Out with the Workarounds
DayZ Badlands expansion is here, and you may have been wondering: what does it mean for Namalsk? Well, wonder no more! In this blog post, I tried to summarize what the release of this expansion means for it.
Every DayZ release with an expansion on top of a regular update brings a massive new feature set as well as ton of new assets. Something that mods can benefit from greatly, and so I have gathered all the modding energy and strength I still have, and got to work on Namalsk again 💪
⚠ This article contains spoilers for the upcoming changes on Namalsk ⚠
Terrain holes
I tried to hide massive underground areas on Namalsk as much as possible, but in the end, I still literally had to dig a hole in order to put stuff “under the terrain”. Enfusion’s terrain holes technology introduction into DayZ with the game update 1.30 changes everything.
As you can see, the new tech no longer destroys the terrain in order to build something underground. It simply allows you to select a bunch of squares to hide, and voila, you have an underground entrance. I could only dream of more than 10 years ago, when I started porting Namalsk into DayZ. Most of the underground areas were designed many years ago without this technology. One of the locations that suffered most from was without a doubt the Athena-3 laboratory.
Squeezed above the rail tunnel, I have dealt with many gameplay balance, but also technical issues, associated with such a placement. I am happy to announce, that this madness is over – I introduce you the Athena-3 2.0.
It was interesting to watch for speculations coming from a single screenshot, shared a couple weeks ago on Namalsk Discord. Of course the reality is a bit more grounded (you are not going to drive a train, sorry 😅). I am finally resolving long standing issue of a limited space Athena-3 laboratory always had, and the ugly path you needed to take, if you did not choose to use the key card and the surge module.
The number one thing you will quickly notice is that the ugly verticality of the escape route from Athena-3 with a lot of ladders is gone. The whole underground is lot more horizontal now. The reuse of the custom canal models coupled with Livonia underground tunnels is greatly increasing the overall capacity of the underground itself, allowing for more tactical play.
Even with such a massive space, Athena-3 exits continue to be one way out, meaning that the only way to get in is still only by using the storm. The new southern exit is by far the longest trek, throwing you at the farthest end of Namalsk, but you may avoid a lot of eyes, usually sitting around at the railway tunnel.
A new rail tunnel exit offers a quicker way out, but brings guaranteed loss of health from fall.
With all these changes taking place, I have decided to reduce the contaminated area to only cover the vicinity of the laboratory, not cover the entirety of the tunnels as I hope the new space is so big that players will always find a way around. I will keep an eye on your feedback here of course, further adjustments can be made to the new setup, but give it a chance first please! 🙏
Of course Athena-3 was not the only place utilizing the terrain holes, Athena-2 as well as Athena Research Institute, have received the same treatment, but my goal at these places was basically for you not notice any gameplay change, just nicer visuals.
Speaking of gameplay changes, with the underground objects now actually under the terrain, one visual issue showed up – sun started shining through, because these objects never really had a proper exterior. This has also meant that players with night vision goggles could always glitch their head through some walls, checking what is happening in hallways around them. I have put a stop to that by wrapping all the underground objects on Namalsk in this grey shell, which resolves both visual issues as well as peeking through walls.
Oh, and one more underground thing (I promise this is the last one). For a long time I hesitated to rework the darkening as it is quite a lot of work overall, but when I decided to rework Athena-3, it was time to say good bye to Namalsk’s custom underground darkening implementation, and swap it for the vanilla one, done through the mission cfgundergroundtriggers.json file. This will hopefully mean less pain on the server-side (combining with custom undergrounds) as well as bringing vanilla NVG behaviour.
Other Badlands goods
Motorbikes are super cool addition to the game, but just like the cars, I felt they would hurt the overall atmosphere of the hardcore setup, so I have only configured them for the regular setup. The regular setup is the one that has base building enabled, which is also receiving a major addition – digital code lock. And if you thought wolves were annoying, I have decided to add guard German shepherds around bunch of places down south, stay vigilant!
Apart from these new additions, the loot economy has been flooded with new firearms and clothes, available with Badlands. Check out the full changelog at Namalsk server GitHub.
General gameplay changes
This update also includes some heat-related gameplay fixes and changes, particularly related to the torch, which is no longer so effective at drying clothes, nor warming up. Additionally, when dropped on ground, player will get a damage if they try to walk on top of it. Cooking has been disabled if only kindling is burning, and rapid on/off switching of the gas stove no longer makes the drying/heating process faster. Taking snow/ice into a liquid container will also no longer instantly melt it into water. I have also decided to disable the teeth clatter sound effect as a number of players were reporting it was making them uncomfortable.
And that’s it for this one! I hope these additions and changes will make you want to check out good old Namalsk on some of your favourite community servers. As usual, please comment, and post any feedback you may have on the official Namalsk Discord. Thank you for your continuous support!
See you on Namalsk! Adam out.
