PC Developer Discussions: Alpha 17

[Royal Deluxe]

Workshop come after Release, that was allways said.

 

[sillls]

Are there any changes are being done to the Random Gen Biome's?

I was just doing a play though and found it weird to find some of the hottest biomes next to the coldest ones. I would suggest that the RG take that into account and place other biomes in-between them. Like on the Naz map.

Also in RG, some of the biomes are really small and I see several of these very close together.

 

[Prisma501]

Are there any changes are being done to the Random Gen Biome's?
I was just doing a play though and found it weird to find some of the hottest biomes next to the coldest ones. I would suggest that the RG take that into account and place other biomes in-between them. Like on the Naz map.

Also in RG, some of the biomes are really small and I see several of these very close together.

Arizona baby!

https://roadslesstraveled.us/snow-in-arizona-desert-a-beautiful-fairy-dusting/

Cheers

 

[Faded]

...I would also add what I call "POI Progression". For example, you find a group of people that need to improve their broken down Home/fort. By gathering resources for them and killing off enough zombies in the area, they will improve the POI and a bigger, better POI will one day appear where the old one was!
POI Progression could be used the other way if you don't help them: Bandits move in and a grisly POI looking like some Fallout 3 bandit POI and the player gets more Bandit events.

That would be very awesome if they can pull it off.

Perhaps we could electrify water bodies for a shocking surprise to the bandits and zombies.

That would breathe new life into defensive moat designs!

A mod that has a proof of concept water feature will be released in the next few days.

A poster wonders what the name of this mod is.

 

[DaVegaNL]

Arizona baby!
https://roadslesstraveled.us/snow-in-arizona-desert-a-beautiful-fairy-dusting/

Cheers

Yeah, but can I offer some advice as a geologist/geomorphologist? Snow as shown in the (beautiful!) photo's does not represent the snowy biome as depicted in 7days in my opinion. Snow in those photo's equals desert mountains being of a sufficient altitude to sustain snow on the ground for a certain time period. Which is quite common in colder deserts (keep in mind that Antarctica is one big desert technically speaking).

The snow biome as represented in 7 days much more resembles a coniferous taiga (one big clue would be the wooden structures one could cut down). They are not located next to a desert as far as I know (I could be wrong).

Cheers.

 

[dhlmaster]

and then you cant nerdpole and do other cool stuff in cities, thats dumb lol

You mean you would actually have to work your way through large dungeon-like POIs to reach the loot room at the top, rather than be able to magically teleport your way to the top? And only if the server admin wants it this way? That's not dumb at all. I'm all for giving more options to server admins. That's not TFP forcing a play-style, that's an admin creating a server rule.

 

[Menace312]

Quantum Computers as per design now are good in decision making. So they can make good AI to control chess player or AI to make Zombie run in smarter way as you reach Day 120 in your 7DTD. But doing graphics is not in their specs, which is where GPU came. So, it will be insane to say Quantum Computer replace current system, as in future not one type of processor or computer system will be handling it. Maybe we got 4-5 different AI enable processor which do their part in separate system.
On btw Quantum Computer to be most efficient need Absolute Zero temperature so they won't be coming to desktop anytime soon.

"Decision making" is a rather broad concept.

Currently the theory for a quantum computer is, that instead of calculation with 1's and 0's, it "weighs" the entire function and returns a result with high probability. This is almost instant, but you need to run it multiple times to get additional results and/or accuracy...

This could potentially make it good for complicated AI, instead of the currently invisined VI.

Research calculations will benefit enormously!

However I find it hard to see it used for a straight line gaming computer... May happen... Maybe I just have no imagination, but I know physics, so theres that

 

[dhlmaster]

Something popped up in my mind. Will the wonderful, ever so useful blunderbuss be able to have mods? Cause I think mods are the only thing that could save that beautiful weapon from getting removed from the game.

I recently started loving the blunderbuss for early game. It can be useful in tight situations, like if something sneaks up on you while you're looting a POI. It's a lot of fun if you've got the balls to come in close for a point-blank headshot and then dash back out while you reload. Gotta get close to do any real damage, because it seems to have spread like a shotgun would. But it's cheap and easy to make the ammo compared to other guns, plus the gun itself is easy to craft. And easier to aim than a bow.

 

[Rassilon]

Workshop come after Release, that was allways said.

Indeed, thats what i heared too. But reading a hopeful Response from Gazz made me wondering if something changed.

Its a Feature i really look forward too and i think the benefit for the game ( Replay Value, Varity ) is huge.

That it wont happen in A17 was clear to me.

 

[dhlmaster]

Yeah man for sure it would be nice to be able to find notes in the world with coordinates for traders, that would make me very happy.

This can kinda be done. You can use a paper note to give yourself the trader quest from the tutorial. If you're far enough from the trader you already found when you activate it, hopefully it would lead you to a different trader that's closer to your current position. Not sure how much of that relies on luck vs distance, but it would be worth testing.

 

[meganoth]

It's a lot of fun if you've got the balls to come in close for a point-blank headshot and then dash back out while you reload. Gotta get close to do any real damage, because it seems to have spread like a shotgun would. But it's cheap and easy to make the ammo compared to other guns, plus the gun itself is easy to craft. And easier to aim than a bow.

Sure, but at that distance you could compare it to a club or knife and then it looses out. Because those don't need ammo and (AFAIK) do more damage. Blunderbuss would need something to differentiate it from other weapons. Maybe a very low but stacking damage-over-time to everyone hit. Luckily that will probably be possible in A17

- - - Updated - - -

They would actually be great at games where many possible states can exist like RPG's or wargames. Also Professor Mِttِnen at Aalto University already developed nano cooling for a quantum circuit.

As others have already said, QC are not useful for general computing but specific algorithms. So I could imagine you could use a QC coprocessor to make an AI impossible to beat at a wargame if you can encode the state of a game into the memory of a QC. Which is limited to a few bytes at the moment at great cost. While a typical wargame has to have at least a few kbytes to encode a state.

The problem is, you usually don't want a perfect computer player. There have been games where the AI was too good and had to be made worse again. In most games the AI is soo bad because it is a lot easier and cheaper to give the AI more material than code a good AI.

So even if we suppose we could get QC coprocessor into every home computers at a sensible price it would have to be easier and more cost efficient than a mediocre AI with a number of troops advantage. As complicated as QC is I don't see that happen in the foreseeable future ("foreseeable future", I know I shouldn't use these words :smile-new: ).

 

[Aldranon]

As others have already said, QC are not useful for general computing but specific algorithms. So I could imagine you could use a QC coprocessor to make an AI impossible to beat at a wargame if you can encode the state of a game into the memory of a QC. Which is limited to a few bytes at the moment at great cost. While a typical wargame has to have at least a few kbytes to encode a state.

The problem is, you usually don't want a perfect computer player. There have been games where the AI was too good and had to be made worse again. In most games the AI is soo bad because it is a lot easier and cheaper to give the AI more material than code a good AI.

So even if we suppose we could get QC coprocessor into every home computers at a sensible price it would have to be easier and more cost efficient than a mediocre AI with a number of troops advantage. As complicated as QC is I don't see that happen in the foreseeable future ("foreseeable future", I know I shouldn't use these words :smile-new: ).

Because of a quantum computer ability to crack password encryption extremely fast, the subsequent moments and days after the first person runs a reliable quantum computer over a few thousand Qbits (give or take a few) will change the world as we know it:

Depending on if they are a good person or not all crypto-currencies could become worthless almost overnight. Power grids could be overloaded and shutdown. Some banks could be wiped out and any important server connected to the internet could be compromised and destroyed.

Online banking will have to stop, every important server will have to go offline.

How people buy and sell would change from that moment on. I actually wonder if the bible quote: "No one could buy or sell..." will be caused by the first few QC's

That is how some believe they will know when someone has a working QC, when the crypto currencies start acting strange. The cannery in the cyber coal mine so to speak.

 

[qprophet]

i'm getting the feeling that state of decay 2 is going to release before alpha 17. which is bad. not just because state of decay 1 was released the same year as 7d2d. but also because i'm not going to care about alpha 17 if i have state of decay 2. bad planning. like dropping an fps against a new call of duty release.

i only point this out because i care.

State of Decay 2 *appears* to pretty much just be an upgraded version of State of Decay 1 with a couple twists. Don't get me wrong, I have already pre-ordered my copy and plan to enjoy the co-op portion immensely. But watching gameplay videos for 2 now feel like watching prettier versions of the same vids from 1.

TFP could have easily done the same by releasing an older Alpha as gold and then continued to work on it in the background updating and adding things, before releasing another copy as 2nd game or DLC at a cost. I admire that they have stuck with the game for this long and continue to make improvements to their game bringing new life into it with each Alpha release.

See how many words you made me waste... :friendly_wink:

 

[Faded]

You mean you would actually have to work your way through large dungeon-like POIs to reach the loot room at the top, rather than be able to magically teleport your way to the top? And only if the server admin wants it this way? That's not dumb at all. I'm all for giving more options to server admins. That's not TFP forcing a play-style, that's an admin creating a server rule.

Correct. If I don't like it, I won't play on that server. If someone doesn't like how I do things, I expect them to not play on my server.

This is how it should be done: letting the players decide.

 

[Scyris]

Like emarat said: Great idea, rat's tail of legal and maintenance issues.
Much more likely: Solid Steam Workshop implementation with "featured" mods / POI.

That's doable for TFP without effectively having to claim ownership of the mod.

Are we ever goping to get actual proper mod support? where we can override textures and xml's with ones in an override folder insted of having to edit the base xml's or worse, screw with unity's crappy packed files to put in a graphical mod? I'd much prefer it all be loose files myself. At least for some things.

 

[Menace312]

Because of a quantum computer ability to crack password encryption extremely fast, the subsequent moments and days after the first person runs a reliable quantum computer over a few thousand Qbits (give or take a few) will change the world as we know it:
Depending on if they are a good person or not all crypto-currencies could become worthless almost overnight. Power grids could be overloaded and shutdown. Some banks could be wiped out and any important server connected to the internet could be compromised and destroyed.

Online banking will have to stop, every important server will have to go offline.

How people buy and sell would change from that moment on. I actually wonder if the bible quote: "No one could buy or sell..." will be caused by the first few QC's

That is how some believe they will know when someone has a working QC, when the crypto currencies start acting strange. The cannery in the cyber coal mine so to speak.

I've seen this argument before, and it is simply not true.

SOME current encryption algorithms will become useless if a theoretical quantum computer is build.

But there already are encryption methods, that even a quantum computer can't break before the end of the universe.

Most banks use these methods...

 

[Aldranon]

I've seen this argument before, and it is simply not true.
SOME current encryption algorithms will become useless if a theoretical quantum computer is build.

But there already are encryption methods, that even a quantum computer can't break before the end of the universe.

Most banks use these methods...

Well, I certainly hope so! I wouldn't want to wake up one morning and find my 7D2D character dead, covered in poo and chicken feathers! But, Dead is Dead, wither it was my error or hackers.

 

[Menace312]

Well I can't promise you that

Your gmail, Facebook, Netflix, Amazon... THEY will almost certainly NOT upgrade their encryption, before people get hit... That's how it always is... They still use insecure methods.

Edit:

Well, to be fair a QC does not exist yet...

 

[meganoth]

Because of a quantum computer ability to crack password encryption extremely fast, the subsequent moments and days after the first person runs a reliable quantum computer over a few thousand Qbits (give or take a few) will change the world as we know it:

Depends. If people were better at damage-control BEFORE the damage happened, much of that could probably be averted. At least the scientists are already hard at work evaluating algorithms for post-quantum cryptography and there are already algorithms that are believed to be safe.

Depending on if they are a good person or not all crypto-currencies could become worthless almost overnight.

A few ponzi schemes removed sounds like a good change to me :smile-new:

 

[Aldranon]

Thank god my goofy posts are slightly better received [than a post that was deleted]. At least I try not to sound hostile in any manner as... its a game! Everyone wants to have a few laughs!

But to be fair, some of my European friends say the Dutch can be a bit grumpy. Maybe living with the threat of the north sea flooding in and drowning everyone if someone makes a serious mistake could make anyone a bit grumpy.