PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[Crater Creator]

[XP from traps] will be editable via xml or not?i already turn down to 75% the xp (and thinking to go down to 50%) because i level too fast, trap farming xp seems to me an easy way to level up

It’s almost guaranteed that for anything that gives XP, the amount assigned will be configurable in xml, so that designers can balance it. That means users would be able to adjust the amount of XP, including down to zero if they want.

 

[Crater Creator]

There are perks for clubs. It takes some risk and skill to use them. Spikes are more of a passive defense that takes little effort to thin the herd. Its really a technical limit, your argument has some merit, I just have nightmares from the days when everyone crafted the log spikes and it was end game, I'd hate to see that return with xp on top of it.

Thanks! It seems like radiated zombies should be one of the best counters against 'spikes = game over'. That is, radiated zombies could move slowly enough through spikes that they regenerate health as fast as they take spike damage. Then players can't rely solely on their huge spike fields come late game, and they'll have to add another, more interesting and/or resource intensive layer of defense (like shooting them) to break up the pace.

The game might already be tuned this way; I must admit I can't say since my designs don't call for very deep spike fields.

 

[madmole]

Madmole, tell us something we don't know about A17, new Pois? new tools? new challenges? new armors?

A17 release notes are on the front page of the site, I'm sure if you read the entire thing you might find something you didn't know about it

 

[madmole]

Oof. That's no good. Good luck with that

Its a retarded unity asset bundle thing. God forbid files in a folder just work.

 

[Crater Creator]

There are options. I think you can disable blood moons now. Turn down the difficulty if there are "too many" sleepers IMO. Exploration XP would be cool, but we need to define a trigger on the bounds of a city or whatever. I'd say the problem with traders in cities is they are invulnerable.

We've talked about this before, but I'll repeat it so madmole's advice doesn't lead players astray... be aware that the number of sleepers is not affected by gamestage, and by extension it's not affected by difficulty. It's possible to hack this in via modding (see ComSenMod), but it's not part of the vanilla game. Day 1 or Day 1000, same number of sleepers.

 

[Crater Creator]

What is the exact purpose of tallow? Only making alcohol?Remove it, it's an unnecessary step. Change recipe for alcohol or others to use animal fat directly instead.

Making tallow requires a campfire with a cooking pot, so it pushes recipes that use tallow farther on the progression curve. But I guess it's on the chopping block, the same way animal hide was. Both losses sadden me. Look out, bellows!

 

[madmole]

We've talked about this before, but I'll repeat it so madmole's advice doesn't lead players astray... be aware that the number of sleepers is not affected by gamestage, and by extension it's not affected by difficulty. It's possible to hack this in via modding (see ComSenMod), but it's not part of the vanilla game. Day 1 or Day 1000, same number of sleepers.

Yes the number of spawns is identical, but difficulty adjusts damage dealt and damage received, so it certainly makes it easier/harder.

 

[Sigil_Thane]

Hello Madmole, is it possible to extend the sound distance in game? Some custom game mods could involve gunshot echo going over 1km, but currently there seems to be hardcoded limit for sounds within 98 meters, which reduces some gameplay options - you can get shot by stock sniper rifle and no longer hear it, which did not happen in a13 and earlier. Thank you.

But that is somewhat realistic as well... Sniper rounds are supersonic so they would hit you before the shot can be heard.

 

[madmole]

But that is somewhat realistic as well... Sniper rounds are supersonic so they would hit you before the shot can be heard.

Yes but what about the 4 shots that missed?

 

[Ouch Quit It]

Madmole, tell us something we don't know about A17, new Pois? new tools? new challenges? new armors?

Psssst...we already have A17....you mean A18

 

[FileMachete]

? Any chance that A18 will have a few more rebar frame shapes available?

I made a little modlet that added in a few, like half-blocks, poles, plates, etc. & I've found them quite useful to mock up a build.

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When A17 came out I tried large wooden spike fields. Took lots of time to chop the wood early game. Wound up going to cobble forced path bases with only a few spikes.

Now I just mine through the first horde night since, imo, it's just not worth spending the entire first week grinding the materials.

With concrete from poi farming I can have a concrete core for the day 14 horde. That and a very basic, and short, forced path, along w the wooden bars and a few traps and day 14 horde is the only one that can be dicey.

By day 21 a combo of e-fencing, dart & blade traps means the only thing I need to do is shoot an occasional z that gets into an argument w a support column.

Haven't used a single spike in last few playthroughs. Did use some barb wire when I didn't have e-fencing available.

Good news to hear that horde nights are getting looked at in A18.

Looking forward to seeing what makes the cut.

Here's hoping it's something that encourages player interaction, beyond just xp.

 

[Trankitas]

Its a retarded unity asset bundle thing. God forbid files in a folder just work.

You bought that asset bundle from him?

 

[Ayrton]

A17 release notes are on the front page of the site, I'm sure if you read the entire thing you might find something you didn't know about it

I read it every day before sleeping hahaha, Madtroll activated hahaha

 

[madmole]

? Any chance that A18 will have a few more rebar frame shapes available?I made a little modlet that added in a few, like half-blocks, poles, plates, etc. & I've found them quite useful to mock up a build.

---

When A17 came out I tried large wooden spike fields. Took lots of time to chop the wood early game. Wound up going to cobble forced path bases with only a few spikes.

Now I just mine through the first horde night since, imo, it's just not worth spending the entire first week grinding the materials.

With concrete from poi farming I can have a concrete core for the day 14 horde. That and a very basic, and short, forced path, along w the wooden bars and a few traps and day 14 horde is the only one that can be dicey.

By day 21 a combo of e-fencing, dart & blade traps means the only thing I need to do is shoot an occasional z that gets into an argument w a support column.

Haven't used a single spike in last few playthroughs. Did use some barb wire when I didn't have e-fencing available.

Good news to hear that horde nights are getting looked at in A18.

Looking forward to seeing what makes the cut.

Here's hoping it's something that encourages player interaction, beyond just xp.

No, but we're planning a build overhaul for A19 that will solve that issue.

 

[Tin]

You lost me. There are no changes to traders, they are invulnerable. Adding one to a city might not work well because the invulnerable zone would bleed into neighboring pois IMO, and cause issues. So AFAIK thats why they are in the wild.

It's alright we can both be confused together.

You said something about them not being in cities, because they would be invulnerable. I was confused as to why would their vulnerability matter in a city or not. Basically, it came across that their vulnerability status would change being in a city. So I was confused by it is all.

 

[agrastiOs]

Roland, you should add a few things to the OP:

Cosmetic mods added

Armor mods added (pockets etc.)

Dye no longer uses a mod slot and increase damage

Dyes are desaturated

Tallow is removed

New animations

 

[Viktoriusiii]

Dyes no longer do increase damage, and have a dedicated dye slot, and I am desaturating them so they aren't so cartoony and are more believable.
I added cosmetic mods that do take a mod slot. Your army helmet can now look like a cowboy hat with a cowboy hat mod. It also adds the weather protection that a cowboy hat would provide to the army helmet. So you can look cool but have good armor rating.

You know... I have given you so much (deserved in my opinion ) sh*t for A17...

but seeing all the changes to things that I criticized... it really makes me anticipate A18 again.

 

[Gareee]

Will rivers with the fixed bridges made it into a18? TFP has been working on fixing the bridges for a year now, and it makes sense to need them as long as we have rivers. Those small poi ponds just don't seem like realistic water amounts to me.

I'm also hoping we see two older issues addressed:

Run toggle on controllers for vehicles.. we had it in a 15-16, but it was missing in all of a17.

Fix the spotlights. We invest perks to craft them, but the light throw is so short we need to either craft multiples of them, or string point lights further away. The brightness and distance of the streetlights would be fine. (Or add xml entries too them so we can fix them ourselves.)

I would think a spotlight would at least cast across a street, and they usually fall off about 15 feet away.

Since we are looking at the back half of July now, are we getting any closer to a exp release?

 

[Crater Creator]

Todd is my hero. But 10+ years between elder scrolls versions? I had high hopes to play about 10 more before I croak not 1-2. Should have shipped one in 2016 and another in 2020. They lost at least 2 billion dollars with this delay.

Y'know, one reason I like being here is because you get to hear comments like this, and the knee jerk response of, "You don't know what you're talking about; how many successful game studios have you run?" doesn't apply.

 

[madmole]

Will rivers with the fixed bridges made it into a18? TFP has been working on fixing the bridges for a year now, and it makes sense to need them as long as we have rivers. Those small poi ponds just don't seem like realistic water amounts to me.
I'm also hoping we see two older issues addressed:

Run toggle on controllers for vehicles.. we had it in a 15-16, but it was missing in all of a17.

Fix the spotlights. We invest perks to craft them, but the light throw is so short we need to either craft multiples of them, or string point lights further away. The brightness and distance of the streetlights would be fine. (Or add xml entries too them so we can fix them ourselves.)

I would think a spotlight would at least cast across a street, and they usually fall off about 15 feet away.

Since we are looking at the back half of July now, are we getting any closer to a exp release?

I'm pretty sure spotlights have been touched.