PC Developer Discussions: Alpha 17

Developer Discussions: Alpha 17

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is there a way to set a max value for used CPU power ?Dont want to anger my serverowner (renting slotwise, not sure if it would be so great for other customers on the same physical server)
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No throttle. But i had 14 players on at a given moment while mapspider was crawling. CPU didnt go beserk in any way.

Only prob i encountered after a fair number of hours (i descheduled the restarts for letting mapvisitor doing its job) is that memory gets fuller and fuller cause of the memleaking and no restarts to fix that. You can however do scheduled restarts still, but you will have to let the mapvisitor take off at the point it stopped after the restart.

Cheers

 
drop your console is it showing there and it is a long process pending the size you chose.
mine has been running over an hour and is at 3-4% (thats why he noted he spent 30 hrs in it on his post)
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Yep its working and I see it now. Chalk one up to impatience (as usual)

 
As he said you need to restart the Computer all few hours because the ram is full.

So devide your 100 000 x 100 000 in 400 pieces of 5000x5000 and then render piece by piece

We see us in A18

 
Apple pie in the sky!
/Rubber Tree plants confirmed
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So are you saying that there will be rubber in the game now?

If so, what existing items will this be added to?

What new things are we going to be able to make with them?

Will we be able to grow them?

Will they grow wild? If so what biomes?

 
So are you saying that there will be rubber in the game now?
If so, what existing items will this be added to?

What new things are we going to be able to make with them?

Will we be able to grow them?

Will they grow wild? If so what biomes?
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I think he was joking.... a slash '/' can mean someone is messing about or being sarcastic ;)

 
So are you saying that there will be rubber in the game now?
If so, what existing items will this be added to?

What new things are we going to be able to make with them?

Will we be able to grow them?

Will they grow wild? If so what biomes?
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Sorry. Just some old guy reference humor. Gotta know Doris Day...

 
I wonder if we'll get new textures to play with for the paint tool. I would love some 'clean' versions of some of the existing textures.

 
AI

Yes, they will innately just attack you. There will be NPCs that are friendly, neutral, and hostile. We call the hostile variety "bandits". Perhaps, we are bandits to them philosophically but then again they are just following AI coded subroutines without any free will to decide to do other than they've been programmed to do so I wouldn't normally waste any philosophical breath on their nonexistent point of view of anything.
I'm an AI racist that way. When's West World starting up again....?
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My pet part of any game is the quality of the AI. Many games get around lack of AI by doing PVP multiplayer, or scripted linear "set piece" programming. Back in the days of Delta force, they would be pretty targets standing by buildings or in watchtowers.

The goal to aim for is not only believable reactions, but also tested tactics dependent on equipment, situation, terrain, and aggressiveness (faction) to the player. Zombies should be easier as only situation and terrain are variables. Bandits however are a huge task. As an example take a look at these notes of a mod that just tweaks an existing AI, its a good representation of things to consider.

http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=24080

 
Sorry. Just some old guy reference humor. Gotta know Doris Day...
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"Just what makes that ant think he can move a rubber tree plantt....CAUSE HE"S GOT HIIIIGH HOPES!!" Some of us may even be older than you Roland ;) . It's nice to know my demographic is represented.

People get frustrsted waiting for alphas....I had to wait for cartridges while playing Pong, and Discs while playing cartridges, and step-wise 3D while playing 2D side-scrollers. I could go on ad nausea but you get the point! Open Letter to Future Lifetime Gamers: Develop patience now it goes a long way toward avoiding strokes. LOL

I love this f-ing game in all of its iterations and frustrations. Rejoice that TFP actually care about quality and sit back and enjoy the ride. Someday it will end. For now, it just keeps on going, and I for one am so very glad!

 
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My pet part of any game is the quality of the AI. Many games get around lack of AI by doing PVP multiplayer, or scripted linear "set piece" programming. Back in the days of Delta force, they would be pretty targets standing by buildings or in watchtowers.
The goal to aim for is not only believable reactions, but also tested tactics dependent on equipment, situation, terrain, and aggressiveness (faction) to the player. Zombies should be easier as only situation and terrain are variables. Bandits however are a huge task. As an example take a look at these notes of a mod that just tweaks an existing AI, its a good representation of things to consider.

http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=24080
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Best "AI" I've ever seen was in F.E.A.R. (not its sequels, though) They'd duck, go around to flank you, yell to each other and generally make you feel like you weren't the only intelligence in that game world. Turns out it was mostly smoke and mirrors and preset points in the map that they'd look for if they were shot at or trying to path, but it was fantastic smoke and mirrors. Seems like most POIs could have probable "duck and cover" points tagged for bandit-type mobs to use. Beside doorways, behind desks, that sort of thing.

 
A good ai is a really hard task.

A few years ago spend some time in this topic, but not from the point of view of a Programmer, instead i started that topic from the Point of view of a "Project Reality" player who had around 3000-4000 Hours as Squadleader.

Highest priority i see is that the Bots must be denyed to shoot through trees and other obstackles player cant see through. This was the biggest problem about bots in Battlefield 2.

Simplest AI would be to make Pairs/Squads.

One fireteam attack straight and/or take cover. The other fireteam try to flank.

And even this can be complicated in a Voxel world without rules the AI can be sure of.

(as example there is maybe only one entrance to a Fortress)

 
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Some more ideas here -

- Can we have campfires that actually sit on the ground? Check campfires on some gravel, grass, and, well any ground, and it sometimes sinks through the foor.

- Running around earlier I ended up managing to stave off hunger and thirst with blueberries. Scrambling for iron and clay to forge up a cooking pot, I thought, why not be able to make blueberry juice! I don't know what stats you'd stick on it but a nice jar of blueberry juice would give us a nice new drink and another option for the berry besides eat straight, herbal anti, and pie :D

- Could we perhaps see player made hanging traps? That is to say a 5 high column of wood with a diagonal pole on it with rope to snag the zombies?

- Talking of traps, I really would love to see bear traps - I think it's been mentioned before. Great addition.

- Some other guy mentioned nicer painting as opposed to the shabby worn down decor of the post apocalyptic tat we have now. It makes complete sense. Look at the wood floor, the red one, it's immaculate. Also, provided we mixed up some paint decently, we should have much better final products. I know its zombie apolcalypse but making the place look like home in a fully constructed base makes all the difference.

- One animal no one mentioned (I think) that would make a nice addition, and give us a great one piece of meat, and something that would literally be everywhere - rats! A little salt and vinegar too would be nice...

- One other melee weapon I'd like to see, a fire extinguisher. We could loot them from fire stations.

- Fire. The ability to torch a building would be great. I would love to be able to fire bomb houses, flaming arrow them with sleepers inside :D

 
Thats why i invest around 30 hours of cpu time after a wipe to pregenerate the complete world.
Check the vanilla visitmap command for that :)
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Oh, so *that's* what visitmap is supposed to do? How do you use it? I tried using it, without success.

EDIT: Gah. I didn't expect the next two pages to be full of the same question and answers to it. Can't see how to delete the post, though.

 
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Best "AI" I've ever seen was in F.E.A.R. (not its sequels, though) They'd duck, go around to flank you, yell to each other and generally make you feel like you weren't the only intelligence in that game world. Turns out it was mostly smoke and mirrors and preset points in the map that they'd look for if they were shot at or trying to path, but it was fantastic smoke and mirrors. Seems like most POIs could have probable "duck and cover" points tagged for bandit-type mobs to use. Beside doorways, behind desks, that sort of thing.
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AI is hard.

A lot of the seemingly "smart" AI you see is scripted. Level designers, developers, and story writers know the levels as they exist in popular games so they can present the illusion of a smart AI. This is quite a bit harder to accomplish in an open world game where players can manipulate the world. Take a look at any RTS game and you'll quickly see the limits of AI. Pathing issues, etc. all become very real. Example: if paths A and B are the same length and take the same time to get through, which one do I choose? What if one path is shorter, but the other path has traps?

IMO zombies aren't supposed to be all that smart to begin with. Maybe it's time to make them 'dumb' and just go for the player in any way possible. Can't get to the player? If the player is 'above', break down any structure that may be supporting that player. If the player is below, attack the entry point the player frequents and move down. The 'breadcrumb' system has been mentioned in the past and would work well for underground bases. Stilts would get knocked off from stilt bases (NOTE: they already somewhat do this from experience). The biggest thing of all: The mind should be collective. Let them work together instead of independently attacking. They all want food after all.

For bandits: I imagine a real, decent implementation of bandits is going to take a bit more work than people realize. RandomGen needs to be polished as much as possible so that bandits can easily pathfind their way around without getting *stuck* (for instance, they run off the road, but the roads for many seeds are currently cliffs, so how do they get back on the road?).

A final question I ask you all is, should the player really be the target of bandits and zombies? If the player does not exist, IMO the world should still live and breath. Zombies should sniff out the bandits and attack them just as they do the player. Maybe the trader even has to fight his own battles and is no longer invincible. Imagine having to save the trader from an attack! Don't save him? He may or may not live. Depends on his weaponry and the strength of the attack.

 
Any time a game can have different factions that don't necessarily focus on the player so that the player feels like a small part of a larger world rather than the center of the universe it makes the world seem more real and alive.

Coming upon a deserted bandit base is meh...

Coming upon a fortified and defended bandit base is fun...

Coming upon a fortified and defended bandit base currently under attack by rival bandits or a zombie horde is amazing...

 
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