PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[madmole]

No, company: https://continuum.graphics/store
But sure, modders can do it as well. Bottom line is, all of that is great but wasn't made by the developers so it's a bit unfair to use it as comparison and then ask TFP when they'll implement ray tracing.

Ray tracing is about 2% of the final image there. Most of what you see is just pbr textures. Ray tracing is coming to games, but its another feature that might destroy the framerate we would shy away from for a while until we get performance in a good place.

 

[madmole]

Like the change that Tool crafting quality is now pegged to Miner 69'er now. But how is the scaling between Miner 69'er and Mother Lode? I think there was an ongoing issue in A17 whereby Miner 69'er was causing less yield from mining (especially boulders) if we were to spec more points into it. Hence the general consensus was to just max points in Mother Lode but to not max out Miner 69'er.

Please ppl for the love of god read. FIXED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[madmole]

Because you can't craft a real military type gun on a wooden workbench with wrench and hammer in real life. you need a special metal cutting equipment, welding set. Furthermore, I suppose it would be more reasonable to force player to leave their comfortable bases to go looting for weapons. However, maybe it could pay off if player could upgrade guns' stats on workbench at the cost of appropriate parts, instead of crafting a new weapon?

Guns are now crafted from parts and various resources, so yes you can build one on a workbench realistically, which by the way does not govern any of our decisions on design. You cannot craft these parts you find them or scrap weapons to obtain the parts.

 

[madmole]

yeah, this kinda strange too, but there's no suitable alternative for now, I think.

Haven't seen anyone rage quit because they can carry 100 tons of stone yet either. Fun trumps realism.

 

[OzHawkeye]

I asked for an item degradation method the other day so modders can do spoilage and we could make torches degrade and do a variety of things with it.

I think that's a great way to handle it - the more access modders have, the more mods they'll make, and games like Minecraft / Skyrim etc show how powerful and inventive modding communities can become when they have a great deal of access to the game. I'm not a fan of food spoilage myself, but if I can mod it in / out, I can see lots of mods making use of it.

 

[ReaperXGen]

Guns are now crafted from parts and various resources, so yes you can build one on a workbench realistically, which by the way does not govern any of our decisions on design. You cannot craft these parts you find them or scrap weapons to obtain the parts.

well, now I have to agree. that's pretty logical.

 

[Gnomaana]

Madmole......will A18 get rid of the Death penalty when you die.....hated the fact that it put you too far back in charecter progression. The fact that you stubbed your big toe and now you forgot how to tie your shoes was pretty annoying... Has that been tweaked or removed...i hope.
Regards

Ouch

On a snarky note: Have you ever died and popped back to life in your bed miles away? Maybe that is what would happen. Lol

Non snarky note: Death has to have SOME downside or there is no point. With no penalty at all to death the fastest strategy for some buildings would be to place a bedroll near and just kamikaze the building over and over until you clear it.

 

[Gnomaana]

I wonder that too. I think those people are either lazy or ignorant maybe both. It's like they want everyone to play the way they want and I also don't understand their urgent of making things overcomplicated(the recent example of that I saw was suggested by someone is the restriction of using tools/weapons while climbing the ladder and things like that).

Or maybe they would like their "Survival Horde Crafting Game" to, you know, have SOME elements of survival in it? Maybe? Nah, I'm sure they are just lazy.

 

[SnowDog1942]

I asked for an item degradation method the other day so modders can do spoilage and we could make torches degrade and do a variety of things with it.

Please dont make me micro manage torches

 

[RestInPieces]

Please dont make me micro manage torches

Use electricity like a normal human being! But seriously, unlike food and even if I would personally enjoy torches degrading I wouldn't be in favor of a decoration element being subject to these kinds of rules, much less one that will, perhaps, become annoying to replace.

 

[SnowDog1942]

Use electricity like a normal human being! But seriously, unlike food and even if I would personally enjoy torches degrading I wouldn't be in favor of a decoration element being subject to these kinds of rules, much less one that will, perhaps, become annoying to replace.

I dont like electricity lights, the torches are better. I guess thats a whole other issue. Elecricity is great, but the lighting sucks currently.

 

[RestInPieces]

Death has to have SOME downside or there is no point. With no penalty at all to death the fastest strategy for some buildings would be to place a bedroll near and just kamikaze the building over and over until you clear it.

Indeed - death means nothing without actually having a downside. The current downside is IMHO extremely lenient. Frankly, it doesn't make me fear death in the least - it's more like a minor annoyance. Yet for whatever reasons there are people who just wouldn't like to be penalized at all.

DP severity has to become an option.

I dont like electricity lights, the torches are better. I guess thats a whole other issue. Elecricity is great, but the lighting sucks currently.

Agreed - and a game in which building plays such a huge role should not take away aesthetic options in favor of some small immersion gain.

 

[madmole]

@madmole or anyone at the dev team: please tell me that different icon means different model; tell me that now an iron axe looks different than a steel axe!!! QoL

Placeholders.

 

[madmole]

Perhaps we're looking at this the wrong way. If there were a secondary use for food instead of just keeping the player alive it would help reduce the stockpiles.
The real life secondary uses for spare food are usually animal feed, fertilizer, or other types of food (fruit to jam being an example of the latter).

There is, its called the sell button.

 

[madmole]

@madmole
I haven't finished watching the video yet but I have a question. What perks can be found as books excatly?

Can you please either put it in game, or give us a comprehensive list? Or can all perks be found as books?

Update is looking awesome btw.

No perks can be found as books. Books are their own thing. There are schematics for everything perks unlock so you aren't forced into buying that perk unless you really want the perk parts of it, like damage bonuses etc.

 

[Aesir]

@Madmole

In A17 my primary melee weapon is the fireaxe. I'd imagine that in A18 it's governed by the Miner'69er perk. No problem with that, it only makes sense. My question is this. Will the Deep Wounds perk still apply to it... so that it remains a viable bladed weapon option?

Also... but much less important to me...will the Huntsman perk still apply to it as well?

One last question. Could a shortcut key be added to pull up the crafting menu? "B" pulls up the character screen. "M" pulls up the map. "I" pulls up level, gamestage etc. "O" pulls up quests IIRC. I haven't been able to find one that pulls up the crafting menu. It would be a nice QOL feature. Unless of course there is already one and I'm just missing it.

Thanks for being so active on the forums. I'm looking forward to A18.

 

[SeaL]

Or maybe they would like their "Survival Horde Crafting Game" to, you know, have SOME elements of survival in it? Maybe? Nah, I'm sure they are just lazy.

As if there's no elements of survival at all. I'm not against new survival features it just doesn't have to be too complicated, generally speaking.

 

[Odetta]

@Madmole
In A17 my primary melee weapon is the fireaxe. I'd imagine that in A18 it's governed by the Miner'69er perk. No problem with that, it only makes sense. My question is this. Will the Deep Wounds perk still apply to it... so that it remains a viable bladed weapon option?

Also... but much less important to me...will the Huntsman perk still apply to it as well?

One last question. Could a shortcut key be added to pull up the crafting menu? "B" pulls up the character screen. "M" pulls up the map. "I" pulls up level, gamestage etc. "O" pulls up quests IIRC. I haven't been able to find one that pulls up the crafting menu. It would be a nice QOL feature. Unless of course there is already one and I'm just missing it.

Thanks for being so active on the forums. I'm looking forward to A18.

TAB to get to Crafting Menu.

 

[Socrastein]

I also think spoilage would be pretty lame, but I agree that there could be some value to having food-related challenges in the mid-to-late game.

Instead of food generically increasing heat for zombies, what about it creating a different sort of heat that attracts bears? So the more food items you have in a chunk, ESPECIALLY raw meat, the more often a bear comes wandering in to check it out. Just like the screamer mechanic.

The challenge goes from ‘don’t starve’ to ‘don’t get eaten!’ and instead of feeling like food is a non-issue after a certain point it becomes a different kind of issue, one of abundance = danger.

In fact if you had hundreds of meat and food items you could expect 2-3 bears to come sniffing around and more frequent dog pack spawns.

This way when you get to the point you’ve got tons of food and forges/cement mixers/chem stations working you have zombies AND animals frequently checking out your base.

But this wouldn’t prevent you from questing, exploring, etc. It would just mean there’s a good chance when you come home there will be a bear or two near your base.

 

[Roland]

Use electricity like a normal human being! But seriously, unlike food and even if I would personally enjoy torches degrading I wouldn't be in favor of a decoration element being subject to these kinds of rules, much less one that will, perhaps, become annoying to replace.

lol...this proves EVERYONE has their spoilage tolerance line.