doughphunghus

I’ve brought this up before (I think in the pimp dreams forum) about basically letting mods attach sounds to blocks (or at least attach sounds to more blocks for POi creators to use, if cannot use mods ). I was thinking of creaking wood, like just a few blocks that would creak, but mostly thinking of clocks ticking creepily into the silence, which is similar to the announcements you mention (just a constant sound coming from a block) but yes! More ambiance, no matter how they do it. I would like tree branches to creak a bit. And It would be super cool if the ambiance could be linked/triggered to the weather, so if it’s super stormy there’s more sounds happening, especially indoors.

@BasicallyACat: I generated a new set of pre-gnerated modlets with my script for a20.b5, and *very very lightly* tested it. it loads without errors, and the zeds appear random and with the health bar modlet they have proper names. but I didn't do a full test by seing if each type can generate. I ran into a bobs boars and a lot of boars moved... slowly... but hard to say if that's just bad luck randomness or not. https://github.com/doughphunghus/7D2D-EntityRandomizer/tree/master/Pre-Generated-Modlets

I forgot I found this. I have not tested it but its based on python and is similar to my original code (as a concept). maybe this can work for you in the interim (which might be awhile for me to make updates): https://github.com/trub64/trubs-variants

If only the PvP servers could be this coordinated . or at *least* a mod where it could be PvP "flying people with swords and bombs vs non flying people with lazers" and then zeds/vultures on top of all of it kinda running around.

If the bandits can do this, that will be a nice touch. basically "they're human so they can navigate right to you". especially if there are wandering bandit hordes or similar so they all come up/into buildings as a gang. it would also be kinda neat if they had helmet/gun/flashlights so you could see them searching and when they got right in front of you the lights kinda blinded you (like a brief debuff) or were hard to look at if in the dark (like real flashlights do when shined in your face) if you weren't wearing the sunglasses. I think they should be able to put down the wooden ladders/stairs/lattice in front of themselves to scale walls to get to you, only breaking doors/blocks when you're sealed in. then those ladders would remain for zeds to get to you unless you broke them down.

Item: So, I'm going to bet you can loot and find things still, so I'm going for something "less likely to find in a day", though also assuming its not "fist day of zombie breakout' where there are people helping others and abundant food, power, etc, but more of 'months or more after breakout' like the game. This means I can probably find knives/blunt weapons, some food/bottled water, fire starters, batteries, flashlights in a few days. so I'm thinking "specialty personal fit/function things" maybe "really nice fitting solid waterproofed durable shoes/boots" or (if clothing for the climate is assumed not an item... I'm not totally naked already) "night vision goggles". However, the "cause" of the zeds is not stated, so if its known: some antivirals (if this is zed protection and its available) or "full medkit" if we don't have a zed cure. Hot Sauce: Tobasco (because the bottle is small/light, you only need a drop for some flavor, you can just eat a drop for the hell of it, and it goes well enough with everything and won't torch my stomach), but yeah its not like anything special Gun: Anything small and light, generic caliber I can find a lot of at that moment (9mm probably) and something easy to load. I'm not very knowledgeable about many types of guns so I'd take whatever I could get and update if needed. its "zombies" so as long as they don't run I'm not sniping them with a gun or carrying anything heavy so small light and quiet, at least for awhile.

Yeah, I haven’t tested mine again since a19, but it may work without much tweaking. The code is … a mess… as I wanted just to see what I could do quickly and how it “looked” in game when they could have many attributes randomized, as well to see if I could actually load thousands of unique zeds and it would work.basically to feel out if it was worth making a better script. I knew Perl was a bad choice but it’s a language I can just code spaghetti in a hurry without thinking.l and it will work. Anyway, I wasn’t sure if anyone was actually going to go the long route and install Perl, and I was hoping to bundle it with docker or something to make it easier… but that’s more work too. Rewriting in python is still possible as most of the basic gotchas are worked out. I was working on trying to randomize (and make it look good) zed clothing or something… but the idea that the UMA zeds may go away after a20 killed the idea for me. Anyway: I’m kinda taking a break from modding as some family things have come up. I have a lot of “todos” and I may revisit this “randomizer script experiment”. The code just reads and randomizes against the vanilla XML, so maybe in a bit I can generate some mods for a20 and do some testing to see if they will “just work” and then no one will have to load Perl and can just load the pre generated set of them. I did want to tweak the lower random speed configs for the animals as some move very slow (too slow) and it looks bad in game.

My best interpretation is: - turning brightness down just dims “everything” in the game. All light sources like torches/lights as well as the sun and the moon. - the “darker nights” tweaks some settings (and I will admit to not knowing exactly what they all are or mean, as I just tinkered with the settings) related to the ambient moonlight. In addition, there are some settings that relate to the “light emitted from the horizon” or maybe “moving the horizon angle?” to block more light from coming out at night. So I guess ultimately it’s blocking or stopping more light from the moon (and sun, at the horizon in the late evening and early morning) from being emitted at all. So lights/torches/etc should still be very “bright” at day and night as would be the sun during the daytime.

I'll try to help a little of what I can: - Icons need to be 116x80, and .png format - To make them look "correct" takes some work, but generally if you make a transparent background, and pay attention to the "size" of the image inside the icon boundary, it will look ok. Meaning: the image in the icon doesn't touch the edges of the icon. just pay attention to the image scaling of the vanilla icon items - I think you may have issues making the icons look "perfect" like the game as they're quite a bit of variation in the games icons. As an example, I think I read on these forums that the "books" are actually art someone made (like a large drawing/painting) and they then photographed it. other things look like they were just drawn (like clothes). Maybe there is a "filter" or process they run images through to make it look "right" but I have not heard of any. - Personally, I used Gimp ( free) and then downloaded images that looked "easy to crop out" (meaning well defined borders of the item I wanted aganst a solid background, or at least a very solid color boundary), cropped images out, scaled them down, then copied them as a new layer into an 116x80 image with a transparent layer, then exported them into 1 ,png image. it can be a lot of work to learn how to do all this, but once you get used to Gimp (or whatever image editor you want to use) it goes faster. the longest part is trying to find a good image and then extract the image out. Personally I try to get images off of "free image" sites, just to not worry about stealing work, and I attribute where I got it from in personal files, in case anyone wants to know the source I can post them or just put them in the mod. - Here's a mod I made that does not have any client icons, just makes a bunch of recipes and new items: https://7daystodiemods.com/sous-chef-of-the-apocalypse/ because there's no new icons (just recoloring vanilla ones), its "server side safe". Then, I made a second mod that adds some text to the end of the modded folder so it sorts alphabetically to load "after" the first one: https://7daystodiemods.com/sous-chef-of-the-apocalypse-client-icons/, that is an example of how to "replace" the icons in a mod that's already loaded (and thus is not server side safe). Anyway, most people (or anyone?) I've seen have not done this but it illustrates a bare mimimum mod to just replace icons with custom ones. and shows the format and folder structure where icons go in a mod. If you look at the icons in my mod (in game and in an image editor) you;ll see how teh blueberry muffin, the mushrooms, the "turkish delight" and the two "scraps" icons don't look good compared to the others, because of coloring and (for the muffin) the size is too big (not enough border between the muffin and the sides), and the "turkish delight" just kinda has no definition and looks like a blob. I didn't fix them because I was tired of making icons . All of them are a little "too big" as well (I should shrink them a little more) but I literally just cropped images of all sizes and scaled them down to fit and it looks "good enough" probably, if you just want to get something working. Notice for the "scraps" icons I just recolored the "broken glass" vanilla icon. you can recolor vanilla icons without making a new icon (its an XML attribute you can use) but I couldn't recolor to these colors so I did it manually and made "new" icons. Also notice I screwed up and some icons are not 116x80, but they work in game ok enough (I need to fix that too) I suggest finding some small mods that have custom icons (and not much else) and just figure out how to make a small mod with custom icons. One I maintain is: https://7daystodiemods.com/awww-nuts/ that adds "nuts and bolts" item (with custom icon) that's needed to craft and repair vanilla items. - Dont use icon images of things that are "super bright" *unless* its "techy" or something. like, having a bright neon red apple does not look like the game looks. most of the colors are kinda muted BUT if its something like a white plastic or ceramic it looks ok. - Dont make icon images too dark, as its hard to see details. The game UI is kinda dark/greyish and the icon locations have a semitransparent background, so anything "black" or dark grey/super dark red gets washed out. This contains more than you're asking for, but some comments indicate tools to use to extract things from the game. Poke around these forums and you'll find some answers likely for how people have done things like this: https://community.7daystodie.com/forum/22-game-modification/ I'm not sure if the block textures are as easy to export as the game icons (I've never messed with blocks much), but it should be doable, but you may need Unity (and the proper version for the game version you have loaded) and some know-how to get to these textures. I think UBAE has been abandoned and may not work anymore for newer versions of Unity built games (probably broke when 7D2D version a19 came out?). that's the last I hard awhile ago, I may be wrong. There's this link in the main Modding forum here, that's pinned at the top. Basically, as long as its "freely available" and you're not making money from it in any way, its OK to use (I believe). Its optional, but its nice if when your mod(s) are completed and working you post a link to your mod in a custom thread in the Mods section (with some explanation/screenshots) for others to download here: https://community.7daystodie.com/forum/27-mods/ . If you do this, it will be picked up automatically (I believe, like in a day?) and loaded into https://7daystodiemods.com. Many modders in Mods have a page they post that they edit and maintain maintain dedicated to just the mods they have made, and to provide some support if there are bugs. If you want you can also post your completed mod link here: Lastly: Here's a good place to start learning how to make XML mods https://community.7daystodie.com/forum/39-tutorials-guides/

I’ve read several posts on these forums about removing blood moon and/or weather effects (flashes of light, storm noises) and possibly the red sky effect and I don’t think anyone has found a way yet. Usually it’s for people who have sensitivities to the flashing storm lights and it’s “you can mod the weather to not have storms, but bloodmoon night is special so maybe skip it with admin commands or logout” so I think bloodmoon is untouchable from normal XML. But I have not tried myself to mod it out. My guess if it’s possible it might have to be a C# mod (or the new modding API)

What is it? Looks like a lifelike “adult Lion-o” from thundercats. Like, if he won all the battles and settled down and opened a small business, then retired early and wishes he were fighting like the old days, but that time has passed and the thunder kittens are gone and grown up with their own families so might as well walk around the fortress a bit and birdwatch.

I was just thinking out loud and writing my thoughts I wasn't making a mod request! This would be nice too. Since starvation is death, have it start burning through your food resources (as the food isn't filling you up as much anymore, its not brains) so you can only sustain a "constant zed-like existence" to get the full power of being partially undead only when you get your food/farming/etc under control. Make it one of those end game goals ( be mostly zed and do whatever you want) but allow it to be used when you think you can (accessible early game, as the vaccine can be looted). I feel "making the vaccine" should be heavily gated or not possible so you can't easily stay a forever 95% zed). I think getting shot should do less damage, but as you "un-zed" yourself, you get more and more of the damage affecting your health. In this way you could, in theory, "become a zed" (not 100% though) and attack other peoples bases as you would be much more bullet proof (like a boss zed), but unable to really shoot guns. It might be fun for people to play against 'live" zeds. But since you are likely to get shot a lot, it will be hard to un-zed yourself, as you'' have to do it a little at a time, constantly fighting the infection and healing it. Maybe if you "die a zed" then you lose your bedroll or land claim or both make it a punishment vs everyone just going full zed. I don't know why I keep writing about this as I'm not going to attempt to make it, it just seems an interesting mechanic if it were do-able. Hopefully someone else will be inspired

That’s true, it is more of a “normal bacterial Infection” , as honey/antibiotics “cure” it, and it’s not “antiviral” meds… but it is a good idea. There are some mods that add “more infections” and I wonder if you could add “zed virus” as a possible debuff, and “antiviral” pills. Then if there were a way for feral sense to be “turned down” or stealth to be “turned up” via the buff, you would have an interesting time as it would be beneficial to have a constant level of “zed infection” going (that you would have to manage) to help protect you from being sensed. There was another mod where if you wore a suit of clothes the zeds would not sense you unless you attacked… so maybe it’s do-able. I feel a debuff to the vision would help balance this. You can’t be sensed easily at high zed infection rate, but you also have tunnel vision/blur/etc making it hard to easily loot/run around. Maybe even throw in low jump height and random stumble/ragdoll (this might have been removed as a callable player effect). It would be useful for to maintain a midrange of infection Vs “oops I let it go too far” and you’re really hobbled.

My best effort, BUT I have not made any sounds in awhile for a20. been busy... For Unity version, if you can't find the "correct" one to use ( like the required, base version. It should be listed somewhere but I don't know where anymore), you can try looking at the games "[install path]/7 Days To Die/7DaysToDie_Data/output_log_client_****.log" for the version of the game you're running (start a game, have it generate a new log). Look for this line near the top of the log (I think I'm running the latest stable a20.x for this line in the log): "Initialize engine version: 2020.3.14f1 (d0d1bb862f9d)" I'm not sure if you can get that exact version of Unity, but get as close as you can without going to a newer version. For the asset bundle exporter script,I'm not 100% sure but it may be in here, though it still says "a19" and when a20 came out I'm not sure if its still working... https://github.com/7D2D/Templates-and-Utilities <- File: "MultiPlatformExportAssetBundles.zip" This might help anything you may have forgotten.

You have to have all the clients also load the same mods with the icons in them. The icons do not sync from the server to the clients

Yes! Take them and keep looking for more honey (tree stumps). If you get near small houses, run in and loot the medicine cabinets. Try to venture out and find another trader while you search. A downside: if you die, if you have drop items on death, your stuff will be far from home. You can carry a bedroll and drop it down just before you die. Then your home/base will be far away when you revive….. but it’s the journey not the destination that’s important?

I’m not sure about resources (for me personally) but I could see this being nice for a few things, like: - Generator/battery bank running low - door/hatch/etc block about to break - there are mods out there (like the beehives/chicken coop) where over time they “populate” with resources. It would “be” kinda nice there. So “having a status marker attached to a block with some status” might be neat to have available, but I’m not sure the vanilla game wold work well as a “default on” option. I personally like not knowing when or what status something is at …. Usually. Just for immersion. but, I could see it being useful to have as an option or at least a moddable thing if it could be attached to blocks, so if you really hated say, mining or looking for eggs you could turn that on, but it would likely have to be “global for everyone” or specific things to perk into like the animal tracker (which has been mentioned). Also: I love options

Seconded! And big big snapping turtles, for “armored” version of land/water creature. With the snakes, thats 3 tiers of new enemy that can just come out of water to get you. It would be “nice” to have stuff in the water to get you, though you’d have to fight it with spears or knives since I think guns don’t work in water. But having some “dangerous swimming water spawns” that would attack in/near water and come out of the water and run you down on land would be great fun. Bonus: Zombie alligators/turtles would explain why there are no fish! And you might get alllgator/turtle hordes if your base is near the water. and it would make “getting water” a bit scary, and give reason to try to make and use the bucket to get lots of water and bring it back to base and store it in a small container/pool/etc.

I’ve heard there will not be, due to a limitation on how many paint colors/scenes/tiles that’s in the game, and I believe it’s related to Unity. you can , however, add in blocks that have new textures as part of the block, or furniture that’s “new” looking. There’s several mods that do this (just listing some, there are more). Note the “decor” and non “blocks” packs usually have doors and windows in them that are “new and clean”: - https://7daystodiemods.com/decor-blocks/ -https://7daystodiemods.com/ztensitys-unnecessarily-beautiful-but-immersive-ubbi - https://7daystodiemods.com/telrics-decoration-pack/ - https://7daystodiemods.com/?s=Terrain

Just wondering..I like having super long arms and being able to upgrade/repair when building with the current distances that are used (like 5-6 blocks?) but it feels a bit … unfair…To be able to repair traps and blocks from such a great distance during horde night. also: same with putting down new blocks: awesome when building, kinda feels bad during horde night. I can see the zeds faces go from happy to sad as I repair things from great distances. I had an entire horde once just give up and shamble away, slower than usual, as I repaired my electric fences from afar. I was like “hey. Hey! Base is open again! I’m delicious! Hello! Hello?” But they faded off into the distance. My words, arms, and heart were sadly not long enough to reach them anymore. So: is there away to shorten tool repair distances? If nothing else it would be nice to have (as example) some variation where stone axe is super short (1 block), hammer a block farther, nail gun another block farther. why? Well, “unfair” is vague but I think if you’re going to have traps/blocks and defenses it would be nice to be somewhat forced to have access panels/tunnels/etc to have to make to get to these traps rather than “I can reach 5 blocks out and repair that blade trap while safe behind this wall/bars/etc. 3 blocks for the nail gun still feels a bit far as you could conceivably be hiding behind bars and “reach across” a halllway and repair a trap on the other side of the wall. Bonus: any way to shrink the distance to open doors/grab zed bags/open containers? I want to be right in front of them to access, not “I opened this stove while in the doorway so I didn’t wake the zeds”. I actually saw a tear running down a zeds face as he stood there, unable to move, as I quietly looted nearby. They try so hard. They deserve better.

I’m not super sure but you might want to remove (maybe) the top xml line (with the XML version declaration) and then put an xml tag at the top and a closed version of that same tag bottom of the file (you can name it whatever you want). Basically wrapping your entire items.xml in another layer of tag. If adding the tags at the top and bottom work, then see if you can put back the XML declaration. I know it’s likely “correct” to have that declaration, but not sure for mods in this game Like: top of file: <sometag> bottom of file: </sometag> Usually people put their forum name in these tags or use <config> and </config>

@dwarfmaster1974 - thanks for the input and the xml! I’ll check it out when I can (likely tonight) and merge your changes in if it tests well (it should, unless there’s something there that conflicts with something. I try to have most of my mods all able to load up together with no errors/warnings). you are doing some “removal” of elements so I might see if I can just do overwrite/append as that’s more likely to play well if this mod is loaded with other mods (it seems), and is a bit easier to manage sometimes when the game updates and if the XML for this element changes but having the full XML is very helpful. im also not sure if I purposefully chose left for any reason or just did out of habit for formatting possible long text, but your screenshot shows a long name fits well

I guess I’ll just settle for being able to ride my boat and shoot zeds on the shore as I fly off a flowing waterfall into the rippling whitecaps below. I do hope that “water is used up as you take from it” stays in some form just so you can’t use 1 water block at your base forever. If it has the capacity to “flow” downhill at all I would be elated, even if it accidentally floods a town it would still be neat. I really like it when there’s “something underwater to swim to” like a chest (there’s a desert mine? POI that uses this) and it’s not used a lot but if it flowed then it might make a nice use of “traps” (like underground) to catch the player and make them have to move fast/backpedal as a room fills up. I might have asked this before but is there any possibility or ideas to have “red” (or any nastier looking) water blocks? I could see this useful for POI builders

Ahh. I was thinking like “catapult” and other things like that. If using normal in game weapons is allowed, then you can mod the rocket launcher rockets to shoot rockets that “do a lot of damage” to blocks.Most of the explosives in the game, except TNT, don’t damage blocks much, I assume so you can use them against zeds and not blow up your base. So all you would need to do is crank up the block damage. I made an unpublished mod for the rocket launcher where I was messing with it and basically could take out an entire side of a Small POI with one shot, which was enough to “gain entrance” and make big holes in the ground. If you shot it into a window and it went off inside a POI it would hollow it out quite a bit. Anyway… The rocket launcher, arrows, pipe bombs, tnt, and grenades all have “non linear” shooting/throwing so they feel “more siege like” than the linear (no bullet drop by gravity) ammo/darts. What’s nice about the ones affected by gravity is you can add more “gravity” to them so they fly “heavy” meaning ypu have to point “up” quite a bit to make them go far (so you can’t easily aim.. which is kinda fun with something that powerful in game). For “damage” yeah you have to increase the block damage a lot on them from vanilla. There’s 2 “damage” settings: one for “entities” like zeds/players, and another for blocks. You can also define a “radius”, which bigger/heavier explosion feels nice to have large radius i Have a mod someone else wrote called “hand grenade of Antioch” which you can throw super far but it does massive block damage. Like, so much it causes FPS drops (I lowered from the original setting so now it feels like it’s as big a boom as you likely want in a normal game). It’s fun. I have another one for pipe bombs that all “throw a little different” and some do actual damage to blocks. I had to turn it down as originally I made the “steel” ones hard to throw far with a large radius, so it was easy to blow yourself up. Anyway, these mods might give you an idea how to modify something like arrows/rocket launcher ammo to make it “siege like”, as well as some of the settings/values used: https://7daystodiemods.com/more-pipe-bombs/ https://7daystodiemods.com/the-holy-hand-grenade-of-antioch/

I think I saw a video/post/something?a long time ago From @Guppycur about trying to make a “catapult” trap that would fling zeds far away and I think there were issues with doing that, like the physics was weird or it didn’t always work. Not exactly a “siege weapon” but kinda more of a “can the blocks launch a large object through the air” and the object being a zed. There was also some videos from jawoodle a long time ago where he made “big tubes” of blocks (like a 4x4 with hollow center, and 10+ blocks tall box) and put zed in it and basically had a little chute leading to the bottom to throw unlit grenades into, then throw a lit one in. The explosion threw zeds very far into the air. He also had one where they were thrown into a pachinko like machine… I think or maybe just a target. It was pre covid I think. anyway: zeds can be thrown around but I haven’t seen anyone “throw a block” like a barrel or a concrete shape to be “siege like”. It would make some sense this could be done as singular blocks can fall as debris, but you would need a block that doesn’t “stick” to anything when set down, so it could be thrown by something like an explosion/cannon. And I would assume you would want that block to explode on contact. Maybe you could somehow make an exploding chicken (small entity like a zed) with low health or on a timer so when launched/thrown via grenade cannon it detonates on impact (like a damaged cop blowing up) or just runs around for 10 seconds before self detonation like a small demolisher?