Alpha 19 Dev Diary

[madmole 3,614]

50 minutes ago, MechanicalLens said:

The four skyscrapers can spawn in RWG, but they are incredibly rare.

Also, you're forgetting the T5 Apartment Building of Death.

The apartment is cake. I've never done Higashi it never spawns for me. It seems to me I get shotgun messiah, shamway, and apartments. Nothing else ever spawns.

[MechanicalLens 959]

1 minute ago, madmole said:

The apartment is cake. I've never done Higashi it never spawns for me. It seems to me I get shotgun messiah, shamway, and apartments. Nothing else ever spawns.

Yeah, the hospitals are particularly scarce this alpha. Military bases as well.

[Divardican 4]

I always imagined a robot like Codsworth in fallout would work good as a companion in the late game here and one of the many things he could be used for tell him repair all and give him material to fix all base blocks slowly over time as he floats around base.

 

[Ezed 72]

11 minutes ago, madmole said:

SMG is t3. Not sure if that is even planned. When we go to polish them up for gold we might try it out and see.

OK, thanks!  I'll keep my fingers crossed you try driving in first person it and love it

 

 

 

Edited August 11, 2020 by Ezed (see edit history)

[AtomicUs5000 237]

3 minutes ago, Divardican said:

I always imagined a robot like Codsworth in fallout would work good as a companion in the late game here and one of the many things he could be used for tell him repair all and give him material to fix all base blocks slowly over time as he floats around base.

 

Sounds like fun, but I don't think that level of tech is reached during the timeline of this game.
In fact, I don't think zombies would have been an apocalyptic threat with tech like that available.
To control a drone to do a single repair, maybe.

[STyK_ 66]

17 minutes ago, madmole said:

I have one and I can't even craft a forge lol. I found it in loot in a tool box.

lucky

[JCrook1028 286]

21 minutes ago, AtomicUs5000 said:

It was highly criticized during the stream from what I recall.

Not as much as the sledge was and look where that is now.

[AtomicUs5000 237]

Just now, JCrook1028 said:

Not as much as the sledge was and look where that is now.

Really? I haven't seen nearly as much in streams nor in these forums. Source? Would like to see what people were saying.

[JCrook1028 286]

1 minute ago, AtomicUs5000 said:

Really? I haven't seen nearly as much in streams nor in these forums. Source? Would like to see what people were saying.

Dev stream comment fields.

[AtomicUs5000 237]

Just now, JCrook1028 said:

Dev stream comment fields.

Well I watched all of them and didn't see that. I did see a huge wall of drone critics.
Either way, "no one said we hate it" is incorrect. A lot of people did. This doesn't mean it won't be good when they're done, of course. It just means that  Pegasus's reaction to people wanting the drone but also criticizing it as laughable is indeed a reasonable reaction.

[Laz Man 1,335]

29 minutes ago, madmole said:

The apartment is cake. I've never done Higashi it never spawns for me. It seems to me I get shotgun messiah, shamway, and apartments. Nothing else ever spawns.

For navezgane it should be fixed.  There was a bug in A18 that limited T5 quests to the one you mentioned (plus the hospital).

 

All of the towers and red mesa (T4) should now show up as available quests on the Nav map.

[Blake_ 368]

2 hours ago, madmole said:

I'd have to see the base before and after horde night shots, and know what your settings are on before I could ever believe what you are saying. Maybe if its some dumb ramp cheese trap base design that is a house of cards or something, but not a proper normal "tower defense" base.

My apologies. 64 alive (a must for me) and Warrior diff. 120 min days (very long horde nights ). So I think you might be right. I've been playing that for so long that I don't tell apart default from customized settings. I only do default for testing. On 2 hour days it takes 1 hour to hour and a half to repair a normal 20x20x15 base on day 27 (54 hours in).

 

A big base should theoretically take about the same time to repair with 1 hour days and 64 Zds alive within the same timeframe (half way into the game). I mean 64 alive is awesome and thrilling every single time. Should check the data to see how many people actually play more than 8 alive. It would be interesting . This game is crazy fun with more entities. PERFORMANCE though.... more than 32 alive can knock -even if just a bit- on any system's door.

[Darinth 13]

1 hour ago, meganoth said:

The shortcuts are there for exiting after you have arrived at the end of a dungeon, not for going up. Not sure if you are ironic here or need a hard hit with the clue bat 😉

 

I'm not certain I'll agree with that. Yes they provide an easy way down, but it's specifically been stated that the like the 'multiple ways through' and I feel like a bunch of these were put in place for people to notice and be able to shortcut the POIs when they know them. Break a few things, place down 2-3 blocks sometimes (or none with a bit of agility) and you can easily bypass 80% of both shamway and shotgun messiah. It takes a little bit more breaking, but the pathway going up the apartment still is pretty short if you're not worried about a clear.

[Sam_Neill 14]

@Blake_
I noticed the error messages like this one...
 

Quote

2020-08-09T14:47:21 438.531 INF VisitMap (06%): 51200 / 804609 chunks done (estimated time left 2149.27 seconds)
2020-08-09T14:47:22 439.284 WRN No chunk for position -1776, 23, -6205, can not add childs to pos -1777, 23, -6205! Block cntCollapsedSolarbank
2020-08-09T14:47:23 440.327 INF VisitMap (06%): 51400 / 804609 chunks done (estimated time left 2166.97 seconds)
2020-08-09T14:47:24 441.719 INF VisitMap (06%): 51600 / 804609 chunks done (estimated time left 2178.34 seconds)
2020-08-09T14:47:24 441.777 INF VisitMap (06%): 51800 / 804609 chunks done (estimated time left 2170.08 seconds)
2020-08-09T14:47:25 443.077 WRN No chunk for position -1248, 19, -6090, can not add childs to pos -1249, 19, -6090! Block hayBaleSquare
2020-08-09T14:47:26 443.233 INF VisitMap (06%): 52000 / 804609 chunks done (estimated time left 2182.23 seconds)

 ... do happen if you run the command visitmap (to load all chunks of the map) too, even the player is not really there, maybe this information can help @faatal too?

Did you do a testing with a new map running visitmap command before and making a comparison ? I guess it will not help for all performance problems, but maybe it helps a bit 🙂

If you have an 8k map you would type in "visitmap -4096 -4096 4096 4096" and then wait until finished and would then start the map.

Edited August 11, 2020 by Sam_Neill (see edit history)

[hiemfire 191]

19 minutes ago, Laz Man said:

For navezgane it should be fixed.  There was a bug in A18 that limited T5 quests to the one you mentioned (plus the hospital).

That would explain why I never got quests for Higashi and Dishong.

[meganoth 1,016]

 

19 minutes ago, Darinth said:

I'm not certain I'll agree with that. Yes they provide an easy way down, but it's specifically been stated that the like the 'multiple ways through' and I feel like a bunch of these were put in place for people to notice and be able to shortcut the POIs when they know them. Break a few things, place down 2-3 blocks sometimes (or none with a bit of agility) and you can easily bypass 80% of both shamway and shotgun messiah. It takes a little bit more breaking, but the pathway going up the apartment still is pretty short if you're not worried about a clear.

 

I know of a statement they want multiple ways to solve problems and I know the new malls were designed to be more open without the one true path because of feedback. But I don't think they like very much that the dungeons can be trivially avoided.

 

 

 

Edited August 11, 2020 by meganoth (see edit history)

[Blake_ 368]

4 minutes ago, Sam_Neill said:

@Blake_
I noticed the error messages like this one...
 

 ... do happen if you run the command visitmap (to load all chunks of the map) too, even the player is not really there, maybe this information can help @faatal too?

Did you do a testing with a new map running visitmap command before and making a comparison ?

I reinstall full appdata wipe every single build. There's always shamway up the road  with these builds. I cannot use visitmap and expect my computer not to go boom, so all I do is make a thorough walkthrough of 5-10 hours walking through every biome for a while and visiting every city, mostly without god mode. I use god mode to quicky detect performance issues when I am not sure in normal mode.

 

Visitmap is awesome for a full log. It shows every single problem but only LOADING related. Not much else. I'm currently testing loading and unloading, and sleepers, and some falling off the world stuff and some Zd cannot walk on top of X stuff that doesn't appear using Visitmap command. They all seem to cause fps bumbs to some degree and in certain cases, usually combined.

 

Performance issues are very tricky in this stage of development, any little thing that we can find we should report. I'm sure that with enough feedback , @faatal can even fix humanity before morning coffee.

 

[pregnable 78]

Hmmm, still not sure how I feel about having to find some of the schematics. 

 

I am on like day 30 and around level 51, but I still can not make a robotic turret.  I have two tier 1 turrets, and I could have bought a tier 4 once. 

 

I was hoping to be able to craft a tier 5 and test it out.  I have even been investing in barter and going back and forth to my traders seeing if they will sell the recipe. 

 

Still using my tier 5 stone axe... for some reason I can not find a 6, heh.  I also can not make steel tools yet, even though my horde base is mostly steel.  Granted, I only want a steel tool as a melee weapon. 

 

Game is really fun, and maybe the progression is right, I dont know.  Just feels like a long wait to craft a turret after I maxed the skill out ages ago, heh. 

[madmole 3,614]

1 hour ago, Blake_ said:

My apologies. 64 alive (a must for me) and Warrior diff. 120 min days (very long horde nights ). So I think you might be right. I've been playing that for so long that I don't tell apart default from customized settings. I only do default for testing. On 2 hour days it takes 1 hour to hour and a half to repair a normal 20x20x15 base on day 27 (54 hours in).

 

A big base should theoretically take about the same time to repair with 1 hour days and 64 Zds alive within the same timeframe (half way into the game). I mean 64 alive is awesome and thrilling every single time. Should check the data to see how many people actually play more than 8 alive. It would be interesting . This game is crazy fun with more entities. PERFORMANCE though.... more than 32 alive can knock -even if just a bit- on any system's door.

Yeah 32 alive was affecting my ability to play on ultra so I settle for 24. I can see with those settings and very late GS a fort taking a pounding. But I kind of feel like you put that on yourself and that all that time repairing is on you because of your extreme differences from default.

[Bashtiks 20]

Yes yes I also like skyrim very much, but whats with this freakin fog and clouds all the time, rly @%$*#!ty @%$*#! weather & cant see a sht all the time, pims whats up with that?  

performance gets worse with each experimental

vs a16

Edited August 11, 2020 by Bashtiks
add (see edit history)

[Star69 45]

4 hours ago, Laz Man said:

I think one of the problems are some players are OCD and every single block must be repaired to mint condition in order for them to be satisfied.  If they can't reach a block because it took damage through another block, they can't sleep at night until they burrow through and repair it... 🤣

 

My brother's friend upgraded one of his base blocks to steel  by accident and he literally could not rest until he upgraded everything else around it to match......

This is exactly me. I do base repair/maintenance and if there’s one block or one iron bar with a point damage, I go crazy. My teammates are wanting me to go questing after horde night and I’m like....nope, these 20 reinforced concrete blocks have 5 points of damage each and I have to fix them right now! Ocd at its best.

[Ezed 72]

Heh...my OCD works differently.  It won't let me repair unless a concrete block has at least 100 points of damage, otherwise I feel like I'm wasting materials

 

 

Edited August 11, 2020 by Ezed
OCD spelling as well... (see edit history)

[Callum123456789 32]

1 hour ago, madmole said:

Yeah 32 alive was affecting my ability to play on ultra so I settle for 24. I can see with those settings and very late GS a fort taking a pounding. But I kind of feel like you put that on yourself and that all that time repairing is on you because of your extreme differences from default.

i crank mine down to high and set it to 64 zombies that's the good stuff i like how they come in overwhelming amounts i'm glad you guys made the ability to set em to that thanks pimps!!

[STyK_ 66]

 

2 hours ago, Blake_ said:

64 alive (a must for me)
120 min days (very long horde nights )
I mean 64 alive is awesome and thrilling every single time.
This game is crazy fun with more entities.

 

This is definitely a recipe for fun most people don't get. More would even be better as the game goes on but the game has limits. Even if it had 'sleeper zeds' designed just to throw themselves at your defenses and die instantly to make you feel overwhelmed. I'd turn up horde night frequency before I'd go to 1 hour days. I also don't see how you could do 25% loot on anything less then 2hr days, you'd have to be MM lucky.

8 minutes ago, Callum123456789 said:

i crank mine down to high and set it to 64 zombies that's the good stuff i like how they come in overwhelming amounts i'm glad you guys made the ability to set em to that thanks pimps!!

I leave it on ultra, 1080ti 8gb can handle it and I'm recording.

[AtomicUs5000 237]

I do 64 zombies on ultra as well without a problem.
Maybe resolution is the real FPS killer in this case.