Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[Cazmyr]

I had an idea, be able to paint select icon atlas items to a specific block only like a storage chest,

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I love this idea. Having more options to be able to paint on our boxes would be fantastic! Especially if those are the icons the game is using for those items anyway!

 

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Maybe we can have both. Store all would be easy.

 

Also love this idea. Having a store all for emergencies and a store duplicates is perfect IMHO. Just like you said, you could go to each box at the end of the loot run and add the items from your backpack (only) to the like items in that box. It is probably wrong how excited this thought got me......lol

[madmole]

Store all, store duplicates .. are you trying to take all the fun micromanagement away from us? Sounds great!

 

If implementing a "store all", maybe add a "sorting lock" that would tell the game "this is my gear, don't touch it". As in take whatever gear you need for your loot run, click the lock. Rest of the inventory behaves as normal with regards to sorting, storing or looting, but the stuff you have locked won't move. That's something I have wanted just for manual storage since the "sort inventory" button, but with semi-automated "store my stuff"s, it would be even more awesome.

 

Simply a pimp dream though

Neither of them would pull from your belt, only the backpack.

[madmole]

I'm confused; is the goal survival or not?

Death is the antithesis of survival.

 

Maybe the game just needs more rewards for survival to remind folks to survive (since worse death penalties were already tried and got the crowds in arms)?

 

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EDIT: After reviewing a few point on the dumping items if one needs in an emergency:

The following are my suggestions:

Drop All (with double confirmation)

Add Dump All to Vehicle in the vehicle storage menus. Vehicles would generally not be sorted containers like the chests in one's home. As such if you have a vehicle nearby, one could use that as an emergency not sorted dump of inventory (much like just throwing one's junk in a car).

 

I was joking about dying obviously. The solution I presented would be supported by all containers, cars are not treated differently. Store all, store duplicates.

[MajorMunchy]

Paint textures don't stream so we're kind of limited on space there already.

 

I had an idea, be able to paint select icon atlas items to a specific block only like a storage chest, on a small square about the size of the food box's icon square. So I'd put the ak47 icon on my gun box, a first aid kit on my first aid box, etc, then people could get pretty granular with storage box icons. We wouldn't expose the entire atlas because sorting through 50,000 items would be a pain, but picking some from each category and exposing to players could be good, and save us texture space on the paintable textures atlas.

 

thats a great idea. make them only usable on the crates so that they are a separate library i assume as well?

[jdm311]

That feels like a never ending rabbit hole. An improvement to the sign system would probably be better. Like be able to paint on a storage crate and type whatever you want, only accessible through the radial menu so normal activation doesn't activate the sign would be sweet.

 

Bingo.

[theFlu]

Thought as much, but "Store all" would still pull my ammo and foodstuffs, at least, and usually I have a couple tools in the bag as well (shovel, wrench, pickaxe) and some wood/irons/repair kits. Less effort to "pull them back", sure, but I'd forget half my stuff in the box anyway

 

The lock would apply to selected part of the backpack - either some kind of manual select (tickboxes or "paintable" area or something else - all of which would require at least couple hundred lines of UI code, of a sort you're not using yet, so, I'm not hoping for that), or just "everything in the backpack at the moment of the click of the button" which would still require the locking logic, but UI-wise just a single button. Maybe a highlighted background for the locked items.

 

In my head it's a lock icon next to the sort-button, but since the store all / store dupes would require some new interactions, maybe something related there.

[jcalvelli]

After the gameplay videos made by Mad Mole, the waiting became very painful. Very well done, guys, the game looks amazing!

 

I was thinking about something… is there a plan to reset perk points without beginning a new game?

 

Sometimes we just make stupid choices but want to stay with the same character and map and other stuff. Maybe a quest or some food or item (lootable only) could do the trick.

[Guppycur]

Paint textures don't stream so we're kind of limited on space there already.

 

I had an idea, be able to paint select icon atlas items to a specific block only like a storage chest, on a small square about the size of the food box's icon square. So I'd put the ak47 icon on my gun box, a first aid kit on my first aid box, etc, then people could get pretty granular with storage box icons. We wouldn't expose the entire atlas because sorting through 50,000 items would be a pain, but picking some from each category and exposing to players could be good, and save us texture space on the paintable textures atlas.

 

Right click a chest to get access to the sign class, e still opens. Just gotta mix the loot and sign class.

[jdm311]

Thought as much, but "Store all" would still pull my ammo and foodstuffs, at least, and usually I have a couple tools in the bag as well (shovel, wrench, pickaxe) and some wood/irons/repair kits. Less effort to "pull them back", sure, but I'd forget half my stuff in the box anyway

 

The lock would apply to selected part of the backpack - either some kind of manual select (tickboxes or "paintable" area or something else - all of which would require at least couple hundred lines of UI code, of a sort you're not using yet, so, I'm not hoping for that), or just "everything in the backpack at the moment of the click of the button" which would still require the locking logic, but UI-wise just a single button. Maybe a highlighted background for the locked items.

 

In my head it's a lock icon next to the sort-button, but since the store all / store dupes would require some new interactions, maybe something related there.

 

Agreed. I like to keep a row of the usual items with me and I don't want to have to fish them out of the chest after every dump. If there is a way to set a lock per slot, this works for me since I don't sort my backpack (I find the useful items faster when I know they are where they should be). If locked per item, this works for me as well as people who sort their backpack.

[Amanitasec]

Why so many icons have new look in A18? It looks like it can be quite a challenge to adapt to the new ones.

[MechanicalLens]

Agreed. I like to keep a row of the usual items with me and I don't want to have to fish them out of the chest after every dump. If there is a way to set a lock per slot, this works for me since I don't sort my backpack (I find the useful items faster when I know they are where they should be). If locked per item, this works for me as well as people who sort their backpack.

 

I proposed a similar system (although I called it "favoriting" and not "locking"), but after some feedback, I do agree that this system would become a major nuisance after a while.

[meganoth]

Yeah I think I let everyone's comments go to my head about armor being so great, I got rekt last night trying to melee a bunch of feral/rads. I probably lost 200,000 xp.

 

So this is how linguistic PvP works! I always wondered.

 

That one is already in. You can take all with R and it fills your duplicates, then you drop them one by one. I do that all the time in my drop chest for later ordered storage.

 

It is not. Many use the method you describe, but it is very clumsy as you take a lot of stuff out of a chest if you have free slots available. Then you still have to select one by one what to drop.

 

I don't know how you play, but I like to keep my ammunition, food, med stuff, tools in my backpack, I practically never have the use case that I need to clear my backpack completely

[jorbascrumps]

Why so many icons have new look in A18? It looks like it can be quite a challenge to adapt to the new ones.

 

Why so many new features in A18? It looks like it can be quite a challenge to adapt to the new ones.

 

Just kidding. It was time to unify all the icons into a single style.

[TSBX]

Paint textures don't stream so we're kind of limited on space there already.

 

I had an idea, be able to paint select icon atlas items to a specific block only like a storage chest, on a small square about the size of the food box's icon square. So I'd put the ak47 icon on my gun box, a first aid kit on my first aid box, etc, then people could get pretty granular with storage box icons. We wouldn't expose the entire atlas because sorting through 50,000 items would be a pain, but picking some from each category and exposing to players could be good, and save us texture space on the paintable textures atlas.

 

I still say allowing us to use the icon atlas would work in the interim.

 

After all these years, you finally listened.

 

EDIT: Oh, and don't forget to let us use them for map marker icons too!

[jdm311]

I proposed a similar system (although I called it "favoriting" and not "locking"), but after some feedback, I do agree that this system would become a major nuisance after a while.

 

Yes, I should have referenced your suggestion. I just figured it's either locking slot positions or slot items. I don't think it would be that much trouble. If there are items you always carry on you, you toggle it once. If you are constantly changing what you want to favorite, then yes, it might be more work than you want. I still see value in the idea.

[Dreyseth]

Store all would kind of suck, but we talked about doing a store duplicates so you go to each chest, hit that button and it stores any duplicates of what you have in there, then it would intelligently sort at least.

That sounds awesome; would be very helpful

[MechanicalLens]

Yes, I should have referenced your suggestion. I just figured it's either locking slot positions or slot items. I don't think it would be that much trouble. If there are items you always carry on you, you toggle it once. If you are constantly changing what you want to favorite, then yes, it might be more work than you want. I still see value in the idea.

 

Nevertheless, it's an overly complicated idea for an easy solution, which is not being lazy and taking anything out of storage containers that you "accidentally" mass placed in there. At least, that's my current opinion on the matter. Plus, code wise, this system might not be possible.

 

Edit: But then again, like the sorting systems, it would be entirely optional.

[ZombieSurvivor]

@Madmole My Thoughts on this whole transfer of items discussion.

 

After having read everyones comments here are my thoughts.

 

Add two buttons to UI.

1. Transfer all

2. Transfer duplicates

 

On top of that, provide a way to lock specific slots within the backpack in order to retain the items one does not want moved when using one of the two new buttons.

 

@MechanicalLens You were on to something with your first suggestion btw.

[jdm311]

Nevertheless, it's an overly complicated idea for an easy solution, which is not being lazy and taking anything out of storage containers that you "accidentally" mass placed in there. At least, that's my current opinion on the matter. Plus, code wise, this system might not be possible.

 

Yeah, I could see putting duplicate items in a chest as a very useful improvement. I probably won't ever use a full dump of the backpack except in the very rare case that I explode my chests and need to pick things up FAST. Fingers crossed.

[MechanicalLens]

Yeah, I could see putting duplicate items in a chest as a very useful improvement. I probably won't ever use a full dump of the backpack except in the very rare case that I explode my chests and need to pick things up FAST. Fingers crossed.

 

I typically just place almost all my items in a chest if I'm being lazy and I want to organize stuff later (I often have a couple boxes near the main entrance to my base dedicated to just this), or if a wandering horde starts beating down my door. At the end of the day though, it's TFP's views who matter to most. If they see value in these systems, great, if not, then that's fine as well.

[jdm311]

I typically just place almost all my items in a chest if I'm being lazy and I want to organize stuff later (I often have a couple boxes near the main entrance to my base dedicated to just this), or if a wandering horde starts beating down my door. At the end of the day though, it's TFP's views who matter to most. If they see value in these systems, great, if not, then that's fine as well.

 

Yeah, I'm already grateful for the shift-click action. It's like upgrading from business class to first class...

[Blake_]

So this is how linguistic PvP works! I always wondered.

 

 

 

It is not. Many use the method you describe, but it is very clumsy as you take a lot of stuff out of a chest if you have free slots available. Then you still have to select one by one what to drop.

 

I don't know how you play, but I like to keep my ammunition, food, med stuff, tools in my backpack, I practically never have the use case that I need to clear my backpack completely

 

Read carefuly. I was talking only about the dump chest. Not the ordered ones. It is indeed a method. And yeah, 1 by one still.

 

Anyways, we are going to get the best of both worlds: drop all to chest and drop only stuff that it's already in the chest.

[MechanicalLens]

Misread, comment withdrawn.

 

Hence I propose the mechanics go something along these lines:

 

You click on an item in your backpack and, using a specific key/key combination, you "lock" or "favorite" that item. You can move it around in your backpack, maybe even put it on your toolbelt, but you cannot accidentally shift-click or dump it using another key into a container. Maybe due to coding limitations or personal preference, you would not be allowed to drop a favorited/locked item in your inventory, nor would you be able to put it in a chest. To unfavorite/unlock the item, repeat step 1.

 

Commonplace items that would be favorited/locked are food, drink, and ammunition.?

 

But what about armor? Could you equip it while favorited/locked, or not? Could you modify favorited/locked items? Could you split a stack of favorited/locked items? These questions remain.

 

We'll have to see if this system has value. *Shrugs*

[ZombieSurvivor]

<snip>

 

We'll have to see if this system has value. *Shrugs*

 

Man this is why I try and thank The Fun Pimps for there hard work. Just look at how much thought and energy we the community are putting in to just trying to figure out what would be a good system for something as simple as transfer items lol.

 

I wonder if this is somew hat how meetings go at TFP when they are deciding something.

[MechanicalLens]

Man this is why I try and thank The Fun Pimps for there hard work. Just look at how much thought and energy we the community are putting in to just trying to figure out what would be a good system for something as simple as transfer items lol.

 

I wonder if this is how the meetings go at TFP when they are deciding something.

 

Next thing you know we'll be discussing if it would be possible for our characters to kick pine cones, and if the pine cones would have realistic physics. Lol And could we decapitate zombies by kicking pine cones at them? Lol

 

It's probably settled with everyone drinking cups of Joe in unison.

 

But yes, 7 Days to Die is, beyond a shadow of the doubt, the greatest game of its kind created in the history of gaming, and I thank them for not only continuing to support this game, but evolving it in ways that years ago, we would never have imagined.