The Puzzle Update

We needed to make an govt resolution to carry the patch again for a day. Our apologies. Here’s why:

During the primary half of the month I bought married and went on my honeymoon. The different programmers ended up getting occupied with some technical points with upgrading Unity, making an attempt to reap the benefits of some new options to enhance efficiency. When I bought again, the Entity I/O stuff was two weeks behind the place I assumed it might be, so I hunkered down and bought it finished as finest as I might. This meant that the artists had been moreover delayed in deploying it to the monuments, which put us within the place of testing the sport on the final minute. Here’s what I thought of:

First: We labored tirelessly up till the 11th hour since you guys waited a complete month, and I did not assume it might be truthful to launch a patch with nearly nothing in it. We’ve had an excellent observe document thus far with these month-to-month patches, and this was considerably of an exception.

Second: I did not wish to launch it yesterday as a result of it wasn’t examined sufficient and there have been some bugs and stability points. We aren’t making an attempt to gate loot behind these puzzles. They’re supposed so as to add bonus loot.

Third: Due to the character of how monuments work, if we did launch it yesterday we’d have been unable to use any fixes or loot stability modifications with out doing one other wipe, which suggests it might have been in that state for one more month.

Fourth: The unity replace launched a bunch of crashes we have been working working time beyond regulation to resolve.

Taking all of those parts into consideration I made a decision to carry the patch up for a day to permit the group over at Rustafied and our personal inner QA to run by means of every part and ensure it was as stable as might be so we might ship to you guys the expertise you deserve.

We’re introducing development by means of the monuments. Until now, all of the content material you looted in our monuments was available, there was little to none prep-work wanted for a monument run, and also you’d most likely simply run mindlessly by means of it until you bought to a leaping section. Some monuments grew to become more durable final yr with the addition of NPCs. The puzzles add a complete new layer to the sport’s mechanics: they are going to hyperlink monuments collectively right into a coherent path, with rising rewards and problem as you progress by means of a wipe cycle. They are additionally laying the foundations for participant usable electrical energy sooner or later. The puzzles supply an additional layer of loot.

Here’s a listing of the monuments that include puzzles and their relative complexity:

Basic Tier, grants entry to Green Cards:

• Gas Station
• Junkyard
• Lighthouse
• Supermarket

Easy Tier, grants entry to Blue Cards:

• Harbor_1
• Harbor_2
• Satellite Dish
• Sewer Branch

Medium Tier, grants entry to Red and generally different Cards:

• EnergyPlant
• Airfield
• Trainyard
• Water Treatment Plant

Harder Tier, grants entry to Elite crate loot

• Launch Site
• Military Tunnels

The complexity is linked to the tiered map system, the place bigger and extra rewarding monuments had been already situated.

Puzzle Flow

The puzzles will typically begin with you figuring out energy sources, equivalent to mills, and re-establishing the ability move by means of the system. Some work alongside timers, some want the mixed energy from two sources to work. Some buildings will be accessed in several methods, as an example utilizing sliding doorways or key playing cards. In particular instances, it’s possible you’ll end up trapped in a constructing by design till you discover an auxiliary energy supply inside to energy the doorways launch mechanism. When a puzzle has been modified or accomplished, a reset process will set off after a while to refresh all of its parts and respawn loot for brand spanking new gamers to aim it.

Fuses

Fuses are discovered crates on the planet and may at present final 180 seconds when plugged by means of flowing present inside a fuse field. Plan your strikes forward and be environment friendly.

Keycards

Keycards are discovered inside puzzles on prime of particular desks, normally within the ultimate loot room. Key playing cards have 10 makes use of, so in an effort to protect them, all the time make sure you swipe your entry playing cards at powered on card reader terminals. You can also discover Green playing cards on scientists all through the world.

Puzzle Elements Visuals

Just a few of the weather at present releasing this patch, such because the AND/OR/Timer logic gate containers, use short-term artwork which is about to be redone within the subsequent replace. Also to come back is electrical wires on poles, indicating connections between buildings. Wires connecting parts on partitions/ceiling between rooms can even be added to assist understanding the move of a puzzle a bit extra simply.

I labored on an entity I/O system (enter/output) which permits us to have interactive parts in radtowns. So far now we have the next parts for circuits.

Generator

The root of all circuits, generates energy

Switch

Allows passthrough of energy when on.

Timed Switch

Allows passthrough of energy for a set length.

Splitter

Forks an enter sign into three or extra output indicators.

AND/OR Connectors

AND Only permits passthrough of energy if each inputs obtain energy. OR permits passthrough of energy if both enter receives energy (at present the identical mannequin for each).

Card Reader

Allows passthrough of energy as soon as the right card has been swiped.

Wheel Switch

Kinetic generator by way of a participant urgent “Use” on it.

Push Button

Allows passthrough of energy for a couple of seconds.

Vince did an ideal job of mixing all of those parts to create puzzles within the numerous monuments. It actually brings the sport to life.

In addition to this, we now have a basis for player-deployed circuits and electrical energy! Soon we’ll be capable of have switches, stress pads, participant detectors, door manipulators, and every kind of goodies to assist with residence automation in addition to offline raiding defenses. I am unable to even start to think about the designs gamers will come up, however I’m fairly excited.

I’ve additionally tried to design this technique in a trend that it solely prices server CPU when a circuit is modified. While this may not be a difficulty with the radtown puzzles, we hope to make use of the brand new Unity Jobs system to mitigate the influence on server efficiency sooner or later when gamers place 80,000 switches to make some type of rube goldberg machine that attracts a penis on an indication.

We’ve upgraded Rust to Unity 2018.1 this month. This is a serious improve, much more so as a result of we had been nonetheless on 2017.1 since each 2017.2 and 2017.three had been too unstable for us to make use of. The 2017.x launch cycle has been fairly horrible when it comes to engine bugs, however 2018.1 appears to be significantly better, and it appears like all of the redesigning of main elements of the engine Unity have been doing are lastly beginning to repay.

Garry printed a more detailed overview on his private weblog if you happen to’re on this type of factor. Implementing all the brand new options in a mission the dimensions of Rust is a large process, so after this preliminary improve of the code base we’ll roll out an increasing number of of the brand new options with the approaching updates. Quite a couple of of the them are additionally nonetheless within the testing section on Unity’s finish and will not be prepared for a large launch till 2018.2 and even 2018.three are out.

I lastly bought round to implementing help for customized maps. This preliminary launch, whereas totally useful, is certainly nonetheless to be thought-about a preview model to present the modding neighborhood time to mess around with it. Here’s the way it works.

Instead of operating the server with the extent, seed and measurement parameters to both load a static map like Hapis Island or generate a procedural map on the fly, now you can additionally run the server with the levelurl startup parameter to supply a hyperlink to any customized map file. Both the server and connecting shoppers will obtain the map file from that handle after which load it. The motive we selected to host the map on a separate server is so the precise server bandwidth and efficiency is unaffected by doubtlessly lots of of individuals downloading the map, which at round 20MB is comparatively massive even when compressed because it contains your complete terrain information. This is just like how FastDL works in Source and makes it attainable to make use of customized maps even on servers with restricted bandwidth.

So how do you get or create a map file? All procedural maps are already saved to map recordsdata within the recreation folder as type of a cache. This makes becoming a member of a server a lot sooner than operating the procedural era each single time you join. These map recordsdata use precisely the identical file format customized maps will likely be saved in. You can add and go them to levelurl and gamers that be part of your server will obtain the map file as a substitute of producing the world domestically. The actual use case nonetheless will in fact be customized maps. For this goal an official map SDK will likely be launched within the coming weeks. This will permit the neighborhood to load, save and work with map recordsdata and make it straightforward to create instruments like world editors or customized procedural world mills that may run offline and subsequently use way more superior algorithms than the default generator.

I hope you are as excited concerning the potentialities of this as I’m!

As a few of you will have realized from my commits, and among the newer replace movies, I’ve been engaged on a brand new monument. The Bandit Town is an space stuffed with picket shacks linked by shoddy bridges, surrounded by a big swamp, and stuffed with dense fog. Behind the city one can find a big dredge that was deserted there that may act as a protected zone. The entire monument will likely be surrounded by a dense forest, making it tough to identify from afar.

While a whole lot of the artwork had been finished, the bandit city nonetheless lacks any gameplay parts and requires extra work. So whereas it is lacking this month’s patch, you’ll be able to anticipate it subsequent month.

Keep in thoughts that whereas it is set in a swamp, that does not imply a brand new biome is coming anytime quickly. However, if all goes easily, I’m hoping to reuse the brand new property and create a few buildable swamp monuments, just like how the ice lakes work.

Earlier this month I labored on extending the Compound monument in an effort to give gamers extra entry and exit routes. The place will now have a few underground tunnels which might be guarded by NPCs on patrol. The tunnels are lit as nicely in an effort to preserve issues ever so barely safer.

Other minor modifications embrace eradicating the gate resulting in the refinery as that was used to actively block entry to it.

I did not have a whole lot of time to present the scuba gear (featured within the final replace) a correct artwork go. Some of it was unfinished, and a few of it was simply merely placeholder. The diving lovers amongst you might also have observed that the diving tanks did not function a BCD, and as such would technically be fairly ineffective. I’ve up to date the masks, fins and diving tank with correct artwork so you’ll be able to go for a swim with out ruining your… immersion.

The wetsuit pictured is an replace from what’s at present in recreation, however hasn’t made it this patch, anticipate it within the subsequent one!

I made a decision to named this part Changes as a substitute of Update or Upgrade as a result of, sadly, on account of this month’s engine replace to model 2018.1 we moved one step ahead and one step again. It was an advanced, albeit vital replace for us going ahead. Though, sadly, this model of Unity is not as secure as now we have wished.

Despite all of the work that went in to replace all of the shaders and plugins, we had been nonetheless capable of roll out a couple of visible enhancements:

• Penumbra shadows seen when in High Quality mode (Q=2) are actually softer with noise much less seen when TSSAA is enabled
• Ambient Occlusion is now 2x sooner and reveals much less flickering
• Switched terrain rendering to Texture Arrays; mitigates points with anisotropic filtering, fixes tiling seams at a distance and reduces shader complexity

Some identified points we’re nonetheless engaged on:

• Disappearing/pitch-black supplies in some monuments (largely mounted)
• Reflections in Windows/D3D11 are less complicated once more, and decrease high quality, in an effort to keep away from a crash round monuments

We hope to have these points mounted over the approaching days and can situation consumer updates as we progress.

The Scientists have gotten a brand new sensory system, and it opens up for issues like noise response, higher use of reminiscence, working with imperfect info, reasoning about possible hiding spots, and extra. Since it is by means of the sensory system the AI accumulate its information concerning the world round it, an AI will be no higher than the info it collects. Good information is the muse for good AI in different phrases, so it is a particular step towards reaching that objective.

Different kinds of weapons now emit noise to completely different ranges, and silencers will scale back the gap at which the weapon will be heard by Scientists.

Until we’re capable of take mild and darkness under consideration for the Scientist’s imaginative and prescient (it is just too costly to calculate with our present instruments), utilizing a light-weight supply now solely provides a barely increased likelihood of detection the place it was a certain give-away earlier than.

The Scientist imaginative and prescient will higher respect their area of view now. They have excellent imaginative and prescient straight forward, but it surely’s extra blurry on the periphery, and so they will not see what’s behind them. Player motion and silhouette additionally have an effect on the prospect of being detected.

If they see you, however you then cover, they are going to bear in mind the place they final noticed you and search from there. They now not have absolute data of your whereabouts.

The waypoint system used on the Outpost noticed an improve this month. It’s now higher at stopping Scientists from getting caught on the patrol path, and a number of Scientists can share the identical waypoint system. This was utilized to the brand new lab space of Military Tunnels and likewise within the new sections of the Outpost.

The junkpile Scientists have seen some work too, the place they now are peaceable as much as the purpose the place you aggro them. They will now not shoot at random bystanders or go mad over cactuses.

Animals have lengthy been silly when gamers bounce up on foundations or rocks that the animals can’t get to. While a extra full answer is within the works, this month they are going to a minimum of flee once they understand they’ll’t get to you.

Hapis Island has obtained some love. The objective was to carry Hapis updated with final month’s procgen map modifications and experiment with offshore islands. Here are some highlights:

• Added listening station island monument
• Added compound monument
• Added small offshore islands
• Improved dive website areas

You can anticipate monument puzzles and a ton of polish to older and newer areas in subsequent month’s replace.

We’re bringing a brand new device into the combo: the Jackhammer. But not simply but. It is to ores as what the chainsaw is to bushes; primarily a useful resource gathering device, proficient in mining and gathering these scrumptious ores you lot love spending time gobbling up for all of your raiding shenanigans.

Alex, Paul and myself are working shut collectively to make this as cool trying because it probably will be for a jackhammer. Portable, it’ll use gas of kinds to nicely, gas it. After some refining and going backwards and forwards here is Paul’s’ ultimate idea of the asset.

I’ve already modelled the excessive poly detailed mesh and accomplished the low poly, game-ready mesh too. All that is left is to unwrap the mannequin, bake out these tasty texture maps and begin engaged on the supplies and get it arrange prepared for Alex to animate.