Alpha 19 Dev Diary

[Annihilatorza]

21 hours ago, madmole said:

Yes they are all in one big atlas using unitys texture arrays, which cannot be streamed. Its one giant texture designed to keep draw calls sane, so how can you stream a texture that is almost always in view (any opaque block).

Is this a Unity limitation or a Voxel limitation that you have to do it this way?

 

How would you go about getting around this for the say the next game?

[Annihilatorza]

11 hours ago, madmole said:

We're not removing paint, we're just not adding 500 new paints, its just not possible. I'm sure skin packs that replace certain textures will be possible at some point so users or mods can change the textures out.

No its a big atlas. We stream individual textures like zombies, block entities like doors, forges, coffee makers, etc. But paintable blocks all use the texture atlas which cannot stream. Even if it could it wouldn't offer much benefit there is almost always a block in view which would require it to be high res.

There is no doubt if you get to late game you will probably end up doing some painting, unless all you care about is pure game mechanics.

So I smashed my day 21 horde no problem. 24 alive and had them all dead by 12 something. THen I go to a T5 poi and its all going smooth and I walk into a bathroom and guys fall from the ceiling so I try to back pedal out of the door way and I can't move. I start hearing the sounds of iron armor getting smashed, and see stun and stuff, turn around and I'm sandwiched in by half a dozen zombies at my back. I tried moving forward shooting guys as fast as possible with my sawed off pump shotgun, but it was too late, I got wrecked. Now I have to pedal my bike back to get my stuff Oh well it was fun, getting wrecked can be a strong motivator... time to get some better armor I think. I've stocked up a lot of parts but I don't have any perks yet so I'll level up my armor skill and start making some better armor.

With the hoard nights, would be possible have an option that lets them keep coming until 4am, So if you have 24 alive it will keep spawning a max of 24 until 4am and then taper off or does it already do this.

 

I cant remember. 

[madmole]

12 hours ago, MechanicalLens said:

Sounds exhilarating! ^^

 

So, how's this world's horde base coming along?

Also, unrelated tip/reminder: Always check all the traders' inventories before you by something quite expensive, such as anything vehicle-related. Today, Jen offered me a motorcycle chassis which I snatched up right away, however Hugh offered me a full motorcycle, so I had to sell the chassis to have just enough money to afford the motorbike from Hugh. *Rolls eyes, slap to my forehead*

I haven't put a ton of effort into it this build, with the loot progression changes and a STR character I'm having a blast looting, and when you don't opt into INT you have to find a lot more schematics and to me this is just the way to play the game. I get people like to craft but to me INT is too easy, but that is a personal preference, not a design flaw.

My backpack must have fell through the world it was nowhere to be found. Instead of cheating in my lost gear, I just role played another survivor snatched it up and I'm just crafting new tools and what I can, and I'm just going to start looting again and see what I can find and rebuild my lost stuff. So it would have been like delete all on my backpack option. Its actually kind of fun replacing my lost stuff and getting a random new challenge thrown at me. More fun than dead is dead in my opinion, rebuilding stronger/better is more fun than just quitting.

11 hours ago, Mechanimal said:

You went to a T5 POI on a Blood Moon?

Either way it's crazy how fast a @%$*#! ton of zombies can build up in those T5's, it can be like triggering an indoor mini-horde sometimes. Sounds fun tho, can't wait for experimental, and for you to start making vids until then, when ready.

No it wasn't a blood moon.

[MechanicalLens]

deleted

[madmole]

6 hours ago, Khalagar said:

 

Have you died much in your test run? Do deaths factor very heavily into your results for your test, like "If even I died there, how hard would that be for a noob? Are they likely to encounter a situation like that?" ?

 

Or do you just see it as a job well done if even a veteran player still has challenges from time to time

I rarely die unless I do a nightmare run speed during day or tweak the options to be really hard. A noob cannot do a tier 5 unless they just wander in there without direction from a trader. I enjoy a fair death. You could say I got a little careless rushing into that bathroom and not making sure the damn hallway was clear first. I haven't done a T5 in a long time because they are too tedious but this one was just fetch so I thought I'd try it. I don't like cheap deaths were you get ninja'd by something in the middle of a field, but this was a fair death and could have been prevented if I'd have not ran in there like Rambo. When they fall from ceilings now most of them fall on their asses so I was trying to take advantage of that and smash them while they were down.

4 hours ago, Worrun said:

I don't know what point was made by the guy you are replying to, nor do I wish for more paint, as your reply is very valid.

However, I am here to represent the Paint Gang, we do be painting, and I personally paint every single base I make, as do all of my friends.

 

We are here, we are watching, we are painting.

Of course you do. But the average guy might stay at a shack and not even build, let alone paint. I paint eventually on all my bases. If we could stream textures on paint I'd order up 50 new textures for players to use. Its a vram limit we can't really do anything about.

7 minutes ago, MechanicalLens said:

I somewhat agree with you there, yeah. It's a similar reason why I don't ever perk into Master Chef or Lucky Looter - I don't like to artificially skip progression. Regarding INT, I typically go into Advanced Engineering 1/5 since I'd rather not go without a forge for gosh knows how long, but other than that I leave it up to RNG-esus.

Likewise. I'm saving all of my build plans for when A19 hits; all I'm investing in is a 4 9x9 tower set-up with walls connecting the four of them, forming what can only be described as a child's drawing of a castle. Nothing too special.

That's been a reoccurring bug, yes; the same can happen with spears too, unfortunately. I have only died in a couple worlds in A18 so far, but I've lost countless spears, and unless they're of the stone variant, I have no issues spawning them back in.

I completely agree. That's one reason I have never been into the whole permadeath shtick.

Simply curious here, how have your spent your points in this build.

Pretty much all STR. I bought 2 ranks of engineering to get my forge and workbench, 2 ranks of barter, nothing else outside of strength. I have 4 ranks of clubs, shotgun, miner, mother lode, 2 pack mule. Grinding to get STR 10 so I can start the last 5. I only need 9 if I can find another cigar

[MechanicalLens]

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[Damocles]

2 hours ago, Annihilatorza said:

Is this a Unity limitation or a Voxel limitation that you have to do it this way?

 

How would you go about getting around this for the say the next game?

There is no "Unity voxel system", its custom code running within Unity. The logic how its rendered would not be substantially different in other universial engines.

Since a block with a specific texture can be anywhere in the world, those textures need to always be in memory.

 

In most other games its easier to handle this, as they have premade static worlds. Its known what textures are used in which area of the gameworld. So textures that dont occur in a specific area can be removed from the memory (or using a low res version, until a high res version is needed, when the player gets close.)

 

[khzmusik]

1 hour ago, madmole said:

I just role played another survivor snatched it up and I'm just crafting new tools and what I can, and I'm just going to start looting again and see what I can find and rebuild my lost stuff. So it would have been like delete all on my backpack option. Its actually kind of fun replacing my lost stuff and getting a random new challenge thrown at me. More fun than dead is dead in my opinion, rebuilding stronger/better is more fun than just quitting.

I'm a big fan of doing this myself (it's why I usually play with the "delete all" option). My own "role play" is that the character permanently died, but you're starting a new character, as if that new character had always existed in this same game world (so, same level, etc).

 

I've been asking around if anyone has a proper name for this play style, since it is quite different than "permadeath." Nobody seems to know of one. Do you have any idea?

 

EDIT: I've been calling it "dead is mostly dead" (a Princess Bride reference) but someone, somewhere, has to have already put a name to it.

[Roland]

Repo-Man Mode

 

All your @%$*#! just got repo'd!!!

[MechanicalLens]

deleted

[q123]

2 hours ago, madmole said:

When they fall from ceilings now most of them fall on their asses

^ this I would like to see in a short clip now 😁

[HungryZombie]

On 5/22/2020 at 4:28 PM, Worrun said:

Can you add the wedge tip to the "Wooden Frame" optacle then, if you haven't already?

I second this. I don't understand why wood has less shapes than flagstone.

[beerfly]

A new screenshot of a girl looking for her left eye. And another one with someone looking in a book shelf. 

Somehow these reminds me of the early alphas, before A10, it brings some good mood and looks brilliant. Just wanted to add that. 

[Adam the Waster]

1 hour ago, MechanicalLens said:

What is your profile image anyway? And more importantly, I'll take 300 orders.

you didn't hear?

 

 

7dtd Made Pepsi's new Flavor! Snowberry!

 

Time when it comes out? When its done!

6 minutes ago, beerfly said:

A new screenshot of a girl looking for her left eye. And another one with someone looking in a book shelf. 

 

That new knife looks cool!

[q123]

wow, every book shelf is looking unique 😀

 

Are they dynamically created (filled with different books in a random order) or there will be so many different containers now? Never mind, its looking awesome.

[MechanicalLens]

deleted

[Adam the Waster]

2 minutes ago, MechanicalLens said:

You just broke my heart. I hope that Snowberries get some love in a future update because as it stands, they have no recipe attached to them. 😕

i hope they get a uses or be replaced with a More useful plant, like a herb, maybe Yarrow, Sage, etc

 

 

could be uses to make meds 

[MechanicalLens]

deleted

[Crater Creator]

4 hours ago, madmole said:

My backpack must have fell through the world it was nowhere to be found. Instead of cheating in my lost gear, I just role played another survivor snatched it up and I'm just crafting new tools and what I can, and I'm just going to start looting again and see what I can find and rebuild my lost stuff. So it would have been like delete all on my backpack option. Its actually kind of fun replacing my lost stuff and getting a random new challenge thrown at me. More fun than dead is dead in my opinion, rebuilding stronger/better is more fun than just quitting.

That’s an admirable outlook when faced with setbacks... but from watching the Steam forum, I can tell you that nothing is frustrating players more these days than disappearing backpacks.  I had hoped that the new art for backpacks was part of an effort to redo them to be less buggy.

[Adam the Waster]

15 minutes ago, Crater Creator said:

That’s an admirable outlook when faced with setbacks... but from watching the Steam forum, I can tell you that nothing is frustrating players more these days than disappearing backpacks.  I had hoped that the new art for backpacks was part of an effort to redo them to be less buggy.

i say Bill Cosby stole it, But that Bug pisses me Off! that needs to be fixed  

[Mechanimal]

1 hour ago, beerfly said:

A new screenshot of a girl looking for her left eye. And another one with someone looking in a book shelf. 

Somehow these reminds me of the early alphas, before A10, it brings some good mood and looks brilliant. Just wanted to add that. 

See now, already a nice new texture I see to paint with, and boy am I going to use it: the hardwood plank floor. I had a feeling we'd be getting new ones from all the commercial/store POI work this alpha, and I expect there's more yet where that came from.

And new far more 3D bookshelves.

Various stacks of books.

This should make base building peeps happy, especially those who like building libraries and/or studies, like me.

[Adam the Waster]

1 minute ago, Mechanimal said:

See now, already a nice new texture I see to paint with, and boy am I going to use it: the hardwood plank floor. I had a feeling we'd be getting new ones from all the commercial/store POI work this alpha, and I expect there's more yet where that came from.

And new far more 3D bookshelves.

Various stacks of books.

This should make base building peeps happy, especially those who like building libraries and/or studies, like muah.

i may take over that crack a Book for the new book shelfs!

[madmole]

4 hours ago, khzmusik said:

I'm a big fan of doing this myself (it's why I usually play with the "delete all" option). My own "role play" is that the character permanently died, but you're starting a new character, as if that new character had always existed in this same game world (so, same level, etc).

 

I've been asking around if anyone has a proper name for this play style, since it is quite different than "permadeath." Nobody seems to know of one. Do you have any idea?

 

EDIT: I've been calling it "dead is mostly dead" (a Princess Bride reference) but someone, somewhere, has to have already put a name to it.

Its basically like pvp, if you get killed you lose your @%$*#! and its not likely you will get it back.

9 minutes ago, Mechanimal said:

See now, already a nice new texture I see to paint with, and boy am I going to use it: the hardwood plank floor. I had a feeling we'd be getting new ones from all the commercial/store POI work this alpha, and I expect there's more yet where that came from.

And new far more 3D bookshelves.

Various stacks of books.

This should make base building peeps happy, especially those who like building libraries and/or studies, like me.

Very unlikely it is an addition, it is an old one redone/upgraded.

[Mechanimal]

2 minutes ago, Adam the Waster said:

i may take over that crack a Book for the new book shelfs!

I am actually wondering which model will be the craftable one using the furniture helper block now. I loved that they added the bookshelves(I would cheat my own in before:P) but now I'm not sure how that block will work. Hopefully I can make my own shelved area instead of having to move into a Crack-A-Book.

Also, for the love of all those who enjoy fixing up POIs, can we once again hook up their lighting when we install electric? That was one of my fav parts of POI bases in A16 and I miss it dearly, losing that was a serious downgrade, especially with all the new POIs.

[Adam the Waster]

2 minutes ago, madmole said:

Its basically like pvp, if you get killed you lose your @%$*#! and its not likely you will get it back.

well at least in PVP you can get your stuff back in some way shape or from

1 minute ago, Mechanimal said:

Also, for the love of all those who enjoy fixing up POIs, can we once again hook up their lighting when we install electric? That was one of my fav parts of POI bases in A16 and I miss it dearly, losing that was a serious downgrade, especially with all the new POIs.

i like to make them look "Modded out" like if a waste lander Like me would live in there.