PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[archergod]

It's all risk/reward.. been around long before A18. I brought this up a while back and basically was told to "protect myself" while using auger.. Guess that meant setting up a genny with shotgun/auto turrets (back then). The junk turret helps now

protection is one thing, Burning 4 forge doesn't bring screamer that fast, but using Auger does. I understand and use Protection rules. I can put a turrent and it fire in the whole where I dig when screamer walk there. But point is at least we should be allowed to use auger for same 20 minutes, before it call screamer, not every 5 minutes.

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Honestly, I wouldn’t worry about that madmole. Whatever you guys did between A17 and A18 seems to be the recipe for success and completion. Repeat that a few more times and this game is all set. A18 is strong enough to hold up a good year as we wait for A19. I can’t speak for everyone, and of course there will be that set of impatient people as always, but if a year means the same level of improvement like we have just been given, then I’m all for it.

I know there are lot of bugs to fix, but wondering what A19 will hold. Time period is secondary, unless we know feature improvements. For now I am happy to see bugs been fixed and everything iron out, before we think of A19. But meanwhile I also love to see what are prospect features community is providing for a19 or gold or whatever they want to call it. A18 is good enough for me to spend some time and not worry about next feature update release.

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Arg, my spear fell through the world again. It did that several times already. (also loosing the mods then).Probably some collision detection fringe case.

That logic (subclassed from arrow, as stated in the warning) should get some more love, as spears are more valuable than some arrow.

Maybe some fallback location to reset it to, when lost.

It is not just spear, I see player felling of world (me) when I jump from my 5 block high home. I see my gyrocopter fell off too. So it seems generic problem and not related to just spear.

 

[DaVegaNL]

wrong animal ye old goat

Ah my sheep are French!

 

[Syrex]

protection is one thing, Burning 4 forge doesn't bring screamer that fast, but using Auger does. I understand and use Protection rules. I can put a turrent and it fire in the whole where I dig when screamer walk there. But point is at least we should be allowed to use auger for same 20 minutes, before it call screamer, not every 5 minutes.

I get where you're coming from, but I guess I figure that "noise" outweighs "heat". Chainsaw does the same for me as well if I stay in general vicinity like I would with the auger.

It is not just spear, I see player felling of world (me) when I jump from my 5 block high home. I see my gyrocopter fell off too. So it seems generic problem and not related to just spear.

I've had junk turrets do the same. Place it down and poof. I look at my dedi logs and its shows "junk turret fell through world" hahaha.

 

[beHypE]

I decide what I'm using before I kick off the random world gen. You can get a couple ranks right away and be using whatever you want to specialize in. There is no waiting, you just do it. Leather wraps for brawler, wooden club for strength, etc. The only one you have to wait for is stun baton every other build just get right into it and perk melee immediately. A perked anything is better than an uperked anything IMO. As long as you spend those early game points correctly you can make any primitive weapon badass. Stone sledge I'd get one perk for it and one for sex rex right away so I can use it better. For fort I put 1 into brawler, 1 into regen, and two on the attribute since I won't have an AK right away. Two into brawler on my first level, etc.
I don't spend points on heavy armor until I can actually craft it. The armor rating is just as good with no perks and movement diminish good enough with mods.

I always do that as well. That early game dismemberment chance and/or knockdown is really valuable.

That said I still think the spear and the sledgehammer are better than anything else early game once you master them. No matter what build I choose, I use those two the most for quite a while. Bow is (rightfully so) a bullet sponge filler (still use it for it's range depending on the situation) and for the other ones (knuckles, knives especially) I feel they lack utility or range or damage, or a combination of all those. Knuckle wraps are very weak in my book, even with two points in them. You just get punished too hard for your mistakes and it provides little besides ASPD and low stamina usage compared to their drawbacks.

 

[Onarr]

You know I meant damn good and well "ranged weapons" FFS its T2 it uses parts, period. We can rename it advanced bow if it makes you feel better.

I know, I got little mischievous But really what I feel the real problem is that their drop seems lower than "firearms." On day 14 I looted plenty of pistols, shotguns and ak-47 but crosbows and bows are quite rare (Is it so, or just bad luck?) in addition you can use any firearm for any build and be effective but for stealth builds you are forced to use bow/crosbow. For this reason I do not really bother with stealth agility build at the beginning. Also, from what I read on the forums, I havent seen many people specing into stealth either.

And that might stem the desire for easier T2 bow crafting. To enable stealth builds early.

 

[Onarr]

I always do that as well. That early game dismemberment chance and/or knockdown is really valuable.
That said I still think the spear and the sledgehammer are better than anything else early game once you master them. No matter what build I choose, I use those two the most for quite a while. Bow is (rightfully so) a bullet sponge filler (still use it for it's range depending on the situation) and for the other ones (knuckles, knives especially) I feel they lack utility or range or damage, or a combination of all those. Knuckle wraps are very weak in my book, even with two points in them. You just get punished too hard for your mistakes and it provides little besides ASPD and low stamina usage compared to their drawbacks.

I agree that melee weapons are quite unbalanced early game. The effort to make them balanced is between range, speed, damage and CC. However those 4 attributes are not equal. In my opinion it goes like this damage>cc>speed>range.

-Killing zed instantly is most desirable. Dead zombie cannot harm you, you save time etc.

-Later on, when ferals and irradiated come into play, cc gets more valuable, as you cannot reliably oneshot them in melee.

-Speed is a bit more varied. In early game it is not that valuable, because every hit you risk more misses, because zombies start twitching and its harder to hit headshot. Later on with higher CC chance and ablity to one shot normal zeds with lower

dmg weapons it starts to shine a bit more.

-Bigger range is nice, because you have better chance of avoiding hits. But player skill can make this almost negligible.

Therefore

Early game:

1. Sledge (Str)

2. Club (Str)

3. Spear (Per)

4. Knuckles (For)

5. Stun Batton (Int) (cannot be readily used)

6. Knife (Agi)

 

[falloutcloud]

Traders already sell 4x4 vehicles for something like 50K dukes. So, while 200K is excessive, it's not innately a bad idea.

I just bought a forge around day 8 for about 6k. That's pretty reasonable since the schematic seems to be impossible to find. Several games and I've managed to locate multiple schematics for every workstation except the forge.

 

[falloutcloud]

There was a fairly substantial discussion a while ago (possibly in this thread, possibly the A17 version) where people were suggesting "upgrade" trader quests. So, traders start out crappy, but by finishing quests their POIs get upgraded. Broken workstations would be "repaired," the POI itself would have more defenses, etc.
That never went anywhere as far as I know, but it sounds right in line with what you're suggesting.

I agree that this is a great idea. I remember reading that renting a room at the traders was a possible future game feature as well. Maybe all of it tying into the reputation system. Many ways it can go but it all depends on what the game can handle and time.

 

[falloutcloud]

I agree that melee weapons are quite unbalanced early game. The effort to make them balanced is between range, speed, damage and CC. However those 4 attributes are not equal. In my opinion it goes like this damage>cc>speed>range.
-Killing zed instantly is most desirable. Dead zombie cannot harm you, you save time etc.

-Later on, when ferals and irradiated come into play, cc gets more valuable, as you cannot reliably oneshot them in melee.

-Speed is a bit more varied. In early game it is not that valuable, because every hit you risk more misses, because zombies start twitching and its harder to hit headshot. Later on with higher CC chance and ablity to one shot normal zeds with lower

dmg weapons it starts to shine a bit more.

-Bigger range is nice, because you have better chance of avoiding hits. But player skill can make this almost negligible.

Therefore

Early game:

1. Sledge (Str)

2. Club (Str)

3. Spear (Per)

4. Knuckles (For)

5. Stun Batton (Int) (cannot be readily used)

6. Knife (Agi)

I have tried using the bone knife and the hunting knife in melee and they're worthless except for harvesting. I've enjoyed my machete but I would like to see another tier added like a sword.

 

[beHypE]

I just bought a forge around day 8 for about 6k. That's pretty reasonable since the schematic seems to be impossible to find. Several games and I've managed to locate multiple schematics for every workstation except the forge.

That seems like a terrible price tbh. The forge schematic is one skill point away, and it let's you craft as many as you want instead of just the one you bought. Moreover 6k is a Tier 5 weapon of your choice.

 

[falloutcloud]

That seems like a terrible price tbh. The forge schematic is one skill point away, and it let's you craft as many as you want instead of just the one you bought. Moreover 6k is a Tier 5 weapon of your choice.

Hard to craft without the forge making iron/steel bars for you. The trade off is a perk point worth 6k?

 

[beHypE]

Hard to craft without the forge making iron/steel bars for you

Advanced Engineering level 1 enables the Forge and has no prerequisite.

 

[0ldman]

Important parts of the creative menu have been destroyed :verنrgert:

 

[Guppys Fur]

I never had a problem with it. Put 4 on your belt so you don't get caught reloading. If we ever do a higher tier handgun it would probably be the desert Eagle.

Mr. Mole,

I would really like if you expand the Tiers over time in seperate Alphas/Updates. It gives the Players goals and these *drool* moments when you switch your weary ak47 to a M60.

I think its a good way too tackle that Lootflood too:

You can only strech Item Levels via Game/itemstage for so long. No one wants to play 100 Levels before seing the first Q6.

But maybe you can (just tossing numbers ) strech the Tiers over the Levels.

Say you can get Q1-Q6 magnum Parts from Level 1 to 70 and Q1-Q6 Desert Eagly ( to say with the example) from Level 50 - 100

And fit all exisiting tiers to that model.

Gives Players something to strive for, yet providing long lasting Hunt for the best items, while providing Success Moments Eary/Midgame too.

 

[falloutcloud]

Advanced Engineering level 1 enables the Forge and has no prerequisite.

Is a perk worth 6k though? To me it is

 

[ecv]

I know the game and where to find every items... but it doesn't work always like this.
Let's make it simple : in what way would it hurts the gameplay if traders had ALWAYS workstations to sell at, let's say, 200 000 dukes ?




No player would ever be able to afford this until he has completed a very large number of quests, and certainly not before day 20. And it would be such a big expense that he would do it only with a real good reason.

- If you think we can always find a blueprint, no problem: in what way does the fact that the traders sells the station poses a problem? Nobody will buy it, if you follow your reasoning.

- On the other hand, if you admit that the bad luck can lead a player to have to spend a fortune for a station, why the hell wouldn't he be given the opportunity to do it ? It's a matter of choice : buy or continue seeking.

Sorry to insist but I suck in English and it's sometimes very hard for me to discuss and stay understandable. I won't argue more, my English is definitivly too poor to be clearer .

It would make traders even more uninteresting for me. Like the Rolex store. Traders are supposed to be an equal to looting, not an endgame convenience store for the rich

I Rarely use traders though, apart from the odd mission when bored.

Probably because I grew up without them, they didn't add anything for me, just made the game a hell of a lot easier. I'm happy that their stock is at least random.

 

[Jay_ombie]

Arg, my spear fell through the world again. It did that several times already. (also loosing the mods then).Probably some collision detection fringe case.

That logic (subclassed from arrow, as stated in the warning) should get some more love, as spears are more valuable than some arrow.

Maybe some fallback location to reset it to, when lost.

Game’s hidden hazard. Quick sand.

 

[Adam the Waster]

Game’s hidden hazard. Quick sand.

i hate sand

 

[MechanicalLens]

You are clearing out a whole town in one day, and early game (initial exploration)? That is like 30+ houses, several big businesses, some factories that take 2 hours of real time and 500 rounds. I'd like to see you do a speed run of a full town early game. Sorry I'm not buying anything you say. Most towns are pretty big, I've got some with probably 60 buildings in them, or two so close that it is that many. Its not meant to be walmart where you camp outside and go get whatever you want, exploration and finding what you need over multiple cities is intended game play.
We might add options later that let you fine tune things.

I'm not buying it either. In my first world, set to 90 minute days, I made the decision to strip the nearby town of all valuable resources. This town was fairly small - consisting of about a dozen remnants, two dozen houses, a bunker (the one with the well on top), and some trailer parks. Still, to cannibalize the entire town, it took me over an in-game week. (Every electrical component was salvaged, every couch broken, every car wrenched, every sink and fridge harvested of resources.)

But one day? Nah. Naaahhh. *Waves finger*

 

[Jay_ombie]

i hate sand

I don’t expect any sand castles off you any time soon then. Haha

Though whilst on the subject we defiantly need more environmental hazards out there. We have food poisoning but little else, I guess once weather is built upon we may then get flood and storm hazards which be great.