PC Developer Discussions: Alpha 17

[faatal]

So the new AI path finding code is from here https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/ai/a-pathfinding-project-pro-87744 and only costs about 50 USD.
So the strategy is buy as much from the Unity store and throw it onto Steam these days?

I'm pretty sure it is the #1 pathfinding solution on the Unity store and I have actually used it on other games.

The short answer for buying code off the store and it just works in your game is HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

The long answer is if you need a complex pathing solution, get ready to write a lot of code.

Our code:

AstarManager 957 lines.

AstarVoxelGrid 1695 lines.

ASPPathFinder 278 lines.

ASPPathFinderThread 100 lines.

ASPPathNavigate 399 lines.

Then there are the 12 mods I've made to the A* code. In total, hundreds if not thousands of hours of work getting that running in our dynamically changing voxel world.

Next you will be telling us, you just bought a game engine and threw in onto steam?

Maybe we should toss Visual Studio and just use notepad to write machine code in hex?

 

[faatal]

The 4 leggeds are all janky, but a vast improvement so I've Faith.

Their main problem is the long colliders that are usually more than 1m. When turning they hit walls, but if we shortened them, head and butts would go through walls, players and vehicles. Real animals would twist and turn, but these are rigid bodies.

 

[Guppycur]

Their main problem is the long colliders that are usually more than 1m. When turning they hit walls, but if we shortened them, head and butts would go through walls, players and vehicles. Real animals would twist and turn, but these are rigid bodies.

Yeh we were able to nail the 5 zbears because they insisited on going between a lamppost and a corner of the gas station, getting stuck and unable to swipe... I'm guessing you'd need a separate pathing system for them to be "right"?

If so, is that in the cards?

 

[Guppycur]

Ooh, can you adjust the collider size during a turn?

 

[sillls]

Is your computer the server? If not, what ping do you have and how many people are on the server?

I use my own computer and play SP.

 

[wolffblood]

If it removes stamina use per second, that is good.

If that is good, meaning that stam/sec is increased, why is heavy armor better than light armor? I noticed iron boots is like -0.9 and leather boots is like -0.6. Shouldn't that be the other way around?

 

[cnconrad]

Why? The guy only has so much money. If you showed up at my house trying to sell me 20 guns, I don't have infinite money to buy them all.

Honestly it depends on the deal I'm getting. I'm guessing if someone comes offering 20 guns to me I would free up some capital to buy them.

I would do so even more in the apocalypse. That being said it is a totally reasonable design decision.

You can always come back in a few days and sell more.

 

[Jamie87]

Any one come across a screamer in alpha 17

 

[Guppycur]

Any one come across a screamer in alpha 17

Yep.

 

[Kosmic Kerman]

If that is good, meaning that stam/sec is increased, why is heavy armor better than light armor? I noticed iron boots is like -0.9 and leather boots is like -0.6. Shouldn't that be the other way around?

I think Joel misspoke. Looking at the XML stamina regen is removed by armor with different percentages subtracted depending on whether you are walking or running. So Leather armor is better than Iron. Leather boots remove 0.0281 when walking and 0.0562 when sprinting.

 

[wolffblood]

I think Joel misspoke. Looking at the XML stamina regen is removed by armor with different percentages subtracted depending on whether you are walking or running. So Leather armor is better than Iron. Leather boots remove 0.0281 when walking and 0.0562 when sprinting.

That's what I was thinking when I was doing some testing. Just wanted to make sure, lol. BTW, is there a perk that actually increases stam gains now? I noticed Cardio 1 is now changed to uses less stam while running and no longer increase stam while walking or idle. I'm wondering if there is something other than food/water buffs to inc it. I know there's a lot that uses less stam for the action, just want to know if something inc stam rate.

 

[Tagoris]

On my RWG map (seed: Albuquerque) I keep running into POI's with huge irradiated looking boars (3-5 in a tiny POI). They can hardly move/path and most of the time just stand there while I shoot/attack them. I was also able to harvest one boar about 60 times with a knife. I ended up with 240 raw meet and tons of hides from 3-4 boars. These boars are stupid hard to kill (around level 5...) and their AI is pretty janky at the moment. Other than some weird spawn-in issues with zombies, i'm loving the new build! Great job TFP!

 

[cnconrad]

Another piece of feedback, I'm feeling that stamina is not very clearly explained. Or simply doesn't feel right.

It feels like my stamina is never going to be full. I wish that it only got "damaged" when I was under 50% hungry or thirsty.

Also @madmole

I really like your level up skills system. But it feels a bit too hit and miss. There are too many points required and levels are far too high for many of the perks.

I'm not looking at the game to know for sure but I believe there is something like 50 points required to Max out your "special"

And then there are an additional ±50 points to Max out the perks under a specific special attribute.

Along with this you are not going to be able to get any of the unique perk levels until you are level 60+ by that time most of them won't be really that impressive.

The concept of requiring level 100 (max level) for so many perks and stats means that we are going to have to stop spending any points for 20+ levels just to buy what we want at level 100 when they finally unlock.

Long story short, giving us less than 1/2 the points required to Max out our characters AND adding random level gates to skills and perks doesn't make for fun progression.

Either open it up so we can focus on what ever we want, if we end up being a no combat master tool maker by level 20 great. We are very useful yet very weak at the same time.

Or give us enough points to buy everything and keep the level gates in and we will just grind to become masters at survival.

The way it is now there are only a few logical things to put your points in and I'm willing to bet once people learn the game 25%-50% of the perks will never be used simply because there are better options and because of level gates you will need to be level 60+ before some of the perks become interesting.

 

[madmole]

It's always going to be locked. Madmole: "We disabled it (at least I think we did) because generation of a 16k map was either stalling out or maybe takes longer than we were willing to wait to see (+1 hour) "

Always? I only meant until we have time to fix it.

 

[Doombringer101]

Another piece of feedback, I'm feeling that stamina is not very clearly explained. Or simply doesn't feel right.
It feels like my stamina is never going to be full. I wish that it only got "damaged" when I was under 50% hungry or thirsty.

Also @madmole

I really like your level up skills system. But it feels a bit too hit and miss. There are too many points required and levels are far too high for many of the perks.

I'm not looking at the game to know for sure but I believe there is something like 50 points required to Max out your "special"

And then there are an additional ±50 points to Max out the perks under a specific special attribute.

Along with this you are not going to be able to get any of the unique perk levels until you are level 60+ by that time most of them won't be really that impressive.

The concept of requiring level 100 (max level) for so many perks and stats means that we are going to have to stop spending any points for 20+ levels just to buy what we want at level 100 when they finally unlock.

Long story short, giving us less than 1/2 the points required to Max out our characters AND adding random level gates to skills and perks doesn't make for fun progression.

Either open it up so we can focus on what ever we want, if we end up being a no combat master tool maker by level 20 great. We are very useful yet very weak at the same time.

Or give us enough points to buy everything and keep the level gates in and we will just grind to become masters at survival.

The way it is now there are only a few logical things to put your points in and I'm willing to bet once people learn the game 25%-50% of the perks will never be used simply because there are better options and because of level gates you will need to be level 60+ before some of the perks become interesting.

Max level is 300, you have 12 points left over with every perk (by memory).

 

[madmole]

Okay, this warrants some explanation.
RWG, and the changes that were made.

Old.

RWG would be made, and all of the data would be put in the save folder, and as you explored chunks, "region" files would be created. The calculations were done as new chunks were loaded, so the game didn't know that it would be say, a forest biome with an ore cluster until you entered the new chunk.

New.

Rwg creates a world. A height map (DTM), splatmap images (biomes) and a prefabs.xml, just like Navezgane uses. The files are stored in the game folder, under data/worlds, and are NOT AFFECTED BY SAVE GAMES. They simply "exist", like a Nav map does.

Now, when the user enters a new chunk, the game already KNOWS what data to expect, so creates the region files faster.

THE GOOD NEWS IS:

Because the map is literally a DTM file (grey scaled height map file) you could literally load mars and use it as a map. Like, it's been done.

You can also use an image edting program to CREATE YOUR OWN MAP. You can specify which biomes go where by editing the splat map. You can put specific prefabs by telling the prefab.xml where to put them. You can SPECIFY SPAWN POINTS. Where water goes. Roads. Radiation. Entities. Spawners.

So, although this is the first iteration (although I think it's rwg v4.0) of this method, can you start to see the potential now?

Look familiar?

...that's nav's biome mapping.

Want some snow in the south? Edit that .png file, throw in some white at the very bottom. Save the file. Then load the map.

That easy.

Where is my new map? You guys have had a full 5 days to create new maps. How long are your maps going to be in alpha? When is the release date of the next map? When can I get your map on console? Will your map run on my 386 with 4k of memory? Can I mod your map? Can you release the psd of your map before its out so I can mod the things I don't like about it? Can I see the release notes at least so I can read them while your map is downloading? Will your map fit in my recycle bin if I don't like it?

 

[madmole]

So I am at a trader (Jen) and there are BB crops that I can't harvest as they are protected and hitting them won't work

Jen would so kill you if you took her crops, so we decided to spare you of a horrible death.

 

[faatal]

Are we getting a fix for the invincible soldiers in the next beta build? Thats the only thing thats preventing my group from starting a server right now. Since we'll be discovering those in the first bigger structure we'll loot.

Fix is coming. In b201 I tested it and they took damage with every weapon I used.

 

[Wolf959]

I don't know if this has been asked yet. but why can't i use mod schematics. I have yeah science level 1 and a tier 1 schematic. It says I still don't know the recipe. I've tried this with all the tier 1 schematics. is this a bug or have schematics not yet been fully implemented?

 

[The Batman]

Why is ninjaspawning still in game? It's been an entire year since A16, and zombies still spawn behind you inside POI's. multiple times on ocasion,

Is this an server communication bug? Where it sometimes connects and spawns them on entering, and sometimes goes TADA zombie teleport!

These critical bugs alongside with ghost hits, should be prio 1. But they come back every other alpha.

Batman,