FAQ

[Karsten75]

Q: When will the game be released?
A: There is no  planned release date. Historically, development of creeper world games take upwards of 3½ years or more. Update: Looks more and more as if this game may exceed 4 years in development.

Q: How much will the game cost?
A: A price has not been decided on. Expect pricing to be approximately in line with the previous games.

Q: Is there an Early Availability program, Kickstarter, Patreon, or other method that I can fund the developer or get early access to the game?
A: Knucracker thanks you for your interest, but does not offer or take part in any such program. He strictly believes in selling a "finished good" at the time he feels it's ready for sale.

Q: Will the soundtrack for CW4 be released as DLC as per PF, or a free download as per CW3?
A: No decision has yet been made on the soundtrack. The availability of the soundtrack as DLC depends on the rights that Knucracker obtains to distribute the music. 

Q: the  core game engine operates at 30 FPS (ideally, given sufficient processor resources) but the visual portion of the game is rendered at 60 FPS. How does that work?

A: Map panning, zooming, animation effects, and general other visual concerns looks smoother at 60fps.  For instance, when you scroll the mouse wheel and zoom, the game animates the camera movement rather than snapping to new zoom levels.  That animation looks better at 60fps. It also give an opportunity to do some things on the even frames and some on the odd.  So things like shoving all of the creeper geometry changes to the GPU happen on the 'off' frames.  Of course Unity still renders the creeper geometry every frame (which is at 60 fps ideally) so lighting and shadows and all of that happen at 60.

Q: Will there be Linux support?
A: Linux is trickier to support in native mode.  So I'd rather leave it out and hopefully add it to the store later, rather than add it and take it away. Also, it's still TBD if Steam Proton will be the best route.

Q: Will there be support for Apple MacOS?
A: Apple is placing increasingly onerous requirements on non-native games in the interests of security. It is not clear how those requirements will interact with the then-current release of Unity, and the game's ability to be notarized under then-current requirements. Additionally, notarizing applications involves an on-going registration that has to be paid for. 

Q: Is there a beta program?
  or
     When does the beta program start?
  or
     How can I sign up  for the beta program?
A: Based on past experience, the feeling is that a beta program is most effective when the game is very near release. The selection process/criteria for the beta has not yet been decided on, but will most likely be from active, constructive community participation.

Q:Is there a demo program?
A: A demo will typically be available at the time of release

Q: I'm a proficient coder/artist/musician/awesome person, can I get a job?
A: Knuckle Cracker is intended to be a one-person development shop. Knucracker does outsource artwork and music. For music, he already has preferred sources lined up and does not anticipate needing additional music. If you are a proficient artist with a body of work, you can provide samples of your work to Support at Knuckle Cracker.com  for consideration. No decision is likely within the next 24 months or so.

Q: Alternatively, I have ideas that will revolutionize your game. Will you pay me?
A: Knuckle Cracker do not solicit ideas or contributions from outside parties. If you submit an idea, there is no obligation for anyone to consider it and it may be similar to work already underway. Regardless, no consideration, financial or otherwise, will be made for submitted ideas or suggestions.

Q: Will the game be available on Kongregate, Armor Games or other browser/Flash-based sites?
A: TL;DR: No,

The game is developed in Unity. Flash gaming is a thing of the past and the Unity Web Player is not supported anymore. Conversion to WebGL is problematic due to performance and storage constraints. So in all likelihood, only the stand-alone game will be available.

Q: Will the game be made available via Humble Bundle/GoG, or any sites other than Steam?
A: Typically, the game is available from Steam or from Knucklecracker.com. Other distributions sites will be evaluated from time-to-time. No definitive answer is available right now.

Q: Will CW4 make use of Steam Workshops or have it's own thing?
A: Knucracker has not yet investigated the benefits that may accrue from using the Steam workshop. I believe he would be reluctant to implement a feature that would not be of use to those players obtaining the game from a different source than Steam.

Q: How do you make unit models in CW4?
A: The current models, which are only intended for testing and will not be the final models shipped in the game, are mostly made with Qubicle, but some are made with MagicaVoxel New link for MagicaVoxel is https://ephtracy.github.io/.

Q: I hate the current unit models
  or
     I love the current unit models.
A: the final unit models have not yet been decided on. When we have a line-up of units taht will be "standard", then Knucracker may  commission an artist to create a set of unit models.  No decision has yet been made if unit models can be skinned, or if the current set will optionally be available for those keen on their look and feel.

Q: Will CW4 included a 3D model software to make custom units?
A: It is unlikely. It is more likely that it should be possible to import a popular 3D format model subject to constraints. This entire area has not yet been investigated for implementation.

Q: When we import CW3 maps into CW4, will the land textures automatically load too?
A: A decision on this has not yet been made.

Q: What is the maximum creeper per cell?
A: The Creeper representation has not changed between CW3 and CW4 (currently - this may change). It is internally represented as in integer value divided by 1,000,000. As such, maximum Creeper depth is 2147, after which it overflows and becomes anti-Creeper.

Visually, the creeper height is capped at a much lower level, for two primary reasons.
1. Units need to fly over it to not take damage.
2. on tough maps, with super-high-creeper, the camera must not be inside the creeper of have a view obscured by creeper.  To this extent, the visual representation of the creeper displays a scaled height for creeper at very high densities. .

A few other technical/performance limitations also determine this representation.

Q: can we have caves, tunnels or bridges in the game?
A: TL;DR: No

Even though the rendering is in 3D, the underlying model has a 2-dimensional "surface on which creeper is modeled on top of terrain. There is no support for alternate layers of terrain and creeper. Such additional support will vastly increase the computational load and complexity of rendering and game play. 

Q: Is height (z-axis) distance factored in to range calculations for firing and connections?
A: Yes, the distance is calculated factoring in different heights and also line-of-sight. This means that often a tower on very high terrain cannot connect to a nearby tower on lower terrain. Or that two towers cannot connect if there is a high piece of terrain between them.

Q: Is a CRPL to 4RPL converter something Knuckle Cracker will implement?
A: Unlikely, for the simple reason that many of the commands may not be similar.

Q: Will CW4 allow mappers to upload their own custom sound effects (<10s)?
A: While there has been no consideration made for sound effects in CW4, it is unlikely that the stance on inducing external sounds will change from the position adopted in previous games - ie. No.

Q: Will there be any form of multi-player, coop, or  PvP?
A: Most likely no, but then, who knows what the future will bring?

Q: Will there be a native alternate game mode such as "Play as Creeper" or "Sleeper mode"?
A: Most likely not.

Q: Will there be a VR mode?
A: Most likely not.

Q: Will the game be available in multiple languages?
Q: Will the game support my language?
Q: Will CW4 be localized to other languages?
Q: Will you provide some way for fan made localization to be uploaded and added to the game?
A: providing support for multiple languages is a daunting task for a single developer.  Read this Medium article to get an understanding of the effort firstly, and the cost, secondly of such an undertaking.

[Karsten75]

Terraforming and decayable terrain interactions.

Right now, (September 2018) the mechanism and interaction is as simple as it can be.

Decayable terrain is marked on a map grid. the decay time per cell and the "final" decay level is noted on a whole-map basis.

When the simulation runs, it looks at terrain cells marked for decay, and depending on how many sides of the cell is touched, it decays (faster is more sides are adjacent to creeper).

Anti-creeper prevents decay from taking place. Same as in CW2.

There is no "memory" of the original height or a way to specify a build-up value, so terrain cannot be restored.

The presence of decay on a terrain renders that terrain as unusable for purposes of terraforming. This is probably the easiest restriction to relax.

[Sorrontis]

Q: Will new races be introduced in CW4?

Q: Will the Sleeper or PAC modes be included/supported in CW4?

Q: Will Sleeper become canonical in CW4 lore?

[harrymcb]

perhaps a better question would be will there be _____?

A. wait and see.

[Grabz]

Q: Will Mapmakers be able to stack objects in each other , like in CW3?  Ex. 10 reactors in one space, an emitter in a Airsac spawning pool

knucracker: I don't know yet.  Maybe.  If so the unit models would just overlap likely (not make a totem pole of units).

[Grabz]

Q: I'm colorblind. Will I be able to play the game?

knucracker:
There are many forms of color blindness. Most are moderate deutan.  I've tested with a deutan person and he plays fine.  More extreme forms of visual impairment could of course have trouble, so no guarantees.  I do plan to make the colors configurable as well.  For the demo the main colors are blue for the creeper and then brown tones for the terrain.  3D shapes also matter in CW4, and that's an important difference compared to CW3. The 3d geometry help when color isn't a differentiator.
What worries people the most is the crimson creeper they have seen in some dev videos.  I've not decided if I am keeping that though.  And if I do it might change color or texture.