the gun/vehicle systems might be in the works so a good time to ask)?

 

[Zilla]

My computer is pretty beast and I have the same problem while riding the mini bike.

Same. I also run a linux server out of my house that me and 2 others play. It's powered by an old AMD phenomX4 965 BE at 3.6 Ghz. At first i thought it might be the hardware but once i experienced it in a SP game, i knew it was something to do with the code.

Edit: it only happens when exploring unexplored portions of the map. Once I uncovered that part of the map it's a non-issue.

 

[Zombuild]

Edit: it only happens when exploring unexplored portions of the map. Once I uncovered that part of the map it's a non-issue.

Same with me and only have a single players rgw world. When going into new areas.

Previously mentioned but do not know if MM noticed, creating lots of maps in the view area cause a out of memory error.

 

[Royal Deluxe]

Ok. Well I don't suppose we've tested it with guys running in every direction on bikes loading tons of chunks from the server. We certainly have a huge list of optimizations we will get to by the time we're gold and hopefully don't encounter much more problems with vehicles.

About the Max speedYou added a Command to Prerender the map, that helps much i read

(But have that command not at hand)

visitmap -10000 -10000 10000 10000

That will map your entire world. The 4 numbers are coordinates to define a rectangle/square to be mapped. Seems to take about 30 hours to do the whole map on my server. My bike hasn't caused any chunk loading issues since I used this command.

Maybe thats why the different experience

 

[Lonestarcanuck]

If there is going to be faction controlled territory I'm sure it will be limited to Navezgane. Random gen will just be random.

you could do Faction control on RWG. using rules like North of 0,0 is PVP or "Faction Red" and South of 0,0 or possibly pie chart so everyone can get to the center. I would say I want 4 faction zones and you would cut into 90 degree pie pieces.

we do something like this today using a server mod that reads the player location and enables/disables PVP and other triggers. both CBSM and Botman support that feature.

 

[Zilla]

Does the visitmap command uncover the entire map? or is the fog of war still in place?

 

[Lonestarcanuck]

Maybe thats why the different experience

So can you run the visitmap command while the game is running and will this cause issues with performance during this phase? I do know that using an SSD for the server game save makes a huge improvement over 7200rpm cached SATA 6 drives.

 

[Royal Deluxe]

Does the visitmap command uncover the entire map? or is the fog of war still in place?

never used it until now by myself (no time to play) but the folowing make sense

* Server Life map will be revealed

* Player maps will not

Like a other player reveal the map

 

[Sleezel]

We occasionally like to restart. Any idea when the next forced restart will drop. Don't want to restart just to have to do it a week later. As an aside, still love the game 3 years later. That is rare for me to say about a game.

 

[Royal Deluxe]

We occasionally like to restart. Any idea when the next forced restart will drop. Don't want to restart just to have to do it a week later. As an aside, still love the game 3 years later. That is rare for me to say about a game.

I think/hope this time they let them the needed time to make 16.4 Bugfree.

We will play it a longer time.

 

[DeadMan981]

Oh look another troll who can't read. I already posted on twitter and here too I think, that vehicles have a brand new physics system, so no more falling through the world. They don't go too fast for chunks, unless you are modding or playing on an unsupported system.

Omg the master of trolls calling troll to another ... weres the beard, was it tasty ?

 

[Red Eagle LXIX]

Those are some good ideas. Hopefully we can get some more ways in.

That would be great. I can see all kinds of cool play coming from being able to do more with knowledge of the player state.
/me crosses fingers.

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On another subject here is a question from the Steam side:

http://steamcommunity.com/app/251570/discussions/0/1484358860937594376/?tscn=1507913133#c1484358860942021898

I wonder if/how the bicycle will affect your athletics skill. Also wonder if you break you leg, if it will hinder riding it in any way.

 

[ZedBullfrog]

I just combed through the Dev Tracker and am officially stoked for A17. Right now I am on my most complete game (49 Days) of A16 and feel like I still have weeks left to play. I haven't even begun to build a custom house yet. Waiting patiently for A17 will be easier, thanks TFP!

The more selective updates from TFP about features going in the game seems to have solved some of the forum chaos as well.

In Pimps We Trust!