dcsobral

We spotted what looked like a new spike model on one of the streams.

Maybe you changed LCB settings to 71 blocks? 😂

That has been one of my pet peeves as well. It doesn't matter whether the zombie is at full health or has 1 hp left, it looks the same. You just don't have a decent feedback on how much damage you have inflicted, and feedback is king.

Well, that depends on the experiment, doesn't it? That's why it is called experimental.

That's one weird way of saying 55, is it?

Give me clunky. I tried first person on Night of the Dead, which features some fine player animations, and got motion sickness really fast. When you walk the brain adjusts what you are seeing based on the motion detection of your ears and experience. These elements are absent when you are sitting down looking at a screen so your brain can't do much except adjust to short term experience -- which causes that strange dissonance when you end a long playing session --, and that causes the motion sickness. So it really should be up to the computer to do the adjusting to give you a stable view. That doesn't mean the avatar shouldn't get some better animations, and it did receive some updates in this regard on alpha 18, iirc. Just don't move the view up and down to simulate walking.

I thought you wanted him to do that. Why are you threatening him?

One thing to consider regarding dismemberment is that we were seeing close ups of it on a steady camera in a loop. In game you'll be moving and probably not staying that close to the zombie and it will happen pretty fast. A non-exaggerated animation might just go unnoticed. I know most of the details they have shown on things already in alpha 19 are things I have never noticed in-game because of how subtle they are. It's sort of like Hollywood sound effects. They are utterly unrealistic because they are meant to be noticed. This is what "artistic license" truly means. It reminds me of a story I heard from a Civilization dev. People thought the computer was cheating and they were right but not in the way they thought: the game actually cheated in favor of the player because, otherwise, player's felt they were cheated to be point of outrage. So they had the game cheat in favor of the players just to make them feel a semblance of fairness. It's not about what things actually are, it is about players perceive them in-game.

One thing about yesterday's stream: that team has had their work displayed on twitter all year long, and by all appearances they have moved on to alpha 21. So on one hand we saw mostly things we had seen already and the other hand they couldn't talk about their current work. On the gripping hand, mandatory Mote in God's Eye reference.

Dismemberment animation coming to alpha 20, though not necessarily 20.0. That's the only news I can recall from tonight's stream (still not finished, though -- on Q&A). However... if you are still going to watch it, don't plan on eating while doing so. Disgusting!

That's always fun but I'm talking about a different thing. I'm talking about the placement location having no neighbors with vertical/horizontal support. Like on top of a stone, twigs, grass, campfire, hatch... that sort of thing. And with very few exceptions it happens because the location is not the one I intended. YMMV, but I doubt it. I have no problems at all allowing blocks to be placed that would exceed the SI or support distance.

You can also turn off BM on the settings. Zombies not spawning if you spend countless hours laying down blocks in a large area is not a problem -- in fact, one might argue it is within the goals of the game. Having zombies spawn inside your base is a much bigger of a problem but what, exactly, is your base in a game that places very few limits on what you can do? I'd say the balance right now is pretty good.

It would be nice if it wasn't possible at all. What purpose does it serve to allow us to place the block that will be destroyed? I did hear @faatal hint at something related stability, but he is keeping his cards close for his dev stream next week (?).

They have a massive sneak kill multiplier, though. What I dislike is how the compound bow is so much worse than crossbows.

They could if you make it so sewers would connect in the same way as roads. For example, if your sewers are centered underneath the roads, it's easy. If they are to the side of the roads then you need to place them on both side to account for all rotations. Or you could make it independent of roads if you make them fully connected. For example, imagine tiles always provide a connection on the 4 sides, independently of what the road above looks like. What you cannot do as far as Kinkyajuu told us is having a sewer grid that connects independently of the road grid above. Here's a little thought exercise. Suppose you have a city tiled like this: ┌ ┬ ┬ ┐ │ ├ ┼ ┤ ├ ┼ ┘ ╵ └ ┴ ─ ╴ What kind of sewer arrangement you could make for each tile to make sure they all connect to each other? How bad would it be if a sewer just ends in dirt on the next tile/wilderness? Well, maybe underground. On surface there's a couple of tools to easily make mounds and dips, which are available since alpha 18 I think.

Was that on last week's dev stream, with the level designers?

They could connect multiple POIs, I think. One tile has multiple POIs and if you can customize the restriction on which POIs can go there then you could create POIs that have sewer "attachments" in standard places so they would all be interconnected. Within a tile. A tile is 150x150, and that's a lot of space.

Ah, but can they path to these spaces? I mean, I could provide some really nice covers close to the entrances of my base with just the slight inconvenient that it will take a long time for someone to go from the entrance to them, all on plain sight.

If it's slow people won't use it. It won't be fast. So what's the point?

Melee bandits are easy because zombies are melee. Ranged bandits are harder because they are not supposed to just come in your direction and shoot every now and then, like cops do.

What I do wish was coming to alpha 20, but there's no sign that's the case, is the slot locking for the inventory stash buttons. And vehicles, now that I think about it.

Well, you couldn't do that either in alpha 18 or previous alphas either. Rebar was heavier and had more structural integrity than concrete and to get around that you had to go through hoops much more complex than what seems to be coming on alpha 20. And you forgot a third alternative. Put temporary extra support.

The problem is not getting concrete. If you luck out you can get concrete on day 1. The problem is quantity, which requires cement mix, stone and sand. The first is easily looted, but stone and sand are only gained very slowly until you have good tools and mining skills. To make a whole base out of concrete requires a LOT of stone and sand. Now if we are talking about only 1000 or 2000 concrete on key places then you can quickly upgrade everything with a claw hammer. If we are talking about a 30x30 base with three floors 5m each then we are talking about 33,600 concrete for outer walls and 67,280 concrete for the floors. That's over 100k concrete requiring 100k stone and 100k sand for a small base, and that takes a long time. For the amount of concrete that is practical early game, a claw hammer is fast enough. If you have the resources to make a 100k concrete base and you do not have a nailgun, something is wrong. He said two weeks from yesterday.

That one I can answer. There's two simple solutions: Put extra supports and take them out once no longer needed. Upgrade the key supporting blocks right away. Speaking of which, remember when rebar had the SI stats of iron so your whole building could collapse if you started upgrading it from the wrong direction? Ah, happy times. Not. Rebar in a19 is particularly good in this regard but I think that's the first time ever rebar had convenient SI stats.

Length of day changes nothing. Your chance of getting a nailgun depends on your gamestage, and the gamestage also controls what sort of zombies you get. Cement mix is the easiest part. You then have to turn it into concrete mix which requires stone and sand in large quantities, and mining stone early game is very time consuming.