Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[madmole]

Stage 1 is 1 hour. Stage 2 is 3 hours. Stage 3 is 3 hours. That’s 7 hours or 7 in game days if you’re on default

 

Right but we're talking to the new captain obvious.

[MechanicalLens]

I rage quit and started a new character on the same map. Not sure why the 2nd one went just as bad lol, although I did spawn in the forest instead of the desert. So I died 3 times on day 1, then quit, restarted a new character and died 3x by day 3. I've got an AK and pistol now, doing fine, but getting attacked by wolves is just nasty early game. I want to remove all nasty things from biome spawing in a future alpha, and then do random encounters, which are leveled. Of course nasty biomes would have a raised game stage on these encounters but we could spare new players any hostile animals the first 5 levels or so and slowly add in nasty stuff, and increase the challenge as you level.

 

So instead of seeing a random wolf prowling the forest biome on day 1, the game would instead decide to spawn a pack of wolves on the player once the appropriate level (player level? gamestage?) has been reached? If this one example is accurate in any way, then this possible future feature will be quite interesting. ^^

[madmole]

yeah, try a stun baton on horde night, and you cant aim and use a junk turret very well for horde night either

 

Shooting junk turrets is a last resort IMO, you deploy them and let them shoot everything for you. Considering they stun everything they shoot you can stun baton dudes while they are getting up, save ammo and then by horde night use all the 762 ammo you find for a gun.

[madmole]

Is it a sterling engine running a generator?

 

I don't know all the details yet, but it sounds pretty revolutionary.

[madmole]

I wonder how many junk turrets you can have active with perks. Horde night you could set up an army of Qberts.

 

I think two but maybe we need to up it, and maybe up the ammo it holds no way would the small magazine keep up for long unless we do some alternate ammo or something more powerful.

[Guppycur]

I rage quit and started a new character on the same map. Not sure why the 2nd one went just as bad lol, although I did spawn in the forest instead of the desert. So I died 3 times on day 1, then quit, restarted a new character and died 3x by day 3. I've got an AK and pistol now, doing fine, but getting attacked by wolves is just nasty early game. I want to remove all nasty things from biome spawing in a future alpha, and then do random encounters, which are leveled. Of course nasty biomes would have a raised game stage on these encounters but we could spare new players any hostile animals the first 5 levels or so and slowly add in nasty stuff, and increase the challenge as you level.

 

Not a fan of this... As you get better and capable of dealing with hostile animals on day 1 you're going to regret that change... ♥♥♥♥ happens. Sometimes wolves happen... But they are avoidable and defeatable, so changing how they come in to the world based on *your* playthrough isn't a good representation of everyone else's playthrough.

[wolfbain5]

So instead of seeing a random wolf prowling the forest biome on day 1, the game would instead decide to spawn a pack of wolves on the player once the appropriate level (player level? gamestage?) has been reached? If this one example is accurate in any way, then this possible future feature will be quite interesting. ^^

 

would be interesting, but not on day 1, some people play dead is dead, while others do not, but in previous alphas, we used to get a wold spawned on us within 2 minutes of spawn. many rage quits there because no one had anything to fend them off with so early. let players get a little something before then else why bother playing if it is an endless deathloop from wolves or coyotes at the very beginning.

 

MM has already had a taste of this so it may be altered.

[Guppycur]

I don't know all the details yet, but it sounds pretty revolutionary.

 

I'm curious how he defeated the laws of physics and thermodynamics.

[madmole]

The trick is not flooding the players with easy/passive methods of obtaining brass early on because in that scenario crafting ammo would never be a challenging prospect, while ensuring that later on, between repairing and upgrading your base and mining for resources, that the player can keep up with the required quantity of brass to continue to fight the 7 day hordes. As madmole suggested, smelting down dukes could be the answer, but so far, this idea has only been suggested and not practiced. We'll all have to play A18 and figure out this issue for ourselves, if the issue will be present for the majority of players in the first place.

 

Its actually opposite, early game you are swimming in brass because your collecting it long before you can use it so it stockpiles up, and then once you get bullet crafting it still kind of increases because your getting better tools, harvesting and looting more, then eventually the hordes get so big your supply runs out and your scrounging for it.

[MechanicalLens]

would be interesting, but not on day 1, some people play dead is dead, while others do not, but in previous alphas, we used to get a wold spawned on us within 2 minutes of spawn. many rage quits there because no one had anything to fend them off with so early. let players get a little something before then else why bother playing if it is an endless deathloop from wolves or coyotes at the very beginning.

 

MM has already had a taste of this so it may be altered.

 

How ironic, because in my last world, a wolf murdered me within 5 minutes of me spawning in the world, and the game sent me a wolf pack on night one. I rage quit from that world.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

Its actually opposite, early game you are swimming in brass because your collecting it long before you can use it so it stockpiles up, and then once you get bullet crafting it still kind of increases because your getting better tools, harvesting and looting more, then eventually the hordes get so big your supply runs out and your scrounging for it.

 

Actually... Haha Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. My bad.

[Blake_]

I rage quit and started a new character on the same map. Not sure why the 2nd one went just as bad lol, although I did spawn in the forest instead of the desert. So I died 3 times on day 1, then quit, restarted a new character and died 3x by day 3. I've got an AK and pistol now, doing fine, but getting attacked by wolves is just nasty early game. I want to remove all nasty things from biome spawing in a future alpha, and then do random encounters, which are leveled. Of course nasty biomes would have a raised game stage on these encounters but we could spare new players any hostile animals the first 5 levels or so and slowly add in nasty stuff, and increase the challenge as you level.

Making hostile animals like wolfs, coyotes and cougars not spawn until X day would be a nice placeholder until you make levelled random encounters.

 

I loved those random encounters in Skyrim/FO, though I expect you guys to make procedural ones with hundreds of meaningful variations. There, do I get to keep the captain tag?

[DarlingCows]

Madmole, don’t think of history in a practical sense. It more just to remind us of who we are what we’ve done to become where we are. That’s hopefully why you really only need to take 1-3 classes out of the whole 28 (minus core classes) you can take.

[Aldranon]

I dunno, reading about how 280 or so Spaniards conquered a nation of 12 million was pretty damn cool... Not so much cool for the incans, but...

 

Also, things like Neville's Appeasement are pretty damn relevant today imo, even though we don't seem to have learned from it.

 

Also, many historians know the precursor to global war is about money in some way.

 

-The Opium wars: The British were pimping the drugs so hard they were willing to kill and have British people die for it... twice.

-WW1: Germany felt they needed to take weaker counties resources like most other European were doing.

-WW2: Germany was broke and Hitler started by robbing the German pension funds then other counties gold reserves.

 

Today, with China basically running a Pyramid Scheme with their economy, was great as long as they could cheat america out of billions. Now things might go south... again.

 

Also, Japans economy WILL implode NLT 2030 according to most economists. I don't see great things for the near future.

[DarlingCows]

New perk tree (Not for A18). I am liking the new perk trees for A18 they are all great. I know you’ve played Fallout 4 and they have one perk tree that lets the player be carnivorous. Do you think you might add a perk tree like that to 7 days to die. I know it’s a bizzare tree but it’s also a different approach than standard shoot or melee and kill.

[Aldranon]

New perk tree (Not for A18). I am liking the new perk trees for A18 they are all great. I know you’ve played Fallout 4 and they have one perk tree that lets the player be carnivorous. Do you think you might add a perk tree like that to 7 days to die. I know it’s a bizzare tree but it’s also a different approach than standard shoot or melee and kill.

 

I think the Intelligence line is that novel approach. Maybe harder than other attributes, but certainly interesting!

[Mechanimal]

I'm curious how he defeated the laws of physics and thermodynamics.

 

It wouldn't need to break any of those perceived/observed "laws"(science isn't finished, not by a long shot), just ideally be very efficient and make use of already available energy. Sterling engines in particular make use of temperature differences. We live on a ball of lava floating next to a star, energy is the most abundant thing there is, everything is made of some form of it or another, and we are constantly finding new ways to harvest it into usable variations. I mean, we extract(manifest?) electrons by moving a rock next to a wire ffs, we've bottled lightning, I'm using it right now to type this.

 

Go back a few hundred years and try convincing anyone any of what we do now is possible. That said I'd have to see this device to believe it, no doubt, but it would not surprise me. If it does work then it also has an explanation as to how, even if we do not know what that is. Yet.

 

*Quantum Thermodynamics is a new and growing field, as is Quantum Field Theory, the answer to how will likely come from these new realms of science.

 

** are we off topic?... how about work some of this into 7DTD lore, we're dealing with radiated zombies afterall, would be fun.

[DaVegaNL]

Started my perception build, got rekt twice already, wile e. coyote got me bleeding out a couple times now and no bandages yet. Improved RWG is dope, no more repeating POIS so far and bigger cities.

 

Pics or it never happened!

[MechanicalLens]

Pics or it never happened!

 

[Bubo]

^

[Aurelius]

The law of thermodynamics is called a law for a reason. Feel free to air quote it as much as you like, but that doesn't change the fact it's been tested and retested repeatedly over the past 100+ years, and has yet to be broken.

 

I suspect what MM is really saying, is that the system being designed/built is very efficient in using common materials to provide electricity - but a machine providing *free* energy is simply another name for a perpetual motion machine.

 

-A

[beerfly]

my current a17 game I have no base, day 10. all my stuff is placed in the ground. dug a trench 1 m deep, placed workstation, forge, and storage boxes in there. low game stage so was doable. not sure about higher gamestages yet.

 

Ya, same as me, I just add some roof 5x5 and wait for fun. If you are aware of the surroundings and mostly looting, should not worry for higher gamestages I think.

[Mechanimal]

The law of thermodynamics is called a law for a reason. Feel free to air quote it as much as you like, but that doesn't change the fact it's been tested and retested repeatedly over the past 100+ years, and has yet to be broken.

 

I suspect what MM is really saying, is that the system being designed/built is very efficient in using common materials to provide electricity - but a machine providing *free* energy is simply another name for a perpetual motion machine.

 

-A

 

Well yeah, I'm not some believer in perpetual motion machines ever being possible. That is why I said it's likely just very efficient and/or extracting that energy from fields of science we are still figuring out. I put the word "law" in quotes(did it again, and will continue to do so) because, believe it or not, our understanding of science is, again, not complete. You can't break a "law" that really isn't fully understood, not to the extremes a word like law implies. It's more about discovering and understanding these new areas, mostly dealing with quantum mechanics, which will give us a much deeper understanding of phenomenon classical physics(the Standard Model) can't. Don't make the same mistake Einstein did, he hated Quantum Mechanics(even though he played a role in opening the door to it) because he couldn't wrap it up into simple equations, and he was wrong for doing so.

[Goldman_dk]

Would it be possible to make agressive wildlife flee as first reaction to lowlevel players, eg until a certain level?

In that way if u encounter wulfs, its your own fault if u place a stone arrow in its rear😁

[Aurelius]

I put the word "law" in quotes(did it again, and will continue to do so) because, believe it or not, our understanding of science is, again, not complete. You can't break a "law" that really isn't fully understood, not to the extremes a word like law implies.

 

While I agree there are many areas of science we've only scratched the surface of, and it's a *good* thing to be willing to revisit and change (when appropriate) your understanding of the universe, I'm going to stick to my guns and say the laws of thermodynamics are sufficiently understood and tested to be called laws. Agree to disagree on a minor point.

 

As an aside - some of your comments on robotics and computing have really piqued my curiosity. I'm definitely going to run down some of the ideas you've mentioned in passing.

 

-A

[Mechanimal]

While I agree there are many areas of science we've only scratched the surface of, and it's a *good* thing to be willing to revisit and change (when appropriate) your understanding of the universe, I'm going to stick to my guns and say the laws of thermodynamics are sufficiently understood and tested to be called laws. Agree to disagree on a minor point.

 

As an aside - some of your comments on robotics and computing have really piqued my curiosity. I'm definitely going to run down some of the ideas you've mentioned in passing.

 

-A

 

I can admittedly be kind of harsh on science sometimes, I just try to avoid thinking in absolute terms that words like "law" imply. I don't have any major doubts about the laws of thermodynamics being solid and useful, I just think there's more to understand. Unlike Albert E. I love quantum mechanics because it, to me, explains the why/how behind the standard model, as well as many things it cannot explain. Otherwise we're mostly on the same page, agree to *agree. The * sticking point is more of an annoyance with the term law, but it's admittedly a personal sticking point more than anything.(yells at brain to chill out)

 

I never expected to bring up robotics whilst talking about a zombie game, it's the voxels fault. I learned a ton from studying graphic cards and super computers years ago(the NEC Earth Simulator was my first, and still my fav specimen). Oddly enough the hurdle seems to mostly be caused, unintentionally, by the fields of computer science getting a major case of tunnel vision. Not realizing how specific what we've adopted into use actually is, but I knew long ago that the realm of machine learning would inevitably return to neural nets... slowly at first via simulation inside serial machines, but it's still far more of a hardware problem, first, then the software follows. It's a cart-horse thing, peeps been doing it backwards for years, but like I said it is finally starting to turn around now. And when it does game engines like this are going to be able to handle a ton more detail all at once as a result. I want it for robot brains, to provide an internal simulation, a type of "minds eye", among many other things.