Alpha 19 Dev Diary

[madmole]

 

Perfectly explained. By using NitroGen map generator I managed to get the dream maps...way better than anything vanilla has offered (not to say vanilla RWG is bad, but it can be improved a lot). I just hope Madmole won't just be like "Well, then continue to use the NitroGen map generator, no need for us to add so many map gen options if modders can do it already".

 

It seems like a no brainer though. I hold no animosity against Bethesda for not making CBBE models in the vanilla version, even though they are clearly superior in every way.

 

We'll add what we want to make it shippable, but trying to keep up with a third party tool that specializes in terrain gen is out of the scope of what we need to do. If its amazing and easy to integrate then sure, we'd have a look at some point, but in the mean time its more about baby step improvements until its shippable.

[madmole]

 

There's A LOT of work to be done yet to 7 days to die. For instance, we've never seen a fully content-focused alpha yet because of all the core systems being worked on.

 

When that happens (a21 2021) , then "sheet" will get real. I don't mind the 11 years in development scope. Why? One answer: Kenshi. Let your dreams become a reality, doesn't matter the time it takes. The only deadline is death (Jeez that's gloomy).

 

 

A18 was a lot of content. There is no such thing as a pure content build. There is always supportive code needed for content.

[madmole]

 

As far as the code goes it is a deliberate change to the decoration manager. Certain objects that before were tagged to be able to decorate slopes are now ignored because the slopes are all tagged as no-decoration, rather than to allow small decorations at least. This means not even grasses, bushes and rocks can spawn there.

 

As far as I know the way decoration worked prior to A18 already did a good job preventing steep slopes from getting decorated by large objects such as trees, but did place some if there was a plateau higher up. I hope they can take a look into the code and check if the current behavior is the intended behavior (and if intended to reconsider or allow more control through xml somehow). The completely barren slopes created by cities when the terrain is flattened for example look really bad.

 

I recently attempted to resolve this in xml but the results were not satisfactory. We do want to get some more decorations on slopes.

[Adam the Waster]

 

I'd love it back as well, but sadly that exploit is how the zombies were able to also glitch thru doors, so them fixing the zombies kinda killed our hatchevators.

 

REAL MEN! Use Ladders!

 

i mean you uses your Brain to Just Levitate yourself up places! but only with ladders!

[Adam the Waster]

 

There is only so much you can do though. Cut one head off, two grow back. Players who spend that much time learning exploits can easily NOT use them so that they can have a bigger challenge.

 

 

Mr Madmole. Thats not how it works, if so then zombies would have hundreds of heads. lol

 

 

[Lo-X]

I confirm that there is a huge difference between the default generation and NitroGen.

 

It's simple. In random generation an 10K takes about 2 hours, for an always similar rendering, little chance of having space on the dish and in forest biome. And above all, impossible to play because the distant rendering was not the same as the close rendering (I erased the old save, everything. I tried several times. I even reinstalled my OS). I spent one night finding a solution. I took a PREGEN for the start A18. When I wipe a month ago, same thing. I asked for help on Admin Coalition and I was directed to the NG.

 

With NitroGen for a 10K it took me just under 4 minutes. It's not buggy, more coherent generation, the POIs are grouped together by "theme", there are rivers and crevasses, craters in devastated biomes, etc ... Everything is configurable. This app should be part of the game.

I will never use anything else. Damocles' work deserves to be looked at in my opinion.

 

I'm not spitting on your work. I support you and defend your work in the face of the most pessimistic when it comes to the progression of the game, from the start.

[madmole]

 

Hey.. well.. I tried to give them a positive.

Kind of hard when one of the owners says its in a good spot right now, and they don't understand why its starting to get picked apart again.

(my non jerky out) -> OFC I did say as of A18.4. So who knows except them, how it is looking for A19 and whatnot.

 

Maybe I'm just an unobservant oaf, but I had lots of fun on all the seeds I played. 8k is huge, so the size card doesn't mean anything to me. Aside from that, how can you pick it apart? Generation time? PFFFT, that is one little 15 minute time then you are set for 100 hours. Rust takes longer than ours. Not really high on our list.

 

The only thing that caught my eye was two identical pois close to each other, and a few dead end roads that could be better. We already improved biome generation, so what else is there?

 

 

 

 

[Snowydeath]

I confirm that there is a huge difference between the default generation and NitroGen.

 

It's simple. In random generation an 8k takes about 2 hours, for an always similar rendering, little chance of having space on the dish and in forest biome. And above all, impossible to play because the distant rendering was not the same as the close rendering (I erased the old save, everything. I tried several times. I even reinstalled my OS). I spent one night finding a solution. I took a PREGEN for the start A18. When I wipe a month ago, same thing. I asked for help on Admin Coalition and I was directed to the NG.

 

With NitroGen for a 10K it took me just under 4 minutes. It's not buggy, more coherent generation, the POIs are grouped together by "theme", there are rivers and crevasses, craters in devastated biomes, etc ... Everything is configurable. This app should be part of the game.

I will never use anything else. Damocles' work deserves to be looked at in my opinion.

 

I'm not spitting on your work. I support you and defend your work in the face of the most pessimistic when it comes to the progression of the game, from the start.

 

Jesus christ dude, if it takes that long you need better hardware or an SSD. at MOST it takes 20 minutes to generate for me.

[faatal]

After searching through the forums a bit, it seems this isn't a common issue, but why do I have a problem with my backpack disappearing after death? I just started a new play-through in which I died twice (once by a pig even), I rushed back to the site of my death, and my bag vanished both times on me. The compass/map icon remains but there's nothing there.

 

Check your console/log for backpack messages. Changes were made in A18 to make it more obvious what is going on with it.

 

Is that a local game, where you are the server or are you logged in to a server?

[meganoth]

 

I don't think we're going to go there, after the 50th mining helmet from a worker you will be disappointed I think. Random is better.

 

Is there much of a difference to getting the 50th mining helmet from loot boxes in general? Since only every 50th zombie has loot at all, you would need to kill 2500 workers before getting there even if every loot bag had a helmet.

 

[Lo-X]

 

Jesus christ dude, if it takes that long you need better hardware or an SSD. at MOST it takes 20 minutes to generate for me.

 

I use a 970 Nvme with a Ryzen 9 3900K. By chatting with other admin they confirmed to me that it could take this time. Have you generated a server or a private game?

 

I correct. I tried again. 24 minutes to charge an 8K.

 

[Ayrton]

 

Madmole, can we see the junk drone?

[madmole]

I confirm that there is a huge difference between the default generation and NitroGen.

 

It's simple. In random generation an 8k takes about 2 hours, for an always similar rendering, little chance of having space on the dish and in forest biome. And above all, impossible to play because the distant rendering was not the same as the close rendering (I erased the old save, everything. I tried several times. I even reinstalled my OS). I spent one night finding a solution. I took a PREGEN for the start A18. When I wipe a month ago, same thing. I asked for help on Admin Coalition and I was directed to the NG.

 

With NitroGen for a 10K it took me just under 4 minutes. It's not buggy, more coherent generation, the POIs are grouped together by "theme", there are rivers and crevasses, craters in devastated biomes, etc ... Everything is configurable. This app should be part of the game.

I will never use anything else. Damocles' work deserves to be looked at in my opinion.

 

I'm not spitting on your work. I support you and defend your work in the face of the most pessimistic when it comes to the progression of the game, from the start.

 

Something is wrong with your PC, it takes 10-15 minutes at most for me to generate an 8k map.

[madmole]

Madmole, can we see the junk drone?

 

When its done. This week sometime.

[Blake_]

 

 

A18 was a lot of content. There is no such thing as a pure content build. There is always supportive code needed for content.

 

 

 

I meant things like RWG as core systems and things like more POIS or more weapons as "pure" content.Sure, there's always code framework needed, but when a POI editor tool works and It is in its final stage, then everything snaps together faster when you want to add more POIS to the game. So in the end, being from your perspective or mine, the game is still at the point of "starting to be ready to start to be finished".

 

Maybe I'm just an unobservant oaf, but I had lots of fun on all the seeds I played. 8k is huge, so the size card doesn't mean anything to me. Aside from that, how can you pick it apart? Generation time? PFFFT, that is one little 15 minute time then you are set for 100 hours. Rust takes longer than ours. Not really high on our list.

 

The only thing that caught my eye was two identical pois close to each other, and a few dead end roads that could be better. We already improved biome generation, so what else is there?

 

 

I played 8k. The size, for default gameplay is ok, but I wish you guys added 16k and even 32k in the future. More would be crazy. 4k is... well.... less than ok but bearable for short sesions.

 

Imagine the feelings of walking through the wasteland for more than 500 hours and having never ending adventures with your 7 buddies in one map without resets. I would love 32k not only for that reason but also for the sake of supporting a standarized top map size for mods, future expansions and so on.

 

[Ayrton]

 

When its done. This week sometime.

 

 

Great!!!

[Tin]

 

Maybe I'm just an unobservant oaf, but I had lots of fun on all the seeds I played. 8k is huge, so the size card doesn't mean anything to me. Aside from that, how can you pick it apart? Generation time? PFFFT, that is one little 15 minute time then you are set for 100 hours. Rust takes longer than ours. Not really high on our list.

 

The only thing that caught my eye was two identical pois close to each other, and a few dead end roads that could be better. We already improved biome generation, so what else is there?

 

 

 

 

I know you are playing off of some other peoples post, but I didn't even mention map size.. yet! lol

However, I do think though you should really consider looking into NitroGen at the minimum so you can understand why so many are giving it such high praises.

I am not one of those saying "You should just incorporate it into your game!", but hopefully it will give you something to ponder on the 'why' that is being placed above what you all have atm.

Again, I don't have clue what you all have in store, other than what we have in a18.4 atm.

 

 

[Ayrton]

I confirm that there is a huge difference between the default generation and NitroGen.

 

It's simple. In random generation an 8k takes about 2 hours, for an always similar rendering, little chance of having space on the dish and in forest biome. And above all, impossible to play because the distant rendering was not the same as the close rendering (I erased the old save, everything. I tried several times. I even reinstalled my OS). I spent one night finding a solution. I took a PREGEN for the start A18. When I wipe a month ago, same thing. I asked for help on Admin Coalition and I was directed to the NG.

 

With NitroGen for a 10K it took me just under 4 minutes. It's not buggy, more coherent generation, the POIs are grouped together by "theme", there are rivers and crevasses, craters in devastated biomes, etc ... Everything is configurable. This app should be part of the game.

I will never use anything else. Damocles' work deserves to be looked at in my opinion.

 

I'm not spitting on your work. I support you and defend your work in the face of the most pessimistic when it comes to the progression of the game, from the start.

 

 

I have a toaster, W10, Ram 16, I5 1t hard drive (8 years old) GTX 2060 3gb and it takes me about 13 to 16 min, all my drivers updated!

[Lo-X]

Sorry I made a mistake. A 10K takes 2 hours. Do you mean generation on dedicated server?

 

I correct. I tried again. 24 minutes to charge an 8K.

[Sykriss]

 

Sorry I made a mistake. A 10K takes 2 hours. An 8K takes about 45 minutes. Do you mean generation on dedicated server?

 

 

There's something up with your PC or configuration. On my 3770k/8GB ram desktop server, an 8k RWG map takes 10-12 minutes from server boot to a joinable game. On my 3630QM/16GB ram laptop it takes about 15 minutes.

[SnowDog1942]

 

so the size card doesn't mean anything to me.

 

 

Can you convince my wife?

[wolfbain5]

 

Can you convince my wife?

 

I'm sure I could, but my current wife might object

[madmole]

 

I know you are playing off of some other peoples post, but I didn't even mention map size.. yet! lol

However, I do think though you should really consider looking into NitroGen at the minimum so you can understand why so many are giving it such high praises.

I am not one of those saying "You should just incorporate it into your game!", but hopefully it will give you something to ponder on the 'why' that is being placed above what you all have atm.

Again, I don't have clue what you all have in store, other than what we have in a18.4 atm.

 

 

One of the main reasons we switched to height map for rwg was so someone could make something awesome, it isn't generated on the fly and cost CPU. Its unified with how static maps work tech wise so zero issues now, other than aesthetics. I thought it was just a bunch of sliders and used our random gen, so does it create everything using new code? At the end of the day the engine runs from images now, so someone could bake a world with whatever software they wanted and it would work.

[Gareee]

 

Maybe I'm just an unobservant oaf, but I had lots of fun on all the seeds I played. 8k is huge, so the size card doesn't mean anything to me. Aside from that, how can you pick it apart? Generation time? PFFFT, that is one little 15 minute time then you are set for 100 hours. Rust takes longer than ours. Not really high on our list.

 

The only thing that caught my eye was two identical pois close to each other, and a few dead end roads that could be better. We already improved biome generation, so what else is there?

 

 

 

 

Its not about lack of fun.. its about an improved immersive outdoor experience.

 

You "improved" biome generation by eliminating 2/3rds of them, completely eliminating hill deco (giving them that empty barren 90's world experience look) and making every hill almost un navigable with a vehicle because of all the small scale bumpiness.

 

IMHO you guys should seriously look at acquiring Nitrogen as a standalone world gen tool in the game. The biome generation is vastly more diverse, and he already has so many option sliders in place that its amazing. The biggest one for me was his road generation. I never once saw an issues with any roads at all.

 

 

If I had my ideal situation, he would get Nitrogen picked up by TFP, get funding to work the last few kinks out of it and pretty it up some, and TFP coders could get input from him what needs to be changed to improve what is possible. (Like no deco on hills and slopes, and either creating new biomes or adding more sub biomes.) The focus of the game has gone so far towards indoor play that the outdoor play diversity has suffered drastically.

 

One guy did this himself, so the cost couldn't be that high, vs tying up your own coders for months on end trying to get even half the functionality.

 

Seriously, Madmole can someone at least PLEASE look at his interface and all the options he's made available for players? It would be a win win for all involved, and that development time from the RWG guys could be cut drastically, and their expertise could be better utilized.

 

 

[Gareee]

I thought it was just a bunch of sliders and used our random gen, so does it create everything using new code? At the end of the day the engine runs from images now, so someone could bake a world with whatever software they wanted and it would work.

 

Nope he uses his own random gen and added about 30 sliders for things like city/town/rural density, road width, rivers and his wasteland areas are actually blasted craters from bombs. (and you can even select if they have pois, and what percentages of then they have.

 

He even added the capability to add additional poi zones, working with user created pois. (For instance there are a bunch of user created chinese buildings, and all only spawn in a unique chinatown district.)

 

It can import elevations created by outside world generators as well, so you could hand paint one, or use satellite images to generate one in an external application and then import that in!