PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

  • A18 Stable is Out!

    Votes: 2 66.7%
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    Votes: 1 33.3%

  • Total voters
    3
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joel are the faster crafting found in books and perks? because from a15 or a16 i really miss the fast crafting speed
There are mods for the forge that make it smelt/craft faster and there are perks that increase crafting speed.

 
Just wondering why they took it out, considering I remember Madmole demonstrating the lockpicking mini-game at one stage.
It seemed like a bit of fun and a decent way to involve the player's skill during the process, rather than waiting for a timer to hopefully reach 0.
It was just some prototype. Maybe the code got deleted. We didn't have proper builds possible back then and it didn't make sense yet. Now we support agility / stealth builds so it makes sense.

 
Hi Madmole, I and my coworkers have a doubt, are you planning to add spiders to the game? :spider: mutant spiders or zombie spiders that climb the walls without problem that would add a lot of problems during the orde, I already bought 7 days to die from my coworkers and bought 3 copies and with my friends we play between 7 to 8 people for Steam now all wait for the A18 and as you know the questions abound I answer all the questions that I know, but the one to add a spider to the game I don't know if it's in the plans, is it really a good idea to say?
No plans for arachnids. We have a spider zombie that can leap. Maybe later he can climb but it was always buggy and never worked right.

 
Madmole, some plan to add the seasons of the year that affects all the biomes, I don't remember which Alpha was that if you were in the forest it was all white because of the snow, it was great! Add an incredible admosphere to the game, imagine that the snow damages your plantations! that would be beautiful! What are the plans about that?
No plans for that.

 
Can anyone tell me why we still start with a LCB??
This thing is crafted from just a fistful of rocks, so remove it from the starting inventory and replace it with a random low tier tool, e.g. axe or shovel or cooking pot etc. to start with.

Move crafting the LCB to the start base quest...
Its a fairly important game mechanic. Who wants another step in the tutorial? We just shortened it, I'd hate to make it longer again. Throw yours out if it bothers you.

 
The blue stamina bar max = hunger. As long as your stamina max is all the way to the right you know your hunger is greater or equal to 100. As soon as your stamina max dips below and reads 95 or 90 or 85 etc you know your exact hunger by glancing at the screen.
Yes, a warning pops up when your hunger goes below 75 I believe but you’ll be able to tell immediately by looking at the stamina bar as soon as it goes below 100 (or whatever the max is later on)
You're right that the max stamina bar lets you know when you're starting to incur hunger penalties, but I didn't know that as a newbie. I had to google it to understand where my stamina was going, and that I had to check a menu to see my hunger and thirst. Also, you don't know about thirst penalties until it's already kicking in at 75 or whenever the icon appears, meaning you have to keep checking the menu if you want to keep yourself topped off and avoid penalties. They could just put a couple numbers/bars in the corner of your hud under your health/stam bars or something, and immediately all becomes clear and many button presses are saved.

While they're at it, I'd like some kind of indicator to let me know I'm feeling warm/cold before I become hot/cold enough to start incurring penalties. It doesn't have to be the actual temperature, since obviously you don't have the weather channel or a proper thermometer to tell you the exact temp. Instead, it could just be your impression of the temperature, maybe even just a color coded word, like warm -&gt; hot -&gt; sweltering going from yellow -&gt; orange -&gt; red, and then cool -&gt; cold -&gt; freezing going from light blue -&gt; dark blue -&gt; purple or something like that. That way you can see if you're feeling warm or cool before you get so hot or cold that you're taking penalties, giving you the opportunity to do something about it before it's a problem, like changing clothes, drinking coffee, or just leaving the area if it's going to be an issue.

Maybe I'm just an optimizer, though. I like to be able to avoid penalties from things like hunger/thirst/temperature as much as possible, so I'd really like to have an easy way to know about it before it becomes a problem. It's not like the game doesn't provide this information to you already, I just wish it were easier to see instead of requiring you to stop what you're doing and look at a menu.

I know I can just install a mod, it just seems like an odd choice to me to not make this kind of info readily available in a survival game is all.

Take a look at this screenshot: https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/1059/images/288/288-1552776709-1828068334.jpeg

There. Simple, easy to read, available on the HUD so you know it's important to keep an eye on, and it only very slightly increases the size of the hud. I would prefer if the temperature were replaced with your character's impression of the temperature instead of the exact number, but the point remains.

I'll be using this mod, so my problem is solved, but I felt it was worthwhile to make it known that this was a little confusing to a newbie like me.

I'll stop harping on it now, thanks for any consideration this receives.

 
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That's the one! I'm about 65% sure it was a video and not a diagram or description of how it would play out. I've had a quick look at the videos posted but nothing jumped out at me to prove it, though. I have a vague memory of it being a surprise feature.
I think Madmole would remember. MADMOLE! Sort out some memory problems we're having.
There might have been, but it just doesn't work with our time table. What we have now might not be as elegant but its simple and works and doesn't need a bunch of polish and graphics improvements. Its shippable.

 
What's the division of the team nowadays? Like x programmers, y artists, z testers, xa level designers, etc?
About 20-22 devs and 10 testers. Not going to break it down but its roughly equal so divide by 3 and you have your numbers.

 
Personally, I still miss books being gates to things like crossbow, etc.
[*]"How to" books (again, gates like recipes, making clothes, medical help)

They just make sense, IMO, and that "YESSSSSSS!" moment of finding one. The points system is good for strength and stamina, etc. Maybe intelligence to be able to understand certain books, but not a big fan of it somehow able to teach me to forge, for example.
THey are. ALL tier 3 items require schematics, and no perk will ever unlock them.

There are books that unlock clothing crafting, med schematics, etc.

 
Yeah... but I do genuinly think that you tried your best to salvage it. And hearing how this was another guys doing (for the most part), gives me enough hope to change my review. And it is really really nice to hear.
Now all we need is a electric "grid" system. Where you can connect multiple in and outputs to add up to one bigger grid.

Because not beeing able to make a nice electric fence square, or not beeing able to power a drawbridge from two seperate cameras (how is one camera supposed to see 180°), or not beeing able to wire up cameras and pressure plates to one trap...

I know you stated before that this is not possible based on how you developed electricity... but if oyu could take another look, that'd be great :)
I've yet to use electricity yet. I have done some crazy stuff in Fallout and some basic stuff in MC, so we'll see how it plays out. I might have some polish or changes I want (which happens a lot) once I wrap my mind around something. This is why I feel 18 is so good, I've been playing it for months and tweaking stuff and giving guys improvement tasks.

 
I would like to say that i am really glad that books are making a comeback. I do like them in the game.
The first books were ok but very limiting because if you couldn't find what you needed, you were limited to what you could do.

For example: You needed to read a book on forging before you could build a forge. As the only other way to get a forge is to find one (which was rare). Plus you had to do all your forging in that area which was also very limiting.

You needed to read a book on pistols before you could dissemble it or put one together and so on.

Currently in Alpha-17 the only books that are available are ones that give you a temperately boost in your ability's. I only used those to get money from the trader after I max out my bartering skills OFC. :)

But now I see that they are being used to give the players permanent skills and buffs. It makes it look as if you are learning how to do stuff. Rather than just popping points into your avatar.

The only thing that I would recommend is putting in missions given by the traders to give players skills as an award.

For example: The trader can say "If you go to this place and get me this bag then I will teach you how to make a workbench" as an award option.
Workbench schematic is probably a quest reward already.

 
I know the icon is there, but it doesn't appear until you're already very low (around 60ish I think). I'd rather know if I have "room" to eat right now so I can declutter my inventory. I don't think a couple little bars is really very much clutter. Plus, it's not clutter if the information it's displaying is important. Oh well, I guess I'll have to mod it in, though I still think it's a mistake to not include it by default, I think most players would want to know a basic piece of info like their current hunger/thirst in a survival game.
You see the black part of your stamina bar? That is the hunger meter.

 
Really? It made cities dangerous. Now they're just... Loot boxes closer together.
Honestly surprised you don't feel the same.
My issue is 30 zombies from outside come in every time I do a POI. This is a result of me playing solo and the random horde comes for me or near a player (its just me) and they hear me killing stuff and come investigate. At a minimum 5+ guys seem to come from outside and afar when I'm doing a POI. If that didn't happen, I'd love to see lots more zombies outside in cities but when your doing a Tier 3+ and get sandwiched its not cool.

 
hey @MM i saw in your video and test lives, we get a new car model, but i was wondering it will be like the old sedans or we have more car models?
Its exactly how you saw. There are many variants and colors, but its all the same car.

 
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