PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[madmole]

I have a very unexpected new favorite hobby: building new mines.
I have 4 in my world now(SP, day 37, 120 min days, Navezgane) and each one is unique.

I seriously had so much fun building each one, the choose-a-block menu is such a huge QOL improvement for more than just the block shapes, heading into a new mine with a stack of catwalks and logs(support beams) gets me excited now. The walkways and supports I build along the way are both useful and super neat looking afterward, makes them all feel like legit mines.

And it's not just the awesome system building upgrade, it's also the way the new ores work. I've made a habit of clearing out the sand within a deposit first thing, once that is done the mines are so freakin neat looking I almost don't want to mine it out... almost End up with such cool looking caverns, the new ore textures are so well done.

And yes multi-mines rock. Took me forever to find a nitrate deposit in the forest biome, finally found one and immediately noticed I was in the rad zone, of course. But nearby I found not one but two nitrate rocks near each other, built a large mine between them, and now aside from being buried in nitrate I found an iron seam in it too that I've spent multiple nights pounding on and still have yet to diminish.

Made a super cool low profile mine entrance for my oil shale mine in the desert... nvm that I turned on CM for the first and only time in this game just to spawn a second tablesaw(always make my first legit) just so I could make the wood wedges I needed. Please, please add the wedge to the menu, spoiled an otherwise CM free game(which is a good thing overall for this alpha imho). Anyway that mine is super neat, walls of oil shale are so sweet looking, took some furniture helpers and made myself a sweet little home-away-from-home in a pocket of shale for the long nights I spend there.

My coal mine is the cutest tiniest little cabin made all out of logs on the surface snow that turns into an elaborate deep super mine below, so cool.

And I never, ever, mine the initial surface rock, usually surround it in bars to protect it, make my building/entrance around/down from there. Serves as a great entrance piece and obvious label for that deposit.

That's it, just a major shout out for Mining in A18. I had no idea I would be so impressed by these changes, it rly is one of my new fav things now. Kudos TFP.

My mine shafts look just like your base entrance, a pillar 3 high with a torch on it and a hatch to the mine.

 

[Mechanimal]

This is so awesome, Mechanimal, my mines are ugly compared to yours, I need to pay them some attention!

Well they never were before, credit goes to TFP for the changes that made them possible, and so awesome. The fun part is letting them take shape naturally depending on the location and deposit(s), then embelishing from there. Probably my fav part is how you can just make the catwalk blocks so easily now.

Waiting for sun to come up, is soon, so I can get better pics of the last 2 mines I have...

 

[Dimpy]

We've discussed at length a new fracture system that did collateral damage to adjacent blocks but I don't know if we'll ever do it, we should leave some things for the sequel.

Any other voxel interactions that are planned for the sequel that you are liberty to discuss right now?

 

[Mechanimal]

My mine shafts look just like your base entrance, a pillar 3 high with a torch on it and a hatch to the mine.

Oh that's not my base, none of them are, just the one shot of the doors is underneath my base. I'm still workin on my actual base, and is one of my favorites ever. All I do are POI adaptations, then build my BM towers from scratch. I may post a few pics, people familiar with the new Navezgane will notice the building, what's left of it anyway...

 

[JCrook1028]

YES! the wife likes this version and is buying it to play together.she said after 20 years of playing her games to help her, it is only fair, and this version looks doable.

edit: damn it MM where is a steam sale when you want one!

Humble is on sale for $8.50

 

[Jarod_Silverstar]

Industrial forge is already planned.

Good - I had been hoping for this probably since you added the other work stations to the game.

The big question now is are there going to be other 'upgraded' work stations?

The campfire needs an upgraded stove/oven badly...

I don't really think of the chemistry station as an upgrade to the campfire even though there is some crossover on what they can make.

And what type of upgrade to the workbench? Maybe some type of machining table? A 3D printer? Star Trek style replicator?

 

[Slingblade2040]

horde night done. went from a base defense to a run and gun. so glad the last perk of machine gunner gives 6 stamina for each shot with the automatic weapons. it was crazy fun running around with the horde chasing me and me gunning them down.

as to why it turned into a run and gun? well I kinda didn't bother with proper repairs from the last horde and left a few poles half broken lol. but I didn't die and I sorta learned from my mistake.

I really think I'm going to just do a run and gun day 70 horde night as my grand finale.

 

[Mechanimal]

I call this one "The Great Ovarian Mine", because the building I made around the 2 nodes of nitrate reminded me of ovaries, and this place just keeps on delivering, so it works, lol. It's in the far East where the terrain and rocks start doing weird things.

I spend a lot of nights here, especially prepping for BM.



That log out front is for my junk turret.









OK, one more, the shale mine... headin there now...

 

[sinkler]

@MM

I have a ~ rare bug in my current vanilla a18e(b152) game, (not new, happened in previous alphas as well)

when u dig a lot in the same area (ex. mine to bedrock under base) sometimes the vertices stops updating on each hit.

as a result 2 things can happen:

- destroyed blocks still render as if intact for awhile

- damaged blocks get smaller while the surrounding blocks don't update, leaving gaps in the terrain.

u can see into the void and even fall into oblivion.

has this been seen/explored by u or any of TFP testers?

it is a really bad bug to try to play around , and its not easy to reproduce, so i am not posting in the bug section yet. if i can repro on a new game somehow ill post a report with pics.

it is persistent throw closing the game and loading the save again, so I might just have to abandon this "corrupted" mine for now because of it.

 

[madmole]

Because it only breaks if you don't have the skills to maintain it. Otherwise for instance why even take the crafting skills? Especially as the crafting skills don't even let you craft the purple version and you have to loot/buy it.
There is no reason at all to have a crafting skill end game. Might as well use the respec and remove all crafting skills as they become 100% useless end game.

Crafting has 1% to do with the perk. Anyone buying boomstick to craft an orange double barrel needs their head examined. The perk is all about damage, and you might need to craft one or two shotties eventually. I'm not sure why some people think complex degradation is even needed, it adds nothing to the experience you change items so often it would be a waste of engineering effort.

Look at it like this: Who does this affect? Um guys who have a purple late game. Noob? Nope, he throws away his primitive for a tier 2, and by the time that needs repaired he's already found a tier 3 or 4, repeat up until tier 6. Then he's still not affected because he just found a better tier 6. Now he has unlocked rank 5 of his weapon and can maintain it. So it only would affect a few people who found a great item early game and use it a lot, who probably don't even specialize but use whatever guns they have on horde night to use up all the ammo they found.

At the end of the day its just ass wiping. Do we really want to have to poop and wipe our asses in a video game? That is what it feels like, its just busy work that devalues finding that sweet purple item. The same reason we don't want purple crafting.

(OP this is not aimed at you but at the perma degradation guys )There is a nasty horde coming, do you guys even play the game or do you just sit around and arm chair designer ideas all day that you think sound fun, but in reality there is so much to do and not enough time to do it, I feel it would be an injustice to most players to shaft them with some lengthy repair/degradation mini game. I just want to loot, mine, trade, build an epic base and do some quests, and try to solve the puzzle of not getting rekt by a horde. I don't want a complicated repair /degradation system we JUST streamlined it FFS.

 

[madmole]

As a pure melee build I often wonder why this was never addressed. The zombie hand reach has remained the exact same over multiple Alphas. It doesnt make sense how you can swing a bat and whiff a zombie but at the exact same time and distance a zombie can be in mid swing and hit you.

It was a bug we fixed already.

 

[madmole]

Damn Straight! That would be an awesome mod.

For those who want to poop and wipe butts I guess.

 

[madmole]

gas generators and battery generators should be able to be moved without a land claim:jaded:

You can with STR 10.

 

[Laz Man]

They don't need quality because they do not degrade. They simply need random stats.

+1 this!!!! I've gotten like 4 axe splitter mods in my current playthrough and since they all have the same flat damage increase, all the duplicates end up just being sold to the trader.

 

[Brian9824]

So it only would affect a few people who found a great item early game and use it a lot, who probably don't even specialize but use whatever guns they have on horde night to use up all the ammo they found.

Part of the problem is that yeah it definitely effects that group a lot, and the current state means that by day 7 we've found or bought multiple purple items already. So granted I know that's being changed so that its not as easy to get them, so once those changes are in place my opinion might change.

Right now I could easily put points in trader and get a 1/2 dozen purple items or more by day 7. Last night at level 40 I found 8 purple items in an hour and was just tossing and scrapping everything that wasn't at least blue. Getting bored atm and about to restart because i'm fully decked out in all purples, with multiple options, multiple guns, tons of ammo, and no real point to go out and loot because i'm never gonna need a better weapon or armor as mine last forever.

I definitely agree that its a fine line though between making looting useful end game and not making the early way a grind. It's just so easy to get to the point where i'm scrapping purple weapons because i already got 5 in my stash and it just feels wrong.

 

[moonbasenick]

I call this one "The Great Ovarian Mine", because the building I made around the 2 nodes of nitrate reminded me of ovaries, and this place just keeps on delivering, so it works, lol. It's in the far East where the terrain and rocks start doing weird things.
I spend a lot of nights here, especially prepping for BM.

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That log out front is for my junk turret.

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OK, one more, the shale mine... headin there now...

Amazing work!

 

[Laz Man]

Still night but my coal mine is nearby so I went and got some pics. Love this little thing, the mine underneath is huge, so much coal yet to mine...
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Hard to rly capture the little space, is so tiny and cozy, then leads right down.

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Even harder to rly see because it's coal, at night, lol...

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Looking back up, is deep, and without those supports I'd be dead and buried by now...

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Those are awesome. Way to make mining exciting. I need to do something similar. That cabin is legit. Gj!!!!

- - - Updated - - -

I actually forgot about this one, my first iron mine right outside Diersvill, because I depleted all teh iron already, but still has tons of lead.
Is a good example of how I leave the OG node though. But I didn't surround this one in bars like I did the coal, and others. That also makes a great spot to set your junk turret for watching the entrance...

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And I made a cozy little spot within some lead here too, do some smelting whilst I mine, etc

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Crazy place to just forget about, ended up neat, but again I got what I needed already.

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Those log pillars and wooden walkways really add a nice tone to otherwise bland looking mine shafts.

 

[betam4x]

Is it just me or is the latest experimental build lacking in the loot department? I started a new game on one of the pregens...TWICE and it seems like nearly every loot container is empty.

EDIT: Nevermind, apparently my loot percentage was at 25%. Ouch. I've been suffering this entire time.

 

[Mechanimal]

And finally here is the low profile entrance to my shale mine. I even left the CM'd in tablesaw there to remind me. I did end up losing the OG node in a cave-in, sand sucks so bad at SI.

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That top see-thru roof is a great place to place my junk turret, works well.

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This mine isn't very huge yet, but with all the gas I just burnt I know where I'll be for the rest of the day. Stopping here last worked out well...

I'll get a few pics of my actual base in a bit. It's one of my alltime favs. Built my BM tower right across the street, which, well, you'll see... later...

 

[Bubo]

I call this one "The Great Ovarian Mine", because the building I made around the 2 nodes of nitrate reminded me of ovaries..View attachment 30016

LOL, and