Just look for the pictures RoyalDeluxe posted of his A16 horde bases and tell me if you consider them "natural".This is kinda like A17 in one picture.
And if you want to see a "conventional" base for A17, look at post #18 of this thread.
PC Confession Time
- Thread starter A Nice Cup of Tea
- Start date
And if you want to see a "conventional" base for A17, look at post #18 of this thread.
If the wall between them and you is only one block thick you should be careful if you step too close to it. It might be that if they could hit you through it they might also try to hit the wall and ultimately get through. That was at least what we seemed to experience.
I hope you built a floor above your room out of iron bars (turned flat) so that if your room is breached you can retreat there and shoot them from above while they try to destroy the walls.
FileMachete
New member
I completely agree! :spit: :biggrin1:This is kinda like A17 in one picture.
Think I found a semi valid comparison that captures a17 for me. (humor)
"Imagine you've been married for 10 years. And you've both come to resent and annoy each other like endless biting flies."
"Finally one snaps and you divorce."
"You take time to heal. Time to recall what good and fun are."
"You find someone new. She's kind. Smart. Funny. Dependable. Simple, but in a good way." :washing:
"While enjoying a cruise together, you start to think you might get married again..."
"When you wake up battered and weak from exposure after the sinking you find yourself on a roasting, freezing island with your ex-wife." :mad2:
"Welcome to Alpha 17." :welcome:
A Nice Cup of Tea
New member
It's two concrete blocks thick (one of which is plating rather than a full block so it still provides a block's worth of protection but lets us get closer to the zed).
Yep!
A Nice Cup of Tea
New member
...and that was Horde Night 35.
The new base was mostly a success. I stayed in the centre using my club in melee, while my wife stayed on the upper floor shooting down. Our friend started with me for the early part of the night but then joined my wife.
We had to break out the guns a couple of times, but mostly we were fine with melee and bows - even against the radiated zed and the cops. The base lost two concrete blocks and had a few others damaged, and we're going to need to replace some barbed wire. I think that's because when my wife and our friend were both stood on top the zed tried to break the (thinner and not reinforced) outside wall to climb up to get them rather than continuing around the horseshoe to get to the middle. We'll have to watch out for that.
The zombies never made any significant attempt to get through to the middle where I was, but again that might have been because my wife and our friend were more tempting targets. If we'd all been in the middle they might have done.
I've no idea how well or badly the blade traps did. They seemed to stop spinning half way through the night, and when we looked at them in the morning they were badly damaged. I don't know if that was because they'd worn themselves out damaging zombies or because they'd been attacked, though. Unfortunately, their positioning meant that we couldn't really see how effective (or ineffective) they were at damaging the zed.
So it worked, in that it let us kill the zed with a mixture of melee and ranged and meant we didn't waste nearly so much ammunition, but it probably could have been better in terms of channeling the zed so they didn't attack the walls.
I think it was more stressful for me than it could have been because my headset cut out about two minutes into the horde so I was unable to hear anything or co-ordinate with the others.
The new base was mostly a success. I stayed in the centre using my club in melee, while my wife stayed on the upper floor shooting down. Our friend started with me for the early part of the night but then joined my wife.
We had to break out the guns a couple of times, but mostly we were fine with melee and bows - even against the radiated zed and the cops. The base lost two concrete blocks and had a few others damaged, and we're going to need to replace some barbed wire. I think that's because when my wife and our friend were both stood on top the zed tried to break the (thinner and not reinforced) outside wall to climb up to get them rather than continuing around the horseshoe to get to the middle. We'll have to watch out for that.
The zombies never made any significant attempt to get through to the middle where I was, but again that might have been because my wife and our friend were more tempting targets. If we'd all been in the middle they might have done.
I've no idea how well or badly the blade traps did. They seemed to stop spinning half way through the night, and when we looked at them in the morning they were badly damaged. I don't know if that was because they'd worn themselves out damaging zombies or because they'd been attacked, though. Unfortunately, their positioning meant that we couldn't really see how effective (or ineffective) they were at damaging the zed.
- Total damage to us: None.
- Total damage to the base: Two concrete blocks destroyed. About twenty others damaged. Half a dozen barbed wire worn out and destroyed. Two blade traps worn out. One scrap iron door (that was nowhere near us) inexplicably destroyed.
- Ammunition Used: Around 500 arrows. Three molotov cocktails. Four shotgun shells. About 50 pistol bullets.
So it worked, in that it let us kill the zed with a mixture of melee and ranged and meant we didn't waste nearly so much ammunition, but it probably could have been better in terms of channeling the zed so they didn't attack the walls.
I think it was more stressful for me than it could have been because my headset cut out about two minutes into the horde so I was unable to hear anything or co-ordinate with the others.
FileMachete
New member
Congrats Tea! :clap2: Good to hear things went so well. 
On the blade traps, my experiance has been that if they stop, but don't wind up getting totally destroyed, ie gone, then the z's aren't specifically targetting them. So if they still have a few hundred hps left, my guess would be that all the damage they sustained was from dealing damage to the z's, not getting smacked by them.
While I'm respectful of your concern re design, if or when you feel comfortable to share I would be very interested!
Inability to melee defend a base on horde night is my number one gripe w a17, heh.
(though I haven't tried out the new options, so those may do the trick...)
and it sounds like you figured out some very tasty "awesome sauce" :biggrin1:
On the blade traps, my experiance has been that if they stop, but don't wind up getting totally destroyed, ie gone, then the z's aren't specifically targetting them. So if they still have a few hundred hps left, my guess would be that all the damage they sustained was from dealing damage to the z's, not getting smacked by them.
While I'm respectful of your concern re design, if or when you feel comfortable to share I would be very interested!
Inability to melee defend a base on horde night is my number one gripe w a17, heh.
(though I haven't tried out the new options, so those may do the trick...)
and it sounds like you figured out some very tasty "awesome sauce" :biggrin1:
A Nice Cup of Tea
New member
Okay, that sounds like it's what happened (the traps had around 200hp left each at the end of the night).Congrats Tea! :clap2: Good to hear things went so well.
On the blade traps, my experiance has been that if they stop, but don't wind up getting totally destroyed, ie gone, then the z's aren't specifically targetting them. So if they still have a few hundred hps left, my guess would be that all the damage they sustained was from dealing damage to the z's, not getting smacked by them.
Next time I'll string some electric wire between them to hold the zed in them for longer. I've deliberately left a place to do that but didn't get chance to do the crafting for it before this horde night.
To be fair, it wasn't as much "melee defend" as "hit them around the head with melee weapons while they file past without them attacking us in return". Effective, but probably not satisfying if you want to be in exciting melee fights - and exactly the sort of "safe" horde night that the devs are trying to stamp out.
If it were up to me, I'd actually prefer to just turn horde night off rather than keep using that base - but the people I play with vetoed that suggestion - although I still prefer that base to one where we keep needing to do massive rebuilding after each horde.
RipClaw
Well-known member
There is still the option to fight the Horde without a base. I know of players who do it that way and also go into melee combat.
If the zombies are too fast to fight effectively in melee combat, you can set them to walk for the bloodmoon horde.
Since each player on a multiplayer server has his own horde, one option would be to simply take a round trip with any vehicle during the horde.
I tested it with a bicycle and a level 1 character. Even the fastest zombies can barely keep up with the bike. With sprint you are faster than all zombies. Other vehicles are even faster and don't consume any stamina. I was amazed how easy it was.
Your friends could have their fun defending the base and you could just leave the horde behind. If you start a little away from the base then your friends will have to fight less zombies because your horde is not there.
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A Nice Cup of Tea
New member
Yeah, but the whole point of playing with friends is that you're actually playing with them and doing things together. Swanning off on a bike (or logging off the server for that matter), leaving them to do horde night on their own, is a bit off.
AlyssaFaden
New member
Gratz Tea, good job.
For base damage, don't sweat it. A few blocks, minor concrete, and some barbed wire ... these are the things you expend and replace post horde. Things like blocks, concrete, spikes etc are easily replaceable; they are your disposal defenses you use as a buffer in horde defense, and that damage was well within tolerance levels. Good job!
For base damage, don't sweat it. A few blocks, minor concrete, and some barbed wire ... these are the things you expend and replace post horde. Things like blocks, concrete, spikes etc are easily replaceable; they are your disposal defenses you use as a buffer in horde defense, and that damage was well within tolerance levels. Good job!
Grats on the successful horde night.
Since the blade traps deal exactly 7500 damage to the zombies in total (see my previous post) before they become useless that would just mean that more zombies would be killed directly by the trap and it would stop working earlier. If you want them to last longer or deal with more zombies, there is only one way: Add more blade traps :cocksure: . And don't forget that there are other traps that come in handy as last line "cleaner", i.e. shotgun turrets and dart traps.
Not sure about that. Your base didn't sound like you made a filigrane thingy in a few minutes that sends zombies on endless round trips.
If I were designing a real-time tower defense game I would look for these principles:
1) If you build a good design, you are rewarded with an easier fight.
2) More is better. More traps, thicker walls (at the right places) makes you safer and the fight easier.
3) The more active you are hitting or shooting at the enemy the better.
And I don't think the developers havemuch different goals.
For example a neccesity to fight openly against the zombies with no wall inbetween is definitely not what tower defense is about. It is about putting the enemy at maximum disadvantage because he has the advantage of numbers.
Can't help you there, co-op is always a compromise. But, if showering zombies with molotovs doesn't give you any delight, what are you doing in this game? :cocksure:
xXBadDreamXx
New member
The majority of people that fell in love with 7 days to die were not FPS players and I think that's a lot of the reasons behind the complaining about not liking a17. The devs had a vision for the game but in the meantime people fell in love with the way the game was and the changes in a17 took a hard 90 degree turn and people were not ready for it.
I'm sure there are a lot of people that like and love a17 but it brought out the salt in many of the original supporters , myself included , I've invested about 300 dollars to help support this game and now it's in a place where I don't enjoy playing it , but I'm not saying this as a complaint I've gotten my moneys worth from it a long time ago. I guess this is part of the alpha process and a real eye opener . I won't be investing in alpha games anymore. Burned too many times I guess.
I'm sure there are a lot of people that like and love a17 but it brought out the salt in many of the original supporters , myself included , I've invested about 300 dollars to help support this game and now it's in a place where I don't enjoy playing it , but I'm not saying this as a complaint I've gotten my moneys worth from it a long time ago. I guess this is part of the alpha process and a real eye opener . I won't be investing in alpha games anymore. Burned too many times I guess.
A Nice Cup of Tea
New member
Killing zombies with melee and arrows is fun - although radiated zombies seem designed to suck out most of that fun. Using molotovs just has me thinking about all the precious, precious fuel I'm using up.
I kind of feel the same about using up bullets too, to be honest. This is the first version where we've had to switch from bows to guns - and we're despairing at having to use a couple of hundred bullets on a horde night because there's no easy way to get them back over the course of the week.
(For the record, we're still using stone tools on day 35 too - albeit level 5 stone tools - because we don't want to waste metal making or repairing iron ones; and while we ride bicycles around we never ride either the minibike or the motorcycle because that would use up fuel too.)
FileMachete
New member
Tea, totally respect you guys' play style choices; I'd like to play a 'Primitive' mod that restricted player crafting to things actually possible.
So the following bits aren't meant as, "you should...", not at all, just mentioning in case any of it is unknown or maybe useful to you.
Not sure how much I may be imagining it but the difference in the amount of resources gathered depending on the material of the tool used seems more now than in a16.
So harvesting the three stages of a surface boulder w an iron pickaxe vs a stone axe seems like it's almost 2 to 1. And not factoring the time taken, just stone/iron/etc gathered.
While you'd still need the intial 20 Forged Iron to craft a pick or axe, if you want to be really thrifty you can wear it down to a nub (0 durability), smelt it into the forge and you'll get all the iron back to make another 20 Forged Iron. It just costs a few Wood and a few Clay.
The minibike in a17 is -really- gas efficient. Heck, you can only put in 100, not one thousand, gas, and that will last days.
Since I tend to go through quite a few Mech Parts for traps, as soon as I get 12 Forged Steel and 4 Mech Parts I find a Workbench & make a decent Wrench. Take that and a bike/minibike and head off on a main road just wrenching cars. Come back when I'm full, usually around a half a day. Even early on with only a point in the Salvage Perk that's usually worth a couple engines, batteries and a couple thousand gas.
On gas usage one thing I see a lot of youtubers do that's costly is using the wire relays instead of switches. The relays draw a constant 1W while the switches draw none. I'm using at least 20 switches on my base yet during the day there's zero draw. And that doesn't mean it's 'off'; there are 8 dart traps controlled via trigger plates (also 0W draw) so if a screamer or wondering horde show up the base takes care of them on it's own. Worth remembering that the Trip Wires draw 1W each, so if you can use a Trigger Plate instead, that can save some gas.
Oh, and since the Switches show a Red light if powered and set to Off & a Green light if powered & On. No lights if the switch isn't getting power, troubleshooting your wiring is sooo much easier if you use switches instead of relays.
For Lighting, unfortunately the Motion Sensors draw 5W all the time, so for a small base the only use I can find for them is if I wanted to wire up an Alert Horn/Light, but since I can hear the dart traps going off, I haven't found the need yet (shrug).
---
Playing around w a few different 'combo trap' designs today I learned a couple things that are new to me.
1) A Dart Trap (DT) can shoot 'upwards' through the 'bottom' of a Trigger Plate (TP) and not harm the TP, & the darts go through.
-- by 'bottom' I mean if the TP is set down directly on top of the DT like a welcome mat.
2) Weirdly a DT can not shoot through the 'top' of a TP. The TP stops the dart in that direction, though it doesn't take any damage.
3) DTs can shoot each other without causing damage. But DTs do stop the darts, so you can't have one DT behind another to double up on output damage. The one if front will stop the others darts.
What this all means is that you can set one Dart Trap down into the floor, so it's flush. Place a Trigger Plate directly on top of that lower DT. Then place another DT in the ceiling pointed directly down at the TP. Then wire the TP to both DTs with default settings (will fire darts as long as there's an entity on the TP) and you'll be shooting z's from above and below.
Add in an Electric Fence to hold them on the Trigger Plate and lower tier ferals won't make it through.
Adding a Blade Trap to the side, also triggered by the same Trigger Plate, and lower tier radiateds are stopped. At least until the Blade Trap is worn out.
PS: by no means do I intend the above to imply you don't already know all of it already. Years of working in a field where getting information is often difficult has left me w almost a compulsion to document all testing I do.
Sincere apologies if this rubbed anyone the wrong way
So the following bits aren't meant as, "you should...", not at all, just mentioning in case any of it is unknown or maybe useful to you.
Not sure how much I may be imagining it but the difference in the amount of resources gathered depending on the material of the tool used seems more now than in a16.
So harvesting the three stages of a surface boulder w an iron pickaxe vs a stone axe seems like it's almost 2 to 1. And not factoring the time taken, just stone/iron/etc gathered.
While you'd still need the intial 20 Forged Iron to craft a pick or axe, if you want to be really thrifty you can wear it down to a nub (0 durability), smelt it into the forge and you'll get all the iron back to make another 20 Forged Iron. It just costs a few Wood and a few Clay.
The minibike in a17 is -really- gas efficient. Heck, you can only put in 100, not one thousand, gas, and that will last days.
Since I tend to go through quite a few Mech Parts for traps, as soon as I get 12 Forged Steel and 4 Mech Parts I find a Workbench & make a decent Wrench. Take that and a bike/minibike and head off on a main road just wrenching cars. Come back when I'm full, usually around a half a day. Even early on with only a point in the Salvage Perk that's usually worth a couple engines, batteries and a couple thousand gas.
On gas usage one thing I see a lot of youtubers do that's costly is using the wire relays instead of switches. The relays draw a constant 1W while the switches draw none. I'm using at least 20 switches on my base yet during the day there's zero draw. And that doesn't mean it's 'off'; there are 8 dart traps controlled via trigger plates (also 0W draw) so if a screamer or wondering horde show up the base takes care of them on it's own. Worth remembering that the Trip Wires draw 1W each, so if you can use a Trigger Plate instead, that can save some gas.
Oh, and since the Switches show a Red light if powered and set to Off & a Green light if powered & On. No lights if the switch isn't getting power, troubleshooting your wiring is sooo much easier if you use switches instead of relays.
For Lighting, unfortunately the Motion Sensors draw 5W all the time, so for a small base the only use I can find for them is if I wanted to wire up an Alert Horn/Light, but since I can hear the dart traps going off, I haven't found the need yet (shrug).
---
Playing around w a few different 'combo trap' designs today I learned a couple things that are new to me.
1) A Dart Trap (DT) can shoot 'upwards' through the 'bottom' of a Trigger Plate (TP) and not harm the TP, & the darts go through.
-- by 'bottom' I mean if the TP is set down directly on top of the DT like a welcome mat.
2) Weirdly a DT can not shoot through the 'top' of a TP. The TP stops the dart in that direction, though it doesn't take any damage.
3) DTs can shoot each other without causing damage. But DTs do stop the darts, so you can't have one DT behind another to double up on output damage. The one if front will stop the others darts.
What this all means is that you can set one Dart Trap down into the floor, so it's flush. Place a Trigger Plate directly on top of that lower DT. Then place another DT in the ceiling pointed directly down at the TP. Then wire the TP to both DTs with default settings (will fire darts as long as there's an entity on the TP) and you'll be shooting z's from above and below.
Add in an Electric Fence to hold them on the Trigger Plate and lower tier ferals won't make it through.
Adding a Blade Trap to the side, also triggered by the same Trigger Plate, and lower tier radiateds are stopped. At least until the Blade Trap is worn out.
PS: by no means do I intend the above to imply you don't already know all of it already. Years of working in a field where getting information is often difficult has left me w almost a compulsion to document all testing I do.
Sincere apologies if this rubbed anyone the wrong way
Well, 60 bullets 9mm doesn't sound so bad, we use A LOT more, but 2 of our group transform into shoot-first-and-ask-never bullet-spreading psychopaths on horde night :fat: . If you have a minimal regular income, you can get a lot more than that easily by just buying everything that looks like ammo from the trader. Also, if you really really want to keep using arrows and melee at higher gamestages, you should think about a few settings and modlets:
* a modlet to increase base damage of bows to that of an AK47. That way bows will stay relevant against any enemy.
* lowering run speed of ferals in the options probably makes melee against them less sucky for you.
You are not saving time or material by using stone tools. You are comparing a one time expenditure against a continuous material gain per time, there is no doubt what will win out.
A Nice Cup of Tea
New member
Just an update...
We had Night 42 last night (yes, it took us two weeks of real time to do seven days of game time - as I said, we don't get much chance to play).
Between then and now, we've found a Rad Remover; I've upgraded all the concrete to reinforced concrete; and I've added an electric fence across the entrance to stun the zed as they stumble through the blade traps.
We were all around level 85 at the start of the horde, and this time we managed to kill the lot with no-one taking any damage and without using a single bullet (we did use about fifty stone arrows, though). The three of us all used melee weapons, and I'd use the Rad Remover on the radiated zed while the others then finished them off.
We only lost one non-essential concrete block and one barbed wire all night. We didn't even lose the fence or the blade traps (although one blade trap was down to 20% health by the end of the night and wouldn't have lasted much longer).
We had Night 42 last night (yes, it took us two weeks of real time to do seven days of game time - as I said, we don't get much chance to play).
Between then and now, we've found a Rad Remover; I've upgraded all the concrete to reinforced concrete; and I've added an electric fence across the entrance to stun the zed as they stumble through the blade traps.
We were all around level 85 at the start of the horde, and this time we managed to kill the lot with no-one taking any damage and without using a single bullet (we did use about fifty stone arrows, though). The three of us all used melee weapons, and I'd use the Rad Remover on the radiated zed while the others then finished them off.
We only lost one non-essential concrete block and one barbed wire all night. We didn't even lose the fence or the blade traps (although one blade trap was down to 20% health by the end of the night and wouldn't have lasted much longer).
Lanadon Conners
New member
Well done Tea. I love reading posts of players who encountered difficulties, adjusted their gameplay and came out ahead.
For me, right now "THAT" is where the fun is in this Alpha stage of the game; "Discovery". Of course things will change again when A18 hits, but that is just a brand new adventure.
For me, right now "THAT" is where the fun is in this Alpha stage of the game; "Discovery". Of course things will change again when A18 hits, but that is just a brand new adventure.
Aesir
New member
Why be so hyper-frugal with resources that are so readily available and easy to get? I fully understand not foolishly wasting them with wild abandon...but why this level of frugality?
Please note: I mean no insult. To each their own. I'm merely asking out of genuine curiosity since I enjoy seeing how others play the game.
A Nice Cup of Tea
New member
To some extent, I'm just the sort of player who hates using up resources. I'm the sort of player who will die to a boss in an RPG with an inventory full of potions that I didn't use because I was "saving them for emergencies".
But in this game the nature of the game makes it worse. When you go around wrenching cars, for example, those cars never come back. Use up the materials you got from them and you can't replace them.
Same with iron and fuel to a lesser extent. We can go around scavenging all the barrels we can find in the area, but when they're gone they're gone. Iron is the same - we've cleared out all the nearby boulders so there's no more iron ore; and we've been melting down unwanted and duplicate tools to get the iron we need. Theoretically, there's an infinite supply of those tools because loot containers will respawn, but that takes so long it can be pretty much ignored.
As for actually using metal tools, that partly suffers from the problem of them running out (or running out of iron to keep repairing them) but also suffers from the fact that repairing them is such a pain. When my stone axe breaks after use, I can repair it in less than a second providing I have some stone on me; and if I get short of stone then there are lots of things I can break to get some more without needing to go home. But with an iron or steel tool I need forged iron or forged steel to repair it. Quite apart from the threat of running out of iron, it's just a hassle to get more. First you have to find the resources; then you have to melt them down in a forge; and then you have to make the forged iron or steel.
So to keep repairing iron or steel tools means constantly going home and feeding the forge and waiting for things to get forged. The amount of time and effort is far more than it would be to just keep using the stone tools. It might take twice as long to break things, but that's better than it taking twenty times as long to maintain the tools.
Yes, I know that if we spent all our time mining we could find oil shale and iron ore. But partly we find mining tedious and don't like doing it and partly it's no different from clearing boulders. It's not an infinite source and you will have to keep digging further and further away to get more.
Somewhat ironically, since I dislike the quest system, that system has been a help. The fact that when you accept a quest the building the quest is in gets regenerated including loot and any cars or barrels that were in the area means that accepting quests is a way of magically replacing resources that had previously been looted. It feels like we're cheating, but we take advantage of it anyway. Since the whole trader/quest system already breaks my sense of immersion, magically regenerating houses is the least of my worries in that regard.