PC Developer Discussions: Alpha 17

[ZombieToad]

Underground hazards like gas build up etc. are fine so long as their is an ongoing cost to maintaining them, not just 'build an air filtration system and your done' and I mean besides using fuel to keep motors running and the like.Things like replacement filters, durability on components so things break down and need new parts thus requiring looting trips to obtain more etc.

The challenge needs to be vaguely comparable to those faced by an above ground base.

I love building underground but that's a recipe for boredom currently, make it challenging, the current system allows me to make an underground base that is fully self sufficient (food, water, gas etc.) in complete safety with the odd bit of daytime looting.

Include a toggle off option in the same way as weather survival for those that don't want the added challenge.

Thats very nice but unless that had some decent durability it would be a lot of micromanagement that it seems the devs are moving away from, what with all the gun parts going bye bye.

Would u say one vent should be enough for a big room? Idk how it would work, maybe x amount of blocks around the opening for air?

 

[rdunham3]

That's a neat idea.

Sounds like the beginning of the "need air supply when digging deep" concept that MadMole had brought up at one point. Deep tunnels have limited oxygen and some deep blocks "release gas" (lower local oxygen level) when broken. Implement ductwork from surface & air conditioner to increase a deep area's oxygen.

I'm wholeheartedly against any zombies spawning deeper than maybe 3 blocks from the surface. How did they get down there? It makes even less sense than the oft-cited steel-punching zombies do.

I don't suppose someone's mentioned the steel perk requirements getting lowered, and I missed it, somewhere along the line? Currently being annoyed that I have all the materials and skill points to make and repair steel tools, but it's gated behind an arbitrary character level requirement that I won't reach for ~15 more levels.

 

[Jackelmyer]

Yet another great idea.
And that would actually fit well with the survival aspect of the story.

Villages and towns mostly empty, where are the people?

They found some underground cavern, locked themselves in but didnt realise they were infected.

You break the wood block frame and door down only to discover a batch of 'survivors' that had turned - amazing idea.

And also it would be quite scary digging and round the corner they hear you and instead of you breaking in, they break out.

I was actually thinking creatures in the caverns. At least in a first release. Would require a few new animal types. Giant bug type things. This helps TFP avoid having to make connecting tunnels to the surface to give some legit reason for survivors being down below.

Then again... TFP could always do the survivor approach and simply do a sloped path to the surface filled in with destroyed stone to emulate a collapsed tunnel while retaining Structural Integrity of the surrounding area. Survivors in numerous areas found caves to get down into, but the tunnels collapsed. I mean... How often does that happen? Really? Almost never. But in a game? Like this? Maybe every third Tuesday?

-- Edit --

I know i mentioned zombies in my prior post as being in the cavern. My gears were turning while writing so I didn't go back and edit it. But yeah. Underground POI cavern's is my vote for an underground enemy threat.

 

[wolfbain5]

under ground threats... snakes, rats, the occasional bear, bats instead of vultures. have the z virus be a variant on rabies

 

[Tin]

Sounds like the beginning of the "need air supply when digging deep" concept that MadMole had brought up at one point. Deep tunnels have limited oxygen and some deep blocks "release gas" (lower local oxygen level) when broken. Implement ductwork from surface & air conditioner to increase a deep area's oxygen.
I'm wholeheartedly against any zombies spawning deeper than maybe 3 blocks from the surface. How did they get down there? It makes even less sense than the oft-cited steel-punching zombies do.

I don't suppose someone's mentioned the steel perk requirements getting lowered, and I missed it, somewhere along the line? Currently being annoyed that I have all the materials and skill points to make and repair steel tools, but it's gated behind an arbitrary character level requirement that I won't reach for ~15 more levels.

I think this could also tie into the miner69r perk of you build up more of a tolerance to the differing gasses and fumes that could happen or reduce the chance for an underground explosion since your skills at mining are better.

or a mechanics perk that allows you to make carbon filters for the gas mask of varying qualities etc,.

 

[Aurelius]

I know i mentioned zombies in my prior post as being in the cavern. My gears were turning while writing so I didn't go back and edit it. But yeah. Underground POI cavern's is my vote for an underground enemy threat.

Not to detract from the rest of your post, but could you elaborate on how the underground POI caverns would provide a challenge to an underground dweller, on an ongoing basis?

I can see it for when you are excavating, but after that? I'm drawing a blank?

I think this could also tie into the miner69r perk of you build up more of a tolerance to the differing gasses and fumes that could happen or reduce the chance for an underground explosion since your skills at mining are better.
or a mechanics perk that allows you to make carbon filters for the gas mask of varying qualities etc,.

I smell a mod...

-A

 

[Tin]

Not to detract from the rest of your post, but could you elaborate on how the underground POI caverns would provide a challenge to an underground dweller, on an ongoing basis?
I can see it for when you are excavating, but after that? I'm drawing a blank?

I smell a mod...

-A

If the AOE type stuff gets added and TFP don't add the perks I will xD

 

[Doombringer101]

Thats very nice but unless that had some decent durability it would be a lot of micromanagement that it seems the devs are moving away from, what with all the gun parts going bye bye.
Would u saw one vent should be enough for a big room? Idk how it would work, maybe x amount of blocks around the opening for air?

Using the ongoing costs of maintaining an above ground fort as a baseline (time to gather repair material, craft replacement blocks and traps etc.) I would expect that keeping whatever systems required to live as a bunker dweller to be significantly less.

I would make whatever 'widgets' required to be loot only items and then play with the drop % of said widgets till there was some balance in terms of time/effort.

If you went with gas and air filtration it would depend on the costs to craft whatever systems you need, they could be cheap and require many or costly and require less.

If it was simple air vents to the surface then maybe one per sleeping bag non spawn zone or so would be fine but it really would need testing and this figure was just chosen arbitrarily.

I would be more inclined to make it a crafted artefact as opposed to a vertical shaft to the surface with bars at the top (cheap and safe). Maybe even require this to be aboveground and linked in the same way as electrical devices to a counterpart underground and just assume the 'wires' are no clip air ducts or similar.

 

[ZombieToad]

Using the ongoing costs of maintaining an above ground fort as a baseline (time to gather repair material, craft replacement blocks and traps etc.) I would expect that keeping whatever systems required to live as a bunker dweller to be significantly less.I would make whatever 'widgets' required to be loot only items and then play with the drop % of said widgets till there was some balance in terms of time/effort.

If you went with gas and air filtration it would depend on the costs to craft whatever systems you need, they could be cheap and require many or costly and require less.

If it was simple air vents to the surface then maybe one per sleeping bag non spawn zone or so would be fine but it really would need testing and this figure was just chosen arbitrarily.

I would be more inclined to make it a crafted artefact as opposed to a vertical shaft to the surface with bars at the top (cheap and safe). Maybe even require this to be aboveground and linked in the same way as electrical devices to a counterpart underground and just assume the 'wires' are no clip air ducts or similar.

Sounds good actually.

@Jackelmyer, yeah maybe some irradiated cockroaches?

 

[Jackelmyer]

Not to detract from the rest of your post, but could you elaborate on how the underground POI caverns would provide a challenge to an underground dweller, on an ongoing basis?
I can see it for when you are excavating, but after that? I'm drawing a blank?

-A

An ongoing basis? Well, if you were stubborn or not to bright and tunneled through it, then you'll be getting respawns.

But this wasn't a suggestion for "constant challenge". This is to provide additional challenge and unexpected mix in underground dwelling.

I mean... Look. It's a cave. Man Caves... Why do we call them that? Because from the dawn of time, Caves were one of the safest places in the world.

Game mechanics? No one really wants a Swiss cheese world and random collapses.

Underground isn't an environment you're going to make as dangerous as top ground and still have it be immersive. It's just not. Best you're gonna get to come close is pockets of activity underground and as Tin suggested, blocks that go sideways on you when you wack'em.

- - - Updated - - -

I think this could also tie into the miner69r perk of you build up more of a tolerance to the differing gasses and fumes that could happen or reduce the chance for an underground explosion since your skills at mining are better.
or a mechanics perk that allows you to make carbon filters for the gas mask of varying qualities etc,.

I like that too. That or be an additional perk if they felt the need to add another perk/skill to the system.

- - - Updated - - -

@Jackelmyer, yeah maybe some irradiated cockroaches?

That's roughly what I was thinking. I've been playing Fallout 4 lately so that's what popped into mind. So the concept gaming isn't foreign. Not unique, but it does fit with the underground dwelling aspects.

 

[StompyNZ]

On bloodmoon nights just have anyone below ground level start taking radiation damage, which increases the longer they stay underground.

Could even tie it to a storyline, the earth has phases that emit this special radiation each 7 days and that is what turns all the zombies into aggro gps trackers and the rad changes the atmosphere to cause the appearance of a blood moon. also would help explain the sudden influx of radiated cops etc

 

[Ouch Quit It]

Just have naturally formed caves and tunnels throughout the map...take out the mining and increase zombie spawn numbers.

Or at the least as someone said...if you go underground you need an airshaft.

That could be an access point for zombies.

It's a little bit unrealistic for us to dig down to bedrock and to live their without environmental factors affecting living conditions...temperature changes, fresh air , dampness....water leaks should flood some of the base as well.

Maybe raise the depth you can dig down and create a base due to those factors. Structural Integrity needs to come into play here as well.

Thus making zombies digging down a bit more realistic.

Every zombie movie/ show doesn't have anyone digging tunnels and living underground.

OUCH

MTFGA

 

[Doombringer101]

Immersion could be added easily by developing the story line.

Simple example below.

The ferals/wights are not infected humans, they are a morloc like race (or human offshoot that was driven underground long ago, you get the idea) and they are the source of the infection/virus/necromancy/whatever. They live below bedrock and any subterranean spawns are actually coming up from this realm as opposed to magically appearing underground/at bedrock.

There are always ways to tweak immersion through creative storytelling, the Pimps can essentially make up whatever they like to enable new zombies/threats.

 

[Tin]

On bloodmoon nights just have anyone below ground level start taking radiation damage, which increases the longer they stay underground.
Could even tie it to a storyline, the earth has phases that emit this special radiation each 7 days and that is what turns all the zombies into aggro gps trackers and the rad changes the atmosphere to cause the appearance of a blood moon. also would help explain the sudden influx of radiated cops etc

Yus! Nice tie in!

Just have naturally formed caves and tunnels throughout the map...take out the mining and increase zombie spawn numbers. Or at the least as someone said...if you go underground you need an airshaft.

That could be an access point for zombies.

It's a little bit unrealistic for us to dig down to bedrock and to live their without environmental factors affecting living conditions...temperature changes, fresh air , dampness....water leaks should flood some of the base as well.

Maybe raise the depth you can dig down and create a base due to those factors. Structural Integrity needs to come into play here as well.

Thus making zombies digging down a bit more realistic.

Every zombie movie/ show doesn't have anyone digging tunnels and living underground.

OUCH

MTFGA

Moar Ideas! xD

 

[Jackelmyer]

Just have naturally formed caves and tunnels throughout the map...take out the mining and increase zombie spawn numbers. Or at the least as someone said...if you go underground you need an airshaft.

That could be an access point for zombies.

It's a little bit unrealistic for us to dig down to bedrock and to live their without environmental factors affecting living conditions...temperature changes, fresh air , dampness....water leaks should flood some of the base as well.

Maybe raise the depth you can dig down and create a base due to those factors. Structural Integrity needs to come into play here as well.

Thus making zombies digging down a bit more realistic.

Every zombie movie/ show doesn't have anyone digging tunnels and living underground.

OUCH

MTFGA

Air shaft mechanics and ways players can combat them tend to be annoying and net zero on game play. Ends up being a player just lines a tunnel with spike traps and wallah. Busy work for devs and busy work for players.

Naturally spawning and sprawling tunnels and caverns needs to work with Structural Integrity and that is likely a challenging task.

That's why I suggested POIs underground. Maybe tie into Stompyz idea of underground radiation during bloodmoon and make some of them have radiated bubbling lava pits at bedrock. Would actually be kinda cool if you could build a radioactive waste pump on something like this radio active pool of lava and bring in the radio active ammo types specifically tuned to be extra damaging to bandits.

Make radioactive waste something mineable on the surface in small quantities, like in the wastelands. Maybe at a nuclear power plant on the Nav's map. But you gotta dig for the good place to pump out radioactive waste in quantity.

Maybe on Nav's, you can pump out from a waste site at a nuclear power plant but have to build up defenses to keep your radio active waste material production going and not destroyed.

 

[Pille]

Sounds like the beginning of the "need air supply when digging deep" concept that MadMole had brought up at one point. Deep tunnels have limited oxygen and some deep blocks "release gas" (lower local oxygen level) when broken. Implement ductwork from surface & air conditioner to increase a deep area's oxygen.
I'm wholeheartedly against any zombies spawning deeper than maybe 3 blocks from the surface. How did they get down there? It makes even less sense than the oft-cited steel-punching zombies do.

I don't suppose someone's mentioned the steel perk requirements getting lowered, and I missed it, somewhere along the line? Currently being annoyed that I have all the materials and skill points to make and repair steel tools, but it's gated behind an arbitrary character level requirement that I won't reach for ~15 more levels.

FYI:

Radon concentration can be much higher in mining contexts. Ventilation regulations instruct to maintain radon concentration in uranium mines under the "working level", with 95th percentile levels ranging up to nearly 3 WL (546 pCi 222Rn per liter of air; 20.2 kBq/m3, measured from 1976 to 1985).[3] The concentration in the air at the (unventilated) Gastein Healing Gallery averages 43 kBq/m3 (1.2 nCi/L) with maximal value of 160 kBq/m3 (4.3 nCi/L).[67]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radon#Natural

Ofc we're not running an uranium mine. However, raising the radioactivity level might be better than changing the oxygen level because an oxygen based system is probably more susceptible to minor inaccuracies in the underlying algorithm. I mean it's quite hard to define an algorithm in such a way that the calculations for the oxygen levels always work correctly (must look natural to the player, cannot be exploited by the players, etc.); whereas a radioactivity-based system can simply operate with the distance of the player to the radioactive rocks (or something like that^^).

So ... Go Radon Go!

 

[Jackelmyer]

FYI:Ofc we're not running an uranium mine. However, raising the radioactivity level might be better than changing the oxygen level because an oxygen based system is probably more susceptible to minor inaccuracies in the underlying algorithm. I mean it's quite hard to define an algorithm in such a way that the calculations for the oxygen levels always work correctly (must look natural to the player, cannot be exploited by the players, etc.); whereas a radioactivity-based system can simply operate with the distance of the player to the radioactive rocks (or something like that^^).

So if we think about how "filling underground with radiation" would work, that means we may have to see some fixes to the Voxel Map. Right now we still have issues where terrain dug out reappears for a moment and then blinks away. Snap points some how stretch out and seem like they're connecting to blocks that never connected to the voxel/block that has the graphic being stretched. etc. I would assume this is much the same data that would be needed define where radiation underground starts and ends. So it's likely still going to be a challenge.

Though yeah, air quality underground is probably going to be just as challenging as weather. Aaand likely not really worth it.

 

[Royal Deluxe]

I would expect less radioactivity in Deep Caves.

This moment i am not sure what way is the best. All suggestions and plans i heared, read and how i imagine them are one or more of the Following

* Nightmare for Architects (Playstyle Breaking)

* Immersion Breaking

* Not part of a rock-paper-scissors System

* Hard to code

* Performance consumptive

...

 

[Pille]

Though yeah, air quality underground is probably going to be just as challenging as weather. Aaand likely not really worth it.

Actually I am against all kind of underground challenges because they don't make any sense or they are hard to code (as Royal Deluxe stated).^^

 

[Roland]

Personally, I like the radiation idea much less than I do zombies coming out of the ground. I want to defend my underground base and not be expelled from it by radiation or gas to go fight topside. The idea of the zombies spawning a block or two from air in these small pockets and then digging to air is also much less intrusive on SI than large caverns under ground.

Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of caves and caverns but using them as an argument to protect SI rather than Kinyajuu's originally presented idea is backwards. The zombies would spawn right next to the existing excavations made by the player and then break into those already existing tunnels and chambers and start hunting the player. It wouldn't significantly add to the underground air pocket footprint that wasn't already created by the players themselves. These airpockets wouldn't even exist until a player was detected underground and then they would generate adjacent to already existing tunnels and chambers.

Caverns would greatly increase the number of underground airpockets causing havok with SI on the surface.