Koregan

After having played the game a while, it's getting hard to find ways to make the game more challenging, while having simultanously have good gameplay (Purely refering to sprinters here, sprinters is bad gameplay, other than dumb cheeses there's no viable strategies against Usian Bolt) .
Something that I really think could add alot of excitment to the game was if there was an option to make zombies a liittle faster. I don't know the actual numbers so just pretend with me that normal player walkingspeed is 100% movement speed, and Jogging is 200% movement speed. If zombies had a random speed between 60- and 140%, that would mean you no longer could take down massive hordes using a knife, and no longer be a godlike herding dog, creating a perfectly round ball made of 300 burning zombies without ever breaking a sweat. But at the same time you could still kill normal groups of zombies and use your speed to disengage if need be, just not indefintely like you can right now. It would require you to look where you're going.
At the moment, calmly walking away is the solution to all your zombie problems. I wish we had 1 or 2 options between Ultra fast zombies and Very slow zombies

Before the animation update it used to be just 3 items —  top, bottom, and shoes, but now, in the late game, you can have up to 15 pieces of clothing equipped at once and it bloats up the inventory tab. Would it be possible to make a separate tab as with the key ring?

I changed the game to english language to test (without doing anything in game after loading):
In english, both watches (on left and right wrist) have the same name: "Golden Wrist Watch"
In german, equiped on left wrist is named "Goldene  Digitaluhr".
In german, equiped on right wrist is named "Goldene  Armbanduhr".
 
Vanilla game 41.55 steam, without any mods.
 
[Edit:] Screenshot doesn't work, so I added photos of the screen...
 

I was reorganizing my stuff, so just walking from one crate to the other and as fast as possible putting the things in organized crates.
So in the end it was also not a "normal behaviour", I think normally you put maybe one or two bags full of stuff in some crate and then go looting again.
I am just concerned that this can destroy the fun of some players, when loosing too much when moving hundreds of things in some minutes while lags appear.
 
I would like to test once again, but if it happens once again, I will not have enough stuff to try to repeat the situation once again.
I was just thinking and hoping, that maybe you could have this issue in your mind when programming against lags.
Maybe there would be the possibility for some compare between "user map-files" (where the things are inside)
and the "server map-files" (where the things were not yet safed)...
 
But no problem at all - I know quite good that you would have to get more information about it to have better chance to find the exact reason.
I did write some mod some more years ago for our server, and I know how much work it is to find even small bugs...
 
On the other side, I know that it is also important to get some feedback if something goes wrong - as programmer you need the feedback or you just don't know.
That was the reason why I made this report.
 
You can close the topic if you like, or remove it at all. No problem from my side.
I know that you do a awesome job. Most developpers stop improving after some years and you still continue. - That's great. And I have to say thank you so much for it all...
 

Sounds like a nice idea for a mod.
Perhaps the fishing-nets could be used.
So while fishing, you can enjoy a cold beer.

Sounds like a nice idea for a mod.
Perhaps the fishing-nets could be used.
So while fishing, you can enjoy a cold beer.

I've noticed a lack of any canned goods with their own pull tabs. Why is it that there's none of them in game?
 
For example, in real life, most sardine cans have a pull-tab, and don't need can openers.. Some potted meat products don't.
 
I'm just saying, it'd be a realistic thing for some, not all cans, to be openable without a can opener.

Any time, and thank you for helping me solve this.

Sorry for the late reply, was a bit busy.
I figured it out, spawnHorde(x,y,x2,y2,z, numberToSpawn) works perfectly . Here's what I did:
 
As it would turn out, spawnHorde also works for any number of zombies, including a single one.

Z's are precious. I'm not kidding.
You need a lot of them in order to improve your skills to max.
More than that, usually when you finish your fort / base / HQ, all the Z's around it are dead. 
So after a while, there is nothing serious that can test your defenses. 
 
In-game they don't re-spawn. Or at least not at a decent rate. At start they are too many, and after two weeks you need to hunt for them in order to get loot or experience.
 
Bottom line, we need more biters mid-game. So I inspired from FishToastie mod, and managed to come up with this: when you kill a zombie, if you press Insert key in the next 5 minutes, two more will spawn near the killed one.
 
Installation:
1. Unpack the archive in your mods folder
2. Activate it in game
3. Restart the game and play.
 
Note:
Do NOT get fooled. Their numbers are escalating very fast, especially when you use the shotguns. I advice you to use any corpse removal mod (like Kalistor's cremation) and maybe a blood removal mod (DragonBahn Censor Mod) if you want to keep your base and streets clean.
 
Here. It started from a single z
 

 
 
Download link:
Mediafire
 
Have fun.

In light of the 32 build and playing various challenges and additions to the game, I noticed some performance issues on my end, due to my aging computer. 
 
Fortunately, I found a method to somewhat alleviate some of the processing load of the game through something called a RNG, (Random-Number Generator). This is what gives Project Zomboid a nice randomness in the way things work throughout the game, from lighting, to zombie spawning, to zombie reactions, to the damage you inflict on things. 
 
What Project Zomboid uses is a high-level RNG, which not only gives a less predictable output, but also in a more encrypted manner. These kinds of RNGs work best in high-level security password / account management, Gambling game websites, or other needs that require less prediction. 
 
What I've learned is that these really high level RNGs, (although less predictable and more true to random), is that they take a lot more to process than your medium or low RNGs. These are costly to performance on realtime calculations if used frequently.
 
I did some research back in build 30 on what RNGs work best in a situation such as a game like Project Zomboid, and have found the XORShift 128 algorithm to hold the most ground when it comes to medium-level RNGs. 
 
So I went ahead and replaced the RNG that Project Zomboid uses with an implementation of this RNG. I personally noticed some positive results from this experiment in Build 30. When I experienced performance issues when playing the "Opening Hours" challenge in Build 32, I decided to test it again. I still noticed the same results. 
 
For me, it felt like the rendering was smoother, and the world simulation was more fluid, with less jolting.
 
So in light of all of this, I decided to package this very simple modification to the game and allow others to try it out for themselves.
 
Feel free to try this out and tell me what you think.
 
One thing to note Is that there might be simulation differences between this random and the random used in the multiplayer simulation. When I played with this mod on build 30 servers, It was raining for me, when it was not for other players. This may be due to a simple RNG difference. No problem though.
 
If you install this mod, please be sure to copy your 'zombie' folder in your main PZ folder. The mod is JAVA, so this affect the game's direct code, not like LUA.
 
Let me know how this feels. I'd like to see if this improves the performance. I'm curious.
 
 
P.S. For transparency: Here's the class model I implemented for you tech-savy people who want to see how this algorithm works. It's neat. (This class involves no code from the game directly, so this is not showing, exposing, or infringing on the game's code's rights.) 
 
Code: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/JabJabJab/SledgeHammer/master/src/com/badlogic/gdx/math/RandomXS128.java?token=ABAbyfyCPK5t0Cfyrphcw3mYYC4ZTR2nks5VeNfLwA%3D%3D
 
 
Download: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/31589881/Zomboid/rngmod.zip

I just want all other modders to know that I am working (for the last 2 months)
on my Server-Mod for "Zeeks Apocalypse Roleplay-Server".
 
The mod was installed yesterday, so it is still "in progress"
and right now tested by our player-community.
 
At the moment there are certain parts included:
 
Autoupdater:
- automaticaly checks for version of the mod on the server and downloads new versions.
- at the moment not working bugfree: after instaling, the game freezez, but the second time you can login without any errors.
 
Strangers:
- That's the interesting part for the players.
- When you meet a player the first time he is named "Stranger #" on screen.
- You can rename him to any name you want and after this your given name is shown on screen (for you)
- Also the chatbox shows the name "Stranger #" or "Voice #" if you did not meet him yet.
 
Some admin-stuff:
- Corpse will disappear after a cerain amount of time (no results yet) - (in future version perhaps there will spawn new zombies instead)
- some information for us admins, like some statistics
- Error-uploader, so i get feedback about stack-traces in player-consoles.
 
There are some more things planned, but they will need some more time.
 
If you want to test the mod, then join our server:
http://zeeksapocalypse.boards.net/
 
Special thanks to Blindcoder for his support in all my questions concerning mods, functions, ...
 
Edit:
I was asked about a public release of my mod.
I will post a public-version here on tis-forum, so other modders
can have a look on the code learn and copy parts of it.
But because it was a lot of time I spent in programming this mod for our roleplay-server
and the time to update it constantly, I would not like any admin to use this mod
on his server without permission.

Mod is back online - running on Zeeks Apocalypse Roleplay-Server.
 
I did some huge changes in the way the mod is collecting information for our admin-chatlog.
(Before every client send the information to my webspace - now it is send via clientcommands and the server creating all the files.)
 
Until now, there were no reports about lags/freezes from the mod, so it seems to be stable now.
 
I already included some new functions, but they are still hidden at the moment and have to be activated to test.
I will soon write a topic about it in our forum and later also post it here.
 
One of the (now solved) problems was that there are no names transmitted for local chat, when the usernames are not displayed in game. It was a mess to read, because you cannot see if one or two or three persons were talking.
So I wrote a function to transmit the local chat and insert it with the self-given stranger-name of the stranger into the players chatbox.
 
Ah, I nearly forgot to say: The error-uploader is deactivated. Some people thought the game was freezed, because it took so long to read the gigantic console.txt after longtimeplaying. And at this place (OnPostSave) I am not able to write any onscreen-text. But anyway - I got no error-feedback by my mod - but thousands of lines of errors of the vanilla-game.
 
Right now, there are no plans on changing the strangers-part of the mod, perhaps just some little finetuning.
 
Perhaps I can upload a image of the mod running ingame, so you can have a look on the changes for the users.

1) this is on the stable build of 31.13. I just tested the mods in a sandbox game, Hydrocraft and Extended building both work.
2) This is a hosted server via Fragnet, I'm not sure how to access the server side console.
However, on the client side console I can see Hydrocraft loading and over-writing the default files in SP mode, but
3) no errors that I can see (client side)
EDIT: I have a few errors with invalid rooms "while reading map_meta.bin"
EDIT2: After hydrocraft loads, I get a console message that "Mod Loaded: ORMtnMan's Real Gun Mod v 1.19" even though I don't have the mod installed? (this is on a few reinstall of Zomboid client side)
 
 
Just attempted the "/reloadoptions" server gave me a message "[server]Options Reloaded". Killing my character and spawning in a new region to check. (From New Denver to West Point)
Edit: Just checked 4 or 5 houses now in Westpoint after "/reloadoptions" still no Hydocraft items found
SOLVED: Ok so, after scanning through my client side console and noticing the ORGM mod being loaded despite not being installed I decided to reinstall PZ entirely yet again. As I did this I double checked my /SteamApps/Common/ProjectZomboid folder to discover that a "Media" file was left behind after the un-installation. I deleted the file and reinstalled my game.
Did a fresh wipe on my server, uploaded in order 1) Server.db 2) ServerPZ_sandboxlars.lua 3) Hydrocraft
From there I edited the server.ini to "Mods = Hydrocraft" and connected to the server and *viola* it works!
I'm now going through one by one adding the mods and map sections to ensure they are working, but it seems as if the media file that wasn't deleted was conflicting with the server data for some reason.

If you add a feature that only turns this stuff on when you're offline, I'm all for it, but for realism sakes, I'd keep it off for the most part.

I'll keep the trespass thing off, so you'd have to barricade your house (maybe if you have a door to lock, make it impossible to pick (if you had the lockpicking mod), and windows wouldn't have the unbarricade option if you're offline), but the loot, fire, and respawn I'd keep on true. Again, only when the player is offline. If you're online, then you could return to your house being looted, burned, or attacked.

Build 32.3 released:
Force the player to walk to a gas pump before taking fuel. (Issue #001694). Added translations for some things. Moved the "Random" button in the first character-creation screen down beside the "Play" button (same as it is on the profession screen). Fixed window sprites not changing after removing broken glass.  (Issues #001690, #001698) Fixed zombies spawning in water and other weird places due to the chunkdata_X_Y.bin files needing to be reexported with a fixed WorldEd. (Issue #001692) Expose Vector2 and Vector3 Java classes for Lua modders. Fixed two bugs with desired zombie population calculation. Fixed exception with null ItemContainer in IsoDeadBody.reanimate(). (Issue #001675) RJ and I were talking about ramping up the zombie population over the first several days.  I'm also going to experiment with migrating zombies from overpopulated cells to underpopulated cells.
 
EDIT: If you have an existing savegame and want to reset all the zombies to the new levels, delete the zpop_*.bin files in the save directory.

Vector2:getDirection()

This is something I've wanted to say for a while, and something everyone should remember when getting frustrated by the delay to the NPCs.
 
We started development of this game in early 2011. It's our baby and has literally consumed some 80%+ of my waking life (probably similar for the others) since 2011. We've had our lows (and some lows at that) and we've had our highs. The community we've built is incredible, and the love and pride we have for the game and community is immense. But...
 
This game has been in development for over four years now, and that is a long time for your life to be consumed by one thing (This goes way beyond 9-5 job levels). We'd never ever abandon PZ before it's the game we set out to make, but that's not to say we're not tired, worn out, and missing that feeling of working on something new. As well as the rewards, of which we are very grateful, PZ has taken its toll. Even when the day finally comes that some of us move on, as we've said before, we'd continue to support development of PZ for as long as it makes the money to support itself, and likely even some time after that. But there is that ache there for the truly fun and exciting feeling of exploring new ideas and the potential and wonder of a new game, an ache that strikes every developer and truth be told is years old at this point. I hope we score points for resisting it.
 
But we won't and can't even think about other projects seriously, even if we dabble in our spare time. It's too dangerous to even think about because we can't have any distractions as we need to deliver the full map, the vehicles, the NPCs, before we can hit 1.0. At the point PZ goes 1.0, a few of us will likely finally be able to explore what's next after PZ, and we hope our community is looking forward to whatever we do next too. As I said before, to reiterate, we'd make sure PZ was well supported as we don't want the day to come when PZ stops getting new content. I don't want to presume what the devs we've taken in from the community would like to do post 1.0, but I imagine PZ would continue with long standing devs the community knows and trusts to steer the ship straight, and of course even if working on something else we'd still be heavily involved.
 
So I guess around to my point: I know waiting for NPCs is hard. I know they keep getting pushed back, seem vapourware at this point, and trust me I want NPCs out there more than any single one of you, by a factor of like 10000000. I know many of you are patient, I know a few aren't, but I also know their impatience is a good sign as to how much people care. I also know that these NPCs are one of the most ambitious NPC systems in the history of games. It feels arrogant to say as much but I can't really argue against that statement. I'm aware of what we're biting off here. I'm totally confident we can do it, but the fact is after this huge delay we HAVE to deliver, and we HAVE to deliver something brilliant. So that's ironically the reason for the delay. They won't be released until they are brilliant. It's as simple as that. I don't want to say NPC development is a nightmare, because it is also wonderful and exciting in equal measure, but it's a shit ton of pressure that is on around the clock. It only makes me want to weep with sympathy imagining what GRR Martin is going through with the sheer monstrous scale of pressure on his shoulders compared to ours. 
 
BUT. This is a good thing. Not for us, but for you. Why? Right now, EVERY member of the Indie Stone is working full time on PZ. We need to provide you with stuff, meaty content, to keep you happy, interested, and to improve the game in the meantime while we get our shit together with the NPCs and whatnot. We can't have 6 months or a year of no updates while we tick off our last remaining big bullet point planned features. We can't go 1.0 until NPCs are in. If that took a gazillion years that means a gazillion years of updates and support for PZ. If you think of all the many many great features that have been added into the game in the past couple of years since NPCs were removed. A lot of them would have made it in anyway, of course, but many of them may not have been.
 
As we say, we don't plan on abandoning PZ at any point in the forseeable future. But the fact still remains, that when NPCs, or Vehicles, or the completed map, go into the game, the longer they took, and the more delays and frustrations they had in getting here, they WILL go in. And if they take a long time: The game they will be dropped into will end up better, more feature rich and deep because of it. All the while having the entire Indie Stone dev team dedicated to the game with zero distractions.
 
So yeah. Brain dump, but its a point of view I wanted to share with you all. hope you don't hate us for dreaming of new adventures at some point in the future.

The Vector2 class isn't exposed to Lua at the moment.  I'll change it so it is.

Thanks - solved with the new function "getUrlInputStream()".

Awesome! I'll test this tonight when I'm off work!

New version, 32.2!
 
Added sidetable loot table for bedroom: it can spawn electronics stuff Spawn some electronics scrap in shed/garage Fixed memory sandbox options for zombies Fixed cognition sandbox options for zombies (yes, they can open doors now ) Game will now consider that's there a lot of zombies for looting if you have no zombies in sandbox (to help testing) Tutorial: Your player will respawn as a zombie way faster Fixed placing some trap won't make them explode Added tooltip for trap which say that you can throw them Lowered the zombies in the opening Hours challenge (still heavy challenging, but should be less laggy) Bit balanced the flame trap and molotov (should be more effective) Fixed security holes in a few Lua input/output methods. (Issue #001340) Added getUrlInputStream() for blindcoder. (Issue #001682) Fixed toxic buildup from indoor generator not respecting FPS setting. Missed part of getInetSocketAddress() fix. Exception handling around MapCollisionData/ZombiePopulationManager stuff to stop server dying. Fixed unkillable / unshovable zombies. (Issue #001686) Fixed Broken Baseball Bat stacking with unbroken Baseball Bat. (Issue #00168 Force the player awake if she takes fire damage while sleeping. (Issue #001684) Fixed getInetSocketAddress() server crash. (Issue #001675) Fixed wrong VirtualZombiePool being used from the main thread in 2 places. Fixed engineer / electrician descriptions in other languages. (Issue #001683)

Check this tracker entry
 
http://theindiestone.com/forums/index.php/tracker/issue-1682-

I just want all other modders to know that I am working (for the last 2 months)
on my Server-Mod for "Zeeks Apocalypse Roleplay-Server".
 
The mod was installed yesterday, so it is still "in progress"
and right now tested by our player-community.
 
At the moment there are certain parts included:
 
Autoupdater:
- automaticaly checks for version of the mod on the server and downloads new versions.
- at the moment not working bugfree: after instaling, the game freezez, but the second time you can login without any errors.
 
Strangers:
- That's the interesting part for the players.
- When you meet a player the first time he is named "Stranger #" on screen.
- You can rename him to any name you want and after this your given name is shown on screen (for you)
- Also the chatbox shows the name "Stranger #" or "Voice #" if you did not meet him yet.
 
Some admin-stuff:
- Corpse will disappear after a cerain amount of time (no results yet) - (in future version perhaps there will spawn new zombies instead)
- some information for us admins, like some statistics
- Error-uploader, so i get feedback about stack-traces in player-consoles.
 
There are some more things planned, but they will need some more time.
 
If you want to test the mod, then join our server:
http://zeeksapocalypse.boards.net/
 
Special thanks to Blindcoder for his support in all my questions concerning mods, functions, ...
 
Edit:
I was asked about a public release of my mod.
I will post a public-version here on tis-forum, so other modders
can have a look on the code learn and copy parts of it.
But because it was a lot of time I spent in programming this mod for our roleplay-server
and the time to update it constantly, I would not like any admin to use this mod
on his server without permission.

Yeah, i have written (or still programm) the mod on zeeks apocalypse Roleplay-Server.
At the moment I am quite busy, but we can have a talk at least.