Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[The Gronk]

I would guess the difference is between speed and impulse/mass. The machete is able to swing at high speed making it possible to cut branches who tend to be flexible and simply evade a relatively slow moving fire axe. It doesn't work well with hard or laminar wood though as you need impulse to get deep into the wood

 

The fire axe on the other hand has the bigger impulse, good for massive trees and doors or walls, anything that doesn't soak up the impulse through yielding.

 

Yeah, that sounds about right. With all cutting edges being equal the varying factors are velocity and mass. A hand axe of similar size to a machete tends to be a lot heavier and carry its weight towards the axe head whereas a machete has the centre of gravity closer to the pommel.

 

I watched a few vids just to see what would happen if you tried. The flexible and thin blade of a machete tends to get stuck in any wood it doesn't cut through on the first attempt.

[Trankitas]

It would be awesome to see something about bandits...Someone has a time machine to spare?

[Death2gnomes]

I see what you mean. I think its close but might need a little love yet. Another way to handle it is not affect movement speed much in light or heavy, but affect sprinting stamina drain instead, then you can move fast for a bit, but it will cost you. Right now I literally remove my armor to travel because its so slow until I get a vehicle. Then with perks like yeah cardio you could travel in armor at least.

 

my suggestion was to use ranks of heavy/light armor perk to reduce that mobility penalty, not cardio. why use 1 perk branch when 2 would make the choices matter more?

[KingSlayerGM]

giveselfxp <number>

 

You're welcome

 

No.

 

This makes you level up, but doesn't increase the maximum level, which you can change in the XML, which by default doesn't let you max out everything.

[Slingblade2040]

Madmole I saw you mention wanting to possibly turn off traders and having a all snow map.

 

Would it be possible for later on to have more options for the world? Like wandering horde size, sliders for types of biomes like 50% desert and 50% snow would be an example, zombie damage, player damage, toggle trader on or off and also amount of skill points gained per level?

 

It would give us players a bit more control over the world's and maybe a more customized experience when playing.

[Menace312]

I did research this for ComSenMod, to make sure my change to make the machete as good on wood as an (iron) fire axe was reasonable, and I believe it was. What I'm getting at is, at a more basic level, a machete is as much a legitimate agricultural tool as it is a weapon. I think when we're immersed in zombie lore, we can lose sight of that. But thankfully this game has zombies and crafting/building, so it comes up. It's reasonable for the player to expect a machete to work well as a tool - better than, say, a cavalry sword that isn't designed for plants at all.

 

Remember, our point of comparison here is a firefighter's axe. That's not designed for felling trees, either, but there's nothing better available. And I did say wood, meaning all things wood, not just trees. There aren't that many damage categories, so they don't get that specific. The "wood" one is assigned to things like yucca fibers as well as trees.

 

...But even if trees are the gold standard for chopping wood, it only takes a

to show machetes do it just fine.

 

It may be nitpicking a bit, but a fireaxe is still an axe. So easy enough to fell with.

A machete is more for slicing... As in, you'd wanna go through, whatever you are striking, in one go.

Could you fell with it? Sure... But not well.

 

I guess I also wasn't to precise before... My real nitpick, is actually with the type of machete depicted in the game.

This is of the knife kind:

 

If you were dead set on felling with a machete, you need atleast a bigger blade:

[Trankitas]

Madmole I saw you mention wanting to possibly turn off traders and having a all snow map.

 

Would it be possible for later on to have more options for the world? Like wandering horde size, sliders for types of biomes like 50% desert and 50% snow would be an example, zombie damage, player damage, toggle trader on or off and also amount of skill points gained per level?

 

It would give us players a bit more control over the world's and maybe a more customized experience when playing.

 

I always wanted to play in a snow only map to struggle with the cold and hunger, or a desert only map, making wood a very precious resource and struggle with the thirst and heat.

 

It would be cool to set up the temperature of the world, per example: Turning off desert and burned biome, and preset temperature 30؛F colder than normal.

 

But i think maybe that could be a post-gold feature.

[madmole]

Odd , that the most plentiful and one of the most damaging weapons is not available in game...

for Blunt Weapons...a Baseball bat...and mods for them would be easy to come up with...spiked bats ala Escape From New York...etc

 

I have 3 cold steel indestructible bats mounted to the wall at all entry points to the house...its one of the best home defense weapons you can have! aside from all the guns , knives and axes I have lol

 

We're adding metal baseball bats and mods for the tier 3 club weapon.

[madmole]

Don't do dumb MMO ideas please.

 

Yeah I threw that idea in the ♥♥♥♥ter lol. Pun intended.

[madmole]

If you gave us enough points to max out everything though, like we asked many times..

 

I think we did but its more fun rolling a new char after a while IMO.

[madmole]

This. The shotgun is subpar when dealing with later gamestage. And by subpar I mean it blows lol

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

 

 

Please add this madmole.

 

+1 from me

 

Yes I'll be visiting the shotguns, I think they are pretty garbage. I have a new book perk that lets you one shot most wood and drywall with a shotty, so hopefully we can make some hasty escapes with one like the older alphas when you got surrounded by zeds in an attic or something you could just blow a window or hole in a wall and jump down. Better to break a leg than have a zombie eat it off of you.

[madmole]

I'm no expert... But chopping wood with a machete??!? That's definitely not what that thing is for...

 

Bushes, plants, sticks, grass. Yes.

Wood. No.

 

This. I used to cut shatter cane when I was a kid at Grandpa's farm. Good for weeds but no way are you cutting a tree down with it. I got a little crazy with it and chopped into my shin. I didn't need stitches or anything but it sucked lol. I learned to respect the blade after that lol.

[madmole]

Hello Madmole,

 

17.2 is really good. Everything is starting to work well together.

 

I know performance is the goal now, so i have to ask this sad question : will explosions be stronger at some point ?

 

i'd love to see the fully destructible environnment at work when a car or a mine explodes, but i know it's headache because lower specs can't calculate this at the moment...

 

And yes, it would be cool to give zombies other animations. I'm talking about immersion : zeds can be found walking, or sleeping.

 

i'd say we would need : 1. zeds sleeping outside of POIs, in the wilderness, in rare occasions.

 

 

2. Zeds eating dead bodies. You already have this animation, it happens when zeds kill you. This one is VERY

IMPORTANT, you could enter a POI, and stumble upon some ferals eating a dead body.

 

I remember this freaking me out as a kid when i played the old Resident Evil 2 on PS1

I know explosions got some love but I don't know if it was for 17.2 or .3 or 18.

[madmole]

Any thought given to adding a visual indicator for MOB bleeding? No way to tell currently if one has made an animal or zed bleed.

 

You can hear their pain sounds but maybe we can squirt some blood periodically when the buff fires somehow.

[madmole]

Madmole I saw you mention wanting to possibly turn off traders and having a all snow map.

 

Would it be possible for later on to have more options for the world? Like wandering horde size, sliders for types of biomes like 50% desert and 50% snow would be an example, zombie damage, player damage, toggle trader on or off and also amount of skill points gained per level?

 

It would give us players a bit more control over the world's and maybe a more customized experience when playing.

 

Probably sometime after the initial release we can consider adding some levers to play with, but we want to get a bug free no options version out first before we add levers.

[madmole]

I always wanted to play in a snow only map to struggle with the cold and hunger, or a desert only map, making wood a very precious resource and struggle with the thirst and heat.

 

It would be cool to set up the temperature of the world, per example: Turning off desert and burned biome, and preset temperature 30؛F colder than normal.

 

But i think maybe that could be a post-gold feature.

 

Weather is still a placeholder. I want global precipitation and probably 3 options, no weather survival, standard and hardcore. The temperature would be the same, but hardcore would lower your core temp faster or cause health damage, where standard might just use more water from overheating and use more food from shivering in the cold.

[Trankitas]

Weather is still a placeholder. I want global precipitation and probably 3 options, no weather survival, standard and hardcore. The temperature would be the same, but hardcore would lower your core temp faster or cause health damage, where standard might just use more water from overheating and use more food from shivering in the cold.

 

So standard without cold/heat health loss? Maybe instead of health, you can lose main attributes temporarily. Ex: Extreme Cold lowering your Strength or Agility / Overheating lowering your perception. Or something like that

 

 

Edit: And Hardcore health loss + temp attributes loss.

[Menace312]

This. I used to cut shatter cane when I was a kid at Grandpa's farm. Good for weeds but no way are you cutting a tree down with it. I got a little crazy with it and chopped into my shin. I didn't need stitches or anything but it sucked lol. I learned to respect the blade after that lol.

 

Hah! My story is similar, though it was hogweed, and I didn't know about the sap at first.

 

I learned, and since, I took a terrible revenge every year.

 

Gotta love the countryside. Everything is "less" dangerous there

[iBane]

You can hear their pain sounds but maybe we can squirt some blood periodically when the buff fires somehow.

 

Thanks! I don't think I've ever detected entity bleeding (other than my character) via audio cue so visuals would be a great add.

[Lonestarcanuck]

It may be nitpicking a bit, but a fireaxe is still an axe. So easy enough to fell with.

A machete is more for slicing... As in, you'd wanna go through, whatever you are striking, in one go.

Could you fell with it? Sure... But not well.

 

I guess I also wasn't to precise before... My real nitpick, is actually with the type of machete depicted in the game.

This is of the knife kind:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]28148[/ATTACH]

 

If you were dead set on felling with a machete, you need atleast a bigger blade:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]28149[/ATTACH]

 

growing up in the Woods (yes father is a woodsman and I have cut 1000s of trees before moving from the great white north to Texas) a Machete is absolutely NOT a good tool for cutting wood unless it is soft. most machetes like the longer one depicted is more of a consumer grade and ok for soft woods like cane or young saplings. if you are going to cut hardwood you will want a heavy thick blade that is more of a chopper like the upper one. still, both are not going to be nearly as good as an AXE. IMO a hand saw or two person buck saw would be a good tool to have that could be made. the fact that I can chop wood with a stone axe in the game is strange since the art for that axe looks more like a masher than a cutter.

[Axe13]

Madmole, would it be possible for you guys to add the ability to use an object in your inventory by holding shift and right clicking? I love that feature in Empyrion and I think it would be great in 7DTD.

[Menace312]

growing up in the Woods (yes father is a woodsman and I have cut 1000s of trees before moving from the great white north to Texas) a Machete is absolutely NOT a good tool for cutting wood unless it is soft. most machetes like the longer one depicted is more of a consumer grade and ok for soft woods like cane or young saplings. if you are going to cut hardwood you will want a heavy thick blade that is more of a chopper like the upper one. still, both are not going to be nearly as good as an AXE. IMO a hand saw or two person buck saw would be a good tool to have that could be made. the fact that I can chop wood with a stone axe in the game is strange since the art for that axe looks more like a masher than a cutter.

 

Jep, not practical. Stoneaxe to... But, yeah... Gotta stop somewhere right. The stoneaxe is kinda a stable aswell.

 

Anyway, if forced to fell with the machete, I'd take a long and heavier blade over a knife sized blade.

That was kinda the point of my post

[Damocles]

Madmole, would it be possible for you guys to add the ability to use an object in your inventory by holding shift and right clicking? I love that feature in Empyrion and I think it would be great in 7DTD.

 

I also like that feature.

 

Empyrion could in turn implement a proper quickloot key...

[Thecolours]

Its kinda driving me crazy that a lvl 1 item can't hold any mods and a lvl 6 item can hold 5. Can it be changed so a lvl 1 item holds 1 mod and a lvl 6 item holds 6 mods? I think that makes more sense to me.

[Roland]

Its kinda driving me crazy that a lvl 1 item can't hold any mods and a lvl 6 item can hold 5. Can it be changed so a lvl 1 item holds 1 mod and a lvl 6 item holds 6 mods? I think that makes more sense to me.

 

Level 1 is such trash it can't be improved.