Boidster

The loot tier probability fix modlet is now available on Nexus. It adjusts ProbT0, ProbT1, and ProbT2 to have probabilities of 0.1, 0.2, and 0.25, respectively, at high lootstages. I'm unsure if TFP intended the 'unintended' consequence of the loot probability changes, but at the very least this modlet will allow "no trader" players to still find that last schematic or anything else tied to the T0-T2 probability tables. As near as I can tell, yes. The item just doesn't appear anywhere in traders.xml which does specifically list every single item traders sell I think. It doesn't reference back out to loot.xml, which is for generic and quest loot. I'll take a look to see if there are other schematics which are missing from the traders.

Not a trader expert, but from the looks of it (traders.xml, which includes its own complete set of loot groups) the Rad Remover schematic is not available from traders at all. The Rad Remover mod itself is available, but not the schematic. Unfortunately, figuring out what might appear in the secret stash would be a significant effort. There are groups within groups going on.

I had a modlet for A19 which would add a teeny tiny chance for T2 and T3 loot at the lower gamestages. I never did add it to Nexus; maybe I'll resurrect it for A20 and put it out there. This specific issue with probT2 (and also probT1) going to 0 probability probably requires its own modlet. Which I can also throw together. Basically putting it back to how A19 was, with a small but neverending chance of getting T1 or T2 loot even as you get into higher gamestages. It will shift the balance towards weaker loot as the game progresses, but at least nothing would be cut off entirely.

Holy crap good catch. I'm not a game designer and neither is my girlfriend, but that sure seems like a bug. Or a design change with unintended consequences? At a basic level, we all can understand this mechanic: As the player gamestage increases, better loot becomes available. But should lower-level loot become unavailable? A19.3 didn't have this problem, with T1 only going down to 0.37 and T2 only going down to 0.46, so they always were in the mix. If they're going to have finite probability curves, they need to make extra special sure that every item is available somehow outside of the curves. But IMO the A19 solution was just fine. I'm pretty sure that this is correct. What we call "tier 5" quests are called "level 5" in the XML.

They put in place a temporary "fix" due to too many POIs using always-lootable bookshelf blocks instead of the random "helper" blocks which will RNG toggle between lootable and not. So in the future, after a scrub of the bookstore-type POIs, what you'll get is fewer lootable shelves, but back to better odds of getting schematics in each one. <snip> Whoops! That's what I get for having A19 and A20 files open right next to each other. A19 had the hack in the XML, A20 does not.

@doughphunghus is right. You'll see green if you're wearing something which gives you +1 in that attribute. I've got Nerdy Glasses on here: That allows me to buy Tinkerer, which required INT 4: If I remove the Nerdy Glasses, then I can't use the Tinkerer benefits (until I put the glasses back on or earn an INT point): Also shows red in the perk category list:

HAHAHA TFP has already thought of our schemes and foiled us! The bags just drop through the truck like it isn't there. CURSE YOU PIMPS!

Unless they have modeled downdraft or the wind from the rear prop, ain't no way that'll work. And what we need is to be able to roll bags like 50 or 100m horizontally. Is the idea of a mineshaft so that you can get gravity to help? I guess for PhD-level credit you need to figure out the minimum useful slope from which we can calculate the maximum horizontal distance you could move bags with gravity assist. OOH! - could you use a short drop to push a bag into the back of a 4x4? Because that gives me rationalization for my cheesing the RNG mechanic. "Well see I always prefer to open loot from the safety of my 'Loot Base' which happens to be over there in the Wasteland (in the ruins of Dishong Tower, which I find aesthetically pleasing) and so I always take them by 4x4 into the base first. There is NO OTHER REASON why I bring the bags into the Wasteland. No sir."

Vehicles help? Could you bulldoze bags over to the wasteland border with a 4x4? Could TFP add a Bulldozer Mod into the game for exactly this purpose? Edit to add: for all my "there is no cheese" ideology, this idea of moving loot into a more favorable biome fits into my very narrow definition of 'cheese': using information the survivor couldn't possibly know to improve survival chances. Doesn't mean that I won't try to stand on wasteland ground when looting bags, if I have a choice! I admit to the cheesiness though. TFP could maybe remove the cheesability by setting biome and POI flags on the bags when they drop. So it becomes "where the zombie was standing" instead of "where the player is standing" which determines lootstage modifiers.

Not lazy. "Focused on efficient outcomes"

This video covers spawning distance pretty well for A19 and I don't think it's really changed for A20. I haven't tested it, though. The link goes to the timestamp where he's testing the blood moon horde specifically. It's hard to tell from the top-down, but it sure looks like the island is big enough to have a base and still spawn in the horde. And also that it's far enough from the mainland that you probably won't get any spawns swimming out to you. They ought to all spawn right on the island.

Yes, that's a very good test! To be faaaaair, your test with the drastically increased biome modifier was simpler and didn't require like 50 spawns I bet. I had to do many iterations with the vanilla settings before I noticed the change. You're not from around here, are ya?

PREACH IT BROTHER! Although I have been reliably informed that any base which affords the player a defensive advantage - i.e. the zombies have a harder time hitting the player than the player does the zombies - is "cheese". Only going mano-a-mano...mano-a-undead?...in a barren field is non-cheese. What on Earth is the point of a blade trap or a dart trap or an electric fence or...*waves hands around* any of it...if not to try to get zombies to walk into/near them? The big "plot" point in this game is "a crapton of zombies are coming for you in 7 days, better be ready" and then they give you all of these murder machines and base-building features. Oh no! I built an effective base to keep my cranial goo out of the mouths of the undead! I AM A CHEESER!!!

Sure, I'm sorry I meant no offense and neither did I mean to argue. I used your comment, especially the bit below, to clarify some things people might have been asking themselves. It just so happened that theFlu and I have been working on that very thing so I thought it might be helpful to share. For what it is worth to others, I put together really simple modlets to nudge the probabilities for both beakers and acid.

I actually got the formula wrong a few times and went through a few iterations before everything matched up for all of your tests. I'm convinced we've got it right. And I'm pretty well convinced that none of those modifiers or bonuses will affect any hard-coded constant probabilities nor, as a practical matter, any of the "veryLow", "low", "med", "high" placeholders either. At least not until they stratify those templates by lootstage.

Imma bring some knowledge we have been working on over in this thread on lootstage and biome modifiers and such as. I am pretty well convinced now that biome modifiers will have no effect on "mundane" loot probabilities like the ones in the Medial Air Drop. <!-- *** Airdrop_Medical --> <lootgroup name="airdropMedicine"> <item name="drugPainkillers" count="1"/> <item name="medicalFirstAidKit" count="1,2"/> <item name="drugAntibiotics" count="1,2"/> <item name="toolBeaker" prob="0.4"/> </lootgroup> The probabilities for that group work out to: Pain Killers: 29.4% First Aid Kit: 29.4% Antibiotics: 29.4% Beaker: 11.7% Which is, I think, by far the best odds for getting a Beaker in any single loot container. Also, since none of these are lootstage-scaled probabilities, neither biome nor POI modifiers (if it landed right on a POI) matter at all. Same probabilities no matter where it is. For tests theFlu and I did along with math to put you to sleep, see the other thread. Edit to add: for the quest loot group, it is tied to lootstage. For the other loot containers (chem piles and what not), lootstage will not enter into it. At least not yet - the XML is wired up to allow TFP to fine-tune their "very low" probability to break it out into different lootstages, but as of now it covers stage 1-999999. Same probability regardless of your lootstage.

Probably, yes. One question is whether the code treats "prob" differently from "loot_prob_template". This also a thing that is hard to test since we can't just look at loot level to see what's happening. We have to loot 100 coffee makers. Maybe 1000. For your tests, we probably should note the comments in biomes.xml. I missed this before and it very likely explains the poi modifier & bonus as well. Okay, so on to your tests So the formula appears to be: ([Base Lootstage] * (1 + [Biome Mod] + [POI Mod])) + [Biome Bonus] + [POI Bonus] Base Lootstage (BLS) 2 Biome POI Tier Biome Mod (BM) Biome Bonus (BB) POI Mod (PM) POI Bonus (PB) Net Lootstage (BLS * (1 + BM + PM)) + BB + PB Pine Forest 1 0 0 1 3 (2 * (1 + 0 + 1)) + 0 + 3 = 7 Burnt Forest (no POI) NA 0.5 10 NA NA (2 * (1 + 0.5)) + 10 = 13 Burnt Forest 2 0.5 10 2 6 (2 * (1 + 0.5 + 2) + 10 + 6 = 23 Desert 5 0.5 10 5 15 (2 * (1 + 0.5 * 5) + 10 + 15 = 38

Nope, I think you've got the math exactly correct. Which is why I think you're also correct about the little mod/bonus listed at the top of loot.xml only affecting the player's loot level. I was trying to think of a way to test the proposition and couldn't come up with one. That said, there are not that many lootgroups which still contain items with a fixed prob value. They almost all refer back to the "low" "med" "high" probability "templates" which really are just a single probability for loot stage 1-999999. So in the great majority of cases, loot stage modifiers just don't matter at all. I watched loot stage change as I moved around a POI and saw the same thing you did. Now I'm keen to understand the first part, this bit here: poi_tier_mod="0.05,0.1,0.15,0.2,0.25"

The POI designer has "helper" blocks which will take on one of two or more states (open or closed, or maybe one of a few different crate types, etc.). So when you build out your store you put "cash register helper" where you want the registers and then the game decides searchable/not-searchable when the POI is generated. Car helpers, med cabinet helpers, workstation helpers - lots of them. I tested a couple of these and couldn't get them to change state after the POI was created. Looks like now each POI within a world has a fixed seed tied to it, and no matter how many times you reload a POI each "helper" will keep its configuration. If, for example, the RNG seed for a POI were (world seed + POI sequential #) it would behave like this. Auto Store #1 on the map might look different from Auto Store #2, but each store will never change after the world is generated. It'll help with consistency - reloading a POI doesn't magically turn that empty husk of a car into a fully searchable/wrenchable one. But also a little boring.

Yeah, that would be a good test. I guess what I'm not being clear about regarding me not being clear on the XML is, do those modifiers affect all loot probabilities? That is, if this is in a loot group: <item name="foobar" prob="0.5"> Does that 0.5 get modified by this somehow if one is searching a container in a POI? <loot_settings poi_tier_mod="0.05,0.1,0.15,0.2,0.25" poi_tier_bonus="3,6,9,12,15" /> I think you're surmising that no, plain probabilities are not affected, and that poi_ter_mod and poi_tier_bonus only affect the player's loot stage and therefore only helps with probabilities which are loot stage-dependent. I think you're probably right, but it's not something I figured out how to test. Your test absolutely would work to see about loot stage changes. I just can't figure out how to test for any effects on plain probabilities. Like with the coffee makers.

So, this is true as regards to what loot level directly affects. I'm just unsure how to read this line: <loot_settings poi_tier_mod="0.05,0.1,0.15,0.2,0.25" poi_tier_bonus="3,6,9,12,15" /> I wasn't able to figure out a useful test for those modifiers/bonuses so I left it alone. I played in the editor with the all_loot special POI as well as one I built myself specifically for coffee makers and even with changing the POI tier back and forth it wasn't clear to me what was happening. So...dunno. For biome modifiers, though, I was able to test that and I'm pretty confident that "where the player is standing" determines the modifier. How I tested: 1) Modify Feral Biker to have a 90% chance to drop a bag 2) Spawn a crapload of Feral Bikers (AI turned off; I'm not looking for a fight) on the desert side of a desert/wasteland border area (confirmed via F3) 3) Loot bags while standing on the desert side, until 10 Tier/Quality items are found 4) Loot bags while standing on the wasteland side also until 10 Tiered items are found Results (note: this is loot.xml tiers, i.e. cloth & scrap are both Tier 0): Tier/Quality Desert Wasteland 0/4 1 0/5 3 0/6 1 1/1 3 1 1/2 2 2 1/3 3 1/4 1 1/5 1 1/6 2 So, if you're near a border area, try to stand on the higher-difficulty biome side! I have no reason to believe it would be any different for POIs - always stand within a POI boundary if you can when looting. I think it might even be worthwhile (based on that little bit of XML above) to stand on the house POIs when looting their mailboxes - don't do it from the road.

I think you're probably correct, which would map to "it's where the player's feet are" for any biome or POI adjustments. The question about moving bags around is academic only since we can't do that. But if you're correct - as I think you are - a bag which dropped on the street just outside POI boundaries would have a different modifier for a player standing on the street (outside the POI) vs. one standing within the POI and reaching into the street to search. So far, I've only been testing whether POI tier modifiers affect all probabilities in the game. So far I'm pretty confident that it is not additive. That is, poi_tier_mod="0.05, 0.1, 0.15, 0.2, 0.25" does not mean "add 0.25" to base probability in a Tier 5 POI, based on my testing. Which makes sense since other modifiers throughout the XML tend to be multiplicative. So I think it means "multiply base probability by 1.25". I need to do more tests to prove this out. Then I will need to do as theFlu describes, but I think I'm just going to spawn bags on the road outside a major POI and then stand in the road and on the POI to see if the differences are obvious. I wish the console showed (or that I knew how to enable it) the RNG results as they are calculated. Would make this a lot easier.

I was about to type, "not really", but looking into loot.xml now I'm not so sure. For certain, your loot stage is always 'active' for any container you open, but not every loot container or loot group has obvious* loot stage scaling. So for example, coffee makers: <!-- *** CoffeeMaker_Loot --> <lootgroup name="groupCoffeeMaker01"> <item name="drinkJarCoffee" count="1,2" loot_prob_template="med"/> <item name="resourceCropCoffeeBeans" count="1,3" loot_prob_template="high"/> <!-- <item name="toolBeaker" loot_prob_template="veryLow"/> --> (want more beakers? uncomment this line!) </lootgroup> The "med" and "high" probability "templates" there are really just fixed probabilities (0.5 and 0.75 respectively). Loot stage doesn't enter into it at all. (Technically, the probability applies for loot stage 0 through 999999) Looking through loot.xml it seems that pretty much only loot groups/containers which might return armor, tools, weapons, schematics, or mods are directly tied to loot stage (this includes quest rewards). All of the mundane containers (including things like medical piles) are tied to fixed probabilities like the above. *I said 'obvious' because there is this new line for A20 at the very top of loot.xml: poi_tier_mod="0.05,0.1,0.15,0.2,0.25" What I'm not sure about is whether these POI-based modifiers are applied to every probability in every group? So for example if I'm in a Tier I POI, that line implies there is a 0.05 modifier. Does that mean that for the coffee maker example above, the actual probability for "drinkJarCoffee" is actually "med" + 0.05 = 0.55? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I'm not even certain how to test that effectively - maybe reconfigure coffee machines so that 9mm ammo has a 0.0 probability by default and see if I can get some 9mm from coffee makers in Tier 5 POIs. Specific to the question of "what if we could move the bags": what needs to be tested is whether biome and POI modifiers are tied to the container when it is dropped, or to the coordinates it's on when it's opened, or to where the player is standing when the container is opened. I might try testing this out later. We can't move the bags of course, but it might have some small effect on bags dropped at POI or biome boundaries for example. You'll be fine. Bags dropped and opened in/around your T4 POI in the Wasteland will have good loot stage modifiers applied when you open them. I guess make sure you're standing on the POI when you open them, in case the answer to my test above is "where the player is standing determines modifiers".

Usually we get "why aren't there more zombies" opinions instead of "why are there so many zombies" opinions, so it's good to see someone mix it up. My guess is that, since the CPU & GPU requirements of the game don't allow for hundreds of zombies milling around everywhere all the time, the Scout/Screamer is a way for the game to simulate "you have attracted the notice of some of the hundreds of zombies that - trust us - are out there". You make a lot of noise/generate a lot of "heat" and a bunch of zombies show up to investigate. At least you get a warning with the Scout zombie so you can take her out before she brings her friends to the party. It wouldn't be a bad toggle to have in the UI eventually: Scout Zombies On/Off. Maybe same for Random Hordes. In the mean time I bet there's a modlet out there that removes screamers. Or reduces their spawn frequency. It used to be that when a Scout spawned, the "heat" in the area would drop by 100 (if I remember correctly) and so it would take a while to build back up. Of course if you have a bunch of torches down in your mine or, heaven forbid actually run a forge in the area, then they might spawn almost right away. There is a way to see chunk heat values from the debug system.