Kandrathe

My mind was blown by the THREE gauges! Imagine knowing RPM, air speed, altitude, attitude (allow for zero stick) ... which are actually arguably more situationally important than fuel gauge and% damage. Bonus points if the gyro actually behaved like a gyro and maintained auto-rotation when you stopped pressing W. Speaking of W, actual aircraft have a throttle control, and not a gas pedal... for obvious falling out of the sky reasons. I instantly regretted the lack of altimeter the first time I flew into a fog bank.

I've had the problem when a part of the building collapses before the zombies spawn in in a zone. It's just inconvenient to fail a quest.

If level 6 items were always better than level 5. I feel the RNG min/max on item stats s/b more of a gaussian curve (e.g. instead of linear random from min to max. I would add 3 random numbers (R1+R2+R3 from min to max) divided by 3.) which moves the stats probability closer to the mean. It would then be more rare for very poor and exceptional items. Most would be average. I would favor increased repair costs based on degradation and level, but some level 6 are a steep time investment to acquire. To have them lost or unrepairable would be tragic and often deadly.

I play on a map with freeways. So, if I need to blast tunnels, and remove terrain to create off ramps I would consider it. If I don't need the stone for more concrete for more freeway...

Mission bonus could be tied to completion % - "Clear" and "Fetch Clear" could award based on a % scale of clear, from Best(100%), Good (>89%), no bonus for 61-90%, fail < 60%. Because some large POI's can take a very long time to scour multiple times for every last crawler, or vulture nesting outside on a ledge somewhere. It would be interesting to have a little more complexity in missions more like the power up generator objective. I'm trying to keep my dreaming constrained to the limited set of living (traders) and dead zombie models. So no escorts, boss battles, or go defend the orphanage which would require a lot of investment in models and animations. I'm also considering only easy to determine clear objectives. So, nothing like "bring down building"... which would be hard to confirm. Ideas... turn off the generator... running the POI's automated defenses... take out the support pillar in hard to get to place with a timed satchel charge and escape before it blows destroy a tanker, ship, airplane, fuel depot tank, etc. bring trader back rare resources from a POI (gather in exchange for loot), like super corn seeds for Rekt, ore from a mine... ... have you considered adding a short wave radio that every survivalist would want to have in there bunker? Maybe tie it to actual player communication abilities. It would be another way to add objectives beyond the traders without adding more character models. ...am easy one would be to add some radio chatter 15 minutes before the supply drop, or maybe the ask for a flare to be lit at a location in order to get the drop. You could overhear survivors being over run and calling for help at a location, and then go there "Check on old Bob at the Misty Lodge" to gather info on the aftermath. ... inspired by TWD... a new special "zombie" based on the Whisperers that can do smart things, like wield guns, unlock doors, toss bombs. I could go on more but I think this would add some variety to PVE without being real difficult to do (except the AI on the last one). P.S. Thanks Richard, Lathan, Robert and Brad for an informative 2nd Stream. Random gen looks very good.

A lifetime ago... I built educational software simulations in ML(animation subs) and C++. I mostly built biomes filled with wildlife with primal AI (thirsty, hungry, sleepy, defending). Managing the threading priorities (what is noticeable) in the event manager is key, along with giving the entities faster options (e.g. less accurate approximations, or delaying an action) when the number of active entities gets too high, or FPS for example drops. So, in this game, I would imagine a scenario, like 100 zombies getting hit by a concussion grenade and falling down. If they all try to follow the exact same AI script to get up all at the same time, not only would it break realism, it would over tax event handling. My desire would be to have them recover at variable rates and "decide" to act when it is in the best interest of making the simulation realistic, within the constraint of the capability of event management ( some number of entities would choose to delay acting for the benefit of the others). But, they also need to be smart enough to not be random, in that they delayed an action rather than skip it. This game compounds what I dealt with in my simulation problems in a number of ways. I never had to deal with the structural integrity and physics of every object in the world. I didn't have to load/unload regions of the map (in effect freezing time while unloaded and possibly reacting to changes when unfrozen), and I never had the issues of multiple players driving at high speed in vehicles through the world changing the decisions of hundreds of AI entities and physical objects. So I would just say in sum, good job to the developers who are working on this software and I'm looking forward to seeing how you resolve the issues. Probably most people would not understand the challenges that need to be resolved or the vast number of compromises that need to be made for performance.

If people run 60 forges ( I thought 10 was over the top) maybe it is... ☺️ Brass knobs, trophies, radiators melting in the forge is a pain. I run out of space for low stacking items like radiators, and end up spending game time planning out how to not build a backlog. I really would rather be mining, or killing zombies. Not babysitting my forges, or mixers.

My two cents of mixer tech... it seems to be pushing the "reality" of mixer tech now as a real mixer doesn't have an input and output cue, nor does spinning the cement faster make it mix faster. IRL, if you needed more than a mixer would yield you would order some yards of concrete to be delivered by a truck, an ability which would vanish in our post apocalyptical scenario. But, If my survivalist could get a wish it would be for some kind of nerd robot tech smart arm to place next to any queue able (forge, chest, work bench, chem station, etc.) that would xfer items into and from a block beside it (N,S,E,W). This would give a crude ability to engineer assembly lines. An example, storage (contains iron scrap and other materials) --> bot (bot takes X iron scrap from chest on north orders forged iron from forge on south) --> forge --> bot (bot takes forged iron from forge on north and orders iron spikes from workbench on its south ) --> workbench bot (bot takes all output queue items from workbench on north and moves to chest on south) --> storage Programmatically, a mod-able item with limited metadata. The theoretical bot could even have an upgrade path to be able to handle more adjacent blocks, more "recipes", etc. The interface could be similar to the other existing crafting blocks. I was yearning for a "hopper" to handle the limited input and output sizes of crafting devices in order to deal with stuff while gone all day clearing out SKYSCRAPER_01. I think the idea of a robotic arm offering limited automation is a bit better.

I still end up a gray hat. I have to white hat sometimes.

I don't care if I'm wearing jeans or BDU's, or Sweat pants. That can be simplified to leg armor. And, I can see Coat + shirt + scarf simplifies to Chest armor, When trying to figure out where the complexity should be, I don't know that maintaining a rain coat versus a winter coat for environment is any more fun than cooling/heating mods in the armor slots. I'd rather have the main 4 slots, head, chest, legs, boots for gear with additional mod slots( maybe up to 6) for variety. The most important question is... Will I keep my cigar?

Many options for a midnight drive through the wastelands.

I would love to mount a "Ma Deuce" or M60 on the 4x4 to give the passenger(s) a purpose.

My wife and I are in about the same place. Day 21 was brutal but we survived, although the base was damaged more than I had expected. We’ve decided and built a new bug out tower that is built from reinforced concrete. Our salvation was in our individual peccadilloes... she buys novel materials we haven’t seen from the trader, and I salvage everything I can if not to just clear the roads. Our domicile in defended with layers as you described sufficient to handle the random wandering screamer scout. It will be indefensible on blood moons. My wife had gathered a few hundred rebar From converting dukes into materials, and I had the tech from salvage. Our new bug out blood moon survival space is a 7x7 Iron bared cage elevated about 15 blocks up with legs that are widespread to discourage them from attacking and toppling it. Then we dug a 7x7 pit below the front of our cage about 10 blocks deep. I realized in my earlier defenses that they needed a rational pathway to me. From the pit we built a ramp out in a winding death zone in our lines of fire that present no physical obstacles, as well as a ramp up to our level 10 blocks away on the other side of the pit. Crossing the pit from their ramp up are two very thin balance beams they see as a pathway to us. This is in our clear line of fire and our final defense of electric fences they must walk into to cross the balance beams. On day 28 we had less terror, but more terrifying hordes. We learned more on how to slow them and keep them busy while in our fire lanes, trying to get to us, without succeeding. We still had a few crazy zombies attacking the pillars, but thankfully the distribution and redundancy was enough to prevent toppling our cage. My goal is to keep them moving, and not smashing things.