41.54 [MOD] Are We There Yet? - A "navigation" mod

[zakarum]

 

You woke up. Zombies are outside. The apocalypse is here. Wait - where is "here", exactly?

The purpose of this mod is to help with navigation. Currently in the vanilla game there are a few road signs near a few localities but they are easy to miss - and you get no help if that happens. If you forget your spawn city, or if you spawn in a trailer park, chances are you have no idea where you are. Veteran players will have an easier time but I still find myself getting lost. Without a "whole game world map" map mod, the best way to navigate is to use the Project Zomboid Map Project - very useful, but can spoil natural discovery, and is currently a bit outdated. Using a minimap or GPS mod can also be "vanilla unfriendly" so I made this mod.

 

Currently, not a lot!  Quite a bit, actually. What this mod adds is a small, "current location" indicator in the screen. It appears and disappears when pressing the 'F8' key and it shows where you are, if it's one of the currently supported locations. And now it has pretty and immersive graphics! The current version, however, only natively supports 1920x1080 - anything else and you will see just a road sign with no text. This is a known issue, trying to figure out how to fix it. Meanwhile you can read the FAQ to learn how to try and fix the resolution problem to your specific resolution.

This is what the mod looks like in-game as of version 0.2. I'm assuming you passed through a few road signs on your way here and still remember where you are, right?

 

The mod supports all vanilla locations (except stuff that's meant to be hidden and farmlands), as well as all paved roads. Sand and gravel roads are not supported (intended). All roads have names - meaning you can know where you are better. Crossroads usually have signs like the picture above, indicating the rough direction of points of interest. If you don't know what direction you are facing in-game, I recommend using a Compass Mod. 

 

The above map is a EZ Country Map with crudely painted roads to show the roads layout. You can click it to make it bigger.

 

There's also some supported mods - meaning they add new locations in the map and they will be named in the game. The currently supported mods are:

• Fort Redstone
• Fort Knox (huge work - 99% of the streets have names. Localities also have names, so you know if you are in a theater or barracks)
• West Point Expansion (Name in the game is West Point - Salt Ridge)
• Snake's Mods
  • South Muldraugh Factory - known in-game for lore reasons as Brandenburg Control Point - Factory
  • Riverside Gunstore - known in-game for lore reasons as South Riverside
  • Military Complex
  • All 3 locations of "Pimp My Ride" (aka Taller Mecanico) - they are known in game as Snake's Auto Garage

 

 

The "current location" indicator will show "outskirts" for any non-defined areas. If you are deep in the forest or that farm upstate, or if you are in a city from a (unsupported) map mod, you will have no clue where you are.

 

 

Using a heavily modified (read: my code is spaghetti) Coordinate Viewer and Horizon Clock lua code (all credit to RoboMat & Turbotutone (& Mist) & Thuztor) I define areas based on X and Y coordinates. Once you step inside one of pre-defined area "squares" (sometimes rectangles) your location is updated and shown. If you step out, you are back in the "outskirts". Areas are usually a bit bigger than their built area and usually encompass a bit of the highway/local road, so the player has a better idea when to turn and enter the city or what place they are approaching.

 

 

The mod is currently somewhat visual - there's a sign in the bottom left of your screen. I would like to improve that, adding different graphics that change depending on the type of road you are (such as highway, road, street). Before this, however, I need to figure out to make everything re-sizable and not use different "functions" to draw text and image.

Something else that would be nice is figuring out how to use the game "zones" in this mod - so if you are deep in the forest, it would tell you. If you are in the rural lands, it would tell you. It could also mean making things more "dynamic" so we could have "Riverside (Industrial)" as a region and add dynamic, generic support for map mods.

No one really asked me anything, just trying to anticipate questions here.

 

• Q: Any known conflicts?  A: Not that I know of. It might conflict with any mod that uses Coordinate Viewer/Horizon Clock code but I'm not sure. Tried my best to differentiate so they wouldn't clash, but I'm shit at Lua. Needs testing.

 

• Q: How did you decide on the names for the roads/streets? A: I use the names of real roads and streets in the region, as well as highways. As the map isn't a perfect reproduction of the current Knox county, sometimes roads don't exactly match their IRL counterparts.

 

• Q: Help, I can see the sign but not any text! A: There's 2 known reasons for this - either you are playing in a resolution different than 1920x1080 or you pressed F8, disabled the sign and reactivated again. If the problem is the latter, in that case, pressing F8 a few more times will solve it - eventually text and image will be back. If the problem is the former (non 1080p resolutions)  then the only solution is going to the AWTY.lua file and changing the values in SCREEN_X and SCREEN_Y until the text appears in the game. Sorry, it's a bother, but I don't know how to fix it and I'm still working on a solution.

 

• Q: Does this mod support MP/Split-screen Co-op? A: Likely no. I don't know how to add support to either. Sorry. 

 

• Q: Are you adding this to the Steam Workshop? A: Not in a million years. I own the game on GoG, not on Steam. I don't have access there and I'm forced to pirate mods from Steam.

 

• Q: Can I use this in my mod? A: Yes! Feel free to. Just remember to credit RoboMat & Turbotutone & Thuztor too, since I'm mostly basing my code on theirs. And me.

 

• Q: Can I add this mid-game? A: Yep, should be safe to add and/or remove mid game.

 

• Q: How to disable the "current location" indicator? A: Press F8 on your keyboard. Pressing F8 again will show the current location again. Note this is a bit buggy in the current (0.2) version for reasons so you might need to press it some 3 times for everything to reappear. 

 

• Q: How to install this mod? A: Unpack the AWTY folder in your [your OS drive letter]:\Users\[yourusernamehere]\Zomboid\mods 

 

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk. If you know Lua and can help me improve my code, feel free to post it here. Hope this helps somebody!

Non-forums Download:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/i7vb02rveo0axbs/AWTY v0.2.7z?dl=0

 

 

AWTY v0.2.7z

Edited September 30, 2021 by zakarum
Added a dropbox link.

[zakarum]

Updated post and new version. Still trying to figure out how to make the text resizable as the graphics are and trying to figure out how to add support for localization. For now, the mod only works for 1920x1080p - it can work for other resolutions, but needs some adjustments in that case.

[zakarum]

Still no close to solving issues with resizing. Though if you play in the 2560x1440 resolution, here's a file that will work for you.
Just download the AWTY file and replace the one you have in 
Zomboid\mods\AWTY\media\lua\client

With the newly downloaded one.

AWTY.lua