It’s largely been a week in which we’ve been drawing up plans for aspects of the MP work discussed last week, plus organising and putting roots down for stuff in Build 42.

Likewise, some big new optimizations and (code-level) combat reorganisation were only added to the internal 41 build yesterday – and could do with some more testing. As such IWBUMS beta patch 41.28 will be out early next week, most likely, and not this week.

If you’re desperate to try out any of the edited highlights changelist below, however, then there *is* a way – so keep on reading beyond the bullet points.

So, at the moment IWBUMS patch 41.28 will contain:

Experimental optimization. This allows zombies to be updated every X frames via a per-object gametime multiplier that depends on proximity / visibility to player. It spreads update ticks of zombies over frames, meaning higher FPS with large crowds. Options for different levels of this will also be provided.

Turbo’s automated broadcast radio station – which provides weather forecasts, warnings on imminent power/water outages and other interesting things.

Ability to turn off rain/precipitation when indoors, as this was making a fair few IWBUMS testers motion sick.

Further improvements to the Foraging UI, and also now a new Fishing UI designed in a similar way.

Code-changes to smoothen combat and remove the possibility of animation-cancelling.

ZOOM BETA

On top of the usual public IWBUMS beta, we are also currently running a temporary beta for our ‘optimization for lower spec machines; and ‘higher res models’ zoom branch.

This is built on top of the current internal build (it will most likely be patch 41.29) so contains everything in the forthcoming 41.28 too. If you’re desperate for the new fishing UI then well, friend, you can try it out.

Details on how to access the zoom beta and the password can be found HERE. Here’s a quick vid DrunkonLife took from it so you can see how it adds extra detail too.

Right now we need to know if you’re getting any stutters/judders after 5-10 minutes of play – which some people are reporting, but we may have fixed. We also have an odd issues with cutaways randomly failing to cut away, which we’ll need to address before we merge it all into trunk.

If you have feedback, please deposit it into the linked thread or onto the forum.

OTHER STUFF

Elsewhere Yuri continues work on fire, TEA/Bitbaboon Mark is coordinating MP efforts, Mash is working on new artwork for clutter and environments, Martin has provided new animations to counteract ‘window camping’ that we need to plug in, Xeonyx continues to beaver away on secret new map content, Binky and RingoD continue their assault on the Louisville suburbs, we’re sorting out a new website and trailer with different companies for the big 41 relaunch and… lots of cool stuff really.

Finally:

TFW you go viral… but it’s a pre-anims build. And pre-cutaways. And pre-2x detail on the tiles :'(

(Still VERY very cool though!)

This week’s sweet base, sweet hat and sweet bag from Kwintofly. 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 dev blogs 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!