PC Alpha 19 Dev Diary

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Khalagar said:
Rest in peace, my hopes and dreams of a robot army serving my whims.  That will put quite the constraint on the drone as it will have to compete against the turrets, and  . . .I don't see the Sledge getting used at all once you get the turret =(
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That's where your creativity will come in.  2 alive at a time is plenty.  Say hello to my junk turret army.



 
madmole said:
No it isn't like that at all. Brown guns are amazing compared to primitive ones, and parts are useful for crafting once you outgrow them. I crafted a blue pump shotgun last night made from 5 double barrels I looted. But that first brown double barrel was amazing compared to my trusty blunderbuss, because it had two shots. Browns are lethal enough IMO. You guys will need superior firepower for what is coming for A20, special infected 2.0. Its not like we nerfed every gun, its just the ak was filling the role of T1-T2 before, now that the assault rifle is in it doesn't need to.
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Alright, I'll take your word for it. Maybe I'm just getting impatient. Some eye candy would certainly help ease the pain for many of us, I'm thinking... 😏

 
EffiJeffy said:
How is your world progressing? How did you deal with the horde? Can we get some new screenshots? :)
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I'm preparing for day 21 on my str build. I bought a motorcycle the other day which was awesome. It took a lot of looting to come up with the money and I even bought two ranks of barter to cheapen the price some. I'm slowly getting a farm going and have my whole base 4 rows r concrete, and the top is now concrete. Armor is a mix of crap. I just upgraded my purple hood to a purple scrap helmet. I'm close to level 40, crafted a blue pump shotgun last night from all the crappy double barrels I found. Crafting is a thing now at least in specialized perks. I've found all the schematics for a 4x4 so I'm working on that. I'm going to buff the speed to match the motorcycle so other than gas it is a legitimate upgrade. I'm having a blast, the slowed loot progression is great so far.

MechanicalLens said:
While you might be onto something, this change will certainly not be the whole doom and gloom picture you are painting. Safes, chests, etc. don't just contain useless gun parts anymore; they can contain ammo, mods, silver and gold and diamonds, gear parts, possible upgraded armor (compared to your own), and even if you get garbage (which can still happen in A18 anyway, even at a high gamestage), at least with traders, you have infinite POI resets. This is not to mention that unlike A16, we don't just have a few coveted safes sprinkled around the place anymore; basically every POI rewards the player with a stash at the end.

Madmole also claims that they'll be more gear parts in A19 compared to A18; crafting is going to be relevant again, at least until late game. So even if you only managed to find a T1 pistol in a loot room, you'll be able to scrap it down to pistol parts... and this is not to mention that you might find those junk turret parts or baseball bat parts you're looking for.

Lucky Looter still exists as well.

@madmole, after typing the reply above, a thought popped into my head. T3 items won't appear until late-game, yes? Well then, what about gear parts? What if the player managed to find enough machine gun parts, for example, as well as the book to craft M60's, and thus crafted an M60 long before they would ever find one in loot? (The same can be said for a chainsaw/auger, steel/military armor, steel tools, etc.) I suppose these parts will also be locked behind a later gamestage? (In this case, what about the M60?)
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If you find the schematic  and have the parts you can craft it. WE haven't put the books behind game stage I don't think.

Xtrakicking said:
We'll see, I guess. It still sounds terrible to me, because I'm just picturing myself looting all those POIs with stashes you talk about and finding nothing but brown crap that I'll have to either sell, scrap or toss. Ammo would have to be stored, cause it's worth nothing if your guns are useless anyways, same as mods that you won't be able to use, since apparentely you won't find any higher quality items till later anyways.

I know that I won't know until I try it, but right now It almost sounds like looting POIs is little more than a bother early game. Better to farm zombie kills and xp to get your level up, and then be forced to waste your points in perks to then loot POIs, since it's the only way you're gonna get anything decent.
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Na, there might be purple primitives in there which aren't too damn bad at all considering 4 mod slots. If you think we nerfed every gun think again. Guns feel plenty strong and if you perk into something you feel adequate. Definitely not a waste of ammo, but generally I melee everything except oh @%$*#! moments and horde zombies.

 
Guppycur said:
Are you saying the paint textures are NOT part of the texture streaming array thingie? 
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Yes they are all in one big atlas using unitys texture arrays, which cannot be streamed. Its one giant texture designed to keep draw calls sane, so how can you stream a texture that is almost always in view (any opaque block).

 
MechanicalLens said:
(snip)

@madmole, after typing the reply above, a thought popped into my head. T3 items won't appear until late-game, yes? Well then, what about gear parts? What if the player managed to find enough machine gun parts, for example, as well as the book to craft M60's, and thus crafted an M60 long before they would ever find one in loot? (The same can be said for a chainsaw/auger, steel/military armor, steel tools, etc.) I suppose these parts will also be locked behind a later gamestage? (In this case, what about the M60?)
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I'm hoping this is what he means by crafting is useful and relevant again. If you want the weapon earlier, perk into it to unlock the schematic (or find one) and then build it.

 
Xtrakicking said:
We'll see, I guess. It still sounds terrible to me, because I'm just picturing myself looting all those POIs with stashes you talk about and finding nothing but brown crap that I'll have to either sell, scrap or toss. Ammo would have to be stored, cause it's worth nothing if your guns are useless anyways, same as mods that you won't be able to use, since apparentely you won't find any higher quality items till later anyways.

I know that I won't know until I try it, but right now It almost sounds like looting POIs is little more than a bother early game. Better to farm zombie kills and xp to get your level up, and then be forced to waste your points in perks to then loot POIs, since it's the only way you're gonna get anything decent.
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Apart from massing parts to craft stuff, I assume traders still sell things you want so there should still be incentives to loot.  MM, example of selling everything for an early game motorbike is a good example.

 
madmole said:
Yes they are all in one big atlas using unitys texture arrays, which cannot be streamed. Its one giant texture designed to keep draw calls sane, so how can you stream a texture that is almost always in view (any opaque block).
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I guess I'm confused from the technical standpoint because something changed from 17 to 18 so that just editing the atlas no longer works, and I thought it was the streaming bit.  Also, in PC's running out of vram turning texture streaming off improves blurry textures. 

 
To TFP crew ... just a thought and I'm seeing alot about Paint .. Well _ for one as a Builder in the game _ Love to paint, But do wish we had more to pick from .. a Nice Red barn metal roof and more flooring colors. Just some thoughts. Thank you ... the Old Gamer .. 😌

Looking forward to A-19

 
too be honest. i love using paint, i like to pain my base to look like its made of scrap.

Also. Damn, madmole has been posting alot. not saying thats a bad thing! :)

 
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madmole said:
You drastically over estimate the number of players who paint. Its a late game luxury for those who've mastered the survival aspects few ever do. The community is .0001% of the player base. You guys are hardcore and know every system in and out, the player base is water washing over the rocks, you guys are grains of sand stuck in the rocks, watching all the water pass by.

I get what you are saying, but there are so many 10-30 hour guys who never paint, its not something we should keep investing into because the lack of more important features is preventing them from discovering paint in the first place.

Yes we will unify the shapes menus, but would like to automate it instead of doing everything by hand so its more flexible and easy to maintain as we add more shapes. Hopefully copy shape will even work with any block of any material. Not right now though. We can go back to crafting all the blocks if you think its that bad :)

 
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Mr. Mole,

you made me sad with the first part, but happy with the second. I guess i can live with that :)

 
madmole said:
I've found all the schematics for a 4x4 so I'm working on that. I'm going to buff the speed to match the motorcycle so other than gas it is a legitimate upgrade.
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AWESOME! I never use the 4x4 anymore because of the speed vs gas thing. BTW, can someone look at the bicycle downhill speed as well as coast duration?The downhill speed increase should offset how long it takes to ride up a mountain.

As it is, uphill is maybe 1/5 full speed, but downhill is only 20% faster. Real bikes fly downhill fast unless you have the brakes on the whole time, and we should want/need to use the brakes for downhill control reasons.

 
I'm curious about how difficult/time consuming it would be to add more paint textures.

Honest question, no snarkiness, as I have no clue.

(the question of *what* new paint/textures to add, well, that's a tough one. long and complicated arguements would happen)

:)

edit: ah, just saw the post about finite paint space, and they are aren't streamed.

so not so easy it would seem. hrmm..

 
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If there are mods to increase the speed of vehicles, has there been some work done to speed up the generation of terrain ahead of the player? Or were the vehicles slowed down and the mods bring the speed back to where it used to be? Just about the only thing with the game right now that really bugs me is distant objects/terrain being drawn super late because I'm driving too fast.

 
New Wall Clock: 
1264276521734279171
https://twitter.com/7DaystoDie/status/1264276521734279171

 
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Xtrakicking said:
I'm sorry, but this doesn't sound good. If it's going to be a POS, why make it hard to find for ages then? Do players seriously need to buy all the gun perks for their guns to do any meaningful damage at all? Just as I thought we were getting out of the BB gun era... 
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I have to agree with my fellow backer here, I don't like the sound of that at all.

 
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