What I would love to see implemented in this game (Part 1)

[Paradox321]

Quick introduction. (Skip the first bold paragraph if you don't care).

I've been playing 7 days to die since.....2016? I randomly came across the game while browsing at GameStop and thought "Sure why not?". So I purchased a used PS4 version and ended up really liking the game. I would say I was short of loving it. Obviously the game was in its early stages at that time and had various flaws. I stopped playing the game a few years later and hadn't played it for at least 4 or 5 years. Then I heard the PS5 console version was coming out with all the new updates and I had to buy it. I'm still getting acquainted with all the new stuff and I really like the game. 

I think something that would make me love this game would be the following. (This will be a multi thread wish list because I want to focus on one thing at a time rather than make one gigantic post about everything, and see what people think of the separate suggestions).

Suggestion one - City/Town templates (or what I'd call The Settlers Update)

I'm not sure if this has been suggested, but I think it would be great if they added buildable templates of cities/towns to the game. What I mean by that is you can find or buy a "schematic" of a city/town and then you get to decide where this city/town will be built. The template, when equipped from your inventory, would show up in front of your character as a transparent outline of an incomplete city/town that you then have to place on the ground wherever you choose and then you have the optional objective of building that town to completion in the set area.

In other words, you become some what of a settler.

1. You get a city/town schematic through the trader or by looting.

2. You run to whatever point on the map you want to settle the town.

3. You place the schematic down and it shows up as a transparent ghost town that needs to be filled in with specific building blocks based on whatever the buildings in the schematic require.

4. Each city/town schematic would have varying degrees of difficulty in what needs to be built. For example, you can have a city/town schematic that's just a couple houses and a farm that require basic materials for the most part. Or you could have a city/town schematic that's a "downtown" area with office buildings and high rises that require much more demanding materials like concrete and reinforced glass windows, etc...

To be clear here. I'm not saying you just craft some wood blocks and build a couple structures and voila! You've completed a town. 

I mean you are literally building everything in the town from the ground up. This means not only building the structure of the buildings in the schematic, but also everything in it. Does one of the houses in the schematic have a transparent coffee table in the middle of the living room? That means you literally have to craft a coffee table and put it exactly where the transparent coffee table is. Does the kitchen have transparent cupboards? You have to actually craft cupboards and fill them in. Is there a basement? Toilets? Light fixtures? Couches? Stairs? An attic? Beds? Statues? Plants? Is there a fence around the building? Are there light poles in the street of this town? Benches on the sidewalk? You would have to fill ALL of this in to fully complete the schematic and what you fill it in with has to match what specific building materials are required by the schematic.

I'm not sure how hard it would be to implement something like this, but if it were possible this would be a game changer for 7 Days to Die and would add massive replay value to the game. Don't get me wrong, I do like being able to just craft and build my own bases as I see fit, but after a while it starts to feel a bit stale. Imagine having a variety of city/town schematics to build that challenge your skills as a builder. I mean heck, you could also go the singular route and in addition to having whole set city/town schematics you could also have singular building schematics that you can use to fill your world with buildings as you see fit and sort of make your own "cities and towns" throughout the map from a singular approach.

This whole idea helps improve the game in a few ways.

1. It makes the game more interesting and removes some of the staleness. Instead of just doing the usual "I'm going to build some meta base and survive for x amount of days until I decide to start a new game and do the exact same thing all over again", you can instead take on challenges from the devs to build whatever city/town schematics they can come up with.

2. It adds a new survival challenge. When you're trying to build these cities/towns, your heat map is going to be getting pretty hot if you're constantly crafting and building parts of a large town to complete a whole schematic. Zombies would become an issue and something you would have to deal with to complete your schematic. You could even make it that once a schematic is complete, the city/town you've completed must stand for a certain amount of days to complete a challenge. To make it even more challenging, the devs could even add the option of time limits to build schematics based on their size for more experienced players. For instance, if you had a schematic for a town that's 8 houses and a few grocery stores, the devs could set a limit of 20 days or whatever makes sense, to complete the town, otherwise you fail the challenge and have to start the schematic all over again.

3. It pushes you to not only gather resources but also pushes you to use those massive amounts of resources everyone hoards in their bases. One of the issues I have with this game is you get to a point where you just literally have thousands of stone, iron, wood, sand etc.... but nothing to really use it on other than repairing your base every 7 days. It would be a lot more fun to go out and build cities/towns from schematics and use all those resources you hoarded to help complete them. I feel like it would give a feeling of purpose, something I feel the game lacks.

4. This could be utilized as a way to give players a unique challenge to get more experience or exclusive building material, weapon or item unlocks upon completing city/town schematics.

5. It would offer more map variety. You could have the normal towns that show up in the game but then be able to give whatever world you're playing in more life by adding your own cities/towns to the map.

I'm assuming it would be some work for the devs to make multiple schematics of varying degrees to make this worthwhile, but at the same time, this could also be an opportunity to get the community involved. What if the devs held contests for people to submit buildings, houses, office buildings, police stations, hospitals, grocery stores, department stores etc... and then just took those buildings and combined them into workable schematics? It would be a nice addition of the community and the devs working together. Or the devs could just say "Nah we got it" and make a ton of schematics to challenge us with. Either way, however it could be achieved, I would love to see this implemented in the game.

Anyway, that's my thoughts so far. Let me know what you guys think of this.

 

[Riamus]

I think that is far outside the scope of what this game is.  It's an interesting idea, but ... wow.  That would be an insane amount of time to do and resources to gather.  I don't see anyone playing through a single save long enough to even come close to completing a town. 

 

[Suxar]

I think that is far outside the scope of what this game is.  It's an interesting idea, but ... wow.  That would be an insane amount of time to do and resources to gather.  I don't see anyone playing through a single save long enough to even come close to completing a town. 

For a dedicated PvE server this would be an interesting idea. For singleplayer it's really kind of useless.

 

[thatguybeard]

But you wouldn’t be adding your own towns and cities to the game you would just be adding more that someone else designed. We already have those. Plus you can already add your own to the game. 

Here’s an example of a small town you are talking about that I already built on the PS5 no schematic needed. Just one LCB in size but next map gonna do a 3 LCB one.

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[Paradox321]

I think that is far outside the scope of what this game is.  It's an interesting idea, but ... wow.  That would be an insane amount of time to do and resources to gather.  I don't see anyone playing through a single save long enough to even come close to completing a town. 

Thanks for your reply. I'm not sure it is outside the scope though. I think this plays and fits perfectly into the fundamentals of the game which are.

1. Gather

2. Craft

3. Build

4. Survive.

Those are the 4 main components and a buildable template does not deviate from that core idea. You're simply expanding on it by offering a challenge to the players that goes beyond their own personalized challenge of building their own base set to their own standards.

I think you bring up a good question. which is would people play a world long enough to do this? Personally I think they would. When a game challenges a player to do something, players will end up doing the thing the game is challenging them to do and they will either stop out of frustration, boredom, or fulfillment. 

Me personally? I'd say the average time I spend in a world is about a hundred days or so. I'm not sure what other players do, but anything equivalent or more than that is a substantial amount of time and I believe would be sufficient to building a pre-made town.

But then again, I think we're ignoring the fact that how long it would take to build a schematic town is dependent on various factors.

1. How many buildings does one particular schematic have over another? More buildings will take longer/less buildings will take less time.

2. How many players are working on the town? This would dramatically alter building time.

3. How intricate are the schematics themselves? That is to say, how many rooms, light fixtures, plants, couches, beds, toilets etc.... does each building have? This again will alter building times.

If you add in the singular approach I mentioned earlier of schematics that just have one building, this also dramatically alters how much time one is spending building a schematic town.

For a dedicated PvE server this would be an interesting idea. For singleplayer it's really kind of useless.

I guess that depends on how one defines useless. I'm open to hearing your reasoning here.

 

[Paradox321]

But you wouldn’t be adding your own towns and cities to the game you would just be adding more that someone else designed. We already have those. Plus you can already add your own to the game. 

Here’s an example of a small town you are talking about that I already built on the PS5 no schematic needed. Just one LCB in size but next map gonna do a 3 LCB one.

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Well to be clear, I didn't mean literally adding your own towns. I don't want to get caught up in the semantics of that. My main point was building something that wouldn't otherwise exist in your current world without you taking the initiative to build it.

Regardless I think you're kind of making my point here.

You took the time to build your own town. Why?

Because you clearly thought it would be fun and challenging to do so. Otherwise you wouldn't have done it. Or am I wrong in thinking that?

Also. you mention how you built a town without a schematic. First off, that's a great job honestly. It looks like you put a good amount of time into it.

I think the point you're missing however is that you got to build that town on your own terms, which makes it less challenging. 

If you had to build a town to the specifications of a schematic it would not only be more challenging but feel more rewarding. When you build a town on your own terms you can simply just gather a bunch of wood, build some wooden structures and call it a town. 

But a schematic requiring you to use different building materials forces you to think differently about what you're building because the schematic would require a variety of resources were as your own personal town built without a schematic can literally just all be made out of wood and you don't have to worry about aesthetics or even the internals of your structures such as couches, light fixtures, beds. fridges, stoves etc....

An important point I want to make here is that you have to keep in mind that not everyone is architecturally smart and thus not everyone is capable of building "good" towns. Schematics would alleviate that for some players and make building structures much more enjoyable in my opinion.

 

[thatguybeard]

Well to be clear, I didn't mean literally adding your own towns. I don't want to get caught up in the semantics of that. My main point was building something that wouldn't otherwise exist in your current world without you taking the initiative to build it.

Regardless I think you're kind of making my point here.

You took the time to build your own town. Why?

Because you clearly thought it would be fun and challenging to do so. Otherwise you wouldn't have done it. Or am I wrong in thinking that?

Also. you mention how you built a town without a schematic. First off, that's a great job honestly. It looks like you put a good amount of time into it.

I think the point you're missing however is that you got to build that town on your own terms, which makes it less challenging. 

If you had to build a town to the specifications of a schematic it would not only be more challenging but feel more rewarding. When you build a town on your own terms you can simply just gather a bunch of wood, build some wooden structures and call it a town. 

But a schematic requiring you to use different building materials forces you to think differently about what you're building because the schematic would require a variety of resources were as your own personal town built without a schematic can literally just all be made out of wood and you don't have to worry about aesthetics or even the internals of your structures such as couches, light fixtures, beds. fridges, stoves etc....

An important point I want to make here is that you have to keep in mind that not everyone is architecturally smart and thus not everyone is capable of building "good" towns. Schematics would alleviate that for some players and make building structures much more enjoyable in my opinion.

How is building something that someone already built for you more challenging and rewarding? Yes for some players it is challenging to come up with ideas but trust me it is much more rewarding to see your ideas come to life. The that was in my head and now I’m looking at it moment. Don’t take that away from yourself. Join building communities, watch building videos…get inspired.

So which is more challenging and rewarding…following a recipe or coming up with the recipe…tracing a picture or creating an original picture?

Also you’re asking for building to be made easier while insulating us builders…not a good look. Really it’s more of a challenge to follow a template being hand held to everything you need and where it goes…really? More of a challenge than coming up with that yourself?

 

[Paradox321]

How is building something that someone already built for you more challenging and rewarding? Yes for some players it is challenging to come up with ideas but trust me it is much more rewarding to see your ideas come to life. The that was in my head and now I’m looking at it moment. Don’t take that away from yourself. Join building communities, watch building videos…get inspired.

So which is more challenging and rewarding…following a recipe or coming up with the recipe…tracing a picture or creating an original picture?

Also you’re asking for building to be made easier while insulating us builders…not a good look. Really it’s more of a challenge to follow a template being hand held to everything you need and where it goes…really? More of a challenge than coming up with that yourself?

You're looking at it from the wrong perspective.

Of course anyone could come up with something more challenging than the devs could come up with. But do you honestly believe the average player is building anything as intricate as has already been presented by the devs?

Yes, people can make a structure, but how many people do you see making aesthetically pleasing and structurally sound buildings complete with internal decor? 

It's more challenging from the perspective that you don't get to build every town you want to make out of wood and completely avoid furnishing it. Freeplay does not force you to do that. Schematics would force you to use different materials and make a structure that actually makes cohesive sense.

Most buildings people are building in 7 days don't look like something you would see in the real world. That lack of cohesion is what makes free building less challenging.

 

[thatguybeard]

You're looking at it from the wrong perspective.

Of course anyone could come up with something more challenging than the devs could come up with. But do you honestly believe the average player is building anything as intricate as has already been presented by the devs?

Yes, people can make a structure, but how many people do you see making aesthetically pleasing and structurally sound buildings complete with internal decor? 

It's more challenging from the perspective that you don't get to build every town you want to make out of wood and completely avoid furnishing it. Freeplay does not force you to do that. Schematics would force you to use different materials and make a structure that actually makes cohesive sense.

Most buildings people are building in 7 days don't look like something you would see in the real world. That lack of cohesion is what makes free building less challenging.

I have seen people build amazing structures throughout the years of following this game with complete furnishings. Seen some people do a great job recreating real world buildings. I love furnishing my buildings I do it all the time here ya go…inside my house at my main base.

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Still haven’t finished furnishing but I think you get the idea.

Your addition removes the challenge of building. It turns it into paint by numbers.

 

[Riamus]

Yeah, I think it's far better to build your own.  After all, why bother building what someone else created?  Just so you can say you spent a lot of time doing so?  There isn't any benefit to it.  You aren't creating anything unique.  You're just placing a building.  Sure, maybe you have to do each part manually like you said regarding the coffee table, but that is still "paint by number" like thatguybeard said.  Far better to be creative.  And it doesn't matter how creative someone is.  If their building and design and decorating aren't very fancy, it's okay.  It is still their design and their creativity.  That makes it worth something.

If you really want to do something like this, just find some blueprints for some buildings online and recreate those in the game.  There isn't any need for the schematics in the game if you're building it by hand.  Just use blueprints found online and follow those to build the buildings.  It would be the same thing and not require any dev time.  If nothing else, try it and see if you even enjoy doing it or if the amount of effort needed is too much even for you.

As far as hours played, the devs specifically slowed down the game because they wanted players to average 70 days in the game.  That suggests (I don't have actual numbers) that most players were playing less than 70 days on average.  And chances are that they still are.  Other than dedicated servers where the game is still going even when you're not there (as long as at least one person is on), most people just aren't playing to day 100+ from what I've seen from people talking on here and the indication from the devs with trying to slow things down to get people to keep playing to around day 70.

 

[Paradox321]

I have seen people build amazing structures throughout the years of following this game with complete furnishings. Seen some people do a great job recreating real world buildings. I love furnishing my buildings I do it all the time here ya go…inside my house at my main base.

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Still haven’t finished furnishing but I think you get the idea.

Your addition removes the challenge of building. It turns it into paint by numbers.

That's impressive. Thanks for sharing. I'd love to see the rest of what you built. I actually like seeing other players creations.

My point wasn't that people can't or don't make detailed buildings like yours. I know they do. My point was that the average player is not making buildings this detailed. If you think the average player is as detailed as this, then you're selling yourself real short.

Also, I disagree with your assertion that it "removes the challenge of building and turns it into paint by numbers".

Nothing is being removed. You would still be able to free build. This is simply an alternative to that and in my opinion makes the game more interesting for those who dont care to put this much thought behind building something and would much rather just buld something detailed without having to think about how it needs to look inside and out.

If a town schematic requires that you build 8 houses, 4 office buildings and a police station you would have to gather a ton of resources and craft all the specific materials required by the schematic as well as make sure you're building the structure properly to avoid floors falling through, as well as defend your schematic from zombies attacking your schematic progress. I hardly call that painting by numbers.

 

[InfiniteWarrior]

Sounds like Sims Settlements' city plans. I'd have to agree the idea doesn't really fit the design of 7 Days.

In a Fallout game, you kind of want to get out there, explore and see what kind of trouble you can get your character into, as is traditional in a Fallout game, not be asked to babysit everyone in the Wasteland straight out of the gate. But that's how the settlement system of Fallout 4 came across. Initial playthrough, most would put up a few beds and turrets for the folks in Sanctuary and be on their merry way...until they discovered there wasn't much story content with which to engage. Then, they might have played around with it a little (or a lot).

Personally, if I wanted a city builder, I'd just play Fallout 4 with Sims Settlements installed and/or play a city building game. It's not a bad idea. It just doesn't fit the game's design.

 

[Riamus]

I would say the average player probably doesn't really care what their base looks like and probably doesn't decorate or paint it.  Most probably are using bedrolls all the time and never even make a bed.  Yes, there are a lot of people who make interesting bases, but those same people probably would prefer making their own designs than to just place a bunch of stuff in a specific way.  People who are creative want to be creative.

As I mentioned, you gain something by building your own design because it is your own design.  Copying something doesn't give that to you. 

And what would be the benefit?  There are already towns in the game.  Zombies only spawn at sleeper zones that are added in the POI editor (other than random spawns), so you basically create an empty town with no value other than to occupy some part as a base, which is already possible in any POI in the game.  So you are building something that doesn't have any reason to build, other than "just because."  I think that is something that makes sense in another game.  Just not this one.

 

[Paradox321]

Yeah, I think it's far better to build your own.  After all, why bother building what someone else created?  Just so you can say you spent a lot of time doing so?  There isn't any benefit to it.  You aren't creating anything unique.  You're just placing a building.  Sure, maybe you have to do each part manually like you said regarding the coffee table, but that is still "paint by number" like thatguybeard said.  Far better to be creative.  And it doesn't matter how creative someone is.  If their building and design and decorating aren't very fancy, it's okay.  It is still their design and their creativity.  That makes it worth something.

If you really want to do something like this, just find some blueprints for some buildings online and recreate those in the game.  There isn't any need for the schematics in the game if you're building it by hand.  Just use blueprints found online and follow those to build the buildings.  It would be the same thing and not require any dev time.  If nothing else, try it and see if you even enjoy doing it or if the amount of effort needed is too much even for you.

As far as hours played, the devs specifically slowed down the game because they wanted players to average 70 days in the game.  That suggests (I don't have actual numbers) that most players were playing less than 70 days on average.  And chances are that they still are.  Other than dedicated servers where the game is still going even when you're not there (as long as at least one person is on), most people just aren't playing to day 100+ from what I've seen from people talking on here and the indication from the devs with trying to slow things down to get people to keep playing to around day 70.

Thanks again for your reply.

I think you're missing my point about the creative aspect. I am not knocking people who aren't creative. 

I'm simply arguing that the average player isn't this creative and are just simply building bases that "work" for the game,  but aren't exactly detailed or care to be. A lot of people just enjoy the aspect of building. For those who like to build but don't want to put forth the effort of fully thinking out a detailed town, I think this would be a great addition.

You argue what's the point of building something someone else created. But I could make the same exact argument about free building. Why spend hours free building a hyper detailed house other than to show that you did? It adds nothing to the game itself. Sure, you could come up with a super detailed town on your own, but for what? A detailed house isn"t any easier to survive in than a half built discombobulated building with wood spikes around it. It's simply a pat on the back. 

A lot of people don't want to go through the tedious process of meticulously fleshing out a building, let alone a whole town just to show it off. Not everyone is seeking that kind of glory and are just looking for more fun ways to play the game. But I appreciate your opinion on the matter.

A complaint I've seen with this game numerous times is how empty the world can feel at times. And it's actually a complaint I share. Having schematic towns would allow the player to fill their world with more "life" without spending hours trying to plan out their next structure. It fast tracks this idea and makes it more enjoyable in my opinion.

Lastly, you said I should go find something other people have built and replicate that. I have actually done this in the past and yes, I found it to be fun. But this isn't an equal substitute to what I'm suggesting here.

 

[thatguybeard]

If a town schematic requires that you build 8 houses, 4 office buildings and a police station you would have to gather a ton of resources and craft all the specific materials required by the schematic as well as make sure you're building the structure properly to avoid floors falling through, as well as defend your schematic from zombies attacking your schematic progress. I hardly call that painting by numbers.

You don’t have to worry about building anything properly that’s all mapped out by the schematic. You don’t have to worry about will this hold the load I am putting on it you don’t have to worry about coming back from running an errand and watching part of your base collapse cause you pushed the limits too far. You said the schematic would show what goes where and what materials to use. That is exactly the same as paint by numbers.

This isn’t an addition the game needs as  you can already build towns. All you’re asking for is an easy mode to do it but just go do it. Seems like you already have some ideas for buildings.

 

[Paradox321]

You don’t have to worry about building anything properly that’s all mapped out by the schematic. You don’t have to worry about will this hold the load I am putting on it you don’t have to worry about coming back from running an errand and watching part of your base collapse cause you pushed the limits too far. You said the schematic would show what goes where and what materials to use. That is exactly the same as paint by numbers.

This isn’t an addition the game needs as  you can already build towns. All you’re asking for is an easy mode to do it but just go do it. Seems like you already have some ideas for buildings.

I think you might not be understanding what i mean here.

The schematic would not show you in what order to build the structure. It would just show you a structure to be built. It's up to you as the player to build it in proper order so it doesn't fall apart at certain stages of the building process. This means putting in support beams, walls etc. at the appropriate time as you're building, otherwise your structure fails. The schematic would not tell you "when" you need to do specific things. 

 

[thatguybeard]

I think you might not be understanding what i mean here.

The schematic would not show you in what order to build the structure. It would just show you a structure to be built. It's up to you as the player to build it in proper order so it doesn't fall apart at certain stages of the building process. This means putting in support beams, walls etc. at the appropriate time as you're building, otherwise your structure fails. The schematic would not tell you "when" you need to do specific things. 

Oh well we don’t need to take dev resources if you just need to know what to build. Let’s go with 6 houses, market, Pass n’ Gas, office building, and apartment complex. Houses mix of stories dealers choice. Want zombies to attack while building maybe right outside downtown wasteland. Add a little suburb. Any one else needs a schematic send em my way.

 

[Paradox321]

Sounds like Sims Settlements' city plans. I'd have to agree the idea doesn't really fit the design of 7 Days.

In a Fallout game, you kind of want to get out there, explore and see what kind of trouble you can get your character into, as is traditional in a Fallout game, not be asked to babysit everyone in the Wasteland straight out of the gate. But that's how the settlement system of Fallout 4 came across. Initial playthrough, most would put up a few beds and turrets for the folks in Sanctuary and be on their merry way...until they discovered there wasn't much story content with which to engage. Then, they might have played around with it a little (or a lot).

Personally, if I wanted a city builder, I'd just play Fallout 4 with Sims Settlements installed and/or play a city building game. It's not a bad idea. It just doesn't fit the game's design.

I'm actually not familiar with what this is. I know what Fallout is obviously, I just mean I've never played Fallout, so I don't have a frame of reference for what you're talking about. But I'll go look this up/watch some videos and let you know my thoughts. Thanks.

 

[Paradox321]

Sounds like Sims Settlements' city plans. I'd have to agree the idea doesn't really fit the design of 7 Days.

In a Fallout game, you kind of want to get out there, explore and see what kind of trouble you can get your character into, as is traditional in a Fallout game, not be asked to babysit everyone in the Wasteland straight out of the gate. But that's how the settlement system of Fallout 4 came across. Initial playthrough, most would put up a few beds and turrets for the folks in Sanctuary and be on their merry way...until they discovered there wasn't much story content with which to engage. Then, they might have played around with it a little (or a lot).

Personally, if I wanted a city builder, I'd just play Fallout 4 with Sims Settlements installed and/or play a city building game. It's not a bad idea. It just doesn't fit the game's design.

Back again.

So I reviewed the Fallout Settlements thing you brought up.

It looks sort of fun, but it's not the same as what I want for this game. There's a few issues I have with the Fallout version of this in comparison to my suggestion.

1. You aren't really building anything. You're simply placing pre-built structures which is a lot less work. In my suggestion you would have to craft every component of the town and place them in the correct manner to complete your schematic.

2. The Fallout settlements do not follow building logic. You can create floating buildings that defy the laws of physics, which makes things less challenging. In my suggestion, you would of course have to follow the building logic already in 7 days to die or risk your buildings falling apart and being incomplete. Are you building a 3 floor building and you forget a support beam on the first floor? Uh oh, that second and third floor you were working on has now completely collapsed along with other parts of your structure and now you have to pick up the pieces and start over. That's part of what makes the building schematic idea challenging. You're given the layout of a structure, but it's up to you as the player to build it properly, or it collapses.

3. There are no building requirements for Fallout settlements. You just simply build whatever you want. With my building schematic idea, you would be forced to gather a plethora of materials. If the town/building you're constructing requires, wood, bricks, cobblestone, iron, cement, steel, etc... you will be forced to gather all of these necessary materials to complete your town/building. What makes this significant is the fact that not only do you have to gather all of these materials, but you have to progress through the game and make a cement mixer/forge etc... to gather some of them, as some of these materials are not immediately available at the start of a game.

My town/building schematic idea could work great for rewards too. Schematics could give players things like a lot of experience points for completing a structure based on the size of the building/town. They could also have certain special rewards that are unlocked upon completing these town/building schematics such as new unlockable guns, weapons, ammo, mods, etc... that are not available by just finding them somewhere in the game. If they were to couple town/building schematics with rewards, this could actually make for a pretty fun full game experience in my opinion.

You could also utilize it as an end game mechanic.  Imagine, you start a new game, and the goal is to build one or several large town schematics to "win" the game. It would provide a "purpose" to a game that otherwise really lacks one. It would be difficult to do this with free building.

In addition to an ultimate "end game" on a big scale, you could also use them as missions on a smaller scale. The trader could have special missions where he tells you he wants to set up another shop 2000m's away from his current shop, but that he wants you to build the structure. You then have to gather all the necessary materials and build everything required in the schematic to have the trader set up another shop in the given location. The trader could have a mission where he wants you to set up a farm somewhere, a radio station, a military base, etc.....

This schematic idea could also play into the "7 Days to Die" theme of the game by having certain rewards for surviving in a structure/town you built without dying for 7 days.

I could go on and on about why I think this would add massive value to the game, but I think you get what I'm saying for the most part.