A16 - GNAMOD World {Improved of RWG world, Improved loot balance, Improved spawns}

[n2n1]

Does not sound like something I encountered before, and certainly not in A15, unless you mean the triangulation error that sometimes happens when digging, the pieces of floating dirt/clay that you have to use frames to get rid off or they make holes in the world/strange terrain shapes.

no, not about that - it's old

When i investigate Your mod, i got once the error, i did not pay attention to it - but it was, most likely, more related to height as You said.

So i remembered and decided to ask.

[Haidrgna]

Well my mod should not give any height errors, I made sure all mountains stay within the bounds, or so to say the bounds are what they can be without giving any height related errors.

 

But there are always those hard to catch bugs in the game that produce errors. Such as the null ref when two players kill a cop at same time in mp, gives a random null ref to the guy that kills the corpse when it dies I think, probably something that errors but does not seem to halt the gameplay.

[Xtrakicking]

Is there a way to have the gorgeous rwg changes the mod has without the roads/cities/prefabs changes? I love the look of the hub city you made and I'm sure they're balanced according to the rest of the gameplay, but in all honesty the fact that it's so small and there are no towns throws me off a bit

[Haidrgna]

With a bit of copy and pasting you could probably make a version of my world that spawns in normal cities/roads and towns. It will generate a load of giant walls around those towns and cities most of the time tho (one of the primary reasons I stuck with properly filled rural towns which just do not leave such a big impression).

 

I have tried making custom hubs and cities, I can actually do that and probably also force certain POIs to spawn in certain locations with roads etc how I want them, but once such a custom hub is spawned on water well then it will be only roads with water between them until bedrock sadly.

 

But here is what you would need to do:

 

Make a copy of a clean vanilla rwgmixer.xml

Open up the version of the Large world (10000 Radius)

Copy all code from and including <terrain_generators> up until </biome_spawn_rules>

Then remove this same code from the vanilla file and paste the code from my file on the same spot. (make sure not to miss anything or accidentally delete </rwgmixer>

Save the file

 

Now you have a rwgmixer that behaves like vanilla with prefab spawning/roads/towns/cities but with my terrain and biome distribution. Then combine it with the rest of World ONLY version or other version of the mod and play it. Just remember that this will remove a lot of POIs from the world again.

 

Another option would be to add towns/cities back into the mix which would need restoring their vanilla code into my file or making new code for it.

[Xtrakicking]

Ok, I'll give it a try after I play around a bit with the whole mod.

 

 

BTW, I'm getting a lot of "No loot entry defined for loot list id" errors in the console. Any idea what that might be?.

[Haidrgna]

That generally means you are looting something which has a lootlist set that is not defined in the loot.xml, which should not happen normally.

 

What version are you using and did you revert back to vanilla before installing it? Could be a simple leftover from another mod or one of the versions has an error in it, but I would need some more info on it to find the cause (what you are looting and maybe the whole error/log).

[Xtrakicking]

That generally means you are looting something which has a lootlist set that is not defined in the loot.xml, which should not happen normally.

 

What version are you using and did you revert back to vanilla before installing it? Could be a simple leftover from another mod or one of the versions has an error in it, but I would need some more info on it to find the cause (what you are looting and maybe the whole error/log).

 

I verified the integrity of the game's cache to restore the files and the added the mod. I'll reinstall and clean the whole game and test the mod again to see if the problem persists. The errors don't pop up when I loot something, they happen as I walk by, although I tried to open a coffin and it didn't let me.

 

I'll come back with more info later.

[Haidrgna]

Well that at least narrows it down, I think I gave coffins a specific lootgroup in my mod, but I will wait and see what you find first and then see if there is a problem that needs to be fixed.

[Xtrakicking]

Ok. After reinstalling the game and cleaning the files completely I tested the World Only file and it's still showing loot list errors. The coffin still doesn't open.

 

I also noticed that the iron desk makes the wrong sound when opening it and spawns wrong loot.

[Haidrgna]

Seems like there is some stuff in the blocks.xml file that refers to the loot.xml file for the complete mod. I will make a version of it that does not have any references but will only include the vanilla fix to lootwasteland.

 

Edit:

 

Uploaded a new version 1.03 with a small fix for Asphalt and Gravel which were still using the acceleration for entities that somehow slows down minibikes. They will now be normal again until I find a way to achieve this properly.

 

Another fix is to the World ONLY mod, which used a wrong blocks.xml file that refered to loot groups that only exist in the complete version of the mod. This version has a blocks.xml version that is fully vanilla with only a fix to lootWasteland.

[Crater Creator]

So I wanted a better RWG experience for my next game. When I realized the rwgmixer.xml wasn't a straightforward thing to edit, I found this thread, where Tin and Haidrgna worked out a lot of details before taking their own approaches to rwg mixing. Haidrgna had the more impressive screenshots, so I decided to roll with his mod. I installed the "World ONLY" version, and merged it together with the Alpha 15.1 Experimental changes and my own changes I'm working on, which mostly change loot balance and a few key recipes.

 

I had a positive first impression. The geography is more interesting than vanilla, without the excessive mountains. I'm playing on the seed "Pandaemia" if you're interested. On Day 1, I started next to a big lake surrounded by gentle mountains - it looked quite nice in the morning light. The first PoI I found was a little Old West-style shack. A cowboy zombie and a dog were there. The dog killed me, which sucked because I lost my only light source (playing with Delete All on death). But the cowboy was great, in that it was the first time playing this game where I really felt like I was encountering the building's original occupant. That cowboy in particular used to live there, which I just haven't felt in vanilla, even though you're just utilizing PoIs that are already in the game.

 

I do feel the biomes are too small/close together. I don't think the border between biomes looks good in any 7DtD map, so bigger biomes with fewer transitions are better. For the same reason, I haven't liked the abundant new sub-biomes, like sprinkling patches of green into the burnt biome. If some day they improve the dithering/blending between two completely different terrain blocks, this might work. But that's probably not possible, since each block has to stay distinctly recognizable as what it is.

 

I've also yet to find tracts of flat land to speak of, like I saw in some of the screenshots. What first attracted me to this mod was the variety: cool vistas to see in the distance combined with flat places to build. So far, the terrain height is still pretty noisy. This makes the ugly, slope-ignoring roads more prominent, and like you, I'm really hoping sockets will improve the situation. Lastly, the more homogenous biomes causes more instances of >3 biomes for the game to blend in one block, which causes hard edges between textures. I especially noticed this at the borders of PoIs.

 

As far as the spawning, the upside is I'm seeing more variety of zombies - some I hadn't even seen before like the biker. The downside is the quantity of zombies is significantly different. Again, I'm using the "World ONLY" version, so I expected the spawning to be like that in vanilla. I would estimate playing this mod is very similar to when I jumped from "normal" (100%) spawning to "high" (125%) spawning in Alpha 15.0. Since I'm only interested in the new world part, I'd prefer if the spawning were unchanged, though I realize this isn't necessarily an easy fix on account of the PoI spawners.

 

The decorations feel about right so far. Sometimes you get a tree you're not used to seeing in vanilla, but nothing that looks out of place, other than the cacti. I'm not a fan of the random, wild potato plants however. That makes them too much like blueberry and corn plants, so if it were my mod I'd take that out.

 

These are my observations playing through Day 4. I intend to keep going on this world, but from here on out I'll probably be mostly noticing things related to my own local changes to the game.

[Tin]

@Crater

 

I just wanna point out what I did is like a "Show and Tell", more a project to help ppl dive into world generation. @Haidrgna built a experience I hope more ppl will build worlds and share them.

[Haidrgna]

Thanks for the feedback Crater Creator, really appreciated that you took the time to write down your observations.

 

The world is very random, but I will have to add in more controls that create the really flat land, but it is there already but easily overshadowed by the hills and craggy terrain sometime. I will certainly go and improve this in the future as I really hope to be able to salvage most of this when A16 hits and then if sockets are in create a really gorgeous world that A15 just will not yet allow.

 

The potato plants, yeah I might move em out or make em really really rare (way to common now), the cacti too in the plains which spawn on grass sometime and thats not good. I noticed the texture bleeding of terrain myself too on certain places, will have to work on this further and probably remove the surface gravel and maybe some other bleeds so it wont be to much different close together and make it look better.

 

I sort of agree on the transitions, thats why I made some biomes to be transitions, the main greenlands blend over nicely I think, yeah this makes you go from plains into forest into pine into snow rather fast on some locations with steep terrain, but it feels far more natural than the patchwork it is in vanilla. I am afraid transitions will never look good, unless we get better control over subbiomes and new biomes to make this blending possible.

 

When new biomes are supported I will make more kinds of burned forest (Completely burned, partially burn/regrown forest, burned pine etc) For now I had to do with 1 burned biome that is a mix of the two most prominent forests and some regrown spots as well as some burned houses/cars. When new biomes are fully supported I will go mad on making more biomes, biomes that will mostly vary in decorations. And I want to learn prefabbing next, make my own decoration prefabs to make biomes even better looking, when the prefab bugs for servers are fixed.

 

I really hope we get controls for the road, I think it is ok if the road occasionally cuts through a mountain, but the way it flattens and raises terrain now is just bad and making ugly leg breaking slopes sometime.

 

The POIs I have all redone their spawners, most have gone to a slightly higher vanilla one so will come with a bit more spawning even on world only (which really is not much more than vanilla rules with a changed rule for the city biome). I did this mainly to increase the range of when poi zeds spawn, so when you approach a POI its zeds wont spawn on your head.

[acac1110]

With valmod

 

Hope can get uptate really soon

[Haidrgna]

Hope can get uptate really soon

 

Did Valmod get an update that does not work anymore with the patch I made?

 

This is what you need to replace to fix the issue of some prefabs showing a placeholder block, so you can do it yourself if it updates. I probably wont see it when Valmod updates before anyone that plays it will notice.

 

Find block 263 in Blocks.xml and replace it with this code.

 

<block id="263" name="lootWasteland">
<property name="IsDeveloper" value="true" />
<property name="CustomIcon" value="lootWasteland" />
<property name="Class" value="Loot" />
<property name="Material" value="cloth" />
<property name="Shape" value="Ext3dModel" />
<property name="Mesh" value="models" />
<property name="Model" value="LootContainers/trash_pile01" param1="main_mesh" />
<property name="Collide" value="melee,bullet,arrow,rocket" />
<property name="IsTerrainDecoration" value="true" />
<property name="LootList" value="2" />
<drop event="Harvest" name="canEmpty" count="1" prob="0.1"/>
<drop event="Destroy" name="scrapPlastics" count="0,1"/>
</block>

 

Then add this line on the bottom of Localization.txt

lootWasteland,blocks,Block,KgNone,Trash Pile,Pile d'ordures,Müllhaufen,,Montَn de basura

 

Edit: I forgot, you also need to go to the spawning.xml and copy the spawning rules from the Snow Biome and replace the spawning rule of the city biome with it, so the transition biome will spawn snow zombies instead of dogs.

[Gareee]

Last I read I think valmod will only work with a15, and not point releasses, and I think he said he would update it for a16. If its going to be 4 more months before we see a16 though, he might change his mind about that.

[Haidrgna]

Well then it is out of my control, but I think A16 is still at least 2 months or more away, but I myself have the same feeling, not adding new content unless it will really be a long wait again. It still works fine with 15.1, so that saves me a time to edit it.

[SiderisAnon]

On the subject of having some flat areas ... I honestly known nothing about POI creation, but could you force the game to create flat areas by having some uncommon POIs that don't have any actual buildings on them, just a flat area? Then set that POI's list of zombie spawns to zero or an empty list or however it works.

[Guppycur]

You can add a prefab of just a flat area, and let them spawn.

[Haidrgna]

I guess that would be possible, but it will just force itself upon the land like all other POIs do, the bigger the area the worse it will look.

 

A few versions earlier I had a few controls that created really flat land, like kilometers of all at say height 42 or 120. This was way to much, but I probably could find them in my backups, add in another selector so it happens not as often and it should then create some spaces on the map that are really flat.

 

Mind you and not to discredit any observations, but the RWG world is really large, the 10000 radius one and the 12500 one I made is even bigger. You see so little of a world, even if you Nomad on it. I tried exploring worlds with flying and using a purple engine bike. I could drive for hours and see all kinds of terrain, and every seed is different in how they distribute or select the terrain options. But flat land, like we have here in Holland that is what I want to add in, the mild hills which could be considered mostly flat are there.

[Crater Creator]

Now that I've played the same game up to Day 18, I wanted to report back that my earlier comment about biomes being too small/close together was premature. I happened to start in a particularly noisy part of the map, and I've since found, for instance, a large desert and maple forest comparable to what you find in vanilla. I purposefully don't look at the previewer for a map I'm actually going to play, so as to not ruin the fun of exploring.

 

Next, I'm thinking I'll try Tin's code, at least as a starting point, coupled with a second draft of my various loot adjustments that might see their way into a separate mod if things go well.

 

Edit: oh, and here's one amusing result from this RWG.

 

 

 

 

What's this? A never-before-seen cobblestone bunker building? Wait, that's not cobblestone...

 

 

 

 

Didn't see that coming! This little flooded crater would be a neat find in the desert, if only the height was correct.

[StompyNZ]

that's the mp_waste_sewer_hole_2 which is normally only found in navez, and as such tfp didnt give it a yoffset

[Haidrgna]

I gave it an offset for my mod, at least I would swear I modded it so it should, that is if you copied all the files, so not sure what went wrong here. Should have a -10 Yoffset so it spawns as a crater rather than as a block

 

Its not even supposed to spawn in the desert, only in wastelands .

[leaderdog]

Hi Haidrgna,

 

I'm giving your mod a whirl. I just finished my 7 day horde. I'm using your suggested spawning. A couple questions.

 

1) is it intended to have a lot of crossroads (3 buildings) vs small or larger towns? I haven't found a town yet.

 

2) did you do anything with 7 day horde? It felt like a trickle similar to vanilla.

 

3) You altered the loot table, so does the spiked club schematic have a random drop chance or is it located some where more specific?

 

I have a minibike already. Scooted around a bit but came back for 7 day horde. There are lots of little poi's and crossroads but haven't found anything that resembles a town. Will go on a longer sojourn to see what I can find.

 

Thanks in advance.

[leaderdog]

ok, I checked the xml and it's just a really rare loot. I did finally get it on day 12. That was hard riding, and hard looting day and night. But I got it.

 

but I'm still curious about the poi situation.

 

There are lots of houses all over the place, and then little 3 and some times 4 building crossroads. Other than that at 0,0 there is a small town in amongst the wasteland. I've gone from near bottom of the map (around 6000km from centre, to the edge of the world in the north and didn't find any other cities. I haven't gone east or west but I'm assuming this is a design feature? if not I have one wonky map.

 

I must say not having any cities to play around in is a bit unfortunate. I quite enjoy the challenges of a city or even towns for that matter.

 

Just for reference, I am now level 117 and killed 1701 zombies and looted a huge number of buildings.

Single player, nomad difficulty and 120 minute days.