zztong

Really? I assumed it drained gasoline faster. So, if it makes me hungrier, does it not drain gasoline faster?

Yes, the new Gateway Tiles and the roads have me really excited about RWG.

Chunk resets, if enabled, will regenerate nests in any chunk that gets reset.

Which POI? I wonder if they used the terrainFiller block or something more specific.

Release A21.0-ZZ015 is now available. Converted to A21 3 New Gateway Tiles. All POIs updated to use new blocks. Some POI improvements. Note: Starting with this release, there's a dependency on the "Custom Blocks Pack" modlet which comes bundled with this modlet. You have to install both. Note 2: The Teragon properties file has been updated, but please keep in mind Teragon does not yet have support for A21, so if you're planning to use Teragon's A20 version you need to know what you're doing and be willing to look under the hood at your maps.

I have a question about HEAT. Do zombies home in and target sources of HEAT? That is, if you leave a source of HEAT in the open, will the zombies attack it if they cannot find the player? I've known HEAT wasn't actually heat for some time, so I don't mind the Dew Collector addition, though I wasn't expecting it. Given the response, I'm wondering if anyone has considered HEAT from Farming Plots and Writable Storage Boxes. 😅

I work at a University. A close friend of mine also works for the University. He's a biologist with lots of animal experience and lab experience. He gets the calls when there are varmints the most notable on campus being: mice, feral cats, bats, squirrels, fox, skunk, deer, and raccoon. I often tag along on his calls since we both have jobs where we visit all sorts of obscure places and we sometimes handle a call when we're out to lunch together. He tells me about a problem. Something has been making a mess of things in an office. The usual suspect is a squirrel. He puts a live trap up in the drop ceiling. When he does that, he has to check on the trap every day. But this time he gets a call from the office. Something in the ceiling is making a heck of a racket. He responds immediately. He trapped a large raccoon, in the cage, in the drop ceiling. If you know raccoons, they're both strong and able to manipulate things. He arrives to find the raccoon, still in the cage, tearing the hell out of the ceiling tile. The ceiling tile is already buckling a little under the weight and the more damage the raccoon inflicts the more likely it's going to fail dropping the cage onto a desk and probably breaking the cage open. The cage is kind of balanced in a growing hole, and he's got to quickly figure out how to get the cage down with a large, heavy, upset raccoon inside. He needed a ladder, heavy gloves, and luckily the tile held. At least it wasn't a skunk. He'd have been screwed then as to trap a skunk you put the cage inside a garbage bag. He's got lots of tales. I'm usually not present for the good ones. Some of my favorite stories are the squirrels that latrine on a professor's desk. (She thought it was students peeing on her stuff.) He's knocked a flying bat out of the air with his hand. (That's a feat!) He's currently trying to figure out how to trap a squirrel that lives in a food warehouse. The major complication is what do you bait the trap with -- food. It's a warehouse full of food. Thus, it's a warehouse full of bait. Ah, good times. Tagging others that had interest: @NolanStaark, @stallionsden

Agreed. Loot locations is the real issue, not building. I'm of mixed feelings about nerd polling. I don't do it to instantly avoid danger, so I wouldn't miss that, but I think so many people use it that they would make the "water jars" revolt look small. At this point, people jumping up onto cubes is, to me, a 7D2D genre convention, like zombies standing on ceiling tiles or hiding in armoires. But if you wanted to "solve it", I think there might be some neat options.

I noticed that too, but then I spent yesterday generating a dozen worlds or to so to test things, and a few times I started near something more substantial, with the highlight being starting next to Red Mesa. That had me thinking, an experienced player might go there immediately, and more power to them. A player new to the game might go there immediately and that's not really a good idea. That's when the idea hit me. And, as I was writing it up, it struck me knowing a certain kind of POI might be right there, you might get more options for the starting quest.

I tend to agree. And, along with that, the ability for players to prepare for, and overcome, obstacles and complications. I could see other ways to deal with frames, if that really is considered a problem: What if frames were automatically destroyed if the block below them were destroyed? Perhaps frames would only have one point of health? What if frames were insubstantial? That is, you didn't spend a little wood making a frame. You would 3D design in "ghost" shapes and then have to construct the block to get a truly material block.

I've thought about this variant a few times. I thought "7 Days to Live" as a prequel. The world starts out with vague reports of zombies and the player is one of the very few who starts to take it serious. There are reasons to engage with civilization -- buy things -- but civilization is also the source of disease and going through checkpoints is going to eat up your time. Civilization devolves into panic, looting, then the mass of infected, the mass of zombies, a military response ... and if you live, launch 7D2D. I doubt it would be a voxel/blocks game though.

Right now, RWG places spawn points on a map. Has anyone considered instead of using map spawn points, a character starts some short distance from a Tier 1 Wilderness POI? That, or maybe we come up with some POI specification for a Tier 0 POI with a "spawnpoint" Tag? The spec might list certain things to find there, no more than 4 zombies, etc. If you wanted, a player a could perhaps find the starting gear there, instead of starting with it in their inventory.

Ah, my apologies. I have experienced this. I've also experienced normal zombie volumes not spawning zombies in places where I encounter them. So, yeh, I can end up running around a POI making lots of noise trying to get it to reveal itself. The "hints" feature is supposed to help there, but sometimes there's too many unfound volumes, like two volumes when the hint is set to kick in with 1 remaining.

I get it. As a stealth player too, I have similar sympathies. I want things to make sense too, even if I have to learn some "game reality." I like stealth as a style of play and found the Feral Sense feature to be too much. I don't mind being caught in circumstances. Using Feral Sense as an example, I'd think it would be cool if the amount of Feral Sense went along with how foggy the weather was or perhaps the phase of the moon. Just crossing a threshold into a zombie volume isn't what I have in mind. But that is a tool in the POI designer's bag of tricks. Where I think we're learning is what works and what doesn't across the player base. Some players love extreme challenges, others don't. Stealth players might be more into a kind of puzzle. I generally feel good when I can stealth 80% of a POI and I appreciate it more if I had to work at it. I don't mind being able to "crouch and go" my way through a place, but I like it better if I know I have to take extra care to avoid the lights, anticipate an ambush, etc. A POI where I'm constantly having a mini-horde jump out at me means the best tactic is bringing a friend or two. I've got a POI in mind to design maybe this week. It's a small place. Once you get to the end, I'd like to experiment with having zombies "show up" outside, as if they have wandered in. I can do this by activating volumes outside of the place when you get to the final room. What I'm not sure about is if they will know where you are. I need to experiment with it. I don't really want them to come charging into the building after you, but I think it would be neat for the player to think "uh oh, I'm surrounded." I know some designers have talked about "well maybe the zombies are in the air ducts and you missed them as you went through." I get the design idea. I think I'd also like a chance to detect and deal with them. Please, keep talking this stuff out. I know POI designers are reading these threads.

Yes, kind of like being hooked on Conan books, Harlequin romance novels, or in my case 20+ seasons of Law & Order. I think of it as part of the 7D2D genre. While it probably makes more sense that people unknowingly got infected, hid in an armoire, and then transformed, I think it it more entertaining to think that zombies draw comfort from hanging out in furniture. Put that on the list with zombies who hide in ceilings or there still being electricity in houses.

The "gutter" can be fixed in the Prefab Editor only. Make a selection of the blocks next to the terrain filler, then CNTRL-UP, or just UP to go one step at a time. DOWN makes more of a gutter, but those are also used when smoothing a hill, or otherwise manipulating terrain.

I started by watching Genosis' A19 videos about the Prefab Editor. They're still (mostly) good, though there's a bit more involved with getting a POI placed into the world since A20 so the last video in the series is out of date and the Prefab editor menus are a little different. I'd say with those videos and 8 hours of experimentation and persistence, you'd have a basic small house and be on your way to figuring out the technical aspects of POI design, of which there's a surprising number of details to know. The community could talk you through the rest. (More on them later.) But the "looking good" part of the POI biz I can only partially answer. The "artistic" aspect isn't something I've ever studied. I've spent time looking through TFP's work with an eye towards mimicry, tempered by my own goals. I can lay out things I've noticed despite my own ignorance in things I'd label as "artistic composition" and "architecture", from which I think the TFP design team draws upon, in addition to researching real-life subjects. But I'm speculating on their background and process. What I've noticed is clutter and damage are used to break up lengths of "sameness." At first I'd just depend on the texture of a brick wall to represent a brick wall. Then I noticed TFP used damage to break up the wall. I'll go there some now, but I kind of have a different notion of how buildings get damaged, so I don't take it to the same extent they do, plus I see myself in the "volume" business and they as in the "quality" business. Other designers, like @KatsPurr are much closer to TFP's quality. Clutter, on the other hand, is something I use more and more, and I can't learn enough about it from TFP's work. They can be really creative. Why is sameness bad? I don't really know, but I cannot usually deny the results other than to occasionally quibble about what the damage or clutter is. The other thing I think comes into play here is knowing your toolkit and that only comes with time. There's a giant pile of blocks available to you now. I've got something like 3,500+ hours with 7D2D and I'll bet half are with the Prefab Editor. There are still things I find on TFP's POIs that turn out to be blocks I'd never knew existed. There's some clever downtown graffiti, for instance, that is some impressive "block stacking." Then there's design vs reality compromises that tear at me all the time. For instance, TFP likes to hide zombies above ceiling tiles. At first, I considered that silly. Well, okay, I still do. But I recognize it now as a 7D2D "genre convention." In Navezgane, ceiling tiles are very strong, where as in real life, I happen to know a ceiling tile will barely hold the weight of a full grown raccoon. (That's a story for another time.) Another example here is the height of walls. My living room has 8 foot ceilings, which is 2 blocks (~2 meters). You can't place windows and pictures on a wall that short. So what is the best choice for wall height? 3 blocks gets you small windows and vertically centered pictures. 4 blocks? 5 blocks? What if you want space above a raised ceiling? 6 blocks? 7 blocks? That's a 14 meter tall floor and 14 feet would be tall. I've not yet fired up 7D2D in VR, but I'm really curious how POIs will look. There are also game performance issues to weigh. Things like lighting and shadows can cause performance issues. Water has had quirks. With A21 water "blocks" now have different quirks. Big builds have to worry about triangles and vertices. Some objects are much heavier than others. If somebody were to make a large auto auction, for instance, they'd likely be surprised how many tris/verts a car has. This makes POI design its own kind of architecture, where you have to balance many aspects of "construction" with your vision. So let me conclude this essay with some simple advice: Get in there and start swinging. If you find you like it, stick with it. Don't give up too early. Use the Prefab Editor. Building in-game is building with one hand tied behind your back, even with the creative menu. Keep your projects small. You know your own house well. Make it first. Find the community of builders and trade ideas and information. (CompoPack's Discord #prefabbers_hangout) I hope other designers comment -- @Deverezieaux, @stallionsden, @MichaelL., @Laz Man and others who's forum handles I don't know. Don't take my omission of your handle as a slight.

Backup your A20 saved game. That gives you lots of options. Right now, A20 is the default. A21 is only for those who opt-in to the experimental release. That will change in a bit, but I don't know when. When it does change, you can always revert back to A20 and pull your POI out of the saved game. Or, you could just export it now. Once you do, it will require some conversion to get it into A21, but that's not terrible.

I kind of concur. I'm not sure what's intended or what the root causes are, but I was awarded a Workbench and Chem Station by Traders for moving from tier 2 to 3 quests and then tier 3 to 4 quests. I still can't make gas, but I can't yet make a vehicle to use gas. IIRC I'm level 31. I'm kind of okay with the slower progression, but I'm also ready to pull up stakes and move to a city in the Snow biome. I'm used to being mobile with a motorcycle, not a bicycle, but maybe this is an acceptable new reality?

Yes! I like hordes in the open. Try it with a bow. It's pretty cool. Run-n-Gun, baby. Run-n-Gun.

All POIs have been updated to A21. Testing of the modlet is in progress and I'm considering a little bit of new content depending on what worlds look like. I suspect more Country Tiles are needed for RWG. I feel like I'm on track to release something maybe over the July 4th weekend.Todos los puntos de interés se han actualizado a A21. La prueba del modlet está en progreso y estoy considerando un poco de contenido nuevo dependiendo de cómo se vean los mundos. Sospecho que se necesitan más Country Tiles para RWG. Siento que estoy en camino de lanzar algo tal vez durante el fin de semana del 4 de julio.Traducido por Google

The new commercial double doors block could be opened with a variant of the J Tool. The gap between the doors is not protected and there are no other latches to lock the door to the frame or the floor. Without those latches you might just be able to pull on both doors from the bottom and get them to open. A regular J Tool would spin the deadbolt or you can pull on the crashbar, depending on whichever direction or variant of those doors you face.

There was a smaller warehouse I did today -- I don't recall the name -- but it had some Z's spawn behind me. They were behind a strong door that I didn't pry open, but it opened on a trigger. To your point, it had me thinking maybe I need to be leaving spikes behind me. Yet I still want to have an egress. Then I thought maybe putting spikes against untrusted doors when it comes to approaching a final encounter.

I've had a few weekends to play A21 and a number of the new POIs through Tier 4. I had a pretty good time in the OPS Distribution Center. (I think that's the name.) Before that was a "Hogzilla" POI. I've been "double dipping" them so the first time I was more likely to fall for tricks and the second time I was somewhat informed, though sleepers don't always spawn in the same locations, so it can be still a bit of a mystery. In A20 I'd say 80% of the zombie volumes could be handled via stealth and of those that couldn't, the encounter was usually mild enough that switching from bow to club was more than enough to cope. The revised Crack-A-Book (Tier 5) could be cleared 100% with stealth. My second pass through OPS Dist Center (Tier 4) today was pretty satisfying with stealth, but the first pass had some surprise moments. I can see why folks aren't happy. Again, most of the surprise activations weren't a major complication, but the final encounter got me into a running gun battle and a significant injury. I can get too confident and that can set me up. It did in this case. You can't always just "crouch and go." Sometimes you have to control your movements to keep the stealth meter low. In the second pass through I cleared the final encounter entirely with stealth and without destroying part (walls) of the environment to give me shots. This was AGL 5, and 3 Perks towards sneaking and stealth damage, all cloth armor, primitive bow 6 with 4 mods. I even took a screenshot while standing amongst the final loot with bow aimed toward the last zombie. I was super cautious in that approach, using single steps to keep the stealth meter around 1, rather than an extended "crouch and go" stealth walk with a stealth meter around 8. I kept my distance, clearing out boxes to give me good angles to shoot. Hogzilla has a couple of spots I don't know if I can stealth. There's a pair of zombies that have a "rear slope" position up in the ceiling and they activate when you enter the room. I think there's 1-2 more Zeds in that room that activate. Here I feel a little cheated, but it isn't a huge deal as I have a way to withdraw and trade space for damage. I've heard other POI designers talk about the clever things they can do with new volume options. I've had my concerns that making zombies appear behind people in areas previously cleared are likely to be unpopular. In some cases, designers are trying to suggest zombies wandered in behind the player. I see some merit in that. The thing is players aren't going to get a chance to see the designer placed the zombies by the doors, by the air vents, or wherever they were supposed to come from. Players are just going to know there's a big ruckus behind them. Plus, players are used to zombies stumbling around outside the POI. We can hear them. They're kind of fun when they detect you and "add" themselves to the situation because they'll do neat things like tear a hole in wall for you. I mean, I like exits from buildings and I'm happy to loot and look around why a zombie makes one. I guess I'm rambling here. The ideal stealth experience is a matter of individual taste. Designers have some new tools. I think with details and feedback, a happy medium is possible, but I think A21's new tools can be taken too far. I don't think a POI has to be 100% doable with stealth. I do appreciate the POIs that make me think and take my time, presenting a stealth puzzle. It isn't the most efficient way to level, but I find it fun.

The irony after spending 3 minutes banging my way into a Tier 4 locked chest with an iron pick is that it contained 5 lockpicks. Once my mining goes up and I put some mods on this pick that time will get a lot shorter.