RS 'Still Alive'

[reginald]

Hi, sometimes I play this game with your great mod and I see that in newest versions the setting of maximum amount of reincarnations per game dissapeared. In changelog you said that you removed the setting and defaulted it to be 7 reincarnations per game, but after I died, I got available only one reincarnation ("body 1/2") before it´s final death (game over). Is it bug and if not, is there any way how I can myself change the max. reincarnation limit? Because it´s one of my favorite features in this game.

[MP]

hi reginald. Thanks for your feedback. You're right, it was an oversight to leave the reincarnation's max at 2 when I removed the option. Reincarnation essentially removes any chance of a high score, so perhaps I might as well make it unlimited. Your thoughts on that?

PS. I removed that option and a few others because I have more options planned future releases, and without reworking the menu system I was going to run out of screen space.

[MP]

Release 6-6 is available for download. Mostly tweaks and fixes to round out R6. Now onto R7, which is all about new items, weapons and buildings.

STILL ALIVE 2.4.6.21 (aka Release 6-6, 11/06/2019)
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Features:
-Change appearance of Zombie Master its evolutions, and some weapons and ammo.
-City Info now lists the locations you have tagged, including the colour of each tag.
-Extended range of precision rifles, and other tweaks to weapon damage.
-Added Rapid Fire sound effects for applicable firearms.
-Added sound effects for precision rifle, army rifle, and revolver. Revised pistol SFX.
-Bows skill now includes bonus to explosives damage.
-Added chance to catch on fire when walking through a tile fire.
-Someone rings church bells just before sundown, warning you to find a safe space for the night.
-Human description (mouse hover) now includes how courageous they are.
-Removed weapon jamming.
-Added descriptions for further AI activities.

Fixes:
-Crossbows, hunting rifles and precision rifles can't be used in Rapid Fire mode.
-Enforced animation delay for some important events, even if it is disabled in the options.
-Being on fire actually causes damage to humans now.
-Sounds are stopped when sleeping.
-Corrected confusing range description on ranged weapons.
-Sound effects can now overlap.
-Reduced spikes trap damage.
-Planting seeds is no longer a separate key binding.
-Altered AI behaviour to reduce kiting behaviour when dealing with enemies.
-Human AI no longer needlessly break objects, unless they've gone insane.
-Human AI no longer walking into fires to get at items.
-Tweaked some weapon damage, hit points, and some armors for balance.
-Better formatting of key bindings in tooltips and hints.
-Building barricades and fortifications combined to the same hotkey (B).
-Fixed mixed up key bindings.
-Fixed looping caused by AI trying to use an exit blocked by a friendly actor
-Fixed bugs when AI deciding whether to throw a grenade.
-Fixed conflicting priorities when AI deciding where to sleep.
-Fixed couches weren't suitable for AI sleeping.
-Upped maximum reincarnations from 1 to 7.
-Fixed chance to hit for ranged weapons with a max range of 1.
-Fixed darkness FOV status when using a torch.

Development:
-Added more Activity types.
-Added DEBUGAILOOPING and DEBUGBOTMODE preprocessor directives for debugging AI looping.

Outstanding known issues:
-Occasionally, popups (hints, trades) may not be displayed (the player is still prompted for their interaction).
-Changing districts performance with simulation enabled decays as the game goes on.
-Lacking difficulty options, and the current scoring multipliers are broken. These will be addressed in a future release.
-Music and some sounds are louder than other sounds. They will be normalised in a future release.

[taberone]

why do I die the instant I hit starving (0 hunger)? I couldn't cannibalize any corpses and immediately died upon zero hunger. Also, why do I starve to death in a day when it should be something like 3-4 days in real life?

Also, are "feral dogs" implemented in Still Alive? They exist in actors.csv, but I've never seen them. Cut content restorations would be nice.

Also got a crash: pastebin.com/5VKm4yAp

Is Jason Myers supposed to have infinite health/stamina and be completely passive? His health NEVER goes down, along with his stamina. He also doesn't chase me.

[zaimoni]

The Feral dog content in RS Alpha 9 was decidedly incomplete. I don't have a clear visual on how they were supposed to work.

[taberone]

NPCs threatening me for food should be valid targets. I cannot shoot an NPC telling me to drop food until he's already punched or stabbed me in the face, which is frustrating. Also getting cases of "invincible" special NPCs (Myers and roguedjack). I think their DEF is too high from taking perks after every upgrade or something?

[MP]

Thanks for your feedback, taberone. I'll explain my thinking on the hunger thing.

Previously, when you got to zero hunger each turn would have a random chance of killing you. It was a very minor boon, but imo generating random results just to buy a few extra turns wasn't worth the extra processing it caused in simulating the world each turn.

If we go back a few pages there was a person complaining that there was too much food in the game. Damned if I do, damned if I don't
Personally, I do agree that food scarcity is a problem, particularly after a few days have passed. To cater for both camps I'll be adding at least four difficulty levels. The easier ones will be less likely to lead to starvation, through various means.
It is part of the challenge though, and to give players the opportunity to survive longer I added the ability to plant and harvest vegetables (you need seeds and a shovel). Harvesting has a chance to give up further seeds, so it is possible to get a decent little farm going on within a few days.

I'm toying with the idea of replacing the current unique actors (Duckman, JM, Santa, etc) with a new unique set that better fits the theme. I appreciate the feedback regarding their possible invincibility; I'll look into that for a quick fix in the meantime.
I also plan to finish the implementation of dogs, with a little something extra for them that wasn't in vanilla RS

Thanks for reporting the crash too. It's one that I've fixed in Release 7-1, which will be available by this weekend. It's a bug that exists in vanilla RS, and I posted it up here for those using that code base.

[taberone]

Will cannibalism be possible if hunger is under a certain number, since going to "starving" is instant death? Seems that it's only possible to be a cannibal if you're insane. Also thanks for the quick response!

[MP]

It sounds like a great idea to me. I've never done cannibalism in any of my playthrus so I wasn't aware of that limitation, but I'll definitely make it possible. It might need some balancing though. I'm thinking that you would have to cook it first, or risk becoming sick on the raw meat

[zaimoni]

Aug 21, 2019 23:06:27 GMT MP said:

I'm toying with the idea of replacing the current unique actors (Duckman, JM, Santa, etc) with a new unique set that better fits the theme. I appreciate the feedback regarding their possible invincibility; I'll look into that for a quick fix in the meantime.

Did you import the RS Alpha 10 invincibility until seen feature? (It did not fit with the way I want to take RS Revived, so was one of the won't-migrate features). That sounds like the sighting that cancels invincibility doesn't get processed.

[zaimoni]

Aug 21, 2019 5:12:56 GMT taberone said:

Also, why do I starve to death in a day when it should be something like 3-4 days in real life?

Ahem...we're not tracking thirst explicitly. That should be lethal in ~1 day. In-game food isn't just calories, it's also the water not being explicitly modeled.

Our "main competitor" had a horrible time redoing their hunger mechanic back in June 2019; they didn't take into account that two-thirds of the general U.S. population never experiences proper hunger, so there was no way a medically realistic implementation would "feel right". That forty days or so to critical starvation you read about is for being intentionally sedentary; that's not relevant here.

[taberone]

Not sure what the heck "Invincibility until seen" is, but that's PROBABLY why the Unique Actors are literally unkillable. That should probably be removed.

[MP]

I've included the fixes in this new release.

STILL ALIVE 2.5.0.9 (aka Release 7-1, 26/08/2019)
Download link on the first post of this thread.
SHA256: f02eb8c29d55c7eb1999c643232616e3976000418978ab0a07ae4e2abe2491c7
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Features:
-Added new items: snack bars, binoculars, chainsaws, siphon kits, fire hazard suits, candles, flares, glowsticks and energy drinks.
-Candles, flares and glowsticks to use as light sources.
-Binoculars extend FOV during the day and in fully lit environments.
-Armor now has a fire resistance value.
-By using siphon kits, cars are a source of fuel for flamethrowers [WIP] and chainsaws.
-Fuel cans and fuel pumps [WIP] can be blown up with firearms.
-Increased the size of the police armouries.
-Making molotovs is no longer a separate key; just use liquor bottles like any other item to do so.
-Removed prompt when insanity forces a random action on the player.
-Advisor hints automatically appear rather than prompting the user for display.
-Inspection Mode as keyboard alternative to mouse hover on map cells.
-Removed option to not show corpses in Std game mode.
-Removed the restriction to butcher or revive corpses in Std game mode.

Fixes:
-Halved the number of vegetables that can be stacked in inventory.
-Balanced encumberance (-DEF) values of armor, and some weapon values.
-Fixed crash caused by AI trading forbidden items (especially relevant for bot mode).
-Fixed looping caused by AI excessive use of actions that cost no AP.
-Superimposed image when treading through ponds now has proper opacity.
-Fixed night vision goggles use outside during daytime.
-Fixed crash caused by AI trying to trade cell phones or trackers.
-Various corrections regarding game modes.
-Fix prompts being cleared under incorrect circumstances.
-Starvation was at zero food points. Fixed to be 1/4 food points. [credit to taberone]
-Fixed unique actors invincibility. [credit to taberone & zaimoni]

Development:
-Added flag to differentiate fire as the source of damage to an actor.
-Added flag to track an actor's item usage per turn.
-Added method for throwing items.

[taberone]

Special NPCs like Roguedjack are no longer invincible... Except for Jason Myers? His Health/Stamina still never goes down, even when other survivors are shooting at him or he's sprinting/attacking.

[MP]

That's strange. When I hit him - even just unarmed and no extra skills - it does damage. And his stamina does go down when he attacks. Have you modified the values in <gamedir>\Resources\Data\Actors.csv by any chance?