PC Alpha 21 Dev Diary

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Roland said:
It often goes on sale for less than $10
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TBH whatever bucks a one pays, its literally countless hours (irl) of fear, looting, building, fun, looking for bottles of acid, or finding new ways to crash with the gyrocopter (if he lives to get one)

Also, picking up potted plants gives hidden bonusses and XP  :)  

 
Xeen said:
There are currently diminishing returns on farming even with triple returns with perks because of seed returns not giving you enough seeds to replant your crop as the current drop rate is approximately 50% +- which requires you to spend half of your harvest to craft more seeds to replace the ones lost crafting more seeds at a rate of 5 crops per seed. This could easily be addressed through perks.
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With just one point into the Living of the Land perk farming has positive returns. Recheck your math if you think it isn't the case.

 
Rabbitslovecactus said:
This better be rare to find, and hard to get to, but if you do find it and manage to get to it, it better be a big score....

Personally I'm not a fan of the loot rooms in the POI's. I prefer finding random loot in cabinets, drawers, etc... Will we ever go back to that? The whole loot room idea makes it feel like an arcade game, and/or RPG...
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Well "loot rooms" are more realistic that thing in cabinets or drawers. Why? because are used often - well shops with guns are.. well big "loot rooms" this same thing with supermarkets etc. or abadoned survivors bases. but just random rooms with gun bags and food looks just strange but if there is a corpses and stuff at least there is explanation

 
Looks like the current sedan model is getting replaced. Certainly looks nice and fits in a more modern setting, but a Buick/Lincoln type of car would fit well into the game too. Just my personal thoughts on the matter.

 
Farming and Returns with various Perk Points  (Latest Public Alpha 20.6)

I thought I would do some testing and (actually) see what effect Farming Perk Points has on farming yields.  I know what the description(s) say, and I can easily test with Excel, but that would not necessarily reflect the game.

For testing, I planted 25 seeds each of Potatoes, Corn, Blueberries, Yucca, and Coffee.  I then saved after all plants grew.  (So I could reload specific game point after each farming test.)  Applied appropriate number of perks and harvested.

PPs         =  Perk Points used

Seeds     = # of Seeds Returned (from 25 plantings)

Crop      = # of Crops Returned

Cnvrt     = # of crops needed to convert to seeds to be able to plant 25 more of the same plant.

Remain = # of crops remaining (to do with whatever you want).

PPs    Crop               Seeds    Crop    Cnvrt    Remain
0        Potatoes        19          50        30          20
0        Corn              11          50        70        -20
0        Blueberries    10          50        75        -25
0        Yucca             12         50        65        -15
0        Coffee            10         50        75        -25
          Averages        12.4      50        63        -13
                    
PPs    Crop               Seeds    Crop    Cnvrt    Remain
1        Potatoes        17          100      40         60
1        Corn              15          100      50         50
1        Blueberries    17          100      40         60
1        Yucca               8          100      85        15
1        Coffee           14           100      55        45
          Averages       14.2        100      54        46
                    
PPs    Crop               Seeds    Crop    Cnvrt    Remain
2        Potatoes          9          111       80        31
2        Corn                6          114       95        19
2        Blueberries    10          111       75        36
2        Yucca             14          116      55         61
2        Coffee            19          113      30        83
          Averages        11.6       113      67        46
                    
PPs    Crop               Seeds    Crop    Cnvrt    Remain
3        Potatoes        16          168      45        123
3        Corn              13          157      60          97
3        Blueberries    12          160      65          95
3        Yucca             12          162      65          97
3        Coffee            11          158      70         88
          Averages        12.8       161      61       100

Conclusions:

Farming is really not productive unless you invest at least 1 perk point.  (You could get really lucky - as I did with potatoes, but...)

1 and 3 Perk Points seem to justify their use.

2 Perk Points seems weird.  Even assuming my bad karma with RNG in games (I keep spreadsheets on almost all games, sometimes even tracking dice rolls.  I really do have bad RNG karma.) the numbers just don't fit with the other perks.  I almost suspect a bug/error in the code or the HTML files.  (I haven't looked yet.)

1. I understand 25 plantings might not be representative of a early game, but I wanted a big enough data set to be able to draw conclusions.  (Having said that, I can usually be farming productive with about 50 plantings (total) around day 30, if I keep reinvesting harvest back into seeds, with 1 perk point) by day 30.  (on a 'standard game')

2. This is NOT meant as a commentary on TFP's farming process.  (As a 15,000+ hour player, I can get used to certain alpha's, and feel 'pinched' when a new one rolls out, but have learned that after playing a new version for a while, I am usually very ok with the choices TFP makes.  And, that I can adapt.)

 
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As TFP has grown, and we seem to have heard some good news on POI's (better performance on some blocks, new poi developers, etc.) is there any chance we could see a return of some building/poi's that are taller than 3 stories?  (Even if we had to limit to 1 or 2 per town/city?  Any chance it could be a configuration button/slider?)  (I really miss Dishong...)

And although I may have been absent for a while, I still feel this is the best game I have ever played.  (And it's still in Alpha!!!)

 
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Quantum Blue said:
As TFP has grown, and we seem to have heard some good news on POI's (better performance on some blocks, new poi developers, etc.) is there any chance we could see a return of some building/poi's that are taller than 3 stories?  (Even if we had to limit to 1 or 2 per town/city?  Any chance it could be a configuration button/slider?)  (I really miss Dishong...)

And although I may have been absent for a while, I still feel this is the best game I have ever played.  (And it's still in ...
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Have you played an RWG map yet in a

A20?  If a city has a downtown tile area, it will almost always have a skyscraper or 2 now.

 
Quantum Blue said:
is there any chance we could see a return of some building/poi's that are taller than 3 stories? 
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I don't think there's much they can do to make those not lag like mofo. Even with a high end rig with a 6900xt and 5600x I still lag down to single digit fps in the big sky scrappers when stuff starts happening. They still spawn in A20 tho, the bigger cities usually have 1 or 2 of them

 
Quantum Blue said:
Farming and Returns with various Perk Points  (Latest Public Alpha 20.6)

I thought I would do some testing and (actually) see what effect Farming Perk Points has on farming yields.  I know what the description(s) say, and I can easily test with Excel, but that would not necessarily reflect the game.

For testing, I planted 25 seeds each of Potatoes, Corn, Blueberries, Yucca, and Coffee.  I then saved after all plants grew.  (So I could reload specific game point after each farming test.)  Applied appropriate number of perks and harvested.

PPs         =  Perk Points used

Seeds     = # of Seeds Returned (from 25 plantings)

Crop      = # of Crops Returned

Cnvrt     = # of crops needed to convert to seeds to be able to plant 25 more of the same plant.

Remain = # of crops remaining (to do with whatever you want).

PPs    Crop               Seeds    Crop    Cnvrt    Remain
0        Potatoes        19          50        30          20
0        Corn              11          50        70        -20
0        Blueberries    10          50        75        -25
0        Yucca             12         50        65        -15
0        Coffee            10         50        75        -25
          Averages        12.4      50        63        -13
                    
PPs    Crop               Seeds    Crop    Cnvrt    Remain
1        Potatoes        17          100      40         60
1        Corn              15          100      50         50
1        Blueberries    17          100      40         60
1        Yucca               8          100      85        15
1        Coffee           14           100      55        45
          Averages       14.2        100      54        46
                    
PPs    Crop               Seeds    Crop    Cnvrt    Remain
2        Potatoes          9          111       80        31
2        Corn                6          114       95        19
2        Blueberries    10          111       75        36
2        Yucca             14          116      55         61
2        Coffee            19          113      30        83
          Averages        11.6       113      67        46
                    
PPs    Crop               Seeds    Crop    Cnvrt    Remain
3        Potatoes        16          168      45        123
3        Corn              13          157      60          97
3        Blueberries    12          160      65          95
3        Yucca             12          162      65          97
3        Coffee            11          158      70         88
          Averages        12.8       161      61       100

Conclusions:

Farming is really not productive unless you invest at least 1 perk point.  (You could get really lucky - as I did with potatoes, but...)

1 and 3 Perk Points seem to justify their use.

2 Perk Points seems weird.  Even assuming my bad karma with RNG in games (I keep spreadsheets on almost all games, sometimes even tracking dice rolls.  I really do have bad RNG karma.) the numbers just don't fit with the other perks.  I almost suspect a bug/error in the code or the HTML files.  (I haven't looked yet.)

1. I understand 25 plantings might not be representative of a early game, but I wanted a big enough data set to be able to draw conclusions.  (Having said that, I can usually be farming productive with about 50 plantings (total) around day 30, if I keep reinvesting harvest back into seeds, with 1 perk point) by day 30.  (on a 'standard game')

2. This is NOT meant as a commentary on TFP's farming process.  (As a 15,000+ hour player, I can get used to certain alpha's, and feel 'pinched' when a new one rolls out, but have learned that after playing a new version for a while, I am usually very ok with the choices TFP makes.  And, that I can adapt.)
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Hey man good job. This is exactly what was needed so the fun pimps can look at the data set and see what is going on with it in a real world test.

It looks like we really get the shaft with 2 perk points, and we don't even want to talk about what happens with no perk points, negative returns ouch.

With 3 perk points everything seems to be okay but we are still having to spend a large amount of crops making seeds and since there is currently nothing governing seed returns the numbers of seeds returned is purely RNG thus the variable and diminishing returns at all perk levels except level 3 which was my original point which I think was misunderstood by Meganoth. I don't think I did a very good job explaining the first time.

 
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Quantum Blue said:
Conclusions:

Farming is really not productive unless you invest at least 1 perk point.  (You could get really lucky - as I did with potatoes, but...)
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I appreciate the effort, really... but you can't draw conclusions based on ONE anecdotal result. It's simply not how "statistics" work.  :confused2:

As you said yourself, there could be too much RNG involved into such a small number of samples.

That's also true for what that player said... unless you plant A LOT of crops at once, you may be put down by RNG on your first try and think farming is useless.

 
Jost Amman said:
I appreciate the effort, really... but you can't draw conclusions based on ONE anecdotal result. It's simply not how "statistics" work.  :confused2:

As you said yourself, there could be too much RNG involved into such a small number of samples.

That's also true for what that player said... unless you plant A LOT of crops at once, you may be put down by RNG on your first try and think farming is useless.
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Even with a small data set I think he proved that seed return isn't where it should be to prevent diminishing returns. I think a seed perk would be helpful here, at least then we wouldn't have to spend a large portion of crops on making seeds.  A perk that reduces the amount of crops needed to craft seeds per perk level would work well. I think we spend enough time at our bases crafting and the last thing we need is to spend more time farming with discouraging results.

 
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Jost Amman said:
I appreciate the effort, really... but you can't draw conclusions based on ONE anecdotal result. It's simply not how "statistics" work.  :confused2:

As you said yourself, there could be too much RNG involved into such a small number of samples.

That's also true for what that player said... unless you plant A LOT of crops at once, you may be put down by RNG on your first try and think farming is useless.
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1. 150 data points per set is not 'anecdotal'.

2. I have quite a bit of experience with 7D2D, and farming, and the results seem to verify what I have been 'guesstimating'.  (That IS 'anecdotal'.)

3. While that data set is not large, it is enough to draw good averages when you only need to evaluate a 50% chance of an extra crop.  It could be different if the entire range per harvest were randomized.  (It is not, there are minimums.)

4. I actually have a background in combinations, permutations, and statistical analysis.

5. I have the game save from that point, and I could do more data sets, but 150 per set is adequate.

 
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Jost Amman said:
Sorry, but it's not clear for me... how many reloads did you do for the test?  :suspicious:
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1 reload for 150 data points.  (25 plantings of 6 plant types.)  Each time for 0, 1, 2, and 3 perks.

Because we are basically talking about coin flipping (50% chance for 1 extra crop) you should perform at least 20 'flips' to see if there might be a bias.  (There's a much more complicated way of determining fair coin flips, but it is not necessary for this test.).  I did 150 'coin flips'.

Notice that the 'coin flipping' doesn't even seem to apply to 0 and 1 perks.  The results were always factors of 50.

(And I strongly suspect that 3 perks is base '150' plus a random amount that seems to mirror the 2 perks set very closely.)

And, as Xeen said, it's more than enough for a person from TFP to take a look (if they want to) and see if something looks weird.

And, even if they decide not to change anything, at least I KNOW myself what I will do with regards to farming and perks.  (And it looks like it might even be helping others.  Which is what I really posted it for.)

 
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Speaking of massive time sinks crafting, has anyone made Bulletproof Glass lately, It is 36 seconds per glass with perks and an anvil, and the amount of resources required is huge and the amount of time it takes to load them into the forge even with a advanced bellows is unreal, not to mention the amount of time it takes to craft the sand on top of it. If you are like me and craft large amounts of Bulletproof glass the amount of time spent on crushing, smelting and crafting it is prohibitive and discouraging to say the least. Oh and while I'm on the subject could someone please fix rain collision because currently it rains through the glass, granted you don't get wet but it just looks odd.

 
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Laz Man said:
Have you played an RWG map yet in a

A20?  If a city has a downtown tile area, it will almost always have a skyscraper or 2 now.
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I'm on my 4th A20 run right now.  And I am using 12k maps.  (15 min to generate).  While I might not 'play to the edge' on every map, when I decide to start over I do do (rofl) a fly around the cities to see what's there.  I am 2 game weeks into my current one and decided to check before I wrote that post.  No skyscrapers.  (btw; there are a couple 4 story buildings - but nothing taller than that.  And at least 6 'cities' with downtown areas...  But I still love the 'districts'!)

See? I wasn't kidding about my RNG karma.

(btw - I know enough about RWG generation and know HTML/XML, and could probably spend an hour or two (or more...) figuring out if skyscrapers were indeed being included, but was hoping someone like you (!) might have some 'known' feedback before I did that.

Thank you!

 
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Quantum Blue said:
I'm on my 4th A20 run right now.  And I am using 12k maps.  (15 min to generate).  While I might not 'play to the edge' on every map, when I decide to start over I do do (rofl) a fly around the cities to see what's there.  I am 2 game weeks into my current one and decided to check before I wrote that post.  No skyscrapers.  (btw; there are a couple 4 story buildings - but nothing taller than that.  And at least 6 'cities' with downtown areas...  But I still love the 'districts'!)

See? I wasn't kidding about my RNG karma.

(btw - I know enough about RWG generation and know HTML/XML, and could probably spend an hour or two (or more...) figuring out if skyscrapers were indeed being included, but was hoping someone like you (!) might have some 'known' feedback before I did that.

Thank you!
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With custom town generation I usually get 2 sky scrapers per large city, which is a requirement for level 5 jobs. I hope to see even larger cities in A21.

 
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Quantum Blue said:
I'm on my 4th A20 run right now.  And I am using 12k maps.  (15 min to generate).  While I might not 'play to the edge' on every map, when I decide to start over I do do (rofl) a fly around the cities to see what's there.  I am 2 game weeks into my current one and decided to check before I wrote that post.  No skyscrapers.  (btw; there are a couple 4 story buildings - but nothing taller than that.  And at least 6 'cities' with downtown areas...  But I still love the 'districts'!)
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There is an easier way to determine if skyscrapers are on the map. Open the command line with F1. Switch to debug mode with "dm" and then execute the command "tppoi". A window should open with a list of all POIs. There you can search for "skyscraper". A click on the POI will teleport you right in front of it.

 
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@Quantum Blue made me think about something...

I think it would be great if each different crop had a different % chance for returning a seed. We all know that IRL there are crops that are more resilient and bountiful, versus crops which are more difficult to tend. So a 50% flat chance for every crop could be instead improved based on the crop type. That would also give more depth to farming IMO.

 
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