PC Alpha 19 Dev Diary

[Adam the Waster]

Gimmie gimmie gimmie gimmie gimmie!  LOL  

I am ready to consume update!

*inhale*

 

[madmole]

Never knew that was a thing.  I wonder how challenging that be to program...sounds like a wonderful feature for not just players but the level designers as well.

It would be for designers only, otherwise players would stack 10000 bars into one space and slow the fps and cheese the hordes. Another way to do it with zero colliders is to make it a "detail object" and it would parent to the voxel in the space and use the existing voxels collision and hit points and not contribute to block health. If we did it like that then maybe users could get it.

Yeah I try to do a bit of both, but you can get to 4/4 miner and mother load really fast just building at the start.  I always have a large mine under my base at a 45 degree angle down to bedrock early game with just a stone axe.  I almost never tech up beyond stone tools.

This current world I was really unlucky though... all of my trader quests were like 1,500+ away(no dig quests), so I was like nope and did extra building for a day.  Been looting constantly since day 8 though. 

Usually when the quests are not all 1,500-2,000 away I will quest most of the day and do my building and mining at night. 

Why did to bedrock when the ore is right where you are?

Were you aware that it was once a thing where a player could dig a 3 vowel hole in the ground and cover himself and be completely immune from any threat?

As been stated many times before, the devs don't go out of their way looking for ways to make  players lives harder.  They focus on unintended AI behavior and fix accordingly.

People just get way too attached to X strategy and get upset when it no longer works.  I can understand the frustration but this is early access and should expect those type of changes...

And before that zombies dug, and dug hard, and would swiss cheese the ground under your base causing large sections to collapse. This was undesired too, so the fix to that caused the exploit to being safe you are referring to.

 

[MechanicalLens]

I don't build on day 1 because then you have to mine with poor tools and low perks. I just loot until day 5 and by then I'll have a forge and can craft iron tools and have enough stone left over from mining gunpowder (at night) to build a nice base. At any rate unless you are looting daily you are not going to have a lot of parts.

Alphas past I used to loot until day 4, then mined up enough stone and clay, crafting it into cobble, to building myself a 9x9 or 11x11 tower to fight the horde at, eventually turning it into my main base of operations. Nowadays though, I've taken a humbler approach to things. I start off like usual, clearing out a small house isolated from a nearby town along a gravel path, boarding up the windows, replacing the doors, destroying all the deco and clutter, putting up lighting and laying down storage chests and eventually a forge and workbench, and using that as a temporary shelter for the first couple in-game weeks. I loot for the next 5 days, then I proceed to make a crude horde base (such as a ramp followed by a walkway, with iron bars between me and the zombies, usually positioned on the side of a large, flat wall of a building). After day 7, I continue looting until around day 11-12, after which I lay down the foundations for my actual base.

 

[meganoth]

The number of builders likely is higher, but the rest of us accept no as no and are using mods or creative menu to fix the problem as already suggested. 

The rest of you are busy beating that poor horse ... he's already dead, Jim, and I'm pretty sure continuing to beat him isn't going to get him back up again. But carry on.

New forum users usually have not measured the pulse of most horses here yet, friendly veterans could inform them of the medical condition of individual horses with courtesy, right?

 

[Adam the Waster]

madmole Answering questions like a Aim bot locking on players

lol 

 

[MechanicalLens]

Why did to bedrock when the ore is right where you are?

Harvesting stone down at bedrock is woefully inefficient. Any ore veins you encounter and that you wish to excavate, you're going to have to mine upwards, which is a royal pain in the rear end. Strip mining, primarily for stone, at levels +30 - +35 is much more attractive, since you're almost guaranteed to not breach the surface while any ore pockets you come across, you might be in the middle or perhaps even the very top of.

 

[STyK_]

LOL  If I was in a castle and the barbarians were trying to beat down the door I'd surely be trying to shore up that door in the middle of the fight.  

Well the other part I guess is I don't really have to. The base is big enough and designed so that I can just kite them to each room but I got scared, moment of lost faith in my build. Also the other windows were not converted to have the ramp/bars/trap door setup so its harder to shoot them but I'm changing it today now that I completed the wall all the way around the base. Then Phase one is done. Time to add the electrical goodies.

 

[madmole]

LOL  If I was in a castle and the barbarians were trying to beat down the door I'd surely be trying to shore up that door in the middle of the fight.  

Yeah repair is a little slow and you could have blocks all over the place getting broken so I don't think it is cheesy repairing it, you can't kill zombies while you do it, so some blocks somewhere are getting DPS'd.

I'm a base builder but I never ever felt the need to get some special block from creative menue. I never add pictures, refrigerators, kitchen cupboards or stoves in my bases. In other words I am building 99% for functionality and the 1% visual embellishment is done with blocks I can simply craft. So when Madmole mentioned 2% vanity crafters I was sure to be in the 98% group.

Most of those vanity items you mention can be done already without CM. Fridges can be painted, the coolers are craftable, cupboards, check. Stoves you can paint a box to look like one. That is why I build a lot of different bases, to test the limits of it and when I have to CM I think about it, and decide if that belongs in the main game or not... usually the answer is no.

 

[Pegasus]

Thanks for the polite response. I honestly expected less cordiality. 

I love the game. As does my wife. When we were looking for a co-op survival game that checked all the boxes, there was 7 Days. Literally nothing else had everything we wanted in that genre. 

But make no mistake - the big draw for us (and I have to assume more than 2% of other users) was building an effective base to "beat the hord", so to speak. It really seems like some of the updates I've seen on the PC end were implemented specifically to thwart that style of play. I can see and understand the flip-side of that too... just think it's possible to cater to both play styles at once. 

Again.. love the game. 

You really should try playing the game on PC before you make a judgement call.  

With each new alpha and revision there are changes to building.  But building is by no means limited.  Some people just want access to more blocks than are available in the base game play and are only available in the creative menu.

You can build an incredible base using only the blocks available in vanilla.  There has been nothing implemented to thwart building a base to "beat the horde".  There has been nothing implemented to thwart building at all.

Some people are hacked off because there not recipes in the vanilla game for every possible block combination and decoration known to man.  The devs have stated that they cannot add those recipes right now because 1) it would take away from developing key features of the game and 2) because having that many recipes in the crafting menu would cause significant lag.

Has everyone forgotten the crafting menu lag from around a16?  Have you forgotten the approximately 857 billion posts from hacked off players because every time they opened their forge menu their game crashed or stuttered?  

I would expect that most people, me included, can build a perfectly nice base using the blocks available in the vanilla game.

If, for whatever reason, you, personally, need a coffee pot ... then bring it in through creative or mod it in or get one of the approximately billion beautiful mods that are out there for decoration.

Please don't judge the game progress based on comments made by the vocal few when you haven't tried the game out for yourself.

 

[madmole]

Well the other part I guess is I don't really have to. The base is big enough and designed so that I can just kite them to each room but I got scared, moment of lost faith in my build. Also the other windows were not converted to have the ramp/bars/trap door setup so its harder to shoot them but I'm changing it today now that I completed the wall all the way around the base. Then Phase one is done. Time to add the electrical goodies.

Which is why I don't care for dead is dead, I like my leeroy Jenkins moments

Harvesting stone down at bedrock is woefully inefficient. Any ore veins you encounter and that you wish to excavate, you're going to have to mine upwards, which is a royal pain in the rear end. Strip mining, primarily for stone, at levels +30 - +35 is much more attractive, since you're almost guaranteed to not breach the surface while any ore pockets you come across, you might be in the middle or perhaps even the very top of.

You lost me at mining stone. Who the @%$*#! mines stone? Why?

 

[MechanicalLens]

[SIZE=1.4rem]You lost me at mining stone. Who the @%$*#! mines stone? Why?[/SIZE]

Take a look at my builds and you'll understand why. I've got to have some method of feeding my 4+ forges dedicated to stone around the clock. And before you suggest anything, what works for me works for me, alright?

 

[manni44]

You lost me at mining stone. Who the @%$*#! mines stone? Why?

Ever needed 100.000 Concrete mix  for a building ? i guess not....but some of us do  

ull never find that much in pois in a short time.

 

[Pegasus]

Yes a horrible bug we lived with for years that was thankfully squashed. It is unfortunate some builder assumed the design was that underground was safe, it was never intended to be, it was just a bug that cropped up and didn't get fixed.

There shouldn't be any easy way to survive the hordes, nor anything guaranteed. There should be incentive to experiement and try things, and most things should have some form of success, but no easy way to be invincible. Just turn off horde night if that is what you want to do.

Okay ... I do have a question though ... and I've not seen an answer to it.

Why does being dead give these zombies superhuman senses?

How is it possible that a zombie can sense me when I am sitting at bedrock under a mountain?  It can somehow hear me/smell me/sense me through 3,000 feet of dirt and rock.

By the same token, I can't figure out how rain can get through a vault hatch either, and sunlight get through that same 3,000 feet of dirt and rock.

But seriously, how do the zombies sense you that far underground?  I mean a tried and true method of zombie avoidance in zombie films is to find someplace to hide and stay really really still.

 

[Toban]

Thanks for the polite response. I honestly expected less cordiality. 

I love the game. As does my wife. When we were looking for a co-op survival game that checked all the boxes, there was 7 Days. Literally nothing else had everything we wanted in that genre. 

But make no mistake - the big draw for us (and I have to assume more than 2% of other users) was building an effective base to "beat the hord", so to speak. It really seems like some of the updates I've seen on the PC end were implemented specifically to thwart that style of play. I can see and understand the flip-side of that too... just think it's possible to cater to both play styles at once. 

Again.. love the game. 

I bit of kind advice. If you like building, this is the game for you. There is many ways to make your base look awesome. I build all the time and mainly for the look. I am a vanity builder and I have no problem making my base look good. If you see something you want and you cannot craft it in the normal menu, take note of a similar item's resource cost and throw it on the floor then put one in from the cm.

 

[STyK_]

Which is why I don't care for dead is dead, I like my leeroy Jenkins moments

I'll get those in eventually, the guys on twitch have been talking about doing an RP pvp server eventually and I'll probably want to go check that out, it won't be permadeath or insane nightmare for that matter, I wish. If I keep playing at this level though that will be a walk in the park.

 

[pregnable]

Why did to bedrock when the ore is right where you are?

Well I start the mine early and if I go at a 45 degree angle it is only 1 block in my floor to go down and I can easily walk up and down the ramp, and can see with just a torch moved every so often.  Then hardly any of the actual mine is under my base, but is protected by it. 

I am usually just after stone so I just keep going down and end up hitting bedrock. 

After that I will start mining in straight lines at bedrock and if the game lasts long enough they will become underground tunnels across the map to other bases, heh. 

 

[madmole]

Take a look at my builds and you'll understand why. I've got to have some method of feeding my 4+ forges dedicated to stone around the clock. And before you suggest anything, what works for me works for me, alright?

I'm not saying you are doing it wrong, you can play how you want. I got annoyed grinding stone to sand, and then smelting it to cement, and chucking all the wood in the furnaces, etc etc etc. So I changed how I do it, here it is:

I do dig quests and that gets me a surplus of clay. (for a while at least)
I mine coal and nitrate ASAP every night, and that gives me a surplus of stone.
I shovel up the cement mix, and the blue tarps which gives me all the cement and cobblestone rocks I need.

I do mine the rock pallets at POIs, because its faster tahn killing a zombie for about the same XP and I get what seems like a lot of stones for it compared to stone mining, but I could be wrong. I think it is more because XP is given per quantity, so that tells me that one pile has more harvest than a regular stone block does.

I shovel sand in the desert or at const POIS, because grinding stone to sand takes too long and is a waste of stone.

That said, if you are semi patient you don't need to melt stone to cement and you don't need to mine stone once you stop smelting cement you end up having plenty. I have my 7x7x however tall it is solid r concrete with 5000 cement to spare by day 35, on normal day length.

Ever needed 100.000 Concrete mix  for a building ? i guess not....but some of us do  

ull never find that much in pois in a short time.

No I don't need 100k because I'm not burning it up in forges and grinding sand. I'll buy it from the trader if I'm short of mats, 200,000 dukes in my safe isn't helping me.

 

[Pegasus]

That said, if you are semi patient you don't need to melt stone to cement and you don't need to mine stone once you stop smelting cement you end up having plenty. I have my 7x7x however tall it is solid r concrete with 5000 cement to spare by day 35, on normal day length.

Buwhahahahaha ... 7 x 7 ...  my base has closets bigger than 7x7 ...

You play a zombie game with some building.  I play a building game with inconvenient zombies.   Speaking of which, that new crawling one gives me nightmares.  You guys need therapy....  and drugs.  I wish I'd recorded my reaction the first time I saw one.  You guys would laugh til you peed your pants.

 

[MechanicalLens]

I'm not saying you are doing it wrong, you can play how you want. I got annoyed grinding stone to sand, and then smelting it to cement, and chucking all the wood in the furnaces, etc etc etc. So I changed how I do it, here it is:

I do dig quests and that gets me a surplus of clay. (for a while at least)
I mine coal and nitrate ASAP every night, and that gives me a surplus of stone.
I shovel up the cement mix, and the blue tarps which gives me all the cement and cobblestone rocks I need.

I do mine the rock pallets at POIs, because its faster tahn killing a zombie for about the same XP and I get what seems like a lot of stones for it compared to stone mining, but I could be wrong. I think it is more because XP is given per quantity, so that tells me that one pile has more harvest than a regular stone block does.

I shovel sand in the desert or at const POIS, because grinding stone to sand takes too long and is a waste of stone.

That said, if you are semi patient you don't need to melt stone to cement and you don't need to mine stone once you stop smelting cement you end up having plenty. I have my 7x7x however tall it is solid r concrete with 5000 cement to spare by day 35, on normal day length.

Hey, to each their own, right?

Now unless I'm next to a desert, I can't be bothered to drive all the way there and back every 2 days; instead, I just turn a third of my stone into sand after every mining expedition.

Unless it's been changed, the stone pallets actually reward you with LESS stone than conventional stone blocks after a certain point down the Mother Lode tree. For XP purposes though, yeah, it's quite attractive, but by that point in the game I'm never carrying stone on me when I'm raiding POI's anyway, so I just leave them behind. I have enough frowny moments of tossing out glass every time I pick it up as it is.

I suppose one reason for my method is I often bite off more than I can chew. By day 21 I already have the foundation and much of the walls in place that I would otherwise realistically have constructed by day 35+

 

[Jim Shoe]

We're alienating who exactly? The game has a higher review score than it has in years and sales are better than ever. Seems like we are on track if you ask me. We focused on building and crafting for years, and finally give guns a little love and not even 10% of the effort that went into building and somehow you view that as abandoning the builders? We still have great things to come to building. I like to build so its not likely we'll leave building as is, we have some great ideas to improve it, it is just a matter of somehow squeezing it on the roadmap, then bandits and other stuff gets pushed back, further, again and again. Eventually we have to save some @%$*#! for the sequel, we can't stay in alpha forever and someone is going to feel like they got screwed.

As a long time player and builder I just wanted to comment on the number one issue some of us have and this is the inability to lock down the map. Yes I know why it has to happen but eventually you guys will have to just say enough is enough and leave the map elements in place and move on to BETA. Well over a year ago you guys said that the map was locked and nothing new would be added and yet we still have mandatory map wipes. Now before you get all defensive, LOL, let me say that I'm glad you re-opened the map because you've done some great things. I guess, as a builder, it's frustrating to see hundreds of hours of work wiped every few months and yes I know that no one is forcing us to move on to a fresh alpha. I also know that the wipes do help keep the game fresh but you never know when the next patch will be out that requires a wipe. It just would be nice to be able to move from alpha to alpha to beta and while elements of the game may change, the map would be stable and you could keep your world intanct.

So why am I bringing this up now? Well you mention that you can't stay in alpha forever and talk about a sequel. I'm all for that! Lock down this mother, move to beta, polish up the game, squash the bugs and start working on the sequel! Turn this over to the modders who will have a finished, complete game to mod while you work on the next game. I can only imagine some of the things you have planned for an entirely new game planned with everything you have learned over these past few years. A game designed for faster computers, more RAM, better GPU's and wicked AI.

Where do I send my money?