Horatio Chachi

The challenge there seems to be surviving long enough to build a decent mushroom/potato/corn farm and perk up to the vegetable stew recipe. My standard endgame food supply is 90% that anyways b/c you can mass produce them in batches every time you harvest your farm. Once you get to that point, the challenge would be limited to not forgetting about it and eating something meaty to clear up inventory space while looting.

IIRC there was a change in the design direction of the game some years ago, devs decided to go for more of a quality>quantity approach. If you're really fiending for that kind of gameplay, there's a modpack called Darkness Falls that adds a lot of what you're looking for.

So I'm looting this town in a new world I started to test out the new experimental build, climbed an antenna POI, and holy @%$#, I can see my house from here! (top left) Not to mention, I've been running between 40-60 this whole time so far, even in the mine surrounded by torches and shiny things. Never had this kind of performance in this game (playing since 2013), even before I started running it in 4k. This is on a 2080, which is also noticeably cooler to the touch running the game now. I'm not joking about that last part, if I touched the IO on my card before this update running the game with the same settings for 15+ mins, it would be painful to hold my finger to it for more than a moment. Now, it only gets moderately warm even after playing for hours. The devs really knocked it out of the park with A19.5, and I can't wait to see what other improvements are coming in A20. Speaking of which, are there any more performance changes in the pipe that the devs are willing to talk about?

I agree that this is better than just making bigger maps, and there's a whole bunch of other ways they can increase density as well: - terrain: make inclines steeper and less "noisy". Steeper inclines can allow the same elevation change in smaller areas, which frees up significant area for use. - POIs: they just need to make everything closer together. Compare gravestown with a random gen town, and you'll see what I mean, but they could go even farther. I'm talking things like alleyways that are actually constricting to players/Z's, are too small to fit anything above a motorcycle, and are tight to the point that untrained eyes will struggle to see many as separate POI's. verticality: basically what you mentioned, but with more underground focus. HL2 levels, essentially.

My understanding is that if a release date for experimental hasn't been announced, then any timeframes given (even those directly provided by the devs) are just suggestions/guesses. my armchair speculation sense tells me that we'll see A19.5 in the next couple months, with most of the stuff we've seen advertised so far in this thread. A20 will either release holiday 2021(if it has little new content and is effectively a patch to A19.5) or mid-late 2022 (if there is serious game-changing new content, such as NPC's or a dramatic RWG overhaul)

Damn, thanks for taking the time to respond though! The tile system sounds super interesting, and I understand if that information is off-limits for now, but is there anywhere I can find out more about it?

So I created this account recently seeking juicer update info without any painfully ostentatious youtubers, I start looking around this forum, and I see they have an entire thread topic for speculation and that it hasn't been touched since 2016. That's kind of @%$#ed, so here's a new thread. I'll start: whatever happened to NPC's? My understanding is that they were originally slated for A19, but got cut. One would assume that this would push them to A20, but AFAIK there hasn't been any talk of this from the devs.

Sweet! I can imagine road variety lets you do a lot more with town layout, and this is the first I've heard about the tile system. Is there anything more you're willing to share about these? Thanks!

I'll one up you with an even dumber question: If it was up to me, there'd be a whole road hierarchy with small gravel roads leading to normal roads like now, but it's followed by wider/more detailed roads all the way up to an interstate system between the very largest towns/cities, complete with POI-type features like over/underpasses and interchanges that go balls deep on the hl2 vibes. If the devs at least have something even vaguely similar (anything infrastructure) to this planned down the line after they finish with HD/performance/NPC updates, can we get some kind of acknowledgment? And oh yeah, in case this is too off topic, is anyone else hyped for dynamic LOD's?

Hello devs, This is more of a general question about the game's long-term roadmap and not limited to what A20 includes, but are there any plans to expand on the endgame? I understand that the current focus is to improve what's already there, and am really impressed with/looking forward to things like the LOD updates, random gen customization, and performance optimization, but what comes next? I've had the game since ~2013 and have >1500 hours, and the way I've always played is to play the game intensely for a couple weeks after each major update, sometimes a little longer if I have friends with me, and then forget about it until the next update. We generally put it down around day 40-60, depending on day speed. We always lose interest at the same point: once we've gotten motor tools, vehicles, a decent concrete bunker, and have cleared a couple of the biggest POI's. Everyone I know feels the same way about it, and agrees that this game would punch classes higher if there was a more extensive gameplay loop. I heard a rumor on the subreddit that years down the line, player-built NPC settlements will be used to provide automation to things like mining/farming/crafting/defense and to defeat AI cheesing horde night strategies by having the horde target NPC's in the player's settlement. Is there any truth to this, even remotely (ex, it was briefly considered but got thrown out long ago like the aliens thing), or am I parroting total nonsense here? Thanks for taking the time to read/answer this.