PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[F0XShadow]

And if smell is introduced, you can load a backpack full of smelly stuff to distract the zambees... make backpacks craftable too

 

[TSBX]

UMM, UHH, I DON'T KNOW, MAYBE, EHH, UHH?...asked Madmole while firmly grasping his bow.

Fixed that. Still a classic even though it met it's demise.

 

[Dimpy]

Sure, should hammer and forge even be a perk any more? Half the things it does now are moved to the other perks, like if you want to craft a faulty iron tool you need to have miner 69'r rank 1. To craft faulty light armor you need light armor's first rank. Before these were under hammer and forge and I'm trying to decide how to add 5 ranks to it now that its been gutted.
Right now all that it has left is

rank 1Craft a forge

rank 3 Craft a crucible and steel ingots

Possibly tier 5: craft mechanical parts

Here's a suggestion for the first three tiers:

1. Craft a forge, build iron frames. All recipes take 20% less forged iron (including "scrap").

2. Be able to work with glass: unlocks glass knife blade, glass arrowheads, glass panes, glass jars. You can now craft a forge that attracts zombies a lot less. You can make wire.

3. Make crucible, steel ingots, steel blade. Make an electric furnace. Unlocks tempered blade mod. All recipes take 20% less forged steel ingots.

Notes: the glass knife would be more damaging than a metal one, but would break really fast. Glass arrowheads would be better than stone , but almost always break on impact. Wire would be needed for barbed wire mods, electric parts, and barbed wire defenses.


Wire, broken glass, and glue could be combined to make a nasty defensive material, like kite-fighting wire: doesn't slow zombies, but does more damage before wearing out than barbed wire.

 

[Grue]

My god, YES! I would add that perhaps some of the decorative items could be craftable too? Like the those POI house doors or the new lights? Seriously, I'm drowning in resources and need things to craft.

You used to be able to buy gas pumps at the trader, I like using those to hold my gas cans for vehicles.

I miss the ability to craft Gasoline.
We should be able to create Coal from burning wood.

There are modlets for that.

 

[ZombieHorde]

Hi Joel, today on the stream, the audience offered me an interesting idea.
The idea is that the player can drop all his inventory on the ground except the belt. In this case, a backpack will appear on the ground, as when a character dies, and there will also be a mark on the map where the backpack fell.

When can it be needed? Often!

When you run in the early stages of a game with full inventory and meet a horde, a wolf or a dog, you could temporarily throw all the loot on the ground and get back all the mobility and endurance.

You can say that it is not necessary, as it will be used only in the early stages of the game, but I will tell you that the game already has a lot of things that we use only at the beginning of the game: a stone ax, a stone shovel, a musket, a wooden bow and another and it does not interfere.

Hey, great idea!

 

[Menace312]

Hi Joel, today on the stream, the audience offered me an interesting idea.
The idea is that the player can drop all his inventory on the ground except the belt. In this case, a backpack will appear on the ground, as when a character dies, and there will also be a mark on the map where the backpack fell.

When can it be needed? Often!

When you run in the early stages of a game with full inventory and meet a horde, a wolf or a dog, you could temporarily throw all the loot on the ground and get back all the mobility and endurance.

You can say that it is not necessary, as it will be used only in the early stages of the game, but I will tell you that the game already has a lot of things that we use only at the beginning of the game: a stone ax, a stone shovel, a musket, a wooden bow and another and it does not interfere.

Outward anyone?

 

[Kalex]

This is getting closer. I was thinking that R3 unlocks an industrial forge which is required for steel and has faster crafting and more slots, way faster smelting and larger smelting reservoir, required electricity and did not make smell

Not sure I like steel being gated behind electricity. I have need for steel *LONG* before I ever need or have electricity. Most of my games I never even bother with electricity.

 

[Syrex]

Another forge idea I would like to see implemented is the ability to "type" more than 3 digits into the forge. As it stand we have to type 999 and then click a button to add past the 3rd number.

I actually agree with making high end stuff behind electricity. Would make electricity worthwhile. Right now its basically lights/traps. Could allow the simple forge to make steel but at a much slower rate. The advanced forge would make it quicker. This would be because the simple forge burns at a lower temp and advanced forge would burn at a much higher temp. Could even go a step further and make the simple forge (because of lower temp) have a lower detectability. So it would be a trade off -- do you want efficency or do you want lower detectability.

Really wish we could do automation haha.

 

[Katitof]

Not sure I like steel being gated behind electricity. I have need for steel *LONG* before I ever need or have electricity. Most of my games I never even bother with electricity.

And that's one reason to gate it behind electricity.

It should be natural tech progression, not something 100% optional.

You want end game resources, invest in end game tech, not only a perk and be done with it.

I would LOVE to see some more end game, electricity locked, more efficient crafting stations.

A working stove(firepit in the center of your house looks bad), forge with electrical bellows(more efficient smelting, unlocks steel), advanced workbench for T3-T5 mods.

I also like the idea to tying crafting perks to other attributes, it should be like that from the start, less focus on "nerd" player having it all, more specialization and mixed attribute builds.

 

[Naz]

I added a recipe for cans in the forge just like glass jars but requires iron for my server

 

[mr.devolver]

New Dynamic Music System (DMS)Its been in the works for a long time and the first version is finally here. We now have a dynamic music system that plays a variety of tracks and can combine them so you never hear the same song twice. Right now they only play during exploration or a non combat moments. Future updates will detect your threat level and introduce combat music. Users can disable the system entirely or define what percentage of the day music can play for and adjust the music volume.

I was always wondering, will we have some kind of in-game radio like in Fallout games? The way I understand it is that this system could allow exactly that kind of feature, maybe not in its first version, but perhaps one day once it evolves into something more complex?

 

[The Gronk]

I was always wondering, will we have some kind of in-game radio like in Fallout games? The way I understand it is that this system could allow exactly that kind of feature, maybe not in its first version, but perhaps one day once it evolves into something more complex?

You're right in that the system could probably be modded into a traditional playlist. The trick would be making it less complex, not more.

 

[BadabingbadaBOOMSDAY!]

You can turn cans into oil which leads to molotovs. Can get oil from cars too but it's nice to have another way to do it. Now, give Alpha 17.3

 

[madmole]

Sounds nice. What's the completion bonus for this series? The 6th one, "Cloth Can weave plant fibers into cloth". Is that a different item from the cloth fragments that we can craft with plant fibers in the current game version?

It lets you make grass (plant fibers) into cloth if you read the book. Normal people have to use cotton.

 

[AlyssaFaden]

We have solar power. We could quiet the generators too.

Solar panels when charging the battery cause increedddiiibblleee lag and are unplayable. they're not a viable part of the game, and for 30k ech (give or take) they utterly put themselves out of the picture.

 

[69WithAzombie]

No for the same reason we aren't having npc followers. Too much cpu cost if everyone is allowed their own zoo.

So does that mean we cant have npc's as guards in our base? I remember that being spoken about.

 

[Cazmyr]

I could see the Hammer and Forge Perk staying in Intellect. The bonus' we are talking about are centered around becoming more knowledgeable about smelting and finding efficiencies.

 

[Cazmyr]

I do have a general comment/ thought about perk bonus':

With level 5 requiring (if it still does) an attribute rank of 10 that includes a huge difference in points spent.

- For a level 4 Perk you need a level 7 Attribute: 10 Points for Attribute + 4 Points for Perk

- For a level 5 Perk you need a level 10 Attribute: 22 Points for Attributes + 5 Points for the Perk

The difference between 14 for a level 4 and 27 for a level 5 is huge, obviously. A lot of the perks increases between 4 and 5 do not justify this cost increase.

Take Gunslinger:

Rank 3 - 15% Increase Fire Rate/ 25% Reload Rate/ 5 successive shots cause crit

Rank 4 - 20% Increase Fire Rate/ 30% Reload Rate/ 4 successive shots cause crit

This is a 5% increase at a cost of 6 skill points. Well worth it.

- Rank 5- 25% Increase Fire Rate/ 35% Reload Rate/ 3 successive shots cause crit

For the additional 13 skill points it costs to get to rank 5 you only get another 5% increase.

For just 1 more skill point (14) you could increase a different attribute to 7 and a relevant perk to 4.

My suggestion is to keep the costs the same, but make the increase in bonus between 4 and 5 more substantial to offset the cost. I find myself raising most skills to 4 and spending those points elsewhere, because (in my opinion) the rank 5 increase is not worth 13 skill points.

Sorry for the ramble. Have a great day!

Caz

 

[madmole]

Hi Joel, today on the stream, the audience offered me an interesting idea.
The idea is that the player can drop all his inventory on the ground except the belt. In this case, a backpack will appear on the ground, as when a character dies, and there will also be a mark on the map where the backpack fell.

When can it be needed? Often!

When you run in the early stages of a game with full inventory and meet a horde, a wolf or a dog, you could temporarily throw all the loot on the ground and get back all the mobility and endurance.

You can say that it is not necessary, as it will be used only in the early stages of the game, but I will tell you that the game already has a lot of things that we use only at the beginning of the game: a stone ax, a stone shovel, a musket, a wooden bow and another and it does not interfere.

We're not making it convenient for you to circumvent the penalties of encumbrance. That is the risk you take being encumbered.

 

[madmole]

Perhaps you could use a chest to do this, but it is a bit slower. Yes, I do think that we shoud have a key for dropping everything, as we have "R" to take everything.

I stash chests all over the map early game and mark them on my map.