[Ideas for the game]

Given the INT tree’s focus on the tower defense aspects of the game, maybe have the ranged weapons act more like debuffers like the stun baton?

 

Either chem weapons like the goo thrower idea that @Adam the Waster has or taser guns but with a focus on debilitating crowds of zombies to make turrets and traps more effective on them. I’m thinking stuff with high stun chance or adding the electrocution effect from the baton so that a high-end INT player could heavily slow or paralyze whole hordes in a similar manner to STR players AOE knockdown with sledgehammers but at the cost of deeply mediocre damage output. I could see the Hubcap Xbow being a tier 3 weapon if you glued a car battery to it and made it a AOE shock weapon (at least as one ammo type anyway). Electrified hubcap buzzsaws sound fun! Maybe with a high dismemberment chance innately?

[I’m wondering about AP ammo vs HP ammo]

21 minutes ago, Boidster said:

 

You raise some good points, however the above doesn't seem to be correct. In items.xml for ammo9mmBulletAP:

 

<passive_effect name="TargetArmor" operation="perc_add" value="-.2" tags="perkGunslinger"/>

 

It is the same for 7.62 AP, but .44 AP is -0.25 instead of -0.2.

Good to know, i’ll amend the post.

21 minutes ago, Boidster said:

Since most of our base designs are raised and shooting down at the Zs (not so much horizontally with several lined up for penetration hits), we use regular or HP ammo most often. Might have a 2nd rifle loaded with AP (don't want to wait for a reload) if soldiers and demos are in the mix.

Makes sense, HP would be well-suited to murderhole-style bases

21 minutes ago, Boidster said:

But I will spend an entire day mining lead, coal, and nitrate to replenish stocks and so far bullet tips have not been a resource concern. Brass, though...

 

 

This is true, though when you get the box of ammo books, you get a 20% reduction in materials cost, which helps. Each tip costs the same to make of course.

To be fair, clay isn’t that hard to get and you need bullet tips anyway but gunpowder having more uses makes it more justifiable to really overstock on it versus needing double the amount of bullet tips per round of ammo for your stockpile. That’s my thinking on it anyway.

[I’m wondering about AP ammo vs HP ammo]

I want to preface this with a disclaimer, i’m not actually in a position to play A19 so i’m just looking at the numbers as of the wiki and mem’s steam guides. This is also going to be kind of an essay so bear with me,

 

First: what the ammo types actually do (this is just so the information is on display, i am sure you all know this inside and out):

Hollow Point

Pros:

• 30% damage boost

Cons:

• effectively doubles armor rating on targets

Additional Information:

• Increases crafting costs over default ammo by 1 bullet tip

 

Armor Piercing

Pros:

• Over-penetration
• Reduces armor rating on targets by ~20%

Cons:

• Increases weapon degradation by 30%

Additional Information:

• Increases crafting cost over default ammo by 1-2 gunpowder
• Interacts with “The Penetrator” perk to further increase over-penetration with rifles

 

 

So it seems that the basic idea behind AP is making killing hard targets easier and adding multi-target capability and the idea for HP is killing soft targets faster, straightforward.

 

The thing is the only time you don’t run into hordes of zombies is when you’re stealthing through a POI, which would be the only time you would benefit more from HP’s damage boost than from AP’s over-penetration and that’s only if you don’t run into an armored zombie (which are uncommon, to be fair). 

That plus the crafting differences (gunpowder is used for lots of different things and has a number of perks that increase efficiency when making it vs bullet tips which have 1 use and have no way to increase efficiency when making them other than time spent) makes it seem like there is much more reason to make AP your primary ammo type than HP.

 

I may be missing something or be completely off the mark on this, please let me know if i am, i want to hear other points of view on this.

 

Thanks in advance for your responses!

[I think TFP should write a book on 7D2D’s development]

2 minutes ago, TreCircuit said:

Yes, but not until 7DtD has gone gold......gotta have priorities!!

For sure

[I think TFP should write a book on 7D2D’s development]

(This is a repost from the steam forums, since I didn’t know this was the main forum at the time)

I’m 100% serious, 7DtD’s development process has dealt with pretty much every question a new game dev would have: if/how to do a Kickstarter, how to expand your game without massive scope drift, how to build a strong community, what the experience of years of ongoing development is like and why someone should or shouldn’t do it, and all the other bits and pieces the devs have picked up along the way.

 

It’d be a fascinating read and invaluable to new devs and very useful for experienced ones.

I know i’d grab a copy.