Alpha 19 Dev Diary

[Guppys Fur]

21 minutes ago, Gazz said:

He can use god mode. No problem whatsoever.

ah true.

I mean they are not meant for normal gameplay anyway. (well whats normal in this game anyway hehe)

 

I do like some of these Items when working on our community Buildings on the Server or to make some adjustments on the landscape to "help" find the perfect spot.

[Worrun]

10 hours ago, madmole said:

Yes.

Food is a non issue in single player. There might be bugs in MP, which I'm assuming you are referring to?

We did find broken iron gut perks and red tea doesn't work, so that will help those who are struggling (not me in the slightest but I mostly play SP).

Yeah I'm talking about multiplayer but not regarding those bugs, and it's not that it's hard to keep food sustained I have just noticed that a lot of people believe that the food bar drains too fast - and while I respect that you may not feel this way playing single player on your end, if you check out the reddit and steam forums you'll find a lot of threads regarding the topic. Just something to think about, being experimental and all.

 

Happy gaming

[Jaron105]

3 hours ago, Annihilatorza said:

I was doing a test yesterday with the trader questing system for my video that is upcoming and I noticed that all the traders with within 1km of each other all in the burnt biome.

 

I was playing on a 4x4 random gen map and I did all the quests from tier 1-5 and I had trader Jen as the tier 2 trader and as the tier 5 as well.

 

Just curious if anyone else has noticed this as well?

Playing on an 8x8 map I've had the a city where trader Joel was 800 meters from Trader Jen. I left the forest biome and went to a city in the Burnt forest that had a different Trader Jen, where she went me to a different Trader joel, all within less than 2k from where i originally started. Seems very odd

[Worrun]

13 hours ago, Khalagar said:

 

This is intended behavior, they want you to be investing in cooking and making actual food. It's completely pointless to eat anything cheaper to make than Bacon and Eggs. Cans of Tuna only give you 5 food each I believe, and if you make the mistake of trying to mine before you get an auger, you'll burn that entire food bar in a minute or two. I burned like 80 food in 6 or 7 minutes of mining

 

I've been testing mining to see if it's feasible, but it's straight yikes atm. I was lucky and was able to buy a level 2 Auger by like day 18 and immediately trashed my level 4 Iron and level 4 steel picks. Even with decent food and both blackstrap coffee + normal coffee, you'll spend like a solid 2-3 minutes out of your 10 minute rock breaker out of stamina, and you'll eat your entire camps food store in the process.

 

To have any remote chance of mining without the Auger you need like Master Chef 2 or 3 out 4 so you can  make food out of the resources you wish you had, Living off the land so you can cry about not being able to afford enough farm plots to feed you, Miner 69 level 4 or 5 so you can break blocks and make level 5 tools, Max Sex Rex, Iron Gut maxed out etc. So basically, by the time you are level 30 and start seeing augers, you'll be able to mine with a pick =/

 

The people experiencing a "bug" were likely being told by the game to stop trying to use iron or steel tools and wait for the auger. Even dinking on a safe or digging out cobblestone / cement bags  will smash your stamina and noticeably lower your food bar if you are  trying to collect very many. I checked mine and went from 81 food to like 60~ish food just opening a hardened chest with an iron pick axe

 

This is the first alpha I've ever played where I don't have a mineshaft to bedrock, which is where I normally live and something I've usually got by like day 4 or 5. It would take a month to dig to bedrock with the current stamina system, and you'd need every perk listed above maxed out along with a chest FILLED with nothing but meat stew to stand any chance of making it alive.

Well written and pretty spot on. Cheers

[Adam the Waster]

1 hour ago, 0ldman said:

Danke, genau so habe ich es gemeint. 

"Thanks, that's exactly what I meant."

anyone having a problem picking up spears? i just threw mine and i can't pick it up.

 

 

that was my last iron spear

[FileMachete]

48 minutes ago, Adam the Waster said:

anyone having a problem picking up spears? i just threw mine and i can't pick it up.

Guessing you need to mine out a couple blocks to get it back...

 

 🤣 {kidding! but this is getting into meme country lol}

[beerfly]

59 minutes ago, Adam the Waster said:

"Thanks, that's exactly what I meant."

anyone having a problem picking up spears? i just threw mine and i can't pick it up.

 

 

that was my last iron spear

Is there anything that could collide with it and preventing it showing the *take* button, the guy with machete have its good point  

[Guppys Fur]

2 hours ago, 0ldman said:

Danke, genau so habe ich es gemeint. 

Nevermind

[Adam the Waster]

1 minute ago, beerfly said:

Is there anything that could collide with it and preventing it showing the *take* button, the guy with machete have its good point  

no i throw it say in the ground an if i try to dig it out, it will float and will be unable to be picked up.

 

 

but if i throw it at a zombie i can recover it.

[beerfly]

Just now, Adam the Waster said:

no i throw it say in the ground an if i try to dig it out, it will float and will be unable to be picked up.

 

 

but if i throw it at a zombie i can recover it.

Gonna play after an hour or so and test that, you might check if console does show some sort of errors or warnings , or make a log so it can be investigated.

 

Sry, I know you know that 😛 

 

 

 

[meganoth]

11 hours ago, Khalagar said:

  

Been testing these numbers since you posted it, and Sex Rex makes a huuuuge difference with even a single point, I'm wondering if it's a bug and matters more than it says.

 

At level 50 with 4/5 Miner 69, I can't even break half of a 2500 health block before I'm out of stamina. 1 point of Sex Rex pushes it to where I can get the block to about 1K health with Iron and Steel pick, coffee pushes it over so that I can break a single block before getting winded. Bigger issue than just the stamina though, is the food drain is nuts. I seem to be using around 2-3 food per stamina bar. I burned through 20+ food in a few minutes just testing the different picks on the side of a nearby PoI.

 

I just tested going to bedrock on my level 50 character with 4/5 Miner 69 and 1 Sex Rex, using a Steel Pick with a rockbreaker and ironbreaker mod, and after eating a Meat Stew and using Coffee

 

Took about 3 hours in game, 20 food, several coffee, and a repair kit, but I got there!

 

The results weren't as bad as my early game test a few days ago when I tried to go mining with my first Iron Pick and a bunch of canned food and coffee, but TBH like 80% of that success and speed to get to bedrock was because I have 50% more stamina because I'm higher level and then another 20 was from my Stew.

 

 

 

For giggles I tried it on a new character with 1 Sex Rex and 2 Miner 69 and nothing else. Using a Level 5 steel pick with the rock, iron, and dirt breaker mods, and using Blackstrap coffee because normal coffee was taking WAY too long

 

Going to bedrook took about 5 hours in game and 20 food. I guess I should have used an Iron pick to more accurately represent how much food it would take, but that would have taken frickin forever-er.

 

With Blackstrap coffee, it takes 8 full seconds to regenerate my stamina bar from 20 (where I stop being able to use my tool) to 105. So I mine for 20 seconds and then run out of stamina, and then stand still for 8 seconds not doing anything waiting for it to recharge.

 

That's almost 50% downtime between "actually playing the game" and why I say stamina is not a fun mechanic, Stamina exists specifically to *stop* you from having fun and playing the game, hence, a punishing stamina system being more annoying than fun. I break exactly 4 blocks, then stand there AFK for 8 seconds until I can play the game again. Nearly a full half of my time spent mining is spent AFK staring at my pick waiting for my stamina to come back

 

Part of the problem I have with the current mining set up is that it's all geared around food and drinks etc. That's okay late game, but farm plots are expensive AF, and it takes a lot of perks to get there. Sex Rex is something I don't ever normally invest in because it's not good late game, but a single point in it made a very noticeable difference for tools and max Sex Rex would be completely mandatory if people actually used Picks past mid game. Coffee is just RNG to get to spawn in vending machines if you don't have farm plots, and blackstrap is SUPER rare for some reason, to the point where I've seen 2 total by day 30 and still can't even craft it myself.

 

I agree with the person a few days back who talked about their new friend who started to play 7 Days and was going to be a miner and instantly nope'd out. There are so many pre-reqs to actually play a mining character that it's crazy. I just did the math and you need around 25 points to even really be a decent miner, and like half of those points are food and gardening perks so you don't starve to death

 

Every alpha you have to reevaluate or you come to wrong conclusions. "Sexrex" being "not good late game" is a fact you learned in A18, but this is A19 where you need Sexrex late game as a miner when you want to use better picks, axes and shovels. Sure, there is auger and chainsaw which are still alternatives without stamina use, but TFP has not balanced them yet. Auger will use stamina as well (according to TFP) and may well need a moderate Sexrex investment, but ultimately Auger/Chainsaw should land in some other tree like INT or PER to bolster those a bit

 

Pre-reqs to be a miner? What about the AGI stealth player who needs mandatory points in both stealth perks plus bow or pistol perk (not complaining, you get good stuff out of these 15-20 perk points, more if you add run and gun to the equation). Not much different. Plus that most other perk trees often need some investment in sexrex AND miner perks which cost them a lot more than it costs the strength player. I play perception in my SP game but had more points in strength than perception for the first ~7 levels of my game.

 

Ironic that STR is the best perk tree in A19 (correct me if I'm wrong, but seems the consensus around here), but you seriously make it sound like the loser tree.

 

So you need 25 points to be a good miner? Wrong, you need time to be a good miner. You should invest 1 point in Living of the land and 1 point in master chef (non-strength players usually need this as well) and build your farm. Building up your farm takes time. If I judge from my SP game it takes about 10 in-game days before that farm begins to slowly supply you and you found some useful recipes and then the player can turn his attention from the survival early game to other tasks. And that is independent of whether you play miner or not, all players have this early phase.

 

 

[KingSlayerGM]

hi guys, sorry for the noob question:

is there a quick way to see if I already know the schematic/book I have in the inventory?

 

IMO the game shouldn't allow me to read a book I have read already.

 

Thank you

7 hours ago, FileMachete said:

@madmole , honestly not trying to poke the bear with the following.

 

tl;dr ==> that's fine, but what if I don't want to be a shotgunner/clubber?

 

I think this is the central nugget for a fair few recent posts related to character builds, trees/attributes etc.

 

Totally get the real world, makes sense part of this. (I was a carpenter in earlier days and no BS burned 7000+ calories a day)

 

It's that as a Single Player, who likes to build (and actually enjoys mining in 7dtd), I'm _always_ buying Strength, even when I have no intention of using Shotguns or Sledge or Clubs.

 

Were Weapon Specializations to become decoupled from core attributes like Strength, while to be a good miner still required spending numerous points in "strength", but I could specialize in whichever main weapons I wanted, for the same total points cost, that'd be ideal. For me at least.

I agree completerly, @madmole please consider this

[meganoth]

12 hours ago, madmole said:

We will improve it. This is just a first quick attempt at a primitive stage. Part of the problem is we only have a few primitive weapons, once we get the pipe pistol, pipe machinegun, pipe rifle and pipe baton in, then all classes will be treated fairly and there will just be a lot more things in the loot pool. We could always bring in a low chance to start getting iron tools and iron guns sooner, but the general idea is, as long as you are getting something a little better you are pretty happy. We also have talked about doing a faster loot and a slower loot modifier so if you want you could start in the iron age, or have primitive last even longer, just with a slider. There is no way to make everyone happy with it, but it will get better for sure in the future.

I imagine some overlap at all tiers, so there is a rare chance for something good but we haven't finalized any of that yet. My take on it is if I have nothing, a bicycle is good. Once I have that I'd be happy with a minibike, so on and so forth.

in that vein, a friend of mine suggested moving the crossbow to Perception (alternatively INT).

 

As someone who plays AGI I say AGI doesn't need a pipe pistol because it already has the bow and in the early phase you can use all stone-age weapons without much disadvantage.

5 minutes ago, KingSlayerGM said:

hi guys, sorry for the noob question:

is there a quick way to see if I already know the schematic/book I have in the inventory?

 

IMO the game shouldn't allow me to read a book I have read already.

 

There is a small white icon of a closed or open book on the schematic. Open means you already read it.

 

[gizmomelb]

so is b157 pretty stable or is there another build 'coming soon' which will address loot levels etc.?  thank you.

 

[Perlin_Worm]

2 hours ago, Adam the Waster said:

"Thanks, that's exactly what I meant."

anyone having a problem picking up spears? i just threw mine and i can't pick it up.

 

 

that was my last iron spear

I have noticed spears being more difficult to retrieve in a19

[KingSlayerGM]

41 minutes ago, meganoth said:

There is a small white icon of a closed or open book on the schematic. Open means you already read it.

Thanks 😃

[madmole]

8 hours ago, FileMachete said:

@madmole , honestly not trying to poke the bear with the following.

 

tl;dr ==> that's fine, but what if I don't want to be a shotgunner/clubber?

 

I think this is the central nugget for a fair few recent posts related to character builds, trees/attributes etc.

 

Totally get the real world, makes sense part of this. (I was a carpenter in earlier days and no BS burned 7000+ calories a day)

 

It's that as a Single Player, who likes to build (and actually enjoys mining in 7dtd), I'm _always_ buying Strength, even when I have no intention of using Shotguns or Sledge or Clubs.

 

Were Weapon Specializations to become decoupled from core attributes like Strength, while to be a good miner still required spending numerous points in "strength", but I could specialize in whichever main weapons I wanted, for the same total points cost, that'd be ideal. For me at least.

When I say "if you are into mining" I mean all in. Someone talking of digging to bedrock, talking about stamina use, etc etc is clearly totally into mining and those characters should spec into strength. Everyone else who for mining is a side task, they can still access a fair amount of mining with minimal strength investment. I don't know the exact numbers but it is a very small investment especially if you use a cigar and only get 3 ranks of the mining perks.

Alternatives exist, augers give you lots of ore, and candy augments it. You don't NEED any mining perks at all you can gather what you need to fix up a base, or build a small one just fine without any strength perks.

I don't use any INT weapons, yet I buy INT perks nearly every game. It is part of the game and grounded in reality. To wield a pickaxe it takes a certain level of strength, just like someone who wants to learn about intellect stuff, needs to have a certain level of intelligence. I just don't see the issue other than a bunch of people who want it all super early.

[madmole]

7 hours ago, toores said:

I have never been into mining a lot. Having stamina to break blocks is necessary for every player in a destructibe voxel game.

I just had to break down 5 poles on the roof of a fire department. They were 10k steel + 5k concrete. So each pole was 15k to break. Purple iron pickaxe fully modded, coffee, food... It took pretty long and the stamina waiting ain't the funnest gameplay.
 

I play fortitude-agility build and I'm not too thrilled about having to go into strength at all. But I guess it is inevitable...

 

While talking about perks you must have, do I still need to go full INT to get decent solar stuff?

There is no situation where you are forced to break 15k blocks in the game. Shotguns breaching rounds can break blocks. C4 and dynamite are optoins.

Why? Because it is the top end of the whole power upgrade tree. Why bother with solar stuff? Gas is easy to mine, I rarely have to refill my generator in any game.

[MechanicalLens]

16 minutes ago, madmole said:

When I say "if you are into mining" I mean all in. Someone talking of digging to bedrock, talking about stamina use, etc etc is clearly totally into mining and those characters should spec into strength. Everyone else who for mining is a side task, they can still access a fair amount of mining with minimal strength investment. I don't know the exact numbers but it is a very small investment especially if you use a cigar and only get 3 ranks of the mining perks.

Alternatives exist, augers give you lots of ore, and candy augments it. You don't NEED any mining perks at all you can gather what you need to fix up a base, or build a small one just fine without any strength perks.

I don't use any INT weapons, yet I buy INT perks nearly every game. It is part of the game and grounded in reality. To wield a pickaxe it takes a certain level of strength, just like someone who wants to learn about intellect stuff, needs to have a certain level of intelligence. I just don't see the issue other than a bunch of people who want it all super early.

Precisely. I suggest the rest of y'all, including myself, to invest deep into Strength early on (at a time when you don't need any points into your weapon of choice, farming, armor, etc.), get it over and done with, and then begin investing into your preferred tree. ie If you plan on investing into Perception, then simply get 3/4 or even 4/4 Sex Rex, along with a couple to a few points into both Mother Lode and Miner 69er, right off the rip, and then you can diverge from there. It's not like the game is forcing you to go shotguns/clubs/sledges because you're investing so heavily into said tree. What is the saying? See a need, fill a need.

 

Point being: To get 3/4 Sex Rex and 3 points into Mother Lode and Miner 69er, that will cost you a grant total of 13 points, assuming you don't find a cigar. Deduct 4 points, and that's 9 levels, which is totally achievable within the first in-game week. Minus a couple debatable perks like The Huntsman, Rule #1 Cardio, and perhaps Healing Factor for some, you don't need points into any other trees until after the first week, and some only when you begin to encounter ferals in POI's. You don't need 3/5 Javelin Master on day 2, for example.

 

Edit: I forgot if Sex Rex 3/4 requires you to have 3 points into Strength or 5. If it's only 3/10 for Strength, then it's even cheaper!

[madmole]

2 hours ago, Worrun said:

Yeah I'm talking about multiplayer but not regarding those bugs, and it's not that it's hard to keep food sustained I have just noticed that a lot of people believe that the food bar drains too fast - and while I respect that you may not feel this way playing single player on your end, if you check out the reddit and steam forums you'll find a lot of threads regarding the topic. Just something to think about, being experimental and all.

 

Happy gaming

Whiners are going to whine. It isn't too fast, they are just eating one can of miso that doesn't do much and then complaining. Try telling me you have to eat too often eating gumbo stew. Like fill up and you don't need to eat for a very long time.

[Black Hat]

Underwater POIs:

 

This could be a bug, But looks amazing!

Imagine having certain POIs where you have to move fast or the zeds can come and catch you, 

That sounds good for a trader quest, where you have to swim in a part of a base flooded and you have to activate a generator or something.

[Adam the Waster]

8 minutes ago, madmole said:

There is no situation where you are forced to break 15k blocks in the game. Shotguns breaching rounds can break blocks. C4 and dynamite are optoins.

Why? Because it is the top end of the whole power upgrade tree. Why bother with solar stuff? Gas is easy to mine, I rarely have to refill my generator in any game.

Maybe the solar Generators could be replaced with a "industrial Generator" where its bigger, Louder but has 3xs the power production!    

Just now, Black Hat said:

Underwater POIs:

 

This could be a bug, But looks amazing!

Imagine having certain POIs where you have to move fast or the zeds can come and catch you, 

That sounds good for a trader quest, where you have to swim in a part of a base flooded and you have to activate a generator or something.

That would be nice but if they are going to make Underwater areas they will have to make the water better, Take the fishery for example in Navezgane,  

[madmole]

3 minutes ago, MechanicalLens said:

Precisely. I suggest the rest of y'all, including myself, to invest deep into Strength early on (at a time when you don't need any points into your weapon of choice, farming, armor, etc.), get it over and done with, and then begin investing into your preferred tree. ie If you plan on investing into Perception, then simply get 3/4 or even 4/4 Sex Rex, along with a couple to a few points into both Mother Lode and Miner 69er, right off the rip, and then you can diverge from there. It's not like the game is forcing you to go shotguns/clubs/sledges because you're investing so heavily into said tree. What is the saying? See a need, fill a need.

 

Point being: To get 3/4 Sex Rex and 3 points into Mother Lode and Miner 69er, that will cost you a grant total of 13 points, assuming you don't find a cigar. Deduct 4 points, and that's 9 levels, which is totally achievable within the first in-game week. Minus a couple debatable perks like The Huntsman, Rule #1 Cardio, and perhaps Healing Factor for some, you don't need points into any other trees until after the first week, and some only when you begin to encounter ferals in POI's. You don't need 3/5 Javelin Master on day 2, for example.

So 9 points, 4 of which are free, by level 5 you can achieve awesome miner status. I don't understand why this seems so painful to people. You have the rest of the game to develop whatever skills you want, and can get cooking and heavy armor too if you choose, because you are already semi invested in STR.

[Jarod_Silverstar]

13 hours ago, madmole said:

 

I imagine some overlap at all tiers, so there is a rare chance for something good but we haven't finalized any of that yet. My take on it is if I have nothing, a bicycle is good. Once I have that I'd be happy with a minibike, so on and so forth.

Agreed - there needs to be some overlap so it doesn't remove the chances of getting the better finds early on, but it does mean that you are more likely to find things at certain stages.

Add this to the crafting level increase for reading additional schematics on tools, guns and armor and I think it is a very workable idea to try out.

[MechanicalLens]

6 minutes ago, madmole said:

So 9 points, 4 of which are free, by level 5 you can achieve awesome miner status. I don't understand why this seems so painful to people. You have the rest of the game to develop whatever skills you want, and can get cooking and heavy armor too if you choose, because you are already semi invested in STR.

Exactly what I'm saying.  Once you reach mid-game or at least late early-game, yes, several points into Strength and their respective perks become expensive. By that point you may "need" points into farming, or armor, or weaponry, or vehicles, or workstations. Early on though, none of these requirements materialize; if you feel that you need these mining perks, literally just get them out of the way right off the rip. Sure, a point into x perk, y perk, or z perk might prove to be useful (some of which depend on individual circumstance), but they aren't required. Trust me, if you go down this route, you'll thank yourself later for doing so, because then you won't have to put farming or crafting better weapons/armor on the backburner because you are having stamina issues. The only sacrifice here is freedom; early game will be more linear this way, but so is loot progression now, so it's nothing new.