Happy December Thursdoid, and a big hello to all the new survivors whove jumped on board in recent weeks. This week well be doing a quick check-in with the various different departments who are at work on Build 42 and providing a little freeze-frame of exactly whats being worked on. First though, we would be remiss if we didnt inform all fans of raccoons, soft toys and both of these things that: the Makeship campaign for the Spiffo plush has been EXTENDED for a full extra week due to everyone getting all excited about it. If you are interested in sliding under a closing door then reaching back for your fluffy Spiffo, like Indiana Jones, then final orders can be made here: https://shop.makeship.com/3FHlgG8
Okay, so lets go round the Zomboid houses. Starting with the sound team?

SOUND DEPARTMENT

Formosa (formerly Noiseworks) have a lot of different things on the brew work on new music and music systems, all the new actions and items for B42 (switchblade, firecracker etc) and clearly all the animal stuff which theyll be starting on in due course. Something else they are starting work on, however, are acted character noises pants and puffs recorded by real life actors to add a little more depth and feeling to the game, not to mention a greater feeling of real when you are standing next to a character who has exerted themselves or is being injured in MP. This will likely be an option you can turn off if you find it intrusive, but the Sound team believe they will provide an extra layer of immersion for Knox Event survivors. The sorts of things theyll be recording will be: effort noises for window and fence climbs, sleeping noises, pain noises when bitten or scratched, vomiting, sneezing coughing etc.

ANIMS DEPARTMENT

As those who read this blog might recall, weve been screaming out for a big brain to come in and lend their clever thoughts to some of the movement bugs and issues in our anims system for a while. Previous attempts to find a Chosen One didnt work out, and as such since the 41 release weve had a significant blocker in terms of improving our animation system and our animation tools. There has been significant rejoicing, then, that our friends at Ever Curious Entertainment have lent us their own big brain Steve North who has been deep in AnimZed of late, and should be providing a range of changes and improvements that will help out our animator Martin no end. In terms of a player-facing end result, this means that in B42 hopefully therell be better blends between anims to tighten everything up and make things look smoother. It could also, potentially, improve the responsiveness of controls and give gameplay a slightly tighter feeling. Well see how it goes when the fixes go in.

FIRE DEPARTMENT

Work on integration of the previously in-dev fire system continues, this week with the introduction of new mechanics like burnable oily surfaces and development of fire spread in save games and MP code. We are also experimenting with visuals in that a more pixelated fire looks better in-game, and also will be having a VFX artist joining us for a time in January to further improve its appearance in our isometric illustrate-y looking world. Its already looking a smidge better though. [previewyoutube=YE_OsmMyxfI;full][/previewyoutube]

MAPPING DEPARTMENT

Lots of fun new locations appearing from Xeonyx and Ayrton in the map channel, including this little doozy
Over to RJ, resident of a country doomed to failure in a World Cup football match this coming Saturday. Right now Im prepping my stuff so it can be put in front of our testers. Im trying to improve the meta part of the system that governs them when youre not in their direct presence primarily how the feeding trough and water troughs are managed while youre away. Thats my main focus at the moment but also need to add some polish to the genetics when animals breed, and Ill be moving onto animal sickness soon also. Now onto Turbo, a resident of a country who will most likely be getting spanked by Argentina at the moment this blog goes live at some point this evening. Im getting stuff ready so that other team members can jump into the more stable parts of my craft branch and help expand it, and plug stuff in. First, though, Im going back over my crafting stations, and doing some refactoring in essence adding a lot more automation to the way the system works in the code. It should be worth the extra thought thats going into it though, at the bare minimum you should be able to create a new station purely through scripting alone. If a certain station requires it then custom logic or a custom UI panel or element can easily be added it should be as great for modders as much as ourselves.

BLAIR ALGOL DEPARTMENT

If you are/were aware of Blair as a prolific PZ modder, it will come as no surprise that on the team he is a WHIRLWIND of cool ideas and always has multiple gameplay tweaks and features on the go and has struck up an amazing combo team with our Loot Placement Artiste Baph. Heres some fun stuff thats recently gone in for testing from the world of KEYS:

• Zombies will now only have a key, or a key ring with a key in it, for suitable buildings that they spawn in or near to. Prison Guards can have Prison keys, inmates cannot. Employees of a business can have a key for it, customers cannot.
• More keys will spawn in buildings, not just for the building, but also possibly for nearby vehicles. Sometimes those nearby vehicles may also have a key for that building in the glovebox.
• When a vehicle spawns a key (in its glovebox, on a zombie, or on the ground) it has a chance of being accompanied by a key for a nearby building as well.
• Its ensured that only cop zombies get the cop car keys although Survivor zombies could have anything.
• Building keys may well come pre-named according to the sort of building or business they unlock.
• We are doing more fun stuff with Key Rings in general, watch out rabbits!

So in essence: it will be possible for your survivor to find a locked building, find a key for it in the glovebox of a vehicle parked nearby, and then find a key for that vehicle inside that building. The keys may also be on a Lucky Rabbits Foot Keyring. A Lucky Rabbits Foot Keyring may, or may not, have a minimal boost to your Luck. We will never truly let on. Also: new options to let you mix in your runners with your shambles

OTHER DEPARTMENT

Clearly this isnt everything weve also got optimizations, basements and other fun stuff lined up for 42 but theres not a huge amount of news on these beyond its all coming along. Hopefully well have a few more updates on these in our next pre-Xmasdoid. Fanks all love yus x This weeks good use of 41 fire from BoinXaysa. A changelist of all our pre-release and post-release patches since the 41 beta begancan be found here. The Block of Italicised Text would like to direct yourattention to thePZ Wikishould you feel like editing or amending something, and thePZ Mailing Listthat can send you update notifications once builds get released. We also live on Twitterright here! Our Discord is open for chat and hijinks too. Now, the Block of Italicized Text demands: go and buy Dwarf Fortress on Steam! The original, best and most brilliant simulation there is and ever shall be. Its development, and developers, bay12games, are LEGENDARY and built the road that Project Zomboid travels on each and every day. Now DF is finally on Steam, and we implore you all to join in the fun! https://store.steampowered.com/app/975370/Dwarf_Fortress/

[ 2022-12-08 19:33:48 CET ] [ Original post ]