PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

  • A18 Stable is Out!

    Votes: 2 66.7%
  • <img alt=":)" data-src="" src="___base_url___/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png" />

    Votes: 1 33.3%

  • Total voters
    3
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How about ALT? It is not needed for gameplay.

Hold L Alt to rotate:

clockwise = left click (does the same as without pressing ALT)

counterclockwise = right click

forward = mouse wheel forward (rotate a block the same direction as the wheel)

backward = mouse wheel backward

Every mouse has at least 2 buttons and a wheel and covering both directions in 2 axis makes it already tons faster.
Alt is third person.

 
Nice, not just the junk turret correct?
first.jpg0dfe10fb-928b-48e3-9c6b-8d4c1e860cd4Original.jpg
Correct.

 
Hey @madmole
couple of questions about the shape menu:

  • do all materials have the same shapes? for example the shapes you can make with wood are the same that you can make with concrete? or some restrictions apply?
  • you place down a rebar ramp, you pick it up, can you now change it's shape and plae it again? even if you placed it already?
It becomes a generic rebar frame when you pick it up, or returns to the stack of rebar frames on your belt.

Not all materials have the same shapes for now. It always felt stupid making stairs and railings from a frame then upgrading them, so flagstone/brick might have more stuff than wood/rebar.

 
i think this was brought up when quests were first being discussed. It would be great if there were quests that , if successful would lower your game stage.
Why in Navezgane would you want to lower your game stage?

 
I would have thought that would have been one of the easiest thing to balance, volumetric maths is hardly a new field.
No offence meant but at this point I find myself no longer surprised at what you're prepared to simplify and smooth over under the guise of balancing.
Its klunky design having hit point values and recipes all over the place. It leads to harvest bonuses failing, edge case exploits and another of 1000's of examples where realism fails yet again.

Overdesign is the most common designer trap, don't think you are intelligent when you start overdesigning, the opposite is in fact, the truth.

 
I'm not sure what your surprised about to be honest. Block health and recourse cost has been this way for at least a few alphas, correct? If it wasn't something you noticed until now I'd say its a non issue in the "simplifying the game" conspiracy theory.
No offence of course ;)
The most simple way is almost always the most elegant solution. Dumbing down is often mistaken for improvement.

At this point I'm kind of cringing looking at the wood framed block icons and just want to build with solid wood instead, because building with cobblestone is better because you don't have to upgrade everything and you can see what the hell your building. The only drawback is if you make a mistake.

 
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Good, now allow steel ammo to be loaded into them, so non shotgun turrets are actually usable.
Steel bullets will be removed in A18.

Edit: Oof, Madmole beat me.

 
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Alt is third person.
It's not a button you need to press too often so it could be changed.

It would be very welcomed if there were better rotating controls to accompany the new shape menu.

 
The most simple way is almost always the most elegant solution. Dumbing down is often mistaken for improvement.
At this point I'm kind of cringing looking at the wood framed block icons and just want to build with solid wood instead, because building with cobblestone is better because you don't have to upgrade everything and you can see what the hell your building. The only drawback is if you make a mistake.
Frames are perfectly fine. You may be cringing from a perspective of trying to streamline everything down to the lowest common denominator but I don't think many people cringe at frames, and the alternative is actually more complicated to pull off.

With no frames, you either allow solid blocks to be picked up, which is a bad idea since players could reposition full health blocks in seconds even under a zombie attack, or you don't allow them to be picked up and you still end up with the placing mistakes, except without frames to palliate them.

I like building frames quickly and cheaply first to give me an idea of the shape and measurements of the base I'm going to be making, and then replacing them (not upgrading them) with the actual flagstone blocks. Could simply make frames be generic and allow you to upgrade them to either wood or flagstone.

 
If the new pathing is having problems because it's a half solid half door block then maybe, at least temporarily, maybe make a jail door that works like a regular door. Those do exist, doesn't need to slide. I just miss having a strong door I can shoot through, I used jail doors more than any other when building in A16. I miss them.
That or "just" fix the pathing issue, @Faatal ! (I can only imagine what the actual problem is, assume it stems from it not acting like other doors. In which case I still do not know how difficult a solution would be.)


It was looked at and discussed. Fixes were attempted. Some model/anim changes. It ended up worse and was neutered to the current state. Maybe we can do something better some day.
More importantly the cell door was 2x2 which was nice to have for openings bigger than a 1x2 vault door, but smaller than the 3x2 garage doors.

 
My gripe is that cars explode at all. It's bloody difficult to make a car explode unless you replace the seats with barrels of gas.

One of my gripes is that an exploding car does less damage than a pipebomb. :/
...at least it seems that way regarding damage to zombies.
I modded out having cars explode, I do not like having zombies blow up my resources.

 
Frames are perfectly fine. You may be cringing from a perspective of trying to streamline everything down to the lowest common denominator but I don't think many people cringe at frames, and the alternative is actually more complicated to pull off.
With no frames, you either allow solid blocks to be picked up, which is a bad idea since players could reposition full health blocks in seconds even under a zombie attack, or you don't allow them to be picked up and you still end up with the placing mistakes, except without frames to palliate them.

I like building frames quickly and cheaply first to give me an idea of the shape and measurements of the base I'm going to be making, and then replacing them (not upgrading them) with the actual flagstone blocks. Could simply make frames be generic and allow you to upgrade them to either wood or flagstone.
You would have about a 30 second grace period to pick up a block then it becomes permanent. We could keep wood frames or have scaffolding blocks. Nobody is using frames any more, everyone uses cobblestone because you can clearly see the rotation it is in (frames are hard to tell), it doesn't need immediately updated to offer some protection.

Really the only thing good about frames is you can pick it up and block something out. So if we do away with frames, allow a grace period to pick it up again, and add scaffolding blocks for building high structures I think we have a better system. Then allow contextual upgrade material on a hammer so you can upgrade wood straight to reinforced concrete by setting the material to concrete. No more clunky upgrading and wasting tons of materials to reach the best material. No more accidentally upgrading a block to steel and wasting an hour tearing it out. No more breaking a 10000 hit point block only to see one with 5000 take its place.

 
Are we going to get a shotgun version of the junk turret in the future?
Possibly a mod that puts the junk in a spread pattern but that would eat a lot of ammo and be kind of meh IMO.

 
Our actions could reduce the threat from zombies. Now the threat is constantly growing.
If you lower the game stage you lower the quality of loot. Not something most people would want. Turn down the difficulty if you don't like the higher game stages.

 
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