PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[Gareee]

Its pretty bad when we have a #gate about something that never happened or will happen but is simply a "what if..." speculation by one member of the TFP team. If we are going to squirm about other timelines in the multiverse there are way worse scenarios than this one...

People are eager for a18, so they chatter. Upon reading MM's follow-up posts, voxel ain't going anywhere, but this was a good opportunity to encourage developing it further, and leverage that uniqueness.

If you haven't seen any of the hype about Hytale, you should check it out...it's a new voxel world game like Minecraft on steroids. It including a complete model editor, and including the same developer tools to create the game.

Imho, thats the way to go to build a active community from the start.

7days has that as well, and even has Guppy fostering a Haven for modders. It's kind of like an early access DreamWorks of a sort, with a place to spitball ideas.

I'm eager for a18 as well, but I have new Minecraft updates to play, new no man's sky, and a huge pile of unplayed AAA games I really need to either start or finish.

We'll fire up our mothballed 7 days server once a18 ex drops, but want to follow the buzz here till then.

 

[MikeRavo]

Not with mods, I built an insane hotel/casino with elevators and a ton of parts, wired up electricty, juke box and a lot of settlers and it ran great. MY biggest pet peave is 1 block per meter, which means you can't put a bunch of small decorations on top of a single block, and you are stuck on a 1 meter square grid, you can't build a house on a cul de sac. You can't rotate 360 degrees. We have some solutions there though for the next tech we've talked about. Hopefully we can overcome them for our future games.

7DTD 2 Confirmed?

 

[Gareee]

Roland, is your weird ass hint about this?

If prefer a parasail, but I'll gladly be content with a hang glider! (I actually wanted one badly irl 20 or 30 years ago, when they were Uber popular.)

 

[Gareee]

@MADMOLE:

As far as the latest horde video, it sounds like you are starting to hit the imbalance I was taLking about a few weeks ago.

With a developed trapped base, you get to the point where repairs and ammo creation take so much material (brass and steel) and time that you can't keep up with horde nights.

Later game balance is just as important as early game. At your progress level, getting enough steel, concrete, brass and ammo should be a little easier than I think it actually is right now.

The value in traps is to help you keep up with horde nights, and using them shouldn't be wasted time as you mentioned a few times.

If materials were more abundant repairs would be faster, upgrades and additions of traps could keep up with horde difficulty increase, and sufficient ammo would be craftable.

I think around day 120 was where it just got so bad that abandoning the base for casually defended throw away buildings was the only way to keep up with hordes anymore.

I'm not sure if levelling isn't fast enough to gets perks to get more materials, or if material collection is a little too low to keep up later game.

Ideally, resource collection should get easier as you progress, so exploring and looting are still viable.

Maybe some of the books or perks need to be enhanced a little more to help keep up with later game?

MM, you had mentioned you might be ready to retire this playthrough. I'd like to see you get to maybe day 130 or so to see later game balance, and make tweaks to improve it's viability for sp gameplay.

Since you have some time on your hands because of the mfs, this is a great opportunity to see the later game you haven't experience in a long time, and make adjustments for it.

(Even small things like a door dropping two door knobs instead of one makes a big difference when you consider the longer gameplay experience, and how much additional resources that could have been gathered.)

Looking forward to the next two horde nights!

 

[meganoth]

It would be nice if you could experience first hand how quickly they will wreck all your hard work if you get unlucky and get swarmed by a few inside your base like in the day 84 video.

"they will wreck". Do you have a crystal ball or a time machine? Oh wait, Guppycur told you the password to TFPs repository, right? :cocksure:

 

[AtomicUs5000]

@MADMOLE:
As far as the latest horde video, it sounds like you are starting to hit the imbalance I was taLking about a few weeks ago.

With a developed trapped base, you get to the point where repairs and ammo creation take so much material (brass and steel) and time that you can't keep up with horde nights.

Later game balance is just as important as early game. At your progress level, getting enough steel, concrete, brass and ammo should be a little easier than I think it actually is right now.

The value in traps is to help you keep up with horde nights, and using them shouldn't be wasted time as you mentioned a few times.

If materials were more abundant repairs would be faster, upgrades and additions of traps could keep up with horde difficulty increase, and sufficient ammo would be craftable.

I think around day 120 was where it just got so bad that abandoning the base for casually defended throw away buildings was the only way to keep up with hordes anymore.

I'm not sure if levelling isn't fast enough to gets perks to get more materials, or if material collection is a little too low to keep up later game.

Ideally, resource collection should get easier as you progress, so exploring and looting are still viable.

Maybe some of the books or perks need to be enhanced a little more to help keep up with later game?

MM, you had mentioned you might be ready to retire this playthrough. I'd like to see you get to maybe day 130 or so to see later game balance, and make tweaks to improve it's viability for sp gameplay.

Since you have some time on your hands because of the mfs, this is a great opportunity to see the later game you haven't experience in a long time, and make adjustments for it.

(Even small things like a door dropping two door knobs instead of one makes a big difference when you consider the longer gameplay experience, and how much additional resources that could have been gathered.)

Looking forward to the next two horde nights!

Quite a few of us have been trying to draw attention to this for some time now. Concrete is never a problem, steel is ok.

While some of us argue that horde night should not be easily avoided by getting in a vehicle, at some point it is like the game is forcing you to do it, because it is the only cost-effective way to cope, in terms of materials and time to obtain them.

 

[Laz Man]

Learning history allows you to be able to think. I'm not talking about day to day think, I'm talking about the big picture. It allows you to understand the present and the context that you live in. It allows you to understand where we came from and in which direction we are going. It allows you to understand people, societies, cultures, change. History gives answers to a ton of important questions: Why do we do things this way? Why do we have these institutions? Why this kind of government? It gives you perspective.
I know, for a lot of people this doesn't matter. Most people live their life as they were told and don't ask questions. They pay taxes, vote, go to church, because they were told so, but they never truly understand why. Studying history gives you the chance to understand this.

Of course I would change they way that history is taught in schools, at least in my country. Knowing all the names of all the monarchs of europe of 1000 years is useless..

Also I agree that the other useful skills that you mentioned should be taught in schools too.

You make some great points. You should be a history teacher lol.

- - - Updated - - -

You should have first asked gently, and made dinner for romance class. Not take it directly.
- - - Updated - - -

There's only one of us in here romancing stones or rocks.

- - - Updated - - -

Wash your hands before waving them around, young man!

For a second I thought this was a post from snow and not just a reply to one lol...

 

[MajorMunchy]

Im still wondering why every week a smiley is gone at the top....

 

[CannedSmeef]

Im still wondering why every week a smiley is gone at the top....

Well at the current rate of MF solving, alpha 18 should theoretically be ready next friday (the 20th). TFP went from 38 to 29 in just a few days, and assuming that they'll be a little lenient and let a few slip through in favor of a timely release (rather than artificially extend waiting times by 2 weeks), there's a good chance we'll see streamers playing Alpha 18 next weekend, followed by us playing it on monday. The smiley's are probably a subtle countdown. I'm betting it'll be gone next week.

 

[quilmeshou]

for next patch after a18, i would suggest you to make some string-traps, so zeds activate them when crossing the string and exploding, also i think mines need to be fixed, i tried using mines to detonate some zeds, and seemed to make no effect on them, just exploding and passing through like nothing.

also, having subways (i always suggested that idea), would be really cool, as POI without dungeon style or even for transport, as someone said before.

 

[RipClaw]

"they will wreck". Do you have a crystal ball or a time machine? Oh wait, Guppycur told you the password to TFPs repository, right? :cocksure:

If a few demolishers explode in the base and each causes 5000 damage within a 5-block radius then you don't need a crystal ball to imagine the result.

The strongest material available to the player is steel. A steel block has a total of 15000 HP. 3 explosions are enough to destroy a steel block. For a reinforced concrete block with 5000 HP a single explosion is enough to destroy it.

The traps are much more vulnerable. A blade trap has e.g. 2000 HP. An explosion is sufficient to destroy the blade trap. The dart traps can be protected with arrow slits as long as the explosion does not penetrate the wall.

The most important question is how hard it is to kill the zombie without triggering the explosion.

Triggering the explosion is only an option if it is done at a safe distance from the base and not every base design allows a panoramic view.

 

[Gazz]

Im still wondering why every week a smiley is gone at the top....

It's smiley burnout.

 

[MajorMunchy]

Well at the current rate of MF solving, alpha 18 should theoretically be ready next friday (the 20th). TFP went from 38 to 29 in just a few days, and assuming that they'll be a little lenient and let a few slip through in favor of a timely release (rather than artificially extend waiting times by 2 weeks), there's a good chance we'll see streamers playing Alpha 18 next weekend, followed by us playing it on monday. The smiley's are probably a subtle countdown. I'm betting it'll be gone next week.

honeslty agree.

Im super stoked. BUT it is sad that im like "OOO lets load of 17.4 and just do like some sort of RPg with myself and make mini mines across the map etc." I open it up, load a RWG map, play for 30 seconds and go "Wtf am i doing a18 is going to be better"

*leaves game to be mindless in league of legends*

 

[Guppycur]

You make some great points. You should be a history teacher lol

...my kid is in college to be a history teacher so I guess that's a double whammy in MM's eyes, so I'm getting a hoot reading this stuff.

 

[Kattla]

Since the game is now becoming more and more shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot

shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot

shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot

shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot

shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot reload shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot

shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot

shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot

shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot reload shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot

shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot

shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot click,

and less smack smack smack smack smack smack...

Is there a chance we can get the spent cartridges back? The brass part, that is.

 

[Callum123456789]

Here is a pro tip: Start using proper grammar and punctuation if you are concerned about the internet's perception of your intelligence. Maybe you are on a phone or in a hurry.

ok sorry madmole if you though I was calling your game bad I wasn't just in case you was wondering I meant like in a way of violence and gore ect.

 

[Guppycur]

If prefer a parasail, but I'll gladly be content with a hang glider! (I actually wanted one badly irl 20 or 30 years ago, when they were Uber popular.)

Hang glider is the only thing that made sense for jumping off buildings other than a wingsuit, which would be difficult to make into a "vehicle". A para sail would look weird sitting there fully fluffed up as you place it.

 

[Callum123456789]

Yup built my business into a multimillion dollar business. Worked 7 days a week, 60-80 hours a week for 25 years. It wrecked my health but the business runs with small inputs from me leaving me time to enjoy the fruits of your labor.
My son got BA & MA in communications and couldn’t get a job. I had told him that medicine was the field where you would always have a job. So after wasting 6 years and tens of thousands of dollars, he’s working on a masters in nursing to be nurse practitioner...guaranteed employment anywhere. It makes you want to strangle these kids for not taking our advice seriously.

congrats on a successful business! what was it like?

 

[Lonestarcanuck]

So go ahead and file a bug report.

here is my take on HP vs AP or FMJ ammo.

I have fired 1000s of rounds of ammo in my life including 100s of HP/JHP and FMJ but not anything greater then a 460 Weatherby Magnum, although my Winchester 458 500gr DGX Bonded ammo will pretty much devastate most things but at $100+ for 20 rounds I don't use it often, besides the game in Texas is pretty small (not all things are big in Texas)

Basically what will happen if you shoot a "Zombie" in self-defense with FMJ is this: That bullet is going to go straight through your target and continue on to whatever may be behind it. If it’s a wall, it could go right through that as well and keep going.

Instead, if you use a JHP round for self-defense, the bullet is designed to open up upon impact in order to expand. This expansion creates a wound cavity and will also slow the round down so that it’s likely not to continue beyond your target with much force, if it makes it out at all.

One of the most dangerous things that can happen if using FMJ for self defense, or in 7DTD is hitting another person/player that happens to be beyond the zombie. With FMJ rounds.

Since pictures are fun here is my Win 458 and as well as FMJ and JHP ammo.

PS: my "home defense" loads are a mix of both FMJ/JHP +P rounds.



and



maybe I will post a slow motion video of the Kick from the 458 or my 7mm loads.

Not sure if TFP implemented multiple target support/tracking with AP/FMJ ammo.

 

[MajorMunchy]

On that bullet thread, I think they SHOULD be able to penetrate and if a player is in the way so be it. lets say the HP or whatever round penetrates 3 zombies, well if it hits 2 and then a player is behind it well sucks to suck. that little realism is needed IMO