Community Crunch 411: An Update on Shastasauraus and More!

sooooo we was getting a submarine now we getting a whale with a tek testicle ...

2 hours ago, TheTwistedKeeper said:

Good luck with this. They didn't even bother adding them in after the last event when they said they would, so I highly doubt they are going to now.

they already did it in the switch version. there are no engine limitation or other bullcrap like that.

Edited May 25 by darkradeon

11 hours ago, darcek said:

Why exactly? whats the diffrence between it and the Island?

Naa it should be "I CANT WAIT FOR AB!"

Some of us casuals just want a visually appealing map that isn't The Island (seriously, I was sick of The Island back in Legacy days let alone post-release) and not too stressful 😛

As much as I love Ab, I never wanted to have my main base there.

That and I never really messed with The Center much on ASE (par the achievement), so it would practically be a mostly new experience for me personally.

Edited May 25 by Mike585x

12 hours ago, Joebl0w13 said:

That's why it's under the belly like that. This way it's always under water even if the fish is surfaced. They don't have to deal with in/out of the water which must have been the problem. 

Well that is exactly what i think would have been cool, being able to surface the cabin. The issue they are facing can be addressed for sure but they just chose the less expensive route.

Edited May 25 by SlayerQc

6 minutes ago, SlayerQc said:

Well that is exactly what i think would have been cool, being able to surface the cabin. The issue they are facing can be addressed for sure but they just chose the less expensive route.

I'd be rather concerned about anti-meshing everyone in the cabin if it glitches through the ocean floor

It's of course slightly disappointing that the result is so different from the reason why we voted for this creature, but I don't mind all that much that the submarine section is under its belly. It looks a bit weird because of how it's attached, however.

Quote

With the launch of the Center Map just around the corner on June 4th, we wanted to share some insight about the Shastasauraus and how its design evolved during the development process. The Shasta, and namely its saddle, is one of the more ambitious designs we’ve done, and the team really enjoyed the challenge!

Two key areas we had to resolve related to making sure the Saddle actually functioned like a submarine (i.e. keeping water out while the creature moves, etc.) and how players and creatures moved inside of the sub itself. The first challenge required both a shift in the overall design of the saddle and a tech solution, as we learned pretty quickly that having it on top of the creature wasn’t going to be viable, so we had to redesign it to be under the Shasta instead. This change allowed us to ensure that we could keep the water outside of the saddle at all times and also eliminated the edge cases relating to the submarine being partially submerged. Tackling player and creature movement was purely a technology-driven solution, we rewrote some of the basing code – the logic that relates to what characters are standing (based) on – of Unreal when in different physics modes like falling and jumping, essentially creating a new basing system specifically when based inside of the new saddle. 

This was definitely one of the more challenging creatures we've designed, so please excuse us for geeking out a little bit! So now you’ve heard the ins and outs of how we tamed the mighty Shastasaurus and its sub-aquatic saddle, it’s your turn next! We can't wait to see you all cruising the seas in Shasta-style on June 4.

I think you did a great job at explaining why this creature ends up being the way it is, and you should absolutely do that more often, especially whenever votes are involved (looking at you, Yi Ling). This is the kind of post that shows your commitment to trying to make things work within the limitations of the engine (and/or of the team), and that passion makes it easier to forget almost any kind of disappointment.

This kind of post is what I wish you wrote more often, not even necessarily about new creatures, in that it assumes that we're smart enough to understand the nuance of what you explain, while still showing that you were up for the challenge and really wanted this to work. And I don't think I'm the only one in this, I'm seeing a lot of positive response to it.
We want to see behind the scenes, peek behind the curtain and feel your passion for the game, instead of only being told things relevant to a new release, and then going back to silence. Explain to us why you make the choices that you make. Explain to us the work that goes into it. Share with us about your work to let us feel your passion. This is absolutely the way.

12 hours ago, TheTwistedKeeper said:

What is that scorched earth easter egg, it looks familiar but I can't quite place it.

The incomparable GP has a great video about it

12 hours ago, Scheneighnay said:

Exhibit A as to why when voting for creatures, you should actually vote for the creature and not some secondary feature in the proposed dossier

I don't know about that entirely, because they also change the design of the creature sometimes XD See also : Yi Qi/Yi Ling.

2 hours ago, darkradeon said:

they already did it in the switch version. there are no engine limitation or other bullcrap like that.

Maybe. Honestly I've given up on even bothering asking at this point, they said they would & have pretty much just did  nothing since then.  Though i guess they added it to the switch so mostly ignoring is more accurate.

2 hours ago, Mike585x said:

I'd be rather concerned about anti-meshing everyone in the cabin if it glitches through the ocean floor

This. I'll be happy if the Shasta just works and doesnt break the Center for 2 months before they have to scrap/adjust it again.

Hopefully this update to how platform animals and boats work finally gives them some collision. I'm not gonna lie I've done my fair share of boat raiding by phasing into other boats or structures but it's something that should have been fixed a long time ago.

Edited May 25 by St1ckyBandit

8 hours ago, akosmc5 said:

Another evidence the game is a low-effort reskin

How do you consider ASA to be a "low-effort reskin" if it has better graphics, better gameplay elements, new creatures, and was made in the UE5???

2 hours ago, TheTwistedKeeper said:

Maybe. Honestly I've given up on even bothering asking at this point, they said they would & have pretty much just did  nothing since then.  Though i guess they added it to the switch so mostly ignoring is more accurate.

yeah. sadly switch uses UE 4.27 so the assets are in another form, plus the hashing checks should be patched or bypassed..

 

Honestly if the surface layer of water was just visual I think most people would be okay with it as a trade off for having it above the surface of the water at times. It looks downright ridiculous at it's current state, so I hope to see a change in it's design. Really happy to hear all of the time that went into the mechanics of the saddle, but the design of the saddle is just so bad.

22 hours ago, akosmc5 said:

Another evidence the game is a low effort reskin

If this was evidence of a low effort reskin then the submarine wouldn't exist because it wasn't in ASE to be reskinned in the first place.

The Evo Giga should be added to the official servers it look so good 

En lo personal hubiera preferido solo el  submarino añadir tek no veo difícil hacerlo ya que se supone estaban full de tecnología tek me gustaría no depender tanto de dinos también robots armas trajes y vehículos, no me gustó un submarino pegado a un dino esperaba mas que la montura los pudiera fabricar y fueran de uso libre me imagino lo que sigue un raptor con llantas todo terreno 🤣🤣

No aparecen servidores oficiales pvp, solo los pve, a alguien mas le pasa?

There are no official pvp servers, only the pve, does anyone else do this?

On 5/25/2024 at 4:30 PM, schnuggelmaus39 said:

Will there be a simple saddle in addition to the submarine saddle?

Well one would think so...that saddle looks tek to me..i hope not as i don't like tek stuff. 😊

 

oooooh is so cool this saddle

On 5/24/2024 at 7:54 PM, ChrisBManos said:

Green, why?

Ah, but what about the inside? 🤔

On 5/24/2024 at 9:50 PM, darcek said:

Why exactly? whats the diffrence between it and the Island?

Naa it should be "I CANT WAIT FOR AB!"

Personally I'm waiting until at least Extinction, if not both Genesis maps, before truly considering purchasing A.S.A.

If I'm going to be tricked into buying a shameless reskin, then at the very least I want to be certain that I'll be receiving the full amount of content.

Can we fix the physics of the boat and walk past dino tails?

I am very happy to see how this CC was handled. This is what you should always do WC. That's 4 CC's in a row now! 🙂

I very much understand the decision behind the saddle and wondered if this would be an issue. However, the final design is a little disappointing. The point of having a saddle is so that you and everything you build on the saddle feels like you are part of the creature. The way this saddle is designed, it makes it feel like you and the creature are two separate entities that just happen to be tethered together.

It looks like you could have the option of pressing a button in the sub which detaches the sub from the creature and then you and the creature can swim off independently. If you did add this feature, then the design would make sense and I think also be really cool. In emergencies, you could separate and divide the attention of whatever is attacking you as you escape. Also, in this sense, the benefit of attaching the sub to the creature versus having it separate would be that if the sub was detached then you would have to use either element or more likely gasoline to power the sub; whereas having it attached to the creature you would just be using its food to power your propulsion. you could still get around the whole "out of water" thing if you were able to detach the sub by simply making it so that you can't raise the sub above the water line; just like how you can't sink a raft below it.

If this feature isn't added though, then the design of the sub saddle is extremely odd looking and disappointing. You could have had the cabin under the creature's belly, but design the sub so that it hugs the belly more rather than weirdly hanging off it. 

P.S. I am also very disappointed to see that the typo in your Copy/Paste mod section that I saw fixed last time is once again broken this time. 😢

If you have to copy/paste, could you not have copy/pasted from the previous CC where you fixed the typo?

On 5/25/2024 at 7:41 AM, johnjoe101 said:

sooooo we was getting a submarine now we getting a whale with a tek testicle ...

4 hours ago, FlorianWind9 said:

Ah, but what about the inside? 🤔

Red

Green on the outside, Red on the inside.

In a way, I kinda like the awkward look of the Shasta....saying that, you might as well have made the sub into a separate vehicle instead and just keep the torpedo/bubble canopy on the Shasta....maybe add some harpoon weapon pods like the space whale.

Of course it may not be fair to pass judgement on the design till we see it in game...it may work better than it looks at first glance...

Edited May 29 by KingOfAshes

21 hours ago, FlorianWind9 said:

You could have had the cabin under the creature's belly, but design the sub so that it hugs the belly more rather than weirdly hanging off it. 

Thanks, I was hoping someone would say this so I didn't have to 😛

I was thinking the same thing. I would have thought it would appear more fastened to the underbelly. Could be so much cooler, the possibilities are endless. It makes me wonder the reasoning behind not going that route.