Crater Creator
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Posts posted by Crater Creator
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As long as we're on the subject, is the coloring you get with light performance turned on accurate for different types of lights? It draws a radius around the light, even if it's a spotlight instead of a point light. Are you on the hook performance-wise anywhere near a light, even if it's a spotlight pointing the other way?
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The best way people can help when encountering issues like this is to file a bug report after checking the known issues list.
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Please file a formal bug report here, following the instructions:
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PvP feature? We don't have those.
So I, too, wonder about this. Maybe it's easier to balance the range as a proportion of the base item's price? No doubt @Gazz has a reason.
I mean an item+mod being worth more than the sum of its parts could make sense, if it required some skill or item to combine them. Then you'd be leveraging something your character build can do, or do more easily, than others can. But you're getting more or less money just for re-packaging how you sell the same stuff. If you were trading with another human player, they'd laugh at you for wanting more money just because you took the 10 seconds to stick the mods on beforehand. Regardless of their overall profit margins, the traders shouldn't be so easily manipulated.
We have the converse problem with durability. What would I pay for someone's military armor that's at zero durability? Not nothing, like the trader does, that's for sure! I'd pay full price, minus the cost of a repair kit. Because that's the only added cost for me to have it at full durability. Again, if repairing required a skill or some other significant 'labor cost,' then I could understand the price reduction, but it's almost trivial.
In fairness, I haven't re-examined these prices in A20 specifically.
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The prefab editor will tell you both the triangle and poly count. You can also turn on light performance to see color coding for how many lights overlap a space. I concur that these are two of the most important performance factors to check.
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From the FAQ on the Steam forum:
A) Builds
Q1: How can I play the latest experimental build?
A: Before you read the answer, understand that experimental builds are bleeding edge. Unstable. There will be bugs. It may be unplayable. You may lose your saved game or your world. That’s why it’s not released to everyone, and you have to voluntarily opt in. Still feeling brave? Okay. Right click on the game in your Steam library and navigate to Properties... -> Betas -> latest_experimental. Then Steam will download the experimental build. Note that there is not always an experimental build available.
Q2: How can I reject future updates and stay on this build, or play an older build of the game?
A: Right click on the game in your Steam library and navigate to Properties... -> Betas. Whatever build you select here is the build you’ll download and play, until you change it.
Q3: Do I have to start over with the new Alpha? Can I still play my old saved games? Will they be deleted?
A: Your saved games are only expected to work with the Alpha you were playing when you started them. If you don’t want to start over, you can roll back to that earlier Alpha to play your old saved games - see previous question. An update will not delete your saved games.
Q4: I want to play the latest stable build, but I don’t see it in the betas tab with the other versions.
A: The latest stable build is what users download by default instead of a beta build. Select “None” from the betas tab to download it. Note that you may have seen the same build with the same build number on the betas tab in the past, because the build that is now stable, used to be experimental.
Also, remember that if you do nothing and don’t manually opt in to A20, you’ll stay on A19 during the experimental phase. You won’t download anything until later, when A20 goes from experimental to stable.
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Perhaps individual slabs of natural slate just vary a lot in thickness and luster? We need a geologist... @DaVegaNL?
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When you hit play in Steam, you have the option of starting a launcher instead of the game proper. That launcher has a field under "Game start options" for "Additional parameters". I haven't tried this, but it looks like something that may accept console commands pre-launch.
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9 hours ago, BFT2020 said:
I am stealing this idea for my modlet 😉
Though based on the changes I am making, I think it has gone from a simple modlet to an overhaul mod:
- Significant changes to traders
- Significant changes to looting and crafting
- Significant changes to schematics / perk books
If you want another idea to steal
... we have all these parts now. I think it would make sense to repair your item with a part for that item. A broken shotgun is repaired with one unit of shotgun parts. A broken auger is repaired with one unit of steel tool parts, etc. This makes sense, doesn't require new art or the bloat of new items, and gives you something to do with e.g. all those extraneous shotgun parts you continue to accumulate once you have a top tier shotgun.
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2 hours ago, Roland said:
yeah but....99.9% of usecases involves throwing a spear at an NPC for which the GPS tracker works perfectly to help you retrieve your spear if you missed or if the spear goes inside the zombie or animal. Because the spear is a primitive weapon, you kind of need the tracker function on it from the very beginning and not as a mod that you may not find or be able to craft until much later. I say "must" in the sense that it is a QOL addition that you don't want to play without once having had it. I do realize that we had spears for a long time before having the tracker function for them. But there really is no going back in my opinion.
The problem described in this thread is going to be an extremely rare usecase in which a player doing PVP unequips his gun and loads his spear and is able to get close enough to throw it and hit the opposing player without the player realizing they've been hit so that they go back to their base unaware of being tracked. Even if the player knows they've been hit but can't remove it from their own body they can (and would) eat glass before going back to their base and reveal its location.
So we are talking about a slim chance of being able to stick a person in the first place and then an even slimmer chance that the person stuck doesn't know they're stuck and then the even slimmer chance that even if they do know, instead of committing suicide and respawning clear of the spear the player is going to choose to go back to their base while wearing their new body piercing.
I mean, I'll mention it for sure because its funny and we should be able to remove stuff that is currently impaling us but nothing can convince me that changes need to be made for this rarest of rare usecases that would hurt the QOL of those of us who use spears in their most common usecases.
That's a little off the mark, because if the community at large concludes that this technique offers them an advantage, it'll quickly become a more common tactic. But I also acknowledge and accept that TFP don't prioritize tuning for PvP.
I actually saw the idea less as going backwards on quality-of-life, and even less as addressing this inadvertent PvP tracking function. I saw it more as repackaging an interface feature that's already implemented, in a way that gives the player more interesting options in game.
If you use and like the spear tracker, great! You can mod your spear to include that. If you don't like or need the tracker, then you can make a spear without it. But rather than being a main menu option that 'hardcore' players turn off, people that aren't going to use the tracker get to make a cheaper spear, and put the resources and/or mod slot they save towards something more important to their playstyle.
It reminds me of the minibike in A14. At the time, I thought that all the minibike needed for tracking was a tall, brightly colored flag on it, that you could see above the tall grass. Now you can see every vehicle on the compass. And that is superior. But instead of being the default, that could be a mod you put on your vehicle if you want it. I know you're a strong supporter of as little interface as possible, so I'd actually think you'd be someone who'd appreciate the choice to opt out of interface elements like this.
Similarly, the minibike used to require a padlock as part of its crafting recipe. I didn't like that not having a padlock meant I couldn't build a minibike (especially in single player, where I was the last man on Earth and really didn't need one). The padlock should've been an optional mod you install to enable the ability to lock and unlock your minibike. It's the same idea as putting a tracker on things. We have these neat quality of life features, but instead of them just being part of the system we take for granted, they could be available as upgrades over the default, giving us more goodies to weigh the costs & benefits of, without programming new features.
One can argue that the tracker is such a beneficial part of the spear that I needs it all the time! But that same logic would apply to all sorts of items/playstyles. Once you've played a sniper character with a scope on your rifle, you don't want to play without one. Once you've played a stealth character with night vision, you don't want to play without it. And so on. A feature can be adored by players, but still have a cost you appreciate and choose to pay for instead of being ubiquitous.
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2 hours ago, Maharin said:
They should also add a "bungee" mod for spears that automatically returns them regardless of target (presumably tied to the spear and the player's wrist, or something like that).
That's crossed my mind, too. Press reload to 'pull the cord' and retrieve the spear, whether or not the cord is visible. I'd definitely try spears again if they had a mod like that. For that matter, the 'GPS tracker' function could be its own mod for spears, instead of all spears having it.
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Version 1.0 is now released!
This update adds four new POIs, bringing the total number up to 10. It's also a big milestone, in that it now covers all the locations in Death Toll that I wanted to include. In addition to testing all POIs in RWG, I've made some revisions/fixes to the older POIs, especially to smooth out sleepers.
With Alpha 20 right around the corner (no, really this time
), this should be the final Alpha 19 version of the pack. So enjoy!
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I second Roland's suggestion to try an earlier Alpha if you haven't - Alpha 16 is remembered particularly fondly by some. Back then, there was a sense of decay which I think you're after. Every time you repaired a tool, it got a little bit worse. Eventually you would swing it one too many times and it would literally fall apart in your hands. You could use the workbench (using a remarkably simple interface) to combine two of the same item, resulting in a new item of slightly higher quality. And as I recall, if your skills advanced enough you could craft items of the highest quality, to make as good or better replacements for what you'd find in loot.
All of this added up to a world that felt like you were pushing back against a force of decay, working to not only reach the peak of success, but maintain that status. In theory that feeling tied in nicely with the other forces of survival, and increasing hordes of zombies, that work against you. In other words, your inversion principle does have a certain appeal where it comes to having a progressive difficulty curve over time. And that's something that survival games struggle with: the player gets a handle on food, water, shelter, etc. and then asks, "Now what?"
Another underlying premise here is resource depletion. You want to have the experience of running out of pre-apocalypse equipment and supplies. One way to do that would be to invert the loot progression, but another way would be to play without loot respawn. Then you would in fact run out of the good stuff unless you further extended yourself and moved on to another town, even if your level had no bearing on what loot you find.
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Being unaware of it may not be the problem for the victim. I assume the problem is that this has no counter. You can't remove it, and you'll probably need to go to your base sooner or later.
My solution would be that if a player is hit by a thrown spear, they're guaranteed to get a visible debuff. No need to reinvent the wheel with a 3rd person view or something. This debuff would have an item to counter it, like other injury debuffs. Say, a puncture debuff, cured by using a medical clamp item. Some bow projectiles could cause this debuff, too. Failing that, it could just re-use the bleeding or laceration debuff. In this way, the victim controls if and when the spear is removed and drops to the ground. I guess there'd be nothing stopping them from then taking it for themselves.
As far as changing the mechanics of the spear, there are several ways it could go. I don't like using the darn thing, because I don't like not having a weapon after I attack, and I don't like filling up my tool belt with redundant weapons, either. Someone on the Steam forum mentioned changing the spears to be the ammunition rather than the weapon. An atlatl would become the weapon that launches the spears. Any quality level or mods would be tied to the atlatl. That thread devolved into an argument about realism and terminology, but I like the idea from a gameplay standpoint. The value of the ingredients that go into the launcher versus the ammunition could be balanced, so that losing a spear doesn't mean losing everything.
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On 11/24/2021 at 12:26 PM, SnowDog1942 said:
I wish the PIMPS would use whatever tech Microsoft Flight Sim 2020 uses when it connects to real world map data. Imagine generating your hometown as the map.
I know this was a joke thread but… the real world is boring. Give me a world that was constructed with fun in mind (including procedural generation) any day. At least at the small scale. I guess it works when you’re just flying over everything and don’t interact with anything on the ground for 90% of the gameplay.1 -
The mod launcher is an unofficial third party product. I'll merge this in with the existing thread for this tool.
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Aw, thanks guys! I truly appreciate the support.
My advice if you want to play ComSenMod in the near term would be to play it with an Alpha 18 game: preferably a new one so e.g. adjustments to biomes can apply. I have no expectations that it would work in A19 - it modifies xml that changed drastically from A18 to A19.
Big picture, I also feel that slowly but surely a lot of the things I've griped about in vanilla and 'fixed' in ComSenMod are getting addressed in vanilla, either directly or through other changes that make the point moot. There are fewer "well duh, of course it should be like this" examples to point to as time has gone on, which is a credit to Gazz et al.
So instead, I've been pouring all my time into prefab modding for some time now. But, knowing there's still interest certainly encourages me to revisit ComSenMod or something like it.
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9 hours ago, Lord Daem said:
Its a bit of a learning curve, so if there are any UK based servers accepting total newbies, I'll happily join!
If you haven’t yet, you may want to take advantage of our Multiplayer section.0 -
I feel like the Twitch integration is kinda sorta approaching this, with temporary effects to unpredictably help or hinder the player, like increasing their speed, or making only melee weapons work. And your Twitch watchers make great gremlins.
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First thing's first: nice house.
- I like that you gave the house a proper apocalypse treatment, with broken walls and trash strewn everywhere.
- In the shed, you seem to use cupboards up high instead of cabinets. The cupboard's textures look best on the ground.
- Maybe your brightness is just set high, but the POI seemed very bright. I like to only turn on a light if it will A) guide the player along the one true path, or B) when they're particularly effective to set the mood for a space.
- Speaking of the one true path, it looks like the house is reversible: it can be navigated front-to-back or back-to-front. If you want this to be a questable dungeon crawl, I encourage you to pick which end is the start and which is the finish, and lock the doors accordingly.
- The house seemed very dense on loot. It's tempting to overuse the newest decorative art, like the clothing racks and piles, everywhere they make sense, but I feel the rewards in this house are heavy relative to the risks.
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First thing's first: nice house.
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Version 0.9.5 is now released! As teased earlier this month, it adds DTTunnel, a Tier 4 POI.
DTTunnel is a largely underground journey through Death Toll's first two rounds, including the road tunnel, sewers/waterworks, and Hersch Shipping Company.
Familiar set pieces from L4D, including 2 safe rooms, are strung together in the same order you see them in L4D.
Because it's mostly underground, making DTTunnel was more like subtractive modeling than past POIs. You can have paths that just end, without having to do something with the empty space beyond.
Vital stats:
0.97M vertices
100 sleeper spawns
~35 minutes to complete
Enjoy!
Update 10/29/21: Re-uploaded after fixing a sleeper bug in DTDowntown
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Some boulders are good for variety. I find they're overused, though. At least where I've lived, you don't get that many boulders sticking out of the ground like you see in Navezgane or RWG, even in the wilderness. As for making more organic rock outcrops out of stone blocks... well it theoretically works, but I for one hate messing with terrain density to achieve smooth results. We need a smooth terrain function.
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Interesting. I'm currently working on a mostly-underground POI, and I've been grappling with how the surface should look. This example reminds me just how much difference the trees can make.
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Since this is Pimp Dreams and I’m totally not salty about losing building materials, I propose the new system have scrap iron gloves, reinforced wood helmet, rebar frame chest armor, brick boots, flagstone pants…
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My prefab is laggy as hell
in Discussion and Requests
Posted
When you turn on light performance in the POI editor, it stops rendering the textures of blocks and instead paints them a color based on how many lights hit that surface. That's what I meant by coloring. The shape of these blobs of color is always spherical, even if some lights are directional instead of point lights. You answered my question, though: you think the type of light doesn't affect performance.