PC Developer Discussions: Alpha 17

[Crater Creator]

[POIs sitting on circular mounds or depressions] is a known issue (which means it is on the todo-list), but A16 won't get any further patches. It also seems more of a calibration issue of the RWG than just a single bug one can correct and be finished about it (this is just my personal impression though). If you see such occurances in a few months in A17 experimental/BETA, post the seed and coordinates in the relevant bug thread.

A known issue doesn’t mean it’ll be fixed. It just means “we acknowledge this happens, and we (probably) don’t like it.” The mounds generally aren’t a bug, they’re a feature. Notice where the ground comes up in a mound on one side of the building, the ground comes down in a depression on the other side of the building. The middle of the building’s floor hasn’t been raised or lowered (in at least 90% of the A16 POIs I’ve seen). Rather, dirt is added or subtracted in a radius around that center in order to level enough space to fit the building.

I would look for ways to reduce the size of that footprint, such as not rounding up to the nearest chunk if it does, and switching from a radius to a rectangular shape since that’s the shape POI plots take.

Concrete walls are enough. I'm talking about a16 dungeon towers. For example, you can go through the huge "book tower" with just a stone axe on the first week. Once you follow the path you can access most of the loot without much resistance. It might be the case that you get all the "important" books on that single building and never have to look for books again.

It would be cool if there would be some bookshelves on the first 3 floors but past that you'd have to break down iron bar in a staircase or dig out some rubble to get to next floor.

It would feel too artificial if the best loot is always the most protected. So I favor a two-pronged approach: in addition to making some of the best loot hard to access, introduce randomization so that you can’t anticipate where the best loot will be after exploring the building once. Then, even knowing where the hidden rooms are doesn’t guarantee you can speed run the building, and not every building will need a strong room.

I also remember a video a few months back that mentioned work on smoothing roads but that may have been rendered moot with the height map changes now planned for A17.

Height maps are static, premade assets though (think Navezgane), whereas the roads are smoothed procedurally by the RWG. I don’t think one will affect the other.

On the subject of biomes... Is the wasteland biome an under-utilised area?What reasons are there to even go there other than the challenge of surviving in such a hostile environment?

Cities in every biome are always worth visiting but what about the area itself?

I know there are always a lot of cars in the wasteland but cars can be found almost anywhere.

What is it about the wasteland that makes it attractive to visit?

What can be done to make it a must see area?

Am I missing something?

In short, in mid/late game the ground is effectively made of concrete mix and steel, and instead of tree stumps, you get desk safes. But I agree the risk versus reward doesn’t compare favorably to other biomes.

 

[Shado47]

Pathing considers block health. Doors currently use 25% health, so they favor them.
Trashing nearby walls is on my list, to counter sitting above them.

Vertically damaging blocks I have not evaluated yet, but I will be looking at it.

Perhaps breaking blocks below the zombies could be limited to mostly zombies in floor-near positions, like the spider zombie or the crawler or zombies that lost one or two legs, since other zombies dont have any animation of them bowing down yet and so to hit a block below them while standing... well that just wouldnt look right without matching mocap.

Good to see trashing nearby walls is coming back, I remember the 3rd Worth a Buy review of 7dtd I think it was, had a video where the zombies brought down a building this way which he had built for demonstration.

Breaking blocks above the zombies would also only make sense with a matching mocap animation or by allowing them to turn their torso in a fitting way. For spider zombies and zombies in crawling position, breaking blocks below them would be legit right now since their hitting animation is basically already on the ground, doesnt quite apply to any other zeds.

 

[Cazmyr]

My biggest hopes for pathing are:

Able to fit/ go where we can fit/ go.

This would counter the toothy and pillar 50 base designs.

Some basic jumping would be nice also. Nothing crazy, but able to jump a 1 or 2 block gap would

counter a lot of base entrances I have seen.

Not that every design needs to be countered, but these designs specifically take advantage of the

zombies inability to path through these obstacles even though a player can fit through them.

 

[naive1000]

View attachment 24344View attachment 24345

View attachment 24346

I miss the old old plains. Is there a way to make this again? Modders? Best base I ever built

Okay, I'm curious, what is that made out of sod? Dirt? Asphalt?

 

[Roland]

Okay, I'm curious, what is that made out of sod? Dirt? Asphalt?

That looks like stone back when breaking a stone gave you a stone terrain block instead of a bunch of harvested small rocks.

 

[TSBX]

Beehives, we need beehives.

 

[Phoenixshade35]

Beehives would be interesting, would also make hunting for bears more fun, what I would not mind seeing is lures, like one to lure in animals and another type for zombies, kinda like how the forge brings in screamers, thats fun just waiting to happen.

 

[Rust Buddy]

Pathing considers block health. Doors currently use 25% health, so they favor them.

No change there. They always go for doors.

Trashing nearby walls is on my list, to counter sitting above them.

sounds great. Can you post the list?

Vertically damaging blocks I have not evaluated yet, but I will be looking at it.

it would change so much for the better. thanks.

 

[Rust Buddy]

Perhaps breaking blocks below the zombies could be limited to mostly zombies in floor-near positions, like the spider zombie or the crawler or zombies that lost one or two legs, since other zombies dont have any animation of them bowing down yet and so to hit a block below them while standing... well that just wouldnt look right without matching mocap.

hey bro. lets let faatal take a look at it. He said he would and I bet he'll figure it out just fine.

k thnx bye

 

[The Gronk]

hey bro. lets let faatal take a look at it. He said he would and I bet he'll figure it out just fine.
k thnx bye

We generally let people throw ideas around in dev diary, most are discarded but sometimes good ideas arise out of the melting pot.

Fun stuff like that is the reason you now find human turds in the toilets, this was then expanded into the fertilizer we use to grow the crops.

The turds came first, the fertilizer was the excuse to keep them in

 

[Gobarg]

We generally let people throw ideas around in dev diary, most are discarded but sometimes good ideas arise out of the melting pot.
Fun stuff like that is the reason you now find human turds in the toilets, this was then expanded into the fertilizer we use to grow the crops.

The turds came first, the fertilizer was the excuse to keep them in

So someone threw turds around in the forums and the devs caught on huh?

Sounds like a Guppy thing to me

 

[Dagzambie]

So someone threw turds around in the forums and the devs caught on huh?Sounds like a Guppy thing to me

Must... Not... Comment...

 

[Rust Buddy]

We generally let people throw ideas around in dev diary, most are discarded but sometimes good ideas arise out of the melting pot.
Fun stuff like that is the reason you now find human turds in the toilets, this was then expanded into the fertilizer we use to grow the crops.

The turds came first, the fertilizer was the excuse to keep them in

Well that's a fantastic general policy Gronky. But I was being specific to this guy who right away says why only spiders should break blocks downward and trying to put a limit on what faatal might wanna do right after faatal comes on and optimistically says he'll look at it. That's exactly what's wrong with these forums. Devs show stuff and people pick it apart. Devs give a plan and people say why it won't work. maybe they already got the animations for hitting up but haven't used em yet. anyone think about that? why would faatal even say he'd look into it if there were no animations to use?

when i think about ideas being thrown around i'm thinking about how can we do more and not less. its the tone of it. i prolly wouldn't say something if he was like "Spiders and crawlers and dogs would already be perfect for that ability" instead of saying it can't be done because of animations. And poop in the toilet? I thought that was the devs joking around between themselves and put it in as joke at first but then kept it in and then stole the fertilzier idea from Ark. who in the forums ever said poop?

 

[TSBX]

I'm just glad that we've all agreed YAY on beehives.

 

[The Gronk]

Well that's a fantastic general policy Gronky. But I was being specific to this guy who right away says why only spiders should break blocks downward and trying to put a limit on what faatal might wanna do right after faatal comes on and optimistically says he'll look at it. That's exactly what's wrong with these forums. Devs show stuff and people pick it apart. Devs give a plan and people say why it won't work. maybe they already got the animations for hitting up but haven't used em yet. anyone think about that? why would faatal even say he'd look into it if there were no animations to use?
when i think about ideas being thrown around i'm thinking about how can we do more and not less. its the tone of it. i prolly wouldn't say something if he was like "Spiders and crawlers and dogs would already be perfect for that ability" instead of saying it can't be done because of animations. And poop in the toilet? I thought that was the devs joking around between themselves and put it in as joke at first but then kept it in and then stole the fertilzier idea from Ark. who in the forums ever said poop?

Faatal is under no obligation to follow the suggestion, hell, he's not even under any obligation to read it. Naysaying is an essential part of teamwork, the ability to see future problems when other members of the team have still got their rose-tinted glasses on is a valuable skill.

As it stands, limiting digging to a select number of Z's was a hot topic of discussion quite recently. From that maelstrom it's quite likely that most of the pros and cons about the subject were thoroughly trawled over. Having too many Z's able to dig once led to swiss-cheese terrain which looked horrible, that's why digging Z's were removed in the first place.

Throwing turds at other players was the primary reason they were put in and if memory serves the forum generated the impetus for that.

 

[meganoth]

The mounds generally aren’t a bug, they’re a feature. Notice where the ground comes up in a mound on one side of the building, the ground comes down in a depression on the other side of the building. The middle of the building’s floor hasn’t been raised or lowered (in at least 90% of the A16 POIs I’ve seen). Rather, dirt is added or subtracted in a radius around that center in order to level enough space to fit the building.

What you are talking about is a feature. What DaVega was talking about was when that feature went overboard and formed round hills of varying heights, 5 blocks or more. While I liked the end result (I like weird in all forms) it unquestionably is not intended that way.

 

[Roland]

It’s moot whether they give vertical targeting to one or all zombies. Even if they give the ability to just the spider even I am good enough at modding to spread that ability around. It only takes one.

 

[TheSurvivor]

I'm sure this has been answered already somewhere in these past 1000+ pages but when the HP bar is depleted is the experimental version coming out just before full depletion or is it the full release of A17 or is it just the experimental on full depletion.

 

[Virgil]

Zombie health bars

I'm not a fan of being able to see how much health a zombie has before it dies. I'd rather not know... Is there going to be a way to turn that off?

 

[Rust Buddy]

Naysaying is an essential part of teamwork, the ability to see future problems when other members of the team have still got their rose-tinted glasses on is a valuable skill.

Naysaying is an essential part of douchebaggery you mean. My dad always told me to ignore the naysayers cuz they will always try to bring you down and make themselves look important by shutting you down. what if the poop naysayers had won back when it was being talked about? Then you wouldn't even have that example to try and shut me up lmao

Point is that we should look for ways to make it work and encourage the devs to experiment and try things out and not give reasons why it won't work. if it wont work it wont work but i dont need anyone on a team telling me dont try it cuz every team supposedly needs a naysayer. wjatever, im done. stupid thing to get riled up about. faatal will just ignore it like you said. but I'm just saying I'm for the devs trying out lots of different ♥♥♥♥ and seeing if it sticks to the wall and if it hits the fan instead then at least they tried it and they know for sure it was a dead end.

now im going to go let off steam playing some Rust pvp.

- - - Updated - - -

It’s moot whether they give vertical targeting to one or all zombies. Even if they give the ability to just the spider even I am good enough at modding to spread that ability around. It only takes one.

my point......................................................................................you