DevBlog #53

This month I worked mainly on finishing the diet system. The stomach grows with the dinosaur and food no longer scales with the stomach. This doesn’t have much impact on smaller animals, but large ones that have quick moments of growth are forced to eat far more often. The combinations for diets were simplified but now they are not dependent on having active slots. The value of a nutrient increases the bonuses proportionally with them to a cap. Salt licks were adjusted to better help with vomit sickness but they also drain a nutrient while using them. Don’t forget to set your active nutrient in the Dinosaur Profile if you want to control which one it is.

The diet and nutrition changes also allowed us to include the eggs in the diet system. Now players can grab eggs from female corpses that had gestated them before dying or steal eggs from the nests. Changes will be made to this in the future to account to specific “Egg Thief” dinosaurs but for now every carnivore can benefit from stealing those nutrient rich eggs from nests

To conclude, some fun things for server owners. A lot more server configs were added to help modify gameplay experiences and admin commands were updated to be faster and more responsive. Mass Migration was also added as a config and more is coming soon with the introduction of “Nesting Patrol Zones” but otherwise the system is done.

See you next time.

I’ve been working on some features you may have already seen for yourself in the horde test. Egg gestation has been added along with some adjustments to the nesting system. This required several changes, as previously you only laid a given number of eggs depending on your diet, but now you can choose how many you want and even lay them at different times. I also added scent support for them since they can now be picked up and eaten.

I also continued my work on the maiasaura. Most abilities were actually quite simple to update to support the bipedal and quadrupedal states but out of all things grazing happened to cause the most problems. I ended up reworking the animation setup for that, but that’s something that had been planned anyway. Maiasaura now moves quite smoothly.

I have been busy working on a new navigation system for fish which can translate for use with swimmers and eventually flyers. I’ve added the fish’s capability to try to chase down and eat smaller players which you may have seen in the hordetest.

With a lot of the back-end systems now completed my focus is AI. The base logic for most animals is completed with some big improvements to navigation and performance. The Pterodactylus and Compsognathus AI has been made using a new system which will allow larger hordes to spawn and interact with the world. Though these are WIP you will still see them showing up around the island. Each animal will get some improvements to their behavior now the foundation for base logic has been tested for performance and reliability.

To close, some new RCON commands have been added for server owners that you can find in provided documentation.

It’s been rigging time, getting ready for the next round of animals to get back on their feet. Kentrosaurus is the first to use our new rig system that we’ll be using from here on out.

As far as animation goes, I’ve been on Maiasaura and Allosaurus lately. Maia never really was a pushover in the old days but it’s got a new trick up its sleeve for Evrima. Best not to make mommy angry.

The Allosaurus is getting new locomotion which is just about done for the adult and I’ll be working on the juvenile locomotion in November.

This month has just been more work on the Maiasaura. Along with polishing the adult calls I’ve also designed a set for its juvenile stage, maintaining the cute burbles and pops consistent from legacy. Additionally, I’ve completed the implementation for the calls, ensuring that the pitch and volume modulation as well as the dynamic mixing of vocal call layers over growth and other variables (such as when it loses its voice) all sound appropriate at every incremental stage.

I’ve also gone through all the adult animations adding in footstep and foley sounds. Taking into account both its bipedal and quadrupedal locomotion meant double the number of places to sync.
I’ve now started working on the vocal sounds for the rest of its animations, starting with its attacks. With varying directional attack animations based on the angle of attack, a few different attack vocals of different lengths are needed, providing a coherent yet natural variability to compliment the variety in the animations.

Hey all! It’ll just be a short one for me on this devblog as QA have been working solely on bug testing both recent additions and some upcoming mechanics. Here are a few of the more interesting issues we encountered over the past month:

As you are all probably aware by now, one of our recent additions was the inclusion of our first ever seasonal content. Of course this came with some interesting bugs, such as being able to court and nest with dead dinosaurs:

Additionally, dead dinosaurs would leave behind some of their belongings if they entered spectator mode:

We’ve been testing out some new Scavenger AI that have proven to be much more performance friendly and reliably spawning on corpses, though have had a plethora of issues in their development. Thankfully, you can expect these issues to be fixed for their release:

Tenontosaurus had a fun gravity defying kick that set people up for combo damage instead of sending them away from a player:

We also found the omniraptor decided it would also be a ghost for a build and disappear whenever it would latch on to a player:

Happy Halloween! October was an interesting month. A lot going on. There’s so many irons in the fire right now. And since I’m tired, I’d prefer to do more showing than telling.

Creature side there’s Tyrannosaurus, Triceratops, Maiasaura, Allosaurus, Austroraptor and soon Kentrosaurus all being worked on in some capacity across varying departments. Their animations are either complete or nearing completion for all but kentrosaurus who is next in line, followed by baryonyx.

The animation team has been doing an excellent job and stood up to the task I placed before them, which was to get the austroraptor animations complete in record time. The animal has land based movement, aquatic movement both above and below the surface of the water, and all that feather work. I am very proud of what we managed to accomplish with such a frankly annoying creature and I’m sure the entire animation team is as relieved to be bringing it to a close as I am.

There are new AI additions coming too. Destined for a life of being fodder for hatchlings and juvenile carnivores, these small animals will be showing up in specific locations and be yet another element we’re incorporating to bring the whole island to life. Grasshoppers, rats, dragonflies, and lizards to name a few.

Elders are looking pretty good. I’ve attached some images of adults and elder comparisons, some of which are already being moved into the game for current playables.

I hope you all enjoyed the Halloween event and continue to have some fun with it. That’s all for this month. The next two months are gonna be here and gone before we know it so we haven’t a moment to spare. Catch you next time.

The Migration Zone testing went well and I’m happy to say the game works with or without the settings enabled, as well as Diets/Buffs, Patrol Zones, and Mutations. Additional configurations were added for server owners to further customize the experience they wish to give players and rebalance settings.

The User-Interface changes are rapidly coming to a close. It took a bit of time to figure out how to properly transition from an old retro style console interface to a sleek design in-game without it becoming jarring but I feel we’ve figured it out. I’ve attached a few previews of the layout approvals of the upcoming UI but the transition sequence is still too rough to display. The VFX of the menus can be toggled off and there will be a small color selection for menu color.

VisualTech48 made some fantastic progress in everyone’s favorite general underground transportation system. Many of you by now have seen the proto-entrances that exist on the island and I’ve attached some images of their upcoming replacement. Someone somewhere is asking about the vending machines and yes, they are temporary stand-ins because you know AE has only the finest liquid provisions to provide to their workers.

Much like the Hubs, there will be a degree of variation among these that can allow various sections to branch off into other rooms, halls, or tunnels, including the elevator shaft. Coming shortly after these major connections are complete will be the destroyed tunnel variants that spill out into caverns and other internal environments.

Certain lighting is temporary as we work on the power system and as always, be nice to the tyrannosaur. They’re just visiting.

Lastly, I’ll just fire off some things going into the next HordeTest with varying degrees of context.

Thermal vents and wind currents! These can affect flying creatures by providing speed boosts and lift and no stamina cost to a player and slowing them if they fly against it. These airways are also customizable and can be set to be active during a specific time of day, if they are immune to or affected by weather states, or if they’re just permanently active. You can expect all those natural thermal vents that are active during the day will go away during heavy rain or storms, as well as varying wind currents that become active at night to help move our flight-capable population around.

I know everyone is excited for the next animal and the Maiasaura will be stomping over that line for testing very soon. It will also be in one of if not the first HordeTest for the next patch.

I don’t have additional information context for these but they’ll be there:
Spawn Codes.
Gastroliths.
Nesting Zones.
Replay Updates and Effects.

Godspeed and see you on The Isle.

– Don