Welcome to the Alpha 21 Developer Diary where members of The Fun Pimp staff will occasionally answer questions, post updates of what they are working on, and give us sneak peaks into the future of 7 Days to Die.
This is a focused thread meaning that any off-topic chatter or side conversations not involving a TFP staff member will be moved to an overflow thread in general discussions.
In addition, only Alpha 21 features that have been confirmed will show up in the list below. No longer will planned and hoped-for features be posted until they are actually a reality. This means that even though a developer might talk about their wishes for A21 in the body of the thread, those features will not be listed as official A21 features here until they are confirmed as already implemented.
A21 Release Target Date: June 12 2023
CONFIRMED A21 FEATURES
Places of Interest
100+ New places to explore
additional environmental storytelling in POIs
100s of classic POIs updated to current standards
Many new T5 and T4 POIs
All POI's have a proper name
All trader compounds updated and enhanced
Huge tunnel in Navezgane
Art
Cars, Minivans, Police Cars, trucks, tractors, Fire Engines, Semis, Heavy Machinery, Forklifts
Improved glass shaders
Light emissive color matching
Improved reflections
Many new props for indoor and outdoor
A large variety of Posters and Pictures on walls
New forge model showing upgrades as they are slotted in
New workbench model shows visible indicator that crafting is happening
New signs for trader compounds
Lots of flavor art revealing backstories for the traders
Lots of small pipe variations for decorative purposes
Additional Advanced World Generation Options
Biome Percent Sliders (included in Alpha 20.6)
Option to hide map during advanced generation
Learn By Reading System
23 new skills to govern crafting (photo in gallery below)
23 new magazines added to loot
Perks no longer unlock recipes or govern crafting at all
The only schematics that still unlock recipes are mod attachments.
Crafting skill is increased by finding and reading magazines
Skill increases unlock recipes at certain points as well as increase quality of crafting for items with quality
Each tech level has a separate range in the skill spectrum so that you have to work up through primitive tech and then iron tech and then steel tech and being able to craft a blue stone axe no long means you automatically can also craft a blue iron axe.
Some skills have 100 levels but others have less depending on how many unlocks there are for recipes and quality tiers.
A new skill page showing your progress has been added to the player interface (photo in gallery below)
Skill magazines can be found, bought, and/or received as quest rewards. The topic of the magazine matches the location you would expect to find it in the world.
Perks slightly affect the probability of finding like-themed magazines and parts for those recipes. Perk into shotguns and you will notice more shotgun magazines and shotgun parts appearing in the world. It isn't a significant bonus but it does prevent the player from being screwed over.
When you max out a skill, that slight probability bonus granted by perks for finding the corresponding magazine for that skill drops off. The magazine will still show up randomly in loot but no longer have a boost. The probability boost for finding matching parts will remain.
Interactive Environmental Hazards https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0mgZ9zB9m4
Flaming broken gas pipes blocking the way. A valve to turn off the gas flow is located elsewhere.
Doors
Double Doors
Partially damaged doors with large holes can be shot/meleed through to damage enemies on the other side
hundreds of door variations
Water Simulation
All new water coding--water is no longer a block but a water voxel
Water voxels flow into neighboring voxels that are marked to allow it.
Water can be in the same space as a block
Water does not flow or fall continuously like a river or a waterfall
Player movement in water has been enhanced
Armor -Pushed to A22 with bandits and character models
Drinking Water Rebalance
Murky water is the only water found in loot and water sources.
Empty Glass bottles removed from game to match all the rest of the containers in the game
Dew collector work station added
Players can drink murky water directly from water sources with empty hand by pressing "e".
Drinking murky water causes 5 hp of damage and has a chance to give dysentery
Pot is now required to boil murky water into boiled water
Glue crafting taken into consideration
Spears
Spear damage increased
Spear power attack is a thrust instead of a throw
Throw attack for spears removed
Chunk Reset Option
Default is disabled
Options for days all the way up to 70 days
Chunk resets to its pregenerated state if no player has entered the chunk after the number of days selected.
An active LCB or bedroll will prevent a chunk from resetting.
Trader Changes
New Trader compounds
Trader inventories rebalanced with the new crafting progression
Removal of Secret Stash
Further specialization of traders and what they carry
Electricity Changes
Wires only visible when holding wire cutting tool
Player HUD changes
Danger Meter added to show danger level of biomes and POIs
Crafting Recipe Tracker can be toggled to show on the HUD to help players as they gather materials needed for crafting
When crafting, the player can select on the hud the quality level they would like to craft as long as it is equal to or less than what they've learned.
An armor state indicator to warn when your armor durability is low.
F7 now supports interacting with objects so the entire HUD can be removed for cinematic play.
Perk Rebalancing
Sexual T-Rex removed. Stamina improvement now incorporated into the separate perks for each relevant weapon
Each attribute will get its own version of Flurry of Blows as an additional perk for the melee weapons within that attribute
Grease Monkey now increases the amount of health that repair kits restore to vehicles. (One repair kit no longer restores a vehicle back to max health)
The cooking perk speeds up cooking times
Vehicle Changes
Repair kits restore a fixed amount of health and each level of Grease Monkey adds 10% of the vehicle's total health to the amount restored.
Increased vehicle damage to blocks, terrain, and entities by various amounts.
Increased vehicle damage received from collisions by various amounts
Improved vehicle block collision calculations
Greatly increased damage given and received to and from block collision.
Increased bicycle, gyro, and 4x4 health
Vehicle spark effects on bigger self damage hits
Vehicle blood splatter effects on high damage collisions with entities
Entity Activity Throttling System
Zombie pathing updates less frequently (server-side) based on distance from player
Jiggle components disabled (client-side) based on distance from player
Each player can always have some fully simulated zombies
Helps with large numbers of zombies from Blood Moon & sleeper volumes
New Terrain Tool
Sphere-shaped brush with adjustable size
Grows terrain in all directions instead of just upwards
Can fill space with any block (including non-terrain)
Undo function
Graphics Improvements
Shadows re-enabled on grass, based on quality settings
Quests
New quest type: Infested Clear
Infested quests increase the Tier level of the quest by one level and greatly increase the number of zombies.
T5 infestation quests are therefore considered T6.
ROADMAP TO GOLD AND BEYOND
Bandits
Armor
Weather
Factions & Story
Steam Workshop Support
After Gold a small team will continue to support and update 7 Days to Die going forward. Bandits unlikely to be ready for A21 but should be good for A22.