PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[Gazz]

Add to that the return of zombies and animals trampling crops and even possibly targeting food and crops as a priorities and the problem of using unpicked mature crops as a spoilage workaround is mostly solved.

That means more digging to build an underground farm.

I don't see zombies specifically targeting GRAAAAAINS.

Way back I had my farm a few blocks into the radiated zone so bunnies did not survive long enough to do much damage.

 

[Lonestarcanuck]

Hot Sauce? - why don't we have a Pepper we can harvest and make into a hot sauce? combined with some foods for extra kick!

can also be used with medical to jump start someone dead or make into a bear/wolf spray to give you a few seconds head start.

 

[madmole]

no plans for adding italian?

I think there was one other, might have been Portuguese though.

 

[OzHawkeye]

That means more digging to build an underground farm.I don't see zombies specifically targeting GRAAAAAINS.

Way back I had my farm a few blocks into the radiated zone so bunnies did not survive long enough to do much damage.

It doesn't have to be underground, but restoring crop trampling would at least mean farms have to be defended, and placed with some aforethought to that defense.

 

[meganoth]

Food spoilage would of course require crop spoilage as well. Just wrap the stages so that the final stage returns to seedling stage if you don’t harvest the plants. So if you harvest you need to store, and if you miss the harvest window you have to wait until it comes back around again.

if you have 100 plants in different stages, you always have 33 harvestable plants available on any given day. No wait. You don't care for a stockpile if your food is built-to -order and your ability to craft seeds is endless.

 

[kamer1337]

When bandits will be on the map, I hope they will have the ability to raid our bases.

this is already a thing, just go play pvp

 

[Roland]

That means more digging to build an underground farm.I don't see zombies specifically targeting GRAAAAAINS.

Way back I had my farm a few blocks into the radiated zone so bunnies did not survive long enough to do much damage.

if you have 100 plants in different stages, you always have 33 harvestable plants available on any given day. No wait. You don't care for a stockpile if your food is built-to -order and your ability to craft seeds is endless.

The larger the farm the more intense the bunny heat map. Bunnies show up in droves for the feast. A garden of 20 plants won't trigger the horde but a farm of 100 will see itself reduced down to 20 by time they are satiated.

The light of the bloodmoon causes crops to die which resets them all to be on the same timer.

Zombies and animals can trample and ruin crops completely. The farmer zombie from some muddled memory of his rotted brain has an unreasonable hatred toward crops and specifically targets them when in destruction mode.

Some or all of these give incentives to player to get the crops harvested and into containers rather than leaving them in the plants.

 

[Hek Harris]

this is already a thing, just go play pvp

I guess you're kidding. There is a huge difference between the behavior of an AI and that of so-called "human" players.

For example, if we were attacked by bandits and killed, we would wake up (yes, by the way, we were not really dead) and the bandits would have disappeared, taking, for example, 5 resources at random: all our wood, all our mechanical parts, all our bandages, all our stews, etc ...

For me, it would be a great addition to the game and it would solve a lot of problems related to loot abundance.

And for info, I play on PVP servers ^^.

 

[Damocles]

Zombies attacking crops: I could imagine fertilizer from rotting meat that will attract zombies, but is necessary to have a decent growth rate (else its severely slowed down)

 

[Aerial]

if you have 100 plants in different stages, you always have 33 harvestable plants available on any given day. No wait. You don't care for a stockpile if your food is built-to -order and your ability to craft seeds is endless.

Another reason food becomes infinite so quickly with farming is that, in addition to no spoilage, we also have year-round growing. If you can grow/harvest every day, yes, it's really easy to build up a surplus. But if you could only grow for 14 days (or whatever represents a "season") and then couldn't grow anything for the next 35 days, that would be far more challenging without needing to introduce food spoilage.

I guess my request would be the ability to program a cyclic temperature cycle for each biome and to be able to set plants to not grow below and above certain too-cold and too-hot thresholds.

 

[RestInPieces]

I thought about attribute boosting foods, and special dishes that are good for ailments, more heat and cold insulation, etc.

For what it's worth, I don't think that would be a great idea (along with food that heals faster)...

-By having food do what medicine, or insulation etc should, you will only succeed at making food more valuable at the cost of making everything else less valuable... which is even worse imo.

-With attribute-boosting foods you will only lead players towards mmo-ish behaviors, with them treating food as "buff potions", eating certain foods to learn a perk, mine, fight zombies etc.

I guess it would solve one thing - I would not need to organize my food box anymore....

Yes, you wouldn't have to organize your surplus because you wouldn't have a surplus.

The question is no if the system is more complex or adds something to do but what behaviors would it change and, tbh, if food spoiled I would do almost nothing different. I already have a farm that is capable of producing enough veg stews to last until the next harvest cycle. The only real difference is I would harvest more often rather than cooking my food in larger batches.

"Why do we even have hunger/thirst in the game? What behaviors does it change? The only real difference is having to click on an item every few minutes" - an item that, by the way, you can't run out of. That's what it all boils down to if you don't have some proper item economy.

Yes, pretty much everyone has a farm that "suffices" - if they bother making one that is. Whether or not people ignore all other sources of food (traders, loot, animals) the farm always creates a surplus and people "don't farm as much" which most usually means "don't farm at all" if their surplus is large enough simply because there is no reason for them to do it.

So yes, given that there time is a resource (especially under certain settings), I'd consider it a pretty important change. For example in a random occasion the "let's go grind some zombies" would become "let's go grind some zombies - oh wait do we have the proper resources to make food so that we don't starve while we do it"? I'd consider this "a win".

And if we want a proper item economy and farming to become something more than farmville farming, involving some actual player decision making, a resource cost (like fertilizer) for the plant to grow needs to come back to the game.

 

[madmole]

Call me when RWG is fixed...still roads into mountains, POIs that float and are sunken down into the ground. Do any of the great systems of A17 actually work or are they all placeholders again for the next great iteration.Game is still a grind .. A gameday to open up a safe...BOOOOOORING!!!

Its over Johnny!!! You killed a great game that just needed some tweaking and bug fixes and more late game content. 2 years to get what??? the same problems of A16 and more.

You can dispense with the negativity already dude. 17.3 is not 18. There is C4, breacher shells and lockpicking to get into safes faster and easier coming. You might try rolling a new seed, you probably had old seed generation data in your folder causing those RWG issues, but as I'd mentioned you got a small slice of the 18 road and building placement code, so without the full package its not going to be even close to the same as what we give you in 18.

 

[madmole]

if i could use them in between stone axe hits, i would to speed up the process

Stone axes should not be used to break open safes, you should expect that to be a grind. Get a pickaxe and some perks, or pay the price grinding for a while with a stone axe. Just because we make some things possible doesn't mean you should do it. Get the right tool for the job.

 

[madmole]

Oh really...5 years playing the game and thats how you do it...wowNice try guys..but its hard to use them when you havent found them at early stages of the game. All you have is a stone axe to do everything.

You don't NEED whatever is in that safe on day 1. Mark it on your map, come back later when you have found the right tool. You are making the game a grind by being stubborn and playing stupid.

 

[madmole]

* In A18 we will have more new Pois? Yes

*New recipes? Yes

* Will we have zombie bosses? - Yes

* Will we have more air enemies? (bees and vultures) No

* Deterioration of crops? No

* More defense traps? (will return the peak) No

* Crossbow trap? No

* Throw flames? No

* Can we use the cameras and connect them to the TVs and watch them from our bunker? (that would be great) No

* More animals? (cows, tigers, and turkeys) Mountain lion and coyote

* Scorpions in desert terrain? No

* Piranhas and sharks in the water? No

* Missions that take you to meet another merchant? Doubtful but someday.

* More skins for zombies? No

 

[madmole]

When bandits will be on the map, I hope they will have the ability to raid our bases. Food spoilage will not be a request anymore

We're talking about that, they could target your containers.

 

[madmole]

Food spoilage mechanics seems like a modded thing and not something required in the core game.

There are more interesting things to focus on. A bit of balance will go a long ways.

 

[Damocles]

We're talking about that, they could target your containers.

So I assume the bandits raid will only start when the player is nearby (loaded the area),

or is there some kind of "approximated raid result" calculation, when the player is far off?

 

[madmole]

@Madmole
Just throwing this out there don't you dare fix Trader Jen's beautiful voice!

It figures that something like that would turn you on

 

[Hek Harris]

We're talking about that, they could target your containers.

You made my day - and thanks for the answer.