Hello, here’s the zed latest from in/around the Knox Event.

VEHICLES

The general plan with vehicles is for Yuri to continue fixing up bugs/issues in SP and MP, work on gamepad support for them (and simultaneously other areas of the game that need gamepad attention) and then create an ‘experimental vehicles’ toggle on the difficulty setting menu so the current vehicles branch is ready to become a Build 39 IWBUMS beta as soon as Build 38 releases to the public. Once all this in place then Yuri can again turn to look at optimization when it comes to vehicles turning impacting on FPS etc.

Last week Yuri released a build that made engines feel more natural – both in terms of keeping them revving once the player leaves the car (perhaps making them useful as a distraction), and creating more of an ‘acceleration curve’ that will allow us to put in simulated gear changes. It also had a speedometer and engine gauge to help things out.

We’re also currently working on the sound of vehicles and (while not perfect currently – this is slightly ‘angry racing lawnmower’) in this video you can hear the aforementioned gear shifts pretty well.

Yuri has also fiddled with stuff like increasing the chances of cars turning zeds into crawlers and made sure that players can only ‘shove’ at zombies if car windows are open. We’ll be releasing a new build tomorrow that addresses other issues like burnt out cars sometimes using a random texture. Our thanks to all our community testers, and especially to the efforts of Svarog, whose efforts have been greatly appreciated during this time.

38 IWBUMS

We’ve got a 38.6 IWBUMS running backstage that’s letting us guide ChrisW’s fixes for the new ‘see the rooftops’ engine tweaks when it comes to player-built constructions. He’s working on this right now, so it’s likely that we’ll have another 38.7 release internally before returning to the public channel. In the mean-time he’s also fixed a few annoying legacy bugs like hovering blood splats visible when you’re on a lower floor.

From this point RJ will be looking at bug tracker clearance and improvements to what’s already in the build rather than add new stuff, so as to get it all out of the door and experimental vehicles bumped into IWBUMS.

OTHER STUFF

As mentioned last week Mark R’s work (the Technical Director chap who rode into TIS town to help with the animations and is delivering a lot more besides) is currently being merged into the existing build. This means that dudes like this are an important step (of a multitude of assured steps, we know) closer to testing.

Finally, just a brief mention that as of the next IWBUMS we’ll be updating the credits to let people know that Project Zomboid is now dedicated to the memory of Romuald Dron – RJ’s brother – who sadly passed away in recent weeks. Our thoughts are with RJ’s family and friends at this time. RJ has also asked if we could share a little bit of his brother’s awesome artwork in today’s blog, so here you go:

Today’s featured image from Buttrix. A general list of stuff added to PZ, and vids of features being worked on, is kept here – so you don’t have to plough through endless Mondoids for info. The Centralized Block of Italicised Text would like to direct your attention to the PZ Wiki should you feel like editing or amending something, and the PZ Mailing List that can send blogs like this and patch notes direct to your mailbox. We also live on Twitter right here! Our Discord is open for chat and hijinks too. The CBOIT likes to spread the zombie love – so if you like games like ours then the plans for Dead Matter might be right up your street as well. Its Kickstarter lives here!