PC Alpha 20 Dev Diary

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Jost Amman said:
Why don't they just remove wood, stone iron, coal, lead, KNO3 and shale and make ONE generic blob we can collect called "Material"?

It'd streamline the game and make every recipe so simple after all.
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Sounds good.  +1 for the idea. 

Seriously though, I am sure the changes will be fine.  There will just be more gathering and crafting, instead of gathering, waiting, then crafting. 

A lot of that stuff is just a time sink.  They can probably make it less confusing and get more players into the game as well. 

Hopefully we will have better stuff to do with that time, like random encounters, bandits, and more quests.

 
What exactly is the new trader to trader quests improvements listed on the front page?  We already have a trader to trader quest line, so what's changing in A20?

 
Any chance Signs will support player art?  maybe via a mod like in Rust, where I can edit and paint or give it a URL to an external PNG/JPG to post?  

the server would store all the player art in a folder so that Admins can review them in bulk and replace if needed. 

it allowed for game server sponsors for events or charities. 

 
Another A20 feature request - Traders and quest 
If I get a quest from one trader I should be able to turn it into another trader - maybe at a reduced reward or same - does not matter - would be nice :)

Also more chain quest like take this from trader A to Trader B and Take this - make "something specific" and bring to Trader C.

 
Guppycur said:
Will we lose support for the downgrade xml property entirely for this dumbing down change?  
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Interesting question. Leaving it commented would help a lot. If worst comes to be, as long as you can "downgrade" stuff like doors, the code can still be scavenged . Cars also have asset swapping  so while something remotely similar exists it can still be repurposed. 

 
Blake_ said:
Interesting question. Leaving it commented would help a lot. If worst comes to be, as long as you can "downgrade" stuff like doors, the code can still be scavenged . Cars also have asset swapping  so while something remotely similar exists it can still be repurposed. 
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Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure Madmole or someone else said at some point that they plan for cars to only have one asset and no breakdown system.

 
Xtrakicking said:
I believe the same was said for doors, was it not?
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Yes. Both cars and doors were mentioned on the no-downgrading talk. What they didn't mention though, was traps (like spikes), which are unlikely to change. So the property, as meganoth said, is safe.

 
With all the weapon tweaking, has there been any testing and balancing on the Shotgun pellets for the Junk Turret? They really need some love IMO as there's basically no reason to spend so many resources crafting them over just crafting normal shotgun shells. The shotgun ammo has really bad return on investment because a high level Junk Turret fires REALLY fast and will blow the entire stock of shotgun ammo ridiculously quickly, and each shell does pathetic damage compared to a quality 1 unperked shotgun even when maxed out on the Junk Turret skills

It's a cool concept for sure, and since the work is already done implementing it, some number tweaks to make it a bit more appealing would be great!

 
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Guppycur said:
Will we lose support for the downgrade xml property entirely for this dumbing down change?  
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Hopefully not, since it is a good feature to keep.

Spatch said:
Dang I hope by "punted" this means its still possible as a future change!  I love this game and where it has gone from the A11/12 days when I first started playing it, but I really miss the horde night feel when I just didn't know where they would come from and had to protect everything.  Now, you either make a killing corridor or some type of elevated path to you that they are forced to follow by their AI rules or, if you don't have one, as soon as one block is damaged, all zombies go to that one block and smash it open.

I would be very happy for a horde night sense slider and a digging slider.

Regardless, keep up the good work!
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Punted in this case means not A20. Feral Sense has to do with the level that zombies can see and hear you, not blood moons or pathing. Feral sense at night for instance, would make them find you much easier, so if you go out at night, biome zeds will find you.

 
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Testing was done by just throwing it down and letting zombies run into it, so it'd start firing as soon as it decided they were in range. Which is the only realistic test since it's how it will actually fire when you use it in real situations. Even at close range, it's damage seems significantly lower than a real shotgun, but like you said, it starts shooting early and spews out a wall of wet noodle pellets. It does get the job done eventually, but it's just so wasteful resource wise that I find it really, really, really hard to find a real use for it over just having a junk sledge + me using the shotgun instead and doing the same job with 5 shells, as would take the junk turret 35+

The junk turret in general is kind of bad on that front in A19 TBH. It's resource cost vs other weapons is really high for something that's supposed to be the cheapest weapon type that only uses iron. You can easily burn 10K iron clearing a PoI with junk turrets even with reserved use of them only for groups of zombies.

I am basically a junk sledge main now in A19 instead lol

 
Khalagar said:
The junk turret in general is kind of bad on that front in A19 TBH. It's resource cost vs other weapons is really high for something that's supposed to be the cheapest weapon type that only uses iron.
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I don't think it says anywhere that it's supposed to be the cheapest. It's certainly the weapon with the most easily attained ammo type.

The damage of 2 turrets is in no way supposed to be equal to a maxed out T3 gun. That would be silly because it works in addition to the weapon you are holding - which can be anything.

 
Gazz said:
I don't think it says anywhere that it's supposed to be the cheapest. It's certainly the weapon with the most easily attained ammo type.

The damage of 2 turrets is in no way supposed to be equal to a maxed out T3 gun. That would be silly because it works in addition to the weapon you are holding - which can be anything.
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So basically, despite the fact this is where balance was not focused, the four other attributes could hold their own solo, to varying degrees (depending on the type of weapon), but the Intellect built would have the most trouble in this regard. M60 vs horde? Easy. Shotgun vs horde? No problem. Sniper + explosives vs horde? Doable. Pistols + SMG against horde? A cakewalk. Turrets vs horde? Obscenely difficult.

Not complaining, just making an observation. :)

 
madmole said:
Seems to me that is just a balance thing, and 20 [forges] is OCD if you as me, I have 2-3 max and build some large bases. They could simply smelt much faster so we don't need late game ones. We've talked about an industrial forge, but with some simplifications coming I don't see a need for it.

...

We might change the forge to a normal workstation instead type of work flow and that will change everything, so it's too early to comment on an industrial forge.
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Too early to comment, well fair enough.  But consider that you were willing to spend time creating a big industrial washing machine that, functionally, is just another loot container.  An industrial forge and/or advanced cooking station would get a lot more 'screen time' - more bang for your buck - since it's something players would be aspiring to craft and using all the time.

 
MechanicalLens said:
So basically, despite the fact this is where balance was not focused, the four other attributes could hold their own solo, to varying degrees (depending on the type of weapon), but the Intellect built would have the most trouble in this regard. M60 vs horde? Easy. Shotgun vs horde? No problem. Sniper + explosives vs horde? Doable. Pistols + SMG against horde? A cakewalk. Turrets vs horde? Obscenely difficult.
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What are you even talking about?

Do you expect "just turrets" to do all the for for you while you watch? At no point was such a thing even suggested.

 
madmole said:
Finally you can just build with wood, stone, concrete and steel. All the upgrades in between have been deleted, and wet concrete is gone too so less clicking and just build with steel if you want. Nothing downgrades to anything either, when the hit bar is gone the block goes poof. A fairly big change, but now each tier is meaningful and it won't be 1000 clicks to go from wood to steel now.
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I liked all the rest of it, but this... pour one out for bricks I guess.  I've been saying for years bricks just need some balancing so there's a reason to use them - some scenario where they outcompete alternatives like cobblestone.  Instead, they get no attention until they're abandoned/reabsorbed completely. :pout:

So the best building system of all time will only have 4 building materials?  I would've sooner expected that in Alpha 1, not Alpha 20.  Fast forges, instant dry concrete, and deleted upgrades is going beyond simple is great.  It means eroding the game's core principle of time management.

I can't tell you how many times I've had to agonize over whether I have enough time to upgrade a wall and have it ready to go for the next horde night.  Will plain concrete be strong enough?  What will I regret more: not reinforcing it, or that it's still wet in a few places at the stroke of 10 o'clock?  Is my scaffolding and technique efficient enough to hit every block with a hammer in time?  No?  Okay, then which blocks do I really not want to fail the most?  This decision making is what makes building in survival more interesting than building in creative mode, and it seems we're going to lose that.

I would've preferred streamlining the depth, but maintaining or even expanding the breadth.  It was neat when you could build adobe cheaply in the desert, because you were leveraging the local materials available.  That could've been expanded: cinder blocks in the burnt forest, pykrete in the snowy biome, scrap iron in the wasteland.  Remember, the long, unified "1000 click" upgrade path from wood to steel was a more recent addition.  You could've kept a short path of [weak material] -> [reinforced weak material] -> concrete -> reinforced concrete -> steel, where wood, stone, and scrap iron are just three of several weak materials to choose from at the bottom of this short but broad upgrade graph.

 
madmole said:
No but be assured we'll use [wet concrete's] texture space for something useful.
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Speaking of texture space... I was excited to see the model tinting system can now be used on blocks!  It's a great way to get more mileage out of the textures without expanding the texture atlas footprint.  Will this tie in with paintable textures?  I ask because there are several paintable textures that could be remade as tints of other textures, meaning that texture space could be reallocated for new textures without expanding the atlas.

 
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