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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You would rather drive into radiation in the dark, lose your bearings die and be unable to get your vehicle and gear back?
I kinda would prefer that lol. I'm totally indifferent now to how the map border is handled, but it did add a nice element of "oh crap" when hitting the rad zone. Maybe just make it clearer to see if you chose to return to it.

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Not in the version coming, that was OP and an oversight, I didn't even know you could do that.
Did I hear you right in an earlier post that the game considers farm plots like workstations? If so could you make them moveable like workstations are with a land claim block?

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Fair enough but there really isn't any perk under intelligence can logically be moved to strength. There is also a lot of crafting perks already under intelligence.
yeah but that's what i see as intellect as. sometimes its" survival of the smartest"

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Maybe a mod for stove to make it functional?
yeah that too

 
Petition to move Master Chef perk to Fortitude. In exchange, Fortitude is willing to give Strength the Huntsman perk.Thank you for your consideration TFP.

X Omegarte
I find Master Chef under Strength to be fine, however I would vastly prefer Huntsman is moved to Agility as it already governs bladed weapons, meaning Agility builds likely already focus on bladed weapons. Animal Tracker under Perception is fine, and my current build plan is a mixture of Agility (primary) and Perception (secondary), which is tempting me to pick up Animal Tracker. Fortitude already has lots of great perks, as does Strength, and moving Huntsman to Agility would give that stat a "harvesting" perk, leaving Intellect as the only stat without one (although they have lots of "building" perks that others don't have).

 
My full review of A18 (as of the current version [beta])

So I do have a ton of positives and some negatives I would like to share with my experience so far with the newest version (A18) after playing the dreaded A17 and here's my pro's and con's:

Pro's (Long list)

The new UI is a lot better

The new graphics are highly welcome. Since seeing the old ones since A16 (which is when I started playing) it's nice to have that updated.

A forge can be crafted with the first perk of Advanced Engineering.

Quests by the trader (depending on who you go to) are much easier and the XP is worth it.

Quest rewards are even better!

Skill books are back and I'm loving it!

You can learn recipes instead of needing to level up to know it. I can craft a motorcycle since I have learned both the recipes for it and didn't need to upgrade my grease monkey to do it.

XP is easier to get.

New weapons! Baseball bat, M60 and double barrel shotgun! Groovy!

You no longer have to get your stuff when you die. Best. Fix. Ever.

You don't downgrade on level when you die repeatedly. Instead, XP is negated and you need to make up the lost amount.

Stun Baton's. I still haven't used one yet but I know someone will.

New Ammo! Armor piercing rounds, hollow points, etc.

These are all I can think of with the pro's atm. So here's my cons...

Con's

Daytime running zombies. I reported this as a possible bug since it could be one but I've encountered running zombies after the sun came up.

A crucible can be obtained at level 5 of Advanced Engineering (which needs level 10 intellect). I think we can all agree that one may be a little too much but then again you can get the schematic instead of going through the hassle.

Anvil's require a blueprint. Why? It was craftable in A17 without one... (I know it speeds up crafting)

Garden Hoe's are gone. This is my biggest complaint for this entire new build. I don't want to have to craft a damn farm plot to grow a plant. I want to do it the old fashioned way by putting it in the ground like normal with some fertilizer. Please fix this.

Crafting ammo on workbench. Now I will say that the 9mm and 7.62 rounds are fine there but I think shotgun shells should be hand craftable like the blunderbuss ammo.

Certain rocks give certain things. I can understand the reason as to why but I feel that this should've been better. I wouldn't have minded if the old rocks that kept multiple items (like coal, nitrate and iron) were still in the game but so far I don't see them.

Using stamina to aim. Now if it was a sniper rifle, that's fine. But it should be if you're holding the right mouse button down to hold you're breath, not just to simply aim the gun.

The double barrel shotgun and crossbow is a mess. The reload cycles on both weapons take forever to finish and they are more inaccurate than the other guns I have.

Pump action shotguns are schematic only. I looked through the Shotgun Messiah perk and found nothing on crafting it when you level it up. I'd suggest having it at level 4 in my honest opinion.

Repair kits are everything. Now I know repair kits are usual for repairing guns in the earlier builds, that's standard. But needing them to repair everything is such a chore. Please fix this.

My general consensus: The Alpha 18 update is a MAJOR improvement over the previous build, but there are some things wrong with it that need to be fixed, namely the absence of the garden hoe and needing repair kits for everything.

 
I know we arent supposed to face ferals right as we start in the world but what about spiders?
just generated a world, started playing and the first zombie I find on the road is that
There are many ways to deal with early game ferals.

1. Perk out Endurance and get heavy armor and high hit points. Make sure you have bandages in case of bleed and just beat them down. Beer drastically reduces your chances of being stunned so use it if you got it. Early game random ferals are not that strong.

2. Turn off Ferals running speed. Make them jog or walk. It's in settings.

3. Get a junk turret.

4. Sneak around slowly. Don't run everywhere blindly. You can see/hear the ferals usually if your slow and careful.

5. Find highground and jump where the ferals can't. Then pick them off with your bow. Bonus points if you preset some spikes around your position beforehand.

6. Always have an escape plan. Decide where you are going to run to if you do find a feral. Sucks to run way only to run into more ferals.

Just a few thoughts. I'm sure there are others.

 
There are many ways to deal with early game ferals.
1. Perk out Endurance and get heavy armor and high hit points. Make sure you have bandages in case of bleed and just beat them down. Beer drastically reduces your chances of being stunned so use it if you got it. Early game random ferals are not that strong.

2. Turn off Ferals running speed. Make them jog or walk. It's in settings.

3. Get a junk turret.

4. Sneak around slowly. Don't run everywhere blindly. You can see/hear the ferals usually if your slow and careful.

5. Find highground and jump where the ferals can't. Then pick them off with your bow. Bonus points if you preset some spikes around your position beforehand.

6. Always have an escape plan. Decide where you are going to run to if you do find a feral. Sucks to run way only to run into more ferals.

Just a few thoughts. I'm sure there are others.
i have the high ground!

 
Have you ever fought a demolisher yourself? He has 1000 HP, an armor that absorbs 40% of the damage and does an explosion damage of 5000 in a radius of 5 blocks.
Yesterday I did a little research about the AI with a killtower base design against a gamestage 250 Horde and had about 8 or 10 demolishers during the horde. The base was made of steel and reinforced concrete. 2 explosions were enough to destroy the concrete completely. The next morning I had a huge hole in the base.

And so by the way, that was just on the default difficulty. I don't want to imagine what a demolisher can do with higher difficulty settings and you want a feral version ?
I'll probably start a new map once demolishers start appearing. I just can't find it within myself to devote enough time to gather the resources needed to build a base to deal with them.

 
I'll probably start a new map once demolishers start appearing. I just can't find it within myself to devote enough time to gather the resources needed to build a base to deal with them.
as long as you dont shoot the C4 you will be fine. also uses AP rounds!

and my zombie ideas would make the demolisher seem like a pushover!

 
Wow, nice base for day 28. You must have worked your ass off to make all that reinforced concrete?
Hour and a half days help I would imagine. I think I'd go bananas in the dark that long though, and those longer hordes will be insane once he gets to a high gs.

 
Glad to hear it. :-) A18 is the first version I think, where I really feel like I can see TFP's vision coming together.
A18 didn't just beat my previous favourite version on one aspect here or there, but all of 'em. There's some tuning to be done by the looks of it (loot is very abundant for example, ore veins perhaps too easy to find), but every major aspect of gameplay that draws me to the game - mining, combat, progression choices, base building, exploration, farming, looting - is better in A18 than it is in any prior version, singularly or all together.

It even knocked out A11 for mining-with-caves for me.
Yeah I agree, the game as a whole is basically done now, and we can just add content and finish. Bandits, vehicle mods, a few more books, legendary guns, and continued polish and I'd be a happy camper.

 
Just finished Day 21 BM what a blast ! I burnt through about 700 rounds of ammo and 10 grenades, finally running out of ammo and repairing my door of my bunker while making more grenades. I managed to live barely. Last 2 BM's I was toast.
This version is much fun , I've put in about 50 hours since it came out last week :)
Awesome to hear. I think its close to perfect solo, and there are some bugs and or serious issues with MP xp and loot game staging we're addressing that caused guppy to feel underwhelmed with it.

 
Yeah I agree, the game as a whole is basically done now, and we can just add content and finish. Bandits, vehicle mods, a few more books, legendary guns, and continued polish and I'd be a happy camper.
the main think i hope that comes later is some optimization so it could run better.

side note anyone have a idea what card to get to run the game well at less mid settings. to see if my brother can get one?

 
I thought the same thing and realized I kept trying to find the mod slot while I was wearing the clothing. It doesn't show up. Be sure that the clothing you are trying to put a mod in is not being worn. Hopefully this is your issue and not a bug....
20191015005750-1.jpg
20191015005757-1.jpg
would it be difficult to code it to let us change mods out on armor when its on? big PITA :)

 
So god damn tired of having ferals spawning next to me on night 1 and 2 lol.
Then you have ninja feral wolves and mountain lions spawning during tier 1 and 2 fetch quests on day 2 and 3...

POS feral infects me hitting me from 4 blocks above them on my mini base on night 1...
I rarely see them and I run around at night all the time. I will just out run them but I don't wear armor and buy one rank of cardio, and never let me stamina drop below 50 so I can sprint to get distance, crouch and then sneak away because all they will go to where I was not where I am. Then I can just creep off or throw a rock to get them out of my way.

 
I rarely see them and I run around at night all the time. I will just out run them but I don't wear armor and buy one rank of cardio, and never let me stamina drop below 50 so I can sprint to get distance, crouch and then sneak away because all they will go to where I was not where I am. Then I can just creep off or throw a rock to get them out of my way.
maybe your settings are insane and not nomad?

 
ROFL?...
I had a conversation with unholyjoe a couple days ago about this very idea. He was very supportive. I've already got a couple plus pages going (meaning I stopped playing for about 4 or 5 hours to research things), need to 'dress it up' a little. I started it to cover FoodGate and the death 'penalty, and some game design vs reality/immersion topics, and added an intro for general guidance and links for things like Dev Diary, Bug Reports, Performance, Mods, etc. (It's definitely an effort to try and elaborate but keep brief.)

I have been waffeling on it because it seems like a lot of people would just post here anyways, and because it seem like some only want an answer from a dev. Could take some effort to maintain (and I didn't want to waste the effort as I would rather be playing...), but I always try to stay up on the forum anyways.

I am going to take your statement as kind of an approval and give it a shot.

Just need to figure out where to start it... (Sylen Thunder has an Information and Common Solutions in General Support, but General Discussions seems like it might be a better fit so I'll put it there.)

Thanks.

Quantum Blue
It could be a collection of quotes from me etc. Like what happened to ___ or why is this not ___. Then when someone asks one of these super faq's we point them to the faq or insist they read it before posting questions, etc.

 
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