VEIN Weekly: Stressful Conditions

Hi everyone! Welcome to another VEIN Weekly. This week, we put out Hotfix 4, fixing a variety of smaller issues. We've been working on a few new features as well. Let's get into it.

In the hotfix and otherwise, we've fixed a variety of issues.

We fixed a variety of fluid related problems for Hotfix 4. Using a container with a fluid source like a bathtub or sink will now prioritize using the stored contents of the fluid source over contents from the tap. We fixed an issue where fluid sources would not dispense to containers the tap fluid (so, if you wire a sink into a barrel full of ketchup, it would still fill the container with water). We also fixed some bugs related to this.

We corrected some local exposure and lighting issues in the hotfix. This should result in more even and realistic lighting across the board. This also fixes pitch-black interiors for users using advanced rendering features.

We did some fixes to admin permission zones, also in the hotfix.

We fixed bed distances being invalid in the death and sleep screens. This occurred because we changed bed locations to be relative to the bed, so if you sleep in an RV, you would wake up in the RV even if it's moved; but then the distances in the UI were all based on the distance to this very tiny offset number instead of the location in the world.

We did some UI fixes as well. We fixed users with different input methods than simple keyboard not being able to enter anything in text inputs (like Chinese and Japanese). We added a test UI window which should help debugging this sort of thing in the future. We also fixed a HUD error causing the number of available magazines to read zero for specifically 1911 extended magazines.

We increased the fuel capacity of the large building generator to be more realistic. We expect once we retool the power system to have actual draws based on the total network load, this will become more in-line with realistic time frames for fuel usage.

Apart from that, there were a variety of smaller changes in the hotfix. Please see the patch notes on Steam for more info.

Map

We've been working hard on the new map region. We've sectioned off exactly where we'd like the new region to take development priority. Most if not all of the unique buildings and points of interest have been cemented in place and the layout has been finalized.

If you're playing on the experimental Steam beta branch, you'll be able to see some new mountains in the background to the west, indicating the map boundary.

Conditions

We've added the Agoraphobia and Claustrophobia uniquenesses. These cause gradual panic increases when outdoors and indoors, respectively. For a really difficult run, you can select both, which means the only way you can sleep would be to take anti-anxiety medication (coming in the next update).

We've done behind-the-scenes work on all conditions to speed up their effect on the CPU across the board. There may be bugs from this, and we need to thoroughly test them before the next update.

We've kicked off the condition difficulty rebalancing with panic and sleep changes. When panicked at all, you can't sleep. Panic now causes your tiredness to increase, causes your accuracy to decrease, and causes melee damage to decrease. Panic takes much longer to go away now, but staying indoors and away from zombies will cause it to go away faster – at least, if you don't have claustrophobia.

Being tired now affects your health recovery rate, weapon accuracy, melee weapon damage, and exertion recovery rate. At 100% tired, you can no longer recover health, so be sure to keep this in check. We'll probably have this cause consciousness damage as well. Tiredness also now affects your max. weight capacity, so being extremely tired will punish you with up to a 25kg max. weight capacity reduction.

Finally, we've added effects to stress. Did you know stress does nothing right now? We intended for it to play into a sanity system, which we still plan to, but now there are tangible reasons to keep stress low/comfort high. Stress now causes accuracy punishment, reduced melee weapon damage, health recovery reduction, increased duration for using things, nightmares, and at very high stress, an overall XP gain reduction. Contrariwise, being comfortable has the opposite effects.

These are currently live on the experimental Steam branch, so we look forward to hearing if this feels too harsh or not.

Accurate Fortifications

As we continue to strive for realism, we have decided to rework construction recipes. Previously, item requirements were estimations based on gameplay requirements. Realistically though, as we approach realism in other aspects of gameplay, we've decided to require real-world item counts for building. In that we're trying to establish realism, based on my measurements in real life, it'll take 140 planks for a makeshift window fortification and 464 nails. Likewise, a metal door might take 4,500 kg of metal scrap, so get mining.

For the stat requirements side of things, in order to be able to get past Construction 25, your character will need to attend trade school first. Of course, your other option is to get an apprenticeship with another fellow survivor, assuming they want to take you under their wing that is.

Oh, and if you don't build fortifications properly, we have implemented our first NPC faction: the local homeowner's association. Like zombies, they will attack your base if you fail to build to code. Safety first.

Foraging

We've created recipes and items for foraging byproducts. Salves, powders, soups and teas are now able to be produced; they have no status effects yet though, nor do the base foraging items. We're still working to make sure the system functions entirely as intended.

Saves

Yan is currently working on the new saving system. This was written a while ago in January and February, and we're just now at a point where we can integrate it into the main codebase. It should yield smaller, safer, and faster-saving and faster-loading save games. Hopefully it will be ready for the next update. It does have support for forward-compatibility, so your save games are still secure and will be usable in the next update.

Sleep

We've unified sleep between singleplayer and multiplayer. We've had Minecraft-style multiplayer sleeping requested about a hundred times, where if everyone on a multiplayer game is in a bed, time can advance. It is done for the next update. We also want you to be able to rest without sleeping in singleplayer.

Damage Forces

I've added a CreateExplosion cheat, usable in single-player and as a server host. Please use it wisely.

I did that in order to fix a long-standing bug with damage forces. On servers, characters and zombies won't receive any force when they die (so if an explosion goes off everyone just crumples). I've fixed that for the next update.

Pseudostacking

We've added a prototype UI change to the game. The inventory UI will now group items of the same type together, which can be folded and unfolded to reveal the actual items. This is heavily work-in-progress but will allow items that previously could not be stacked, such as vegetables, light bulbs, batteries, or weapon magazines, to be a bit better organized in the inventory. It's missing a bunch of functionality as of this writing but we'll hopefully have it finished by next week's update.

It's also a precursor to work on sub-inventories, which are another feature we want to get in for the next update. You can think of sub-inventories as bags; you can put items inside of them then drop or transfer the entire bag to transfer the entire thing. Some sub-inventories, like plastic bags, will have special properties (for example, being waterproof).

Art Upgrades

Mood has been working on a bunch of material upgrades to various items in the world, such as blood test kits, toilet cleaner, face masks, the peristaltic pump, school buses, and more. These will be in for the next upgrade.

Ani has been working on some new animations for the 870 pump-action shotgun. We have never had any nice shotgun animations despite being a zombie game, so we're really looking forward to these!

Finally, we'd like to welcome Skyler to the team, who will be working on our new characters, hair, and clothing. Creating a new customizable character, let alone multiple characters, let alone a modular character who can wear clothes, is a very difficult task, so don't expect new characters/zombies in the game for a while; it's a long process. However, they've started work on a new base male for the game.

So that about wraps up this week's update!

Happy April Fool's, by the way. Read the first letter of each sentence in the Accurate Fortifications section. There's no way we'd do something like that.

Are you a programmer with Unreal experience looking for work? If so, we'd love to have you on the team! Please email jobs@ramjetstudios.com if you're interested.

Thanks for reading, and we'll see you next week.