Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[KingSlayerGM]

Maybe it would help with the performance they are added as a Poi instead of randomly generated and added.

Nonsense...nonsense...good day to you sir!

 

Since chunk generation was moved before the game starts, it would have zero impact on the ingame performace.

 

Yes, it could be slower to generate though.

[Ouch Quit It]

Since chunk generation was moved before the game starts, it would have zero impact on the ingame performace.

 

Yes, it could be slower to generate though.

 

Exactly.....no nonsense here my friend... i can deal with the slow gen over a drop in performance.

[Weazelsun]

I've been thinking that that storage pocket mod should have more uses. Since as of right now the only reason to it is to get rid of early encumbarance or if you decided to not get that perk that increases inventory space. Why not have it be able to add more inventory space once a player maxes out Pack Mule, or modify a vehicle to get even more inventory space? Especially, since when I go questing, I pretty much harvest everything that I can from the POI, and many times I've had to go back after finishing the quest to pick up the things I couldn' carry.

 

@madmole would you consider it? Adding more functionality to the storage pocket mod so it can increase player inventory even after one maxes out Pack Mule or being able to modify a vehicle with it to add more inventory space.

 

Also, on the topic of RWG, rather than it being truly random. I think it'd be better if the layout was like Navesgane. That way instead of having to make multiple seeds and trying them out, you'd get a good load of small, medium, and large cities much like how it is in Navesganes already. Especially since, I play exclusively on a multiplayer server where what the kind of map we get is dictated by whatever the server admin decides to make.

[khzmusik]

you can have NPCs be neutral/friendly or aggressive and attack when something gets within NN meters. this allowed me to have NPS that would make statements when you got close but not attack you. you can also have neutral that only attack if you attack them first.

 

so:

- friendly - never attack - can't be hurt

- friendly - never attack - can be killed

- friendly - never attack - will attack if you attack

- aggressive - attack always - can said radius player must be in to trigger.

 

you can also outfit the NPC with same armor/weapons as players.

 

This was almost, but not quite possible to do in A16 using XML and UMA NPCs. The behavior at least - NPCs (other than traders) couldn't talk, and I don't think you could make one that could not be killed.

 

Unfortunately, as of A17, they can no longer be "hooked up" to AI behavior through the XML. (I'm guessing it's because the AI was overhauled.)

 

I'm hoping that comes back again someday, maybe as TFP get closer to gold.

[FA_Q2]

Also, on the topic of RWG, rather than it being truly random. I think it'd be better if the layout was like Navesgane. That way instead of having to make multiple seeds and trying them out, you'd get a good load of small, medium, and large cities much like how it is in Navesganes already. Especially since, I play exclusively on a multiplayer server where what the kind of map we get is dictated by whatever the server admin decides to make.

 

I think that most playing RWG would disagree here. The entire point of RWG is that the world must be explored. It should be random to the largest extent possible.

[Guppycur]

I don't think it's fair to compare fps from a16 to a17, unless you find a comparable video setting...

 

A17's medium is probably more akin to A16's high.

 

There is no a16 setting that would match what you see on a17 ultra.

 

Food for thought.

[AtomicUs5000]

I honestly don't have the foggiest idea what some of you are talking about when it comes to the game's performance. I have had nothing but increases across the board from a16 to a17. Still using the system that I built over 3 years ago with only a GTX 970. I have increased my settings to almost max 1080p, except maybe reflected shadows or something, and maintain 60 fps g-synced on a consistent bases including horde night. I only play single player now so I can not say how the game performs on a server which is where I expect most complaints probably originate.

 

I've adapted alpha 17 with a couple tweaks for my play style and I am loving every minute I get to play it. Sorry for those who refuse to try and enjoy what they have and instead cry about what once was.

 

I think that for whatever reason, 970's are performing quite well with this game. I am in the same boat of not seeing any performance problems where people with later generations are having problems.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

Actually you are right, but only when they are not deep enough. So this is not a problem, it is actually fun to discover the entrance of a cave by walking on the surface and collapsing a few blocks. The rest of the cave, if deep enough would not collapse.

 

Oh sure, I never saw that as a problem. I just took it as something that could happen naturally anyways.

I am not against caves at all. If we can have them, that's great. I just think expecting large underground ravines is too much... not only because of SI, but also because we just don't have as much underground space anymore.

[Demonoid74]

Even partially collapsed sewer system POI's in cities would be cool...no more turds , otherwise it would have been the Motherload!

But they could make pretty good dungeons...

[Damocles]

I think that most playing RWG would disagree here. The entire point of RWG is that the world must be explored. It should be random to the largest extent possible.

 

Randomness for random sake is not making a good map for gameplay.

There needs to be some expected rules how maps are structured, as the maps a are like way bigger than a normal player would traverse.

 

So anywhere where the player spawns in first randomly (unless there are a few very specific spawnpoints), there needs to be a decent mix of resources and POIs in reach for the stages of the game (first survival, first base, looting, defending against first horde).

 

If one player spawns right at a large city, and the other one in the middle of nowhere with unrewarding POIs, its kind of really unbalanced.

 

That needs to mix with a landscape that looks good, and frequent enough change in biomes, so players are not stuck in the same biome all the time.

 

Before generation of the map, there should be some configuration options on how the map should be structured in general, depending on the intended gamestyle. (densly populated vs sparse, abundant close by traders vs few or none, large cities vs more smaller settlements etc)

[archergod]

Even partially collapsed sewer system POI's in cities would be cool...no more turds , otherwise it would have been the Motherload!

But they could make pretty good dungeons...

 

And what you expect to find in swear? dirt, turd, you cannot expect a weapon there but only bunch of zed and ♥♥♥♥. In real life I would never go there for any reason in surviving.

[AtomicUs5000]

And what you expect to find in swear? dirt, turd, you cannot expect a weapon there but only bunch of zed and ♥♥♥♥. In real life I would never go there for any reason in surviving.

 

I've made about 10 sewer POIs so far. I'm designing them to be modular, so you can connect them in a maze-like fashion, with larger arena type junction areas. I ran into the problem of deciding what loot should be down there. For now, just a ton of bodies to be looted for bones. Some of these are modern sewers and some are older. The older ones have some minerals stalagmites growing from the ceiling, so a good source of nitrate. One of the POIs have like little hobo shelters that have a little loot. So, there are ways... just need to use some imagination.

[JaxTeller718]

And what you expect to find in swear? dirt, turd, you cannot expect a weapon there but only bunch of zed and ♥♥♥♥. In real life I would never go there for any reason in surviving.

 

MAYBE people like to do scary things in scary games?

[Menace312]

I think that for whatever reason, 970's are performing quite well with this game. I am in the same boat of not seeing any performance problems where people with later generations are having problems.

 

Hmm, guess I should chime in here.

I got a MSI GTX970, and a i7 4960 CPU, 16Gb RAM.

 

I've never really had issues with performance in 7days...

Well, some lag when there are lots of zombies, and in the past the jitter and so on...

But nothing really bad.

[Jay_ombie]

I think that most playing RWG would disagree here. The entire point of RWG is that the world must be explored. It should be random to the largest extent possible.

 

Agreed RWG is just that random. You apply any form of rule you loose that random element straight away. Maps will start looking the same eventually and say good bye to unpredictability.

[Guest]

People retreating underground to survive whatever caused the zombie apocalypse makes sense. Subway stations would be cool as well.

[beerfly]

People retreating underground to survive whatever caused the zombie apocalypse makes sense. Subway stations would be cool as well.

 

The idea of subway POI is really old and anticipated.

Though, subways are build under big cities and all we have here is collection of villages, and towns that look better and better with the time. Subway poi in a town with 1500-5000 or even 20k residents sounds unrealistic.

 

So, sewers

[xyth]

This was almost, but not quite possible to do in A16 using XML and UMA NPCs. The behavior at least - NPCs (other than traders) couldn't talk, and I don't think you could make one that could not be killed.

 

Unfortunately, as of A17, they can no longer be "hooked up" to AI behavior through the XML. (I'm guessing it's because the AI was overhauled.)

 

I'm hoping that comes back again someday, maybe as TFP get closer to gold.

 

In reference to NPC characters, if you don't mind using mods, this functionality and much more is almost ready for release.

[AtomicUs5000]

Hmm, guess I should chime in here.

I got a MSI GTX970, and a i7 4960 CPU, 16Gb RAM.

 

I've never really had issues with performance in 7days...

Well, some lag when there are lots of zombies, and in the past the jitter and so on...

But nothing really bad.

 

Same exact processor and GPU brand as well. lol. I do have 32 Ram though, of which I don't know how much of it is actually is helpful. Yeah, once in a while, the zombies spawning in will cause a bit of lag, but that's about it... and I play with max zombies.

 

The only thing here though, is that I don't try to keep the fancy graphics going. Most things are set at some low level, but not necessarily the lowest.

[Menace312]

Same exact processor and GPU brand as well. lol. I do have 32 Ram though, of which I don't know how much of it is actually is helpful. Yeah, once in a while, the zombies spawning in will cause a bit of lag, but that's about it... and I play with max zombies.

 

The only thing here though, is that I don't try to keep the fancy graphics going. Most things are set at some low level, but not necessarily the lowest.

 

I got my settings at about medium. Reflections off.

Resolution at 1440p.

 

I put that down to optimizations, not being done. We are in alpha after all.

Imagine having to optimize after each exp release...

The game is actually amazingly stable if you think about it.

Only some gameplay and RWG is suffering right now.

 

A18, where art thou?

[Perlin_Worm]

Performance is boss but I hope something can be worked out to include at least limited perlin worm caves. It adds so much to random gen exploration.

 

<tear>

[XCOUNTRY]

Hmm. I was running a 970M with 16GB ram and i7 and did not have any issues either. Thought I would for A17 so I upgraded to a desktop with a EVGA Geoforce GTX 1070 with 16gb ram and Ryzen 5. Haven't had any issues there either. Monitor is 2k Dell with G-sync. Haven't really tweaked any of the settings because, well I don't know what I'm doing, and it seems to be working for me. Was at 40-60fps on the 970M and rock-steady at 60fps on 1070.

[cricket504]

I have been running a server for 7DTD as well as my gaming rig. Server is what was my prior gaming rig that's now 7 year old with my current rig having i7-6700k, 16gig, GTX 980TI. I have tinkered with both to see what runs better with 7DTD and other games using the same engine. Clock speed on the cpu core is king with core count almost meaningless. Little tweaking on video has the current rig working well on 1080p up to 4K with most settings near max. But running the game on different machines, core clock speed comes first and video second. If your cpu clock speed is 2.2, a great video card is not going to pay off.

[Menace312]

I have been running a server for 7DTD as well as my gaming rig. Server is what was my prior gaming rig that's now 7 year old with my current rig having i7-6700k, 16gig, GTX 980TI. I have tinkered with both to see what runs better with 7DTD and other games using the same engine. Clock speed on the cpu core is king with core count almost meaningless. Little tweaking on video has the current rig working well on 1080p up to 4K with most settings near max. But running the game on different machines, core clock speed comes first and video second. If your cpu clock speed is 2.2, a great video card is not going to pay off.

 

Ok, one thing I wondered after reading.

Did you run it at 1080p or 4K (2160p, kinda).

 

Edit:

I cant do the full 3840x2160. It causes problems!

[madmole]

Even now in A17 if you start hitting the stalactites on the ceiling of those POIs that are down in the hole with either a door or scrap plates covering the opening...the ones with the indian crate in them....they are only a few blocks underground and the ENTIRE roof collapses.....But on the other hand..i think actual underground camp, mine, hideouts POIs would be better, as some of the larger POIs in game now have pretty big underground areas...think the scientist lab one under the house.

Make underground cave POIs that can be generated into the mix...they would not be as open as the large rooms that we find in the house POIs just add wood supports every 5 blocks to simulate cribbing inn a mine shaft.

 

Coughs* Oh and add a small airport while you guys are at it...we need one * Coughs

 

 

regards

Ouch

I wonder if you have "Coughs*" bound to a macro or at least ctrl V it.

[madmole]

I didn't. The laptop I was using for mod development went from a 70-ish FPS average to a 30-ish FPS average with mostly the same video settings. That's from A16 to A17. The only difference is I had a wider FOV in A16.

 

My desktop was just as bad, going from 130-ish down to around 80-ish.

 

I've since bought a new one and back to roughly 80-ish FPS, but I consider that to be pretty unacceptable when A17 was touted to be a performance INCREASE.

 

However it sounds like TFP are working on that now, so that's good.

 

Source of said tout? I said memory usage was way down, which is a true statement. That doesn't mean performance though.