A19 impressions so far and what I've learned

[dan]

So I started out not very happy about the gamestage determining the loot of items, but I've learned to live with it.  It's actually kinda nice that the weapons and items scale with the difficulty of the zombies.  

 

The new graphics and zombie models are very nice, the RWG seems much better, more poi's and different poi's are great.  I like the fact that you don't see the same buildings in every town, or multiples of the same house down every street.  Having traders in or on the outskirts of town is also a great improvement.  

 

When out looting or on the endless quest for food and you see a zombie, no problem, headshot or two and it's down.  But when you see a bear or mountain lion, oh $h&#, it's gonna be a pain, but it's also going to be food.

 

Starting a farm right away is key.  Getting as much rotten meat as possible is also very important now so you can keep building farming plots.  I'm not really sure how farming worked in a18 as food was never an issue so I didn't farm.  But you plant a seed, wait till it fully grows, harvest it and it turns back into an already planted seed that starts growing again and you also get the crop in your inventory.  No more replanting of seeds once you have a good sized farm going.  Just harvest and come back later and harvest again.  It's the best farming I've seen yet in any alpha.  But as I said, I didn't farm at all in a18, so it could have been the same there too.  So if you want to fix your hunger issues, get a good farm going and make veggie stew, doesn't take a lot.  And seeds are usually found in trash bags, cans, and dumpsters.  Or you might find a farm half dead somewhere with a few live plants you can grab and turn into seeds.  Farming is basically required, so put the 3 points into it if you want to really survive the hunger issues.  Also don't drink water, make red tea.  Very easy to make and reduces your hunger and thirst degradation by I think 15% for about 5 minutes.  Spend 30 minutes chopping down those red flowers and you'll have hundreds.   

 

Meat is useless unless you craft something like bacon and eggs, or meat stew, just cooked meat gives very little food.  Bird nests are your friend again, grab all the eggs you find and make bacon and eggs.  They give around 35 food I believe where as just charred meat gives I think 5.  

 

The new sledge turrets are not great, but are great to watch them smack zombies.  The dog, bear, and wolf packs are a nice addition, even though my only in game deaths have come from them.

 

Just finished the day 21 horde, had a few radiated and a ton of military zombies.  The birds are no longer just a nuisance, they are actually a real threat now.  I have horde night set to 32 I believe and there was just me and my 7 year old, so we had a ton of zombies.  The electric fence seems a lot more useful now by holding them in place for a while so you can take them out with bullets.  My power usage on my generator is running at 200w, it holds 1000 gas, but used less than 100 for a full horde night.  So it's very efficient.  Although I'd much prefer to use a battery bank and solar panels.  But I'm sure solar panels are a much higher game stage.  

 

I managed to get a 4X4, but when logging out everything in it's storage gets deleted.  Probably a known bug.  

 

Anyway, this has been the most fun I've had playing 7d2d in a long time.  

 

[Mahnogard]

Farming was the same in A18. I'm doing more of it now, though! I've gotten very good at spotting gore piles, and making note of POIs that have harvestable corpse blocks in them. Never enough rotted flesh but I'm getting all I can.

 

Just to add to your food tips - Locate all functioning vending machines in your vicinity and check them daily! Learn which recipes use canned foods and buy them whenever they show up. Running quests is great for making food money. 

 

I installed the beginnings of my rooftop garden today. Then I found a POI with a bunch of mushrooms in the basement. And both of my vendors just refreshed and they both had corn meal so I don't have to wait for my crops to come in to make fish tacos and chili dogs. I'll be settling in to cook when I start up the game tomorrow. Exited the game with my character right in front of the campfire. I'm enjoying the cooking thing so much now that I wish we had more recipes.

[stupid]

I've learned that the tall steel smokestacks with the vertical letters in front of the factories are a really easy place to handle the 7th day horde because they're made of steel and have a rim about six blocks up you can walk around and rain hellfire down on everything. Plus it's damn near indestructible(so far). I'm hoping something that can destroy it will eventually show up.

[canadianbluebeer]

I always buy up all the corn meal when it shows at the vendor. It's super cheap, and don't need all that much, just saves on converting corn (which I do need)

 

Taters  I buy, shrooms early on yes, later on no.

 

Canned stuff, never did before, now I am.

 

[myrkana]

The sledge turrets make great door defense. I put them infront of my doors and they beat things to death. I had a wolf come to my door and I never had to touch it, the sledge turret killed it.

 

Save all food items and make the better food with them. Bacon and eggs is a waste of eggs. I'm making blueberry pies and other foods that give 50+ food and irc they give a stamina buff of like 30 stam. They've made cooked food the wya to go as compared to a18 when you could survive on canned food all day. 

 

Also with stamina being much less forgiving we're actually having to use the food and drink buffs to continue mining. You use more food now to mine with since refilling stamina drains hunger and you cant over eat anymore. Farms just became a #1 priority unless you wanna buy all your food from traders.

[14U2NV]

Farming is definitely super important and I enjoy the fact it's the same as it was in Alpha18 but I've noticed that my crops do not continue to grow on my server when I'm offline. This definitely wasn't the case in Alpha18 and I miss being after to harvest the crops and load up a ton of cement mix before heading off to bed to be ready for me the next day. Didn't see that in the patch notes but its very possible I missed it. Other than that; good update I think.

[FA_Q2]

On 7/5/2020 at 3:57 AM, stupid said:

I've learned that the tall steel smokestacks with the vertical letters in front of the factories are a really easy place to handle the 7th day horde because they're made of steel and have a rim about six blocks up you can walk around and rain hellfire down on everything. Plus it's damn near indestructible(so far). I'm hoping something that can destroy it will eventually show up.

When demolishers show up they will chew through it.  That is gona take awhile though.