Gearhart
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Posts posted by Gearhart
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1 hour ago, Janelle said:
You would want to put the zipline near your base tho
Sure, but you could build a really high base on, say, one of the shrink machines (I recommend the one the crow lands on, as there's a SCAB to be found up there), using bounce webs to speed up the transportation of material. Then you can build a zipline on there that connects to key locations throughout the map. The zipline works best when you have multiple outposts. I'm just disappointed that the zipline's construction requires weed stems, which throws building them inside the newly expanded hedge zone out the window. I really hope that they will also add weed stem substitutes that can be found on branches, as ziplines would be incredibly useful inside the hedge zone due to all the vertical terrain and spiders (which can warrant a quick retreat if you become overwhelmed.)
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You can also try to build ziplines on already high structures; the trick is getting the weedstems up there in the first place.
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I was able to unstick the door with a bomb.
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On 9/22/2020 at 1:24 PM, NG75 said:
"Insects aren't tameable" Humans aren't shrinkable.
The difference here is that the impossible (at least by our current understanding of physics) act of shrinking things is necessary for the plot of the game. Being able to tame insects, on the other hand, is not necessary for the game's premise to exist, so there's no reason to implement it.
Manipulating insects, on the other hand, is very doable. You can manipulate an ant to follow you around and help you in combat by wearing ant armor and dropping a pheromone breadcrumbs to lead them to where you want to go. This would actually be more effective than taming individual ants, as pheromone trails can be followed by the entire colony, basically letting you command an army.
A ladybug might be manipulated into carrying you around by waving an aphid on a stick in front of it, but ladybugs don't have that large of an appetite, so this wouldn't always work.
If orb weavers were updated to behave like their real world counterparts, we could use lure arrows to lead them away from their webs and snatch all the food they've collected.
Wolf spiders have sensitive eyes, so we might be able to use light sources like torches to manipulate them into certain behaviors. At least once their AI is updated to actually respond to the presence of light. But it would probably be wiser to just kill them, as they are currently the apex predators of the game, and you do not want the most dangerous creature in the game to grow in population; that would just mean more danger and less food.
I personally don't want taming to be added because this game currently has potential to be educational as well as entertaining; teaching us all about various arthropods but letting us observe them up close.
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Sticky traps will be essential for taking a mantid down.
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41 minutes ago, McSquirl Nugget said:
agreed, plus mantids are one of the apex predators in the bug world, not many other insects can best them. I always liked watching the Bug Wars shows when they had mantids.
Forget insects; mantids have been shown to kill and devour small birds, fish, and even frogs.
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Mantises are huge, at least 5 times longer than a ladybug. We could make a two handed thrusting spear out of a foreleg alone. However, it would be incredibly difficult to kill. The good news is that due to it's size and appetite, it would seek out larger prey than us, like spiders. Also, their eyes detect motion rather than shape and color, so we should be able to hide from it by moving slowly. The best part is; they're messy eaters, so we should be able to lure tough enemies to it and loot their corpses afterward. We wouldn't get quite as much loot from it as we would if we had killed the enemy ourselves.
Personally, I think with adding new creatures, they should start with smaller ones and work their way up in size, simply because larger creatures don't eat everything smaller than them.
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Wait, I thought they patched it so that removing the stump no longer prevents them from respawning?
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maybe smaller items, like easter eggs and halloween candy, could land on top of built structures rather than falling through them. This could damage structures, but would still be better than outright destroying them.
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17 hours ago, McSquirl Nugget said:
I'd imagine the upgrade style @Gearhart mentioned would be similar to Ark, upgrade the existing plank floor to a stem floor, or whatever we get in the future, so the structure stays intact, you wouldn't have to worry about destroying the piece and have other sections collapse.
exactly. I've never played Ark; but I have played 7days to die, and that game had a tool you could use to upgrade buildings, provided you had the proper materials. Now, given that many buildings in Grounded use materials that are hauled; a tool wouldn't really work here, but perhaps we could add something that allows players to opt to "upgrade" an existing wall when they are carrying the necessary materials; being able to upgrade grass walls to sturdy walls when you're carrying weed stems and woven plant fiber for example.
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The only issue with seasonal changes is that the new decorations could destroy built structures. And if you happened to have your spawn point set to a lean-to that some giant placed a pumpkin on, well...
Basically, due to the scale of the game, the appearance of decorative items could have a big impact on gameplay. Of course, since this game takes place in the backyard, rather than the front yard, we don't need to worry as much about having structures destroyed by lawn decorations.
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I think the current pallet limits are fine for early game. That said, it would be great if you were able to upgrade buildings later on, adding more materials to expand them. I'd imagine as the game is further developed and we can progress further into the late game, more effective versions of existing buildings would become available; like how acorn chests are an upgrade to storage baskets.
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5 hours ago, McSquirl Nugget said:
i don't htink they need to take it that far. there's a few other posts with weather suggestions that go into more detail that may work better in the game.
The devolopment team director himself stated that he'd love to add world changing events to the game; going from his prior experience with MMORPGs, drastic world changing events are highly desirable for sources of conflict, but you can't make very many of them due to having to come up with an explanation for how this single event can have such a big impact. But here, the world can be drastically changed by the simplest of things. Just look at those bootprints going through the yard. All it took was a person walking to create massive craters. And one of the potential world-changing events the director mentioned was rain (as well as the sprinkler by the bird bath turning on).
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5 hours ago, McSquirl Nugget said:
you keep forgetting the fact this is a game, NOT real life, and is more fantasy based than reality, which is how it should stay.
The last sentence of my quote literally explains the difference between how something works in real life and how it works in a videogame. Also, this game is NOT fantasy based; it's science fiction based. It isn't set in Middle Earth or Wonderland or a galaxy far far away, it takes place in a suburban backyard. A setting, mind you, that anyone living in a suburban home in a temperate region and didn't spend the majority of their childhood indoors would be familiar with. Making up whatever BS you want isn't going to fly here because it's already established to take place in a world vastly similar to our own.
As for the thing you quoted saying it sums thing up best, that has absolutely no bearing on my argument for proposed combat changes, as an American teen is less likely to be familiar with the concept of a well timed block (which doesn't even make sense when you're trying to use it against something several times your size), and more likely to be familiar with the concept of swinging a stick to hit something coming at them. This is because of a certain American sport commonly practiced by youth called "Baseball;" I'm sure you've heard of it, seeing as one of the first things you see in the game is a baseball. Anyways, in case you are unfamiliar with the sport, Baseball revolves under the principle of hitting an incoming projectile with a stick in order to knock it away from you. Effective swing techniques in baseball is swinging in a sweeping arc in order maximize the surface area of the swing and get an angle that deflects the projectile a significant difference. This exact technique translates really well into knocking the head of a soldier ant out of the way as it lunges at you. No martial arts training required, just a fight or flight instinct set to "fight."
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I think rain would have a much bigger impact than merely having to dodge raindrops. You'd have to worry about running groundwater sweeping away loose objects, uprooting sprigs, and damaging structures. Some structures, like foundations, would be resistant to damage. Would make building on high ground a smart strategy even after the devs figure out how to have arthropods climb up walls and other vertical surfaces.
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I decided to search the internet to see if anyone else had attempted to code arthropods that climbed on walls in UE4 before. There's a forum about climbing ants where someone made the following suggestion:
QuoteOne work around could be have the ants follow a spline that is generated from their position to the players position that conforms to the contour of the terrain.
The problems is making an *efficient* algorithm that makes a spline conform to terrain tightly enough to make the ants seem like theyre walking on surfaces. (Gentle slopes are easy. Sheer drops and overhangs are HARD).
Then there's this guy working on making a spider AI that can climb walls and ceilings.
here's another guy trying to do the same thing
here's a step by step tutorial
Or, you can simply use this free plugin to do it. It's a bit outdated with the latest edition of UE4, so it will likely require some tweaking, but it would still be very useful as a reference.
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19 hours ago, mdf25 said:
I think bugs need attacks to deal with the skirting around which trigger randomly, but not always. Currently their attack animation continues even though you step aside. Something to cosider is that all bugs have only 1 weak spot that may not be the side or back, where they either can't hurt you if that's where you are, or you deal critical damage to them.
Ladybug: Trying to go behind it, it will rapidly spin and knock into you, stunning you. Its weak spot is on its back between the crack of its shell, where it cannot harm you but will try to shake you off. Poking this area with a spear causes critical damage.
Wolf spider: Trying to go behind it will make it jump to the side and turn to face you again, possibly squashing you as it lands. Its weak point is a club or hammer to its eye which will stun it temporarily sometimes and stop its attack cycle. Since the wolf spider is so large, even a perfect block won't prevent damage and the only true way to block is to time your attacks to theirs and smack their eyes to break their attack first.
Stinkbug: Running behind it causes the bug to sometimes gas immediately without chargeup. It will sometimes hover to crush you if you keep trying to sidestep it, but that is also its weak spot, its belly. A hammer to the belly region as it tries to land will repel it, and sometimes stun it.
Soldier ant: Their weak spot is their behind, but they will ram you as you try to go around them sometimes to stun you. Jumping over them is the better strategy.
Orbweaver: if you run behind it, they will shoot webbing and proceed to bite you in rapid succession, not stopping even if blocked. Their weak point like the wolf spider is their eyes, but hammering its legs can cause them to slow down and give you time to sidestep before they attack.
Bombardier beetle: If you get behind them they will spray boiling liquid at you, and trying to sidestep will make them rapidly rotate and spray in a circle around them. Their weak spot is that shooting point though, so smacking the gland with a hammer or club will temporarily disable it from shooting. The best thing is to get on its back gland so it can't angle it to hit you.
I believe ladybugs would also be weak in their bellies and would hover. Of course, IRL ladybugs also emit a foul odor as a defense mechanism (though this is squirted out in liquid form rather than gas), and their bright red wings warn vision-based predators that they aren't a good meal, which should carry over to ladybug armor.
Another combat strategy that would be particularly useful against beetle types would be flipping them onto their backs, immobilizing them and exposing their weaker underbellies. I'm not sure how this would work in-game; maybe if they rear up to do a stomp attack you could hit them with a spear or rock to knock them back.
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honestly, having wolf spiders be active around the oak tree during the day makes little sense due to them being nocturnal hunters. Even ignoring the fact that they'll most likely be sleeping during the day, their sensitive eyes and lack of eyelids would cause them to be overwhelmed by the brightness of sunlight.
Although, I wonder... Maybe the wolf spider was asleep, but was woken up by the explosion. If that was the case, perhaps the strategy here is to block up the oak tree before activating the mysterious device.
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The first issue I've come across when building around the oak tree is at a certain height there's an invisible wall surrounding the tree.
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20 hours ago, mdf25 said:
WET: Going into water will make your character get wet. Slows you down when out of water until you dry. Leads to common cold if you get wet for extended periods at night or don't dry in time. Staying in sunlight dries you faster, staying next to a lit spit dries you fastest.
don't forget the water's surface tension being much more noticeable at our size, which causes water to stick together. If water did stay on you, it would likely be as one or two large droplets. Which would have it's own issues, such as the risk of a droplet enveloping your head and suffocating you.
QuoteCOMMON COLD: The cold will slow you down and occasionally make you sneeze. Dehydrates you 15% faster and drinks fill your water meter 10% less. Gles away after a while but can be cured by drinking flower tea, crafted on the spit using flower petals, aphid honeydew and water from a canteen.
BLEEDOUT: Getting struck by a larger enemy can cause your character to slowly bleed out and lose health over time. Sap makes the bleeding stop for an in game hour, cures after 4 in game hours or when using a fiber bandage.
FATIGUE: Exhausting the stamina meter will lead to fatigue. Each time the stamina meter is exhausted, the player's maximum stamina is decreased by 1%. After 50% max stamina loss the player will start to slow down, attacks are slower and blocking is less effective. After 95% max stamina loss, the player has a random chance to fall asleep on the spot, risking being attacked. Cures are sleeping (restores fully) and sitting down (restores 20% per minute up to a max of 80%). Crafting grub goo coffee prevents any max stamina loss and gives +20% max stamina for 4 in game hours (grub goo, pollen, boiling gland)
DEEP GASHES: The largest insects may have a chance to inflict deep gashes if you have sustained damage repeatedly in a short time. The only cure is a thorn stitching (thorn, sap, spider silk) which will close the wounds. Having a deep gash will also inflict bleedout occasionally, and additionally cut max health in half whilst active. A new mutation can be introduced to prevent gashes and bleedout.
FRACTURE: Large creatures can fracture your bones when attacks are not perfectly blocked, or from a large fall. Fractures can only be healed by rest after applying a berry cast (berry leather, crude rope, bug rubber) and staying out of stamina-draining activities for 8 ingame hours. Fractures slow movement and exhausting stamina drains health by 7% to a min of 25%. The UNCRACKABLE buff prevents fracturing of bones.
most of these are things that, while realistic, wouldn't be very fun. Fractures could work, but maybe instead of a cast, you would instead craft a splint. Also you should be capable of inflicting these sort of injuries on arthropods as well.
QuoteVENOM: The wolf spider's venom could be less damaging but now lasts until it is waited out or cured. Venom slows stamina regeneration, slows down the player, and drains health by 1% every 20 seconds. It can be cured using spider antivenom (1 spider fang, 1 raw aphid meat, 2 sap) which reduces the wait time from 12 in game hours to 1 in game hour.
Alternatively, we can have it mimic the actual symptoms of a wolf spider bite; swelling and redness preceding blistering, pain, dizziness, and nausea/vomiting, progressing to chills, fever, and potentially death. Also mints could also work as a way of lessening the severity of the venom, although it may not actually cure it. Also, antivenom is made by collecting small amounts of venom, injecting small amounts into domestic animals, then collecting the antibodies from the animals' blood and purifying. This would not only be impossible for our teenagers to do without an injector (which could be a new tool when mosquitos are added), but the likelihood of them even knowing how to make antivenom is pretty low (except for Pete, who had scout training); they'll probably need to learn it from BURG.L. Actually, that applies to a lot of the things you have suggested here.
QuoteSTINKY: Getting gassed by a stinkbug leaves its smell on you, attracting more stinkbugs. Whilst active, stinkbugs will actively hunt you and spawn more frequently, and smaller bugs will run away long before you see them. To remove the stink, you need to use berry mint soap (berry chunk, nectar, mint chunk) or stay in water for 3 in game hours to wash it out. Goes away on its own after 1 in game day. FRESH DEFENSE can prevent you from getting stinky.
I'm pretty sure a stinkbug's stench is a defensive mechanism that REPELS insects, and does not mark insects as prey. Especially seeing as most stinkbugs are herbivores and don't hunt. If anything, being covered in stinkbug scent would cause them to mistake you for a potential mate, though that would drastically change the game's rating.
QuoteFUNGAL GROWTHS: Getting hit by infected creatures can leave spores on you that slowly grow into deadly fungus. At stage 1, nothing happens and spores can be washed off in water. At stage 2 the fungus takes root in your skin, draining your food and water meters 2 times faster and slowing stamina regeneration. You can wash this off with berry mint soap. At stage 3 the fungus is now in your flesh and bloodstream, sapping your health. At its final stage the fungus has eaten away at your flesh until only the skeleton remains. Cures for stage 3 and beyond can only be found from BURG.L where he literally zaps it out of you.
What about being turned into a zombie by the fungus and exploding? And maybe it would be possible for other players to attack the fungal growth on you to collect it and slow down the rate of infection.
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23 hours ago, McSquirl Nugget said:
So all the knights and dark ages warriors that fought without shields couldn't block any attacks? that sure makes sense.
you can block with any weapon. Blocking with a weapon is called a parry.
It's as immersive as you make it. If you just want to sit and block and attack and repeat then go for it. or you can do like I like to do (and others i've played with) and dance around the bugs and dodge their attacks.
I think you're making a mountain out of an anthill
knights in the dark ages fought against people fighting with melee weapons, not powerful mandibles specifically designed to latch onto things. Also, a parry is not the same thing as blocking; a parry redirects the path of the opponents blade by hitting it at an intersecting angle.
As for dancing around and dodging bugs, dodging is less effective in videogames than in real life due to the limitations imposed by hitboxes, hitreg, and lag.
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18 hours ago, YaBoyJenkins said:
That would be extremely cool (and I was even thinking the same thing about sand from the sandbox,) but the laser would be extremely complicated and might be too complex for how the game works.
BURG.L could give us the blueprints. It would make far more sense for us to buy blueprints for advanced technology from the bot than things like stairs and reinforced walls. Also, it wouldn't be a true laser, at most it would just have two refracting lenses you could use to adjust the focus of the beam, and the code for a heat ray is already in the game; there's a magnifying glass over by the tree stump.
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22 hours ago, McSquirl Nugget said:
Unless i'm totally forgetting what i learned in school decades ago (which is probably the case
), how would the square cube law have anything to do with balance, and unless i'm again mistaken uneven terrain is ideal for biking, well for us not in a city anyway, tons more fun up in the hills than just riding flat on a street.
I thought about that, but it'd be too wide, wouldn't be able to go very may places with it.
My idea in another thread was a sled or travois to pull behind the bike, tier 2 for that would be to add wheels and have a cart.
Trying to think up ways to avoid taming and still transport.
inertia. proportionately less mass means proportionately less inertia, which means it would have less resistance to external forces, such as the pull of gravity. Thus, balance would be harder.
There would be plenty of places you could go with a buggy, especially if it is able to brush aside grass like ladybugs can.
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Now, in an interview, Grounded director Alex stated that they are hoping to add climbing to the arthropod's AI, but are having issues with programing the behavior. I propose a possible solution that I'll separate into two parts: Animation and Navigation.
For Navigation, the solution would be to enclose each arthropod in two ellipsoid hitboxes; a smaller hitbox for their main body, and a larger hitbox for their legs. The larger hitbox intersects with geometry and is used to determine whether a surface is walkable, while the smaller body hitbox is used for physical collisions to prevent clipping.
On the animation end, each arthropod leg would be given two animation "sliders," one for angle, the other for extension. Then you program a script that seeks out the nearest solid surface and have the legs angle and extend/compress themselves to walk along that surface, and finally script the root body to average itself to the angles of the surfaces it's walking on, allowing for a smooth transition along slopes. Long insects, such as ants, may need additional sliders for the head and abdomen.
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Hedge Zone suggestions
in Grounded: Feedback & Suggestions
Posted
Currently it seems that the next update will feature an expansion to the hedge zone. While I am excited by what I've seen so far, there are a few issues I see with the hedge zone
1; lack of resources.
Aside from spiderwebs, there aren't any crafting resources to be found on the hedge Zone's branches. This makes base building particularly challenging, as not only do your resources need to be imported, but you also have to do a lot of climbing while hauling, which is a real hassle. There should be local resources you can harvest as crafting material. For instance, that moss looks like a good way to get plant fiber. Those leaves would make a great substitute for grass. Maybe add small branches that can be chopped up to make logs. For crafting, perhaps an alternative recipe for bandages that uses berry juice.
2. Climbing (and falling)
Currently, there are only a few ways to get up to the branches from the ground. This means slipping and falling will take a lot of legwork to recover from. Others have suggested rope ladders, which I agree would be an excellent solution for the problem. Perhaps there can even be pre-built rope ladders you can find and lower as you go along.