Alpha 20 Dev Diary

[The Gronk]

11 minutes ago, mr.devolver said:

 

The virus is not capable to restore blood stream into brain to supply the brain with more oxygen and we all know that without oxygen the brain would soon die and there's no return. Nothing else would work either, the virus can't magically change how the human body works, certainly not to such extent as to modify its biological processes and what kind of chemicals it requires to function properly, so no other way would work to keep the body somewhat alive. Funny, the article which you linked to explains why what you say would be impossible, so please don't believe me, just read the article...

Okay, I'll jump on the speculative fiction bandwagon...

 

How about a fungus that's commonly mistaken for or referred to as a virus to due lack of knowledge or cultural bias?  The hyphae would be able to create a network to pass nutrients through the body, although at a slower rate than normal blood flow.  This would go a long way to explaining the slow movement, difficulty thinking, and abnormal behaviour of the zombie.

 

Something like Ophiocordyceps unilateralis for animals with a central nervous system.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophiocordyceps_unilateralis

[meganoth]

35 minutes ago, mr.devolver said:

 

The virus is not capable to restore blood stream into brain to supply the brain with more oxygen and we all know that without oxygen the brain would soon die and there's no return. Nothing else would work either, the virus can't magically change how the human body works, certainly not to such extent as to modify its biological processes and what kind of chemicals it requires to function properly, so no other way would work to keep the body somewhat alive. Funny, the article which you linked to explains why what you say would be impossible, so please don't believe me, just read the article...

 

There is a simple fact nobody can get around: Science can not explain zombies at all, they are impossible in reality. So even your suggestion "Pair it with some other shenanigans, like mutations, help it with some sort of external brain control device maybe, and it would make sense, " is utter nonsense as well, sorry. Zombies in reality are impossible any which way.

 

Now the interesting thing is to "explain" zombies in a way that it NEARLY makes sense if you squint a little. Your explanation of external device or mutations is just as much squinting as a virus (or fungus, thanks The Gronk) that somehow provides oxygen or something else that substitutes for oxygen. All those explanations need some magic at places hopefully few people know much about so they get hoodwinked into believing it, at least in a game.

 

Now this is subjective, sure, but a virus to supply some sort of energy to the brain sounds more believable than a virus have nearly the thinking power of a dog. And moreover it is the perfect explanation for the zombies in 7D2D as any level of intelligence can be explained by it.

 

 

 

 

Edited January 21, 2022 by meganoth (see edit history)

[Morloc]

15 hours ago, Khissi said:

Your evil is spectacular, beautiful and mesmerizing in its simplicity.  *passes over her soul* 

 

Clearly a distinguished woman of high standards and good taste.

 

 

 

-Arch Necromancer Morloc 💀

[doughphunghus]

13 minutes ago, meganoth said:

 

There is a simple fact nobody can get around: Science can not explain zombies at all, they are impossible in reality. So even your suggestion "Pair it with some other shenanigans, like mutations, help it with some sort of external brain control device maybe, and it would make sense, " is utter nonsense as well, sorry. Zombies in reality are impossible any which way.

 

Now the interesting thing is to "explain" zombies in a way that it NEARLY makes sense if you squint a little. Your explanation of external device or mutations is just as much squinting as a virus (or fungus, thanks The Gronk) that somehow provides oxygen or something else that substitutes for oxygen. All those explanations need some magic at places hopefully few people know much about so they get hoodwinked into believing it, at least in a game.

 

Now this is subjective, sure, but a virus to supply some sort of energy to the brain sounds more believable than a virus have nearly the thinking power of a dog. And moreover it is the perfect explanation for the zombies in 7D2D as any level of intelligence can be explained by it.

 

 

 

 

I think that we can imagine something that would “dumb us down” or at least change how we think (like rabies virus, the brain fog you get when you’re really sick, etc) and ways to make us not feel pain (virus destroys the nerve center in the brain, etc) and maybe even reasons that we wouldn’t die from bleeding out of something but a big chunk out of us (virus causes immediate blood clotting? ), so when you have all of that you still run into some big issues that we don’t have real world examples to match up with, mainly: dead things generally don’t walk around, so they just have some level of “alive”, we’ll… “alive” things need food and without that they die. It seems sort of “real” that an alive person who cannot feel pain, wounds, etc could sort of hibernate to live a long time… but we’re thinking of big things storing a lot of energy like bears… but then again there are frogs and fish tha can hibernate buuut they have to be basically frozen to do so.  Anyway: it’s a hard hurdle to jump to make this “alive” zombie live longer than a few weeks not only because lack of eating/drinking (after everyone dies). The body should stop functioning due to lack of new energy and fluid , as well as the wounds (and eyes, etc) should start drying out from the environment. So maybe after a month after eating most people All zombies should be at least lying on the ground unable to move. 
 

to get around that requires the extra “energy” component (so they get energy via other means that are not eating. Things like funguses and special mitochondria functions, etc. which I believe have been part of zombie lore (or video game lore). 
 

Additionally, bacteria and other nasty things (bugs) would likely attack zombies and start degrading them. It’s hard to come up with a way they wouldn’t. 
 

ao: I say have the zombies also prefer to drink water… so they get hydration.  Then make them “not” super stupid, so they have more of an “human animal brain” and will search for food other than you. Like they will open doors and look in cabinets. Maybe not use can openers. Make them “people who are barely aware they are alive and are not dead but cannot feel pain”.  The bacteria and bugs will still get them… but they should live a little bit longer maybe?

 

why am I writing all of this..?

[meganoth]

39 minutes ago, doughphunghus said:

...

 

why am I writing all of this..?

 

The virus made you do it

[doughphunghus]

18 minutes ago, meganoth said:

 

The virus made you do it

Hmmmm m gaaarrrr ssssshjjjlll This explains why hrrrrrrr I shambled to work todayssshhhh why didn’t I must eat brains… didn’t I stay home screeeeee!  I work with computerrrrrs haaagggggaa no need to come into office rreerreerrrr

[Beelzebubs Ghost]

6 hours ago, Jost Amman said:

They already said this in one of the dev streams. They found a way to probably (they need to experiment a bit) give many variations with colors to zombies.

As for other special zombies, IIRC they said they're not done yet.

 

That's nice but it didn't answer my question.

 

I was asking about new zombies and the application of existing animations being applied across the board, (though for the fat zombied the bees-in-my-ears animation may cause clipping issues), and not just for variations in what the colour of their clothes.

 

Also, speaking of the fat tourist being so detailed and specific dimply changing the cokour of it's shirt will further cheapen an attempt to disguise repetition.

 

So, new zombies. I'm sure it's something everyone would appreciate, including those same people who have gone back through my posts just to dislike them 🤭

[Jost Amman]

19 minutes ago, Beelzebubs Ghost said:

I was asking about new zombies and the application of existing animations being applied across the board, (though for the fat zombied the bees-in-my-ears animation may cause clipping issues), and not just for variations in what the colour of their clothes.

That's something I wouldn't want, honestly. They already did that in A18/19? (can't remember, but it was weird to see some random animations applied to a zombie which is completely "out of character" for that specific one.

 

The way to go IMO is exactly the opposite: fat zombies should walk more like "fat people" while thin and agile ones can have nervous/quick animations, and so on...

[Gazz]

3 hours ago, meganoth said:

Now the interesting thing is to "explain" zombies in a way that it NEARLY makes sense if you squint a little.

 

Basically this. Hahahaha

 

Like explaining the current state of "AP ammo" in the game. They obviously use the hardest type of bullet to get clean penetration. They also use the softest type of bullet to get massive deformation on impact and cause the most tissue damage.

Each aspect of it can be explained - just not at the same time.

[Jay_ombie]

Can we please have some form of bonus for clearing out a POI at night (specially the power generator quests at least).

[Quantum Blue]

5 hours ago, Morloc said:

TFP tout their progress on the game with release and patch notes.

They highlight and summarize new features, changes and fixes.

 

Yes they do.  But I still don't understand how you believe/knew they NEVER intended to deliberately use SI as part of their pathing 'feature'.

And I haven't been able to find anything like that in the A19 or A20 Dev Diary or EXP forums.

 

They have always said that Tower Defense was a part of the game.  That means getting to the player.  And that can be done in a number of programmatic ways which may or may not include SI.💀

Edited January 21, 2022 by Quantum Blue (see edit history)

[falloutcloud]

5 hours ago, The Gronk said:

Okay, I'll jump on the speculative fiction bandwagon...

 

How about a fungus that's commonly mistaken for or referred to as a virus to due lack of knowledge or cultural bias?  The hyphae would be able to create a network to pass nutrients through the body, although at a slower rate than normal blood flow.  This would go a long way to explaining the slow movement, difficulty thinking, and abnormal behaviour of the zombie.

 

Something like Ophiocordyceps unilateralis for animals with a central nervous system.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophiocordyceps_unilateralis

 

If a very real fungus can turn ants into zombies it's not much of a stretch of the imagination that something could infect humans similarly. The US government already has a plan for a zombie apocalypse called CONOP 8888.

 

[The Gronk]

26 minutes ago, Quantum Blue said:

 

Yes they do.  But I still don't understand how you believe/knew they NEVER intended to deliberately use SI as part of their pathing 'feature'.

And I haven't been able to find anything like that in the A19 or A20 Dev Diary or EXP forums.

 

They have always said that Tower Defense was a part of the game.  That means getting to the player.  And that can be done in a number of programmatic ways which may or may not include SI.💀

Before the AI update to the current system a half-block had half the HP of a full block.  The new pathfinding system required a half-block to have the same HP as a full block.  Now you have a situation where a thin pillar of something is the same HP as a full cubic metre of it.  Block HP is part of the SI calculation if memory serves.

 

Ideally a half-block should have half the HP of a full block but it was necessary to change this for pathfinding.  How do I know this?  I questioned the sanity of it when it was implemented and, if I remember correctly, you were here at the time.

[Aldranon]

The "simplest" way to explain zombies is a modified rabies/flu virus that stops at stage 2 infection and leaves the infected with extreme aggression and various levels of mental degradation. 

 

-The player is one of the few people who developed an immunity to the virus but not the super bug bacteria coating the zombies.

-Oh yeah, the strange side effect of the virus immunity was the ability to lift tons of construction material.

 

Got it all covered with science! 

[mr.devolver]

5 hours ago, meganoth said:

 

There is a simple fact nobody can get around: Science can not explain zombies at all, they are impossible in reality. So even your suggestion "Pair it with some other shenanigans, like mutations, help it with some sort of external brain control device maybe, and it would make sense, " is utter nonsense as well, sorry. Zombies in reality are impossible any which way.

 

Now the interesting thing is to "explain" zombies in a way that it NEARLY makes sense if you squint a little. Your explanation of external device or mutations is just as much squinting as a virus (or fungus, thanks The Gronk) that somehow provides oxygen or something else that substitutes for oxygen. All those explanations need some magic at places hopefully few people know much about so they get hoodwinked into believing it, at least in a game.

 

Now this is subjective, sure, but a virus to supply some sort of energy to the brain sounds more believable than a virus have nearly the thinking power of a dog. And moreover it is the perfect explanation for the zombies in 7D2D as any level of intelligence can be explained by it.

 

 

So you say brain stimulating device (which already exists) is a nonsense, but at the same time you can accept some unexplained "magic" that would explain zombies... Right...

Edited January 21, 2022 by mr.devolver (see edit history)

[Jost Amman]

49 minutes ago, Aldranon said:

The "simplest" way to explain zombies is a modified rabies/flu virus that stops at stage 2 infection and leaves the infected with extreme aggression and various levels of mental degradation. 

 

-The player is one of the few people who developed an immunity to the virus but not the super bug bacteria coating the zombies.

-Oh yeah, the strange side effect of the virus immunity was the ability to lift tons of construction material.

 

Got it all covered with science! 

Fauci couldn't explain it better! 

 

 

1 hour ago, Quantum Blue said:

And I haven't been able to find anything like that in the A19 or A20 Dev Diary or EXP forums.

Wow! You already searched all that stuff?? Your searching ability is beyond anything I could imagine! 

[faatal]

14 hours ago, stretch611 said:

Has TFP received a SteamDeck to play with?

 

Will Vulkan graphics ever be fully supported? It has been an option in the launcher, but labeled as not fully supported. I have had good success testing using it on an older machine with AMD graphics, but nVidia drivers do seem to have a few random lockups with it. Vulkan does seem to add as much as a 50% increase in FPS over OpenGL.

Or is Vulkan support based on the support that it receives from Unity?

 

I could also mention random slowdowns in fps/performance, but I have a guess more than one person has mentioned this already.

Not that I know of.

 

Our Vulkan support comes through Unity. We have little control over it beyond enabling it.

 

The game is always going to have random FPS slowdowns, because the world, what is going on around you and what you are looking at changes a lot and the game has to do data cleanup at times like garbage collection. The goal would be to minimize it, but it will never go away completely until we have computers so fast that you can't tell when it drops from 300 FPS to 100 FPS at times.

[faatal]

2 hours ago, Quantum Blue said:

Yes they do.  But I still don't understand how you believe/knew they NEVER intended to deliberately use SI as part of their pathing 'feature'.

And I haven't been able to find anything like that in the A19 or A20 Dev Diary or EXP forums.

 

They have always said that Tower Defense was a part of the game.  That means getting to the player.  And that can be done in a number of programmatic ways which may or may not include SI.💀

We are a company of many people with a variety of ideas on how things should work. Over the years you also get new people coming onboard with new ideas. Opinions also change over time, so what I thought 4 years ago when I started, may be different now.

 

AI uses rounded block health in their pathing calculations, not SI. It is tower defense and we want them to be able to reach you, but since we can't do massive piles of zombies, smarted ones will do. My zombies have xray/heat/magic vision that lets them see weak spots in blocks and their semi functioning brains lets them decide to go there. They also have a dim recollection that doors allow them to get places, so they favor them. My lore for now until I change my mind or the company decides to have some official lore.

[Morloc]

1 hour ago, Quantum Blue said:

...I still don't understand how you believe/knew they NEVER intended to deliberately use SI as part of their pathing 'feature'.

 

You may be hung up on semantics here.

 

My actual claim:

 

"Zombies that understand structural integrity and complex pathing were never introduced as a deliberate feature. They're here because something was needed to provide a challenge to player bases/safehouses/etc. given other limitations of the game engine."

 

6 minutes ago, faatal said:

since we can't do massive piles of zombies, smarted ones will do. My zombies have xray/heat/magic vision that lets them see weak spots in blocks and their semi functioning brains lets them decide to go there. They also have a dim recollection that doors allow them to get places, so they favor them.

 

Yep, though I think going for the doors was something from way-pre-A17(?) when pathing had changed a lot?

 

 

-Arch Necromancer Morloc 💀
 

[hiemfire]

7 hours ago, The Gronk said:

Something like Ophiocordyceps unilateralis for animals with a central nervous system.

Insects, like the ones that that fungus family is known to affect, have a central nervous system. A fungus of that family adapted, either via evolution or lab manipulation, to affect primates could result in what we see in game. Though isn't there a game already that is themed in a world with that type of zombie that was published by a fairly sue happy corporation?

[BFT2020]

It is clear that the world in 7D2D is not our world, but a parallel universe where our laws of nature and science may be similar in some ways, but different in others.  In our world, zombies don't exist, vehicles don't become transparent and fall down 50 feet into the ground or magically move on their own, and a normal person can't haul around 1000s of 1000s buckets of concrete.

 

In this world, well.....

 

There, solved that problem.  What's the next problem we need to solve?  😁

[doughphunghus]

2 hours ago, falloutcloud said:

The US government already has a plan for a zombie apocalypse called CONOP 8888.

"First, we need to mobilize all government and civilian infrastructure to build 340 million stone forges and campfires and smelt down all the iron we can find. Second, we will need to distribute this minibike book to every man, woman, and child in the country... after that everyone should have all they need to fend for themselves, but people also need to know if they get infected to NOT hide in closets or attics. Leave a few lights on inside... but not too many. That should be enough that some survive long enough to mine and farm." - Some government person who likes to play games on the side

Edited January 21, 2022 by doughphunghus (see edit history)

[The Gronk]

58 minutes ago, hiemfire said:

Insects, like the ones that that fungus family is known to affect, have a central nervous system. A fungus of that family adapted, either via evolution or lab manipulation, to affect primates could result in what we see in game. Though isn't there a game already that is themed in a world with that type of zombie that was published by a fairly sue happy corporation?

You are indeed correct, I should have specified vertebrates as there are a few non-simian zombies in the game such as bears and vultures.

 

Perhaps you're thinking of the XCOM series?  The early remakes had fungal zombies, as did halo with the flood infected marines. 

 

You've got me curious as to the first instance of zombies being a fungal infestation although it's too late to do any research now.  I wouldn't worry about copyright at all when it comes to this.  I'm pretty sure the original version of fungal zombies will probably be in some obscure sci-fi book from the seventies or perhaps some crazy 2000AD comic from the eighties.

 

[disappears to confirm an ancient and dusty memory]

 

Dammit, the "Yellow musk creeper" and "Yellow musk zombie" from the first edition D&D "Fiend Folio" are a plant-based zombies instead of fungus based... pretty damn close though.

 

[closes ancient tome and slides it back amongst its brethren]

 

Anyone else have an early example of fungal based zombies?

[hiemfire]

3 minutes ago, The Gronk said:

Perhaps you're thinking of the XCOM series?

No, The Last of Us.

4 minutes ago, The Gronk said:

Dammit, the "Yellow musk creeper" and "Yellow musk zombie" from the first edition D&D "Fiend Folio" are a plant-based zombies instead of fungus based... pretty damn close though.

Gygax and his crew drew heavily from existing fables/myths so I don't doubt that they came across something that inspired those.

[The Gronk]

27 minutes ago, hiemfire said:

Gygax and his crew drew heavily from existing fables/myths so I don't doubt that they came across something that inspired those.

"Originality is only undiscovered plagiarism"

"Stealing from one source is plagiarism, stealing from several sources is research"

- Writers proverbs

 

🙂

Edited January 21, 2022 by The Gronk
Grammar (see edit history)