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What do you want?
PC Alpha 21 Dev Diary
- Thread starter Roland
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What do you want?
Annihilatorza
New member
@Roland @faatal @madmoleWith A21 taking so long and if I am not mistaken this is the longest time between Alphas yet.
We are dying for some meaty news, I mean it's been over a year now, I have literally watched my daughter been born and she is now 1.
I know you don't owe us anything and you already do so much for this community as is.
So thank you so much for everything you guys do!
The vehicles update is awesome and all but according to @madmole, you guys were going to try for gold end of this year.
Is going gold this year still in the pipeline or has the new changes pushed it WID?
Is A21 getting closer to daylight?
With the long Dev time of A21 will bandits possibly see the light of day in A21?
Are there more environmental hazards besides fire, say toxic gas, electrical, cold, radiation, bio hazard?
Will radiation make a return?
Will zombie smelling ever return or is it dead and buried?
Does water collected from a dew collector need to be boiled?
Thanks
Anni
We are dying for some meaty news, I mean it's been over a year now, I have literally watched my daughter been born and she is now 1.
I know you don't owe us anything and you already do so much for this community as is.
So thank you so much for everything you guys do!
The vehicles update is awesome and all but according to @madmole, you guys were going to try for gold end of this year.
Is going gold this year still in the pipeline or has the new changes pushed it WID?
Is A21 getting closer to daylight?
With the long Dev time of A21 will bandits possibly see the light of day in A21?
Are there more environmental hazards besides fire, say toxic gas, electrical, cold, radiation, bio hazard?
Will radiation make a return?
Will zombie smelling ever return or is it dead and buried?
Does water collected from a dew collector need to be boiled?
Thanks
Anni
Aldranon
New member
"They" seem to prefer looting and exploring to building and mining except when "They" prefer building and mining and hate looting and exploring...
They do.
Until "They" drive on horde night through the wasteland, cackling like "The Wicked Witch of the West"!!!
...Well... Thats what I heard "They" do. Â
Blake_
Captain Obvious
Gold, Beta, alpha.... they don't matter if the game ends up being bad. So it will be done when they implement everything they want to implement (paraphrasing Rick's words, who also said that a22 might be ready for this spring, LOL).
The a21 main hold up might be the same as a17: perks. Perk redesign and testing, magazine redesign and testing. POIs and Art are just things that do not stop a release candidate, as they can be released when they are done and animated (if it applies) . Let's not forget that there are a few other features coming (water, quests, vehicle damage... etc) that will also be interesting.Â
Bandits, storyline, clown armor and squirrels will yet again come later, and the game will be better for it. I wouldn't rush out npcs and story if the base world is incomplete.
The main selling point of this speech is squirrels. Be careful around them, they sometimes carry disease. Cheers !
beerfly
Colony Rounder
Yep, after all their ideas are implemented, a really proper balance should take place. And then call it Gold.Â
RipClaw
Well-known member
You're not half as funny as you might think. There are different types of players who love this game. There are the players whose favorite pastime is to loot and explore and there are players who prefer to build and mine. I belong to the second group, but I'm pretty sure I'm in a minority. And I'm pretty sure that the players who prefer to loot and explore are in the majority."They" seem to prefer looting and exploring to building and mining except when "They" prefer building and mining and hate looting and exploring...
RipClaw
Well-known member
Sure you have to put in some work but the question is how much is some work? I think if players wrench cars and get enough gas out of them to make several short trips a day, that's enough work. If you want to make longer trips or use the auger then you have to mine oil shale but I would say investing half a day every two weeks is too much.
When you will be able to solve the fuel problem depends on two factors. It depends on when you have a chemistry station and when you find the desert. Both can happen early in the game or much later.
As I wrote at the beginning. I don't think the Fun Pimps want gasoline to be scarce in the long run. At the beginning the player should supply his needs by wrenching cars and looting gas stations but eventually he should overcome the problem.
When they talk about balancing gasoline, it can also mean that they are balancing the amount you find or get from cars. I don't think they want to force the player to mine oil shale every two weeks.
If it bothers you that you get so much gasoline from oil shale you can easily create a mod that reduces the amount.
zztong
Well-known member
Related to gasoline, I'm not sure the game needs it, but I wonder if an earlier tier of fuel with less range would be appealing. Perhaps an alcohol fuel, like methanol or ethanol? Not that reality matters, but I'd find the imagery of a bunch of survivor kooks running a still to make alcohol from wood to be kind of entertaining. Cue the dueling banjos.
RipClaw
Well-known member
In fact, we once had something similar already in the game. It was possible to process animal fat into biofuel.
https://7daystodie.fandom.com/wiki/Bio_Fuel
EDIT: I notice that in the past there were some more recipes for making gasoline.
https://7daystodie.fandom.com/wiki/Gas_Can?oldid=110587
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Callum123456789
Active member
to be honest i think making bio fuel return would be awesome and for the gas situation make gas 4x as expensive to craft in the chem station and lower gas yields from harvesting cars by 30-40% thats just my idea i imagine youd have to do these activities a lot more to actually get a reliable set of gas.
Morloc
Arch Necromancer
The backstory/timeline of the game is not set in stone (or even Jello) so it's difficult to tell how much time has passed since the zombie apocalypse and if it was a massive takedown, or if areas of the U.S. continued to function under siege for years after the first infection.
Gasoline is only good for a couple years. If we're finding gas in cars or gas stations, then it's been less than two years since Z-day (/salute Z'ha'dum!).
Logically we'd need another source of fuel if there was to be a future. Of course, game-balance is a thing too.
-Arch Necromancer MorlocÂ
Roland
Moderator
D
doughphunghus
Guest
It might be interesting to make "found gas" register as "unuseable gas" or similar, that requires processing (but not at chem station) to use. And shale remains a different recipe. Then just balance it out (ha!) so that harvested gas (not infinite, but a little can just be found without car disassembling) require  quite a bit of processing to get a small amount of gas, and shale (since it is infinite and harvested on day 1) the end game gas, but make it not so op to craft a ton very fast.The backstory/timeline of the game is not set in stone (or even Jello) so it's difficult to tell how much time has passed since the zombie apocalypse and if it was a massive takedown, or if areas of the U.S. continued to function under siege for years after the first infection.
Gasoline is only good for a couple years. If we're finding gas in cars or gas stations, then it's been less than two years since Z-day (/salute Z'ha'dum!).
Logically we'd need another source of fuel if there was to be a future. Of course, game-balance is a thing too.
-Arch Necromancer MorlocÂ
I always have a ton of gas just from looting and i wish vanilla has some extra obstacles to overcome to get to that point. I think it should be kinda scarce/hard to make so driving anything but gyro is more challenging to go far. Having another source of gasoline equivalent use fuel (with less energy) would be cool IMHO but it was removed awhile back so bet "its never coming back"
i guess an alternative might be to mod in so the vehicles all require different "grades" of fuel so that the gyro requires "refined gas+high octane" fuel only. Maybe minibike can run on crap/slightly refined and 4x4 requires refined gas? Allow harvesting to be "normal" but processing each grade of gas is more difficult and makes less gas of that grade? Maybe make "anything but minibike grade" all require chem station?
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BFT2020
Well-known member
That is what I have gone for. I imagine the timeline as being further along so anything you pull from vehicles has to be processed first to be usable - but that's because I like games where you forced to prepare ahead of time and punished if you don't (quarter of tank of gas and long drive, but don't take any spare gas with you - expect to walk back to your base when you run out). Added bonus is processing it requires more materials and you don't get back a 1:1 ratio of fuel.
I understand why they are doing what they are doing (based on their objectives and vision). But it is great that they have made this game easy to mod so if you want to put your different vision on the game, you have the capability of doing so based on your skillset.
I like this idea myself, I may use it as a jumping point for what I am working on Â
meilodasreh
New member
I like him. He feeds me stuff.
You know, bits of information...little riddles and so on...something to nibble.
Well of course I'd prefer some rodent live stock, but still...I like him. He gives what he can reasonably give.
crazywildfire
New member
Last gen is done so no.... but next/this gen they mentioned after it goes gold and release it on those consoles that they hope to be able to do it then.Â
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bdubyah
Well-known member
So 30 minutes out of every 14 hours is too much? I guess as you're one of the stay at base people that makes sense. You never want to have to leave. That's fine, and your choice, but then that's what the bike is for. Unless in MP and having someone else make gas.
You keep bringing this up like it is some major hurdle. Again, as a base hermit maybe it's a bigger deal to you than most. But it has never taken me very long to at least spot the desert to know where it is. And between the perk, schematic, or traders it is not hard to all to get a chem station super quick. Gas recipe is the same way. Easily perked into, though I usually find the schem within at least the first 2 weeks.
I just think it isn't balanced very well. If most people do a moderate amount of scavenging once they find a wrench, they have enough gas stocked up by the time they get a gas vehicle that it will last them more than long enough to find oil shale. Unless you just ignore scavenging for gas, there is never a struggle. Cities especially made this worse as there are now cars everywhere. I remember using a car respawner mod in previous alphas, even in SP, as it could easily get to the point where you had cleaned out giant parts of the map. But of course things like batteries and engines seemed much harder to come by back then as well. Now you're always swimming in them.
I can't guess what the average game length is among all players, but I'd bet it's short of day 100, especially in SP games. So say maybe roughly 8 weeks. That would mean you'd have to mine shale a whopping 4 times, if that, as it is now. Saying you actually spend half a day doing it, that's 2 whole days spent getting gas. I don't see that as too extreme. How many times you go hunting or harvest crops? Or go mine stone or other building mats in that kind of time frame?
And I've already said in my mod I've changed these things greatly. But that doesn't mean it's fine as-is for vanilla.
Roland
Moderator
Unfortunately, that can no longer be the basis of our relationship. Now its just my charm and style to sustain us.
But I know tha.... Meilo....?  Hello....? Where did you go...?
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