Alpha 20 Dev Diary

[Arma Rex]

New modular semi truck bed. A couple things to notice in this picture:

1. The sedan in the background has a much more clear and vibrant color. Must be the new tinting technology.

2. There appears to be a computer desk beside the sedan, not sure if it's just a new art asset for Mo Power or it may be just the same shelf art that we already have. It does seem to have a laptop on it.

3. All the way on the left side, you can just barely see a sliver of what looks to be a shipping container, in different blue and green. I would assume they would go on the trailer bed.

That's all I could make out of the photo.

[unholyjoe]

36 minutes ago, Arma Rex said:

New modular semi truck bed. A couple things to notice in this picture:

1. The sedan in the background has a much more clear and vibrant color. Must be the new tinting technology.

2. There appears to be a computer desk beside the sedan, not sure if it's just a new art asset for Mo Power or it may be just the same shelf art that we already have. It does seem to have a laptop on it.

3. All the way on the left side, you can just barely see a sliver of what looks to be a shipping container, in different blue and green. I would assume they would go on the trailer bed.

That's all I could make out of the photo.

1. yes

2. nope, its a shelf variation of electronics store (which is in game not new) *note screen shot i added has a laptop on the top shelf just like you see in your reference pic

 

Edited November 13, 2020 by unholyjoe (see edit history)

[madmole]

On 11/3/2020 at 8:45 AM, WarWren said:

@madmoleA question:

 

Will there be any changes to flora? 

 

I love the new trees but would love to see someone try to do nicer performant grass. Every time I tell my brother about new updates he asks " have they fixed the grass yet?" The strands in the current grass look thick and too contrasting, sometimes too dark. I wonder can you do something a little finer and cohesive. Maybe closer in shade to the ground texture. I notice the old trees also having too much contrast compared to the new. 

 

 

Yes those are old textures I made ages ago. The art team will replace them at some point.

 

 

 

 

 

 

On 11/4/2020 at 7:29 AM, Adam the Waster said:

@madmole


So what place will the hunting rifle have compared to the pipe rifle, will they both be single shot? or will there be a change?

Yes, but the pipe weapons reload clunky and slow like the blunderbuss did.

On 11/4/2020 at 7:50 AM, Zombiepoptard said:

I would suggest making them stand out more. Like if they have mutations and more torn up clothes.

They are being redone, like everything else, and do not look the same. Some have changed more than others.

On 11/4/2020 at 10:48 AM, FranticDan said:

Will Trader Jimmy be making a return?
It is thanks to Uncle Jimmy that 7 Days to Die got inspired to be created if I'm not mistaken? So I think it'll be a great way to pay respect to such an inspirational man

No plans to bring back Trader Jimmy.

[madmole]

On 11/4/2020 at 5:18 PM, Blake_ said:

@madmole, any news about that sweet hair tech that was shown ( in a Noah model I think) a few weeks back?

 

And the most important question : is your own hair using that sweet new tech lately? Also, that gorgeous 4k headbush of your younger self surely eats VRAM like crazy . 

The art dept is still doing R&D on hair.

My own hair is progressing well, I'm successfully reversing my hair loss and am on the journey of growing it long again. It's still pretty short but longer than it's been in ages. I'm sure you can stay updated on my instagram and twitter

On 11/5/2020 at 10:31 AM, xyth said:

  On 10/31/2020 at 7:06 PM, FranticDan said:

Since there will be more loot containers that will be locked and require lockpicking to get into them, will there be or have you thought about adding a lockpicking minigame with progressively harder locks to pick depending on the loot container?

MM replied:  No, lockpicking is shippable as is. Sure a minigame might be better but we're a small team and we can do more quest types or redo features that are shippable already.

 

SphereII and I coded and released a lockpicking minigame mod which your welcome to use as a starting point.   Its tied into the perk and inventory system, and resembles the one in Skyrim.  I'd love to see it added to the base game.

That sounds cool.

On 11/5/2020 at 10:51 AM, TSBX said:

@madmole

Any updates on that new door tech that was on twitter a while back? The one where the door broke into pieces and poor Arlene "fell down the stairs".

I haven't seen anything yet. I think the proxy meshes were done and we're waiting for final art. I saw a cellar door prototype I hope makes it.

On 11/5/2020 at 11:11 AM, Guppycur said:

So player characters... and this may be more of a faatal question... Will there just be like 8 models to choose from and then add clothing to or will be still be able to change the looks?

 

If the former, please allow for modability so we can include our own character and clothing assets. 

 

If the latter, carry on, and about time.

 

You can change the 4 pieces and mix and match, and tint. Heads will be selected from a menu and that will be your skin color/race/sex and hairstyle. We'll offer more heads for sale or expand as we go. Currently there is about 15 armor sets planned but we might ship with less. If you can model, texture and rig you can probably add your own stuff in. We're hoping to offer more for sale at some point so you can buy new heads, and new skins for existing outfits. So you would find a miner outfit in the game, but then be able to hit a switch to enable the alternate skin you bought at the store, then your mining outfit looks different on you, but it has the same stats as the ones found in the game, so there will never be any pay to win outfits, just alternate meshes/textures you can buy. Currently this is just my idea and there are no official plans to do a skin store and probably won't until we're gold.

[madmole]

On 11/5/2020 at 5:39 PM, RestInPieces said:

Hope you don't stop at biome modifiers and add stacking town and POI modifiers, plus some extra dynamic modifiers that change with stuff like weather, time, debuffs etc. You've got a wealth of content in the game. Shake things up a bit, give us more varied playthroughs, less inclusive lootlists so that everything isn't everywhere and long-term goals like the radiation zones you are planning. And stop playing Skyrim and play some Rimworld for god's sake MM 😛

I don't like 2d games. I'm playing Read Dead Redemption 2, excellent game.

[MechanicalLens]

1 minute ago, madmole said:

I don't like 2d games. I'm playing Read Dead Redemption 2, excellent game.

Now that all shipments to my place are delayed until Q1 2021, I've been thinking of giving Red Dead Redemption 2 a crack. I'll probably wait until it goes on sale on Steam though.

 

Also, a spelling error from Madmole? Now that's a rare sight indeed.

[madmole]

On 11/9/2020 at 7:15 PM, Vundecat said:

A player character overhaul was something I was definitely hoping to see, which makes me excited for A20!  The player models were beginning to look very dated in comparison to some of the new zombie models that came out in A19.  Definitely looking forward to seeing some newer, nicer-looking player characters.  The equipment system rework also looks very interesting too, I definitely agree 10 slots is too many, though, without clothing slots aren't heat/cold resist going to become a bigger issue? 

 

The original armor sets (padded/leather/military & scrap/iron/steel) will still be in the game right?  Are clothing options going to be in as well?   We're going to have to choose between wearing clothes and wearing armor?  There's still a few questions I have about all that.  I do like parts of the clothing system, though it could be scaled back a bit. 

 

Also, will there be a set bonus armor set for stealthy players? 

 

Another thing I wanted to do was echo some opinions mentioned earlier in the thread; the lack of weapon variety, especially at tier 3, is definitely something that holds the game back in my opinion.  Not majorly, but there are plenty of options, at least for firearms.  I agree with the devs on character models and animations as well, but I also agree with others here about weapon variety too. 

 

There's only really one endgame option for each weapon category, very few sidegrades, if any.  We only have one endgame sniper rile, why not a .44 lever-action?  A tier 3 pistol that uses 9mm?  There's plenty of options for high tier weapons that'd make for more choice in your build rather than just direct upgrades.  

 

I know it's easy to say "just add more things!!1!" but there are so many options in build in terms of mods, armor types, perk builds, but for weapons it feels like it's just "best in slot" for each category.  Meaningful options for at least tier 3 would be great I think.  The pipe weapons are definitely a good idea though - the A19 early game was rough until you got that first gun!

Clothing is armor and armor is clothing. There will be a wide range of stats balanced to how good the perks are, and if it is light or heavy armor. There is a wasteland assassin outfit designed for killing and stealth. Plant fiber and cloth armor are now merged to "primitive outfit". Then there is leather and commando. For heavy it's scrap, iron and steel, cool words pending. Even the scrap iron set makes iron man's first suit look weak, these are really cool outfits.

7 minutes ago, MechanicalLens said:

Now that all shipments to my place are delayed until Q1 2021, I've been thinking of giving Red Dead Redemption 2 a crack. I'll probably wait until it goes on sale on Steam though.

 

Also, a spelling error from Madmole? Now that's a rare sight indeed.

Typo FFS. I suppose a sale is good, but for games that smash it (this one does) f it, buy it today. I didn't finish GTA 5, I didn't particularly like being a scum bag. RD2 you have some choice there and can be a good outlaw or a bad outlaw, and the overall vibe is helping your group of people and not becoming a drug/ganglord so I guess it appeals to me more. Plus it's like your clint eastwood in an old west movie so it's cool. Once you get out of the snow part in the beginning and get settled in a camp and they let you sand box, it's awesome. It's so good I might play as a scum bag on a 2nd play through.

[MechanicalLens]

10 minutes ago, madmole said:

Clothing is armor and armor is clothing. There will be a wide range of stats balanced to how good the perks are, and if it is light or heavy armor. There is a wasteland assassin outfit designed for killing and stealth. Plant fiber and cloth armor are now merged to "primitive outfit". Then there is leather and commando. For heavy it's scrap, iron and steel, cool words pending. Even the scrap iron set makes iron man's first suit look weak, these are really cool outfits.

Typo FFS. I suppose a sale is good, but for games that smash it (this one does) f it, buy it today. I didn't finish GTA 5, I didn't particularly like being a scum bag. RD2 you have some choice there and can be a good outlaw or a bad outlaw, and the overall vibe is helping your group of people and not becoming a drug/ganglord so I guess it appeals to me more. Plus it's like your clint eastwood in an old west movie so it's cool. Once you get out of the snow part in the beginning and get settled in a camp and they let you sand box, it's awesome. It's so good I might play as a scum bag on a 2nd play through.

Hey, I was just teasing.

 

Ehh, I missed the sale by a few days, but it's whatever. You've convinced me. Life of an outlaw, here I come.

[Star69]

50 minutes ago, madmole said:

I don't like 2d games. I'm playing Read Dead Redemption 2, excellent game.

I just bought Baldur’s Gate 3....excited to play a Baldur’s game with real co-op vs single player. A bit pricey for early access but I’m taking the risk.

[Blake_]

@madmole a while back you leaked a few words about you doing some legendary weapon/tool design work. 

 

Will you guys introduce them to the game in a20 at the same time as the new "legendary" clothing system or are they on hold while the rest of the weapons get done?

 

AKA "Where's our 1 hit legendary pickaxe to use with our miner outfit booty?"

[faatal]

22 hours ago, TSBX said:

Any new hook-ups in the MinEvent system? Not sure how up to date the bottom of buffs.xml is, but there are quite a few goodies commented as not hooked up.

Not by me. Just optimizing it.

[Adam the Waster]

4 hours ago, madmole said:

 

Yes, but the pipe weapons reload clunky and slow like the blunderbuss did.

Me coming back after i get a Email

[Blake_]

2 hours ago, faatal said:

Not by me. Just optimizing it.

Btw, thank you for 19.3 . I'll be testing again performance on my corn bread Pc shortly. 

[khzmusik]

On 11/11/2020 at 5:49 PM, faatal said:

19.3 exp is getting close.

And is now here...

 

Just so we know - are there going to be more A19 patches, or is this it until A20? Asking for a friend who is me.

 

EDIT: Not asking for a timeline or release dates or anything, just want to know what to expect. Personally, I just want to know if I can start a new game and reach level 100 before A20 exp drops.

Edited November 14, 2020 by khzmusik (see edit history)

[Jost Amman]

(I don't know who to ask this...)

Any plans on adding mods to the Cement Mixer in A20?

 

I was thinking maybe you could add a slot for a mixer engine so that we can craft concrete faster.

Maybe even an input slot for stone that gets automatically used for whatever recipe.

[Kandrathe]

5 hours ago, madmole said:

I might play as a scum bag on a 2nd play through.

I still end up a gray hat.  I have to white hat sometimes.

[Astronomical]

5 hours ago, madmole said:

I didn't finish GTA 5, I didn't particularly like being a scum bag. RD2 you have some choice there and can be a good outlaw or a bad outlaw, and the overall vibe is helping your group of people and not becoming a drug/ganglord so I guess it appeals to me more. Plus it's like your clint eastwood in an old west movie so it's cool. Once you get out of the snow part in the beginning and get settled in a camp and they let you sand box, it's awesome. It's so good I might play as a scum bag on a 2nd play through.

I always end up having more fun playing the "bad guy" in games. In WoW I played horde. Star Wars games I'm always sith. If we get the choice you know I'm joining the Duke. White River better watch their backs!

 

It's good to be bad.

[Blake_]

@faatal here's a quick take on a19.3 after a couple of hours of testing :

 

Deco fixes improved performance by a literal 10% (5-7 second freezes every minute are gone, though the "feeling" of the fix is more like 200% improvement on HDD drives) 

 

Music has no significant performance impact judging from my initial tests. Deco writing was the main culprit here.

 

I believe wandering hordes have currently less impact on the CPU. More testing needed because the "spawnwh" is delayed and it's a bit unhelpful. A better use of the command for performance would be to add a way to set the exact time of the horde spawn and also make  a delay of "15 in game minutes to spawn" the default behaviour of said command if nothing added.

 

Sleepers drop performance mildly in general and with severity in certain spawn situations. I believe you are working on this for a20 so I'll only say that they are currently the biggest issue, which is not HUGE. Dual cores at 2.4ghz can't handle a sleeper situation of, for example, "a Waterworks POI next to a Construction Site POI with the player passing through" without freezing a bit. Performance drops can get the game all the way down to 15 fps in a 4 core 2.7ghz system for a few moments. Thats quite noticeable yet playable. I would prefer a constant 30fps minimum. 

 

Garbage collection fine-tunning with the new Event system should also help a bit in general. 

 

GPU is currently correct at 4gigs of VRAM and 720p and generally ok at 1080p as long as everything is rock bottom quality. That means solid 60fps when only landscape is within sight, and from 45 to 60 in other graphic-related situations.

 

Overall, a19 is finally quite ok for my potato to enjoy. The performance is better than the best of a18 (that's a lot).

 

I will continue testing for a bit before starting a new map, in case something weird comes up.

 

[Picklefart]

Would it be possible to add an option to adjust roaming horde size/frequency, similar to horde night variations?

[fragtzack]

Please refine the storage crate system. Work was done on this in a19 to allow us to paint our own words on the crates: Words such "mods, guns, clothes", but we can't paint words on top of already existing paint jobs. The background when using the  text tool means the background crate paint  is destroyed and only plain wood shows.

 

  Either increase the painted on pictures to allow for more common types of storage such as "mods, raw mats, guns, melee, tools, seeds" or  allow the writing of text on to existing those painted surfaces.

 

Preferred would be both: Increase the limited number of painted on palettes(currently there is a health symbol, tool, ammo, etc) and allow words to be added on top of that crate paint.

 

Survival games traditionally require a large amount of inventory management. In fact, the nature of survival in real world and in survival games are about obtaining useful items/tools for humans. Embrace the inventory management and at the same encourage home building.

 

 

Edited November 14, 2020 by fragtzack (see edit history)

[Jacoviz]

@faatal Are you going to improve the controller rumble feedback? It would be cool to have the rumble on every melee hit and also when you fire with the guns. Also on vehicles would be cool to have a really low rumble when you are driving. Is there a way to mod this in?

[Guppycur]

So, what's new?  😉

[Khalagar]

So for A20, question about the Pipe weapons. There's a pipe equivalent for everything besides  the Junk line. Will there be some kind of Junk Pipe weapon added? ATM there is no stone age weapon for the int line, and a Pipe Baton will be nice but will still leave the Int tree a weapon behind the others. You  can craft a stone sledge and will have a pipe shotgun, for example, giving strength 2 tier 0 weapons while Int will only have the Pipe baton

 

 

[MechanicalLens]

I'm pretty sure I can speak for a lot of us that some inside corner filler stairs would be grand. Perhaps someday?

 

Also, no more day 2 dog hordes would be great.

[Demonoid74]

Or do it how minecraft does it and the stair blocks auto-configurate into what should be in those situations? They figured it out , can not be that hard for the Fun Pimps