The current focus in terms of our more imminent builds is twofold: to get Build 38 finished, polished and out of the door – and to get the an experimental vehicles Build 39 released as an IWBUMS beta in short succession, alongside Mash’s now finished map content. To which end…

BUILD 38

We’ve just released public IWBUMS beta 38.6 (try it out here) which follows a few versions that we had in internal testing. In recent public test builds ChrisW’s changes to rooftop rendering (which makes the map ‘pop’ out at you in more pleasing way and allows for cooler peeking through windows and such) has been something of an issue when it comes to player-built structures.

This is hopefully no longer an issue, but we do need to hear player reports on any remaining visual oddities – especially in MP. One known issue is that a weird one in which the north-western-most roof square of a building stays hidden after the other squares reappear. It shouldn’t be too hard to fix – and will be sorted in the next build.

Build 38.6 also comes with improved visibility when peeking through windows, and a bunch of general ‘tidy up and polish’ fixes from the rest of the team – map irregularities fixed, an oft-reported inventory lock-up nixed and the first results from Connall’s ‘legacy bug’ hunt.

VEHICLES

Tomorrow we plan to release Vehicle Test Build 16 (try it out 15 here) which is largely intended to clear out bugs and get our cars in a fit enough shape so that they can go into the Build 39 IWBUMS beta in an experimental form.

This build sees an update to the physics so that cars can’t clamber over each other, or burnt out cars, and should also ‘jump’ a little less when running over zeds. Yuri has also investigated and fixed a bunch of reported crashes, stopped vehicles magically being visible through walls and fixed some of the misplaced storage areas we had on several of the car models.

Our happy band of vehicles testers should also be aware that cars will now be ‘turned on’ through a toggle on the New Game screen. Currently Yuri is correcting ‘vehicle shadow’ and also darkening it a little so that it’s more obvious and cars are more grounded, and this may well be a part of the update too.

Beyond any other reported game-breaking bugs, Yuri will then be tightening up gamepad controls, as well as fixing gamepad control issues game-wide while he’s in there and fiddling with buttons. Before we release into the 39 IWBUMS Mash also needs to paint up some new textures for the burnt out cars as the ones we have in there currently are from the old visual style.

MAP

Mash’s next map update, featuring the town of Riverside and the Knox Heights Country Club, is now ready for integration. We don’t want to distract testing away from the current IWBUMS beta too much though, so won’t be dropping it into the vehicles build for four-wheeled tester exploration until 38 is pretty much ready to go.

It should make for a fun chunk of the map to explore in cars when it’s first released, so we don’t want to give too much away in terms of showing new screenshots when it’s so close – but Riverside is a new (fictional) waterfront town that’s around the size of West Point, with a very strong rich/poor divide in terms of areas and amenities.

The Knox Heights Country Club meanwhile we’ve already mentioned, but has a golf course, swimming pool, sauna and tennis courts – and should be a fun place to fortify.

ALSO

Many Zomboid survivors will be more than familiar with Hydrocraft, the mod primarily worked on by HydromancerX. We just wanted to flag that Hydro now has a Patreon so that players who want to support him in his endeavours, both in his excellent mods for various different games and his personal artwork, should anyone like to contribute.

Today’s featured image from Rico. A general list of stuff added to PZ, and vids of features being worked on, is kept here – so you don’t have to plough through endless Mondoids for info. The Centralized Block of Italicised Text would like to direct your attention to the PZ Wiki should you feel like editing or amending something, and the PZ Mailing List that can send blogs like this and patch notes direct to your mailbox. We also live on Twitter right here! Our Discord is open for chat and hijinks too.