PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[Gareee]

They didn't stand a chance. Do the electric fences degrade? Seemed to last forever? I haven't tried one yet but you made the int build look fun.

Electric fences degrade and do get broken, but they are reasonably cheap to repair and replace. They don't do a lot of damage, but they slow them down enough to allow you to, and because they get stunned, you have a easier chance of a headshot

I *love* the new twang sound they make!

 

[Gareee]

Steel is steel and needs to be gated for all sorts of reasons, and I really do like the schematic as a gate as well, but I think you need to make Iron tools and Steel tools scrap to "Tool Parts", much like you made SMGs and Pistols (or M60s and AKs, etc.) scrap to Handgun (or machinegun) Parts. It's both an inconsistency and an artificial hurdle compared to other Tier 3 items, specifically weapons, in the game.

This makes good consistency sense, since weapons scrap to weapon parts.

 

[Star69]

Seems the auger is not making any hit sounds anymore in A18. The pickaxe produces heat on striking metal per hit, auger only when it breaks a piece of metal. Would need to break a load of those (since its 0.05 per break) to get a screamer. Seems pretty hard to do, unless there is more heat produced than what shows up. I have not always had heat show up correctly with the meter, but other heat effects seem to work so probably is not to much it makes anymore.
Edit: Same is true for the chainsaw. The sound.xml says it should generate heat from starting at least, but it does not even do that.

I’m an avid chainsaw user. In A17, within 3 minutes of using it I would attract all the roaming zombies in the area. In A18, I’m rarely interrupted by zombies ever. Many times I’m cutting wood for 4 or 5 game hours. With the auger in A18, screamers every 2-3 minutes.....worse than A17. Just my observations, not looking at heat map.

 

[Star69]

Was it on a MP server? Maybe max alive was hit?

I can confirm this. Rode my bike to a new town, looking for traders and overnighted in one of those bunkers to strip the place....no zombies so not a max alive thing. Have not found a single zombie in them since A16 I believe.

 

[Kattla]

Only threw one nade. Maybe the metal shielding I put in front of them helped keep the posts from taking damage. I'm willing to bet only the posts take damage/degrade as the wire itself is not a block with HP.

Yes, and it is only one of the poles that take damage from use. I always forget which one though, if it is the "sender" or "receiver". Also had some

red console alerts if zombies or player (me) triggers a wire that is 100% vertical , as in the 2 fenceposts line up vertically.

 

[khzmusik]

Was it on a MP server? Maybe max alive was hit?

I can confirm this too, I actually thought it was intentional. I've been using these as bases whenever I found them, and I don't remember zombies ever being in them. (The first was back in A16 though so I could easily be wrong.)

 

[faatal]

Those changes are nice. I wasn't about to bring up heat frequency relative to day length, but it was on my mind.Anyway, I placed a torch along with a forge so that the torch would force heat updates in F8... which worked.

I can now see that heat for forges is going up. This is good, the problem is not as bad.

So, what I did was I placed 5 forges along with a torch and waited until the heat got over 70%, which didn't take long at all.

Then, I turned off all the forges. What I thought was that maybe dissipation was working too but just wasn't updating in F8 due to the lack of events, like you said. I was expecting it to go down even though the torch would add 1% per minute. This did not happen.

Right on cue, every minute on the minute, the heat just went up 1%.

I waited all the way through until heat reached 100% just in case dissipation occurs less often than heat increase (I waited somewhere around 30 minutes).

If heat dissipation is working, it is not working quickly enough before a single torch makes the heat reach the 100% screamer threshold after this point (70%+).

Checked again with more time (starting with heat around 30%). At some point (beyond 30 minutes) it dropped a few points.

Tested yet again with a single torch and waited over a half an hour. The torch stayed at 33% after reaching 33%. After about 15 minutes, it still was at 33%.

Placed a second torch. Heat started to go up again. Awaiting results. Will it stop around 66%?

EDIT:

Indeed, it did. Added a third torch, will it stop at 99%? I'll find out soon.

I'm guessing it will and I'm guessing anything more than 3 torches is going to cause a screamer loop.

4 torches will mean a screamer every 25 minutes.

So, dissipation works... it's just that for 4 or more torches, it can't keep up. Of course at some point it shouldn't, but the way this is doesn't align with the latest update notes that state we can now place 4 times the torches before worrying about screamers.

EDIT: I was wrong. It went over 99% and screamer spawned. Either 3 torches are already beyond the dissipation threshold, or there is some floating point or rounding thing going on that made it go to 100%. I do not know if dissipation is relative to game day length though. There could be different results. This was checked in 2 hour days.

At 120 minute days each 10 minute torch heat event will take twice as long to expire, since world time moves at half the rate. A18.1 b3+ will cut the heat strength in half in that case.

 

[Hek Harris]

This guy really wants to show how good he is at role playing a sleeper. I'm not fooled.

 

[JCrook1028]

At 120 minute days each 10 minute torch heat event will take twice as long to expire, since world time moves at half the rate. A18.1 b3+ will cut the heat strength in half in that case.

So the time rate at which they add up runs on a different clock than the rate they decrease? Why don't they use the same clock?

 

[WandererLV]

I have noticed, that Zeds don't climb ladders anymore - they just attack surrounding blocks.

 

[xfejiou5]

Melee combat is not so enjoyable now - the zombies can hit from so far away.

 

[madmole]

nope, sp rwg day 2. no bed or LC placed anywhere nearby

So why aren't you smiling? WHo says every POI has to have enemies?

 

[madmole]

I like his ideas aside from the gun/part level swaps though. Specifically, you've currently got steel tools triple-gated - need Steel, need Schematic, and need Steel Tool Parts. (Same applies to Steel Armor actually, and to some extent military armor which you were already thinking about easing off on.)
Steel is steel and needs to be gated for all sorts of reasons, and I really do like the schematic as a gate as well, but I think you need to make Iron tools and Steel tools scrap to "Tool Parts", much like you made SMGs and Pistols (or M60s and AKs, etc.) scrap to Handgun (or machinegun) Parts. It's both an inconsistency and an artificial hurdle compared to other Tier 3 items, specifically weapons, in the game.

Then noone will be able to craft iron tools even. We wanted to allow players to at least get out of the stone age with tools, that is why iron tools are made from basic components.

 

[madmole]

she's startin' to come togetha'https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1900356990

I like your angled railing setup. Its important to have a flank angle to throw grenades back towards your base when they get underneath you, so those will help.

 

[madmole]

Yes I agree, it does suck, if you cannot do anything about it. However you are not incapacitated, you can still act, just cannot move. You can also avoid by being careful and dodging attacks and potentialy using some buffs (beer?). Armor would decrease it some. Its meant to punish carelessness and lack of preparation. To keep people on their toes. Make PoIs more dangerous.

I think by fine tuning the stun to be less binary it will get us where we need to be. We've talked about making stun to where you start getting stunned after taking several hits depending on armor and perks, and you are slowed some, keep getting hit and you will get stunned worse (slowed more), avoid being hit and slowly return to normal movement speed. If stun meter reaches 100% you would get knocked out or fall to your knees or something. So maybe 30% stun would = 70% movement speed, and you get hit again, its 50% stun and 50% movement, etc. Avoid getting hit while stunned to get out of the stunned state, much like real life.

 

[madmole]

This makes good consistency sense, since weapons scrap to weapon parts.

But will block players from crafting even basic iron tools then. Its a band aid for the real problem finding steel tool parts IMO.

 

[madmole]

I can confirm this. Rode my bike to a new town, looking for traders and overnighted in one of those bunkers to strip the place....no zombies so not a max alive thing. Have not found a single zombie in them since A16 I believe.

A screenshot would help, "those bunkers" could be 1 of the 572 bunkers in the game.

 

[Haidrgna]

I think by fine tuning the stun to be less binary it will get us where we need to be. We've talked about making stun to where you start getting stunned after taking several hits depending on armor and perks, and you are slowed some, keep getting hit and you will get stunned worse (slowed more), avoid being hit and slowly return to normal movement speed. If stun meter reaches 100% you would get knocked out or fall to your knees or something. So maybe 30% stun would = 70% movement speed, and you get hit again, its 50% stun and 50% movement, etc. Avoid getting hit while stunned to get out of the stunned state, much like real life.

Seems like this system could bring back Stun Lock again, since each hit you take makes taking the next more likely as moving away becomes harder. I could see a system working where having taken a hit within x seconds makes the next hit have a Higher chance to be a stun hit, factoring in the amount of damage taken from it and the force of the hit. Once stunned it all resets and you have to deal with being slowed for x seconds. Maybe the amount of slowed could start at almost 100% and then regenerate back to 0%. But at this time no hits will add more stun so you get the time to escape. Stun prevention effects could then instead make this decay faster so you are stunned for shorter times.

Also keep a mind on the interaction between stun and reload, both slowing the player down. In A17 and some experimental builds too, getting stunned while releading causes a brief negative speed and thus walking backwards. We do not want this to happen at all.

 

[wolfbain5]

So why aren't you smiling? WHo says every POI has to have enemies?

can't tell if you are being serious atm or trolling

https://imgur.com/DpH8miM

https://imgur.com/HHMfNGO

 

[faatal]

So the time rate at which they add up runs on a different clock than the rate they decrease? Why don't they use the same clock?

Different programmers wrote it years ago. Workstations are block entities which tick differently and save their state differently than blocks.