Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[Mechanimal]

Simulating a virtual world in greater detail is a lot to ask from the type of hardware we use to begin with, especially one with as much detail as a voxel engine. The real problem is trying to do so much concurrently using a von neumann machine, which is a fundamentally serial architecture, which all modern computers are. As with many subjects most people do not realize there are other ways to do it, but everything went this route back in the 80s, mostly, so alternative architectures has gotten little love, until recently.

 

The few gray area exceptions, and what led me to discover this 20 years ago, was graphics cards. There is a reason they are highly used in other fields like advanced machine learning, scientific simulations, and even bit coin mining... basically any task that requires many separate calculations to occur simultaneously, which serial architectures try to overcome by just doing things faster, which also causes a ton of heat and thus wasted energy. What's really silly, and drives this point home, is super computer anatomy. The meat of them is focused on essentially turning a serial machine into a parallel machine. Still. I've been face-palming this subject for decades, but I work in robotics so it's probably for the best that this realization happens slowly, and doesn't take off until civilization gets it's ♥♥♥♥ together.

 

As much as new materials will help increase speed and continue to shrink things will be helpful, the real jump will occur once we get more chip structures to work with. Good news is gaming cards have been the best at pushing this need, so far. Serial is horrible at these kinds of tasks so most computer software is cursed with having to try and work around this inherent bottleneck, it's ridiculous, and is still very painful to watch. We will likely continue to get the best results from new chips aimed at games and Machine Learning, but not because of their material science, but because those systems will continue to become more parallelized at the hardware level, because that's where the problem itself stems from.

 

Anyway, it is finally catching on at a high rate, pushed mainly by industry shifts I keep a close eye on. It shouldn't be too long before we can simulate worlds with a 1 inch or smaller voxelization, but we'll also have a bunch of smart bots to deal with, and that will either be awesome, or the final horde night for the human species. Hard to say, still. But the games, if we make it, will be ♥♥♥♥ing nuts. It'll be awhile before we reach atomic(near really) level sims, for example, but we already live in one, so... The atom is the voxel, and only has 3 ingredients, 2 quarks and a lepton. That's it, that's everything. And I didn't even get into Quantum Computers, that is another story, not going there, yet.

[Gazz]

Watch videos of the world war 7 game... multiplayer co op, static terrain, and ungodly zombie counts.

Very good example because AFAIK shooting zombies in the face is the total extent of what you can do in this game.

 

 

The current generation of young people, I've noticed, want things given to them or to start at the top rather than working and putting in their dues.

That's pretty much what Horace wrote some 2000 years ago so it's been going on for a bit.

(that, incidentally, is something history teaches us )

[Drithyl]

That's pretty much what Horace wrote some 2000 years ago so it's been going on for a bit.

(that, incidentally, is something history teaches us )

 

Yes, older generations always think that new generations are weak and new generations always think that old generations are out of touch with reality. Funny how people still think they are right when they make such remarks on one or the other

[Guppycur]

“When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”

[CypherTodd]

as for school,,, well this.

[archergod]

 

In new horde night video, I notice that Character is at health of 168, similarly for stamina. I think with perk it increase in fold of 10, so it should be 170 or 160 .. did I miss an update about health?

 

also, he never get infected?

[4sheetzngeegles]

When I was la little bitty boy

My grandma gave me a brand new toy

It was two bells on the end of a string

She said here son it your little

 

 

Bicycle bell.

 

 

 

You thought I was going to say dingalingaling didn't yah?

 

[Guppycur]

@madmole

 

...am I crazy or were you killing them more easily with your ak (or whatever ammo you had in your ak) than your m60? The rad soldiers especially were going down easier with the ak...

[MechanicalLens]

Yes, older generations always think that new generations are weak and new generations always think that old generations are out of touch with reality. Funny how people still think they are right when they make such remarks on one or the other

 

As the saying goes, "Humanity never learns."

[RipClaw]

 

In new horde night video, I notice that Character is at health of 168, similarly for stamina. I think with perk it increase in fold of 10, so it should be 170 or 160 .. did I miss an update about health?

 

 

In A18 health and stamina are governed by your level.

[Aurelius]

@madmole

 

...am I crazy or were you killing them more easily with your ak (or whatever ammo you had in your ak) than your m60? The rad soldiers especially were going down easier with the ak...

 

There was a point where he switched to AP ammo and the soldiers started dropping like flies.

 

-A

[archergod]

In A18 health and stamina are governed by your level.

 

That is great. but why he is not getting infected after so many hits ? no buff was visible if he had some antibiotic before etc.

[TSRViper]

That is great. but why he is not getting infected after so many hits ? no buff was visible if he had some antibiotic before etc.

 

Heavy armour reduces the risk of infection.

[mr.natural]

Easy peasy, its outdoors. Its not supposed to be dangerous unless you are in the wasteland. Region based danger for biome spawning is the best design, not leveled guys. Leveled random encounters could be cool though.

 

Random encounters would be awesome. It'll put suspense back when you're hunting, chopping wood and what have you.

[Gazz]

There was a point where he switched to AP ammo and the soldiers started dropping like flies.

Ammo type does matter.

HP ammo is great for unarmored targets but quite weak against armor.

 

Of course you can also go with regular ammo which works "well enough" and is cheaper to make but doesn't over-penetrate like AP...

You'll figure it out. =P

[KingSlayerGM]

With static terrain we could pre bake nav mesh and it would run amazing. SI calculations would be limited to "chunk entities". You could build chunk entities with 360 degree rotations.

 

You would still have voxel POIs which can't have pre baked nav mesh..

[M4ALEX]

That is great. but why he is not getting infected after so many hits ? no buff was visible if he had some antibiotic before etc.

 

In the base tour video Joel says if you punch them in the face with the spiked knuckles they cant bite (infect) you only swing at you

[OzHawkeye]

So please inspire me as to what history you learned from? People learn by their own mistakes not by others and certainly not history books in school. I try to tell people how to live their lives all the time and they just keep making the same stupid mistakes and learn slow AF. "What did I say would happen" "uhh yeah you were right" then they do the same crap again or new crap and barely learn.

 

Maybe I had crappy teachers, but I don't recall learning anything from history classes. I find it more interesting now, but as a kid or teenager it was worse than watching paint dry. I am curious what you think a student can learn from it.

 

Well, it'd be really hard to answer that question without straying into politics, which we can't do.

 

But yes, I absolutely believe that History should be a compulsory subject in schools, because I look around today and see what appears to me, a lot of history, repeating itself, as the saying goes, first as farce, then as tragedy.

 

Sorry you had a bad history teacher, to be sure, that won't help, and kids might not (at the time) appreciate it, but democracies die, foremost through apathy, and I tend to see a lot of that nowadays I reckon.

[KingSlayerGM]

So please inspire me as to what history you learned from? People learn by their own mistakes not by others and certainly not history books in school. I try to tell people how to live their lives all the time and they just keep making the same stupid mistakes and learn slow AF. "What did I say would happen" "uhh yeah you were right" then they do the same crap again or new crap and barely learn.

 

Maybe I had crappy teachers, but I don't recall learning anything from history classes. I find it more interesting now, but as a kid or teenager it was worse than watching paint dry. I am curious what you think a student can learn from it.

 

Learning history allows you to be able to think. I'm not talking about day to day think, I'm talking about the big picture. It allows you to understand the present and the context that you live in. It allows you to understand where we came from and in which direction we are going. It allows you to understand people, societies, cultures, change. History gives answers to a ton of important questions: Why do we do things this way? Why do we have these institutions? Why this kind of government? It gives you perspective.

 

I know, for a lot of people this doesn't matter. Most people live their life as they were told and don't ask questions. They pay taxes, vote, go to church, because they were told so, but they never truly understand why. Studying history gives you the chance to understand this.

 

Of course I would change they way that history is taught in schools, at least in my country. Knowing all the names of all the monarchs of europe of 1000 years is useless..

 

Also I agree that the other useful skills that you mentioned should be taught in schools too.

[SrslyGTFO]

Ammo type does matter.

HP ammo is great for unarmored targets but quite weak against armor.

 

Of course you can also go with regular ammo which works "well enough" and is cheaper to make but doesn't over-penetrate like AP...

You'll figure it out. =P

 

From the new video, I'd say hollow point ammo is broken against armored zeds, not just weaker.

[DaVegaNL]

@Roland, Can we add to the list of off-topic subjects the following?:

 

• Which one woman is hotter questions.
  
• Which fighter is better.
  
• UFC match results.
  
• Diet-related questions.
  
• Madmole's personal assets, including his enormous personal gym, his incredibly expensive custom made sofa, his Hellcat, his castle, and whatever else he has mentioned multiple times already.
  
• Madmole's views on the world that have no relation to 7 days to die, including education, people being sensitive, history being stupid, near death experiences and many others that I am forgetting.
  

 

I don't mean to be offensive here, but I've been holding back on this for a while now to see if things got better, and it's aggravating to see Madmole write posts in big letters announcing that a game-related subject that he doesn't like discussing in the a18 diary is now off-topic, and still answer every single question of random users on random topics in great detail time and time again, even in an ongoing conversation, like we're in the off-topic section of the forums. It's a very unfair double standard that he has.

 

I'm not against a developer sharing such things, but at least do it in the appropriate sections of the forum.

 

What about rocks?

[DaVegaNL]

rocks are off-topic too.

 

oh no you didn't

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

No sexual innuendo and no dirty jokes.

 

.. But mooooom.

[ozzysfang]

MM . Thanks for the video. The demolishers' vocals are scary and cut through the chaos nicely.

 

I love history but agree it could be taught in a more tantalizing fashion. I found this guys history podcast a few years ago and love it.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=dan+carlin+history+podcast

 

There's a ton of gold to mined in history. There is also a ton that's lost forever because it was destroyed or forgotten. I am in the camp that it should be taught and maintained so we don't have to reinvent the wheel when the wheels fall off.

[DaVegaNL]

I tried to take romance class but they kicked me out

 

You should have first asked gently, and made dinner for romance class. Not take it directly.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

Maybe because you were Romancing the Stone?

 

/rimshot

 

There's only one of us in here romancing stones or rocks.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

Wait, people socialize here ?

Uum, hiii !

*waving hand franticly*

 

Wash your hands before waving them around, young man!

[Weazelsun]

Watched the recent video, and now it makes me want to spec in fortitude when A18 comes. It does show how different it'll be from the current version.