zztong

Ah, thanks. I guess that gives you more biome tiles to reach the desired percentages requested by the user and as a result the biomes on a map might not be as obviously blocky. Oh, that's excellent. I missed the burnt forest enough that I made a small one manually on a custom Gateway Tile. There had been a few times I'd painted that biome back onto a map in a world's biomes file just to have it around. Something that just occurred to me to ask is that if Stamps in modlets were going to be supported again? I have a couple of stamps in my modlet and they don't seem to get used in A21. The feature worked for a couple of different types of stamps in A20, though other types threw exceptions.

I'll take this conversation as an opportunity to express if I thought RWG had a gap, it is when dealing with an overabundance of Tiles. The bias/weight system I think handles an overabundance of POIs, but bias/weight does not affect Tiles. Thus, when RWG is given a large selection of Tiles for a specific District, it doesn't take into account how many times it has previously used each Tile.

I could be wrong, but I believe RWG's "bias and weight" feature should accomplish similar if you don't mess around with them to much. It will also prioritize placement of higher tiers over lower tiers, keeping your lower tiers from filling up all the space. This is handy because there are fewer higher tier POIs and people hate maps that are short on higher tier content.

You might say that, but I would phrase it otherwise. The process of random world generation is capable of much more randomization, but the amount of material available to it to use is limited. For example, the Vanilla game comes with 47 Tiles, essentially 1 of each type (with few exceptions). If RWG needs a "Country Residential Corner" tile, you're getting "rwg_tile_countryresidential_corner" for certain because that's the only choice available to RWG. Assume you're making a Vanilla 8k map ... RWG might use that tile 12 times. That means the little garage on that Tile appears in your world 12 times. That Tile also demands some POIs be placed... So for that tile, RWG has to try to find 4 POIs of size Extra Small (25x25) as well as 7 POIs of size Small (42x42) that are tagged as "countryresidential" to put onto that Tile. If that Tile appears 12 times on your map, then RWG needs 48 XS POIs and 84 S POIs that are tagged as "countryresidential." The game only comes with 62 POIs that have that tag, and some of those probably aren't either of those sizes. You can either have duplicates or empty lots in your Country Town. RWG will use duplicates. Again, assuming you're talking about an 8k map -- If you want to eliminate duplicate Tiles, then you probably need 12 more Country Residential Corner Tiles. If you want to eliminate duplicate POIs in the Country Residential district, then you probably need around another 80 POIs just for Country Residential. I feel for you. I looked to world generation starting in A19 and concluded the biggest need was world variety and that numbers of POIs was the answer. Then in A20 with the advent of Tiles, I concluded Tiles and POIs was the answer. That's driven the development of my collection of Tiles and POIs -- numbers. Try to keep the quality at an average level, and address the numbers. The numbers are staggering. I doubt we ever reach having enough Tiles and POIs for an 8k world to be completely unique. Throw in the CompoPack if you really want to attack variety as that's something like 2,500 POIs. It still won't be enough. You either need to thin out the number of cities and wilderness POIs, shrink the map, perhaps both, or start cranking out the content. For reference, counting the number of POIs with a "countryresidential" tag: zztong@ZZMonolith:~/7dData/Prefabs/POIs$ grep "name=\"Tags\"" *.xml | grep "countryresidential" | wc -l 62

What does this mean? I'm confused by the word "tiles" as that is also an element to city building, basically 150x150 POI-like things. RWG had been dividing up the world into 150x150 plots for some gain. These "biome tiles" sound like something other than that...? What's the new size? That is, I get it is X/4, but I don't know what X was and I suspect 150/4=37.5 makes no sense...?

Assuming you're talking about using just Vanilla content... You could maybe do 1 City, 1 Country Town, 1 Western Town but you still might run short of houses for Residential in the City. In the Wilderness you could spread everything out. I think you'd have to place everything by hand. It's a question of math. For each City, you have some number of Districts. For each District, you have some number of Tiles. For each Tile, there are certain POI markers to fill depending on the specific Tile. There aren't enough Tiles to avoid repeating those, so you're going to get some repeating Tile content. It's amazing how thin POIs can get when you subdivide them into Districts and Sizes that make them eligible to be on Tiles. If you start adding custom POIs you can begin to alleviate the repetition, but you're going to need lots and lots of POIs and Tiles to fill an 8k map with entirely unique content. I suspect Vanilla plus The Community hasn't made enough POIs yet to do that. (And The Community has made lots and lots of POIs.) Traders are easy to make unique. There's usually 10 of them. Trim the map back to 5 traders and they're unique.

Agreed. There's also no reason for a Dew Collector to need a filter. It should collect murky water. I'd also argue a Chemistry Set doesn't need a filter for a water recipe as it probably includes a way to distill water. The game is off in its own water reality that borrows a little from actual reality.

True, we are short on technology gadgets as placeable salvage. I have a number of portable battery units that recharge off of solar panels. They have lights, making them kind of the modern equivalent of a lantern, but with outlets that recharge tools, computers, and phones, power radios, whatever. Then there's the equivalent for a house, like a Power Wall, for example. Regarding EVs, they're easily mixed up with gasoline powered vehicles in appearance. It's the trappings that go along with EVs that I miss and some projection towards how things might be in 2033. My own EV is 11 years old. I charge it in my garage, but there's no charger block nor any good generic block and texture to use to make a home charger. There are no public charger blocks. Those things are in my city today. The solar panels in the game look dated. Away from appearances, rigging up a small windmill to recharge batteries that power an EV is far more believable than a player refining gasoline from oil shale. For that matter, distilling methyl or ethyl alcohol to make fuel for an engine makes more sense for using a gasoline/diesel engine along with some mechanic skill to make the vehicle conversion.

Yes, I look at the world and see a lack of renewable energies, electric vehicles, etc. -- less so than I see in real world 2024. But the game is an alternative history, so for whatever reason the 7D2D world is 2010 in the year 2033.

With a normal sleeper, you see them standing there. When they awaken they become active and you see their animations. With a "casket sleeper", I think you'd see a casket. When the sleeper awakened (like normal or if the casket took damage), the game would replace the casket with an open casket and place an active sleeper appropriate for the volume. Backing up a little, when the game decides to populate a zombie volume, it selects which sleepers to place. If some of the possible sleepers are "casket sleepers", then if they get selected the casket would appear closed because it is full of a sleeper. If the "casket sleeper" wasn't selected, the game could choose between an open casket or a closed but empty casket.

Sleepers are a block. They get placed when their zombie volume gets activated. I think it would be cool if there were sleepers that looked like other objects, from which the sleeper would emerge. A couple of us were talking on Discord today that it would be cool if a zombie could emerge from a closed casket. I think a zombie emerging from dirt would be cool. Right now we build armoires around sleepers, but we could have a armoire from which a sleeper emerged that didn't require surrounding the sleeper. You could maybe have a sleeper get out of a car, or pile out of the military truck.

Agreed. I believe I suggested (once upon a time) a variant that resembled the store signs like "Pop-n-Pills", "Shotgun Messiah", and so forth, but without any logo. The other thing that goes with a suggestion like this is that the text a POI creator puts on the sign should not get deleted when a POI is converted to a new version of the game, which is a problem with the current writable player signs.

RimWorld as well. I'd like to think 7D2D might get there when they turn their attention to Steam Workshop integration.

I would say: The Farming where the seeds stay planted. (I put that back with a modlet.) Carrying water from water sources. (I put that back with a modlet.) Some old versions of POIs. (I add them back with a modlet, but keep the updated ones of course.) Generally speaking, everything I miss is still possible. There are some old RWG outcomes that I would appreciate having as an option: Custom stamps had promise but they didn't all work and don't seem to work at all right now. A single central city does sound appealing. I'd probably rather be able to specify exact numbers of cities, towns, country towns, western towns, rather than the vague "few, default, many" choices.

I added a recipe that lets me craft an "Unfiltered Dew Collector" that produces Murky Water. There's a recipe to add a filter later if you want to get a regular Dew Collector. These are in addition to letting me carry Murky Water away from a water source like a lake or river.

I have noticed this trend. While playing, I craft stone tools and Q1 padded armor at the beginning, but after that I just use whatever I find. The things I regularly craft are consumables, food, medicine, ammo, fuel, repair kits, seeds if I'm ready to farm, and a motorcycle or 4x4 if I cannot buy one. I might craft armor or weapon mods on occasion. But, I think to your point, I very rarely craft weapons, tools, or armor. My crafting ability usually advance at the same rate loot quality advances. I might make a Q5 top tier item instead of waiting for a Q6 to drop -- this frequently happens with military stealth boots. I vaguely recall a suggestion about typing the ability to repair an item to crafting ability. I think that might be neat, if the highest level you could repair was one level higher than you could craft, so that you could maintain a Q6 item.

That's pretty easy to arrange. One of the world files has a list of spawn points. Edit the file and delete all but one of them. It would be cool if they'd make that an RWG option to control the number of spawn points.

If you're using ZZTong-Prefabs, you might be suffering from a bug in my biomes.xml file. I just released an update that fixes that, but you'd probably need to generate a new world.

I'd love to see Ivy that we could place on buildings and even let people climb it, but there's no vanilla block for that. If you made a custom block, then you could start to add it to custom POIs.

You count the number of little red skulls on the danger meter. Ignore the orange skulls because they're telling you about the biome difficulty. No little red skulls? That's a tier 0. Oh wait, DF ... Darkness Falls ... I have no idea. Did they remove the danger meter?

A21.2-ZZ020 has been released. It contains only a bug fix for biomes.xml. There is no new content. I've been wasting away in Margaritaville. There are no zombies here, but I've run out of sponge cake.

I wish I could use Stealth while climbing a ladder. By comparison, I can jump in Stealth. I can knock a hole in the ceiling and build an entire staircase in Stealth. Why can't I climb a ladder quietly?

My apologies. The pressures of life and time sometimes lead me to skim too quickly and it seems I overlooked something. Overall though, I don't see thirst and disease so much as a big system with intricate choices, but as a source of complications and little choices that affect your planning and ability to take on larger challenges. If you are not hydrated, exploring a POI should be more difficult. I think it's safe to say 7D2D hangs out in that space. My interests are a bit more complication for thirst and for moving some of that functionality from the POIs-Traders-Quest loop to what I consider to be a more natural and semi-realistic activity. I know pure realism isn't the goal, but nods in that direction are appreciated. Farming is another activity that I think could benefit from being extracted from the POIs-Traders-Quest loop. I think foraging for seeds might be better done in the Wilderness, providing a reason for players to leave the city. Currently, I've got lots of seeds well before I'm ready to start a farm because they come to me as loot in POIs. I can come away from an office building with blueberry and pumpkin seeds, with nitrate, brains and dirt -- everything it takes to start a farm. It strikes me as odd. Not bad play. Just odd. My thinking is the complication of having to go to the Wilderness be a welcomed alternative to POIs-Traders-Quests. It would be variety.

I don't recall it being hard once you learned the recipe.I don't recall having to search for a location where water was supported. The resources weren't likely to be something you just happened to be carrying unless you had wandered out with the intention of immediately building a well at your new location. It's been a while since I played it. (There's a story built into the game, so to me it was a great game but I don't want to play it again since I know the story.) My recollection is that it is very similar to 7D2D in that you have a Water Collector or boiled. I think they use "water skins" instead of bottles. You can find cans of soda or alcohol around the island, usually at airplane crash locations. Would you say 7D2D has water because it desires time wasting micro management for realism sake? I don't mind returning to base in either game. I wouldn't say either The Forest or 7D2D has water consumption and scarcity that requires planning to travel outside of the early game when you need to be getting your feet under you, so to speak. [Empyrion] I would agree with that. If you start on the lush easy planet, food grows all around you and you can breath the atmosphere. You need water to make oxygen so that you can leave the planet, but that will be a mid-game thing. If you just wanted to live on that planet, you'd never need oxygen. Indeed, I've had games where I got bored and quit playing right after having just cleared the starter planet of hostile POIs and maybe only needed a couple of tanks of oxygen to get into orbit to harvest a rare mineral/metal. If you start on a moon with no atmosphere, you'll only have your starting supplies and what you might loot from hostile POIs. If you run out of oxygen, you're dead. There will be no other way to harvest it. You better be cobbling together a small space craft from the ruins of your crashed ship to get off that rock. [Murky Water (12% dysentery) > Purified Water (3% dysentery) > Potable Water] Well it could be made deeper. To me, that's the approach that is most consistent with what 7D2D currently offers. To be more of a simulation you'd have to BOTH filter and purify (boil) water and that would introduce more states of water to be managed. I don't know that would help. To me, the significant change is the threat of dysentery continues on into the game longer (but at a lower chance) until you get a Chemistry Set and can finally do a complete job of making potable water. I can agree with that. The choices, in my opinion, aren't in water production itself, but the ramifications of having to provide water for yourself, the effort involved, and the point at which you can produce Potable Water -- the exact decisions that 7D2D involves with water currently -- but with one complication. You don't solve water scarcity by questing. An expanded comparison: * In 7D2D, Potable Water is solved by a Campfire and a Cooking Pot. * In what I described, Potable Water is solved by a Chemistry Station. A Campfire/Cooking Pot lets you lower the risk of dysentery, but not eliminate it. * In 7D2D, Murky Water is found in loot, sold a traders, and sold in vending machines. Because loot is in POIs, doing quests generates value to sell and resources to use including water. Questing is an efficient use of your time. * In what I described, Murky Water is found in lakes and rivers, vending machines are empty. Solving water scarcity is a chore that cannot be accomplished entirely by questing. The big choice is to quest or do chores. Traders would be an interesting topic about if they should be selling water of buying it. That depends on the world being created, I guess. * In 7D2D, Traders sell Water Filters that let you make Dew Collectors and Dew Collectors produce Potable Water. * In what I described, Dew Collector don't need a filter and produce Murky Water. * In 7D2D, you can build a base anywhere and locate your Dew Collectors there. * In what I described, you can still base anywhere and use Dew Collectors, but you could also choose to build near a water source and not use Dew Collectors. Overall, with 7D2D, If we can plunk down a Dew Collector anywhere on Day 2-3, then there are no further decisions. And, if I can have 3 Dew Collectors, then I effectively have infinite water. (Assumes my play style.)

I played a lot of Empyrion before switching to 7D2D. I don't remember thirst being part of it, though there was water as a source of oxygen. Am I misremembering? The same was true for Space Engineers, but in Ice form. (Trivia: I don't recall Space Engineers having hunger or thirst, but Medieval Engineers had hunger where recipes that made liquids were treated as food.) I can confirm The Forest, Conan Exiles, The Long Dark, and Raft (yuch) had thirst. I've played Medieval Dynasty but don't really remember it. Yes... In Conan Exiles you must spend the early game in a river valley where there's lots of fresh water. But if you want to migrate to more hostile lands with next tier resources you will have to either continue to run back to the river valley or learn to build a well. You can go out and explore, but you'll need to use your inventory to carry water. I don't recall food or water being a major complication in The Forest, but it also wasn't a huge map and I could always get back to my base and refresh without a lot of complications. In Raft, I found hunger and thirst to be overdone and super frustrating. I played with a group of three other friends and I would dedicate myself to protecting the raft and harvesting food/water while the other three tried to solve the stupid puzzles. (I hated The Raft.) In The Long Dark, you could really struggle and you had to plan. You could choose to hang out in a cabin by a frozen lake with seemingly infinite snow to melt and fish to catch and warmth. You'd be stable, but bored. TLD takes the frozen environment seriously. Sadly, I think it also made the character too fragile and it didn't get wildlife right. But if you want to have to worry about survival, that's important to that game. For the space games, like Empyrion, you are definitely headed to wanting large-scale production of oxygen not just for your space suit, but to put an atmosphere in your ships and bases. In Space Engineers, oxygen can also be fuel. Survival in Empyrion is either super easy or more difficult depending on the starting planet. It kind of depends on if plants can grow where you start as to how much you're going to scramble to live beyond your starting supplies. I find survival in 7D2D to be satisfying in terms of play in terms of the quantities it delivers. Where we disagree is the premise of that statement above. I think you CAN easily make deeper mechanics with it, mostly because people forget everything that goes into making tap/potable water. All the parts are present in the game. Consider: The game goes Murky Water > Water > Teas and Pure Mineral Water. Water and above is all "good stuff." The game assumes either a filter or boiling turns Murky Water into Water. A more complex chain would be: Murky Water (12% dysentery) > Purified Water (3% dysentery) > Potable Water where dysentery only goes away with the Chemistry Station version of making water. An appealing part is the Iron Gut perk becomes more useful. An appealing part to me is it recognizes a realistic continuum of water. It would be many game days to get to potable water, but your survival situation greatly improves with the step to get to Purify Water. The downside is you probably need two tiers of Teas. Maybe Purified Water is 6% dysentery but Teas made with Purified Water are 3%. Then Teas/Smoothies from Potable Water could be the high-end super water. One last thought. To me, those other games provide a reason to worry about water at your base location. in 7D2D, prior to the water change, I'd select base locations to be near a water source. Now with Dew Collectors, location is moot for water. You might as well be across the street from the trader.