PC Alpha 21 Dev Diary

[Aldranon]

I've thought about this variant a few times. I thought "7 Days to Live" as a prequel. The world starts out with vague reports of zombies and the player is one of the very few who starts to take it serious. There are reasons to engage with civilization -- buy things -- but civilization is also the source of disease and going through checkpoints is going to eat up your time. Civilization devolves into panic, looting, then the mass of infected, the mass of zombies, a military response ... and if you live, launch 7D2D.

I doubt it would be a voxel/blocks game though.

What the player does in the 7 days to prepare would be critical.

Also, starting wealth and residence location would be a difficulty setting, all the way up to being homeless!

Occupation could be important in helping the player survive.  Some occupations have more survival nature to them, but I can see driving a bus could be a big deal.

Yeah, no voxels for sure.

There should be enough natural choke points and evasive methods the player could use anyway.

Boats would be the easiest evasive method except for getting water.

The upper floors of some high buildings have pros and cons.

 

[nickasaurus rex]

Is it a bug if there is no randomly generated town next to a trader?

 

[RipClaw]

Is it a bug if there is no randomly generated town next to a trader?

No. It's actually a feature of A21. In my opinion not a great feature but it is a according to the developers a feature.

 

[weldabar]

My map has 3 of the same trader 'type' in close proximity so my first 2 'Trade Routes' missions are to the same trader 'type'.

On one of my games the first two 'opening trade routes' brought me to the exact same trader. So the first three traders were all the same! I understand how this could happen with RNG, but I don't think it should happen.

With a generated map I think

1) it must ensure that all the traders exist

2) adjacent traders should not be the same, or traders within a certain distance. It's "Trader Joel's" after all, not Starbucks.

 

[spacepiggio]

No. It's actually a feature of A21. In my opinion not a great feature but it is a according to the developers a feature.

Kind of like a stray outpost & fits a single player or nomad playstyle, I like it

 

[Riamus]

Regarding the changes to the random world generation and POI frequency.

My map has 3 of the same trader 'type' in close proximity so my first 2 'Trade Routes' missions are to the same trader 'type'.

As the traders are now quite specialised this appears to have limited the items I can buy (combined with the RNG is not giving me the magazines to build a motorised vehicle to explore for more distant traders).

Does the POI frequency take trader 'type' into consideration?

If not could it?

On one of my games the first two 'opening trade routes' brought me to the exact same trader. So the first three traders were all the same! I understand how this could happen with RNG, but I don't think it should happen.

With a generated map I think

1) it must ensure that all the traders exist

2) adjacent traders should not be the same, or traders within a certain distance. It's "Trader Joel's" after all, not Starbucks.

There is a new XML parameter - ThemeRepeatDistance.  I only checked TraderJoel.xml, which was set to 1000, but I assume they all have the same value.  This might allow you to reduce the chance they appear near the same trader by raising the value.  On the other hand, it might mean that's the distance between any trader, which wouldn't help.  It might be worth trying, though.  The POIs have DuplicateRepeatDistance as a new parameter that seems to prevent the same POI from being within that distance from each other.  That isn't in the trader's XML, though.  It may be possible you could also make use of that parameter if ThemeRepeatDistance doesn't work.

Maybe a dev can confirm either of these to help you out with that?  Granted, it might be better for vanilla to keep the same trader more distance from one another in RWG without having to make these changes.

Is it a bug if there is no randomly generated town next to a trader?

It is a feature.  However, I do not think these traders should ever be your starter trader.  You should always have a starter trader near a town.  POI to quest at are just way too far away before having transportation to do much at these without spending a ton of time, food and water.  Having these wilderness traders isn't necessarily bad.  It can get you questing the wilderness POI that you might not normally quest.

 

[meganoth]

It is a feature.  However, I do not think these traders should ever be your starter trader.  You should always have a starter trader near a town.  POI to quest at are just way too far away before having transportation to do much at these without spending a ton of time, food and water.  Having these wilderness traders isn't necessarily bad.  It can get you questing the wilderness POI that you might not normally quest.

If he never is the starting trader, he would be almost useless. For veteran players surely a feature. New players should start with Navezgane and there it should be impossible.

 

[Riamus]

If he never is the starting trader, he would be almost useless. For veteran players surely a feature. New players should start with Navezgane and there it should be impossible.

Not necessarily.  He could be a special quest to find a trader and people might quest there.  Really, there's not much more chance of such a trader being useful right now.  Most players other than new players who don't know better will see there's no town and move on pretty quickly... often on day 1, or at least by day 2.  At the very least, they will as soon as they get a bike but I think most will go even before then.  Anyone who uses POI for their night base will almost certainly move on (at least to a wilderness POI) even though there is one tile next to these wilderness traders since it isn't necessarily a good place to hide out.  Right now, a wilderness trader as a starting trader is just a waste of time for most players.

And you state that new players should start with Navesgane but the game does not in any way indicate such a suggestion to players.  It might be the first choice (I'm not positive) in the list and so many might choose that for that reason but it isn't like it is listed as tutorial or something that might make a new player decide to choose that over a pregen map.  Not positive if pregen maps ever have the wilderness trader as the starter trader.  If not, then what they start with wouldn't matter as long as they don't make their own map, so you're right for new players even if they didn't choose Navesgane.

 

[meganoth]

Not necessarily.  He could be a special quest to find a trader and people might quest there.  Really, there's not much more chance of such a trader being useful right now.  Most players other than new players who don't know better will see there's no town and move on pretty quickly... often on day 1, or at least by day 2.  At the very least, they will as soon as they get a bike but I think most will go even before then.  Anyone who uses POI for their night base will almost certainly move on (at least to a wilderness POI) even though there is one tile next to these wilderness traders since it isn't necessarily a good place to hide out.  Right now, a wilderness trader as a starting trader is just a waste of time for most players.

I don't expect the wilderness to be as barren as it is now. And you don't necessarily know where the next town is, so it is a possible challenge. One player may decide to run into some direction and hope for the best. Another would take the nearest wilderness POI as hideout for the first days. Another might build himself a wooden hideout and use the nearest POIs as quest locations. Another would take the farthest quest POI from the trader in the hope that it is in a town.

And you state that new players should start with Navesgane but the game does not in any way indicate such a suggestion to players.  It might be the first choice (I'm not positive) in the list and so many might choose that for that reason but it isn't like it is listed as tutorial or something that might make a new player decide to choose that over a pregen map.  Not positive if pregen maps ever have the wilderness trader as the starter trader.  If not, then what they start with wouldn't matter as long as they don't make their own map, so you're right for new players even if they didn't choose Navesgane.

Well, the game isn't finished. They very well could suggest to new players to start with Navezgane and the pregens. That solution would be my preference over treating wilderness traders as a bug in RWG.

 

[Riamus]

I don't expect the wilderness to be as barren as it is now. And you don't necessarily know where the next town is, so it is a possible challenge. One player may decide to run into some direction and hope for the best. Another would take the nearest wilderness POI as hideout for the first days. Another might build himself a wooden hideout and use the nearest POIs as quest locations. Another would take the farthest quest POI from the trader in the hope that it is in a town.

Well, the game isn't finished. They very well could suggest to new players to start with Navezgane and the pregens. That solution would be my preference over treating wilderness traders as a bug in RWG.

I'm not sure if they'll increase wilderness POI density.  If they do, this may not be an issue.  If they don't, then it still is an issue.  You do know that you can follow the road to reach the next town.  It's possible that the first town you come to will be an old west ghost town but the odds are higher that it'll be a real town.  So it really isn't difficult to find a town.  Finding the trader in that town now that the trader isn't always at the town's gateway may be a challenge, though.  Yes, some might do the things you mentioned (I did also mention using a wilderness POI for a night base) but I think most people who aren't new players will move on within the first day or two once they see there isn't a town.  Besides the time to get to the quests that are usually close to 1km distance, you are wasting a ton of food and water traveling back and forth, which will put you at a disadvantage in trying to avoid running out of each.  Add in the new magazines and realizing that you are not going to be able to get many magazines just hitting distant wilderness POI and it will really leave you at a disadvantage.  Some people are fine with that disadvantage and will be fine staying at such a trader but most are going to want to find a town rather than waste their time, imo.

I don't really consider this a bug.  Just an oversight.  Even if you make new players aware that you recommend Navesgane and pregens over RWG, it still leaves RWG in a situation where most players will bypass that first trader pretty quickly if it's in the wilderness.  If it was an RWG option, that would be one thing.  But otherwise, it is really not a good thing to have that be the starting trader.

 

[Rince]

I don't expect the wilderness to be as barren as it is now. And you don't necessarily know where the next town is, so it is a possible challenge. One player may decide to run into some direction and hope for the best. Another would take the nearest wilderness POI as hideout for the first days. Another might build himself a wooden hideout and use the nearest POIs as quest locations. Another would take the farthest quest POI from the trader in the hope that it is in a town.

Well, the game isn't finished. They very well could suggest to new players to start with Navezgane and the pregens. That solution would be my preference over treating wilderness traders as a bug in RWG.

But why making the change to enable the loner trader start before making the changes for the lone trader to work as starter point?

I mean, with a trader with a town hydratation and food was a challenge. Can't imagine starting with a trader in the middle of nowhere.

 

[Kalex]

from patch notes:

• Dew collector creates activity heat when filling
  

That's some serious bs change there. Why the hell would the condensation dripping attract zombies????

 

[Slingblade2040]

So the dew Collector can now call in screamers? So you people caused a problem with the jars and the solution was oh put up dew collectors, you saw people use it by making a bunch So you increased the price for the filter and now you do a massive nerf to make them generate heat somehow and make them call in screamers? 

What the actual hell is the logic behind nonsense like that? Like I hope I'm reading that update wrong but if the dew collector does produce heat and calls in screamers then that's a massive nerf to a problem you all created in the first place.

 

[beerfly]

Tier 7 ? Nice !

 

[hiemfire]

Tier 7 ? Nice !

An Infested quest at tier 5 POI in the desert would be tier 7. Tier 9 in the wasteland if I'm remembering the skull values correctly.

 

[iamnuff]

• Adjusted all tool and weapon entity and block damage values to allow a standard linear progression between quality levels and tech tiers
  
• Adjusted mod slot counts on all tools and weapons to allow a standard linear progression between tech tiers
  

This is something I noticed in the previous experimental versions. Where it didn't feel worth upgrading from a T5/6 iron tool to a T1 steel one, because the stat-diffrence was minor and you lost all of your mod-slots.

'Adjusted' is a bit sparse on details, but I've got high hopes for this. 

As for gasoline—can't remember who was talking about it, but I'll throw my hat into the ring again—going into Salvage Operations tree is literally the best thing you can do—I'm currently running a Perception build and I maxed it out. It's crazy the difference in stuff you get between before I perked into it vs after. I wrench about 10-15 cars and have enough gas to fill more than half of my 4x4 tank

I'm also running a perception build.

You get roughly 240 gas per car (intact cars only) with maxed out Salvage Operations, which is basically a drop in the bucket of a 4x4. 

Mining oil-shale to make gas at a chem-bench seems basically mandatory.

I went out with a friend and I wrenched every car we found along the entire road to the destination, and every car in the carpark once we got there (twice) and by the time we got back to base again we were basically back on the amount of gas that we started with. 

It wasn't a short drive, but I must have wrenched more than a dozen cars. 

You used to get way waaaay too much gas this way (like a full stack of 6000 per car) but now it feels like too little. 

For a minibike it's easy to keep yourself topped up, but the 4x4 is a real guzzler. 

 

[Moldy Bread]

Lol, sorry, Dew collectors now create heat? What is the dripping sound too much!?

Very stupid change, modders! We need another fix.

 

[hiloboys]

Lol, sorry, Dew collectors now create heat? What is the dripping sound too much!?

Very stupid change, modders! We need another fix.

Hey now the zombies get thirsty too!

 

[Exxodous]

So the dew Collector can now call in screamers? So you people caused a problem with the jars and the solution was oh put up dew collectors, you saw people use it by making a bunch So you increased the price for the filter and now you do a massive nerf to make them generate hate somehow and make them call in screamers? 

What the actual hell is the logic behind nonsense like that? Like I hope I'm reading that update wrong but if the dew collector does produce heat and calls in screamers then that's a massive nerf to a problem you all created in the first place.

Why is this a problem?  So the occasional screamer shows up, big whoop...they are just free XP and you don't even have to leave the house.  Same thing happens with forges and nobody is crying about that.  What some call a "jar problem" is awesome in my opinion as I threw away hundreds of jars previously and I'm glad they are gone.  Sure, glue is a bottleneck but it is a survival game after all.

 

[Slingblade2040]

Why is this a problem?  So the occasional screamer shows up, big whoop...they are just free XP and you don't even have to leave the house.  Same thing happens with forges and nobody is crying about that.  What some call a "jar problem" is awesome in my opinion as I threw away hundreds of jars previously and I'm glad they are gone.  Sure, glue is a bottleneck but it is a survival game after all.

The fact you are even comparing a dew collector to a furnace shows the ignorance in your comment.

This is literally water. We aren't boiling it, it's not in a camp fire, it's not a torch, it's not a furnace that melts metals into ingots. It's literally dew dripping to make water. 

The idea of making this generate hate is almost as ridiculous as your reply.