Alpha 20 Dev Diary

[Outlaw_187]

Looking forward to the stream later. I'll probably catch it on YouTube as I'm stuck working over on Thanksgiving. F you corona virus!

 

Anyway, is it intended that we can't buy gas from the traders? 

I know it's easy enough to make/harvest, but so are many other things that you can buy. 

Just noticed this & thought it was weird.

Maybe in A20 where traders specialize in certain goods?

I'm excited for the seeds as I don't recall ever seeing them for sale either.

[Blake_]

For those who don't want to check the 2 hour stream, these were the highlights:

 

-The current internal version of A20 is b51.

 

-Random Gen is going to be better than ever, with better district distribution in cities, better performance and  more and more deterministic procedural landscapes. It will be similar to Nitrogen in many ways, with some new options too.

 

- New map sizes for RWG will be : Same as Navezgane (6k X 6k), 8K and 10K. 4k will be out of the game due to it being too small. They are aiming at 1minute of generation time per square km, so a 10k map shouldn't take more than 10 minutes to create. Bigger sizes than 10k result in issues, so they are not in yet. Kinyajuu didn't discard bigger than 10k sizes for the future, he just said that they need polishing, so maybe in the future we will see bigger sizes. That's what she said.

 

-Deterministic procedural landscapes will result in more landscape features and maybe some mountains having secret pathways, ponds, loot sites and also :

 

-Rivers WILL make it to RWG eventually. There is a high chance of them being in a20.

 

-More POIs (they show a couple of new ones in the video). 

 

-Burnt forest is going to be combined with the Wasteland biome into a big "art set" in a similar theme than the previous pine forest/normal forest merge, adding beefier gameplay with seamless merged burnt/radiated areas. TheFunPimp argues that the impact of this change will hopefully result in MORE variety due to the granular design approach of the RWG and also better gameplay overall (less repetition, more good stuff, better weather handling and straightforward progression). This is still a WIP.

 

-A little talk about radiation zones and radiation suits. Basically the same mechanic as in Fallout 3,4 and NV, with poisoning, dedicated medicine and danger zones.

 

-Pipe weapons will be revealed when they are gameplay worthy. They are WIP at the moment.

 

-Biomes, Pois, items, gamestage, effects and the survival aspect of the game will get many improvements, like biome progression improvementes (for example higher gamestage in POIs for Snow biome, highest for Wasteland POIs).

 

-A little talk about quests. Quests are as per the OP (quest listing so you can pick any of the 5 tiers when you unlock them and also the new Generator quest). They are still ironing out some stuff like "quest bonuses for doing it at night". Nothing is set in stone for that last one.

 

-VEHICLE MODS. Paint is in. There are currently 10 mods for vehicles in a20. No talks about what they do yet. They are also WIP at the moment.

 

-Characters and Armor Sets are also currently a WIP.

 

 

That's mostly it. A big hug to everyone.

 

 

[Games'n'Grumble]

I have to ask - everyone saw this moment on stream, right? What's it? Subscribers often contact me with this problem, and all I can recommend is to enter "pois" command in the console. Can the dev-team (possibly @faatal) explain why imposters do not disappear from the location, disturbing players? In Alpha 19, this is a very common problem. It seems to me that this is a RAM problem, and the swap file helps some people, but not everyone.
Tell us if this problem can be fixed in A19, what is it related to, and whether it will be fixed in A20? Thank you very much.

[SarkMCPFan]

now when you say more Pois.. does it bring higher chances for massive cities and more skyscraper chances? would be awesome! i love exploring and i never see skyscrapers in any world i gen.. (might be unlucky tbh)

[FranticDan]

I quite love the new model for the AK, makes me curious what other weapons etc got new models ^_^

[Baddasse]

I think the idea of infestation or defending the trader quests are awesome. Redoing a bunch of quest and adding more are a great idea...

 

Also I watched the recent video... will yall be adding more animals? I know they talked about redoing them and that is great but I would so love a horse inside of old west towns. I think that would be legit.

 

And I know yall are taking some zombies out and overhauling the others but can we get a fireman zombie. We have police zombies but we also have fire stations. And with the way the world is in 7dtodie it think the fireman would be pretty awesome. 

 

More vehicles would be great but I understand pushing towards the end and already having a selection that covers most things is ok. But the random vehicles in the game... please something other than the crown victorias everywhere. At first I thought Ford had a dealership in every town lmao.

 

And thank yall for the game. Some people complain about this or that but I for one think it is going great. Bugs are bugs and I can guarantee you all they will be gone by the time it is gold. And by the way I am pretty sure most people would be willing to purchase DLC. Thank you all

[Frontjunky]

we have very soft couch or corner sofa, but i want to see me or my friends sitting or laying on it, please implement this! Oh and i wish me a rubber doll....hey i am a lone ranger i have only needs

[cam2577]

All I want is a hatchet. Is this too much to ask for? Hell it could be a reskin of the baton even and I wouldn't care. Please Fun Pimps.

[Madingus]

Do you guys have any plans for VR in the future? I remember reading about it in the kickstarter but I have not seen an update since. Cheers!

[MechanicalLens]

On 11/26/2020 at 8:14 PM, FranticDan said:

I quite love the new model for the AK, makes me curious what other weapons etc got new models ^_^

My only constructive criticism for it is the reload animation. The first half of the reload sequence looks way too slow and methodical imo.

On 11/27/2020 at 7:42 AM, cam2577 said:

All I want is a hatchet. Is this too much to ask for? Hell it could be a reskin of the baton even and I wouldn't care. Please Fun Pimps.

Yes, and I would love some sofas in the game to break up the monotony of couches.

 

In other words, absolutely not. When requesting features, what is one of the first questions that should come to your head? That would be, "is it a sharp stick?".

On 11/26/2020 at 5:20 PM, SarkMCPFan said:

now when you say more Pois.. does it bring higher chances for massive cities and more skyscraper chances? would be awesome! i love exploring and i never see skyscrapers in any world i gen.. (might be unlucky tbh)

Skyscrapers are an incredibly rare spawn in RWG as of current. The same goes for standard military bases, if they're still in the RWG prefab spawn list in the first place.

[n2n1]

Do i understand correctly, that walking sleepers - will help revive the dead streets of cities.

Or do they have a different purpose?

[Arkus201]

Any thoughts on adding a weapon jamming when it's durability is under 50%?  

[Jost Amman]

@Gazz : just noticed that dismantling a "wall oven" with a wrench gives only a tiny amount of iron... maybe you wanna check that for A20 to see if it's still there. Tks

[Perlin_Worm]

Weapon jamming would be neat, but would cause grief to many if not implemented right. Perhaps above 80% degradation would give a very small chance to jam each shot fired? Jamming could simply mean a misfire and reload to clear. 

 

Structural brace mod would suddenly become more appealing.

Edited December 1, 2020 by Perlin_Worm (see edit history)

[stallionsden]

On 11/27/2020 at 10:21 AM, Games'n'Grumble said:

I have to ask - everyone saw this moment on stream, right? What's it? Subscribers often contact me with this problem, and all I can recommend is to enter "pois" command in the console. Can the dev-team (possibly @faatal) explain why imposters do not disappear from the location, disturbing players? In Alpha 19, this is a very common problem. It seems to me that this is a RAM problem, and the swap file helps some people, but not everyone.
Tell us if this problem can be fixed in A19, what is it related to, and whether it will be fixed in A20? Thank you very much.

its a LOD mesh issue. Simply logging out to main menu and back in fixes it. It is what we have been saying and TFP are aware of the bug just hard to reproduce easily.

but atleast they saw what we have issues with mostly (as well as the marble blocks and little block issue that garbage and besser blocks turn into,

but yeh log out to menu and back in fixes it. (may or may not have to do a couple times, even in a row to fix then can play for a while etc without it occurring)

[Exxodous]

Typing Pois in console command also clears this up.

[Blake_]

@faatal , since Robert isn't here to answer, do you know if the RWG has a target RAM consumption for a20 ? The news are that you guys are ditching the 4k maps. I have mixed feelings for various reasons:

 

In 4k maps, the RAM RSS feed currently stands at 3800 Mb to ... 6000-6200 MB !! after around 5 (quest days/build nights) hour sessions SINGLE PLAYER. That means multiplayer can easily double after just 4-5 hours resulting in 12000+MB memory RSS feed and square and texture artifacts everywhere at virtually any time (artifacts start to happen when the dedicated memory  is filled and system RAM juggles too much).

 

My concern is that if we are going to get 6k maps minimum, how is that going to fare for us lads with peanut butter Pcs? At the moment I'm standing in the "just ok" rope with 4k maps consuming said 3,8 gigs to 6,2gigs  after 5 or 6 hours.

 

Do you have any insight on this subject ? Are 6k maps gonna have a stable 4 gigs of RSS most of the time or are they expectedly going to hit the 8 gig mark as Navezgane is currently doing ?  Senior programmers have a throne in Westeros from where they can overlook such things, right? I'm sure of it.

 

Salutations.

12 hours ago, stallionsden said:

its a LOD mesh issue. Simply logging out to main menu and back in fixes it. It is what we have been saying and TFP are aware of the bug just hard to reproduce easily.

but atleast they saw what we have issues with mostly (as well as the marble blocks and little block issue that garbage and besser blocks turn into,

but yeh log out to menu and back in fixes it. (may or may not have to do a couple times, even in a row to fix then can play for a while etc without it occurring)

Not hard to reproduce. When dedicated memory is filled and RAM is also topping or juggling too much, it happens 100% of the time. Moving fast through the map (no need to God mode) also results in that, but again, memory HAS to be filled.

Edited December 1, 2020 by Blake_ (see edit history)

[Spuder]

So with the change to armor/clothing will the night vision goggles be moved to a helmet mod like the headlight?

[faatal]

3 hours ago, Blake_ said:

@faatal , since Robert isn't here to answer, do you know if the RWG has a target RAM consumption for a20 ? The news are that you guys are ditching the 4k maps. I have mixed feelings for various reasons:

 

In 4k maps, the RAM RSS feed currently stands at 3800 Mb to ... 6000-6200 MB !! after around 5 (quest days/build nights) hour sessions SINGLE PLAYER. That means multiplayer can easily double after just 4-5 hours resulting in 12000+MB memory RSS feed and square and texture artifacts everywhere at virtually any time (artifacts start to happen when the dedicated memory  is filled and system RAM juggles too much).

 

My concern is that if we are going to get 6k maps minimum, how is that going to fare for us lads with peanut butter Pcs? At the moment I'm standing in the "just ok" rope with 4k maps consuming said 3,8 gigs to 6,2gigs  after 5 or 6 hours.

 

Do you have any insight on this subject ? Are 6k maps gonna have a stable 4 gigs of RSS most of the time or are they expectedly going to hit the 8 gig mark as Navezgane is currently doing ?  Senior programmers have a throne in Westeros from where they can overlook such things, right? I'm sure of it.

 

Salutations.

Not hard to reproduce. When dedicated memory is filled and RAM is also topping or juggling too much, it happens 100% of the time. Moving fast through the map (no need to God mode) also results in that, but again, memory HAS to be filled.

None of that should be set in stone yet. Once RWG changes are further along, we can see where memory use is at and fix what needs to be fixed.

Edit: Robert says 4k is still possible, so we will probably have that too.

Edited December 1, 2020 by faatal (see edit history)

[Maxley]

@madmole with the new character models, will we still be able to make our characters bright purple or any other unnatural color? I really enjoy having my character look as bizarre as possible so I hope this will still be a thing. Ark does an excellent job at letting you make a truly abominable characters, though I understand if body shapes like that aren’t possible for the sake of making armor not clip.

Edited December 3, 2020 by Maxley (see edit history)

[Blake_]

@faatal , I've been testing A19.3 performance. I hope to have unearthed something useful in the output logs. Be aware, the issues posted below are universal to all sizes (4k and 8k) though in 8k they might be proportional.

 

 

[Xtrakicking]

On 12/3/2020 at 4:38 AM, Maxley said:

@madmole with the new character models, will we still be able to make our characters bright purple or any other unnatural color? I really enjoy having my character look as bizarre as possible so I hope this will still be a thing. Ark does an excellent job at letting you make a truly abominable characters, though I understand if body shapes like that aren’t possible for the sake of making armor not clip.

 

This is probably one of the reasons why they want to completely move on from the UMA system.

[FranticDan]

I decided to reenable the Charging Bull perk, because I enjoyed using it in A17. Noticed 2 things, it doesn't correctly function anymore, and the new description is essentially Pain Train from Fallout 4.

My question is, will Charging Bull be making a return in A20?

[Adam the Waster]

@madmole

So How many Armors/cloths do you think will come to the game and do you think we will see some old ones make a return (at least in style) 

like a Military armor set ment for gun users.

or a Knight armor ment for heavy melee weapons 

Also sense there are alot of clothes, will each piece of clothing already in the game be turned into the new clothing or will there be more added (i don't know how to explain it)
 

[sillls]

I wanted to ask. How were you able to get the game to load all that data? I know some people who are trying to make a game and it takes forever to the game to load and it doesn't have nearly as much detail as this game.