I know there has been much radio silence since my last news post. The truth is, I've been somewhat busy adding in new weapons and features related to them. Even at this point I still do not have a solid list of how many new weapons will be in 1.07, but my guess is that it's going to take up all of February, and if I'm behind schedule, possibly even early March.
With all that said, even after adding in weapons there is still quite a bit of work to do, namely with adding them into the new random weapons system. Thankfully, this randomized system I've been using at least since the prototype 1.07 builds is very modular compared to manually adding each weapon individually to a character in the game. I have also figured out how to fix NPCs that spawn without any weapons, by giving them something guaranteed to spawn in their inventory at 1% condition, this gives them at least something to fight you with.
But I haven't focused only on weapons, I've also merged in a faction change feature from the start of the game, so that the player will be able to skip the bullshit of the missions and play how they want from a different perspective. Some mods add dedicated traders to hostile factions like bandits, mercs, and monolith, but I will add no such luxuries. Besides, they possibly take all.spawn editing, which I'm holding off until after 1.07 is out.
No, if you play as Bandit, Merc, or Monolith in 1.07 you will have to make do with what resources you can find, and make up your own rules. And for god sakes get the night star before you join a faction so you'll have a place to put your stuff.
Another thing that the faction change script typically does in most of the mods its in is give the player a rifle and all the gear they need right away. Being the typical sadistic dev I am, I am not giving the player such luxurious goods, instead, they simply get a pistol from that faction, (for bandits, Obrez counts as a pistol.) For Monolith, no extra pistols at all, only 4 F1 grenades to be used judiciously along with the player's knife for procurement of enemy weapons.
I don't think this is too harsh, I've come to expect people who play this mod to be smart enough to adapt to the circumstances of their surroundings, and come out of it for the better.
Then there is the last issue to contend with, hosting. The reason why 1.06 was split up into various parts was not just because I was slowly developing it, it's that lately, this mod is now too big to host as a single file, on ModDB at least.
Patch 1.07 will not be patch, it will be a full version of the mod released. This is because I lost track of stuff I added and I am now going to pay for it by having to find a goddamn host for this clusterfuck.
In fact, the last time I measured its file size, it rounded out at something around 6GB, and since adding several new weapons, and with stated projections in place, it could be substantially larger than that. So what I'm looking for here, at least from some suggestions from my player base is to find a new host for the mod in its entirety. I could try splitting it up, but I already know the problems of that. So I need a primary place for hosting 1.07 as a full mod, a mirror(s) for it, and a possible torrent backup, (in fact I may use this last portion for dev builds after 1.07 is out, which means a less-stable rolling release of new content that people can download and test.) What this means is that it may be possible for people to be playing stuff immediately after the post-1.07 big-merge occurs.
Oh, and I haven't forgotten about my old concepts, new maps, characters, and quests but all that stuff is slated for after the big merge, (which is after 1.07 is out.) And I still have no clue how I am going to do most of this stuff.
By the way, I got the forums up and running now.
Moddb.com
6Gb's? OMFG, now thats a clusterfuck, indeed... How much stuff did you put there?? :D
Just for comparison, MISERY mod for stalker takes about 2,5 GB's only...
To be fair, there is lots of stuff that is unused, things like old copies of textures, and basically re-textured stuff for almost everything in the game.
Lots of meshes too, because of the whole mag system, and weapon sound files, most of which not even used.
The mod is VERY unoptimized at this point.
I was discussing a Victoria 2 mod the other day and someone put it aptly: PDM (a mod) used to be great until it caught the plague of "You know what this needs? More features"
Be wary of taking on too many things at once, after all it's just you and us to beta test it. Seeing the detectors released and then later on balanced is more important to me than a few UI, new weapons, new features.
I'm worried about this myself, it's why I'm doing my best to not rush things at the moment.
I always planned on adding detectors in this release, and balancing them later, mainly because in this release you'll only get 1 type of detector that works for just about everything.
I just hope you won't put these new weapons everywhere. I mean, keep it balanced, the weapons that are common IRL should be most common in the Zone, AKs etc. not like in other mods where it's more likely to find AUG or F2000 than AKM.
Oh no, don't worry about that, I am adding weapons onto the random spawns in a progressive scale, it won't be like some OL-based mods where the spawns are completely random and ruin the sense of game progression.
The hobo phase won't also be limited to what types of weapons spawn on NPCs, as people who've been playing proto-1.07 know by now, condition of weapons found on enemies progressively changes over the course of the game.
Also, weapons that would less-commonly be found in the zone will be less-likely to spawn on NPCs, things like the AN-94 and HK416 will be rare drops compared to the number of AK variants and M4s you would find on the NPCs that carry them.
You could always set up an SVN or simply do updates with magnet URIs if releasing the mod is that big of an issue.
I haven't used subversion in a while, but this is a good idea, same with using magnet urls. Probably more so for development builds, since I want to use continually-updated test builds for people that want to try out new features, even if it compromises some stability.
Anyways, I'll deal.
When can i start freeplaying? Do i have to complete the game first or can i start from the beginning? I bought freedom exoskeleton for 25 000RU which is really cheap, an SVD cost 100 000RU. All in all, great mod!
In 1.06b/proto-1.07 there is only the AMK version of freeplay, which starts when you beat the game.
In the next patch there is faction change, (which isn't really the same type of freeplay in Xiani's or Doom's mod, but you can basically ignore the main quests and do things on your own.)
I'll be making changes to things like artifact recipes too, so that even if you are hostile to characters in possession of recipes, you can obtain the info from killing them.
hi,great mod,i realy like it and it looks very stable , one question - when i play with "Proto 1.07 compilation" as the last patch then military in cordon at the bridge blockpost and at the main blockpost have ak rifles ,when i patched with this "ZoA random weapons v6" the military in cordon near the bridge have only pistols and i didnt check whole military brigade at main blockpost but 4 of them had only pistols , i looked in "ZoA random weapons v6" gamedata /config /gameplay /military /character_military_cordon_p and i found that its only "wpn_mp444_sk1" weapon they have and i think its pistol :), if everything should be like this and you wanted that way and its not something wrong with my game,take to consideration that soldiers at military outposts in real life in exsoviet union have rifles at they disposal,usual police force have only pistols but in cordon its very few soldiers so its better if they have rifles or they become easy target and that is unfair ;), military should be force respected and feared and any posible contack with them should be avoided by anyone at the zone becouse of they fire power, military training and experience in warfare,but if they only equipped with pistols that means they aren't what they should be :) p.s. waiting for 1.07 ;), good luck