Ello survivor. Come in, take a seat.


We just released a huge patch for the public build – bringing Build 38 up to 38.28. This not only marks the entrance of our new internal automated build process, but is also an extensive clear-out of nagging issues that have crept into the game in recent times.

You can find the full changelist here. Much of it is necessary ‘tidy up’ work – but you might also notice improvements with alarms and clocks, fixed stash map issues, a volume option for fly buzz, that annoying ‘add spice’ recipe bug gone, corpses no longer remaining highlighted and the sad end of the ‘infinite ice cream bug’.

There’s a lot more than that though, so check out the patch notes if you’re a PZ regular. Many thanks to Tim for all his hard work on this.


This morning we booted Vehicle Build 26 out onto our public vehicles beta (details on how to access found here). There are two primary aspects of this version – the first being some general optimization improvement. Following on from this, most likely in the next build, we will also have ChrisW’s work on increasing FPS (quite dramatically, when compared to current versions) when in towns and around tall buildings – and likely some java garbage collection optimization too that’ll further limit occasional stuttering.

The other main addition, meanwhile, is a more authentic and aesthetic dashboard constructed by RJ and our artist Mash. Up until now the vehicle read-outs have looked like this:


https://projectzomboid.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/old-dash-300x48.jpg

And with Vehicles Build 26 they now live in a dashboard that looks like this:


https://projectzomboid.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/dash-solo-300x76.png

We’ve also done this to fit in with the general ‘the player sees what the character’ sees mantra of PZ – so if there’s a general issue with the engine you’ll see it through a dashboard warning light, just as you would in real life. You’ll only be able to truly get to grips with it however, and analyse the issue, if you have the necessary Mechanic skills. Here’s a general vid showing how it all works:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzpGqFN4kac

Elsewhere Yuri is doing a large-ish chunk of work on how we synchronise objects over the PZ map, which will also hopefully provide some performance benefits for vehicles, and we also have Bitbaboon Steve on-hand to hopefully chase down the map streaming optimization/fix we mentioned last week.

The plan is, once the newly patched Build 38 is clearly stable, to officially make our vehicles beta known as Build 39 and move it into our traditional ‘unstable version’ IWBUMS position.

Amidst all the general vehicles work we also anticipate some new rural map areas to be added to this, the (boring but essential) lwjgl3 java upgrade currently being implemented by Stas from General Arcade and many/varied gameplay nips and tucks from Connall the curator of the community suggestion list.

Beyond that Martin, Bitbaboon Mark and others continue to work on stuff for Build 40+: our larger workforce these days allowing for a far greater degree of rolling development.


We love so many of the mods and maps created for Project Zomboid, but the moving story behind New Denver and its creator XeonyX (told here) has always made the New Denver mapstand out for us – just as much as its size and authenticity to a real world location.

As such, we’re super-pleased to direct you towards its latest (and final) big town expansion – that of Silverton which lies to the south of New Denver itself. Thank you very much Jamie, and we do hope that you’re doing well.


https://projectzomboid.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/silverton.png

This week’s imperilled survivor from FACAG@MES on your Steam service. A general list of stuff added to PZ, and vids of features being worked on, is kept here – so you don’t have to plough through endless dev blogs for info. 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 blogs like this and patch notes direct to your mailbox. We also live on Twitter right here! Our Discord is open for chat and hijinks too.

Ello survivor. Come in, take a seat.


We just released a huge patch for the public build – bringing Build 38 up to 38.28. This not only marks the entrance of our new internal automated build process, but is also an extensive clear-out of nagging issues that have crept into the game in recent times.

You can find the full changelist here. Much of it is necessary ‘tidy up’ work – but you might also notice improvements with alarms and clocks, fixed stash map issues, a volume option for fly buzz, that annoying ‘add spice’ recipe bug gone, corpses no longer remaining highlighted and the sad end of the ‘infinite ice cream bug’.

There’s a lot more than that though, so check out the patch notes if you’re a PZ regular. Many thanks to Tim for all his hard work on this.


This morning we booted Vehicle Build 26 out onto our public vehicles beta (details on how to access found here). There are two primary aspects of this version – the first being some general optimization improvement. Following on from this, most likely in the next build, we will also have ChrisW’s work on increasing FPS (quite dramatically, when compared to current versions) when in towns and around tall buildings – and likely some java garbage collection optimization too that’ll further limit occasional stuttering.

The other main addition, meanwhile, is a more authentic and aesthetic dashboard constructed by RJ and our artist Mash. Up until now the vehicle read-outs have looked like this:


https://projectzomboid.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/old-dash-300x48.jpg

And with Vehicles Build 26 they now live in a dashboard that looks like this:


https://projectzomboid.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/dash-solo-300x76.png

We’ve also done this to fit in with the general ‘the player sees what the character’ sees mantra of PZ – so if there’s a general issue with the engine you’ll see it through a dashboard warning light, just as you would in real life. You’ll only be able to truly get to grips with it however, and analyse the issue, if you have the necessary Mechanic skills. Here’s a general vid showing how it all works:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzpGqFN4kac

Elsewhere Yuri is doing a large-ish chunk of work on how we synchronise objects over the PZ map, which will also hopefully provide some performance benefits for vehicles, and we also have Bitbaboon Steve on-hand to hopefully chase down the map streaming optimization/fix we mentioned last week.

The plan is, once the newly patched Build 38 is clearly stable, to officially make our vehicles beta known as Build 39 and move it into our traditional ‘unstable version’ IWBUMS position.

Amidst all the general vehicles work we also anticipate some new rural map areas to be added to this, the (boring but essential) lwjgl3 java upgrade currently being implemented by Stas from General Arcade and many/varied gameplay nips and tucks from Connall the curator of the community suggestion list.

Beyond that Martin, Bitbaboon Mark and others continue to work on stuff for Build 40+: our larger workforce these days allowing for a far greater degree of rolling development.


We love so many of the mods and maps created for Project Zomboid, but the moving story behind New Denver and its creator XeonyX (told here) has always made the New Denver mapstand out for us – just as much as its size and authenticity to a real world location.

As such, we’re super-pleased to direct you towards its latest (and final) big town expansion – that of Silverton which lies to the south of New Denver itself. Thank you very much Jamie, and we do hope that you’re doing well.


https://projectzomboid.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/silverton.png

This week’s imperilled survivor from FACAG@MES on your Steam service. A general list of stuff added to PZ, and vids of features being worked on, is kept here – so you don’t have to plough through endless dev blogs for info. 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 blogs like this and patch notes direct to your mailbox. We also live on Twitter right here! Our Discord is open for chat and hijinks too.

Vehicle Build 25 (aka 39.25) got a release yesterday. Added in Build 25 were the new Mechanic profession and related traits, random highway wreck collisions, Mechanic XP gains through car tinkering and a lot of general optimization in terms of UI, net code and traffic congestion spawns. Today RJ also released a hotfix to reduce zed attraction to car noise, tie engine sound to RPM rather than speed and remove collisions with small items.

It’s all shaping up quite nicely in terms of the general handling/feel of what we want – but also highlights that we need to get back on top of the performance and garbage collection issues that have crept back in over recent builds. So, next up, Yuri will be optimizing the java garbage collection to address the stutter that some people are reporting – while resident artist Mash is also hard at work creating ‘damaged’ sprites for some aspects of road furniture for the next coder task.

Right now static object collisions are improved in that you can’t drive through solid street furniture – which perhaps makes sense for street lights and concrete walls, but less so for household mail boxes and traffic cones. As such we’ve gone through the various things that players are likely to collide with while driving – and working out what should remain impervious, what should look damaged but remain impassable after a collision (as below with the unhappy post boxes) and what should be smashed/crushed when hit at speed (as below with the even more unhappy household mail boxes).

In this way driving will feel that little bit more realistic, and an extra feeling of lasting change to the map will also be added to your survival run.





Meanwhile, Mission: Optimization continues. As discussed last week ChrisW is playing around with what PZ draws – hiding all squares behind solid walls from the game’s rendering system, and thereby freeing up your processor. Our chosen FPS hot spot was the four level flats in March Ridge which pre-optimization was coming in at 26 fps on ChrisW’s system, but is now coming in at 41 fps on an internal test build– which is a significant improvement.

Next on the list for Chris, then, is in optimizing the code so that it also brings benefits to general play – ensuring that the new background calculations themselves don’t clog up any performance gains. Bitbaboon Steve, meanwhile, continues to spotlight other areas for improvement.

In other technical areas of the game, meanwhile, we’re happy to have beckoned General Arcade’s Stas back into the fold – who will initially be finishing off our java upgrade from lwjgl2 to lwjgl3. This will open up a bunch of necessary day-to-day improvements for the game – better support for different resolutions, dpi awareness, neater alt-tabbing and general smoother operation.

Finally, last night’s Community Megatest for the IWBUMS Build 38 patch had to be put back a bit due to various serverside issues we’re still trying to get to the bottom of. Keep an eye out on the forums for more information on when the test will be once we’ve gotten to the bottom of it. We’ll be handing out PZ Steam codes for family and friends to some of the people who help out, so please do pop along. Thanks!

Today’s featured image from Jodidosciervos of Steam parish. A general list of stuff added to PZ, and vids of features being worked on, is kept here – so you don’t have to plough through endless dev blogs for info. 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 blogs like this and patch notes direct to your mailbox. We also live on Twitter right here! Our Discord is open for chat and hijinks too. Ooh and check out Texas956’s AWESOME TileZed buildings!

Vehicle Build 25 (aka 39.25) got a release yesterday. Added in Build 25 were the new Mechanic profession and related traits, random highway wreck collisions, Mechanic XP gains through car tinkering and a lot of general optimization in terms of UI, net code and traffic congestion spawns. Today RJ also released a hotfix to reduce zed attraction to car noise, tie engine sound to RPM rather than speed and remove collisions with small items.

It’s all shaping up quite nicely in terms of the general handling/feel of what we want – but also highlights that we need to get back on top of the performance and garbage collection issues that have crept back in over recent builds. So, next up, Yuri will be optimizing the java garbage collection to address the stutter that some people are reporting – while resident artist Mash is also hard at work creating ‘damaged’ sprites for some aspects of road furniture for the next coder task.

Right now static object collisions are improved in that you can’t drive through solid street furniture – which perhaps makes sense for street lights and concrete walls, but less so for household mail boxes and traffic cones. As such we’ve gone through the various things that players are likely to collide with while driving – and working out what should remain impervious, what should look damaged but remain impassable after a collision (as below with the unhappy post boxes) and what should be smashed/crushed when hit at speed (as below with the even more unhappy household mail boxes).

In this way driving will feel that little bit more realistic, and an extra feeling of lasting change to the map will also be added to your survival run.





Meanwhile, Mission: Optimization continues. As discussed last week ChrisW is playing around with what PZ draws – hiding all squares behind solid walls from the game’s rendering system, and thereby freeing up your processor. Our chosen FPS hot spot was the four level flats in March Ridge which pre-optimization was coming in at 26 fps on ChrisW’s system, but is now coming in at 41 fps on an internal test build– which is a significant improvement.

Next on the list for Chris, then, is in optimizing the code so that it also brings benefits to general play – ensuring that the new background calculations themselves don’t clog up any performance gains. Bitbaboon Steve, meanwhile, continues to spotlight other areas for improvement.

In other technical areas of the game, meanwhile, we’re happy to have beckoned General Arcade’s Stas back into the fold – who will initially be finishing off our java upgrade from lwjgl2 to lwjgl3. This will open up a bunch of necessary day-to-day improvements for the game – better support for different resolutions, dpi awareness, neater alt-tabbing and general smoother operation.

Finally, last night’s Community Megatest for the IWBUMS Build 38 patch had to be put back a bit due to various serverside issues we’re still trying to get to the bottom of. Keep an eye out on the forums for more information on when the test will be once we’ve gotten to the bottom of it. We’ll be handing out PZ Steam codes for family and friends to some of the people who help out, so please do pop along. Thanks!

Today’s featured image from Jodidosciervos of Steam parish. A general list of stuff added to PZ, and vids of features being worked on, is kept here – so you don’t have to plough through endless dev blogs for info. 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 blogs like this and patch notes direct to your mailbox. We also live on Twitter right here! Our Discord is open for chat and hijinks too. Ooh and check out Texas956’s AWESOME TileZed buildings!

 

Thursday: it’s back. Back from the dead. Back with the zeds.

RJ and Yuri have been hard at work on Vehicles Build 25 – much of which has involved scrubbing up and polishing features added over the past few iterations. So you can expect optimization, UI improvements and general groundwork for the final ‘top down diagram’ vehicle UI screen – while Yuri is currently cracking down on a rogue memory leak and various aspects of non-syncing on MP servers.

Also in Vehicles Build 39.25 will come the end of drive-through streetlights and road furniture…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20Y6blvqeDc

We’ve also added in the ‘random spawn’ car/wreck collisions on the Exclusion Zone’s roads to accompany the ‘lore’ wreck congestion , some new wreck models and map fixes – and have balanced a lot of aspects of the new Mechanic skills/profession and related car parts. We anticipate starting work on a better ‘dashboard’ UI once vehicles build 25 is out.


One of the biggest issues with the current Vehicles build is that driving through built-up areas results in performance hiccups – the game is being forced to draw too many tiles, too quickly. Currently, however, PZ draws *everything* – even when the player character can’t see it.

Stuff on higher floors, stuff in buildings you have no line of sight into and everywhere with doors and windows shut – it’s all being conjured up needlessly and chewing up unnecessary processor power. Enter stage left, then, our good friend Chris Wood.

“I’m culling squares inside the levels of buildings that are covered by the floors and walls so we don’t draw them”, he explains. “This is being done very simply, using building bounding rectangles that can hide about 20% of the scene in busy areas with lots of buildings, and thereby reducing what’s rendered by 20%. This does, however, leave window interiors looking a bit strange – as in these screenshots ”





“My current task is to make this work more intelligently: by hiding all squares behind solid walls and floors by projecting back onto them. This will hopefully draw even less, as it won’t draw anything when a square is totally hidden – including the ground behind buildings. It won’t have the same visual artefacts and it’ll hide more squares.”

“The idea is that by the time I’ll have finished it will all look identical to the current public build – but behind the scenes it’ll be drawing a lot fewer tiles which will make a huge difference to performance since tile drawing is the biggest bottleneck in the game.”

On top of this we’re talking to General Arcade about picking up the reins on our LWJGL upgrade, which will also have optimization benefits, and have best friend genius BitBaboon Steve prodding a vehicles memory issue that will hopefully help out people with slower systems. So, all in all, performance improvement should be on the way.


Everything seems in place for a public release of the Build 38 megapatch that we’ve been building up over the last few weeks, but we want to be sure it’s run through enough of your machines – and specifically on online servers – before release.

As such we’ll be running a Community Megatest in the coming days on a fresh server, and as ever there’ll be free PZ codes for a bunch of the people who turn up to help out.

We’ve just released IWBUMS 38.26  which is the build the server will be running on. Details on how to access the IWBUMS public beta can be found here, and info on the event itself will appear on the TIS forum over the next few days.

This week’s well-kept safehouse from RyuVladimir over on Steam. A general list of stuff added to PZ, and vids of features being worked on, is kept here – so you don’t have to plough through endless dev blogs for info. 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 blogs like this and patch notes direct to your mailbox. We also live on Twitter right here! Our Discord is open for chat and hijinks too.

 

Thursday: it’s back. Back from the dead. Back with the zeds.

RJ and Yuri have been hard at work on Vehicles Build 25 – much of which has involved scrubbing up and polishing features added over the past few iterations. So you can expect optimization, UI improvements and general groundwork for the final ‘top down diagram’ vehicle UI screen – while Yuri is currently cracking down on a rogue memory leak and various aspects of non-syncing on MP servers.

Also in Vehicles Build 39.25 will come the end of drive-through streetlights and road furniture…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20Y6blvqeDc

We’ve also added in the ‘random spawn’ car/wreck collisions on the Exclusion Zone’s roads to accompany the ‘lore’ wreck congestion , some new wreck models and map fixes – and have balanced a lot of aspects of the new Mechanic skills/profession and related car parts. We anticipate starting work on a better ‘dashboard’ UI once vehicles build 25 is out.


One of the biggest issues with the current Vehicles build is that driving through built-up areas results in performance hiccups – the game is being forced to draw too many tiles, too quickly. Currently, however, PZ draws *everything* – even when the player character can’t see it.

Stuff on higher floors, stuff in buildings you have no line of sight into and everywhere with doors and windows shut – it’s all being conjured up needlessly and chewing up unnecessary processor power. Enter stage left, then, our good friend Chris Wood.

“I’m culling squares inside the levels of buildings that are covered by the floors and walls so we don’t draw them”, he explains. “This is being done very simply, using building bounding rectangles that can hide about 20% of the scene in busy areas with lots of buildings, and thereby reducing what’s rendered by 20%. This does, however, leave window interiors looking a bit strange – as in these screenshots ”





“My current task is to make this work more intelligently: by hiding all squares behind solid walls and floors by projecting back onto them. This will hopefully draw even less, as it won’t draw anything when a square is totally hidden – including the ground behind buildings. It won’t have the same visual artefacts and it’ll hide more squares.”

“The idea is that by the time I’ll have finished it will all look identical to the current public build – but behind the scenes it’ll be drawing a lot fewer tiles which will make a huge difference to performance since tile drawing is the biggest bottleneck in the game.”

On top of this we’re talking to General Arcade about picking up the reins on our LWJGL upgrade, which will also have optimization benefits, and have best friend genius BitBaboon Steve prodding a vehicles memory issue that will hopefully help out people with slower systems. So, all in all, performance improvement should be on the way.


Everything seems in place for a public release of the Build 38 megapatch that we’ve been building up over the last few weeks, but we want to be sure it’s run through enough of your machines – and specifically on online servers – before release.

As such we’ll be running a Community Megatest in the coming days on a fresh server, and as ever there’ll be free PZ codes for a bunch of the people who turn up to help out.

We’ve just released IWBUMS 38.26  which is the build the server will be running on. Details on how to access the IWBUMS public beta can be found here, and info on the event itself will appear on the TIS forum over the next few days.

This week’s well-kept safehouse from RyuVladimir over on Steam. A general list of stuff added to PZ, and vids of features being worked on, is kept here – so you don’t have to plough through endless dev blogs for info. 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 blogs like this and patch notes direct to your mailbox. We also live on Twitter right here! Our Discord is open for chat and hijinks too.

Today we’re dropping a Build 38 patch (38.24) into testing that’s full to the brim of fixes that follows on from Monday’s 38.23. Our current course is to pack as much in there as possible and make sure it’s all working correctly so we can minimise disruption to MP servers upon public release.

Vehicle Build 24 is planned for release tomorrow. As well as fixing up some load errors this adds in differing engine volume stats for each vehicle (actual sounds to follow), adds in missing parking zones for the vehicle-free parts of the map (Rosewood, March Ridge, Dixie etc) and introduces the canonical in-game brands for vehicle type.

Build 24 will also be reintegrating the car wrecks we had in earlier vehicle builds with a better zonal spawning system. The plan is that we’ll have certain ‘lore’ traffic build ups on the edges of the map where survivors suffering from the first wave of the infection tried to get out of the Exclusion Zone prior to their zombification – which in terms of gameplay will also help us flag where the edge of the map will be when you’re out motoring. Elsewhere, meanwhile, there’ll be smaller pile-ups and abandoned cars that’ll spawn differently for each new game you play.

There’ll also be improved vehicle placement spawn (rich homesteads will have nicer cars), better terms for the different car parts you can tinker with if you play as a Mechanic and hopefully a fix for the several players who were experiencing an irl game crash after in-game one.

Build 24 will also introduce suspension and a tangible differences in vehicle control when you go off-road – dependent on the sort of car you drive, and the suspension condition hidden within it. You can see this in the following video, though as ever please be aware that this is its first iteration and we’re aware that the low condition suspension in the second half of the clip looks like it’s out of an old rap video and needs toning down:

https://youtu.be/IsKY8VE-ssM

In terms of the next vehicles build Yuri is currently integrating Mash’s damage textures into the game – which will add variety, and also visual clues into a vehicle’s general condition. Here’s a few vids showing how they’re currently looking on the mean streets of Muldraugh. Please note, however, that Project Zomboid cars will not be chameleons – and the colour changing is just an example of the governing code we’ve got going.

https://youtu.be/qlOw8KPROeo

https://youtu.be/al6mGoryxcI

Finally here’s a quick vid showing aspects of all of the above, couple with some improved ‘line of sight’ mechanics that fit in better with the way PZ works – although we’ll be wanting feedback as to how much testers get on with it. Again, the vehicle spawn-rate here is from a debug mode.

https://youtu.be/iUhbQkvhFbk

Once 38 is fully patched (and we’ve also finished current tasks to make the dedicated server build work with our fancy new internal automated build processes) then we’ll be promoting the Vehicles build up the beta branches and into our accustomed IWBUMS beta slot as Build 39.

It’s been said before, but just so everyone’s on the same page – in the background to all this Bitbaboon Mark has the new animation code working with the vehicle branch on a toggle, so it can soon be present in a deactivated state throughout the rest of vehicle development.

This will ensure that we can start ‘turning on’ the various anims features so it all gets integrated as soon and as well as possible for the builds that follow vehicles. This will also make development of different concurrent builds backstage a lot easier in the mean-time, as well as maintaining test branches when they become needed.

This week’s zombie hooligans from Ziron360. A general list of stuff added to PZ, and vids of features being worked on, is kept here – so you don’t have to plough through endless dev blogs for info. 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 blogs like this and patch notes direct to your mailbox. We also live on Twitter right here! Our Discord is open for chat and hijinks too.

Today we’re dropping a Build 38 patch (38.24) into testing that’s full to the brim of fixes that follows on from Monday’s 38.23. Our current course is to pack as much in there as possible and make sure it’s all working correctly so we can minimise disruption to MP servers upon public release.

Vehicle Build 24 is planned for release tomorrow. As well as fixing up some load errors this adds in differing engine volume stats for each vehicle (actual sounds to follow), adds in missing parking zones for the vehicle-free parts of the map (Rosewood, March Ridge, Dixie etc) and introduces the canonical in-game brands for vehicle type.

Build 24 will also be reintegrating the car wrecks we had in earlier vehicle builds with a better zonal spawning system. The plan is that we’ll have certain ‘lore’ traffic build ups on the edges of the map where survivors suffering from the first wave of the infection tried to get out of the Exclusion Zone prior to their zombification – which in terms of gameplay will also help us flag where the edge of the map will be when you’re out motoring. Elsewhere, meanwhile, there’ll be smaller pile-ups and abandoned cars that’ll spawn differently for each new game you play.

There’ll also be improved vehicle placement spawn (rich homesteads will have nicer cars), better terms for the different car parts you can tinker with if you play as a Mechanic and hopefully a fix for the several players who were experiencing an irl game crash after in-game one.

Build 24 will also introduce suspension and a tangible differences in vehicle control when you go off-road – dependent on the sort of car you drive, and the suspension condition hidden within it. You can see this in the following video, though as ever please be aware that this is its first iteration and we’re aware that the low condition suspension in the second half of the clip looks like it’s out of an old rap video and needs toning down:

https://youtu.be/IsKY8VE-ssM

In terms of the next vehicles build Yuri is currently integrating Mash’s damage textures into the game – which will add variety, and also visual clues into a vehicle’s general condition. Here’s a few vids showing how they’re currently looking on the mean streets of Muldraugh. Please note, however, that Project Zomboid cars will not be chameleons – and the colour changing is just an example of the governing code we’ve got going.

https://youtu.be/qlOw8KPROeo

https://youtu.be/al6mGoryxcI

Finally here’s a quick vid showing aspects of all of the above, couple with some improved ‘line of sight’ mechanics that fit in better with the way PZ works – although we’ll be wanting feedback as to how much testers get on with it. Again, the vehicle spawn-rate here is from a debug mode.

https://youtu.be/iUhbQkvhFbk

Once 38 is fully patched (and we’ve also finished current tasks to make the dedicated server build work with our fancy new internal automated build processes) then we’ll be promoting the Vehicles build up the beta branches and into our accustomed IWBUMS beta slot as Build 39.

It’s been said before, but just so everyone’s on the same page – in the background to all this Bitbaboon Mark has the new animation code working with the vehicle branch on a toggle, so it can soon be present in a deactivated state throughout the rest of vehicle development.

This will ensure that we can start ‘turning on’ the various anims features so it all gets integrated as soon and as well as possible for the builds that follow vehicles. This will also make development of different concurrent builds backstage a lot easier in the mean-time, as well as maintaining test branches when they become needed.

This week’s zombie hooligans from Ziron360. A general list of stuff added to PZ, and vids of features being worked on, is kept here – so you don’t have to plough through endless dev blogs for info. 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 blogs like this and patch notes direct to your mailbox. We also live on Twitter right here! Our Discord is open for chat and hijinks too.

We’ve just released Vehicles Build 22 into the vehicles Steam beta (details for accessing found here), details of which can be found below.

We are also currently working on a final patch for our public version 38 of the main build (much of which is also in the new vehicles build) which we’ll release once we’re sure everything is operating and stable. At this point we’ll also release on GOG, as we’ll know save games will be safe.

Blindcoder, Zomboid friend and champion to all, has also updated the official PZ map with Riverside, the Knox Heights Country Club and its surrounding roads and wilderness.

So if you want to check it out, and maybe find some new places to explore and hold out, you’ll find it right here. Also, if you have any new favourite places to call home in the new map then why not share your location in this thread?



Vehicles Build 22

First off, due to the sheer amount of stuff in Vehicles Build 22 there is a chance that existing Vehicles build saves will break. We’d encourage you to start a new game, but if you have a longstanding character then we have also provided the previous Vehicles Build 21 on a separate Steam beta branch so you can continue your game without issues. It can be accessed through the beta tab and is called ‘previousvehicle’.

Please note that the new Vehicles Build 22 release is more WIP than others that we’ve released, as we need player feedback during its construction. Please be patient if you discover unexpected irritation.

Full patch notes and release thread here. Please note that amidst the bug fixes is, hopefully, a remedy for non-synced car loot and associated co-op issues.

New Stuff

• New cars models including a Taxi and an SUV – and extra versions of small and modern cars. Or at least ‘modern’ for 1993.
• Horn and Siren system. Check the vehicle menu while inside the car. Press “V” (vehicle menu key) or right click on a vehicle to add or siphon gas. Cars can be refuelled at gas stations.
• Keys are now needed to open trunk.
• The game now spawns cars coloured by game code rather than textures – adding variety.
• The Normal Car model can now have damage textures. When we have tested them out in-game we will create them for all vehicles.

WIP Stuff

A new Vehicle Mechanics UI can now be accessed. Right click a vehicle and select “[WIP] Mechanics” or when directly inside the vehicle with the vehicle menu (“V” key). The system should operate much like the existing player health panel.

• Select vehicle parts to see information about them.
• Right click a part to see if it can be removed or installed.
• Parts can be repaired from your inventory although not everything can be fixed.
• Different car parts like tires, gas tanks, trunk and brake systems.
• Low condition brakes will reduce your brake force.
• Low condition gas tanks can leak fuel.
• A car trunk that’s been crumpled in a collision will have reduced capacity and may drop items stored in it onto the ground when in motion.
• Car parts and vehicles themselves are categorised as ‘standard’, ‘heavy-duty’ and ‘sports’. Only matching car parts can be used in relevant vehicles. [This may change in later builds should player have high skills, be prepared to lose condition with a car part in an inappropriate vehicle etc]
• New Sandbox options: CarDamageOnImpact: Governs how much damage a vehicle will take after collisions. CarGeneralCondition: Governs what condition cars can have on spawn – whether very low or very high.

PLEASE NOTE: this is an early iteration of this system. Not everything affects gameplay. The vehicle diagram is placeholder. Scripting is currently unfinished. The Mechanic skill/profession isn’t done – so highest level abilities are unlocked. Contents may have settled during shipping etc

Today’s featured image from DadAhead on Steamsies. A general list of stuff added to PZ, and vids of features being worked on, is kept here – so you don’t have to plough through endless dev blogs for info. 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 blogs like this and patch notes direct to your mailbox. We also live on Twitter right here! Our Discord is open for chat and hijinks too.

We’ve just released Vehicles Build 22 into the vehicles Steam beta (details for accessing found here), details of which can be found below.

We are also currently working on a final patch for our public version 38 of the main build (much of which is also in the new vehicles build) which we’ll release once we’re sure everything is operating and stable. At this point we’ll also release on GOG, as we’ll know save games will be safe.

Blindcoder, Zomboid friend and champion to all, has also updated the official PZ map with Riverside, the Knox Heights Country Club and its surrounding roads and wilderness.

So if you want to check it out, and maybe find some new places to explore and hold out, you’ll find it right here. Also, if you have any new favourite places to call home in the new map then why not share your location in this thread?



Vehicles Build 22

First off, due to the sheer amount of stuff in Vehicles Build 22 there is a chance that existing Vehicles build saves will break. We’d encourage you to start a new game, but if you have a longstanding character then we have also provided the previous Vehicles Build 21 on a separate Steam beta branch so you can continue your game without issues. It can be accessed through the beta tab and is called ‘previousvehicle’.

Please note that the new Vehicles Build 22 release is more WIP than others that we’ve released, as we need player feedback during its construction. Please be patient if you discover unexpected irritation.

Full patch notes and release thread here. Please note that amidst the bug fixes is, hopefully, a remedy for non-synced car loot and associated co-op issues.

New Stuff

• New cars models including a Taxi and an SUV – and extra versions of small and modern cars. Or at least ‘modern’ for 1993.
• Horn and Siren system. Check the vehicle menu while inside the car. Press “V” (vehicle menu key) or right click on a vehicle to add or siphon gas. Cars can be refuelled at gas stations.
• Keys are now needed to open trunk.
• The game now spawns cars coloured by game code rather than textures – adding variety.
• The Normal Car model can now have damage textures. When we have tested them out in-game we will create them for all vehicles.

WIP Stuff

A new Vehicle Mechanics UI can now be accessed. Right click a vehicle and select “[WIP] Mechanics” or when directly inside the vehicle with the vehicle menu (“V” key). The system should operate much like the existing player health panel.

• Select vehicle parts to see information about them.
• Right click a part to see if it can be removed or installed.
• Parts can be repaired from your inventory although not everything can be fixed.
• Different car parts like tires, gas tanks, trunk and brake systems.
• Low condition brakes will reduce your brake force.
• Low condition gas tanks can leak fuel.
• A car trunk that’s been crumpled in a collision will have reduced capacity and may drop items stored in it onto the ground when in motion.
• Car parts and vehicles themselves are categorised as ‘standard’, ‘heavy-duty’ and ‘sports’. Only matching car parts can be used in relevant vehicles. [This may change in later builds should player have high skills, be prepared to lose condition with a car part in an inappropriate vehicle etc]
• New Sandbox options: CarDamageOnImpact: Governs how much damage a vehicle will take after collisions. CarGeneralCondition: Governs what condition cars can have on spawn – whether very low or very high.

PLEASE NOTE: this is an early iteration of this system. Not everything affects gameplay. The vehicle diagram is placeholder. Scripting is currently unfinished. The Mechanic skill/profession isn’t done – so highest level abilities are unlocked. Contents may have settled during shipping etc

Today’s featured image from DadAhead on Steamsies. A general list of stuff added to PZ, and vids of features being worked on, is kept here – so you don’t have to plough through endless dev blogs for info. 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 blogs like this and patch notes direct to your mailbox. We also live on Twitter right here! Our Discord is open for chat and hijinks too.