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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So how can I get a copy of A18 as EEA - Early Early Access!? :smile-new: Alpha 18 looks so much better than 17 was and I still played 17 for many hours but no where near as much as 14 through 16.

The $20 I spend on the EA for this game has been the best value I have ever purchased for any game in my life! Looking forward to A18!

 
So how can I get a copy of A18 as EEA - Early Early Access!? :smile-new: Alpha 18 looks so much better than 17 was and I still played 17 for many hours but no where near as much as 14 through 16.
The $20 I spend on the EA for this game has been the best value I have ever purchased for any game in my life! Looking forward to A18!
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The only better deal I ever got in my entire life was marrying my amazing and gifted wife. All I did was give her a ring... and access to all my money. :)

Releasing 7D2D in 6 days to the steamers would be Pure Bliss.

Also, Kage848, somebody, get that list of what skills are gained only from Perks and what is gained only from reading the manuals. I know everyone will want that.

 
@MM I’m curious about tfp’s thoughts on how to handle the activation of quests. At one point you mentioned maybe the quest goes active when you get it from the trader. The issue with that is currently once quest becomes active, you can’t invite friends. The only thought I had would be activating at the site as it is now. Instead of the exclamation point, maybe use the localization that you use when looking for your satchel in a quest, so when you’re at the correct building, you get that “Quest nearby” or maybe a text popup saying “Start ‘x’ quest Y for yes, N for no”. What ideas are you guys bouncing around?
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Can you explain the issue better?

 
Madmole: Regarding RWG: would it be possible in a future release to expose a way for external tools to generate caves? Something as simple as a dedicated color in the appropriate file (splat map maybe?), with the alpha channel controlling depth, might even work. I haven't looked too much at the RWG stuff, but did look at the Nitrogen World Generator recently and came away with 2 immediate takeaways:
1) Caves could be generated using A* or a similar algorithm. You can even have spawners or POIs in caves. Imagine a true dungeon crawl involving battling your way down to the deepest depths of the cave and fighting several ferals or a boss or something. Then you get some nice loot. Those caves could even have deadend branches, so things get REALLY interesting. Or multiple treasure rooms. Or maybe just a ton of ferals leading to a dead end. Best of all, since they are randomly generated, players would never know where to look! It becomes quite a bit harder to dig all the way down to find treasure rooms since it's all RWG based.

2) It should be possible with blocks or prefabs to add bridges that allow roads to go over other roads or over rivers. This wouldn't affect the roads themselves outside of some possible rule/algorithm changes to ensure that some bridges get generated. This would make the terrain interesting and more dynamic.

3) Maybe modify that road texture a bit and add some faded paint.

Just a few thoughts.
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1 I'm not sure what the fascination is with caves, they are super rare IRL, and would be a horrible place to go looting in a setting similar to TWD like our game is. Maybe people have played too much minecraft, but to me caves are really pretty boring when there are POIs and a full world to explore. Any cave generation system would have to be coded by someone. There is nothing to expose to modders if it isn't written.

2 We have bridges working, but I just don't see much value in making overpasses, we've been struggling to get a half decent looking RWG for 5 years now complicated designs are just going to look ugly/buggy/set us back. When we get all the rwg bugs fixed maybe that could be done, but its arizona desert, its just not something your going to need in an 8k section of Arizona.

 
Is there any summary anywhere of which tree unlocks which weapons / special abilities ? There's been bits of info in a lot of posts but I didn't mark them down.
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Yeah I did a video showing the perk overhaul a while back.

 
I suggest you inmediately cease testing so that the amount of MFs doesn't increase anymore.Seems to be the only way to speed up

the KRAKEN

People are starving. MadMole is cooking a build almost every day, only to eat it alone!


You are soooo mean!
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You'll thank me when you feel the balanced fun glory of A18.

 
SNIP. Maybe people have played too much minecraft, SNIP.
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Kind Sir, there is no such thing as "too much Minecraft"

Everything beneath 1k Hours in the game is a Tutorial.

 
I can wait as long as needed to play A18...but seriously can't wait to punch zombies and kick babies! err or one or the other!

&lt;insert random baby kicking GIF here&gt;

 
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1 I'm not sure what the fascination is with caves, they are super rare IRL, and would be a horrible place to go looting in a setting similar to TWD like our game is. Maybe people have played too much minecraft, but to me caves are really pretty boring when there are POIs and a full world to explore. Any cave generation system would have to be coded by someone. There is nothing to expose to modders if it isn't written.
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As far as I know the major issues with adding caves are SI and placement, feel free to correct me on that. Solve those two and you have an entirely unique biome to play with for relatively little extra work. This would also open the way for artificial underground systems such as sewers, something that has appeared in TWD as both a character crucible and a plot device. Even sketching out a working system will give the modders something to hook into and then the ever faithful cry of "just mod it" can be used.

Underground provides a different set of challenges when compared to an overground. Can't jump out of a window to save your arse in a mine. :-)

Has any thought been given to providing the SI system with the concept of an arch? Not the shape, the engineering principle. You can redirect a lot of force around an object or space with the correct use of arches. I know it'll make SI calculations a little slower but with a bit of forethought you can avoid a lot of the calculations where they're unneeded.

 
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Madmole future quest question

Madmole

I read your reply about mobile quests and hope you can do it for the future releases.

Reading your posts it looks like you are taking it to the next level of

"Full buildable/destructable environtment" finding realtime purpose for every ingame object.

One of the main compliments I've read on reviews is there is so much you can do and interact with.

For the quests, as an example, the destroyed benches and mixers. If they as an

object had a placeholder attached, and each slot was basically a mod.

"Mechanical parts, electrical parts, forged iron/steel or scrap, Wood, Nails,

engine, spring, engine. Basically the normal resources to build a full, Bench

or mixer. If these were in a randomized array, for part and quantity.

When highlighted or opened, it could display, the missing part and quantity.

This would be a quest of a sort, but with out dialog. So if you found one close

to a perm or temp camp location. You could find or use looted resources, to

temporarily repair them. Set a degradation of those resources at higher rate. Then

again randomize what it needs to function again. Would an additonal placeholder file

be needed for this to work? Would this create excessive calculations on cpu?

I ask about this because once a forge, bench, mixer are built presently, they seem

to have a permanent lifespan.

 
What's really crazy is that is completely different from how it works in life. Vitamins don't do ♥♥♥♥ against food poisoning or the plague. Food poisoning rarely kills you and you rarely get it unless the food hasn't been cooked right. A17 got the mechanics right for canned foods and stuff giving food poisoning: most of that stuff would have been expired by now. For the fresh meat though (Regarding the A18 comment)? As long as you cook it properly and eat it without it sitting in the fridge for weeks at a time, you won't get sick. We really just need food spoilage. A simple timer on the item and then it turns rotten. Without working refrigerators, it'd go from good to questionable to spoiled within a few days.
I think what I'm getting at here is fix the problem: Food lasts forever. Instead, ensure the player always has to eat bad quality food unless they killed that boar, cut open it's carcus, and cut out the meat within the past 2 days or so. That along with a reduction in meat (I got 55 meat from a boar last night in A17) that each animal gives would make it feel more survivalist. The user shouldn't be allowed to see the spoilage timer either, and it should be randomized a bit to be unpredictable. Between that and tying hunger to game hours and thirst to how active you are (and hence: how much you sweat), you'd have a pretty interesting system where most food would be questionable at best or bad, and the only good food you can eat would be fresh off a bear's ass. (or boar, or deer, but bear sounded better)
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So if I were to craft a bacon and eggs every day, I would have a new stack of food for each expiration date? How would you handle that?

 
So if I were to craft a bacon and eggs every day, I would have a new stack of food for each expiration date? How would you handle that?
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To be fair, a spoilage timer doesn't necessarily need to know the creation time of an object, only the decay rate of a stack.

Not a perfect system, two stacks of 50 will decay twice as fast as a single stack of 100, but sufficient to act as a food sink.

 
You'll thank me when you feel the balanced fun glory of A18.
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Of course I will. I already put 1300+ hours into this game and convinced a friend to play this game with me. We are eager to play another 200+ with A18.

Any plans to overhaul Steam achievements? I think with all this changes and balancing to come it would be almost impossible to get e.g. Warrior (GS500) or Survivalist (GS1000).....

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To be fair, a spoilage timer doesn't necessarily need to know the creation time of an object, only the decay rate of a stack.
Not a perfect system, two stacks of 50 will decay twice as fast as a single stack of 100, but sufficient to act as a food sink.
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There is a game (I think NEO Scavenger) which solves this the way you say. There is a spoilage counter which decomposes only one piece of the whole stack. If it's spoiled, then the second starts and so on..

So if you have a stack of 10, and every 24hours one spoils, the stack lasts 10 days but constantly depletes.

 
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To be fair, a spoilage timer doesn't necessarily need to know the creation time of an object, only the decay rate of a stack.
Not a perfect system, two stacks of 50 will decay twice as fast as a single stack of 100, but sufficient to act as a food sink.
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This system would also encourage players to get into electricity, as a powered fridge could be used to slow down or even remove food spoilage.

 
There is a game (I think NEO Scavenger) which solves this the way you say. There is a spoilage counter which decomposes only one piece of the whole stack. If it's spoiled, then the second starts and so on..So if you have a stack of 10, and every 24hours one spoils, the stack lasts 10 days but constantly depletes.
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Just a question. Let's say you have 50 meat, and you place them in a container in such a way so that every slot as at least 2 meat in them. Since there would theoretically be no place for the spoiled food to go, would the countdown continue, or would it cease? Just wondering, since this could be an exploit, unless the food spoiled the moment a free inventory spot was made available.

 
I only remember that the fresh meat changed to rotten meat. Just looked into the WIKI, you weren't able to stack it. This changes everything.

 
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