Advanced Role-Play Systems 

  • [DayZ Expansion] Status Report June 2019

  • Colony announcements and information
Colony announcements and information
 #7033  by Weyland
 
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Original Article HERE

Hello survivors,

We welcome you to our second status report. If you have missed it, you can read our first status report here. Throughout this month we have been working on fixing issues with our already existing systems and polishing them so we can continue work on some newer ones.

We were also able to do an internal playtest which showed that the mod is more stable than ever, so you may expect a private test sometime soon with some of your favourite Twitch Streamers and YouTubers. There would also be some close friends and some trusted people participating.

In this status report, we will be explaining some of our systems in-depth so we can hear your opinions and feedback on them and then use it to make this mod even better.

Settings System

Currently, almost everything inside of DayZ Expansion is controlled primarily by the server owner. This ranges from something as simple as what objects spawn from our custom mapping, to full blown missions and our trader system (more on the trading system below!).

As a note, almost all of these systems can be enabled/disabled by the server owner in-game, so if you want the hero/bandit system without them wanting the specific traders, you can just disable those specific traders. We have given the server owner full control over their own server.

Trader System
Something we have felt that lacks from the other trader mods that exist are the ability for dynamic prices based on stock so we have gone ahead and created our own. There exists zones for the trader where each zone may have different stock. By default, we offer the following currency of gold nuggets, silver nuggets, gold bars and silver bars and each are worth something.

This also comes with the full support for the server owner to set their own currency where it may be food or ammo if they so desire. Although it won’t come with the release of this mod, it is an idea of ours to implement a barter system where you can also trade items for other items instead of using the intermediary currency.

As stated earlier, we are using a stock based system which would allow us to price around the current stock, the higher the stock you have on the object, the lower the price is. These values can also be manipulated by the server owner! Otherwise, if a server does not want this system they can set an unlimited stock and a static price though we suspect few would want this.

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Trader Zones
As we mentioned before, traders have a “stock” based system, the trader zones are the “storage” for traders where all items they buy or sell, are kept. These zones will contain all the items for the trader in that specific trader zone, and this is based on a radius.

For example, if you have one zone at Balota Airfield and one at Krasnostav Airfield, the stock for water bottle will be not shared through the two zones, so if someone was to buy all of the water bottles from Krasnostav Airfield, you will still be able to buy them from Balota Airfield, providing no one has already bought them.

Alongside our primary trading system, we also have hero and bandit specific trader zones. The difference is that bandit trader zones do not have (by default) safe zones but may have items you cannot get from regular traders (such as explosives or rocket launchers). As always, this can be modified by the server owners as they see fit for their community.

Humanity System
With our humanity system, we’ve decided to keep true to the DayZ Mod and have “Heroes” and “Bandits”. In order to become a hero, you have to kill zombies, kill bandits and give players help such as saline bags, blood bags, painkillers, etc. In order to become a “Bandit” your humanity value has to be anything less than zero, killing heroes or neutral players will decrease your humanity.

To become a “Hero” your humanity value should be above 1,000. You can always view how much humanity you have inside the book, we explained the book system in our first status report.

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When you become a hero or a bandit, you get assigned an armband depending on what side you choose to go to. If you become a bandit, you will be forced to wear a black armband with a skull and crossbones on it, if you become a hero, you will be forced to wear a white armband with arrows on it. The difference is that you cannot take off bandit armband but you can take off hero armband.

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The starting humanity value is 500. This is to keep it balanced, as we don’t want one to be easier to achieve than the other. Both are equally as rewarding, but both also have negative effects.

Dynamic Missions
With the AI we have talked about in the previous status report, we have been able to create dynamic missions. These missions are able to be created, removed and edited by the server owner and modders alike, via the mission file.

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We currently have multiple types of missions:
  • Soldier missions - High tier loot missions, the soldier missions spawn in random camps over the map with few soldiers protecting the loot.
  • Civilian missions - Medium tier loot, the civilian missions spawn inside random locations over the map, normally have few zombies around it.
  • High tier soldier missions - Very high tier loot missions, these spawn in remote locations such as an abandoned cargo ship in the sea, have many soldiers around protecting it, the only way you can reach these missions is using boat or helicopter (more on boats and helicopters below).
  • High tier civilian missions - High tier loot missions, these missions do not have soldiers or zombies around, however locations may be remote and hard to reach.
The AI doesn’t scale per mission, it stays at the exact same difficulty for every mission, although the numbers of AI do vary between the missions, and is completely configurable.

Base Building System
With our base building system, we have made it as modular as possible. We’ve made it so modders can add base building parts, and they will be compatible with our original ones.

We have kept it more in the style of ArmA 3 Exile and ArmA 2 Epoch Mod, as to where you have to place down floors, walls, ceilings, etc. Once you’ve placed down a frame, you will have to put nails, logs and planks into it, then hold left click on it with a hammer to build it into a full wall, otherwise people can just walk into the base.

Alongside this base building system, we also have a snapping system so players who build their bases can line up their objects correctly before fully placing them.

Boats
Since the last time we announced boats in our last status report, we improved their behaviour and tweaked repair mechanics. The major problems we were facing was boat behaviour on the coast, we've since greatly improved it, but there is still some tweaking involved to make it perfect.

Helicopters
Since the last time you have seen the helicopters in action, we have done a complete rewrite of the physics for it. This has allowed us to optimise it even greater for server traffic and as well fix issues with the collision.

Before this change, the rotations were faked but now thanks to some core engine changes we are taking full use of the bullet engine physics. Prior to this, the helicopters would randomly fall through the ground and thanks to the developers over at Bohemia, we can make full use of the interpolation thus giving you a smoother flying experience.

Weapons
Recently, we have gotten multiple weapon packs containing many firearms and equipment such as knives and grenades, we’re now able to put in at least 20 new weapons for release, and even more after release.

These include shotguns, snipers, assault rifles and pistols. This is possible only due to our amazing patreon supporters. There are more planned for the future, however we also would like to buy some more vehicles and building models to give Chernarus a breath of fresh air.

Mapping
Meanwhile, most of the mapping we have planned is done, we still had to create new cool locations for dynamic missions we mentioned before. However, we still have some new locations to show you, such as new bunkers, new “wrecked” train locations and a boat area which will be used for missions.

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Release Date
As mentioned at the beginning, over this last month we have been working hard to complete and polish the systems we currently have in place, and after an internal test, we have noticed the mod has surpassed all of our expectations and is the most stable it has ever been.

This has given us a better estimate of when this mod can be released. We still unfortunately won’t tell you when. But with every update Bohemia Interactive releases for DayZ, us modders get a whole lot of new goodies to work with and iterate on to provide you a better experience. Remember, if it wasn’t for Bohemia, this mod would not exist so thank them for proving a solid base game for us to work off.

We are extremely excited to see that everyone is as hyped as we are for the release, and we love all of the support you guys are sending our way! We are completely open to any and all suggestions, and those are best done on our Discord found here. This is also the best place to interact with us and to see the progress of the mod on a day-to-day basis via our GitHub updates channel!