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Haylo survivors.

41.73 STABLE

We have the next patch to the stable branch primed and ready to go, however an issue that our fantastic Unstable beta testers have flagged is keeping it held in its pen for a little longer.

 

Players reported that some houses they’d cleared were spawning zeds upon booting up the new build, which alerted us to a snag in our map export process not dealing with map boundaries changing with map expansions. All previous map expansions came along with forced save incompatibility so this crept through unnoticed until now.

 

While it’s an aggravation rather than a save-breaker, we didn’t want to send a build with a known issue out to the masses – and have spent the last few days setting up a fix. This will need some testing, after which we’ll be looking to pump out the latest version next week.

If you’re interested in the changelist, or want to jump in to try it out, then you can find the unstable release notes for 41.72 and 41.73 behind the hotlinks.

 

42 CONTENT

One of the focus points of Build 42 is on extended survival in the months and years beyond the initial Knox Event outbreak.

For this, we are revamping our crafting system – and Turbo’s role has been in laying new foundations for a set-up that allows for: crafted items that have more RPG-like variable attributes based on the crafter’s skill, stats of input items that are reflected in the attributes of a final output item, and the ability of the game itself to recognise all these different attributes when an item is being passed between all of its various different locations and systems.

 

The next stage of this work, meanwhile, has been in taking this same sort of mentality to the liquids in the game – and also making them ever more interesting in our new crafting set-up.

 

WET STUFF

Let’s start with a video, and then move into some explanation.

 

 

 

So what exactly does this mean for the water, paint, gas, alcohol, washing detergent and bleach of the Knox Event?

Essentially all fluids will be defined and stored in a global registry, which is where we as devs can add new vanilla liquids – but also will make the system very moddable.

 

Each definition will store basic info such as ID, name, colour etc – then has different categories it can belong to like Beverage, Alcoholic, Fuel, Flammable and such. Beyond that we also tie in properties per litre of this particular fluid: for example Carbs, Proteins, Alcohol percentage or Energy if it’s a flammable fuel.

 

Liquids that are hazardous or poisonous can also have modifiers that configure the maximum poison effect, and how the effect behaves when mixed.

 

So yes, we’re going to have the most realistic bleach-drinking ever seen in gaming.

 

CONTAINERS

fluids_b.png

Containers are the coding class that actually store the fluids, and are the way in which the game code interacts with the above definitions.

Inventory items, objects found in the world and vehicles will all have a fluid container – which will allow them to store and use the liquids/fuels/whatever that they contain. Each container also has information stored with it that shows what particular fluids have been mixed in, and their content percentages relative to each other.

 

The system calculates and caches the summary of all the containing fluids properties based on their percentages. So, if you add 80% Soda and 20% pure alcohol the mixture fluid in the container will have 80% of the soda’s carbs, proteins etc and 20% alcohol. Then, when transferred again, the right ratios will still be maintained.

 

USAGE

Finally, we hear you cry, cocktail mixing will be a part of the apocalypse!

 

Yes, but also consider the applications this will bring to post-apocalyptic crafting – as well as to more basic stuff like mixing paints to create different colours, providing different fuels and different ways to tamper with said fuels.

 

Certain versions of our planned workstations, say one for brewing, could have one or more ‘fluidcontainers’ attached – while also allowing other ingredients as item inputs. Likewise we can have recipes that require more precise mixing and concentrations should we desire it.

fluids_c.png

The system does retain some control over your George’s Marvellous Medicine creations. We can put limits around what can, and cannot, be mixed – however we’re not 100% on how many limitations we will put on things right now. This will probably come through testing later down the line.

 

Unrestricted mixing would mean, for example, that any Fluid can be mixed with Fuel, which would mean that the energy value property per litre would go down when mixed, and that anything using the fuel such as a car or generator would have its operation and potential damage governed by the sort of fuel that had been put in.

 

The ability to recognise tampered fuel, poison etc. would (as usual) be gated behind the game’s professions – so a mechanic might smell something suspicious with watered down gas, or a chef might spot something odd with a mild concentration of something nasty in a bottle of juice.

 

When it comes to poisonous liquids, each has a maximum effect (mild, medium, severe, deadly etc) and control parameters such as a minimum volume and mix ratio. So, if a poison has max effect ‘deadly’ and the minimum amount required for death is 200ml – and you have 100ml mixed into a bottle – then the final effect when drinking will most likely be a medium poisoning.

 

The new system will also add new depth to such things as filling up a vehicle with gas, or siphoning gas from a car’s tank – but we’ll also retain the game’s current quick context options like “fill bottle from tap” to keep things speedy.

 

HUTCHES

Domestic and wild animals, albeit with fairly basic AI brains, will also be a part of Build 42 – and we have already shown our cows, sheep and deer. A fairly realistic take on poultry-keeping will also be part of this.

 

Please note the following UI is super WIP! We may well end up with icons instead of the 3D chickens.

image-34-1.png

Based on our own experiences with keeping chickens – if you have a henhouse you will have to close its door every night after your brood have gone in to roost. Otherwise there’s a very real chance of Fantastic Mister Fox paying a visit and stealing a few, and potentially leave others dead in their pen.

 

You’d be advised not to forget to let your hens back out in the morning either – for fear of them losing their condition, and adding to the mess in the henhouse that will need cleaning out.

 

Hens will also enter the nesting boxes within the henhouse to lay their eggs, and from which you’ll have to collect the eggs on a regular basis – if you haven’t collected recently then hens will choose to lay outside in their pen instead, where there’s an added risk of them being eaten by wild animals or going bad.

 

OTHER STUFF

While we’re going in DEEP (as is generally our way) on stuff like the above – Build 42 will also feature all manner of other improvements to the game engine, MP systems and general zombie survival and early game stuff too. So don’t fret too much if aspects of the above don’t exactly match your own play-style.

 

It should also be said that it’s still some ways off – partly because of dev illness (and recovery!) that we’ve discussed before, and partly because a proportion of the team are still maintaining and improving Build 41.

 

From now on you’ll likely notice the changelist of 41 patches shrink a little, as team members are taken off 41 and plugged into work on features within the 42 matrix.

 

JOB AD AGAIN

We are back on the hunt for an Animations Engineer / Technical Wizard  – most likely someone from the AAA game development space who has pines for joining a close-knit team of indie devs. If this is you, or someone you know, then our job page lives here!

 

This week’s forlorn firemen from OtakuYazawa. A changelist of all our pre-release and post-release patches since the 41 beta began can be found here. The Centralized Block of Italicised Text would like to direct your attention to the PZ Wiki should you feel like editing or amending something, and the PZ Mailing List that can send you update notifications once builds get released. We also live on Twitter right here! Our Discord is open for chat and hijinks too. Experienced games dev and want to work with us? Details here.

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A very interesting blog.
But while I personally don't really understand why you are messing with liquids so much.
Maybe when I can use this mechanic, I'll be able to evaluate.
I'm really looking forward to the appearance of animals in the game, it should change the game a lot.

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I know I'm starting to sound like a broken record at this point, but if you're gonna do such a deep and complex liquid system (which I am very much eager to get), please, allow us to store gas on the metal drums; storing large amounts of fuel is still very annoying as of right now.

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The liquid system is amazing but that way to manage the coop is disappointing, I would've expected a real place to build with carpentry and see your chicken in it, making their nests etc not some kind of item you place and manage with a window, I understand that it's wayyy easier to code it this way but it looks more like a mod than what you guys could make.

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5 hours ago, Axezombie said:

The liquid system is amazing but that way to manage the coop is disappointing, I would've expected a real place to build with carpentry and see your chicken in it, making their nests etc not some kind of item you place and manage with a window, I understand that it's wayyy easier to code it this way but it looks more like a mod than what you guys could make.

 

Maybe this is an initial model, and the end version will be more complex.  If nothing else, I'll bet the modding community will come up with something closer to what you have in mind ... 

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The liquid system sounds neat, but I could see it creating a bunch of unanticipated weird results that could be wildly unrealistic.  Not saying it's a bad idea, but strikes me as something to be cautious about maybe.  I think the main reason I like this game so much is that if *feels* realistic in so many ways, which is pretty rare.  

 

For example, I'm initially skeptical about the idea of watered down gasoline working AT ALL in combustion engines.  Admittedly I haven't done the research, but that just sounds off to me somehow.  Open to correction, of course ...

 

Also, I hope they keep a simple and quick UI option to just "click and fill" bottles and containers ... I can see it getting tiresome to have to use a complex fluid interface every time you want to just top off your water bottle.  

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19 hours ago, Bullet_Magnate said:

 

Maybe this is an initial model, and the end version will be more complex.  If nothing else, I'll bet the modding community will come up with something closer to what you have in mind ... 

I hope you're right but I don't think they wasted time coding something they'll replace entirely after. I don't think modders could do better, we're not just talking about some graphics here to change or new actions to add, it's about the animal's IA and to assign them to go to a building (more specifically, a room) when night is coming, I'm not a modder but I don't see how they could make it. Anyway, what they made does the job but I expected more from TIS.

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19 hours ago, Bullet_Magnate said:

The liquid system sounds neat, but I could see it creating a bunch of unanticipated weird results that could be wildly unrealistic.  Not saying it's a bad idea, but strikes me as something to be cautious about maybe.  I think the main reason I like this game so much is that if *feels* realistic in so many ways, which is pretty rare.  

 

For example, I'm initially skeptical about the idea of watered down gasoline working AT ALL in combustion engines.  Admittedly I haven't done the research, but that just sounds off to me somehow.  Open to correction, of course ...

 

Also, I hope they keep a simple and quick UI option to just "click and fill" bottles and containers ... I can see it getting tiresome to have to use a complex fluid interface every time you want to just top off your water bottle.  

The ways I can see major use in being able to mix liquids is
mixed energy drinks to help fight off over exhaustion and sleep

Mixing flammable liquids for making Molotovs

and most importantly using bleach, Clorine or other cleaning agents to sterilize water to make it safe for drinking and to sterilize bandages + clean wounds 

 

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Hello,


I don't post here very often, but i felt like I would this time, raising my concerns


I've been playing project zomboid for... years, i think i played it since 0.1.3a, since your very first releases, and since, played every single one of them. I'm a big fan and even an old internal beta tester. Never missed any blogposts, I've always loved and admiring the work at TIS, and I think this is the very first time i'm concerned about the directions you choose to take.


Today I felt very... confused. While reading today's blogpost I kept saying to myself... "Yeah... but why?" about the liquid management.

While there might be a need for a liquids management I must not considering, I really don't think you need to take it this far ? transfering liquids was very fine the way it was. Why would you even need to take it to the milimeter graduation ? that's insane x)

And I also don't get why you feel like adding another ui window just for that purpose?

 

Many of the new players I'm trying to initiate at project zomboid are always sooo confused about the UI interface. That mostly why 80% of them quit the game without venturing further. There's so much UI windows, so much different ways to interact with things, people gets irritated about it. And honestly, we can't blame them : a game that need a tutorial about how use their interface is a good indicator on how difficult it is to interact with it.

I personally don't have trouble interacting with stuff, but i think it's because i've been discovering everything as it was added at the same time the game developped new things.


There's so much stuff to be done, so much stuff to improve (the UI would be a great start) i'm really wondering why and how you choose to work on new systems like this.

At this point of the game growing at it is, with so many player coming in, and TIS being so community friendly over the years, i'm even surprised there's not thread or regular poll on what the team should do, or aleast to know what people would think or like from what idea you guys have and what you do next. (I don't talk about roadmap, i hate roadmaps) ( also i know there's the suggestion forums, but i'm thinking more something on the front page, like blogposts)

You could have feedback and ideas without even going too deep in a system that can take weeks to develop and most people won't even use (or worse, quitting the game cuz facing the tiredness clickling on things, closings, and opening windows everywhere everytime every actions) which would you allow to redirect your devs toward something more useful/wanted or take it to a simplier level

 

Don't take it too bad, but I feel like something there's a lot of things that has been done, way too complicated, way too deeply and not very useful (i'm thinking for example, at all the radio systems that i never used and never saw any use this far, over the years. And I recall seeing alot of blogposts about it, I felt like it took some much time on the dev team) I'm not saying they shouldn't be in the game at all, but maybe it wasn't the time for or not a this level of detail.


Like I said, I love this game, and love the team and I know as a developper that sometimes we need suggestions and feedback to get new perspectives

 

Keep up the good work !

 

Edited by FlashFire
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I keep thinking about the new system for working with liquids.
And that's what I came up with.
I've been playing on public servers in PZ for a while.
And it seems to me that with the advent of the mechanics of mixing liquids on public servers, a large number of players will appear who will run around the cards and add bleach to every drink they edible.
How to avoid this? Don't know.

Edited by mimo_za
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On 7/23/2022 at 4:05 PM, FlashFire said:

Hello,


I don't post here very often, but i felt like I would this time, raising my concerns


I've been playing project zomboid for... years, i think i played it since 0.1.3a, since your very first releases, and since, played every single one of them. I'm a big fan and even an old internal beta tester. Never missed any blogposts, I've always loved and admiring the work at TIS, and I think this is the very first time i'm concerned about the directions you choose to take.


Today I felt very... confused. While reading today's blogpost I kept saying to myself... "Yeah... but why?" about the liquid management.

While there might be a need for a liquids management I must not considering, I really don't think you need to take it this far ? transfering liquids was very fine the way it was. Why would you even need to take it to the milimeter graduation ? that's insane x)

And I also don't get why you feel like adding another ui window just for that purpose?

 

Many of the new players I'm trying to initiate at project zomboid are always sooo confused about the UI interface. That mostly why 80% of them quit the game without venturing further. There's so much UI windows, so much different ways to interact with things, people gets irritated about it. And honestly, we can't blame them : a game that need a tutorial about how use their interface is a good indicator on how difficult it is to interact with it.

I personally don't have trouble interacting with stuff, but i think it's because i've been discovering everything as it was added at the same time the game developped new things.


There's so much stuff to be done, so much stuff to improve (the UI would be a great start) i'm really wondering why and how you choose to work on new systems like this.

At this point of the game growing at it is, with so many player coming in, and TIS being so community friendly over the years, i'm even surprised there's not thread or regular poll on what the team should do, or aleast to know what people would think or like from what idea you guys have and what you do next. (I don't talk about roadmap, i hate roadmaps) ( also i know there's the suggestion forums, but i'm thinking more something on the front page, like blogposts)

You could have feedback and ideas without even going too deep in a system that can take weeks to develop and most people won't even use (or worse, quitting the game cuz facing the tiredness clickling on things, closings, and opening windows everywhere everytime every actions) which would you allow to redirect your devs toward something more useful/wanted or take it to a simplier level

 

Don't take it too bad, but I feel like something there's a lot of things that has been done, way too complicated, way too deeply and not very useful (i'm thinking for example, at all the radio systems that i never used and never saw any use this far, over the years. And I recall seeing alot of blogposts about it, I felt like it took some much time on the dev team) I'm not saying they shouldn't be in the game at all, but maybe it wasn't the time for or not a this level of detail.


Like I said, I love this game, and love the team and I know as a developper that sometimes we need suggestions and feedback to get new perspectives

 

Keep up the good work !

 

 

If you think PZ UI is complicated, you havent tried EVE online :) PZ UI doesnt feel very comfortable to use, but its certainly not hard to understand, how someone can be daunted by it is beyond me...

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11 hours ago, Toshis said:

If you think PZ UI is complicated, you havent tried EVE online :) PZ UI doesnt feel very comfortable to use, but its certainly not hard to understand, how someone can be daunted by it is beyond me...

If it's even worse somewhere, it doesn't mean that don't have to try to do better.

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Quote

If it's even worse somewhere, it doesn't mean that don't have to try to do better.

 

Yeah I agree with Vek. It's not because there's worse out there than we shouldn't get a better ui ? I don't get why you bring another game into the argument.

 

And IT IS complicated for most people which tries out the game today. It's a real feedback I got from over 14 people I've tried to get into the game and they ARE regular gamers, not just any randoms.

Edited by FlashFire
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All PZ's UI is is Windows Explorer. It's really not that complicated.

 

And this just seems like an utterly unnecessary angle of attack given that it's a window for the transfer of liquids and another for viewing chicken in a coop.

 

Well there's no attack here, so I believe we're good :)

 

If you feel that way, that's nice. I felt that way too. It when others, new players, pointed out for me that I realised there's a ton of actions you can do a lot of differents ways. Same for the amount of windows you can display at the same time whereas it should maybe for more concise or organised in the same windows. Sometime for people it's complicated to find the right window for the right action because there's so much of them. And now, you're adding another two.

Edited by FlashFire
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On 7/25/2022 at 7:19 PM, EnigmaGrey said:

All PZ's UI is is Windows Explorer. It's really not that complicated.

 

And this just seems like an utterly unnecessary angle of attack given that it's a window for the transfer of liquids and another for viewing chicken in a coop.

 

On 7/25/2022 at 7:39 PM, FlashFire said:

 

Well there's no attack here, so I believe we're good :)

 

If you feel that way, that's nice. I felt that way too. It when others, new players, pointed out for me that I realised there's a ton of actions you can do a lot of differents ways. Same for the amount of windows you can display at the same time whereas it should maybe for more concise or organised in the same windows. Sometime for people it's complicated to find the right window for the right action because there's so much of them. And now, you're adding another two.

Yea people are in general talking about the general UI.

 

But scroll up and they do complain about the new UI screen for the chicken and liquid too, and yea it is utterly unnecessary angle of attack given that it's just a UI window. Most actions in the game you can do in multiple ways. Like you can walk up to a door or window and press a key or hold a key to interact with it. But also got the option for a list of action done with UI elements and not key binds. I sometimes brake windows with my melee weapon instead of asking the UI to do it. Why do I need to click in the UI for that? Chickens surely are going to be a real thing you walk into and see. You can for years now go into a chicken coop and look around. Even jump the chick coop 'window'. 

 

I really think the UI we got right now is really fitting. It maybe is not flashy and maybe look dated? But I mean I like it being transparent and dark. It fist the 1993 feel and it works really well and makes you mess with items giving Z's a chance. It is partly clunky on purpose. Since it gives you the basic UI to do allot of stuff. The game is 2.5D. Common players have to accept the excel inventory if they play something more like a hardcore Sims1/2. And Sims 1/2 where quite a survival to being with! Upgrading the shower gave you such a time saver that you where able to gain the extra skill in Logic etc etc.

 

Bad shower = The grave, no promotion to the top without a good shower/bath in Sims2 anyways :lol:

 

The UI is good enough in PZ. 'Transfer Fluids' UI box looks like modded Minecraft to be honest. Just without the ugly looking gray background. So what?

But the defaults new and current players are stuck with is more likely the core problem with the UI. They can go in to settings and change it. But most people do not even think to look into it.

 

1440p monitor. 32inch. I really like to enable big icons. And I'm the type that try my best to hide UI's. But even with good eye sight it is so fiddley trying to deal with the default settings. And there are allot of actions that takes allot of unnecessary time and clicking around to complete.

 

You like to drop the bag you are holding in your hand? Are you completely defenseless to a Z or want to have your hand empty to take out a bat without the weight killing you fighting the Z? Yea first move mouse, click this, find the bag that might be in a stack, click that sort button to get it on top since you can not find the black bag hidden in the sea of black background. Then left click. Then right click *drop*. Or something. I do not know this is why after learning to play it is fine but trying to learn the UI to the point of having fun in the game is not very *fun*.

 

Even now you got bag icons that can just have dropped the bag with one move of the mouse and left clicked the icon. But no no no! No tutorial about anything like that either. Or how important sleep and weight is in fighting Z's! 

 

UI in general is really good and I like it to stay. Such a big part of what makes PZ so good is the actions you can do in a game that is basically Sims1 but with Z's. Even modern Sims have not managed to get much future then Sims2 of interactions or even gameplay.

 

Unless angry poos and taking to someone sitting on a chair is deemed ground braking? I mean give EA credit making Sims be able to pee on the ground on command like a animal 2022. Such advancements in a kid rated game! Eating everything and pissing the carpets! Meanwhile a Zombie game has problems having car doors animate. And a UI that is not limiting and under development?

 

Give and take problems. Try and pick the ones that might be solved and not the ones you pay for in DLC's etc.   

Edited by Turbo50
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