Hey all, here’s the Thursday round-up of where we’re at.

We’re currently knuckling down on bugs/issues in the vehicles beta, as evidenced by the fairly hefty changelist for the just-released public Vehicles Beta 36.

There’s a lot in there, and a fair amount under the hood, but items of note include and updated vehicle and damage textures, Safehouse system improvements, tire pump item, unlockable vehicles after window-smashing, a siren shut-off to prevent endless zed migration and a more clickable Mechanic UI.

There’s also fixes for item transfers, vehicle sounds on linux, alarm clocks, syncing of barricades/campfires etc, floating burnt vehicles, map syncing, vehicles spawning inside buildings, vehicle colour sync and… lots of other stuff.

We have a new internal process for build testing prior to Thursday beta releases, featuring our new recruit Sasha (Pandorea on the forums), and so far it seems to be running pretty well, which we’ll gear around trying to deliver weekly updates on Thursday that have more vigorous testing in the days before, that should help provide more stable builds as well as help organise the features delivered each week neatly within the team. The Spiffospace test server will be updated with the new build shortly, and as ever any and all feedback and bug discoveries are welcome in the relevant thread.

There is clearly still work to be done on the streaming speed in multiplayer, and we have various minds at work coming up with solutions and further optimizations, as well as a separate branch for trying to reintegrate the new sync system that was disabled last week due to bugs, as this will improve matters significantly once the gremlins are exorcised – whether it be in this version, or the next.

We’re also currently adding in Bitbaboon Steve’s latest engine sounds – many of which he’s working on today. Here’s a quick WIP look at where he’s currently got to with sportier cars, and the following that shows something a bit heavier.

Next week we’ll be introducing the new map content that’s intended to provide for countryside safehouses, vehicle exploration and general ‘filling in’ of current scrubland areas that are frequently trodden/driven between on the current PZ map. Connall anticipates that he’ll have finished zoning this tomorrow, at which point we’ll be free to integrate the new map with our internal build – and then the public beta.

Here’s an image of Blindcoder’s PZ map with areas that Mash has been working on flagged up, so testers know where to explore when the time comes.

With a big new feature, meanwhile, comes the requirement for new tooltips and tutorial window. With this in mind, then, we also get to put the first new Tutorial Image Spiffo into the game for ages.

Finally, if you’re just getting to grips with our vehicles beta but want a good/concise introduction to what they are and how they work – please have a gander at Ambiguous Amphibian’s excellent video guide.

It’s all hands to the pump at the moment finalizing vehicles, but as we’ve mentioned before we have Bitbaboon Mark working on animations in the background so that dev can move onto them once cars are fully out in the wild. In the meantime we also have General Arcade’s Stas finishing off our new MP chat functions and UI. It’s still WIP, and will be prettified, but here’s the current version in action.

This week’s outdoor safehouse fron Moplays. 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. Fanks!