Version 1.0 (Alpha 22) Dev Diary

[Laz Man]

1 hour ago, Makaroni95 said:

Can we get new Skyscraper variants? 

 

Maybe.......

[Riamus]

8 minutes ago, Laz Man said:

 

Maybe......

Lol!  That sounds like a "I'm almost finished with one but not gonna share yet" comment. 😁

[Adam the Waster]

10 hours ago, bdubyah said:

As we were talking about before, that isn't the problem. The game only has a handful of zombie types. There is barely any more stress having 10 of one zombie on screen versus 100 as far as graphics go, other than maybe the jiggle physics stuff they added. The AI is mostly what drags the game down when the zombie counts get high. They had mentioned making a simpler AI to use on horde nights but not sure if that is still the plan or not. They also said the smarter AI they gave zombies around A17 or so was testing it for when bandits came in, which made me think once they did add bandits, that zombies would go back to a simpler AI.

 

I wouldn't mind zombies staying smart during the day, or maybe just having sleepers spawn with the better AI so they can navigate buildings better, but horde night AI should be simpler. As it is, zombies try to get to your height first, then try to get close. They should reverse that and make them try to take a straight path to get close first, then worry about the height. That would make them more dangerous again as they wouldn't be as easy to cheese with pathing.

Then remove it for console. I don't care if the zombies boobs jiggle. Lmao 

 

But in terms of the zombie AI. 

 

Normal zombies should be dumber but feral zombies should be smarter

[Adam the Waster]

New business strip

[bloodmoth13]

1 hour ago, Adam the Waster said:

Then remove it for console. I don't care if the zombies boobs jiggle. Lmao 

 

But in terms of the zombie AI. 

 

Normal zombies should be dumber but feral zombies should be smarter

I feel like we need quantity over quality. We could definitely use a bit of both, high damage psuedosmart zombies and swarms of really dumb bullet sponges

[Laran Mithras]

Could jiggle physics be disabled during BM?

[doughphunghus]

On 4/12/2024 at 1:49 PM, Laz Man said:

 

Although this console footage, this does provide a glimpse of the state of A22 for anyone interested.

- The thunder sounds awesome.

- The zed color variants (for me) do make a difference, it's not just eye candy.  I think with the old standard colored zeds, once you get used to knowing the zeds sounds/movements the "surprise" element when you see a zed wears off as you start just seeing their color (like "yellow" for example) and you know immediately which zed it is, and how to respond to it as a threat/target. Now its a bit more mental processing to figure it out, and thus more of a surprise. It did seem that the old colors were spawning more often than the new ones though?  I would love to know/see more "special clothing" variants like the camo shirt I saw the moe? zed wearing.

- Small point: I notice opening a dew collector resulted in some... very non dew collector items like the magazine. Dew collectors in the wild are fairly rare so I would want them to yield filters or water/parts to make dew collectors... though maybe that's the drop when they are harvested. but still: just put water/sand/etc in the loot group?

- A trophy block appears!!

- I really like the balloons and "strung lights" look in the wedding? poi.  I assume "strung lights" is a new block but if not that was a very creative design/build. It seemed there were more POI lights on (in general in an area, in the distance, etc) than usual so I hope "lighting" is less of a drag on the game and more lights than before will be available to be "on" in pois/bases without FPS issues. Additionally, turning "on" the dance floor poi didn't seem to trigger a bunch of zeds, it was just "for fun/effect" and that was a nice change from the normal "push button, prepare for swarm".

Edited April 14 by doughphunghus (see edit history)

[SylenThunder]

3 hours ago, Laran Mithras said:

Could jiggle physics be disabled during BM?

It wouldn't have any impact in performance. The bottleneck for BM is on the CPU. Jiggle physics are managed using the physx processor on the GPU. 

 

Also, why the hell is everyone talking about this all of a sudden. It is like it has been completely ignored for a couple of years, and now suddenly everyone is complaining about one developer spending a few hours on a single feature like it stole years of development and optimization.

[Laran Mithras]

1 hour ago, SylenThunder said:

It wouldn't have any impact in performance. The bottleneck for BM is on the CPU. Jiggle physics are managed using the physx processor on the GPU. 

 

Also, why the hell is everyone talking about this all of a sudden. It is like it has been completely ignored for a couple of years, and now suddenly everyone is complaining about one developer spending a few hours on a single feature like it stole years of development and optimization.

Can't speak for the others, but while I'm not a big tit-man, I do appreciate the level of detail that goes into all the jiggling. I'm not complaining about it.

And, if it has no impact on performance at all, then disregard my musing.

 

Further, if it has no impact, make it all jiggle! lol

[Laz Man]

I think Jiggle physics has received an optimization pass in A22 but not 100% sure.  I recall it being talked about (e.g. disabled at a certain distance).

13 hours ago, Adam the Waster said:

New business strip

 

We have several remnant strips being worked on currently which will add to the variety and help with downtown city performance.

[Chag]

So much for TFP saying Alphas were going to go out sooner than every 1.5-2 year intervals

[Doomofman]

I mean it's not even been a year since A21 yet

[Makaroni95]

1 hour ago, Laz Man said:

I think Jiggle physics has received an optimization pass in A22 but not 100% sure.  I recall it being talked about (e.g. disabled at a certain distance).

 

We have several remnant strips being worked on currently which will add to the variety and help with downtown city performance.

Oh! Yes! Yes yesyes! I love remnants! 

[Demonoid74]

Are we there yet?

 

lol, I know...I know...keep up the good work and do, fix and add everything you can. however long it takes! Its all good and always has been. Every single alpha I always put more hours into it before I stop playing till the next alpha. Alpha 7, I think I did around 18 hours and Alpha 21 I was up to 72 hours before I stopped.

 

But really, right now sucks because I am waiting for the next proper alpha for 7days, Mist Survival and No One Survived. All 3 survival/horror games I play, have been waiting for a few months for each of them, for their next release cycle before I start a new game. Non horror, Wild West Dynasty and Nightingale so far have been...buggy and meh

 

Been doing a lot more writing and work around the house though lol

[Outlaw_187]

One thing I kinda miss is that scream sound when the blood moon hoard night started. It was creepy as 💩

Am I alone in this and why was it taken out? 

 

Impatiently waiting for A22!!!!! Keep up the great work Pimps!

[falloutcloud]

6 hours ago, Demonoid74 said:

Are we there yet?

 

lol, I know...I know...keep up the good work and do, fix and add everything you can. however long it takes! Its all good and always has been. Every single alpha I always put more hours into it before I stop playing till the next alpha. Alpha 7, I think I did around 18 hours and Alpha 21 I was up to 72 hours before I stopped.

 

But really, right now sucks because I am waiting for the next proper alpha for 7days, Mist Survival and No One Survived. All 3 survival/horror games I play, have been waiting for a few months for each of them, for their next release cycle before I start a new game. Non horror, Wild West Dynasty and Nightingale so far have been...buggy and meh

 

Been doing a lot more writing and work around the house though lol

 

Tell me about it. I am also waiting on the alpha 42 to drop for Project Zomboid which is soooo close yet so far away. My luck is both games will drop their patches the same week.

[Jost Amman]

4 hours ago, falloutcloud said:

I am also waiting on the alpha 42 to drop for Project Zomboid

I always thought 7D2D had the record for the highest number of Alpha! 

[Javabean867]

2 hours ago, Jost Amman said:

I always thought 7D2D had the record for the highest number of Alpha! 

I'm pretty sure Ark has the highest lol, oh or maybe Dwarf Fortress

[HB_H4wk]

Three zombies were removed during a previous alpha 1. the farmer 2. cheerleader 3. football player. Any chance of reskinning those for some new zombies? How about adding a Zombie Deer? Bigger Gore Piles please and some sort of bloodstains for poi creators.

[Old Crow]

3 hours ago, HB_H4wk said:

Three zombies were removed during a previous alpha 1. the farmer 2. cheerleader 3. football player. Any chance of reskinning those for some new zombies? How about adding a Zombie Deer? Bigger Gore Piles please and some sort of bloodstains for poi creators.

 

I don't believe they're bringing them back. Which is a shame, with all the farms in the game, and the fact the stadium is returning.

[zztong]

51 minutes ago, Old Crow said:

 

I don't believe they're bringing them back. Which is a shame, with all the farms in the game, and the fact the stadium is returning.

 

I get the limited applicability of the cheerleader and the football player, but a farmer seems like it would be okay.

 

If they were to bring back something to match the cheerleader and football player, M/F zombies in athletic or running clothes would work.

[faatal]

On 4/13/2024 at 11:57 AM, bdubyah said:

As we were talking about before, that isn't the problem. The game only has a handful of zombie types. There is barely any more stress having 10 of one zombie on screen versus 100 as far as graphics go, other than maybe the jiggle physics stuff they added. The AI is mostly what drags the game down when the zombie counts get high. They had mentioned making a simpler AI to use on horde nights but not sure if that is still the plan or not. They also said the smarter AI they gave zombies around A17 or so was testing it for when bandits came in, which made me think once they did add bandits, that zombies would go back to a simpler AI.

 

I wouldn't mind zombies staying smart during the day, or maybe just having sleepers spawn with the better AI so they can navigate buildings better, but horde night AI should be simpler. As it is, zombies try to get to your height first, then try to get close. They should reverse that and make them try to take a straight path to get close first, then worry about the height. That would make them more dangerous again as they wouldn't be as easy to cheese with pathing.

Each zombie adds rendering, animation, collision and character controller overhead. You can turn off AI and watch the FPS drop as you spawn more and more.

[Adam the Waster]

Here is a look at a new downtown business strip. One of the dozens of new locations coming to Alpha 22 on PC and Consoles this Summer. Great work by Earl!

 

 

[Makaroni95]

1 hour ago, Adam the Waster said:

Here is a look at a new downtown business strip. One of the dozens of new locations coming to Alpha 22 on PC and Consoles this Summer. Great work by Earl!

 

 

Needs more cars at the roads and sidewalks. City looks too empity for me. 😕

[Viset4]

I would like to see new block shapes or better textures. Is there any plan to add the function of inserting your own textures?