ocnoglittle

I agree. I really thought the big maps were super unstable. I would rather have small maps that are stable than big maps that most computers can't handle. Exploration is unlimited in size because of how many islands are possible, but some computers can only handle rendering a bit at a time, so I actually appreciated the small maps.

Hi bojo, we asked about this in the Q&A and they are going to ask the cave/topology designer what is possible. They are worried if the caves are too uneven, the AI will get super confused, but they will try to push this with the Custom Scenario handmade islands, so the players still get interesting handmade caves. This is a great question and I will make sure it gets included in the next Q&A if Aleš doesn't respond here. I know they plan on reworking the lighting from the torches, but I think that is to increase the lighting so we can see in caves, etc. What about blue or yellow crystals? Or even red/ylandium if you want to go that direction?

Is there any way to change this so I can update the co-op settings even when no one is on the server? I need to change it from the server menu, meaning I can't be on the server myself. Also, it acts like everyone goes back to "visitor" after I set it up and everyone logs off for the night (hopefully that isn't actually happening).

@kimbuck I don't think NPCs can kill each other. I hope there is something in your output logs that can help the Devs figure out where they went. @spiritchaser28 I tested and visitors can kill animals/players, so I think they can kill vendors too. I can test it with you later if you want to double-check.

Awww thank you, Christal! I needed to hear that. The Reddit Ylanders yelled at me. ?

Why are you reading such an old post? Hold down Q while looking at the helm. F1 in-game will pull up the codex to help with things like this. Were you using this wiki: https://ylands.fandom.com/wiki/Ship_Helm_(Wooden) ??

I made a little video: For the Locust maps: Hippo is in the Arid region. If you friend me in-game, I can give you mayor powers. I don't remember where our storehouse is for resources, but you are welcome to build with it. Locust 2 is in the Arctic region. If you friend @Mello1223, he can give you mayor powers. The storehouse there should be on the NW island, iirc. I think @jchob is making a new Tundra Locust too ? Alternatively, @spiritchaser28 and I have lots of extra resources sitting around if you need them.

From Mello/Ocnog: can the ESC button close the custom windows? If not, can it bring up the game description like it did in the past, so people can leave the game/invite friends and not be stuck on an intro custom window?

I don't think opening a browser and the game at the same time is an issue for the majority of people ? so maybe linking to here where they used to link to the Biki (Bohemia wiki) would be a good idea.

Questions for next time: From Jarda: Can the players make nests out of hay? From Jarda: Can the players have bullet and arrow containers? From Jarda: Can the players have weapon stands? From Jarda: Can the players pick which side of the map to spawn on? From Jarda: In Exploration, when the players plant a seed, can it choose a random variant of the plants/trees? For example there are multiple types of Opuntia but Also, can we make sure there aren’t 2 stacks of Sakura seeds, coniferous bush seeds? From André Wolf on facebook: Will there ever be an offline mode? From JohnSteel: Can the players have a tool like a glue gun for hardening large groups of objects? I'm building a stone driveway for a house and hardening all those stones to get the effect I want is a pain From Bobo: Can the players have any of these new inventory containers: backpacks, lunchbox, something for logs, foraging box for berry's, mushrooms, and maybe sticks, bark, resin, and other plants that won’t go in the herb bag? (Ocnog knows we talked about this a bit, but not these specific containers). From Jchobs: Can the potions last longer? Also, Aleš promised to follow up on the questions he wasn't able to answer in the past streams, so we will hold him to it

@bojo2736 we are happy to supply you with resources if you want to build on one of the Locust maps (or any new Exploration map, for that matter). Since every resource is infinite, nothing is crazy rare (except cake. If you find cake, I will trade it at 10,000 logs/stone/etc per slice XD ). About the steam engines, they can take coal, charcoal, or wooden pieces, or in-bulk using a coal basket.

The ship compass has the triangles (indicating islands) in the wrong spots. This has been happening on multiple maps, including new Exploration.

Actually, there doesn't seem to be any Random Encounter at the triangles. ? The Random Encounters are still properly indicated by the little flag symbol.

In 24 hours (on Tuesday at 8pm CEST) Aleš will visit Naru's stream to talk about the future of Ylands and respond to your questions! So make sure to stop by if you are interested! https://www.twitch.tv/naruthehuman Subtitles/translations will be at https://discord.gg/JnS3AZvwAG

In case you wanted a picture of the last two buttons in the settings (gear):

I think mello is trying to explain that the game cannot be minimized like it used to.

Yes, that would be fantastic! I will add it.

Hi everyone! In case you missed the second Q&A, here are the links: Twitch - https://www.twitch.tv/videos/969894396 Youtube - Summary: Although some players are happy the propeller pack is no longer OP, many players are very upset that it has been reduced so much. 10 seconds is not very much time. Are there any plans to increase the time to 30 seconds or 1 minute? We nerfed the propeller pack and we know some people are unhappy with how much we nerfed it. We are planning on doing something about it maybe in the next patch in 1-2 weeks. The players would definitely like more variety for the Random Encounters. Is this a priority for you as well? It is not only about Random Encounters that are generated, but the whole island Custom Scenarios. We can add these Custom Scenarios without updating the game client. For example, if today we make a new Custom Scenarios, a player might find it tomorrow. This means we can get these Custom Scenario maps into the game faster. We are adding more and more of those. We are even thinking of doing a competition at some point, where creators could provide us with some Random Encounters/Custom Scenarios. Those that are good would be eventually added into the game. The Ylands Team can add random encounters without uploading the game client or the whole island custom scenarios? That is a good question and I need to check. I know for sure we can add Custom Scenarios without updating the game client. I am not sure about Random Encounters that are generated. A lot of players want more assets to be craftable, such as ladles, plastic blocks, all of the guns, etc. Is any of this planned? We definitely plan on adding recipes for these items. When a player starts Exploration right now, they get buried in thousands of recipes. We plan A) to keep adding new recipes B) to keep adding recipes for things that players weren't able to craft, C) to improve how the players discover new recipes. Did we change blueprints in 1.6? We just fixed something. We did not change anything major. What are the future plans for blueprints? Because there are some issues with ships and sometimes you can't place them correctly. When you're blueprinting something and something was free placed, you can have it offset from the grid. Are there plans to fix this in the near future? We plan to fix the existing issues in 1.7. We want to enhance or expand how blueprints work, including creating them in Editor. We plan on letting players monetize them. We have some things we consider more important for Exploration for 1.7 but it is possible we will add these blueprint changes in 1.8. The caves are small/boring/too repetitive. Are there any plans to change how they are generated? Yes. We have a programmer that will dedicate time to this for 1.7 or 1.8. We definitely want to make them more interesting, but they won't return to how they looked in the beginning. They were so uneven, which causes issues with the AI. Now they look almost man-made, which is also a problem. We might make them look like the old caves but make them more even. Can the players have more "bosses?" Right now we have mutated animals, but are there any plans to add harder ones? Perhaps on the Custom Scenario islands? I don't really want to go into much detail right now because this has something to do with the Exploration progress/objectives. We are working on it already and we have a specific person dedicated to objects and monsters in the game (Prokop). We want to fill the game with more uncommon monsters. Every update will include something. When can the players get NPCs with ranged attacks? Or is this no longer planned for the future? This is definitely possible. We are pushing for this, but the AI, in general, is quite complicated. Although it seems easy in other games, in Ylands we have terrain that can be changed. The enemies have to navigate terrain that can be elevated or removed. This makes it extremely tricky. We want enough assets for creators to make RPGs, but we know we are missing ranged attacks for monsters. We also need to add new animations. We wanted to do this 2 updates ago but were not able to get to it. It will definitely improve gameplay but it will also need a huge amount of testing. There are a lot of things that need fixing before we add something this big. It is definitely planned, but I can't give you guys any promises as to when this is going to happen. From @Yaourt: Is there any news about the new Community Manager? Can we get a name? I will meet her for the first time face-to-face on Thursday. We just had interviews so far, but she seems great. She seems like a worthy successor to Adam, which is not an easy job to do. The players will get to know her very soon -- probably not on Thursday and Friday is a national holiday, so very likely on next Monday. At some point, she will make some videos. She might collaborate with Naru or do some on her own. Her name is @Nikki Severin. From @SandyT on the forum: Thank you for adding the chisel and screwdriver to the toolbox. Can the Ylands team also add knives to the toolbox? This is already a task in our system for 1.7, to go over the tools and inventory containers. This is something that can be changed quickly and will happen in 1.7. Are there any plans to expand the player maximum above 8? Because Ylands is a voxel-based game where the players can modify the terrain and other things, it is quite difficult on the CPUs. We could easily allow more players, but it might make the game choppy for everyone. As long as everyone is in the same place, we can simulate the game with 1 CPU. But if they go far apart, everyone needs their vicinity simulated by a CPU thread. If someone starts modifying the terrain or something else that requires a lot of power, then everyone on the map would feel it. We already plan on optimizing the game so it can run better, even on the same hardware. We are also working with programmers from the Unity team on some of the code. We take this very seriously, so this will definitely happen but it will be later, probably in 1.9. What about allowing more players as an option on Editor maps? If it is a small map without editable terrain, then possibly more players could be allowed. The problem with this is that some creators are not great at optimizing their games. Some creators use CPU-intensive features with poor scripting. The game would run super slow and they would blame us. Our friends that work on Arma experience this with huge maps, and it was difficult to get stable FPS. It was due to creators that didn't do things properly. We will work on detecting how the map is doing or giving creators tools to determine if they can let more people in their game. We don't want the games to run really poorly, especially as a bad experience for new players. Can the game improve the lighting underwater? It is impossible to see, even with a scuba helmet, etc. Can the game also improve the lighting in caves? It seems to be darker than before Update 1.5. Even with a torch, during the day, it is dark in the caves. If it is in water, we can probably look into the lighting at night, but we intended to make deep water dark and a little bit scary (even without sea life). For torches in caves, we do want to improve them. What are the plans to add more animals to the sea? Will we ever get sharks back? Yesterday, I had a call with the whole team and they asked about sharks first. It is something that our team would like to see. It is similar to the ranged attacks for NPCs. You probably remember the flying sharks, and we weren't that good at implementing sharks in the game. We would love them to come back to the game. Exploration is going to be about sailing and the empty seas can be improved. We have a prototype that worked nicely with sharks. I will talk to the designers to see when we can implement this. We already have all of the features planned for 1.7, so we couldn't add this without removing something else. So maybe in 1.8 or 1.9 at the latest. Are there any plans to allow the players to use ranged weapons while riding an animal or car? This is difficult. We changed the animations system, especially for multiplayer. I would love for this to come back to Ylands, but it is not a priority right now. But anything can happen in 1.9 or later. Will we get the possibility to move the player with Editor tiles? This is related to something we want to give creators, where they can send AI-controlled characters to a spot determined by a mouse click. Can we customize the appearance of the new vendors? For example to match the style of the player's build. This is a good idea. I will ask the designers. From @SandyT on the forum: Can the players have thinner building items, like wood or wallpaper that won't take up a whole block? There is no problem with doing this visually, but you have probably already noticed that AI has trouble going through doors. This is because the doorway has a zone around it where the AI cannot go. The thin walls will still have a large zone like this, so it might cause even more noticeable problems with the AI navigation. Is teleporting planned? Maybe ylandium powered teleport pads to go between islands? I cannot answer that right now, even though I want to tell you. You will have to wait and see. From @jar.janca: Can we have ropes or zip lines to use instead of ladders? Right now, the players moving using ladders isn't very good because there is no animation. So I don't see why we can't add these things. We also can have some rope ladders. From @SandyT on the forum: If the players can't have a refrigerator, would the Ylands team consider creating plain white storage boxes in different sizes that the players could use? Instead of just metal or wood ones with crosses or other items on them? So the players could stylize with details? Sure. Why not? From @NICO14973 on the discord: Can the Ylands team change the sound effect and animation for the Cup of Tea, Coconut Drink, and Green Coconut Drink? So it is more like drinking instead of eating? The sound already exists for the potions. This sounds like a bug. Please make a bug report. From @NICO14973on the discord: Can the Ylands team increase the default difficulty (max HP and damage dealt) of the mobs? Right now they aren't really a threat. We will improve the AI pathfinding so the players can't dodge them as easily, and we know the players can damage them a lot with a basic sword. The solution will be a combination of those two. It is not just about raising HP and damage. We need to analyze what makes them weak. Defeating enemies will be more difficult without the OP propeller pack. What is the difference between mutant and tainted animals? The tainted animals are stronger. The weakest are mutated animals then tainted then infested (so infested animals are the strongest). Can we have a clock in the game? We used to have a sundial but it didn't work so we removed it. I am not sure why we haven't added a clock. When will the players be able to transport tamed animals and vehicles by ship? (both between islands and between maps) This will require more time, but we are looking into it. From @Mello1223: do you plan to modify the Creators Club and if so, will the creators have any better benefits? There are definitely some plans. I want to go over it with our new community manager before talking about it. There are no big changes planned within the next few months. You will have to wait and see. From @bobo198312: can we get a new, faster Engine made from zirconium and ylandium? Sure, as long as the speed doesn't cause problems with the terrain loading on slower computers. We have done a lot of optimization since we last tested this. From @Mello1223: Can propeller pack cool down faster in water? Sure. We might also add a function where if the players are in combat or hit the walls or ceiling of the cave, it makes the propeller pack overheat faster. Can the devs make sure the colors match for different block sets (especially the sandstone spike-shaped blocks)? This should be fixed in 1.7. From @spiritchaser28: Will the players be able to craft plastic blocks? Sure. We originally wanted editor-only items, but it seems the players have a problem with this, so we will try to make them craftable. We will add recipes for items that already exist but can't be crafted in Exploration. From @spiritchaser28: will it ever be possible to include rafts or small boats in blueprints? Blueprints will be a really big thing when we let creators build ships in the editor. It is definitely something we are already thinking about. Can more blocks be blueprintable? When we work on blueprints, they will need to support many more blocks and entities. What are the plans to add new types of transportation? Submarines, planes, helicopters, blimps, bicycles, etc? We over-promised and things weren't working. We probably will not add submarines any time work, because of how the water works and our seas are not deep enough. We have really considered flying vehicles for a long time. We also have a prototype for flying islands but they still need a lot of work to finalize them. We want to wait until we have ranged AI or flying animals. Once there are threats to the players while they are in the air, we will add flying islands and flying transportation, including flying carpets and flying brooms. Are there any plans to add the map function (press M) to player-created games? We need to change the code for how maps work in Exploration. We wanted to add custom bitmaps for this with markers and icons from the script. We will do this by 1.9 at the latest. Would it be possible to add custom textures to blocks sometime in the future? Including things like custom flags using the image library? Ylands doesn't really use textures at all. It is easy to create new assets that have visual consistency, but when something needs more details, it is done by adding more polygons. For things like the paintings where it looks like a texture, we actually used painted polygons. I don't see this changing any time soon. Sorry. About the new midi feature, how does this work with importing music? Are they worried about copyrights, etc.? This is a tricky question. We definitely want the players to use only audio that is not copyrighted and can be used freely. We will be watching what is uploaded and we will see how creators are using MIDI and audio. We will act accordingly. From @Yo HasLEGO:suggestion: what about automated energy components, like a sequencer that gives signals every X seconds? Like adding more energy items Energy is a sad chapter. We put a lot of effort into it and then didn't update it. It needs some more love. We will keep working on it but it is not a priority right now, but maybe sometime this year. From @jar.janca: Is there another biome planned? Not right now. It is tied to Exploration progression and objectives. From @Spyler.X: Have you ever considered taking ylands to VR in the future? We tested it and it was... an interesting experience. We need to perfect the first-person camera before we move forward with this. Are there any plans to bring back the first-person camera in Exploration? The first-person camera is crucial and there is a reason we don't have it. The player needs to be able to see the weapon they are holding, when they reload, or when they hold anything. With combat, there are also problems. Combat in Ylands is meant for third person. Rolling for example could cause vomit-inducing camera effects. Hopefully, we will be able to do the first-person camera. Can the social tab go back to displaying what game our friends are playing? It was much easier to join them earlier. If there is a privacy issue, maybe set up an “invisible” mode. Also, more than half the time, it won’t let me invite my friends to the game I am playing. This will return. This is part of a bigger package of changes that we want to do to help players socialize more and get in touch with their friends. We will add things like showing the positions of your friends on the region map. Can I have more cake in Random Encounters (and ladles)? Yeah, noted. Yeah, well the cake is a lie. Some players have asked for a larger tech tree with more craftable items. When could the players expect this? No comment* Many players enjoyed the steep cliffs and interesting topology from early maps. Are there any plans to add more topology variation to future maps? We are already working on this. The same programmer that works on the caves is making some improvements for the terrain generation. We want to add sea arches and cliffs and other things to break up the monotonous terrain. We also plan on adding handcrafted cliffs like you can see in Dev Diary #169. If it is not in 1.7, it will be soon. Are there any plans to increase the image library size so we can upload more images? Right now you can only upload 1 1920x1080 image and then it is full. It can hold less than 2 MB. We were worried about it not working and eating memory, so we started small but we can increase it. Are there plans for players to be able to rotate or free-place blueprints? We want to make sure it isn't confusing for the players. If you need to add more blocks, it needs to be on the grid. Are there plans to increase the number of custom blueprints a player can have above 50? We do not plan on changing it at this time. It conflicts with the plans for changing blueprints. We will adjust these numbers then. In Editor, can we make the terrain height zero? Right now, y=0.047 instead and it is a problem. I will ask the programmers about this. When will the players be able to dig near water? Weren't we talking about this with dynamic water? I still need to discuss it with the programmers. It might be like a tool that allows the player to fill up some holes that you just created. If everyone was like Ocnog and liked the empty space when you dig near water, it would be so much easier to create games. Are there any plans to have more than 3 tiers? No comment* Are there any plans to improve player-made game stability now that Exploration is so much more stable? We can answer this on a case-by-case basis on the forum with QA and programmer support. From @Spyler.X: Is there any possibility that players can contribute different biomes that are implemented in the official exploration? In other words, would it be possible to recreate a terrain created by hand, with procedural generation? I wouldn't say biomes, but there will be player-made Custom Scenario islands. That is when Exploration and Editor will click together and everything will make sense and be amazing. Are there any plans for encounters for sailing players (NPC pirate ships that attack players or monsters in the sea)? It would be a crazy amount of work. No promises at the moment. We are concentrating on just sailing and making sailing more interesting at this point. Quite soon, we want more random encounters the players can find with their ships. We want the players to be able to really sail from one region to another, maybe through a raging storm. Any plans to make finding islands more difficult/feeling like heading on a voyage instead of just a loading screen? Would the realistic sailing you were just talking about make it more difficult to find the next island? No, it will be more like getting on a train. The player is just sailing a distance. Traveling in Exploration has become quite routine and doesn't have the feeling of exploration. What is planned to increase the feeling of exploration? We are working on it, but it is a secret. No comment* What about bringing back the birds? There was trouble with the AI and they became obsolete with compasses and islands you can see in the distance, etc. Maybe when we add things that can attack the players in the air, we can bring them back... Dragons would be so cool. From @spiritchaser28: What is the Answer to life, the universe, and everything? 42 Can we make it so the players can't see island to island? We were so happy the players *could* see island to island but we can work on this, especially using dense fog to make it more interesting. Things could appear in the mist. We already have Custom Scenario locations where it is difficult to navigate. Are there any plans to add bathtubs or sinks to the game? Or other modern furniture? Yes, we are doing this. Would it be easier to make something like the medieval shields pickable (assets would need to be able to go in the inventory) or make them craftable? Whichever one is easier, can the players have that? They will be craftable since they can't go into the inventory right now. *Normally when you say no comment, it means something is going on. It might mean we are working on it or considering adding it. It just means you have to wait and see. And hopefully, you will be pleasantly surprised soon.

Unlike the hammers or any other tool, the writing tools don't have a "used in" button for their recipes. Could the "used in" button be added for them? I am not sure if this is a bug or suggestion. ?

The number of items in the popup window doesn't decrease when breaking or destroying items.

My ships are usually boring and functional: But I add little decorations to my cargo ships made of wooden boxes ?: (Have I mentioned I love the fish from Journey to the 12 Kingdoms?) But a while ago I made a wooden ship I was proud of:

Thank you Nico for reporting this. I know it is definitely not just you experiencing this glitch, where all the weld-able blocks disappear from a claimed or blueprinted ship. Other people experienced it in both Exploration and Player-made games.

I will keep it last ?

Yeah. I will add it.

are we 100% sure?