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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Bigger sure, but then also more interesting please. Make alloys out of x and y and have that as ingredient to a few recipes. Use gems for some recipes, the diamond-tipped mod is a good example. More of this please.
But don't waste tears on steps that don't generate choice but only grind.
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I’m not wasting tears because TFP haven’t been adding anything to the crafting side of things they are taking from. Otherwise I completely agree with you.

Loc

 
Or you can simply unload the mod in inventory and scrap the gun, like you guys do with Bullets, you unload bullets and then scrap gun. right? If not that is more sensible solution to me.
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A gun could have 4 mods in it, and eject the mods on the ground if your inventory is full, and still scrap your perfect purple item. Sorry less sensible in every aspect. We've already landed on the best solution. Modded weapons are protected from the scrap function. Nobody wants to scrap a modded weapon.

 
Crafters like the processes of refining and combining. We enjoy scrapping things into components and then using those components to create something new. We like harvesting raw resources and turning them into refined materials. We like having intermediate components that can be used for a variety of finished products.
Non-crafters see the process as a tedious waste of time. They just want the finished product and who cares if it takes one step or five? They would say, “Just make it one step so we can get to playing the actual game”.

I think that somewhere along the way the non-crafter way if seeing things won the day at TFP. I personally would have preferred changing all the other ores to be more like iron—with a raw version that must be refined to usable resources instead of the way they went.

But I also like building, killing, looting and exploring so glossing over crafting and making it more streamlined and abstract doesn’t kill the game for me. But it does cut out what once was a more robust and enjoyable process (for those of us who like that sort of thing).

There is always Space Engineers to scratch that crafting itch...
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Well said. I think we can find a good compromise somewhere in between. Let's hope the devs continue to throw crafters more love with each and every update.

For me, the iron ore change doesnt mean that much to me as it was inconsistent with the other minerals. Now if there was an actual use for the ore aside from smelting, perhaps I would see things differently.

 
A gun could have 4 mods in it, and eject the mods on the ground if your inventory is full, and still scrap your perfect purple item. Sorry less sensible in every aspect. We've already landed on the best solution. Modded weapons are protected from the scrap function. Nobody wants to scrap a modded weapon.
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Lend me a modded weapon, and we'll see about that... :drama:

 
Did you actually play a game with shotguns ? Not trying to discredit your knowledge but my perception of your theory and the feel I get in practice when I play my shotgun guy are worlds apart. The base double barrel is hands down the most underwhelming gun in the game even when perked into.
My biggest gripe with the double barrel isn't even the damage in itself, but its effective range coupled with its 2 bullet mag size, making every missed shot a troublesome situation and not providing much towards dealing with multiple foes at close-combat. If we're talking about a single zombie in a hallway it's doing fine, but then again my sledgehammer does just fine in that situation aswell and I don't need to spend the ammo. For those "oh s***!" moments, it's all good if it's a single animal or whatever (and provided you don't miss), but send a pack of wolves and you're in a world of hurt, whereas a simple unmodded pistol with no perks can keep them at bay with a single mag no problem. There's just no reason risking to play with 2 bullets in your mag that provide nothing specific when you can have 15.

BTW the knockdown of a double barrel shot is definitely not 100%.

I understand you stated that the slugs fill the gap of effective range. In practice though, you probably can't craft slugs when you're still stuck with the double barrel, because it's precisely an early-mid game weapon and you either don't have the schematic for slugs yet or you can't expand all those ressources needed for making a decent amount of them. Let's just nerf the wooden bow into the ground and tell people to craft steel arrows so that it does its job, and see how the community reacts. It's effectively the same argument.

The pistol, the mag, the AK, they all effectively work at close and midrange. The sniper is subpar at close range but excels at long range. The double barrel just fails at doing its job in its own niche.
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Gazz sits behind spreadsheets and curses at me in German or in poorly constructed English arguments :) I play the game and say more brains or less brains. Anyhow I am committed to keep playing the game so eventually I'll do a shotty build again and get him the right feedback. It won't kill you to pack a pistol or ak on your belt in the mean time when you just have a db, or switch items during reload and sprint away, reload, re engage.

 
@Devs Now that we have shape menu for building block, can that be expanded to basic electrical things (like relays/switches etc)?

It is really easy and fun to do electrical stuff in creative- and god mode because you dont have to worry about how many things you need, just take a whole stack. But in survival these do feel like the pre a18 building blocks. Million different things and in a tight budget either craft one by one and always be waiting or craft a stack of them and end up not using all of them, wasting resources. It was a pain in the as to run between an unfinished horde base and the main base where are all the recourses and crafting stations
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Not a bad idea, although the recipe would have to be identical for each item. I'm not sure what balance implications that would have.

 
I am having a great time playing 7dtd and RWG map.

FANTASTIC!

I have only survived two horde nights and moving to Day 35. :)

Just a note @Gaz, not sure this is intended or bug, but Iron Ore turns into scrap metal.

This happened in Experimental 18.6...

Also, I had a couple of items in my storage chests turn to big "?" marks, so scrapped them as I didn't know what they were anyway.

Lastly when looking at the Steel Javelin book it talks about the shotty.

Semper Fi

 
New experimental, new, fresh game and hooboy what a start i had.
Settings are default difficulty, 120min days, marked airdrops. RWG 8k generated by nitrogen.

Spawned in the forest. After the initial gathering, i started to head out towards the trader. First entity i encouter is a direwolf! RUN! Marked it on the map, for future meat.

After that all went well until i saw dead trees in the distance, oh crap, i gotta go trough wasteland, oh well, challenge is a challenge, so i'll take it! Got to the edge of wasteland and in the distance i saw that the forest biome continues, yay! Sneaking like a snake trough the wasteland, carefully scouting for landmines, zombiebears and whatnot, i spotted a dog. I'm not afraid of them, until they jump on me. Sneak attack with bow, dog runs. But then i mess up and everything started to go downhill. I accidentally scrolled one too far from my stone sledge and started drinking that one water i had in my hotbar, mistake. Dog came and bite me couple of times, while i was calmly drinking my water. Finally i was able to switch to sledge. One powerattack to the mutt's head and it exploded. Whew, i'm safe! Or that's what i thought....

I had missed that 3 vultures were circling me and that dog had nibbled my healt low enough for them to start attacking. First vulture made me bleed, killed it, then quick bandage and off to dispatch the other two. Waited for awhile so the health regen'd back to near full and continued towards the forest where i got safely. At the edge, there was a military POI. First though, landmines, be careful! I thought i was, while sprinting, until i heard faint *click*......KABOOM! FFFFuuuuuuu.....dge. 8 health left, thank god those mines has a delay now! It was so well hidden in the forest drass that i completely missed it.

300M left to the trader, now i can see it in the distance! Sprinting on and then one....more....challenge. A fricking bear, right next to the trader... Luckily, there was this one zombie, which distracted it just enough for me to get a SS and to get in the safety of the trader. Trader had only working workbench, no schematics in any of the broken ones.

Now, here i am, shivering with my primitive bow and 4 stone arrows, thinking "what would jesus do?" while bear bangs the front door of the trader...View attachment 30410
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Awesome story. Surviving by the skin of your teeth always delivers in this game somehow.

 
Sorry to bring back the terrain problem, but if it's really impossible to bring back snow/sand/whatever blocks, could it at least be changed so that placed topsoil blocks actually become the block they're supposed to be? Like, HP-wise and such? Maybe it's just my OCD talking but it's weird and gross patching roads with these pathetic imitator blocks, or making quintuple-strength snow.

 
Kipster - excellent read and I thought I had it rough.
I think to get a workbench schematic you have to wrench the workbench. Well worked for me anyways. Apart from they of course can’t be a traders workbench as everything is flagged protected in them.
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Not true. Loot them.

 
I find it hilarious. It isn't as if it is particularly immersion breaking, like removing cotton and just having cloth lying around in the fields. You still have to smelt it to use it, and it already basically was 1:1 (1200 stack v. 6000 stack; 5 seconds v. 1 second). What changed was an icon which couldn't be used for anything.
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Its unified now. Should we add raw lead, raw coal, and make some kind of processing before you can use it? Its like the old logs we had that you had to craft into planks. Clutter/Clunk/waste of precious inventory space.

 
I been loving A18 alot (i love the new weapons mostly)
but theres a few things that i have some problem with it (its few)

1: lack of clay in deserts

2: Brain dead mountain lions :aka they like to freak out when attacking you.

3: bag's like to disappear. even when you dont die on a slop. i died in house and when i came back. poof gone!

4: lag in snow and desert biome !

thats it! every thing else is a ok. i think!
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5: Lack of zombies to shoot with the new fancy guns!

 
The hard choice WAS do I tie up my forge making scrap iron from iron ore (to craft turret ammo for example) or do I make forged iron or iron bars (to base build)? Again, you actually had to smelt before getting scrap iron (unless you took the ore scrapping penalty, which I never did), now you don’t have to think about it. Make ammo and forge the rest at the same time. :sleeping:

Loc
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Ok. This is a choice. Not a hard one though. Every attribute except INT usually scavenges enough iron to easily operate a junk turret (except if you don't really use the weapons of your main specialization, but then you need to ask yourself what the heck are you playing?).

The INT player on the other hand has no problem building as many forges as he needs to circumvent smelting limits. (I'm doing a little handwaiving here, but really, he IS workstation-guy).

So in theory yes, in practice I don't expect to hit that limitation. Not in any serious way to give me a hard choice.

Not that it couldn't be balanced differenty if TFP wanted. Also how about making junk turret ammo only craftable in the forge. Would make sense, other attributes can't simply make ammo in the backpack either.

 
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While you still have to smelt it to use it, it still removes a whole step of smelting. Before you smelt the ore into iron. Now you don’t. It removes choice and priorities. Before you had to make a decision. Do I need to make forged iron to repair before the horde, or do I need iron for turret ammunition? Now I can do both at the same time.
I dunno...some of these changes just seem to be made just for the sake of it without deeper understanding on how it can affect fundamental gameplay imo. I never had an issue with any forging recipes, so I’d like to know where this one came from.

Loc
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See my previous post. We want to unify every class of items. Lead can be used right out of the mine to make batteries. Coal is usable for GP or burning, crafting pure water. Iron was this weird one off raw iron item, why have a sharp stick iron? It had a weird stack size too of 1200 vs 6000. Inventory management.

 
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