zztong

I think you have lots of options. I tend to use what I'll call a "Jack of all Trades" build, where I spread out and take lots of skill before improving my attributes. Stealth is my primary way of clearing POIs and hunting at night, but I can always use guns and melee too, depending on the circumstances. Horde nights are whatever I feel like playing: held up in a base or mobile out in the world. When I'm ready to increase my attributes, I'll take them to 3 and then buy another round of all the skill perks I like, with the exception of Intelligence which I don't bother with until later in the game because I like how searching for the INT-based schematics (forges, workbenches, etc.) slows down the transition from survivor to resourceful dude.

I'm happy to stand corrected, but I'd like to know how it really is. Can you provide the details?

I think I'm ready for a 2nd swing at Blender to Unity, but... really, the point of this Dream is convenience. Custom signs would add a lot of diversity to POI decoration. We can do it with the tools provided and a willingness to make/distribute custom blocks. But the idea embodied here is streamlining the process for this predicable and defined case.

That's a "Helper" block... Picture with the possibility of a safe behind it, sometimes just a picture. That suggests you'd see things like cabinets changing if they're open, or not too.

Helper blocks randomize cabinets and cupboards being open, among a number of other things. This is very common in POIs, however I suspect this randomization is only done during world generation and probably when a POI is placed by the World Builder, but I never use the World Builder so I don't know. POIs can use A20's "Parts" feature to randomize all sorts of things. Again, I suspect this randomization is only done during world generation. Resetting POIs with Parts, such as when you start a quest, seems to only reset the POI back to what was in the world file. I've no idea what the World Builder might do with Parts. I suspect it ignores them, but I'm just guessing. Randomizing loot rooms is sort-of possible with Parts. The trouble is, while RWG will only pick one Part with a specific tag, each Part's chance of appearance is evaluated separately so you could end up with a situation where none of the Parts get selected. If you're into probability math you can kind of get close to 100%, but not guarantee it. -- Basically, there's no for-certain way to say "Pick 1 of these 5." In short, POIs aren't lacking in tools to express randomness, but I don't know that the randomization happens frequently enough for your goals.

Ah, thanks for the info.

I was happy to find the Working Stoves modlet. I had been thinking of making something like this. Some things I saw: No recipe to make a workingWoodBurningStoveJT No Creative Menu icon for workingWoodBurningStoveJT No Creative Menu icon for workingCharcoalGrillClosedJT No Creative Menu icon for workingGasGrillClosedJT I wonder, am I overlooking something? I was kind of hoping to be able to assemble a workingWoodBurningStoveJT in my bases. I see I could upgrade one if there happened to be one present, or I might be able to buy one from a Trader, but I cannot build one. For WorkingCoffeemaker, there doesn't seem to be a recipe to make these: coffeeMakerJT coffeeMakerCommercialJT Am I overlooking something?

KingGen isn't supported anymore. It never crossed over from A19 to A20, so it doesn't know how to deal with new A20 RWG features. There are a few people who still use it after having made new configuration files, but they use it for specific purposes. If you really want to use KingGen with an A20 version of CP then you're going to have to get much more familiar with KingGen's configuration files and pull data out of each of CP's POIs. And then, once you get it to go, you'll be missing things like A20 Tiles and Parts.

No cheerleaders? The title had me thinking of cheerleaders.

Okay, well not so bad if I ignore Blender and just use primitives in Unity. Luckily signs aren't super complex objects.

Consider these blocks: signShopToolStore signShopToolStoreLit signShopToolStoreWall signShopToolStoreWallLit We cannot change the message on those signs for use in Custom POIs. Could we perhaps add some XML to specify an image file located in our modlet? <property name="SignImage" value="signMyCoolStore.png"/> The same approach to signs like the following would also be cool: signShopColdBeer I know there was some discussion on these forums where somebody suggested similar, but where the images came from URLs. While that would be cool. This approach does not involve any networking, downloading, or caching. The image files would be contained in the modlet, just like icon files are. The current process for adding a customized sign into the game involves a lengthy process of Gimp, Blender, Unity and XML. This suggestion would streamline that down to Gimp and XML. Disclaimer: This might be a suggestion made out of the frustration that goes with learning something new and bouncing off various complications.

Are you suggesting you held material back for tomorrow? 😅

I'm a total newb with these meshy 3D-objecty things. Killerbunny264 was just telling me about how it saves a bunch to put everything in one AssetBundle. I've yet to make an AssetBundle, but I think (hope) to be getting close.

I think this is a game bug, but the CP folks believe they've got a work-around. I don't know the process by which POIs get into Apoc Now, so I don't know how long it will be before you might see relief.

That's an interesting idea. If I built POIs with 0_Cran_Arcade and somebody installed 1_Cran_Arcade, would salvaging from a 0_Cran_Arcade junker be able to cough up PCBs, monitors, glass, cabinets, etc? That is, can the 1_Cran_Arcade modlet be made to modify the XML of the 0_Cran_Arcade modlet? (I've never tried to have a modlet modify the XML of another modlet. Loading order would matter. I guess that's why the numbers. LOL. That reminds me of the "Haunted House" pinball machine in real life. The local arcade had the volume on that one set pretty loud. When you got the multi-ball part of the game going, the orchestration really rocked out and everyone in the place knew somebody was playing. "Yeh, yeh Zombies, whatever. I'm about to score a free game."

Thanks, I'm on it. I wasn't sure which of the many topics was the best place and yesterday was full of interruptions, so not good for chatting. Maybe today, if I can get some real-life stuff out of the way. Which channel/topic do you think is the best place? Oh, probably the Unity section since that's where the script was. Duh.

The forum had a link to a full unity project to use with various tutorials. After loading that up, I didn't recognize anything related to the videos I was watching. Poking around within it, I didn't find anything, but I am a fish out of water in Unity right now, so probably didn't recognize something obvious. There weren't any assets, so I didn't find the script there. Ah! Aha! -- MultiPlatformExportAssetBundles.cs Thank you!

(1) I'm working my way through @xyth's "Unity model creation and exporting for 7D2D SDX - Tutorial" series from 2017. My Unity 2020.3.14f1 is slightly different. He talks about adding Tags and leaves "Tag 0" blank/unused. Questions: Can I make Tag 0 be "T_Block" or does "T_Block" have to be Tag 1? Likewise, must "T_Mesh_B" be Tag 2? Is there a list of all the Tags and their meanings, somewhere? I know @Telric mentioned T_Mesh_B as important in the Bicycle discussion as being related to player interraction and Xyth mentioned it was for the "E" to Pickup feature. (2) The tutorial involves an "ExportAssetBundles.cs" which I downloaded and added as an asset. I found that code here: https://github.com/7D2DSDX/SDXModding/blob/master/Scripts/Unity/ExportAssetBundles.zip When I did so, Unity detected an error "Assets\ExportAssetBundles.cs(12,18): error CS1501: No overload for method 'BuildAssetBundle' takes 4 arguments. It must be talking about this line of the code... BuildPipeline.BuildAssetBundle(Selection.activeObject, selection, path, BuildAssetBundleOptions.CollectDependencies | BuildAssetBundleOptions.CompleteAssets); Questions: Did I get the code from the correct place? (IIRC, the path mentioned in the tutorial did not exist.) What did I do wrong?

Oh, so it is. You'd think I'd know to look there. Yes, that would be appealing. I do think the arcade "mini-game" offered is both compelling and harmless. I mean, maybe the price of selling a working game to the trader is high, or low, and gets tweaked as time goes on, but in the grand scheme of things, good clean fun. The change machine buying and selling is weird to me, but that means nothing. The change machine buying and selling as if it were a vendor might not be desirable to players. Then I run into a weird spot. If I make my modlet depend on this modlet, and folks don't care for the bundling to the point of not being interested in installing, then I'm not satisfying a need anymore. At what point does a mod cross some line? I don't know. Trial and error, gather feedback. So currently, I'd press on and listen. If only modlets had a way to offer configuration options to the players. (Maybe they do, or will.) Otherwise, we start to end up with parts of XML to comment, or uncomment. With my test POI loaded, I'm seeing the following being written to my log files time and time again: AudioSampleProvider buffer overflow. 1024 sample frames discarded. I suspect it is because the test POI has every one of your blocks placed sitting next to each other. I'm guessing if I stand close to too many noise makers that this happens. I found these in log files too, but I don't know the circumstances of what I was doing at the time. I'm only showing a few, but in the log file there appears to be one for each object. 2022-09-09T17:03:38 1893.037 ERR Mesh 'defender' not readable in GO: /Chunks/Chunk_1,-2/_BlockEntities/ROArcade_Defender_prefab 2022-09-09T17:03:38 1893.037 ERR Mesh 'defender' not readable in GO: /Chunks/Chunk_1,-2/_BlockEntities/SArcade_Defender_prefab 2022-09-09T17:03:38 1893.037 ERR Mesh 'group_84' not readable in GO: /Chunks/Chunk_1,-1/_BlockEntities/SArcade_DragLair2_prefab 2022-09-09T17:03:38 1893.037 ERR Mesh 'tempest' not readable in GO: /Chunks/Chunk_1,-1/_BlockEntities/Arcade_Tempest_prefab 2022-09-09T17:03:38 1893.037 ERR Mesh 'model' not readable in GO: /Chunks/Chunk_1,-1/_BlockEntities/SArcade_Warrior_prefab 2022-09-09T17:03:38 1893.037 ERR Mesh 'crystal' not readable in GO: /Chunks/Chunk_1,-1/_BlockEntities/Arcade_Cry_Castle_prefab 2022-09-09T17:03:38 1893.037 ERR Mesh 'starhawk' not readable in GO: /Chunks/Chunk_1,-1/_BlockEntities/SArcade_Starhawk_prefab 2022-09-09T17:03:38 1893.037 ERR Mesh 'starcast' not readable in GO: /Chunks/Chunk_1,-1/_BlockEntities/ROArcade_Star_Castle_prefab

I'm playing with it a bit more today. I cannot find "arcade_changemachine" in the Prefab Editor. It doesn't come up by name. I don't see any junk pinball machines in the XML. Related to something I mentioned in the previous post, there are often player versions of objects and POI versions of objects. I could see there being POI versions of the non-destroyed cabinets and pinball games, but would have no sound or animations and could not be picked up via the "E" key. They would have to be wrenched like the junk ones. For instance, a "Bedroll (POI)" vs a "Bedroll" ... so we know which is safe to use in a POI... can't be just grabbed like a player version could.

I certainly have no idea. I mean, I recall a pack of some off-brand .30-30 rounds where it seemed half of them split. But we'd fire Remington .22 longs and shorts by the thousands and the brass from them seemed pristine. I've never reloaded ammo, so I've no idea what's involved.

Supported. There is a modlet that expands the list up to 15k and those maps seem to work find on my computer, playing solo or testing POIs and RWG. Heh, after the 75 minutes of map generation time.

IIRC, somebody has made a modlet with a "brass catcher" weapon mod. I've never tried it. Those are real-life things, albeit with a limited capacity. I don't know if the modlet version has a capacity. If so, it would probably handy for clearing a POI, but no good for horde night unless you want to keep stopping the carnage to empty it. Also, I suspect you can't always reuse each casing. It has been a long, long time since I shot, but I recall some casings splitting after being fired.

I downloaded the modlet with the intent of kicking the tires, so to speak. And here's some random thoughts that you may consider as feedback, but honestly I'm just rolling things around in my head in an unsettled kind of way. It took me some playing around and stuff to eventually conclude the modlet includes things for two audiences: Players and Prefabers. At first I thought that was weird, but slowly came around. Its an interesting change in perspective to think about a modlet of fancy blocks instead of a modlet of POIs and then how they might work and play together. Players: There's loot that players can use to make working arcade or pinball game. There's Final "working" versions of blocks for players to put into bases, with lights, sounds, animations. I know as a player I'd put stuff like this in my base, possibly with noise and animation. No game balance issue and they're fun and cool. Players can deal with their own self-inflicted performance issues. (Let's put all these animations and noises in our horde base!) Prefabbers: I would definitely scatter damaged / destroyed arcade blocks around various POIs, like 1-2 in a laundromat, etc. Some prefabbers would make arcade POIs and fill the place with those blocks. The "helper" to place randomize damaged / destroyed arcade blocks is fantastic. A definite prefabber win. Would I ever place a noiseless working arcade or pinball machine? Sure. Not often, but yes. A working pinball machine in a Trader sounds quite apropos. A "helper" for a random noiseless arcade and another helper for a random noiseless pinball would be awesome. I'm not sure I'd place a machine that made noise or had an animation in a POI mostly because of trying to balance potential performance issues. I can't speak to everyone. It would certainly be funny to hear the "haunted house" pinball machine rockin' out somewhere... distant... in a creepy house POI. (Man, I used to love playing that machine.) Prefabber Feedback: None of the blocks reported their "Vertices" and "Triangles. That is, the POI "verts" and "tris" counts don't go up when I add these blocks to a POI. This means if I use them I cannot really tell how "heavy" my POI is. It wouldn't matter for a small POI, but putting on large projects you have to watch those counts. I'm confused why those seem to be 0 for your blocks. If I place a working arcade or pinball machine, it can be picked up by a player. That isn't what I'd expect. I expect them to have to disassemble it for parts. That feature makes sense for a player-placed block. I know some overhaul mods allow players to pickup all sorts of things, but Vanilla doesn't. I couldn't find destroyed pinball machines or a helper for them. They would be handy. Do they exist? At first, I couldn't find any pinball machines. This is because I didn't know all the block names. I assumed at first that "arcade_" was the prefix for the entire modlet, but that assumption was wrong. No category in the Prefab Editor seemed to show them all, so I had to know the block names to find them. If they all had a common prefix, like "cranmon_" or "cm_" or something, but even just "arcade_" and "pinball_" work too. I forget how to find the token machine. heh I'm wondering what your intent / goal is. Are you wanted people like me to bring your blocks into my modlet where I can customize various settings, or are you looking to distribute your modlet and then my modlet could choose to be dependent on yours? I'm kind of partial to the latter. That way you can make updates to your modlet and I don't have to be involved, unless old blocks were changing to new sizes or new names. Again, I'm just trying to think threw things. I don't know if there's already some established pattern or if my thoughts are flawed in some way.

I found with my own play that controlling the lighting in my house made a big difference. When in-game night hits, I turn off the real-life desk lamp, etc. While I do like to use NVG in-game at night, I can still stealth POIs without assistance. It is just a slower operation.