PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[Masiher]

Guys is it just me or with every experimental the ram usage drops even more. In first a18 public experimental build it used around 5gb of my system ram of total 8. In a 17 it was around 6-7gb.

Now its a bizarre amount 2gb of ram. Is it just my computer offloading stuff to virtual memory? Or the game requirement for ram has reduced so greatly?

 

[pregnable]

Nah, I just saw that one forged in fire episode not that long ago... now I believe we need a stone throwing crossbow as a primitive weapon. Just shoots stones.

Reminds me, I need to see if throwing stones at zombies actually does damage lel.

 

[madmole]

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btw do you have any plans to polish the RWG? i have tested Pregen01 and pregen03 and they make a big % of the map only terrain, cities and towns are way to apart from eachother, it makes the initial exploration to choose a place to live very tedious. And could the towns be bigger? with less zeds in pois now i can clean a whole town in like 1 day (real life time) wich kinda forces me to re-settle very often wich is annoying.

You are clearing out a whole town in one day, and early game (initial exploration)? That is like 30+ houses, several big businesses, some factories that take 2 hours of real time and 500 rounds. I'd like to see you do a speed run of a full town early game. Sorry I'm not buying anything you say. Most towns are pretty big, I've got some with probably 60 buildings in them, or two so close that it is that many. Its not meant to be walmart where you camp outside and go get whatever you want, exploration and finding what you need over multiple cities is intended game play.

We might add options later that let you fine tune things.

 

[madmole]

Bring weather back.
I would love to see weather being back in the game. I really liked it when it was in the game a few Alpha's ago. It had flaws but it was nice to see.

Now the only things I see is overcast look sometimes. I never see rain anymore.

I want to hear thunder and see lighting and have the effect day and night.

I would love to see it cross over boimes to please.

Thanks.

Weather still needs work.

 

[bobross]

Probably random, I'm on day 33 or so and haven't got a steel pick or an auger, I'm still using my green pick I crafted myself.

I'll be honest, now that I'm thinking about it we've found more augurs than steel picks as well in our game, but beyond finding a single augur the first week, it took a while for the second, third, and 4th to show up. Which is two more than we had of steel picks, but we're still on 18.0 Stable so they aren't in the trader there still I think.

Sadly (and stupidly) I just completely nuked our world, and none of my automated snapshots were working since I did a server migration for the NAS the server VM was stored on about a month and a half ago. Currently building anew, but nobody else wants to do Experimentals right now.

 

[Syrex]

@Madmole, did day 28 horde night tonight with one of my crew, after trick or treaters, and it was non-stop action. Prior to horde night I bumped our difficulty to 3 out of 5, made it 28 zombies per character, and zombies "run" (we're considering bumping all that up again before the next horde night). Updated my base some, I spent most of the last 7 days (120 min days) adding my living quarters to the top since I'm that confident I'll be okay living above instead of having them miles apart. Added makeshift electric fences (will properly place before next horde night).

I'm still rocking the intellect build, those junk turrets are ruthless and ammo hogs, definitely going to have to make ALOT more junk turret ammo for the next bloodmoon, more than i did for this one. I'm glad horde night ended when it did, my ammo was getting to the oh crap point. Got the Art of Mining completed today, so mining for the much needed iron should go much smoother/faster with that "one-shot to ore" chance.

Favorite pic of the night was (again with the birds, but the way they were dive bombing me, in formation, was awesome looking):

Spoiler

Day 28 Video:

-- (not alot of talking, just zed killing)

 

[Maynard69]

Steam changed what my library looks like, different format. Now there is no longer an option to open the game launcher when Right-clicking 7d2d.

How do I open the advanced game launcher to erase old saves/maps etc. now?

 

[Syrex]

Steam changed what my library looks like, different format. Now there is no longer an option to open the game launcher when Right-clicking 7d2d.
How do I open the advanced game launcher to erase old saves/maps etc. now?

weird, when i click "Play" it gives me the option to

Spoiler

 

[Maynard69]

weird, when i click "Play" it gives me the option to

Spoiler

oops, I am dumb thanks. (I always got there from RMB on 7d2d before, never noticed that x.x) ... even though it is plain as day..

 

[Syrex]

oops, I am dumb thanks. (I always got there from RMB on 7d2d before, never noticed that x.x) ... even though it is plain as day..

hey no worries.. good to ask when you're done pulling your hair out trying to figure it out yourself, hopefully before then or you'll end up like me, or maybe it was my kids that made me bald, either way...lol

 

[khzmusik]

And who would ever spend 200k dukes on a workstation? That's 100,000 bullet casings right there.

Traders already sell 4x4 vehicles for something like 50K dukes. So, while 200K is excessive, it's not innately a bad idea.

 

[Seraphimus]

From the latest EXP build

"Removed the blood draw kit is no longer used"

The blood draw kit removed? how am I supposed to get blood for the blood god now?

Seriously though Is there another Semi-reliable source of medkits or blood bags now or are these meant to become Essentially scavenge only?

Edit: Also does anyone know if any of the perk magazines affect sledgehammers?

 

[khzmusik]

This might be more mod territory, but I always thought it would be cool if traders started out small and grew as you helped them with quest. The more work that you have done for a trader the better stuff they might have. Their base could even reflect that by growing and getting better the farther you progress. This would add a extra goal to do as well. Might not be the best idea but just one that I'v had floating in my head.

There was a fairly substantial discussion a while ago (possibly in this thread, possibly the A17 version) where people were suggesting "upgrade" trader quests. So, traders start out crappy, but by finishing quests their POIs get upgraded. Broken workstations would be "repaired," the POI itself would have more defenses, etc.

That never went anywhere as far as I know, but it sounds right in line with what you're suggesting.

 

[Seraphimus]

There was a fairly substantial discussion a while ago (possibly in this thread, possibly the A17 version) where people were suggesting "upgrade" trader quests. So, traders start out crappy, but by finishing quests their POIs get upgraded. Broken workstations would be "repaired," the POI itself would have more defenses, etc.
That never went anywhere as far as I know, but it sounds right in line with what you're suggesting.

I personally would love to see a "supply route" Quest where a trader sends you on a quest to find another trading post. Would be nice to have a way to locate them without driving around aimlessly for hours

 

[Phoenixshade35]

I agree with the upgrading traders idea, where the base they have is in shambles and barely able to hold the zombies out, as you do quests for them the poi they are in grows, could even have somewhere a quest to allow lodging for sleeping through the night for those that desire that in the playthrough, even having quests to deliver an item to another trader, that would help us find traders, explore the map and have them be more desirable to go to, they are good right now, but building them up would also work for when npc characters get added in, a stepping stone if you will.

 

[archergod]

Is it intentional that screamer shows up if we use augar only to destory 15-18 blocks, I think that is too fast for screamer, making augar worthless, as the time we spend fighting screamer is more than time we spend using pickaxe [i can use steel in my case],

 

[Syrex]

Is it intentional that screamer shows up if we use augar only to destory 15-18 blocks, I think that is too fast for screamer, making augar worthless, as the time we spend fighting screamer is more than time we spend using pickaxe [i can use steel in my case],

It's all risk/reward.. been around long before A18. I brought this up a while back and basically was told to "protect myself" while using auger.. Guess that meant setting up a genny with shotgun/auto turrets (back then). The junk turret helps now

 

[AtomicUs5000]

A19 is probably a very long ways off, unless we decide to make it very small. If we go with a big alpha 19, then we will release small updates with some new content to keep you guys engaged. I've already got some books and vehicle mods designed on paper.

Honestly, I wouldn’t worry about that madmole. Whatever you guys did between A17 and A18 seems to be the recipe for success and completion. Repeat that a few more times and this game is all set. A18 is strong enough to hold up a good year as we wait for A19. I can’t speak for everyone, and of course there will be that set of impatient people as always, but if a year means the same level of improvement like we have just been given, then I’m all for it.

 

[Maynard69]

Welp, Day 1 and I found 23 different weapon parts in a single messiah gun crate, default loot.

 

[Damocles]

Arg, my spear fell through the world again. It did that several times already. (also loosing the mods then).

Probably some collision detection fringe case.

That logic (subclassed from arrow, as stated in the warning) should get some more love, as spears are more valuable than some arrow.

Maybe some fallback location to reset it to, when lost.