Version 1.0 (Alpha 22) Dev Diary

[faatal]

11 hours ago, bdubyah said:

This is great news.

 

I'm not sure if it's your part of RWG or not, but do you know if there have been any new stamps added for things like rivers and stuff? What we have now is super limited and repetitive. Judging by your pic it seems to still be the same squiggly line for rivers, unfortunately. Any chance of them becoming procedural instead of using stamps?

No new stamps. Artists would typically make those. We could use more. Not planning on making it procedural.

3 hours ago, MichaelL. said:

Does this mean we will be able to do this with regular custom POI's as well?   (please say yes, please say yes.....)

Yes. Any POI could be listed with any combination of biomes.

49 minutes ago, LordMiG said:

Hi @faatal! Is there any chance that we'll have the option to generate larger RWG maps than 10K in A22? Maybe for singleplayer only? Back when the KingGen map generator was available, I always enjoyed playing on 16K maps, and they ran smoothly on my PC with 32 gigs of RAM. Could we possibly see this feature implemented? Pretty please! 🙃

 

The engine should be able to handle 16K maps. I play my singleplayer games without any traders, no loot respawn and 25% loot therefore loot gets really scarce after day 80. It would be nice to have a bigger map with more T5 buildings to loot. 😅

It could do more than 10k, but no plans for it. We would have to test to see what memory is needed and if we need to, then disable it on some hardware.

 

You should get more buildings now anyway with the recent changes as cities/towns generate more successfully and even more so if you increase Towns to Many.

[Adam the Waster]

Better look at grace and zombie bear! 

 

 

I hope the zombie bear spawns with the horde 

[Chaton Noir]

Hello, @faatal! Will the new Grace model have a jiggle physics for the bloody... drool hanging from the mouth, fur on the back and hanging intestines?

[Riamus]

1 hour ago, Adam the Waster said:

Better look at grace and zombie bear! 

 

 

I hope the zombie bear spawns with the horde 

Looks good overall.  Not a big fan of the hair, though.  It looks tacked on rather than natural.  But it doesn't really matter.

[Armor9]

14 hours ago, faatal said:

I don't think there will be more traders, but could happen in a DLC or sequel in a galaxy far far away.

 

NICE it's confirmed that we are getting a Star Wars based version as a sequel!  Why else drop that hint LOL LOL

[Roland]

Watch out Starfield!!

[Doomofman]

Am I right in saying there's a new vulture model hiding in those pics as well? I remember we were shown a model way back possibly before A20

[Makaroni95]

15 hours ago, faatal said:

Well, if I added a colon as it would appear in our change log, it would be more clear:

Added: Trader types are each in their own biome (with a min of 2).

 

I don't think there will be more traders, but could happen in a DLC or sequel in a galaxy far far away.

Sar wars reference! Lightsaber coming at A23! 

[Arma Rex]

14 minutes ago, Doomofman said:

Am I right in saying there's a new vulture model hiding in those pics as well? I remember we were shown a model way back possibly before A20

Looks like a new vulture, chicken, and doe model hiding in the background. You can see part of the new dire wolf as well.

[HB_H4wk]

3 hours ago, Adam the Waster said:

Better look at grace and zombie bear! 

 

 

I hope the zombie bear spawns with the horde 

OMG!!! For a second there I thought I was seeing a Zombie Deer... then I realized it was the vultures head and neck.

[zztong]

7 hours ago, faatal said:

You should get more buildings now anyway with the recent changes as cities/towns generate more successfully and even more so if you increase Towns to Many.

 

Perhaps a diversion, Kinyajuu added code to support this...

 

<township name="city">
<property name="outskirt_district" value="rural,residential"/>
</township>

 

... that is, where a township would pick between rural or residential to wrap around a city. I assume that is still a feature.

 

What I was curious about was if it might become a Tile by Tile randomization when wrapping rather than a one-time type of district randomization? In this way, the edge of a city might become a mix of both rural and residential tiles.

[vergilsparda]

19 hours ago, faatal said:

[Snip!]

Improved town planning quality.

Adjusted township counts and sizes.
Balanced lakes, rivers, craters, canyons, township and wilderness settings.

[snip!]

 

Got a couple clarification questions about these (because I am stupid), but more is just a general "do you mind/have the time to go a little more in-depth with what these do?"

 

Town planning: I assume that this means that the further you go from the center of a town, the more rural the area becomes (like what seems to be implemented in A21, but more refined). Does this also include making sure that tiles don't repeat too often? And in terms of tiles themselves, has there been any improvement to the fact that in some generated towns, there will be tiles that completely block off one half of a town from another? That's happened a few times... I generate a lot of maps lol

 

Township counts and sizes: What's a township in the context of the generator (sorry if that's been asked before) and does this mean we will see more varied towns than what we have?

 

Balanced Lakes/river, etc: Not quite a question about the balancing, but are there any plans now or in the future to add more stamps for the aformentioned items? Right now, it seems as if there's only one river stamp (at least only one that I end up getting!), two or three lake stamps, and maybe one or two craters and canyons. It's more difficult to tell that they repeat when you're in game and on the ground, but sometimes when you're flying in a Gyro or looking at the map previewer, it's very obvious.

 

Obviously these are a lot of questions so I don't expect you to answer them all, but if you can answer any of them (or anyone else can!) I would be very grateful! I know you are busy with finalizing A22 and such. Thanks, if you do end up answering even one!

[FramFramson]

What about having the default shape for towns something circular rather than rectangular?

[Survager]

I was glad it was a zombie deer 😲

When I understand that it was a vulture, I was upset 😭

[Doomofman]

Looks like the model is an improved version of the below one which was shown off way back before A20 I think

 

[Laran Mithras]

9 hours ago, FramFramson said:

What about having the default shape for towns something circular rather than rectangular?

Some towns follow the flow of the land: built on the flat as it meanders a short distance through hills.

Would be interesting to see in-game.

 

I wonder if town/city tiles could be designed to only be placed on flat terrain, non-clumped? String-fashion rather than blobbed. I believe the game now selects a flat area for town/city tiles and even flattens an area if too many hills and mountains are packed into the map. That might satisfy players wanting no towns: they simply then select all hills and mountains.

[beerfly]

The new model of Grace is pretty nice, can only imagine the smell, but looking at the poor passed out chicken right next to it I suppose is pretty darn strong.

 

Props to the team doing the new models, you guys rock !

[Riamus]

5 hours ago, Laran Mithras said:

Some towns follow the flow of the land: built on the flat as it meanders a short distance through hills.

Would be interesting to see in-game.

 

I wonder if town/city tiles could be designed to only be placed on flat terrain, non-clumped? String-fashion rather than blobbed. I believe the game now selects a flat area for town/city tiles and even flattens an area if too many hills and mountains are packed into the map. That might satisfy players wanting no towns: they simply then select all hills and mountains.

There was something in A21 where they said they were adding hills and mountains after towns to fill in gaps.  Not sure if they do it both before and after and not sure the exact details.  I just remember seeing that.  But if they place towns first, that explains the towns not being a variety of shapes as it meanders around hold and mountains.

[Cr0wst0rm]

9 hours ago, Doomofman said:

Looks like the model is an improved version of the below one which was shown off way back before A20 I think

 

Im curious how such vulture is going to hold itself in the air with so few feathers.... lol

[Doomofman]

20 minutes ago, Cr0wst0rm said:

Im curious how such vulture is going to hold itself in the air with so few feathers.... lol

I think it was even mentioned at the time that it needed more feathers. Hard to tell from the glimpse we can see in the recent images

[Jost Amman]

1 hour ago, Cr0wst0rm said:

Im curious how such vulture is going to hold itself in the air with so few feathers.... lol

Spoiler

 

 

[faatal]

On 4/17/2024 at 6:30 PM, zztong said:

Perhaps a diversion, Kinyajuu added code to support this...

 

<township name="city">
<property name="outskirt_district" value="rural,residential"/>
</township>

 

... that is, where a township would pick between rural or residential to wrap around a city. I assume that is still a feature.

 

What I was curious about was if it might become a Tile by Tile randomization when wrapping rather than a one-time type of district randomization? In this way, the edge of a city might become a mix of both rural and residential tiles.

Is the same. I have not looked at that code. It may or may not change.

On 4/17/2024 at 7:01 PM, vergilsparda said:

Got a couple clarification questions about these (because I am stupid), but more is just a general "do you mind/have the time to go a little more in-depth with what these do?"

 

Town planning: I assume that this means that the further you go from the center of a town, the more rural the area becomes (like what seems to be implemented in A21, but more refined). Does this also include making sure that tiles don't repeat too often? And in terms of tiles themselves, has there been any improvement to the fact that in some generated towns, there will be tiles that completely block off one half of a town from another? That's happened a few times... I generate a lot of maps lol

 

Township counts and sizes: What's a township in the context of the generator (sorry if that's been asked before) and does this mean we will see more varied towns than what we have?

 

Balanced Lakes/river, etc: Not quite a question about the balancing, but are there any plans now or in the future to add more stamps for the aformentioned items? Right now, it seems as if there's only one river stamp (at least only one that I end up getting!), two or three lake stamps, and maybe one or two craters and canyons. It's more difficult to tell that they repeat when you're in game and on the ground, but sometimes when you're flying in a Gyro or looking at the map previewer, it's very obvious.

 

Obviously these are a lot of questions so I don't expect you to answer them all, but if you can answer any of them (or anyone else can!) I would be very grateful! I know you are busy with finalizing A22 and such. Thanks, if you do end up answering even one!

Town planning changes involve more successfully making towns on the map. It failed a lot before due to excessive randomness and retrying the whole process instead of specific sections. The town tiles are the same layouts.

 

A township is a city, town, countrytown, oldwest or roadside type of location made up of a random range of tiles and these change based on world size.

 

Yes, we want better and more stamp variety, but there is no timeline for when that might happen.

On 4/17/2024 at 8:33 PM, FramFramson said:

What about having the default shape for towns something circular rather than rectangular?

Towns don't have a shape. I think they just grow in random directions, but I have not looked at that code, but plan to as I improve the systems.

[faatal]

18 hours ago, Laran Mithras said:

Some towns follow the flow of the land: built on the flat as it meanders a short distance through hills.

Would be interesting to see in-game.

 

I wonder if town/city tiles could be designed to only be placed on flat terrain, non-clumped? String-fashion rather than blobbed. I believe the game now selects a flat area for town/city tiles and even flattens an area if too many hills and mountains are packed into the map. That might satisfy players wanting no towns: they simply then select all hills and mountains.

Towns flatten terrain, except for mountains. Terrain is generated first, so the more mountains, the less success towns have in generating and you would get less. I reduced mountain max scale a bit and may reduce the default mountain percent. I recently removed mountains from wasteland to allow bigger cities there, but their success rate is not as good as I hoped, so needs more work to figure out why.

13 hours ago, Riamus said:

There was something in A21 where they said they were adding hills and mountains after towns to fill in gaps.  Not sure if they do it both before and after and not sure the exact details.  I just remember seeing that.  But if they place towns first, that explains the towns not being a variety of shapes as it meanders around hold and mountains.

I don't think anything is adding them after. Cities/towns use up the space pretty well now.

On 4/17/2024 at 12:25 PM, Chaton Noir said:

Hello, @faatal! Will the new Grace model have a jiggle physics for the bloody... drool hanging from the mouth, fur on the back and hanging intestines?

Maybe. Artists add those, not me.

[Riamus]

29 minutes ago, faatal said:

I don't think anything is adding them after. Cities/towns use up the space pretty well now.

Ah, okay.  I was sure I saw something about it in the A21 patch notes but maybe I misunderstood what the note meant. 

[Doomofman]

@faatal You mentioned trader biome restrictions in a previous post and it maybe being tied to story progression in the future. But what exactly is happening in A22?

 

Are specific traders only going to appear in specific biomes for every map? (Example: Jen always in wasteland)

 

or is it more random like for each map you generate it decides which traders go in which biomes. I hope that makes some sort of sense (Example: One map Jen might only be in wasteland but another map Jen will only be in the desert etc)

Edited April 19 by Doomofman (see edit history)