zztong

Or, as an alternative suggestion, let you drop a bedroll onto a bed to claim the bed. They could perhaps change the appearance so that the bed looked like it had a sleeping bag on it. Then, they could let you retrieve the bedroll off of the bed just as you would retrieve a bedroll on the ground.

You have Army bases. All of the branches of the armed forces in the USA fly helicopters. I don't know that there's a Heliport POI. I'll think about that. Switching gears... A significant challenge I see with an Air Force Base POI is the length of the runway for airplanes (not helicopters) which is what I'd expect to see at an AFB. The length of the runway at the AFB I was stationed at many years ago was 2 miles long, which is 3,129 blocks. The AFB would effectively be a 4k map. You're going to end up scaling it back, pretty much like how the distances between 7D2D cities is way too small. How long is a reasonable scaled back runway? 1,000, 500, 250, 100 Blocks? If you make a Wilderness POI 250x250 Blocks, the placement will generally cut into mountains and make a bunch of square cliffs. With A20 and Tiles, maybe the AFB becomes a custom type of city. Then you'll get a nice level patch of land integrated into the surrounding terrain. However, it doesn't appear you'll have control over how the Tiles are selected and arranged, meaning a runway spanning multiple Tiles might not actually fit together based on RWG choices.

I've done this at pretty much at all game stages, even with just a primitive bow and a club. At the early game stages, one rank in the skill that lets you move faster as you reload (Run and Gun?) and one rank in the skill that lessens the stamina drain from running (Cardio?) are all that is needed to kite the horde, but even they aren't entirely necessary. You'll just get to do more shooting and less running with them. Basically, you back away from them in one of these directions: NE, SE, SW or NW and the horde will fall in line behind you. Keep firing as you back up. When they get close, turn and run -- you can outrun them in light or no armor. A little coffee helps. At higher levels, and with better weapons, you just get to do a whole lot more rock and roll. Being mobile with the M60 and 4k ammo is pretty fun. Eventually, once you get this approach down, you can end up with a hybrid approach, where you use POIs as impromptu places to make a stand in some bottleneck until it becomes unviable, then you go mobile again. The downside to this approach, while fun, is that it generates a lot less experience than those folks in elaborate horde bases can get. The upside is it can be more entertaining.

It's Elwin00's suggestion. I don't have anything invested in it. I'm not even sure it would yield a significantly different, or improved, experience. And, what you suggest is the default. This is a forum. We discuss to discuss, I guess. It just seemed clear to me that with the right interpretation, his suggestion could be largely implemented using existing game mechanics. That is, the game continues to place wandering hordes as it currently does, but the decision of when to do that changes from being time-based to being based on some hidden movement mechanic. As for the issues you raise, do people complain today about being unable to see newly placed wandering hordes from upon high? I've no idea. I've not seen it, but I only play on one community server. If you say so, I believe you. Does flying a gyrocopter force the game to spawn or despawn zombies? Certainly, depending on your relative altitude and distance to POIs you can even trigger Zombie Volumes to populate. Does proximity to the ground matter for a Gyroscope and spawning a wandering horde? I've never tried to study it. I'd guess the circumstances should be the same with, or without, Elwin00's suggestion.

I can empathize. I sometimes get tired of maintaining a horde base and that's one reason I don't always build one. Have you tried taking on a horde in the open? It is quite doable, though the experience comes slower until you really have the gear and ammo to "rock and roll." The various mobility/reload skills become really handy. An 8k map generated by KingGen typically places around 3,250 POIs. If the average POI has 15 Z's, you've got around 50,000 Zs to track. If you use the CompoPack, it would be 100,000 Zs or more. Yes, technically possible in terms of storage (location 3 integers, type of Z is 1 integer) is like 7k to track them all. Making them mobile on a strategic map means looping through each one every so often. If you make that frequent then the game will suffer. If you want them all to move within each of their POIs, like from room to room, then you're doomed. The game can't keep every POI in memory. That's why only a region around players is relevant. Taking a step back, easily 99% (and more) of that has no relation to player, so to what effect is it worth tracking that many Z's? I think the eventual and planned feature to have a few wandering Z's within an active POI might help out here. Your second point I cited (and referred to in the post before this) does seem possible and perhaps compelling if it leads to more advanced events beyond not having a wandering horde show up behind you. I dunno. Just my opinion. Regards.

I think the gist of the idea was that the game's server could track the location of several "wandering horde" markers as they move about the game map and perhaps a count of the number of zombies it represents. That's basically 4 integers of storage and a little CPU to update the numbers every once in a while. After some short period of time, the server moves the marker some reasonable distance and perhaps adds a few zombies. As it moves around and the number of Z's increase, perhaps the server decides to "split" a marker into two, up to some maximum number of markers, like 8. When a PC and a marker get near each other, the server can then translate the marker into a wandering horde. Anyways, that's what I envisioned his suggestion to be. Not necessarily more Z's than the game already instantiates, but some underlying reason and pattern to wandering hordes other than the game concluding it is time to place one near a PC. That said, I wonder if the end results would be very similar, unless the markers provided the possibility of other kinds of events. For instance, perhaps when the max number of markers is full of zombies, a horde night is triggered. Or, perhaps the markers are all attempting to converge on some location (or POI), which might trigger some event? At this point I'm just riffing on what I think the theme was from the original post.

I'd like to be able to turn off the thunder and red sky so there was no hint of notice given. I'd like to be able to randomize the start time too, that way you don't just look around at 10pm every night. Other than that, the randomization settings work well. I tend to take on hordes in the open, so getting caught away from base isn't really a problem.

I'm not part of the KingGen team, but I suspect they'd want to know some details, like the stack trace for the error and the configuration you're trying, such as a sample line where you added the min and max. Your "error about float or something" sounds kind of like an unexpected type cast. If so, then there might be some value in your configuration file that it was hoping was in a different format. (Maybe text where a number should be?) Based on your description, I'm curious. Did you take something like this... abandoned_house_03,21,16,28,-1,2,burnt_forest/snow/pine_forest/desert/wasteland,wilderness/city/town/rural,residentialold,, ... and make it A or B...? (The difference is 1 comma) A: (incorrect) abandoned_house_03,21,16,28,-1,2,burnt_forest/snow/pine_forest/desert/wasteland,wilderness/city/town/rural,residentialold,,1,2 B: (correct) abandoned_house_03,21,16,28,-1,2,burnt_forest/snow/pine_forest/desert/wasteland,wilderness/city/town/rural,residentialold,1,2 ... as if you just added 1,2 to the end then you gave it too many parameters. There were already enough commas and you just had to fill in the blanks. If this was the problem, and you fix it, I've no idea how it threw an "error about float or something."

I don't think there are many Decorations out there in mods. I could be wrong. Size would be a good indicator. My traps are 3x3, my tents are 2x3, IIRC. There might be one tent that is larger. Most TFP Decorations are a single block. You could experiment with zztong_Storm_Cellar_01 which I have marked as a POI, but it is potentially small enough that you might try it as a Decoration on level ground. I don't think it will work out well, plus it would be weird to just find a random Storm Cellar off in the wilderness. For A20, that Storm Cellar will become a Part for farm POIs... or at least that's my plan since I don't have A20 I cannot work ahead to have something ready to go with an experimental release.

I wouldn't put the Tents into your KingGen config file. While they were built in the Prefab Editor like a POI, they're really intended to be placed as decorations in the biome.xml file. The same is true of my Hunter's Traps. Those tents are tiny pup-tents. As a decoration you'll come across them in the wilderness and sometimes in settlements. If you make them a POI, they'll chew up space that could have gone to more meaningful content. The biome.xml file in my modlet will take care of placing them for you even with a KingGen map. I think this is because decorations aren't part of world generation.

I understand that. There were so many advertisements on game sites that used a big green button to fool people into clicking on the ad instead of the download that folks just ignore big green buttons.

I discovered last night the free version of "World Machine" can open the 7D2D raw files, which is what is found in the "Stamps" folder. I've never before used World Machine. It looks neat.

Dev Stream Episode 4 at 16:41 they show some RWG stamps. Here's a Dev Diary post by Kinyajuu that mentioned stamps: There's a semi-related video on YouTube where Tallman Brad Gameplay discusses using Stamps to make a height-map for use with KingGen:

I don't think so, but I could be wrong. Tiles have been demonstrated to be built in the Prefab Editor, like POIs, and have Markers indicating where POIs and other things (Parts) can be placed. Stamps have been demonstrated to be things like Mountains and terrain features that can be applied to otherwise normal terrain to add something like a cliff or a mesa to the world. They are said to be height-map files of some RAW format. There is a "Stamps" folder in your game and it includes files like "Rivers." I think Stamps are what make the ground bumpy, where as a generator like KingGen uses some "noise" function. Or, I could be full of crap. Hence the questions.

A picture would be clearer, but I suspect you and the POIs are okay. Speaking solely from my own experiences with KingGen, it has trouble placing things in rough terrain. What I suspect is happening is that some elevation at the front of the POI is okay and was the location used by KingGen to determine which height to place the POI. Then the rest of the POI either cuts into the terrain or is put on a plateau. Similarly, the slope of roads seems to be based on the elevation of an adjacent intersection and not the corners of the POI, so you don't get a level road running beside the POI. When the slope is gentle it kind of works, but a steep hill leads to awkward placement. That's my guess, anyways. As fast as KG has been developed I'd think problems like this are to be expected. I'm sure they'll make improvements.

Okay, combining everything into one bizarre scenario... Let say a person wants to make a 16k map that represents an archipelago, like say the Florida Keys and Key West. They want water to be 75% of the map. Could stamps be used to make uninhabited islands? Maybe a custom Ocean biome? If Settlement Tiles were defined that any non-road edges were coastline, would I end up with a reasonable looking island city, or would rotations of the Tiles and things end up with little bits of coastline scattered throughout? What would roads between Settlements be like ... earthen causeways? ... okay yeh, I'm going to stop now. So many questions, so little time.

Oh, oh, I forgot about Stamps. I'm really curious how Stamps figure into RWG. Are Stamps entirely related to terrain? Stamps just change the surface/ground, right? You couldn't use a Stamp to place a cave, right? Do Stamps and Tiles ever intermix, or are Stamps how the Wilderness is made? For instance, could a Tile's or POI's ground be made rough through some kind of noise or Stamp integration? Is there a way to target Stamps at the edge of maps? For instance, if you wanted a world with a deep water harbor on one side of the map to support Tiles and POIs that had ships on them, could you do that? Similarly, is there a way to target Custom Cities and/or Districts to land next to a deep water edge of a map? (That is, instead of having ship POIs placed in the middle of an RWG world where they are land-locked, parked on a tiny lake.) Oh, and the Wilderness... Tiles don't apply to POIs being placed in the Wilderness, right? That is, a POI in the Wilderness could be larger than 150x150? Can we somehow specify that a Wilderness POI is to be placed adjacent to a City Tile? If so, I doubt there's a way to make roads match up to the Tiles, unless there were some convention for matching up some standard Wilderness POI size, like a 300x300 Wilderness POI could conceivably match up with two 150x150 Tiles. Yeh, a 300x300 POI could be made into a big bundle of performance problems. I could see why that could be undesirable.

I'm looking forward to Wednesday and the RWG session. I've seen previous sessions and the Q&A seems to be a "jump ball" of quick questions that quickly scroll past. Longer questions are likely to get lost in the shuffle. I thought I'd follow khzmusik's lead and ask questions here. Maybe they'll help TFP folks prepare for the session. Some of these just confirm fundamentals (as I understand them) based on what we learned in the Dev Diary forum and other Dev videos. The RWG will create a Settlement (city, small town, etc) with 1 or more Districts (city center, commercial, industrial, residential, etc), right? We can define custom Settlement types, right? If so, how? Perhaps via XML? District Tiles are placed contiguously, right? That is, they're placed next to each other, not scattered in a patchwork manner about the Settlement. Does the RWG ever repeat District types in a Settlement? That is, could it decide to have two City Center districts? We can define custom Districts, right? If so, how? Perhaps via XML? Can we tell the RWG that a custom District should have a minimum size, maximum size? Can we specify dimensions? For instance, can I tell the RWG that my custom district should be 1x3 minimum and 2x6 maximum? (Min X = 1, Max X = 2, Min Z = 1, Max Z = 3) I'm asking because not all potential Districts I can envision would be major parts of a city and I'd hate to see one end up being 1/3 of a City. Another reason is a prefab modder might build out a District over time and during early releases nobody will want to see a sprawling but highly repetitive District. A Tile's filename tells the RWG which District it represents and the expected road support (rwg_tile_CityCenter_corner_XYZ_01), right? Or, is there some other indicator? What does the RWG do if you do not provide all of the expected road geometries? That is, what if you provide cap, corner, straight, and t, but do NOT provide intersection? Is the District considered invalid? Do you get a "missing Tile" error? Do you get some other District's intersection? Does the District just not contain any intersections? A Tile can contain 0 or more Markers, right? (I understand a Tile without Markers is probably not the expected use.) A Marker can represent the placement of a POI or the placement of a Part, right? The RWG chooses a POI to place in a Marker by matching the District name with the value of the POI's XML tag for Zoning and the X,Z dimensions of the POI. Early demonstrations had the X,Z dimensions matching exactly, but there was some talk of matching within some range down to the next standard size, or something like that. Which way did it turn out? Is it perhaps an option when you define the Marker? What does the RWG use any other factor to determine placement of Parts? That is, if a Tile has a 10x10 Part where the creator envisioned something like a Food Truck, what keeps something like a 1x1 mailbox from being placed there? Whatever the RWG mechanism is for picking Parts to place, is it aware of its proximity to the edge of the Tile? If so, could it pick Parts smartly depending on if the part will connect to another Tile of the same type of District, or not? That may be confusing, so here's an example. Assuming I am creating my own District and I want to make sure that all of my District's Tiles have a sidewalk that connects 20 blocks in from each corner. (Kind of like how TFP standardized the location and size of road connections.) This way, the connections to other Tiles in my District will have that sidewalk connectivity between Tiles. Of course, I cannot expect other Tiles in other Districts to meet that interface. So, if a Part defined to hit the edge of a Tile could potentially trigger a test of the neighboring Tile to see if it was from the same District. If not, then pick a non-connecting Part, like grass or air, versus a connecting Part being sidewalk. Without that test, I'll end up with sidewalks that just end, or run into buildings, extend towards the Wilderness, etc. Phew. (This is kind of like khzmusik's last question, but my thinking was coming at it from a different angle.) IIRC, we can only put POI Markers at Ground Level on a Tile. Does that mean that Part Markers have to be at Ground Level too? Can we put Markers for Parts inside a POI, or are Markers/Parts solely a capability of a Tile? Above, khzmusik asked if a Tile could have a Sleeper Volume. If so, what happens if we define a Sleeper Volume on a Tile in a position such that it completely envelopes a Part? What if it completely envelops a POI with its own Sleeper Volumes? What if a Sleeper Volume partially envelops a Part or POI? Will the resulting overlapping Volumes cause problems? Can Parts on a Tile include Quests? For instance, a tier 1 "Find the Bag" quest where the bag is atop a billboard? That's probably too easy, but does the tech support it? How do you keep "Buried Supplies" quests from landing at locations that intermix with Tile features, like sewers and Parts? Or, is that kind of complication part of the charm? (They buried the supplies under the water tower? Gee thanks.) If you're looking for a suggestion for integrating Tiles and new Quests, consider a block that can be placed at a location in a Tile that indicates a "Defend Location" quest is supported at that location. Then traders could send players to that location. Maybe its a Quest that can only be triggered at night. When triggered, a couple of (scaled) waves of Zs attack based on the number of players and their levels within some established distance from the quest trigger. Maybe the Z's triggered have their awareness heightened when they spawn. I think that suggestion involves features already in the game.

Focus on this line... Exception: Cannot find default hubs KingGen 13.1 had a new format to its configuration file. If you're reusing a list of POIs from an earlier version then you probably don't have an @hubs section. If you're making a custom configuration, then you need to start with a current KingGen configuration and paste in any POI definitions that you want to add.

Note this part... "Cannot find default hubs." I believe this is saying it cannot find the "@hubs" part of your configuration file. If so, there are two possibilities: 1. I suspect you're pointing KG at the file I provided with the modlet. That's not how you use it. What my file contains is the text that you have to paste into a KG POI list that includes all of the rest of the world and POI configuration that you want. You see, I cannot know what other POIs you have, so I cannot provide you a complete file ready for KG. I can only provide you the details for my POIs. 2. When you edited your KG file that controls world generation, you somehow have messed up the structure of that file such that it cannot find the "@hubs" part. Since you should have just been pasting the suggestions found in my configuration file onto the end of your own file, you might have instead pasted my suggestions into the wrong place in your file.

Correct. Only the built-in RWG uses the rwgmixer.xml file. Correct. The build-in RWG is willing and able to read POI XML files and binary files to collect information about each POI related to placement such as zoning, size, rotation, offset, and more. Generators like KingGen and NitroGen prefer to have all of that pre-processed into one data file. You use a tool to build that file, assemble that file manually, or edit a file produced by their tool. Not that I'm aware of, but POI lists only appear to be about 1/3 of that file. I suppose it is possible some part of a running game needed info about biomes, stamper nodes, and whatever else is down there.

Version 19.6-ZZ005 has been released. There are now 60 POIs and 9 Decorations (minor content, like POIs). New in this release: Cave_01, KZTV_01, Skyscraper_01, Skyscraper_01_destroyed, Store_09, Store_10, Warehouse_01. The contents of this modlet will also be in the next CompoPack expected to be released with A20. I do plan to support and expand on this modlet in A20. (I'd start now if I could.) I don't envision any new content for A19 after this.

I'm curious what design conventions/rules TFP have regarding POI design, especially any related to integrating with the new Tile approach. For instance, since POIs can abut each other on the new Tiles, do you develop POIs with structures that go right to the edge of the POI's area? If so, then two POI structures walls could touch each other. That can be desirable (common in big cities) but also undesirable (a tall building next to fortress walls). Another "for instance", do you always assume the Tile provides parking spaces and thus leave parking spaces out of your POIs? I'm curious about the development of Parts and the interface with Tiles. Do you have a way to signal what "type" of part it is that might affect placement on a Tile? For instance, if the Tile is looking to place a Part where the marker is 6x14 and the Tile designer is thinking "any billboard", do you as a POI designer have some way of indicating the type of Part you built is a billboard? (Perhaps via the filename, XML, or some other mechanism?) Are Parts developed like POIs in the Prefab Editor? If so, can Parts have Zombie Volumes and Quests? Example: A billboard with a quest satchel and a vulture.

Release 19.6-ZZ004 fixes a problem with zztong_TFP_Cemetary_01.

I'm speculating here as I have no direct knowledge of how textures work, how their runtime environment works, etc. ... I suspect it is desirable to load up all textures into memory (perhaps a "texture cache") on the video card. There would be a finite amount of space for that which depends on the video card in question. If that cache were exhausted I'm not sure what would happen, perhaps the runtime environment would have to juggle textures in/out of the cache. and perhaps affect performance. Paint textures would be some of the game's textures. Mods adding more paint textures would compete for space at some point. ... And again, that's speculation. Certainly we would all enjoy more paintable textures.