Alpha 21 Dev Diary

[lord_ahriman]

7 hours ago, Laz Man said:

 

Ranged enemies is a fun topic.  Gaming has been dumbing ranged AI down for years so players don't get frustrated fighting them.

 

The magic sauce imo, is dumbing them down just enough where most players don't realize AND have a challenging / fun experience.

 

If you have ever experienced 100% detection no miss aimbots from 1000 meters away, you know what I mean. 😆

 

 

 

Off the top of my head, I'd say the most annoying "sniper AI" ever (games I've played of course) Grenadiers from The Division: countless "rage quit mode"....lol

[Laran Mithras]

In the NPC mod, the nastiest firearm-wielder we faced was one standing in a dense cornfield. We couldn't see him, but he saw us. I'm certain that can be programmed sight-wise so it doesn't feel overwhelming.

 

In other games, perhaps the best way I've seen an AI firearm opponent handled to force firing pauses and give away location is for the AI to fire a shot, then move positions - to different cover. Then fire again. Fire, move, fire move. On the one hand, it is very believable and true to some historical accounts from the World Wars. On the other, it is a very subtle way of alerting one to their presence, giving a visual movement indicator to give away their position, while at the same time slowing their rate of fire.

 

I think this is likely what Laz is hinting.

[FramFramson]

Hey, there was an update today, but I don't see any news about it! Anybody know what that was all about?

 

I know it was today because I played just yesterday.

 

EDIT: Oh it was a Microsoft Store (lol) hotfix.

 

Edited January 19 by FramFramson (see edit history)

[Laz Man]

7 hours ago, lord_ahriman said:

 

Off the top of my head, I'd say the most annoying "sniper AI" ever (games I've played of course) Grenadiers from The Division: countless "rage quit mode"....lol

Speaking of grenades, got a chuckle of this guy's comments on his experience playing against the AI in half life.... 😆

 

https://youtu.be/FuAMYn39BK8?si=05uFmtZVyfL_Nfwb&t=1044

[Adam the Waster]

On 1/17/2024 at 1:34 AM, Laz Man said:

 

It actually was transformed into a smaller athletic complex. 😎

Still going to turn that field into my base! 

 

Hopefully we will get something like the old football field. The BEST BASE SPOT! I will not hear otherwise 

[HB_H4wk]

So the cheer leader, football player and the old farmer zombies have been removed... I wonder if they plan on re-skinning those to add more variety rather than just a change of wardrobe??

 

[Adam the Waster]

17 hours ago, HB_H4wk said:

So the cheer leader, football player and the old farmer zombies have been removed... I wonder if they plan on re-skinning those to add more variety rather than just a change of wardrobe??

 

That would be kinda cool but. Tbh I would rather then do something that's more.... constant, the farmer is fine but how many people would be dressed as a football player to cheerleader. 

 

I would rather have like a solder in just BDUs, or maybe zombies wearing sports jerseys 

[XCOUNTRY]

12 hours ago, Adam the Waster said:

That would be kinda cool but. Tbh I would rather then do something that's more.... constant, the farmer is fine but how many people would be dressed as a football player to cheerleader. 

 

I would rather have like a solder in just BDUs, or maybe zombies wearing sports jerseys 

Idk, if I was bitten and knew the end was nigh, I’d don my Totoro pajamas and hide out in an armoire of an elaborately staged mansion basement sub-level hidden research station. All my clones would do the same thing and share all my thriller dance moves too. 

[wolfbain5]

On 1/20/2024 at 8:02 AM, Adam the Waster said:

That would be kinda cool but. Tbh I would rather then do something that's more.... constant, the farmer is fine but how many people would be dressed as a football player to cheerleader. 

 

I would rather have like a solder in just BDUs, or maybe zombies wearing sports jerseys 

well, this happened around halloween supposedly from back stories around a9 time. so football season, depending on the time of day, how many high school, college, pro and semi pro games happen at that time and what are they wearing, including fans?

Edited January 22 by wolfbain5 (see edit history)

[beerfly]

On 1/21/2024 at 4:27 AM, XCOUNTRY said:

Idk, if I was bitten and knew the end was nigh, I’d don my Totoro pajamas and hide out in an armoire of an elaborately staged mansion basement sub-level hidden research station. All my clones would do the same thing and share all my thriller dance moves too. 

Well..

Spoiler

 

 

[faatal]

I have not posted in a while, so here is some info for January:

RWG is getting some improvements for A22. Alloc and I have reduced memory use a huge amount. I have also been working on performance with stamping now many times faster. I plan on looking at road generation speed next as is the slowest system now. Better messaging. Some fixes for seeds not being consistent and possibly other bugs like biomes not matching percents.

 

I started prototyping sleeper volumes having a simple embedded scripting system for more control over spawning.

 

Our gfx programmer is adding new hair shaders, contact shadows and ambient occlusion.

 

The player profile editor has been updated for the new player models.

 

Console features are getting more functional and refined each week.

[HB_H4wk]

49 minutes ago, faatal said:

I have not posted in a while, so here is some info for January:

RWG is getting some improvements for A22. Alloc and I have reduced memory use a huge amount. I have also been working on performance with stamping now many times faster. I plan on looking at road generation speed next as is the slowest system now. Better messaging. Some fixes for seeds not being consistent and possibly other bugs like biomes not matching percents.

 

I started prototyping sleeper volumes having a simple embedded scripting system for more control over spawning.

 

Our gfx programmer is adding new hair shaders, contact shadows and ambient occlusion.

 

The player profile editor has been updated for the new player models.

 

Console features are getting more functional and refined each week.

Thank you for the update. Quick question... are they going to add the Yucca Battle Thong for the male desert armor?

[FramFramson]

2 hours ago, faatal said:

I have not posted in a while, so here is some info for January:

RWG is getting some improvements for A22. Alloc and I have reduced memory use a huge amount. I have also been working on performance with stamping now many times faster. I plan on looking at road generation speed next as is the slowest system now. Better messaging. Some fixes for seeds not being consistent and possibly other bugs like biomes not matching percents.

 

I started prototyping sleeper volumes having a simple embedded scripting system for more control over spawning.

 

Our gfx programmer is adding new hair shaders, contact shadows and ambient occlusion.

 

The player profile editor has been updated for the new player models.

 

Console features are getting more functional and refined each week.

 

I don't know if you can share this or not, but will the new player characters have much in the way of editable features/morphs (facial... or rough body build/proportions morphs, like say we wanna play a tall himbo or the *ahem* rotund comic book guy), or is there simply going to be a library of stock presets of heads (and maybe bodies)?

I'm fully fine either way, considering that aside from changing skin tone and hair colour, right now you can make all of *two* characters; just excited and curious about what sort of options we're going to get.

[Arez]

3 hours ago, faatal said:

I have not posted in a while, so here is some info for January:

Wow, that's a lot! It sounds like you guys are gonna need some extra, remote playtesting. I guess you can drop the download link in my personal messages? 

[vergilsparda]

5 hours ago, faatal said:

[snip]

 

RWG is getting some improvements for A22. Alloc and I have reduced memory use a huge amount. I have also been working on performance with stamping now many times faster. I plan on looking at road generation speed next as is the slowest system now. Better messaging. Some fixes for seeds not being consistent and possibly other bugs like biomes not matching percents.

 

[snip]

 

 

Our gfx programmer is adding new hair shaders, contact shadows and ambient occlusion.

 

[snip]

 

 

first: HECK YES ambient occlusion, all my homies LOVE ambient occlusion.

 

Second, a question about roads. Are there any other changes to roads being made beyond tweaking generation speed? I'm someone who almost exclusively uses roads and and trails and doesn't often off-road, especially with the new vehicle damage changes, so I was wondering how difficult it would be to tweak the road generator so that a city or town once in a while has all four cardinal directions see entrances and exits. This is mostly a throwaway question not meant to be taken incredible urgently or seriously, but it's something that's been on my mind since the new RWG dropped.

 

It's also super good to hear that biome percentages are being tweaked for accuracy! I almost always make my wasteland biome smaller than the others and more often than not it comes out almost the same size or larger than the other two (or so comically small that cities won't spawn inside of it).

[Adam the Waster]

Delicious finally, some good food

[Ouch Quit It]

On 1/15/2024 at 5:34 PM, Laz Man said:

Hello All,

 

Last week, I finished the 4 unit apartment building I mentioned in my last post.  It will be a T2 questable POI in the country residential district.

 

I have started work on a new cave POI but still in the early planning phase.  I am hoping to come up with a t3 or higher design.  Will see where things end up.

 

 

 

 

Coughs* Airport POI * Coughs

[Ouch Quit It]

On 12/3/2023 at 9:43 PM, Laz Man said:

 

1. Football Stadium refactor.  The original has not been updated for several alphas.  My goal is to redesign it so it works both in Navezgane and RWG worlds.

 

2. There are several high tier POIs planned for A22, some of which has already been shared on social media

 

3. Some new POI trigger improvements coming in A22.

 

4. The new character system hands down.  

Coughs * Airport POI * Coughs

[Jost Amman]

17 hours ago, faatal said:

RWG is getting some improvements for A22. Alloc and I have reduced memory use a huge amount. I have also been working on performance with stamping now many times faster. I plan on looking at road generation speed next as is the slowest system now. Better messaging. Some fixes for seeds not being consistent and possibly other bugs like biomes not matching percents.

I'm really surprised and happy that someone can take on Robert's work!

I was worried there was no documentation of the code and that putting your hands on that could easily create bugs.

 

It's kind of his best legacy there... and the Dishong Tower of course. Godspeed! 

[FramFramson]

3 hours ago, Ouch Quit It said:

Coughs* Airport POI * Coughs

 

The biggest obstacle to Airport POIs are that the existing suite of rounded blocks are insufficient to make halfway passable planes. Fuselages, yes, but cockpits & tails & such that don't look look like they're made out of Duplo require new form blocks.

[Doomofman]

20 hours ago, faatal said:

Our gfx programmer is adding new hair shaders, contact shadows and ambient occlusion.

 

This question comes from someone who doesn't really know the ins and outs of how these various components work but my idiot brain reads those as things that'll make the game look better but run worse.

 

Or am I wrong and these are actually intended to reduce performance impact while maintaining the current fidelity?

 

I hope that made some sort of sense

[Ouch Quit It]

3 hours ago, FramFramson said:

 

The biggest obstacle to Airport POIs are that the existing suite of rounded blocks are insufficient to make halfway passable planes. Fuselages, yes, but cockpits & tails & such that don't look look like they're made out of Duplo require new form blocks.

Dude....been asking for this since A4.....I made 2 airports when the plains biome was still a thing...a rural and an urban......I made planes and helicopters on runways that you could enter. Its possible....but even if they dont want those make them a static item in game....Cmon now..cant even upload pictures anymore...this new forum platform blows !!!

[Laz Man]

3 minutes ago, Ouch Quit It said:

Dude....been asking for this since A4.....I made 2 airports when the plains biome was still a thing...a rural and an urban......I made planes and helicopters on runways that you could enter. Its possible....but even if they dont want those make them a static item in game....Cmon now..cant even upload pictures anymore...this new forum platform blows !!!

 

We have talked about airports many times, so its not a lack of desire.  Just not in the cards for gold release.  Unfortunately, to do a proper airport with our current standards we would need more than just one airplane model.  Maybe for DLC or next game.  

[Riamus]

1 hour ago, Ouch Quit It said:

Dude....been asking for this since A4.....I made 2 airports when the plains biome was still a thing...a rural and an urban......I made planes and helicopters on runways that you could enter. Its possible....but even if they dont want those make them a static item in game....Cmon now..cant even upload pictures anymore...this new forum platform blows !!!

You always use the Airport mod.  It doesn't get placed with RWG because it's too large but you can place it manually or place it automatically when generating a map with Teragon.  Yes, planes aren't perfect because of the limitation of block shapes, but it's really well done and has a variety of layouts available.

 

As far as posting images, you can do that.  You can either copy/paste an image, drag the image to your post, or click the Choose Files link below your post to attach images.

[FramFramson]

I think it would be possible to create an Airport POI (rural or modest suburban) within the 100x100 tile limit if it did not include runways, so you'd still be back to placing it manually, or else adding something to the road generation system that applied a runway adjacent to the tile (the latter of which is beyond most modders).

 

As for planes, maybe just a cockpit "block" for larger planes the way the trailer wheels and similar objects work in-game for the mostly-block items like RV trailers, semi-trucks, etc. You could also have a couple wrecked or burned out cessnas the way we have various wrecked or burned out cars all over. Those would require Unity models custom specced to fit in as an in-world block, but they'd be static items, so it's not an insurmountable problem for a mod.

 

Those two are really all you need for a decent player-made POI setup without having to use a set map which fully dedicated to an airport. Sure if you want a giant metropolitan airport, then yeah you'll need a huge area that will dominate any map, but I think most people just want some sort of additional large POI to spice up the game. T5 POIs, especially ones which can be placed outside of towns, are something the game absolutely needs more of, considering that raiding T5s is essentially the Endgame currently.

 

I guess what I'm saying is, we don't need to wait for TFP to implement airports. Fans can do it, with a little work and a bit of outlay/effort for a few needed assets.