PC general Questions about A18

T

The Loooser

New member
Hello!

I have some issues so far, maybe respond to any of those that you can think of an answer:

1.) There are 2 libraries with many Bookshelves in a next town. They dont respawn. Why?

Respawn timer: 5 days - Time since last harvest: 10-15 days - Bedroll is placed away: 600 blocks - Bookshelves are empty

Why no respawn?

2.) I can craft AK47 and MG60 at Quality 5, but the MP5 SMG only at Quality 1. What do I need to do to also craft those at Quality 5?

3.) When I tried to place some lights at the ceiling of my base, then sometimes the 1x1 voxel around the placement block is not in a white colour, but in a yellow. Only when I hold my mouse on certain blocks of the ceiling. What does this mean? Is this a warning like: weight at a critical level of that ceiling?

4.) I now know how to craft Mining Helmets, but only at Quality 1 - so how do I get to 2 or higher? I dont see any perk for this. Basically the same thing like with MP5.

5.) During Blood Moon after ~ 3h there are no Zombies anymore. When I quit the game and rejoin then they come again. Therefore I think some are *stuck* when they spawn, maybe at a very unsuitable location. After maybe 3h all Zombies are stuck and can't get to me anymore. I can just reset this by reopening the Game. Do you think I am correct with this reason? If yes, how to avoid that? If no, what else could it be - has anyone else encountered it?

6.) Are Quests endlessly available at Traders meaning that when I reach Quest Stage 5 then I will get infinite more randomly generated or are all quests over after I did the Q5 ones?

7.) Suddenly I can see the radius of my land claim block as a big green cube. How can I deactivate that again? (will try to hang on the picture of this).

Hello!

I have some issues so far, maybe respond to any of those that you can think of an answer:

1.) There are 2 libraries with many Bookshelves in a next town. They dont respawn. Why?

Respawn timer: 5 days - Time since last harvest: 10-15 days - Bedroll is placed away: 600 blocks - Bookshelves are empty

Why no respawn?

2.) I can craft AK47 and MG60 at Quality 5, but the MP5 SMG only at Quality 1. What do I need to do to also craft those at Quality 5?

3.) When I tried to place some lights at the ceiling of my base, then sometimes the 1x1 voxel around the placement block is not in a white colour, but in a yellow. Only when I hold my mouse on certain blocks of the ceiling. What does this mean? Is this a warning like: weight at a critical level of that ceiling?

4.) I now know how to craft Mining Helmets, but only at Quality 1 - so how do I get to 2 or higher? I dont see any perk for this. Basically the same thing like with MP5.

5.) During Blood Moon after ~ 3h there are no Zombies anymore. When I quit the game and rejoin then they come again. Therefore I think some are *stuck* when they spawn, maybe at a very unsuitable location. After maybe 3h all Zombies are stuck and can't get to me anymore. I can just reset this by reopening the Game. Do you think I am correct with this reason? If yes, how to avoid that? If no, what else could it be - has anyone else encountered it?

6.) Are Quests endlessly available at Traders meaning that when I reach Quest Stage 5 then I will get infinite more randomly generated or are all quests over after I did the Q5 ones?

7.) Suddenly I can see the radius of my land claim block as a big green cube. How can I deactivate that again? (will try to hang on the picture of this).

7D2D.png

 
1 - dunno

2 - smg is under the pistols perk in the agility tree

3 - dunno

4 - i think thats miner69er

5 - no more Zs show up, horde night is over.. been a glitch for a while that if you log out then back in, it resets the horde night and you get to do it all over again

6 - endless, as far as i know

7 - look at your claim block and push E

 
1) Players reset the loot-respawn-timer if they drive near the POIs and especially if they check for loot too early :rapture:

4) Mining Helmet is light armor. My guess would be the agility Light Armor perk, and the XML seems to be saying the same. By the way, you also learned to craft the helmet lamp which can be put in any head slot armor. I usually don't build mining helmet but whatever armor I use and add a helmet light

5) All horde nights have a limited number of zombies. But usually later horde nights have so many zombies that the night is over before the waves of z's get exhausted. Not so in the first one or two horde nights.

6) Endless, but at the moment that means you will mostly get the same few lvl5 POIs offered again and again.

 
to 12pack:

I have mining69er maxed at 5, but still Q1 Mining Helm, so it must be light armor (or at least not mining69er) ;D

to meganoth:

I played A13 and A16 and there is definetly no reset if you come close within those 5 days - therefore it was added as a new *feature* and why would anyone do that? I mean there is NO benefit of doing so, so why would you WANT to add this as a new mechanic? It only makes things worse, because there is nothing which is improved by this .... ?

But on the other hand I even doubt that this is the case, when considering my own observations from my game:

A. I walked inside of the shop on the other side of the building and everything respawned there. And of course (being the same building) I must have had reset that respawn timer too when I came for the library, but that was not the case

B. My base is built at the entrance of a military base and the military base has respawned. And I come there all time of course, if the timer would reset, then it should NEVER! Show new loot. So I would say those experiences would totally be in contradiction to this. Are you totally safe with this reason - like, is it an official statement that this indeed happens when coming too early back?

I'm just very addicted to find the reason, because there are many book shelves good for learning and now in 25 days I just red them 1 time !!! This is like if it would not be there at all ... and this is such a good POI and now its a huge waste to my playthrough :///

Any thoughts on this?

 
From items.xml, the MiningHelmet item:

Code: 
<property name="Tags" value="head,armor,armorHead,lightArmor,lightArmorPenalty,canHaveCosmetic,lightArmorDeg"/>
Light armor.

 
AFAIK the loot respawn reset was in the game at least since A15, when I started playing the game. But this is only for loot, zombie sleepers will respawn on a different timer.

This is not an official statement, just something someone told me a long time ago.

 
Just leave something in the containers like one rock, and it will always respawn. This bypasses the reset timer. Take rock out and it will respawn in second or two.

 
AFAIK the loot respawn reset was in the game at least since A15, when I started playing the game. But this is only for loot, zombie sleepers will respawn on a different timer. This is not an official statement, just something someone told me a long time ago.
Click to expand...
So, I can't definitively gainsay your comment, but if it is true I'd have to say that the radius around the player which counts as "passing by" must be quite small indeed. We generally set up base at the edge of a city and put up signs next to each POI after we loot them, with the day that we looted them on the sign. We never avoid particular streets or POIs from then on, we just drive around town and periodically check the signs. So for example the sign might be just off the road in the POI's parking lot, and we'll stop on the road or just off it, close enough to read the sign. If it's not past its respawn time, we drive on.

If it is past its respawn time, we head in and loot again. And the loot is always there.

So in general we're not passing within 2 or 3 blocks of the actual building (though some buildings come right up to the street so who knows), we're more like 8-10 away, out on the street. I don't recall us ever finding a building past its respawn date that hadn't respawned, but maybe we just didn't pay close attention.

This is the first I've heard of resetting the respawn timer by passing near a POI, but my instinct is to trust what meganoth says in all things. :-) You probably have 4x the hours that I do in this game and across many more betas. I will do a controlled experiment and report back.

Just leave something in the containers like one rock, and it will always respawn. This bypasses the reset timer. Take rock out and it will respawn in second or two.
Click to expand...
I'm also going to test this. I'd think such an exploit would be all over the bug reports such that even someone like me who just skims them from time to time would have seen it.

 
Don't trust my word too much, I haven't reduced the loot respawn timer since A15, and it is really difficult to test or notice something when you have to wait 30 days for the result :cocksure:

By the way, the reset radius could be relatively small, it might be confined to chunks. I've never seen a definition of "chunk" really, but a typical POI is supposed to be built out of a handful of chunks.

 
Okay, back from my testing. Note that I used 'settime' to fast forward because I'm not spending all day testing this. I might try another test where I FF only 4 days and then let the game naturally tick over to the 5th day.

Using an 18.3 sandbox game I had lying around, starting on day 7 (no enemies, no horde, 5-day respawn) I did the following:

Find a POI (Pop-N-Pills in the ER), loot the cash register

  • Run away 100+ blocks, fast forward to day 12 and check again - loot respawned
  • Step outside into the ER parking lot, fast forward to day 17 - loot respawned
  • Stand right next to the cash register but not looking at it, fast foward to day 22 - loot respawned
  • Stand next to the cash register looking at it ("Empty register"), fast forward to day 27 - NO LOOT
Move to the parking lot, loot a trash pile

  • Move exactly 10 blocks away, fast forward 5 days - loot respawned
  • Move 5 blocks away, fast forward 5 days - loot respawned
  • Move 2.5 blocks away, just far enough so I couldn't activate the trash pile, fast forward - loot respawned
  • Stand right next to trash pile, not looking at it, fast forward - loot respawned
  • Stand next to trashpile, look right at it, fast forward - loot respawned (?? you can't explain that)
Back to the cash register, loot it, but leave a single item (concrete block) in there

  • Wait 10 minutes, remove the block, wait 10 minutes, NO LOOT
  • Remove the block, run away 100 blocks, wait 10 minutes, NO LOOT
  • Remove the block, fast forward one full day, NO LOOT
If there is some "leave a rock behind" exploit, I couldn't trigger it. Perhaps I misunderstand the exploit.

 
Mmmh, maybe it isn't even local to chunks but only if you look inside the container that it resets! Sooo many possibilities. I'm pretty sure though that looking or not looking at it is not part of the formula. Because "looking at" is an FPS-expensive calculation and it is the first counter-argument from TFP whenever some feature is proposed that would need line of sight.

 
Okay, back from Round 2 and BAH GAWD KING THAT'S MEGANOTH'S MUSIC!

I think you were right all along. Because my first round of testing had an extra helping of dumbass in it. When I use 'settime' to fast foward 5 days I am simulating not looking at the container for 5 straight days. This time, I just FF one day at a time and...

...the loot never respawned. So it went like this:

  • Loot object on Day 1
  • FF to Day 2 - "empty" (just looking at description; not opening)
  • FF to Day 3 - "empty"
  • FF to Day 4 - "empty"
  • FF to Day 5 - "empty"
  • FF to Day 6 - "empty" (!)
  • FF to Day 7 - "empty"
  • ...I can do this all day...
  • FF a full 5 days - "Untouched" (i.e. has loot)
So next I played around with distance and, in short, if you are a few blocks away (likely outside of the chunk boundary), the loot will respawn even when days are advanced just 1 at a time up to the full 5 day respawn. But if you go up to the container and look at it (to get the "Empty" description to pop up), then it gets reset.

I want to play with it some more, but it seems you're right except that you actually have to inspect the container (not open it, just look at it) to reset the timer. That would explain OP's problem as well as my own observed behavior - we never went back into the POIs until the respawn delay had passed (based on the sign outside the POI). If we had gone in and checked a container, it would still have been empty. Presumably the other containers in the same POI would still respawn, though, if we just never looked at them.

 
Excellent, we went from guesses to truths.

Perhaps you could use two loot containers, one you look at and one you just walk near but never target in the same test run. If the latter respawns then your hypothesis in the last paragraph is true, otherwise just going into the chunk does the reset.

Testing might be a little problematic though because nothing hints at where chunk boundaries are. So switching the containers in a second run or just using more containers to test might be sensible

 
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Okay here is my test plan: two containers near each other (same chunk? who knows...). I will loot them both, walk away 100 blocks, FF 1 day, then run a circle around each of them to make sure I go into the chunk for each. While doing this I will only target one of the containers; the other I will just run my circle. Move away 100 blocks, FF 1 day, repeat. Back in a bit.

 
Okay that was fun. I am now pretty convinced that passing within about 8 blocks of the container will reset the timer. It does not appear to be based on chunk boundaries, but distance to the container regardless of chunk.

I found two mailboxes across the street from each other. Offset by one block (not diametrically opposed), but close enough. I then did the test I described above.

  1. Loot both mailboxes
  2. Walk 100 blocks away, FF one day
  3. Walk around mailbox A with head down, never targeting the container
  4. Walk around mailbox B, targeting it the entire time (it always says "empty" of course)
  5. Repeat at step #2 until five days have passed
At the end of the test, BOTH mailboxes remained empty. So that led me to believe it is just walking near it which resets it. But how near? For that test I measured 16 blocks away from one of the boxes and did the five-day test. Then from 15 blocks, then from 14 blocks, etc. The mailbox respawned all the way until I was 8 blocks away.

I then repeated the test on the other side of the mailbox. In this case it respawned until I was 7 blocks away. Normally I'd be all "oooh, including the mailbox space that's 16 blocks and chunks are probably 16x16 so obviously it's chunk-related."

Yabbut, I then repeated the tests for the mailbox across the street. It also has an 8-block radius where it won't respawn, but it overlaps with the first mailbox. That is, there are several spaces where I can stand which cause neither mailbox to respawn. Obviously I can't be in two chunks at the same time.

I played around with the margin between the two mailboxes and it seems that when I am approximately 8 blocks (true radius, not taxicab) from both, then they both will respawn. If I nudge a block towards one then it won't respawn, but the other will. If I am within about 8 blocks of both of them, neither will respawn.

And but so, containers will reset their timers if you pass within about 8 blocks. Change my mind.

 
Fortunately, voxels in the game are still at the macro level. Quantum Voxels will have to wait another century.....so.....Alpha 21... ;)

 
Fortunately, voxels in the game are still at the macro level. Quantum Voxels will have to wait another century.....so.....Alpha 21... ;)
Click to expand...
Roland confirms Quantum Voxels for Alpha 21!*

* They'll be there, but only if you don't look at them.

 
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