PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[Scyris]

Are Pack Mule and T-Rex the same as in A17? Because from your experience it sounds like it's going to be completely pointless to grab even one point of them. T-Rex for melee maybe, but then you also get 1 stamina per level, so it doesn't matter much.
It's fine to let people specialize and play how they want, but it needs to have downsides as well. Going 10 strength and 0 anything else (or other ultra-specialized builds) should have major issues, because that's beyond specializing, it's more "I don't need anything other than hitting hard to beat the game".

He says you CAN, but, how long is it going to take to make enough triple storage pockets? You gotta factor that in. Unsure in a18 but in a17 that schematic/mod is pretty damned rare. So you'll have quite a wait to be able to get all the slots for no perk points spent. Then again encumbrance I notice is much less of an issue once you get a vechicle of any sort, as the speed reduction doesn't take effect when your driving a vechicle around.

As for difficulty I think the difficulty should come from the enemies, not from just getting food and water and quality of life stuff. Going 10 str build WILL have downsides, if you never touch anything else, there is lots of perks in the game that work well together.

 

[The Gronk]

I don't get why we don't just call it hardcore mode like every other game. When I play HC I delete both the save AND world when I die. As I like having something new to explore every time.

I imagine doing that on a multiplayer server might annoy a few people

You could make it a server option. If you die the character resets to zero and any land-claims are reset to admin/null to prevent you from just taking over your old base immediately.

 

[Shineblossom]

But does it screw single player people like a17 currently does as it forces us to get specific stats if we wanna do much of anything, namely int and str. I mainly play single player, and every game is pretty much the same up to a certan level like 30 or 40, because I just lack the skill points to afford to branch out. I understand about the wanting people to build certan characters aspects but the game has some required things you need to get: Workbench, chem station, motherload, pack mule, sex t-rex, miner 69'er are all IMO pretty much stuff you need asap. After these, to a certan level maybe 5 str 7 int or so, I usually get fortitude up a bit for farming and the hp regen. Agility i've never touched, as I find the stat mostly useless in a17. I haven't seen how effective the stealth perks are and only one I *really* care about is the one that muffles sounds.

Just because you think that str is a must have or that agaility is useless, doesn't make it truth.

 

[n2n1]

I have a question about some small things:

Question about GUI, about the GROWTH of icons.

now they have only two sizes when animating growth - initial and final.

Are there plans to make the icon growth animation more than two frames?

Previously, they had a smoother animation and the interface felt more pleasant.

 

[Yournympho]

If you're truly stuck finding a trader, open prefabs.xml in the world folder, and search for "trader". It will show the coordinates of the traders. You can at least validate the number of traders you have. Since 17.3, I've always had 5 traders, one of each, on 8k maps.

Gday,

I tried finding that in my servers FTP folder but no luck

 

[Hek Harris]

Mr Mole : About resource harvesting (mining, logging, dismantling, etc.), would'nt it be more logical to recover everything at the end, when the block is destroyed? With the actual system we recover fewer resources if we have a modded tool, or high skills, only because harvesting is a little broken. But if everything came at the end, the calculation would be much simpler to do.

I find that having to cut a tree until it falls to collect the wood would be more rewarding. Same thing for a vehicle, a pile of cement, etc.

Just a thought.

 

[Gareee]

I just did.
Spikes will be bloody.

YW.

I wish you would reconsider this. The old system was great. New spikes are bloodless, and when damaged they showed the damage and blood, a easy to spot indicator they needed to be fixed. With new bloody spikes, from a distance its harder to tell they are damaged. (And the non bloody ones were even still in the game in a17.)

On a side note, how does making new spikes already bloody make any sense?

 

[Gareee]

May I suggest, even a convoluted system that can direct players to another trader? Maybe an "exploration" book, straight up request to meet another trader given a gated level requirement or some other solution?

I love, and my crew loves to explore but setting aside such time when we play on max difficulty is taking away from the simplistic joys of the game.

Red Eagle already has great mod for this. It adds trader adverts in mailboxes. When you travel a good distance away from your current trader and get one, it adds a quest to visit the local trader. That way its lore friendly and easier to find additional traders.

I agree though, something like this would be good for vanilla, but they don't need to invest development time on it right now because we have a viable solution.

It could easily be a gold release addition.

 

[RipClaw]

On a side note, how does making new spikes already bloody make any sense?

Quality control. Every spike is carefully checked in the factory for functionality. Every once in a while I test them myself just to be sure.

 

[Menace312]

Quality control. Every spike is carefully checked in the factory for functionality. Every once in a while I test them myself just to be sure.

Must leave you a bit leaky...

 

[bobross]

(with apologies to canadianbluebeer... is it REALLY BLUE?)
As MM has stated a couple time previously, 1 'meat' would muck up the perk system. Lvl 1 = 20% more, Lvl 2 = 40% more, etc. What kind of impact would that have for 1 meat?

How about yoiu think of meat differently? Rather than 1 meat, or 1 pound or kilogram or whatever, why not ounces? or any kind of factor of something smaller? 1 meat could represent 4 ounces.

The actual real world quantity doesn't even matter. (Game design triumphs over realism...) What matters is how the items and their quantities represent 'in game' different game play mechanics.

This doesn't answer the question. Why "5 meat" instead of "1 meat with a 20% chance at a second meat" for a single perk point?

Understand, it was curiosity thing not really a complaint or anything like that. I just figured that with, say, 3 points in the perk randomly getting 2 meat instead of 1 60% of the time would've worked as well and wondered if there was a technical reason it couldn't work.

 

[Ayrton]

@Madmole What happened to the aerostatic balloon that we saw in the A17 apparently lacked arrangements, we could enjoy it in the A18?

 

[Roland]

@Madmole What happened to the aerostatic balloon that we saw in the A17 apparently lacked arrangements, we could enjoy it in the A18?

The name of it is "JokeBlimp" if that gives you any indication...

 

[Aldranon]

The name of it is "JokeBlimp" if that gives you any indication...

John Wayne could have made it work... With a little help from Chuck Norris.

 

[Roland]

John Wayne could have made it work... With a little help from Chuck Norris.

Who's really helping whom in such a partnership....?

 

[Aldranon]

Who's really helping whom in such a partnership....?

You. Me. Everyone else. Global Warming. World Peace.

I don't know what they would work on tomorrow.

 

[Odetta]

I wish you would reconsider this. The old system was great. New spikes are bloodless, and when damaged they showed the damage and blood, a easy to spot indicator they needed to be fixed. With new bloody spikes, from a distance its harder to tell they are damaged. (And the non bloody ones were even still in the game in a17.)
On a side note, how does making new spikes already bloody make any sense?

I agree. Also the hit box for repairing them seems a little weird. Especially when trying to repair them at certain angles; it's almost impossible.

 

[Star69]

A few alphas ago I suggested a button to send a command to delete the 2 files containing player data so we can play dead is dead. I’m not a programmer so don’t even know if it’s possible. Currently I rent a server & have figured out that deleting those files does not require a server reboot to take effect so there is no effect to others on the server. Maybe post gold?? I love dead is dead since it’s true punishment for doing something stupid.

 

[Gamida]

A few alphas ago I suggested a button to send a command to delete the 2 files containing player data so we can play dead is dead. I’m not a programmer so don’t even know if it’s possible. Currently I rent a server & have figured out that deleting those files does not require a server reboot to take effect so there is no effect to others on the server. Maybe post gold?? I love dead is dead since it’s true punishment for doing something stupid.

If I am not mistaken one of the tools/managers had the option for players on a server to hit /r to reset their character. Just not sure which one it was.

 

[Quantum Blue]

This doesn't answer the question. Why "5 meat" instead of "1 meat with a 20% chance at a second meat" for a single perk point?
Understand, it was curiosity thing not really a complaint or anything like that. I just figured that with, say, 3 points in the perk randomly getting 2 meat instead of 1 60% of the time would've worked as well and wondered if there was a technical reason it couldn't work.

As CanadianBlueBeer, MadMole, and myself have tried to explain it's not about 'A MEAT'. It's about resources and percentages.

The perk states it gives additional RESOURCES - not 'A MEAT's. As I rather like MM's meat volume as represented by a bite, we will use that.

If a rabbit is worth 5 bites, then perk 1 (+20%) gives you 1 additional bite for a total of 6. Perk 2 (40%) gives an additional 2, for a total of 7. Etc.

It seems like it's a little more 'realistic' getting varying amounts rather than always 1 or 2.

And, actually, I just checked the XML's (this is A17, but I suspect A18 is very similar) and it seems a rabbit's MAX Resource Value is 10. Each perk level gives it's percentage value of the XML EntityClass Resource values. In the case of the rabbit, 10 resources, Perk level one gives 2. Perk level 2 gives 4. Etc. (Those could be miximums in a module that doesn't just give that amount - but a random value between 1 and that amount.)

And each 'EntityClass' entry does already have varying amounts of resources ('meats'/'bites'). (Makes sense, rabbit and bears are not equal.)

Hope that helps.