faatal
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Posts posted by faatal
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19 hours ago, KhaineGB said:
Here's an easy question.
Planning to update the unity version again? I noticed 2021.3 is LTS now, so are you folks planning to update to that, or a 2022.x version?Yes. I've been developing A21 using 2021 LTS. Currently on 2021.3.3 with plans for the rest of the team to switch in a few weeks.
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On 5/22/2022 at 9:24 PM, Blake_ said:
@faatal, I have a bunch of questions.
1.Are there any new vehicle mods planned, like bigger storage, mounted weapons, solar pannels with batteries for ditching fuel or cool stuff like that?
2. Is there anything you can tell us about POI triggers like trap doors or things that might be relevant when bandits are in?
3.Any word on expanded New Game options like 5%-10% loot ranges, or 240/480 min days and the like? What I mean to ask is if we can expect some love there in the future.
4. Do you know if hostile npcs will protect air drops in the first iteration?
5. What are you working on at the moment?
6. May I ask you to consider a short video of the naked White Afro guy someday? I found the character quite deep and engaging in all his gameplay appearances. He needn't be revealing any feature. His presence is enough to shine upon us the light of the Jiggling Hair church.
Thanks in advance !
1 No new mods, but showing the mods on the vehicle. Don't know if it will make A21.
2 Not yet.
3 No changes there.
4 Probably not.
5 I've been working on AI director clean up, some block rendering cleanup, bug fixes and improvements for our new opaque+glass blocks (downgrade, upgrade, drops).
6 I don't make videos, but the day may come when I feel so inclined.
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21 hours ago, Lord Morphleyes said:
Maybe I am not understanding "loot probability". Are you saying that once my Shotgun crafting skill reaches 100% My chances to find shotguns and shotgun parts drops off?
It does not. Only the chance to find that magazine returns to the normal default percent. I looked at how they did the percents today and it seems fine to me. Good stuff.
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On 5/15/2022 at 7:15 PM, Arma Rex said:
Any plans to apply the new dismemberment tech on other zombies besides Steve within Alpha 20? I remember hearing that it may be rolled out after A20's initial release.
Yes, I've seen an artist making changes to other zombies.
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On 5/3/2022 at 5:43 PM, Guppycur said:
So the two big Kickstarter things I haven't seen word about are VR support and Playing as a Zombie.
I'm curious if those two are still on the roadmap, and if so, how much attention would be given to the VR side. Just a new camera and controller mappings or would we see hand movements and being able to pick up rocks.
Also, I'm curious if there are plans to go more into PvP. I've only played heavily modded PVP games because the design just isn't set up for quick matches. Will there be any additional modes?
Something I've been working on is this:
Also, madmole promised me horde mode would make a return. I know you came on board after horde mode was gone but I'm wondering if you have played it or seen it or if it really is coming back.
Thanks faatal. You may spell your name wrong but you're pretty cool.
I don't know about the status of VR. I think if we did it, it would be basic.
I don't remember seeing Play as Zombie in the Kickstarter and I've not heard it seriously mentioned.
I would guess PVP will be more refined at some point, but I don't think anyone wants to tweak it until features and values are near completion.
We would like a return of horde mode. I have heard about the old version, but not played it.
I put the extra a in there as "fatal" tends to be already used. I started doing that for my WoW characters.
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13 minutes ago, Matt115 said:
So... there will be no beta after alpha? just Alpha then gold?
There should be a Beta, but the labels don't really matter. A beta would just be a stable Axx relabeled to B1, then bug fixes for weeks/months and then is gold.
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5 hours ago, grendelwolf said:
Sorry if I overlooked this post, but how many alphas are planned until A21? And how many alphas are planned until the final release (if there is already a deadline for the release ... year)?
A .5 is planned. Beyond that, none are planned other than if we need to fix major bugs.
We don't know how many more alphas there will be before gold. Way too many variables.
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20 minutes ago, Survager said:
@faatal can players use this setting for the desktop shortcut that launches the game?
Thus, it was possible to make several folders with different sets of modifications in the game folder, and make several shortcuts on the desktop with different launch options, which would allow the game to be launched with the desired set of modifications, without having to make a copy of the game folder.Yes. A shortcut is how I tested it.
22 hours ago, Games'n'Grumble said:Can you tell us how the meeting went? What is the problem with windows? Will it be solved in skyscrapers (how?)? In high hopes...🙏
It went fine. Skyscraper windows are block models, so they are each a draw call and it uses a sub mesh for trim and glass, so they are actually two draw calls each. They need to be changed to a standard block. We spent more of the time talking about making normal blocks that have opaque and transparent sections and decided we could support that if our mesh naming system handled marking meshes transparent, so that those would end up in the transparent chunk mesh. I have a prototype working of an arch with glass inside the arch. Still thinking on if I like this solution.
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1 hour ago, Matt115 said:
Well - there will be more A20.X updates or now just wait for A21?
And... in second situation : When stream or more info about A21 will be annouced?
We are planning to release a .5.
Don't know.
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4 hours ago, grendelwolf said:
One simple wish for Alpha 21: Please keep the 'Mods' folder in the directory where the game is installed. Thanks.
We can't have it in the Mods folder for installing from the Microsoft store or Game Pass, because MS does not want users changing files in the install location.
We already allow you to specify a location on the command line for data files, which you could specify in the launcher. You can then place a Mods folder there.
-UserDataFolder=x:\7DTDData
It can also be set in the serverconfig.xml file.
<property name="UserDataFolder" value="absolute path" /> <!-- Use this to override where the server stores all generated data, including RWG generated worlds. Do not forget to uncomment the entry! -->12 -
11 hours ago, Callum123456789 said:
yeah i would say that no major optimisation needs to be done but one place i definitely need to say that it does is in the downtown area and in skyscrapers thats ussually where my fps drops to the low 20's on medium to high settings
Skyscraper windows are expensive and need to be improved. I actually have a meeting tomorrow to discuss with art/design devs.
2 hours ago, beerfly said:But, what makes you think a new flying vehicle will handle better 😛
It's Apocalypse and will be made from scrap.
If we ever add a helicopter, it will fly like a helicopter and be able to hover. A gyrocopter flies like an airplane.
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22 hours ago, JStanleyF said:
I was wondering if there are plans to make zombies less predictable. For example in buildings they sit/sleep in the same spot in every POI, there are few if any random roamers that go into buildings really. I'd like to see roamers inside the POIs in addition to sleepers and randomized amounts of zombies in POIs. Zombies would be neat if they have object point of interests they could interact with. Going into a POI you've been in before would be more interesting if you had no idea where the zombies would be before hand. For example, beat on glass, scratch at doors, pick up a weapon, try to unlock a door, pound on things with realistic sounds, knock over trash cans / partially breaking a door/wall and climbing through.
Zombies are random within their sleeper volumes as far as which sleeper blocks they pick and the count of zombies, but it is up to the designers to set. If they put 3 sleeper blocks in a room and set it to spawn 2-3 then there is not many variations available to the spawning code.
Wandering zombies has been discussed and we will probably do some of that, but we have many higher priority tasks to work on currently.
There is actually a bug passed to me today about reset POI helper blocks not being random, so it could be effecting zombie spawns too.
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3 minutes ago, Matt115 said:
@faatal how is going water overhaul?
A lot of progress has been made on it, but it has months of work to go.
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17 hours ago, Deadfordays said:
I have a quick question regarding the Bandits, (I'm not sure I saw the same question asked?).
We typically play on a dedicated server with 4-5 players, so most of the way we are used to playing is multiplayer with specific roles for each of us.
Since there are more of us, it makes Horde nights very fun since the Zombie numbers are based on player count.
Would this be the same way with the bandits?
As in solo playing = 4 Bandit spawns, 4 players = 16? Or something to that effect?
Thanks for any input and keep up the great work!
Bandits counts would scale like zombie counts at a simple ratio of how much overhead they are vs a zombie.
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On 4/15/2022 at 2:34 PM, Jost Amman said:
What does that mean practically?
Is it a way to reduce glitching through blocks? Or is it a way to improve the effectiveness of the zombie AI to breach our defenses? Or something else...?
It means zombie will hit blocks that are supporting buildings that they would not hit before. Say you build a bunch of poles and a platform above and stand on it. They will now hit the poles and not just wander around.
On 4/18/2022 at 1:48 AM, Beelzebubs Ghost said:Same question for the non-fail, beautiful police car model. @faatal mentioned that he saw this and would like it driveable, and I vaguely remember it being mentioned (correct me if I'm wrong) as an asset that is actually being worked on.
Can we have some clarity on that as a thing that will be in, and indeed; if either yourself of Faatal could clarify whether or not that will be driveable, it would be great.
I'd like to drive it, but it will not be driveable due to how it was modeled. Opaque windows, no interior and 2 piece attached wheels. It is more efficient that way, but not usable for me.
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2 hours ago, Survager said:
Explain this update item please 🤨
When a zombie goes to destroy a block for destroy area mode, it would attack it because the block was in the way. On a partial block they would enter it and not attack it because it was not an actual obstacle. Now they know to attack those blocks when there are near them and not just walk inside it.
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23 hours ago, SnowDog1942 said:
Will there be scantily clad bandits (male or female)?
Maybe. Depends on what you consider scantily.
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On 4/8/2022 at 12:31 AM, khzmusik said:
The original idea was that the bandits and players would use the same clothing system. Is that still the idea?
No. Bandits have their own specific clothes for each bandit type and tier.
On 4/9/2022 at 12:29 AM, Blake_ said:@faatal, I have a bunch of questions regarding bandits and npcs in general:
1. Will they be able to jump?
2. Will they be able to place items, like 1-block barricades for flexible covering or will they just cover and stuff like that?
3. Will they be able to drive vehicles/bikes? (I'm not sure if this one was already asked)
4. Will they have the same pathing functionalities as Zds in the pathing department? ("1-block" and "1 and 1/2-block" pathing)
5. Have you guys talked about dismemberment for npcs? If so, will they have it?
6- Can we see a sexy brand-new WIP screenshot of bandits in progress?
Thank you very much for reading !
1 Yes
2 No. The plan is they will crouch and/or find cover
3 No
4 Yes
5 No talk, but they might use the new system the zombies have, but it is not trivial to set up on each model
6 Nothing to show right now. Still cleaning up zombie systems for bandit use and other bugs like ragdoll problems
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On 4/3/2022 at 1:26 AM, Kalex said:
zombies and bandits are going to fight each other right?
They should be able to just like zombies can fight animals.
On 4/5/2022 at 1:20 AM, Blake_ said:@faatal do you know if RWG 'generation speeds' will be faster in a21 or if there are any changes taking place to have maps process faster in any way for the new alpha?
I don't know.
On 4/5/2022 at 11:20 PM, Outlaw_187 said:Haven't heard anymore about the new outfit system. Is this still a thing or did it get scrapped?
I'm trying to keep an open mind about it but a part of me is hoping it's scrapped. The more customization we have the better.
Still a thing. We have a programmer working on it full time.
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17 hours ago, Ripflex said:
Maybe have 4 Bandits being the most to spawn for an encounter and turn off further zombies spawns due to noise or feral sense attraction to avoid heavy performance hits. Also scripted bandits ambushes instead of sleeper spawns in certain POIs would be interesting.
@faatal About Graphic APIs, have TFP consider DX12 for performance boost instead of Vulkan, since Unity has issues with Vulkan ?
Sure, I've looked at it, but it works about as well as Vulkan in Unity. Unity is supposedly making a push to improve DX12 support. I saw it on their roadmap. Maybe next year.
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9 hours ago, Jost Amman said:
@faatal I remember we discussed briefly a long time ago about the possibility (I proposed) to use "decision trees" for the bandits AI (I only have a non-professional understanding of what that is TBH). At the time, you said you were against it for some reason.
So, I'm curious... what type of AI "approach" are you going to use for bandits?
I've heard programmers talk about "scripted AI", "decision tree AI" or even "learning AI".
Have you got any juicy detail to share on that?
I'm not against decision trees for any reason other than I don't need them for what I want to do. What we have now could be called decision lists, which are lists of tasks that get checked in order. Bandits will probably have more task types added to support new behaviors.
The key thing I'm doing now is a full cleanup of the zombie controller parameters, states and transitions and their avatar controller code, to get ready to be copied for the bandits, as I don't want the bandits starting from some legacy mess.
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4 hours ago, Matt115 said:
What do you mean by "numbers" here?
The number of bandits that are spawned at any one time. Say a bandit takes x2 the performance of a zombie, then I would not want more that half of them in the world compared to the number of zombies a computer can manage and still have a reasonable FPS. Now that does not mean the world will have bandits everywhere. That depends on game play goals. I would like bandits to be rare, because this is a zombie game and 99% of the population is dead or a zombie.
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11 hours ago, xyth said:
I hope the community keeps its expectations about TFP vanilla bandit functionality at a reasonable level. Bandits are not "easy" to develop in the context of this game. Over the past several alphas our NPC team has put many hundreds, if not thousands of development hours into extending the existing NPC and zombie code, leveraging already built systems like factions, buffs, cvars etc. We extended the EAI "AI" used by zombies, but found that while efficient, was limited in how much we could extend it for humanlike behavior without issues. This forced us to extend some abandoned UAI code that permitted NPCs to make real-time (several times per second) choices of behavior based on the current situation. This works well, but there is a performance hit, and I expect TFP to focus on relatively "dumb" AI bandits based on EAI at first so there isn't a major performance impact on the game when more than a dozen operate in an area. Our NPC modding team will reuse whatever TFP bandit code base they provide in A21, and likely we will continue to focus on smarter versions using UAI.
EAI has been optimized over the years I've been working on it and UAI being dead, I have not touched it. I do plan to remove it at some point, but hopefully the bandit framework will be adequate to extend from for modders.
Good bandit performance and numbers is a goal, so they will run adequately on all systems.
58 minutes ago, Nevergrey said:I'd like to know that too. Hated wrote: "A20.4 with fixes can be expected on EXP later this week or early next week." That was on February 22...
It is still in the works. There were some issues with platform changes and then there was a bad merge of some of my changes that they backed out and may end up having to hand merge.
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On 3/26/2022 at 7:46 PM, Nevergrey said:
Hi there!
Thanks for making 7 Days To Die.
Are there more extensive engine optimizations in progress, are the system specs for 7 Days To Die 'done' now or may increase in the future? I ask especially because of the performance issues with activated Dynamic Mesh and the high amount of memory usage while generating big maps.
Edit: sorry, I forgot to ask: Navezgane is a 6k map?
Optimizations are not really in progress. They just happen occasionally as I or someone else sees something to optimize. It happens throughout the development process.
Min specs should not be changing from what they are now, but we just recently increased the CPU core/frequency specs. Min spec means you can run the game, but not necessarily every feature or mod well or at all. Dynamic mesh is a good example. I would not be using it at min spec, but it is not something we enforce.
Nav is 6k.
Thanks for playing.
On 3/27/2022 at 2:15 AM, Kalex said:Will we be able to loot the gear off the bandits?
Not decided. Will depend on how it impacts game play.
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Alpha 21 Dev Diary
in News & Announcements
Posted
Nothing in particular. A few editor improvements. Performance seems a bit better.