Alpha 20 Dev Diary

[Matt115]

5 hours ago, unholyjoe said:

but you wouldnt mind it if it was you doing the sniping at 90m away at the bandit!

 

equal rights for bandits and zombies

honestly : i some game like arma or bad games like delta ops you have sitation like : you walk at night sneaky and randomly you get head shot. yeeez. Ok i understand if it sniper  with good rifle training. No, this is just simple terrorist with scope in his eyes. so i hope there accuraty will be 60-70%

[Naz]

13 hours ago, littlegreen said:

@Roland @faatal

 

Guys, are there any future plans to enable super sampling for the game? Either DLSS or FFX-SR (preferably DLSS lol)

I know it is best to optimize as best as you can so that stuff like that is not needed at all, but I am struggling to display Ultra settings on anything above 1080p in high frame rate, and I happen to be running a 3080, so... super sampling maybe makes sense? 😇

 

EDIT:

OK, just to be clear - I'm not bragging about having a nice GPU, I'm asking a genuine question. Screen resolutions are ever increasing and DLSS is a very nice way to get around that, whilst at the same time keeping system requirements low - thus targeting a wider audience

With a 3080 you're cpu bound, any kind of upscaling would just make the image slightly worse at the same performance you're currently getting. 

[littlegreen]

45 minutes ago, Naz said:

With a 3080 you're cpu bound, any kind of upscaling would just make the image slightly worse at the same performance you're currently getting. 

 

I'm not quite sure that's the case at 3440x1440 ... besides, my CPU activity usually resides in the 70% usage area with browsers, Discord and a few other apps open in the background (streaming in Discord as well)... while playing the game.

 

The thing is, I get more than decent FPS during normal gameplay, but during horde nights with all the models and textures around the bases we build - especially during night, when light reflections factor in etc, frames very often dip down to below 60 which on a 144hz screen does not feel nice...

[jeromeN7]

Super sampling is the highest quality anti-aliasing.

[DanLW]

Regarding the numbers on the buildings, will they automatically adjust to the city's grid coordinates so that they work like real addresses and would be useful for us to know where we are, or are they just random?

[Khalagar]

With the talks of Bandits using cover, was there any thoughts on bandits building their own cover? Just have them place blocks the same way a player could, but use them as cover. They could have sandbags / fences etc

 

I'm still waiting for the day when the Spider Zombie gets a re-textured ladder. All it would need is a web look but function exactly like a ladder / climbable fence, and they could focus on just putting them on the sides of player forts to potentially create new pathways into the fort. It could probably be done pretty easily / cheaply too, like not even have any real thought in it, just have spider zombies "spray" out (place) like 4-5 spider webs (ladders) in a cluster on the side of a building every few seconds. After a couple of sprays there would probably be a new pathway built that zombies might start pathing towards or using without needing any fancy dedicated AI for the spider zombies to calculate the best place to put webs

[Naz]

11 hours ago, littlegreen said:

 

I'm not quite sure that's the case at 3440x1440 ... besides, my CPU activity usually resides in the 70% usage area with browsers, Discord and a few other apps open in the background (streaming in Discord as well)... while playing the game.

 

The thing is, I get more than decent FPS during normal gameplay, but during horde nights with all the models and textures around the bases we build - especially during night, when light reflections factor in etc, frames very often dip down to below 60 which on a 144hz screen does not feel nice...

You'd still be cpu bound at 3840x2160 with a 3080 running a default config at ultra settings. 

6 hours ago, jeromeN7 said:

Super sampling is the highest quality anti-aliasing.

Dlss doesn't super sample. Dlss runs a game at a lower resolution and ai upscales the image to a higher resolution. 

 

Super sampling doesn't need any dev support and can be enabled in the driver now if you want. Super sampling runs the game at a higher resolution than your display can display, then down scales the image to your displays resolution. 

[v3tro]

2 hours ago, Khalagar said:

I'm still waiting for the day when the Spider Zombie gets a re-textured ladder. All it would need is a web look but function exactly like a ladder / climbable fence, and they could focus on just putting them on the sides of player forts to potentially create new pathways into the fort. It could probably be done pretty easily / cheaply too, like not even have any real thought in it, just have spider zombies "spray" out (place) like 4-5 spider webs (ladders) in a cluster on the side of a building every few seconds. After a couple of sprays there would probably be a new pathway built that zombies might start pathing towards or using without needing any fancy dedicated AI for the spider zombies to calculate the best place to put webs

 

This is an amazing idea, would make them a priority target just like demolishers, cops or screamers are. Current jump is cool but I preferred them climbing as it was more challenging. (yes, could easily make roof railing to prevent them from climbing to top, but now they jump over you anyways) Your idea reminds me of old days with gore blocks piling when zombies climbed them. Made it challenging and fun in horde nights. 

[Matt115]

5 hours ago, Khalagar said:

With the talks of Bandits using cover, was there any thoughts on bandits building their own cover? Just have them place blocks the same way a player could, but use them as cover. They could have sandbags / fences etc

 

I'm still waiting for the day when the Spider Zombie gets a re-textured ladder. All it would need is a web look but function exactly like a ladder / climbable fence, and they could focus on just putting them on the sides of player forts to potentially create new pathways into the fort. It could probably be done pretty easily / cheaply too, like not even have any real thought in it, just have spider zombies "spray" out (place) like 4-5 spider webs (ladders) in a cluster on the side of a building every few seconds. After a couple of sprays there would probably be a new pathway built that zombies might start pathing towards or using without needing any fancy dedicated AI for the spider zombies to calculate the best place to put webs

Honestly this both idea would be bugged as hell. This sound good but it  just can't work good-  1. well bandits can put this in stupid places - like on barber wire , bin etc. 

2.  this can't work good in 7dtd. honestly this sound perfect for minecraft but for 7dtd not . Let say   W- wall  , S - spike

SSSSSSSSSSSSS

SSSSSSSSSSSSS

SSSSSSSSSSSSSs

SSSwWWWSSSSS 

SSSWWWWSSSS

SSSWWWWSSS 

SSSWWWWSSS

SSSSSSSSSSSSSS

SSSSSSSSSSSSSS

SSSSSSSSSSSSS

And something like that could blocked spider zombies from creating web because web would just fall 

[zztong]

22 hours ago, unholyjoe said:

but you wouldnt mind it if it was you doing the sniping at 90m away at the bandit!

 

equal rights for bandits and zombies

 

Okay, yeh, you're right. Shame on us pesky humans and our ego. But, until bandits and zombies start buying their own copies of the game, I'm also okay with a double-standard.

[Fanatical_Meat]

While I know Bandits will likely arrive sometime next year.

@faatal you are a lighting guy. Maybe it is time to work on gun fire lighting since soon we will have stuff shooting at us.

I say go extreme Hollywood with the muzzle flashes.

[BFT2020]

Regarding bandits, I say we let the developers work on the code and not clutter up the development diary with doom and gloom on how they are going to work.  The developers are pretty smart people, I am sure they are going to get it figured out.

[Guppycur]

...but without doom and gloom, the forums are dead and the only exciting thing to do is play who's the best sycophant.  And that's boring. 

[faatal]

On 9/18/2021 at 3:02 AM, Kirill_226RUS said:

@faatal, here you wrote that you might add improved snow if you have time before the release. But why not do it after the release? After all, it is already relatively soon, and you have a lot of plans, and such trifles will immediately go to the tenth plan. And there are a lot of things that you would like to add, but do not have time before the release. So why not do it after?

Sure, it could go either way, but after release there is always that pressure to move to the next game.

[Jost Amman]

22 minutes ago, Guppycur said:

...but without doom and gloom, the forums are dead and the only exciting thing to do is play who's the best sycophant.  And that's boring. 

           

[Matt115]

6 minutes ago, faatal said:

Sure, it could go either way, but after release there is always that pressure to move to the next game.

maybe some spoilers about new game pls? 

Edited September 19, 2021 by Matt115 (see edit history)

[faatal]

On 9/18/2021 at 3:52 AM, littlegreen said:

@Roland @faatal

 

Guys, are there any future plans to enable super sampling for the game? Either DLSS or FFX-SR (preferably DLSS lol)

I know it is best to optimize as best as you can so that stuff like that is not needed at all, but I am struggling to display Ultra settings on anything above 1080p in high frame rate, and I happen to be running a 3080, so... super sampling maybe makes sense? 😇

 

EDIT:

OK, just to be clear - I'm not bragging about having a nice GPU, I'm asking a genuine question. Screen resolutions are ever increasing and DLSS is a very nice way to get around that, whilst at the same time keeping system requirements low - thus targeting a wider audience

This is a Unity issue. New gfx tech tends to only be supported by their HDRP (hi def render pipeline), which we don't plan to use because it would be a large time consuming rewrite of our graphics code. Next game we hope to use HDRP.

 

I play at 4k on a 2070 at around 55 FPS, but use the High preset. 1440p would be 70+ FPS. Ryzen 3900. Your CPU could be the bottleneck.

[faatal]

17 hours ago, littlegreen said:

 

I'm not quite sure that's the case at 3440x1440 ... besides, my CPU activity usually resides in the 70% usage area with browsers, Discord and a few other apps open in the background (streaming in Discord as well)... while playing the game.

 

The thing is, I get more than decent FPS during normal gameplay, but during horde nights with all the models and textures around the bases we build - especially during night, when light reflections factor in etc, frames very often dip down to below 60 which on a 144hz screen does not feel nice...

Cores are not used equally in games. Splitting work equally across all of them is very difficult and most games have the majority of work on a few cores, which is the bottleneck. 7dtd's main thread does more work than any other thread as many interactions with Unity have to be on the main thread and is what limits your FPS if the GPU is done with a frame first.

[Fanatical_Meat]

6 minutes ago, faatal said:

Cores are not used equally in games. Splitting work equally across all of them is very difficult and most games have the majority of work on a few cores, which is the bottleneck. 7dtd's main thread does more work than any other thread as many interactions with Unity have to be on the main thread and is what limits your FPS if the GPU is done with a frame first.

Disclaimer: I know enough about this subject to be able to do stuff but more than enough to do damage or false conclusions.

I believe I can restrict cores in my 3800x, is a performance increase possible by restricting virtual cores or even physical cores?

As in restrict the cpu to only use four or eight physical cores or is this crazy talk?

[Victor19]

n A20, will there be any adjustment in the aim of the weapons in relation to having the crosshair even when we use the right mouse button? it could be removed when using gun sights.

[MechanicalLens]

So with the default shape for the particle board now being a solid block, does this mean no more frames? (Or nerd poling in general?)

[Astronomical]

2 hours ago, jorbascrumps said:

 

Let's clarify that sewers in A20 will be part of POIs so they won't span entire towns or connect multiple POIs.

 

1 hour ago, dcsobral said:

They could connect multiple POIs, I think. One tile has multiple POIs and if you can customize the restriction on which POIs can go there then you could create POIs that have sewer "attachments" in standard places so they would all be interconnected. Within a tile. A tile is 150x150, and that's a lot of space.

 

From what I saw it looked like the sewers and spillways were part of the tile itself independent of pois. In this case they could span most of the city.

 

Maybe @Roland or one of tfps could clarify?

[MajorMunchy]

Question: not sure if answered, but are Pipe weapons considered Tier 0 weapons? 

[Gobarg]

I'd still like to see the blocks menu

 

Gimme all dem SHAPES!!! or even give me a number?

 

How many are the Pimps prepared to give me? 

 

I'm hoping to hear a collective gamegasm from all the prefabbers out there when we finally get to see it. 

 

 

[jorbascrumps]

1 minute ago, Gobarg said:

I'd still like to see the blocks menu

 

Gimme all dem SHAPES!!! or even give me a number?

 

How many are the Pimps prepared to give me? 

 

I'm hoping to hear a collective gamegasm from all the prefabbers out there when we finally get to see it. 

 

 

 

Watch the dev streams, they've already shown it.