Hi i would like to know if it’s just a bug thanks
Not a bug, it’s intended.
I didn’t remove the option by accident, that’s for sure.
1 Like
dang, without being able to disable z-levels I’ll have to finally upgrade from my Pentium II. The guy at the store told me it was a lifetime purchase!
2 Likes
… It maybe was; for him…
@mlangsdorf, I guess it’s deemed stable enough to have it fix in the game (reasonable assumption), or was there something else that supported the removal of the option?
It’s stable enough to be on by default, and the option is gone because of the growing number of things that require z-level to work. We’re getting to a point where having it off will cause more bugs than having it on.
z-levels are stable, and https://github.com/CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA/pull/41135 doesn’t work with z-levels disabled and I refuse to maintain two different versions of bridges, one that is awesome and one that is pathetic.
Now that ground vehicles can go up and down ramps, there is space for a lot of new features, like highway overpasses, hills, and possibly railroads.
13 Likes
Speaking of which, I got to a bridge and its just a huge concrete wall. Can’t go up. Bug?
It should be a huge concrete wall with two ramp ups in front of it. If it looks like this:
it’s the right thing and you’ll see the ramps as you get closer.
Z-Levels is a great feature, the only downsides are the performance hit and the occasional monster coming up through the floor or through the ceiling.
Now that it’s a mandatory feature, some creativity might come in to play in improving performance. Something like making zombies and blobs be in a state of rest by default, where they appear inanimate until disturbed and could trigger a chain reaction waking up other zombies, rather than being on the hunt and fully aware from the moment they are spawned in.
Sound would be an important factor while creeping through a seemingly quiet city. Perhaps a few zombies would be semi active just wandering around maybe woken up from some animal scuttling by, undisturbing other zombies just by passively walking by them, or maybe it’s the familiar smell of rot that prevents them from waking up. It’s only until a loud noise like a gunshot or the screech of a zombie spotting fresh game then wakes up a nearby horde to essentially become what we currently experience when we walk through a city.
This could greatly enhance gameplay, without zombies constantly moving and tracking things, possibly performance too.
Think about walking into a city and see a bunch of rotting corpses scattered around the streets, flies buzzing about. Your first thought might be that they are long dead, maybe some would be. It’s only until you step too close to one that the hideous creature springs to life and lets out an ear piercing wail, the city becomes rapidly populated with bodies coming to and getting ready to sprint in your direction.
To balance this out, standard zombies would need to be less reactive towards sound while in a rest state, or fooled by a smell. Once they are awake they would have the screecher ability along with the runner zombie speed. Some stronger zombies like shockers would always remain awake, hulks would wake up standard zombies just by stomping around, hunter zombies would be waiting on rooftops or emergency staircases ready to jump off unharmed and possibly have the ability to climb directly up walls.
As much of an improvement this would be to me, it’s hard to say how much performance we would actually gain with these changes. Some other tweaks may be needed, nested containers was a great addition and might serve to get some performance back by decreasing the amount of objects that are on a single tile. Going one step above that and having lockers, desks, cabinets actually contain objects rather than sharing the tile might be beneficial.
5 Likes
Reminds me of Lickers in Resident Evil 2. They climb walls and ceilings only to tongue lash prey. Since hunters were more than likely using that idea. Changing them over to function like that could be a nice addition to zlevels. Plus it would be another attack they bear. A 2 tile tongue attack with an optional no-damage variant, that when struck would lasso their prey to them. Ala “GET OVER HERE!” like Scorpion from Mortal Kombat…but without impaling/stabbing prey, just lasso.
What, like this?
3 Likes
Nifty. Sorry, haven’t played in awhile. I like it. 
1 Like
Maybe it means the trap system is going to have an overhaul too, since basically it would be your only kind of defense while sleeping aside from walls/doors
Does anyone know what the latest build is that lets you turn off z-levels?
Interesting. Can they also use their arms to go up/down level?
No.
Yeah sucks, everything chugs, screw you guys.
It is ready. It’s been ready for like a year or two, and now there are core features that are dependent on it. Keep up with the conversation.
I play the game on an absolute brick of an old laptop and it runs fine.