Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[sillls]

Zombie crane driver confirmed!

 

Hey look everybody! We're getting a new vehicle!

[madmole]

30k? LOL There is absolutely no way unless that vein was massive, or if you've severely tweaked the prices of gold, silver, and/or diamond.

 

There were many full voxels of the diamondy ore texture

[madmole]

yea i think like 1 diamond was only 450? if that and gold was like 1 for 50 and silver 1 for 30

 

Did you have mother lode?

[wolfbain5]

can demolishers be crippled? or are their legs mostly immune to damage like cops because it interfered with the puking animation? and are they 2 blocks or 2.5 or 3 blocks tall?

[madmole]

It's as though someone had altered the generation algorithm or adjusted the probabilities :-)

 

I haven't seen one since, I was wondering if it was a bug.

[madmole]

Do you mean this?

 

Hah maybe that is where I got that reference I thought maybe I saw it in an Arnold movie.

[sillls]

Its probably just random. Watch me not see any demolishers at all tonight.

 

No, you jinxed it.

[madmole]

You respond to me don't you?

 

Someone is pushing to regain their former title.

[wolfbain5]

I haven't seen one since, I was wondering if it was a bug.

 

yeah zombie dogs and zombie bears should be there in your gamestage, they were always there in previous alphas

[madmole]

if (stompsSpikes && block.HasTag(BlockTags.Spike))

 

Hah, so any modder can flag rconcrete to have that tage and boom that guy will run through walls lol.

[Blake_]

Someone is pushing to regain their former title.

 

I'm not ready to hand over my title yet! I even matched my profile data to make it justice.

[madmole]

wait 16k maps getting removed in a18 will they make a return? because I liked the endless exploring I mean since im that 1% guy I dunno but im just curious

 

Maybe its in that advanced generation thing you talked about.

[madmole]

Madmole, give us video 91 day horde! We are waiting!

 

Hang on I just got here.

[FA_Q2]

can demolishers be crippled? or are their legs mostly immune to damage like cops because it interfered with the puking animation? and are they 2 blocks or 2.5 or 3 blocks tall?

 

IN MM last horde vid the demolisher walked through his vault door so it looks like he is the standard 2 blocks.

[sillls]

I'm not ready to hand over my title yet! I even matched my profile data to make it justice.

 

You? How did you get my title? What did you do? lol

[Blake_]

You? How did you get my title? What did you do? lol

 

I ain't gonna say nuthin. Just that there were a few beers and a cranial inspection involved.

[sillls]

I ain't gonna say nuthin. Just that there were a few beers and a cranial inspection involved.

 

O.K... Well in that case, you can have it. I no longer want it.

[Blake_]

O.K... Well in that case, you can have it. I no longer want it.

 

Liar. We can share it, ya know. You can be First Lieutenant Obvious.

 

Cheers!

[Dreyseth]

It is just a circular array (32 entries) of player positions updated every 1m the player moves. Zombies when they hear you, pick a random value from the current breadcrumb location up to AINoiseSeekDist back in the array and investigate that position.

 

Awesome!!

 

Any thoughts on a secondary system (probably for animals) that only periodically drops crumbs, but they hold the vector info for the direction in which the player moved from that position?

 

It wouldn't reveal the player's exact location, but general direction of travel. A tracking enemy may be able to "connect the dots" and manage to find one breadcrumb after another, slowly sniffing around.

 

Fewer breadcrumbs, but longer lasting/longer potential trail.

 

I suppose bandits might also benefit from trying to track player movement in this way as well.

 

Or would this be totally redundant to the current system?

 

The original Castle Wolfenstein 3D used a technique like this to give the guards a patrol path. They continuously moved forward until stepping on directional triggers to change their direction. Simple AI from the 90's.

[MechanicalLens]

I'm not sure why they are so easy to kill, probably its fear from old glitchy dogs that spun a lot and were janky to hit for years.

 

It's because they can rarely catch up with the player (just run backwards and you're perfectly safe), and it's because of a group of them will just bundle up and never get a good shot on the player.

 

Edit: That, and all you need is a pistol (very easy to find in A17) and 2-3 shots and they're dead. It's the same with bears, and Grace. Their health pool is ridiculously low, especially compared to A16. Just saying. *Shrugs*

 

So, how do we make bears (and dogs) scary again? Increasing their health (by at least 2-3x) and make them faster would do wonders, scare factor and danger factor wise. They wouldn't have to be immediately faster than the player - just fast enough so that the player would know they could never outrun them.

[Laz Man]

His name is the Demolisher. He doesn't ignore the spikes. He goes through them like they are twigs and they get....demolished.

 

The code for him literally reads: "stompspikes true"

 

Remember that this is a late game enemy. Your spikes will be useful for a large portion of the game. The point of the demolishers is to prioritize them and take them out while they are still distant. If you let them get close then your defenses and your base will take damage as he moves through and then even more damage if he explodes.

 

Interestingly, there is no code for stomping barbedwire....

 

Thanks for the tip.

 

I also heard from someone that wrenching landmines right when the demolisher gets close is also an effective base defense. 😎

[mr.devolver]

I'm not sure why they are so easy to kill, probably its fear from old glitchy dogs that spun a lot and were janky to hit for years.

 

In recent alphas it was pretty easy and fun to hit dogs with sledgehammer which sometimes sent them flying back from where they came, but sledgehammer got nerfed recently. It feels like I can never get enough stamina to hit them effectively anymore and even when I manage to hit them, it's just one hit. I'm not saying we should be able to keep hitting them forever, I know sledgehammer is a heavy tool, but at least 2 consecutive heavy hits with strong characters should be possible and would be more fun too!

[MechanicalLens]

A feature suggestion I have is increased wandering zombie dog hordes in the wasteland. They wouldn't be happening every moment of every day, obviously, but if you stayed in the wasteland for 3 days (for example), you'd on average see at least one wandering dog horde pass by. Either that, or you could increase the player detection radius of zombie dogs in general? Just an idea.

[AtomicUs5000]

It's because they can rarely catch up with the player (just run backwards and you're perfectly safe), and it's because of a group of them will just bundle up and never get a good shot on the player.

 

Edit: That, and all you need is a pistol (very easy to find in A17) and 2-3 shots and they're dead. It's the same with bears, and Grace. Their health pool is ridiculously low, especially compared to A16. Just saying. *Shrugs*

 

So, how do we make bears (and dogs) scary again? Increasing their health (by at least 2-3x) and make them faster would do wonders, scare factor and danger factor wise. They wouldn't have to be immediately faster than the player - just fast enough so that the player would know they could never outrun them.

 

I think he meant that he is unsure what people were saying about how they were before... thus resulting in the change that has led them to die quickly now in A17... and assuming the way it is now at this very moment in the testing.

 

I am sure of what people were saying. They previously dealt a lot of damage, you would more often than not bleed, and they took twice as many hits to kill. The only thing that saved you if you got a dog horde in early game (for me, they usually showed up on day 6, I think) was their crappy pathing and running around in circles.

 

I personally wouldn't mind them going back to what they were in strength and damage and bleeding. Those traits coupled with faster than player speed would be a scary encounter... but I still say that we need to at least know when that dog horde is coming to make up for it. A pack of regular wolves early game can sneak up on you too. Subtle barking in the distance, wolves howling before the chase, the sound of dozens of padded doggy feet racing toward you.

[madmole]

Liar. We can share it, ya know. You can be First Lieutenant Obvious.

 

Cheers!

 

Lol just like the military except its inverted, the dumber the question the higher the rank lol. Well maybe its just like the military.