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Alpha 19 Dev Diary


madmole

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Can we please get rid of microsplat for A19?

 

I was disabling it manually until SphereII made a patch to put the A17 distant terrain back. Some important points.

 

1) It allows players to do farming the 'old' way (take hoe, hoe ground) like they asked for in A18.

2) HUGE FPS gain. I mean 30-50fps when tested on my laptop (i7-4710MQ, 32GB RAM, GTX 980M), god knows how much on my desktop but I've been pegging the 165hz refresh rate of my monitor... vs sitting at 80 with occasional dips to 20.

 

In terms of graphical fidelity? I see no major difference between Microsplat on and Microsplat off.

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Jail doors interfered with zombie pathing, hence why they were removed.

 

hence, working ones. I know why they were removed. I would like to see if they can make ones that dont mess up the AI. or an equivalent of an iron door with bars. one on hinges instead of a slide. one we can shoot through .

 

say 75% of the hp of an iron door, top half barred, bottom half solid.

 

Joel is an artist, I am sure he can come up with something that looks right.

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(Since this seems to be the active thread now)

 

I think the distant texture for certain landscapes (especially forest) could use an updated version.

While the desert looks nice on distant vertical surfaces, the forest texture (stone on slopes) looks very tiled, and overshadows the terrains natural diffuse shading. It makes mountain-slopes look like a tiled blob in the distance.

 

A version with less contrast would help. Its would allow the terrain to show its natural shape more.

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and the possibility of making zombie variants and not killing clones continuously, changing the color of clothing and wearing accessories such as helmets randomly.

 

This would be great, actually. It does feel like killing clones the more you play. Some sort of variety would be welcome, even if it's just the randomization of walk speeds or have some zombies spawn with one or two limbs missing, thus randomizing crawlers as well.

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Can we please get rid of microsplat for A19?

 

I was disabling it manually until SphereII made a patch to put the A17 distant terrain back. Some important points.

 

1) It allows players to do farming the 'old' way (take hoe, hoe ground) like they asked for in A18.

2) HUGE FPS gain. I mean 30-50fps when tested on my laptop (i7-4710MQ, 32GB RAM, GTX 980M), god knows how much on my desktop but I've been pegging the 165hz refresh rate of my monitor... vs sitting at 80 with occasional dips to 20.

 

In terms of graphical fidelity? I see no major difference between Microsplat on and Microsplat off.

 

Oh. where can this patch be found? I was directed to your discord by another user to find the location, but might be easier to ask about it :D

(and I'm scared of discord servers :D )

The microsplat wrecks my computer aswell, which is scary since it's a relatively powerful gaming rig

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Hey Madmole, I agree with what another person here said about electrickery. Not a huge amount of stuff to rework or anything with it, just the option to choose whether triggering a switch with a motion sensor or pressure plate etc activates or deactivates an action, not just activates.

I would also like additional arch blocks, so 2m arch inside and outside corners.

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Sounds sobering. Vehicle update, books and eye candy. The vehicle update seems to be the major part. Maybe it's an unpopular oppinion but I need something with some inventory to get from A to B.

Yea the scale of A19 isn't set but judging the past updates I don't expect any surprises contentwise.

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With vehicle updates for a19 are you guys thinking of removing carrying vehicles in inventory? It always felt weird and it would make breakdowns less of an event if we can carry vehicles in our pockets.

 

Larger vehicles carrying light vehicles might be interesting though, maybe 4x4 and gyro can carry a bicycle.

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Not to mention the AI. I hope they won't be braindead like the zombies are. I'd love to see them move about, have hideouts, scavenge and such, even if it means they take a few more versions. They should have self-preservation, and run away if you shoot first or with a bigger gun, especially if they only have a melee weapon. Using ambushing and stealth would also give them quite the threat, but I'm sure that'd all be quite expensive to code in.

 

I expect them at first to be just variations if the Zombie ai. They spawn out of nowhere near the base, questlocation or specific POI. Then walk towards the players location, either stopping when in range and shoot, or hack their way through blocks to the player and attack with melee weapons. Maybe run further away when hurt.

 

Done, working Bandit AI.

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We have a chemistry station lol.. no a huge no to a new station.

 

That said I thought of making glue from corn flour in the chemistry station only.

 

What about electrical, faster crafting stations for late game?

Electrical furnaces instead of forges, electrical kitchen and chem station?

Electricity is such an interesting and under developed feature it hurts...

 

Not asking for factorio here, just something more interesting to do with electricity, the garage doors alone enhanced it greatly.

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Lesser updates are stupid. The game gets better with longer updates. I really do hope they "BLOAT" it.

It is exactly why so many people are angry at development pace atm.

Just go over some recent negative steam reviews or posts around A18 release.

Rare yearly updates almost made my group abandon and forget about the game, because "too little too late" comes to it and as big as A18 update was, its by far not enough for a year of wait time. I'd rather see smaller updates more often refreshing the game and giving new short/long term goals, especially the end game needs expanding as there is literally nothing to do outside of building for the sake of building, no growing threats, lack of any optimization only led to reducing horde night spawns, making them even more trivial etc.

 

While the game is not bad, its most certainly NOT in a shape that allows for yearly updates.

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It is exactly why so many people are angry at development pace atm.

Just go over some recent negative steam reviews or posts around A18 release.

Rare yearly updates almost made my group abandon and forget about the game, because "too little too late" comes to it and as big as A18 update was, its by far not enough for a year of wait time. I'd rather see smaller updates more often refreshing the game and giving new short/long term goals, especially the end game needs expanding as there is literally nothing to do outside of building for the sake of building, no growing threats, lack of any optimization only led to reducing horde night spawns, making them even more trivial etc.

 

While the game is not bad, its most certainly NOT in a shape that allows for yearly updates.

 

No one cares what the steam reviews bs about lol. I am sure they have tissues. The sales of a18 showed different. It's more like a small minority.

 

Smaller updates will honestly have adverse effects. Ok it will back what 5 people but lose alot more. It def is in a shape to do yearly updates. Ofc we still in a18 and more content equals better play and more people will be excited bout it.. well except for those steam reviews whom always whine with rubbish

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zombie animations really need looking into. if you shoot a zombie with an AK-47 there is no way the damn thing stumble TOWARDS you 4 or 5 blocks! heads and arms clipping through doors. water, water needs some love.

adding more books and vechile mods etc are low hanging fruit, just variations on things already there.

 

I get a laugh out of people asking for more complexity in the game.. its clearly been stated they are simplifing it.

 

The worst thing from a18 has been the extreme FPS drops. i was in the snow going for a burried supplies and it dropped to 8 fps. turned around and eventually got to the forest and boom back up to 60 fps.

 

I sincerley hope they find the cause of the crash to desktop and the game not shutting down when exited. quit the game and steam says its still running! i have to exit steam and force shutdown.

 

Still love this game, and preach about it to anyone that listens. just wish some things get looked at.

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No one cares what the steam reviews bs about lol. I am sure they have tissues. The sales of a18 showed different. It's more like a small minority.

 

Smaller updates will honestly have adverse effects. Ok it will back what 5 people but lose alot more. It def is in a shape to do yearly updates. Ofc we still in a18 and more content equals better play and more people will be excited bout it.. well except for those steam reviews whom always whine with rubbish

 

I think what some players make angry is that the long development of A17 was justified with improvements in APIs/code/basics to speed up future development, but A18 took very long again and sure there are some new stuffs like perks, vehicles, but these are no ground-breaking changes in the game or new features like bandits or new Z hordes etc.

Don't get me wrong I'm fine with development speed and I love A18 (and didn't like A17), but I can understand the criticism which comes up from time to time. So I hope for new features and improvements within shorter time spans, but I will not give negative feedback because of that for an EA title. (besides I only paid 10 € and have spent 100s of hours with this game already!)

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I think what some players make angry is that the long development of A17 was justified with improvements in APIs/code/basics to speed up future development, but A18 took very long again and sure there are some new stuffs like perks, vehicles, but these are no ground-breaking changes in the game or new features like bandits or new Z hordes etc.

Don't get me wrong I'm fine with development speed and I love A18 (and didn't like A17), but I can understand the criticism which comes up from time to time. So I hope for new features and improvements within shorter time spans, but I will not give negative feedback because of that for an EA title. (besides I only paid 10 € and have spent 100s of hours with this game already!)

 

If you break down what a18 added behind the scenes and not just what was written down like content it was a big update worthy of the length. And other then the horrid fps issues a18 brought the game was reinvigorated.

 

Ya always gonna get a few whiners in every game. I guess I am whining to bout the short updates are stupid but the longer the update the more gets added and the more that gets added equals closer to gold. And bandits and npcs will prolly take a while year alone.

 

I guess those whom want short updates don't want bandits npcs etc lol...

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