[MOD] Better Than Giant Bees: Hardcore Survival

[Renegrade]

Yeah, I hear that. I will likely pause updates for BTGB for a little while anyways with the new version of KSP coming out shortly. The next item I want to tackle is a farming rebalance, which got put on hold for the 10.3 update and I need to work my way back up to that point in my current save.

 

It's already out, FYI (they totally stole mass limits from BTSM!)

 

I've been playing BTGB 1.16 up until this very moment (switching over to KSP Vanilla to check out the new changes ), and I'm enjoying my current playthrough quite a bit. I play a vanilla game with each update, and BTGB is really pulling ahead of it in terms of long term playability. Kudos, man

 

And I agree that Navezgane is the likely model for where they want it to be, as otherwise, you'd essentially need two differently balanced versions for the two world types.

 

Yep, that make sense. I actually like Navezgane's density, layout and such, I think it's just about right... I don't play with it though since it's not as interesting to explore from a discovery point of view (we all know where everything is already), and the fixed size.

[FlowerChild]

It's already out, FYI (they totally stole mass limits from BTSM!)

 

I've been playing BTGB 1.16 up until this very moment (switching over to KSP Vanilla to check out the new changes )

 

Yup, I am aware as I pretty much just did the exact same thing

 

, and I'm enjoying my current playthrough quite a bit. I play a vanilla game with each update, and BTGB is really pulling ahead of it in terms of long term playability. Kudos, man

 

Thanks!

 

Yep, that make sense. I actually like Navezgane's density, layout and such, I think it's just about right... I don't play with it though since it's not as interesting to explore from a discovery point of view (we all know where everything is already), and the fixed size.

 

Yeah, that's largely why I don't play Navezgane at all anymore. I've spent so much time in it that all the thrill of discovery is largely gone, which I think is so vital for a survival experience.

 

Not sure if you can really get decent survival, at least with any replayability with a fixed map. I know that's a big issue for me with both The Long Dark, and The Forest, as while I really loved my first time with those games, knowing where everything is takes away a huge amount from the experience.

 

Honestly, I'd kinda like it if the Pimps just ditched the whole fixed map idea and embraced the procedurally generated approach 100%.

[Asthor]

are gun's mold removed in the config file? (i hope so, they bring out so much loot value)

[FlowerChild]

are gun's mold removed in the config file? (i hope so, they bring out so much loot value)

 

Yup, everything other than shotgun part molds which require an advanced skill book to unlock (which are more difficult to acquire in the mod, only available from safes, which are harder to get into as well).

 

Otherwise, all you can make yourself are the stocks of weapons. All other gun parts have to be scavenged.

[Gilberreke]

I like the idea of setting the skill books up in a way that randomizes progression. I've played with a similar design a while back and I think it would make for a very cool game.

 

Like, one game you'll find a farming book early, but not much else and now you're playing a completely different game, where the game kinda is oriented towards you having enough food at all times, while protecting your little farm area against zombies. The next play-through, you get some good skills going to defend from zombies and now you're doing the classic scavenger stuff, trying to stay fed.

 

I think one thing that might be off right now (from the very few skill books I found so far, still doing horribly ) is that skill books feel too logical. I'm not sure if you should feel stuck at "I have to make a skill book that teaches a real world skill and now the player can make all tools". What if you did something crazy like randomizing books? I find a book that teaches me how to make two tools, repair frames and grow coffee. Sure those have nothing in common, but now you get hugely varied game-play based on the order of finding books, instead of "now I don't know how to make my own tools", "now I know how to make every tool in the game".

 

Maybe you should write a small program that randomizes skill books and do a few play-throughs with random books and find out if the RNG () manages to surprise you into finding some gems that you can properly design into the game? I assume the eventual proper design will come down to a hybrid of a tech-tree ("you really ought to learn these things in order to get fun game-play") and the current very novel random loot finds ("I wonder what the game will throw at me this time?").

 

Taken with a grain of salt from what we've established to be the world's worst 7 Days to Die player

[FlowerChild]

I think one thing that might be off right now (from the very few skill books I found so far, still doing horribly ) is that skill books feel too logical.

 

The thing is with the above that beyond wanting to retain some suspension of disbelief with the skill books in having them make a certain amount of sense, the way I have them grouped is that they generally only provide one crucial skill.

 

For example, with the tool thing you mentioned: only the pick axe is really important there. The other tools and weapons are really just incremental upgrades on what you already have, so I don't see much value in splitting them up further.

 

So far I've been trying to cluster books not just for some semblance of logical consistency, but to also distribute primary and secondary skills in such a way that each book will likely serve an immediate purpose through a secondary skill, even if it's main purpose is when used in combination with skills found in other books, and then tertiary skills are sprinkled on top to provide some semblance of reason behind the whole thing.

 

What I did with the "Pottery" skill book (which is actually more of an arts and crafts book) this last release is a good example. Previously, it was only useful in combination with the forging book in order to make molds. With the addition of candles however, it allowed me to bundle the recipe for them as a secondary but immediate benefit to finding the book.

 

Doing things the way you're talking would ultimately just lead to a lot of player disappointment as they'd just wind up finding a lot of relatively useless books containing tertiary skills that serve no real benefit, as for the most part I'm already splitting things up so the abilities that actually matter are found independently (still a few loose ends to resolve in that regard, but that's what I'm aiming for anyways).

 

And really man, when I'm creating the books I'm looking at the gameplay benefits of splitting things up in certain ways, and any logical justification for them comes later, largely through adding in secondary and tertiary skills, so don't let them apparently making some sense in the end fool you into thinking that's what is driving me with them

[Gilberreke]

Ah yes, that makes sense. I need a bunch more playing to give proper feedback of course. Carry on with the good work sir

 

I figured my post wasn't going to be much help, but I had an idea similar to the skill book crafting one a few pages back and I didn't post it at the time because I figured you would have been way ahead of me. Then I saw it was actually something new. So I figured I'd throw a few thoughts together this time.

 

The weird part about playing a game modded from the start is that I can't tell which parts are actually that good because of the mod and which parts are just vanilla or vanilla++. I have 0 intention to go play vanilla right now though. The combined effort feels good too, the game plays surprisingly well.

[Asthor]

Yup, everything other than shotgun part molds which require an advanced skill book to unlock (which are more difficult to acquire in the mod, only available from safes, which are harder to get into as well).

 

Otherwise, all you can make yourself are the stocks of weapons. All other gun parts have to be scavenged.

 

perfect! are stocks locked recipes too? can i ask why you removed bricks and other ornamental blocks from recipes?

[FlowerChild]

perfect! are stocks locked recipes too? can i ask why you removed bricks and other ornamental blocks from recipes?

 

Weapon stocks are initially locked behind a recipe book and become available later. Ornamental blocks have been removed because base defense is part of the progression and the ornamental blocks contain many exploits for bypassing the building system in recent releases (frames etc.).

 

My impression is that the Pimps are still in the process of moving the game from the old Minecraft style building system to the new upgrade-based system, so for the sake of gameplay consistency I've tried to remove all the old Minecraft style placeable blocks, with a few exceptions like with weak furniture (sofas, chairs, etc.) you can use as temporary barricades in the early game.

[LorenzoMatterhorn]

perfect! are stocks locked recipes too? can i ask why you removed bricks and other ornamental blocks from recipes?

 

I believe stocks are unlocked since they are relatively simple parts. And I don't want to speak too much for FC but I think the idea was to simplify the recipe list and focus on survival aspects instead of building aspects. His alternative would have been to modify those blocks to fit in with everything else and then lock them behind an advanced skill book, which would have been more work for what amounts to a cosmetic change.

 

FlowerChild - I was going through the buffs.xml while killing time at work today (got an idea to make eating 10 baked potatoes in a row start dropping your wellness) and I noticed something. Food poisoning now lasts 1200 seconds but still takes 0.5 wellness per second. I'm not sure exactly how wellness works but I believe right now food poisoning could kill you outright in as little as 60 seconds and at most in about 400 seconds. Don't hold me to it, but I thought Madmole said you can't drop below 30 wellness from dying, but I believe buffs can cause it.

[zackss]

My impression is that the Pimps are still in the process of moving the game from the old Minecraft style building system to the new upgrade-based system, so for the sake of gameplay consistency I've tried to remove all the old Minecraft style placeable blocks, with a few exceptions like with weak furniture (sofas, chairs, etc.) you can use as temporary barricades in the early game.

Related to furniture and a previous series of posts regarding using pots to climb, the easy pickup and put down nature of couches and their relative abundance has made them my go-to climbing material. One of the things that aids this is that you can stack them in inventory, and this has always been a rather silly property. Perhaps adding stacking limits to these easily found placeable items would help prevent them from being as abusable without just removing them entirely?

[FlowerChild]

Related to furniture and a previous series of posts regarding using pots to climb, the easy pickup and put down nature of couches and their relative abundance has made them my go-to climbing material. One of the things that aids this is that you can stack them in inventory, and this has always been a rather silly property. Perhaps adding stacking limits to these easily found placeable items would help prevent them from being as abusable without just removing them entirely?

 

Yeah, I actually looked at that briefly awhile back and the issue there is that couches are blocks rather than items, and I don't think you can impose a straight stack limit on blocks.

 

I suspect there are workarounds like converting to an intermediate item when you pick them up, like torches do, but I suspect that would also be a pain in the ass to implement for each of those blocks, so I put it on the backburner for the time being hoping that a better solution would become apparent as I work more with the .xml files (I'm still learning a lot about them as I go).

 

FlowerChild - I was going through the buffs.xml while killing time at work today (got an idea to make eating 10 baked potatoes in a row start dropping your wellness) and I noticed something. Food poisoning now lasts 1200 seconds but still takes 0.5 wellness per second. I'm not sure exactly how wellness works but I believe right now food poisoning could kill you outright in as little as 60 seconds and at most in about 400 seconds. Don't hold me to it, but I thought Madmole said you can't drop below 30 wellness from dying, but I believe buffs can cause it.

 

K, I'll take a look at that. The inner workings of the wellness system are not exactly intuitive

[FlowerChild]

Actually, no, with the wellness thing above you're misinterpreting how the wellness penalty for food poisoning works. It's a one time penalty, not applied per second.

 

If anything, I should probably increase that. Please base feedback on in-game observations, not what is going on in the .xml files, as the latter inevitably leads to these kinds of mistakes and me wasting time looking into them.

[Xamllew]

If you have 30 wellness yes you can still lose wellness through starvation and food poisoning, of course starvation works on a timer, I've had below 10 wellness a time or two when food was short. However you can exploit that by just dying which will reset it to 30.

[FlowerChild]

If you have 30 wellness yes you can still lose wellness through starvation and food poisoning, of course starvation works on a timer, I've had below 10 wellness a time or two when food was short. However you can exploit that by just dying which will reset it to 30.

 

Hmmm...that's an interesting point. I may be able to bottom out wellness at 30 to make such gamey behavior unnecessary, through creative manipulation of the buff system.

 

I'll take a look at it.

[Asthor]

Weapon stocks are initially locked behind a recipe book and become available later. Ornamental blocks have been removed because base defense is part of the progression and the ornamental blocks contain many exploits for bypassing the building system in recent releases (frames etc.).

 

My impression is that the Pimps are still in the process of moving the game from the old Minecraft style building system to the new upgrade-based system, so for the sake of gameplay consistency I've tried to remove all the old Minecraft style placeable blocks, with a few exceptions like with weak furniture (sofas, chairs, etc.) you can use as temporary barricades in the early game.

 

I believe stocks are unlocked since they are relatively simple parts. And I don't want to speak too much for FC but I think the idea was to simplify the recipe list and focus on survival aspects instead of building aspects. His alternative would have been to modify those blocks to fit in with everything else and then lock them behind an advanced skill book, which would have been more work for what amounts to a cosmetic change.[...]

 

 

Thank you guys for the detailed response, it's a good point but i prefer to have more variety in blocks (i really like to build) meanwhile the Pimps are gonna shift them to upgrade-based system concept (and i love it); so i think i'll bring them back for now. Regards the new recipes book and the shotguns shells crafting, it's not a good idea to make them stackable (like up to 12) and convertible to paper as the normal book? i find it so odd that the normal book, instead, can be stacked and craftable. Maybe you can convert all book-based recipe to schematic recipe (mantein common and rare) so we can address this awkward situation

[FlowerChild]

Thank you guys for the detailed response, it's a good point but i prefer to have more variety in blocks (i really like to build) meanwhile the Pimps are gonna shift them to upgrade-based system concept (and i love it); so i think i'll bring them back for now. Regards the new recipes book and the shotguns shells crafting, it's not a good idea to make them stackable (like up to 12) and convertible to paper as the normal book? i find it so odd that the normal book, instead, can be stacked and craftable. Maybe you can convert all book-based recipe to schematic recipe (mantein common and rare) so we can address this awkward situation

 

It's a fair point, but you generally don't find enough skill books in BTGB where it's an issue. Just do what I do, and burn them

[Asthor]

It's a fair point, but you generally don't find enough skill books in BTGB where it's an issue. Just do what I do, and burn them

 

ahah ^^

regarding the recipe books, i've definetively applied your mod to my dedicated and i've notice that i cannot list them through the console, it reports me only the standard recipe books and if i look in the newly spawned bookcase i can see only normal books and sometimes the standard recipe books. It's something related to the space in the recipe name in the config file? I cannot fix this problem

[FlowerChild]

ahah ^^

regarding the recipe books, i've definetively applied your mod to my dedicated and i've notice that i cannot list them through the console, it reports me only the standard recipe books and if i look in the newly spawned bookcase i can see only normal books and sometimes the standard recipe books. It's something related to the space in the recipe name in the config file? I cannot fix this problem

 

The creative menu only lists items up to a certain ID, and I've put the IDs of the mod items way up in value so that they don't wind up conflicting with the ones the Pimps add with new vanilla releases.

 

I believe it's a problem that the Pimps are already aware of, but it shouldn't affect anything other than that menu.

[Asthor]

The creative menu only lists items up to a certain ID, and I've put the IDs of the mod items way up in value so that they don't wind up conflicting with the ones the Pimps add with new vanilla releases.

 

I believe it's a problem that the Pimps are already aware of, but it shouldn't affect anything other than that menu.

 

thank you mate, i managed to make it work anyway ^^

[MadTeddyBear]

I love the mod, but it feels like too big a swing from scraping the bottom of the barrel to trivially easy with the forge book. Before you get it there's little to do because so much hinges on being able to make ingots. On my own small server I'm planning to test three recipes to make bullet casings, tips, and buckshot at a 1:1 ratio with scrap lead/brass. The idea is that you'll be able to piece together some ammo without a forge, but a lot less efficiently than if you did have one.

 

Have you considered:

1. Remove the forge recipe entirely, leaving the molds and whatnot as part of the book, and including it as a drop that accompanies the book (is this even possible?) or just a rare spawn some place in the city.

2. Either adding forged materials (ingots, forge iron, etc.) to the loot table or more recipes like the ones I've described so you can cobble together equipment from a large pile of scrap?

 

The mod's already great as is but I think this would make exploration and planning more meaningful in the early game and make the forge less important in the long run.

[jwsdev]

FC, you are my hero. I love 7dtd so much, but I only seem to muster enough interest for 4 in game days after each patch on vanilla. Once I have crafted the new items or had them all dumped in my inventory on the first looting opportunity all incentive and threat is removed. Then I build an impenetrable fortress which is completed before day 4- complete with farm and iron production. Feral horde? Hah... I think I hear a cop puking and a spider screaming out there, let me check... nope everything is dead. I don't blame the pimps for lack of balance and much prefer them churning out features and stability improvements.

 

I recently started looking into modding as playing on Insane with 50% block durability, 25% loot, no airdrops, ignoring the crossbow, and enforcing perma-death on myself was still not satisfying my desire for challenge and a bit more post-apocalypse RP immersion. Then I found your mod, and I cannot thank you enough. This is so close to the experience I have been seeking that I cannot wait to see what you have planned for other things like farming etc. I actually did not start playing 10.3 until your mod was up to date because I was having way too much fun.

 

A couple notes:

Wood log spike- Is there anything that can be done to the damage dealt by wood log spike to Zeds? I feel they are horribly imbalanced even gated behind a skill book. The very popular build of 2-3 rows of spikes around a structure makes the 7th day horde and any spider hordes laughable. I like to RP that I am unaware of the 7 day mechanic. To me it would create such a sense of urgency if you are scraping by in a prefab and securing it as much as possible based on your limited skill set. Then on the 7th day, you have your sh*t pushed in by a feral horde thus shattering your false sense of safety in your reinforced, trap surrounded prefab which has been reduced to rumble. A 'we need to build a bigger boat' moment

 

Food poisoning - Not sure if this is working as intended. Last night on a play through I was starving and had yet to loot any food or enough pipe for a grill. I was on full health, I ate a raw egg and got food poisoning. I thought the risk would be worth it- trading off some stamina and health while crouched in the woods at night to preserve my wellness. It seemed to last unreasonably long, and killed me. I even took a painkiller at some point to get my blood back up. I read in a previous post some concerns about wellness, and while I was too busy to observe the exact value impact, I assume it pushed my wellness to 0 and killed me. What is the intended effect of food poisoning in your mod? Is it intended to be that brutal of a buff? Food poisoning killing you faster than the outbreak virus doesn't seem quite right to me. I will try to test this again this evening.

 

Recommended Settings- I personally don't like zombies set to feral. GPS zombies feels like a cheap difficulty increase that detracts from stealth meta game. I turn the difficulty up to Warrior or Insane as a trade off. To me this adds more to the early game and looting in general. You are forced to run away from them until you have some gear/confidence and even then there is big risk in deciding to take one down. This makes the health item drops from nurses so rewarding and terrifying at the same time. You are also rewarded for stealth by being able to sneak into heavily populated area and there is a punishment for being spotted even by a single zombie because you will need to run away, not to mention a group of them spotting you near your base. As you move through houses you will hear them shambling and moaning outside, wondering with tension if the next stone axe hit or cabinet creak will alert them to surround the house and demand your face.

 

Thanks again. I will continue to play and provide feedback- I think you are onto something great here and I agree with your philosophy. Added realism and challenge, but not realism just for the sake of realism. With the limited access you have in the .xml files you have already toed the line of realism vs rewarding gameplay that so many of the other survival games have yet to get right.

[FlowerChild]

Recommended Settings- I personally don't like zombies set to feral. GPS zombies feels like a cheap difficulty increase that detracts from stealth meta game.

 

Just a small note here: feral zombies aren't GPS, EXCEPT at night.

 

So, the stealth element is still there for you during the day, BUT base defense at night becomes much more of an issue and you absolutely can't be caught out in the open. It doesn't interfere with any of the sneaking into POI stuff that you mention. What it does do is reduce the amount of crouching in a corner you wind up doing waiting for morning.

 

Just wanted to point that out, as I think I had assumed for awhile myself that feral were always able to track you before realizing that wasn't the case, and it was actually exactly the gameplay experience I was looking for.

[FlowerChild]

1. Remove the forge recipe entirely, leaving the molds and whatnot as part of the book, and including it as a drop that accompanies the book (is this even possible?) or just a rare spawn some place in the city.

2. Either adding forged materials (ingots, forge iron, etc.) to the loot table or more recipes like the ones I've described so you can cobble together equipment from a large pile of scrap?

 

On this one, not sure if you've been playing the most recent releases, but forging is actually gated behind three skills books right now: Pottery (which I really need to change to "Arts And Crafts") for creating molds, forging for creating the forge itself, and smithing for creating tools out of ingots. It would take one hell of a lucky run to get all three quickly as a result.

 

On the ammo crafting bit, there's already an element of this in that you can scrap existing ammo down into components to make ammo for whatever kind of firearm you happen to possess.

[MadTeddyBear]

On this one, not sure if you've been playing the most recent releases, but forging is actually gated behind three skills books right now: Pottery (which I really need to change to "Arts And Crafts") for creating molds, forging for creating the forge itself, and smithing for creating tools out of ingots. It would take one hell of a lucky run to get all three quickly as a result.

 

On the ammo crafting bit, there's already an element of this in that you can scrap existing ammo down into components to make ammo for whatever kind of firearm you happen to possess.

 

I have been, with 25% loot. There were four of us in the group and we found all of those books collectively by day 4. Even without the rest of the group I personally found the forge book on day 4 (and a duplicate on day 6) and every other book plus some tools on a trip to the city for the book store and hardware store. As for the ammo, there wasn't really enough looted to do anything with. This may have just been a symptom of a larger group but most of the ammo came from looting an entire gun that simply had a full clip.