PC 1.0 (A22) Dev Diary Overflow

[Callum123456789]

correct me if im wrong but im fairly certain none of the electrical banks make any heat, i agree with riamus as it stands solar cells need to be changed to make them worth using the price and rarity of solar cells make them a laughing stock compared to the generator in terms of effort to use/obtain.

 

[FranticDan]

I was guessing you're not using software to trigger a sequence like that and speculating maybe your keyboard could somehow do that if you partially pressed the Spacebar. Then, if that happened, maybe the game would do something weird, like a hop.

I don't think it is humanly possible to press spacebar short enough to cause the character to not do a full jump, even with maxed parkour, you will still do a full 3m jump by tapping spacebar . I guess this could be tested with a program that presses a button for you and have the spacebar pressed for 0.01 seconds, and see what happens. I don't have such a program.

 

As I mentioned before, I *wish* there was an option to do a normal non-parkour 1m jump when you have high parkour so you can get through some of the POI jumps that don't work very well with high parkour, so I'd actually want to have an option to do a small hop/jump.

I think it would be better if parkour unlocked double and triple jumps, that would solve this issue entirely, I personally don't like getting 3m jumps for that reason, 2m is enough for me.

 

[meganoth]

Solar could be made to give just as much heat map as a generator if that's something that is felt to be important.  But the thing with generators is that they really are just a micromanagement thing compared to solar.  Solar isn't even really about the free power.  Gas is extremely easy to get by the time you have enough money to get solar up and running, so it's not like there's any challenge to generators by then anyhow.  The main benefit to solar is so you don't have to micromanage your power by refilling the generators all the time.  For those that don't mind that aspect, you can get a lot more power in a lot less space for significantly cheaper by using generators.  Solar already has drawbacks of taking up more space, needing to have sightlines to the sky, and costing an arm and a leg if you can even find them for sale (which is rare).  It's there for people who just don't enjoy refilling generators constantly.  It isn't about not having to get gas for power.  I could easily have a box of stacks of gas cans long before I can get a full solar bank up and running (and I usually need a couple full banks since I build big bases), so gas isn't at all a challenge for using generators by the time you can use solar.

In any case, something needs done for making it easier to buy solar cells.  As it is now, it's so rare to find them for sale even if you hit 10 traders every 3 days that I've given up trying and just use the Creative Menu to give myself the solar cells.  If I didn't, I'd probably need to be day 150 before I had a single solar panel fully stocked with level 6 cells and that's rather ridiculous.

At what day would you have a full solar bank if you didn't care about highest quality?

 

[meganoth]

I don't think it is humanly possible to press spacebar short enough to cause the character to not do a full jump, even with maxed parkour, you will still do a full 3m jump by tapping spacebar . I guess this could be tested with a program that presses a button for you and have the spacebar pressed for 0.01 seconds, and see what happens. I don't have such a program.

I remember that I could make lesser jumps with parkour perked up by hitting space only for a very short time.

 

[BFT2020]

At what day would you have a full solar bank if you didn't care about highest quality?

For me, solar cells won't have a chance to show up in the trader stock until around Day 45 to Day 50 if I average one level up per day for character and gotten to Tier 4 on the quests.  But the key word here is chance to be in trader stock.  Solar cells (in the Electrical group) only have a 1% chance of being picked and the general traders have 5 to 10 picks from that group.  Trader Bob has 10 to 20 picks from the electrical group.

Since this group only picks unique items, your chance of getting the solar cells increase as an item is removed from the group as a choice, but even after 9 picks (and lets assume you got only items with a probability of 1 - best - to that point), your chance on the next pick is only 2% and you can get 1-3 solar cells.

That group has 21 unique items in it and unlike other groups that phase out lower level items as you level up your trader stage, they never get phased out.  So even if you are at the highest tier for electrical items with the trader, solar cells are still competing (badly) with switches, trip wire posts, pressure plates, , relays, speakers, lanterns, and lights (all Tier 1 in trader stage).

I have not yet gotten solar power up and running in any of my A21 playthroughs (and I prefer to eventually get to solar power).  I don't mind a challenge in getting something, but it feels like after doing a lot of work to advance with the trader, I don't have better odds on getting the solar cells if I just ignored all of their quests.

Which is why I have added the ability to craft solar banks and cells if you get your electrician crafting skills up very high.  Still takes some work, but at that point, you have the option of crafting them if you are constantly seeking out those types of crafting magazines.

 

[Matt115]

It could be that solar cells were only added to the trader (a looong time ago) to have a sink for the stacks of dukes everyone has in end game. If yes, it is obviously working for some of you. So just get more dukes instead of suggesting they get removed

Well number of dukes doesn't matter too much in this situation - why? Because it's hard to find them for sales. So - i will compare with vehicles : if you can much easier find 1 4x4 which you need one while you need few solar cells while even have avalible on trader is hard.  So - price is not problem here just too low chances to get it

 

[Riamus]

I don't think it is humanly possible to press spacebar short enough to cause the character to not do a full jump, even with maxed parkour, you will still do a full 3m jump by tapping spacebar . I guess this could be tested with a program that presses a button for you and have the spacebar pressed for 0.01 seconds, and see what happens. I don't have such a program.

Not currently, no.  However, there are games where tapping the spacebar does a normal jump and holding it does a "long" jump, so it could be programmed that way.  But making that kind of change means relearning how to jump (breaking their muscle memory) for people who have been playing this game for many years and that's not ideal.

I remember that I could make lesser jumps with parkour perked up by hitting space only for a very short time.

Maybe this has changed because I've never been able to do this since starting in A20.

 

[Riamus]

At what day would you have a full solar bank if you didn't care about highest quality?

In A21, fully loaded with any tier cells?  Day 80-100, usually.  I usually have money for 6 low tier cells when I first start seeing the banks in traders around day 20-30 (I'm on 120min days, so double this for 60min days).  By day 40, I would usually have enough for a full set of tier 6 cells if I could find them.  And by day 50, at least two fully loaded banks with tier 6 cells.  In A20, when you could actually find cells to buy, I'd no longer use generators except in specific locations like my horde base before day 40 most of the time.  I'll point out that if I want to complete all 5 traders through tier 5 very quickly, I could get a fully loaded solar bank from tier 5 rewards in less time with tier 3-4 cells (I think that's still a valid reward at tier 5 in A21), but that requires doing a ton of questing to do that and then choosing only solar rewards.  I'd rather the option to buy them, with perhaps taking one tier 5 solar reward earlier in the game to get started.

Now, based on your question, I assume the real question is "How soon do you think you should be able to be using solar in a game?" and I think the answer to that is "As soon as you level up to start seeing them in the traders and have enough money for them."  If they want it to be later game, they should unlock at traders later.  That would be significantly better than never finding them at traders the way it is in A21.

There are 2 reasons why I use solar instead of generators and both are simply convenience.  First, it's so I don't have to constantly refill the generators, especially when you either have to top them off every time you return to base or else try to remember to randomly top them off before the run out or else refill them once they stop working.  With no warning indicator of any kind that you're running low on gas, it's just something I don't enjoy dealing with.  If you could wire a yellow/orange/red warning light that would turn on when you were under 25% fuel, it wouldn't be so bad, but you can't.  The second is so that if I do run out of gas, I don't have to worry about whether or not my automatic doors function.  Driving back to base and having your doors not open and having to go use some alternate manual door to get in so you can refill the generator so you can drive into your base/garage is also something I don't enjoy.  Solar takes away the hassle of dealing with those things.  It costs more and takes more space and requires certain placement to function and requires more banks than generators for the same power and I'm willing to pay those extra costs to have hassle free electricity.  That's how it should work.  As I mentioned, it isn't really about saving on gas because gas is extremely easy to get once you are that far into the game.  At least, as long as there is a desert with shale.  Spend 15 minutes mining and you can make a lot of gas and you're also getting a bunch of sand for your needs at the same time.  Yes, mining takes more time than refilling the generators, but mining is an activity and not just a chore in my view.

 

[zztong]

I remember that I could make lesser jumps with parkour perked up by hitting space only for a very short time.

The code could conceivably measure the time between the SPACE DOWN event and the SPACE UP event to determine how high to attempt to jump. The time of the events would just be some subtraction. If you get a user who wants to hold the space bar down for a long time you might get odd game situations. Maybe in that case a programmer might run a timer, but that's maybe out there a bit. Another approach would be to make the SPACE DOWN also lead to some kind of crouch and it would take the SPACE UP to "release" the jump.

I can see why they might just "jump" on a SPACE DOWN and leave it at that.

How quickly a user can trigger subsequent SPACE DOWN event is a mix of user talent and keyboard quirks, or a willingness to use software to send events.

 

[zztong]

At what day would you have a full solar bank if you didn't care about highest quality?

For me, solar cells won't have a chance to show up in the trader stock until around Day 45 to Day 50 if I average one level up per day for character and gotten to Tier 4 on the quests.  But the key word here is chance to be in trader stock.  Solar cells (in the Electrical group) only have a 1% chance of being picked and the general traders have 5 to 10 picks from that group.  Trader Bob has 10 to 20 picks from the electrical group.

I was trying to narrow it down to some value between 30 and 60. I want to say a Solar Bank shows up far earlier than when I can get Solar Cells. If quality 1 and 2 solar cells were showing up with it, that would be useful to me, even if the solar bank isn't full.

There are early game applications that are possible with a solar bank a couple of batteries and a single low quality solar cell. I mean, a light on a switch in the work room comes to mind.

EDIT: Oh, I confused Solar Bank with a Battery Bank. I'd say BFT2020's estimate is closer. I'll say 45-60.

 

[Vaeliorin]

How quickly a user can trigger subsequent SPACE DOWN event is a mix of user talent and keyboard quirks

The real limiting factor on how quickly you can jump is how quickly you land.  I can't imagine anyone so slow at spamming space that they couldn't immediately jump again after landing.

 

[meganoth]

Maybe this has changed because I've never been able to do this since starting in A20.

Sigh, another day, another test run

 

[Vaeliorin]

By the by, I've definitely encountered the hop phenomenon before.  In my mind it happens when I don't fully depress the space bar, but I've never tested it or anything.  Even with maxed parkour it was less than a full unperked jump.

 

[meganoth]

Sigh, another day, another test run

And I was wrong. I could not do a "small" jump.

 

[Jugginator]

A21 has perk/magazine crossovers that need to be sorted out for A22. with the cooking magazines the master chef perks are redundant and a waste of points.  Its the same with grease monkey i havent put any points into it and i am only 10 magazines away from building a gyro.  the amount of points to max strength and then grease monkey are better spent elsewhere. I suppose it gives the player a choice . is there any overhaul of the magazine /perk duplications in A22?

Well, there are other benefits to those perks. Master Chef lets you cook faster (and use less of the main ingredients, which I admit isn't the most beneficial in the world, but it's a benefit), and Grease Monkey reduces crafting part costs (again, small benefit), but also lets you repair with less repair kits and faster, which is a great bonus (think: vehicle breaks down in the wasteland and you have Grease Monkey, you repair a lot more a lot faster instead of having to repair multiple times).

 

[spud42]

maybe my play style is different but i find those unnecessary. i only needed 1 dew collector, i have so much meat in storage i wont use it all. i have a stack and more of "yellow" water...lol i have a stack of 70 eggs i dont need now i have 100 magazines in food/cooking . im on day 106 of this playthrough and all i really want to acomplish is getting the last 8 vehicle books so i can make a gyro. once i do that it explore the entire map and finished... i have a Teragon map waiting for the next start.

cooking faster or needing less resources isnt really an issue. start cooking then go loot , dinner is ready when i get home...lol

 

[Izmail]

Hello everyone, guys. I understand that here we are talking mainly about 22 alphas, I would like to go a little into the future of the alpha in which bandits will appear. The question is, when bandits are introduced into the game, will neutral and friendly NPCs appear with them? And the opportunity, for example, to take one of them to defend the base and put it in your equipment? Will there be at least a couple more new weapons? And I also have an interesting idea (I understand that there is a special section, but I wanted to write here because it seems to me that the creators of the game look here more often) The idea is that a new item appears, for example: human blood or human meat, and this item can have two functions. 1 function this meat can be eaten by the player himself and lose, for example, intelligence characteristics, but receive new buffs or abilities. Or use meat to create bait to throw it, for example, at bandits or distract the attention of zombies. That's all for now. Thanks I will be glad to receive answers

 

[Riamus]

Hello everyone, guys. I understand that here we are talking mainly about 22 alphas, I would like to go a little into the future of the alpha in which bandits will appear. The question is, when bandits are introduced into the game, will neutral and friendly NPCs appear with them? And the opportunity, for example, to take one of them to defend the base and put it in your equipment? Will there be at least a couple more new weapons? And I also have an interesting idea (I understand that there is a special section, but I wanted to write here because it seems to me that the creators of the game look here more often) The idea is that a new item appears, for example: human blood or human meat, and this item can have two functions. 1 function this meat can be eaten by the player himself and lose, for example, intelligence characteristics, but receive new buffs or abilities. Or use meat to create bait to throw it, for example, at bandits or distract the attention of zombies. That's all for now. Thanks I will be glad to receive answers

They have not given any indication of NPCs for your base, so it is unlikely.  It is also very unlikely that they will add a cannibalism option for players.  As far as where to post suggestions, the correct forum is recommended. Anything posted here gets lost almost immediately.

 

[Izmail]

They have not given any indication of NPCs for your base, so it is unlikely.  It is also very unlikely that they will add a cannibalism option for players.  As far as where to post suggestions, the correct forum is recommended. Anything posted here gets lost almost immediately.

Understood, thank you very much. By the way, I remember Rick saying a long time ago in the old alphas that he wanted to implement a function with an NPC assistant, I understand that it is unlikely, but let's hope as they say

 

[Javabean867]

They have not given any indication of NPCs for your base, so it is unlikely.  It is also very unlikely that they will add a cannibalism option for players.  As far as where to post suggestions, the correct forum is recommended. Anything posted here gets lost almost immediately.

There technically is cannibalism in the game already.  Hobo stew is made with the rotten flesh, 1 source of it being the dead bodies we carve up throughout  the game.