My stockade base design isn't viable anymore, as of Alpha 20 :(

[RossLGould]

All through the life span of Alpha 19, I built, rebuilt, and refined my stockade base design. It's a compact 7x7 inner core, ringed with an 11x11 wall. There is a bar platform linking the inner and outer walls, where I can stand and pick off enemies with my ranged weapon of choice. I don't think it's particularly fun to have a separate horde base, because that gives the player a chance to hedge their bets; I like the idea of protecting my home and my stuff. My stockade base design, particularly on Day 21 and beyond, was built on a single aspect; the abilities of the electric fence to stall enemies long enough for me to line them up for a head shot. Sadly, in Alpha 20, it appears that electric fences stall enemies for half the time, if not less, which means that by the time I have wasted a stalled zombie on horde night, one or two more have already strolled through the fence and are already beating on my walls.

I just got killed on Day 14, the second horde night. That's embarrassing for me to say, because I'm not a new player; I have been playing since Alpha 16.

In the game that I just rage-quit, here is what happened:
By Day 14, I had scrambled to scrape up the money and resources to ring my cobblestone stockade with electric fencing. However, to my surprise and chagrin, my 360 degree fence couldn't even slow a Day 14 horde, which is not really strong. They overran my base and I got smoked; they cut through my defenses like it was made of aluminum foil. they even got into the central core, which never happened in the previous Alpha.

 

So, what's the deal? For me to survive blood moons in this Alpha, will I have to break down and build some horde base designed solely to fool the AI? I don't wanna go out like that.

[Ornias]

Base design now, especially solo, is all about the cheese. I liked it better when the Z's didn't esp path to the weakest point. 

[RossLGould]

The great thing about Alpha 19 was that any play style could enjoy it. I should have known that the game was changing drastically when Skippy0330, whom I knew and loved for building elaborate home bases, started his new Alpha 20 series with a cheezy horde base.

 

Let me say that, aside from this complaint, I LOVE all other changes in Alpha 20. The new towns are amazing. I like the pipe weapons system. New mission type? Giddyup! The new building block menu is a dream come true.

 

Wait-- let me take back that one about the building blocks: they gave me all of these fantastic blocks to build with, and then I can't build what I want with them.😖

 

Edited December 12, 2021 by RossLGould
It's my post. (see edit history)

[Ramethzer0]

I internally debate what's so great about living in a BOX you spent a year trying to perfect.

 

I want to know why other bases are cheese, but somehow babby's first Box base is not.  I mean, a lot of folks stopped building those back in A17, and were a staple first night base in A16.

 

Boxes are for cats, not people.

[RossLGould]

7 minutes ago, Ramethzer0 said:

I internally debate what's so great about living in a BOX you spent a year trying to perfect.

You are not internally debating this; you are trying to debate it with me.
I respectfully refuse.

[Snowydeath]

4 hours ago, RossLGould said:

You are not internally debating this; you are trying to debate it with me.
I respectfully refuse.

While I understand frustration when your base becomes obsolete (although I never stuck with one build style), I think they have a point. What makes your box less cheese than any other cheese base? All I build normally is a house, a moat with spikes and barbed wire, an electric fence on both sides and some turrets and traps spread around some weak/blind spots. Also I would LOVE to see your design as it does sound more interesting than a concrete box that some people like to use (my friends being some of them lol). Please do show some pics if you have any still, I love seeing other peoples base designs

[Kosmic Kerman]

Have you tried adding another layer or two of electric fence posts to solve this problem?  Another option would be add trenches around the base or some one high block walls to slow them down. 

Edited December 13, 2021 by Kosmic Kerman (see edit history)

[IgnyteZero]

18 hours ago, Ramethzer0 said:

I internally debate what's so great about living in a BOX you spent a year trying to perfect.

 

I want to know why other bases are cheese, but somehow babby's first Box base is not.  I mean, a lot of folks stopped building those back in A17, and were a staple first night base in A16.

 

Boxes are for cats, not people.

He clearly stated why in his forst post. Because of immersion and fun apprently.

Also, this is a game, not reality. Makes the box analogy kinda pointless.
 

[meganoth]

Electric fences for day 14? This is like using a gyrocopter to shoot rabbits! 😁

 

Seriously, electric stuff is supposed to be advanced stuff. If you use it that early you probably have only 1 or 2 and used a lot of resources for that which could have been spent for rows of basic traps, rows of barbed wire and more wood and cobblestone blocks and even a few concrete. (What many don't know: barbed wire and spike traps have to be put into holes so they are level with the ground. Only then they are effective)

 

Me, I just used the big new water tank poi, destroyed some ladder rungs and added shooting platforms made out of cobblestone and that worked excellent for 4 horde nights now. I don't call it cheesy but using what the world offers me, your mileage may vary.

 

There are a lot of bases one can construct in 7D2D, but which ones are cheesy and which are not is very subjective it seems. Can you tell me which of the following stuff is cheesy for you?

1) ladders with the lowest two rungs missing

2) wood frames as removable bridges

3) narrow corridors the zombies need to go through

4) high up walkways with Sledgeturret

5) Having a back-up base if the first one gets overrun

6) Using POIs and "upgrading" them

 

 

 

 

Edited December 13, 2021 by meganoth (see edit history)

[BFT2020]

25 minutes ago, meganoth said:

Can you tell me which of the following stuff is cheesy for you?

I didn't see it on your list so I added one that I find cheesy

 

7) Bases where the zombies think they have a path, but just continuous fall down.  Rinse and repeat zombie behavior.

 

Option 4 was my favorite melee focus base (at the beginning but traps and guns for later stages), but I always gave the zombies a fighting chance (i.e. no false paths - if they can get past the sledge turret and not be killed by me or any other trap, they can beat down on my columns and eventually reach me if they can).

[theFlu]

1 hour ago, meganoth said:

Electric fences for day 14? This is like using a gyrocopter to shoot rabbits!

I kinda agree with the sentiment, but in A19 I had couple fences running on day 7 (7x60 min), the gyro was a little more successful hiding to the later parts of game.

 

Then again, the A19 fences were insane if you could set up a place where you could repair them. Basically two poles could keep any horde stunned enough to negate their block damage entirely.

 

If they're a lot weaker now - well, infinitely weaker I guess - having a couple on day 7 might even be the intended design. If they won't make your base immune, then why not

 

@RossLGould, it seems your problem stems pretty purely from the nerfed nature of the fences; I feel for your loss, but the things were stupidly powerful. I guess it is time to figure out how you can repair your walls during a horde .. or something

[Kosmic Kerman]

8 minutes ago, theFlu said:

I kinda agree with the sentiment, but in A19 I had couple fences running on day 7 (7x60 min), the gyro was a little more successful hiding to the later parts of game.

 

Then again, the A19 fences were insane if you could set up a place where you could repair them. Basically two poles could keep any horde stunned enough to negate their block damage entirely.

 

If they're a lot weaker now - well, infinitely weaker I guess - having a couple on day 7 might even be the intended design. If they won't make your base immune, then why not

 

@RossLGould, it seems your problem stems pretty purely from the nerfed nature of the fences; I feel for your loss, but the things were stupidly powerful. I guess it is time to figure out how you can repair your walls during a horde .. or something

The fences still seem fine to me. I have a corridor with three fence lines and a blade trap. Other than dogs and crawlers, Zombies  only make it past the second line and blade trap if they climb over each other.

[Ramethzer0]

2 hours ago, IgnyteZero said:

He clearly stated why in his forst post. Because of immersion and fun apprently.

Also, this is a game, not reality. Makes the box analogy kinda pointless.
 

I lost count of the number of points that were missed.

Edited December 13, 2021 by Ramethzer0 (see edit history)

[RossLGould]

On 12/12/2021 at 10:07 PM, Snowydeath said:

While I understand frustration when your base becomes obsolete (although I never stuck with one build style), I think they have a point. What makes your box less cheese than any other cheese base? All I build normally is a house, a moat with spikes and barbed wire, an electric fence on both sides and some turrets and traps spread around some weak/blind spots. Also I would LOVE to see your design as it does sound more interesting than a concrete box that some people like to use (my friends being some of them lol). Please do show some pics if you have any still, I love seeing other peoples base designs

Sure; I'd love to share it!

....

Oh.

I had exported the finishing product as a POI but, apparently, Alpha 20 doesn't like Alpha 19 POIs.

Do you know if there is any way I can convert it to an Alpha 20 POI-- or will I have to build it all over from scratch?

For the time being, I will describe it:

 

It was initially inspired by Skippy0330's base day one project from Alpha 19, except his was a massive material sink, and it was very inefficient with space. Mine was far more compact and thrifty, and mine had a central core that goes underground and has a series of subterranean tunnels that were made to service the perimeter defenses without going outside.

• Perimeter (surface)
  The perimeter is composed of 2 concentric 360 degree electric fences, designed to stall Zs long enough to kill with a firearm. The perimeter featured two side-facing dart traps that were pressure trigger activated. At the corners of the perimeter were 2-block pillars that had shotgun turrets facing inward. Anything that got in would get buckshot at close range (especially great for spider zombies) Each electric fence post is encased in concrete which I eventually made inaccessible except from underground.
• Outer Wall (surface to surface +9)
  The outer "wall" is 11x11 and has a lot of legs, so that if the Zs take one out, the base will not fall. The sides of the "wall" are made of poles, so any Z that reaches the fence can be seen.
• Entry Level (surface +4)
  The entry platform is 4 blocks above surface, and its floor, aside from horizontal girders for support, is made of bars to permit shooting through the floor. Each side has a "balcony" which is handy for defending the walls from Zs that couldn't be seen through the floor. Each balcony has a hatch to ladders leading down to surface level. This space is completely encased in bars to keep jumping and flying enemies on the outside.
• Inner Wall (surface -4 to surface +8)
  The inner wall is 7x7, centered within the outer "wall," and houses the core of the building. There are 4 entry ways in each cardinal direction, for faster response time. Inside the inner core on the main level (surface + 4) is a hatch leading up to the roof, and a hatch leading down to the store room. In the corners of this level are hatches that lead to two generators and two battery banks, which powered all of the defenses.
• Roof Level (surface +9)
  The roof is built on top of the outer "wall" pillars and is, maybe, 9 blocks above surface. It has a flat runway in the middle for gyro. On the sides of the roof are blisters that contain solar panels, which have garage doors that close automatically to protect them at night. The panels feed the battery banks, of course. On the roof level were two SMG turrets, to pick off any vultures.
• Storeroom (surface -0.5 to surface +3)
  The storeroom, located in the inner core, is a tight space that has only 9 blocks of floor space, lined by 3 high storage boxes and 3 low storage boxes on each side, so 24 boxes in total. Good for separating out things. There are two spaces between the low and high storage boxes, and those spaces are on ground level, so if Zs happened to get in, they might not destroy many of my supplies.
• Workroom (surface -4)
  A ladder continued below to the workroom, 4 blocks below surface. In the workroom were two forges, two mixers, a workbench, and a chem station in the 5x5 floorspace. One side led through a door to the access tunnels, which surrounded the workroom.
• Access Tunnels (surface -4)
  The access tunnels, with a floor 4 blocks below surface, all led to different perimeter posts so, all posts could be repaired and rewired (if need be) from inside. Digging and walling the access tunnels were the most time consuming parts of construction.
• Elevation
  I ended up with basically a short cube, so I ended up replacing a lot of blocks with the special shapes to make it more visually interesting. I especially liked the look of the gable blocks that were shaped like the letter "M".

So, it was a little bit more than the "box" that the guy prejudged it as being.

 

On 12/13/2021 at 12:37 PM, meganoth said:

Can you tell me which of the following stuff is cheesy for you?

1) ladders with the lowest two rungs missing

2) wood frames as removable bridges

3) narrow corridors the zombies need to go through

4) high up walkways with Sledgeturret

5) Having a back-up base if the first one gets overrun

6) Using POIs and "upgrading" them

1. No. I've seen survivors escape zombies like this in countless shows.

2. Yes.

3. YES!!!!!!!!! Any design that funnels all the zombies to one choke point is gaming the AI. It's a bit meta...

4. No, but this is usually combined with #3.

5. No. I like to go all-in, but far be it from me to disparage someone for hedging their bets.

6. No. Not at all. That's probably the least cheesy, IMO. Unless they incorporate #3...

[meganoth]

10 hours ago, RossLGould said:

Sure; I'd love to share it!

....

Oh.

I had exported the finishing product as a POI but, apparently, Alpha 20 doesn't like Alpha 19 POIs.

Do you know if there is any way I can convert it to an Alpha 20 POI-- or will I have to build it all over from scratch?

 

I heard rumors of a conversion tool.

 

10 hours ago, RossLGould said:

For the time being, I will describe it:

 

It was initially inspired by Skippy0330's base day one project from Alpha 19, except his was a massive material sink, and it was very inefficient with space. Mine was far more compact and thrifty, and mine had a central core that goes underground and has a series of subterranean tunnels that were made to service the perimeter defenses without going outside.

• Perimeter (surface)
  The perimeter is composed of 2 concentric 360 degree electric fences, designed to stall Zs long enough to kill with a firearm. The perimeter featured two side-facing dart traps that were pressure trigger activated. At the corners of the perimeter were 2-block pillars that had shotgun turrets facing inward. Anything that got in would get buckshot at close range (especially great for spider zombies) Each electric fence post is encased in concrete which I eventually made inaccessible except from underground.
• Outer Wall (surface to surface +9)
  The outer "wall" is 11x11 and has a lot of legs, so that if the Zs take one out, the base will not fall. The sides of the "wall" are made of poles, so any Z that reaches the fence can be seen.
• Entry Level (surface +4)
  The entry platform is 4 blocks above surface, and its floor, aside from horizontal girders for support, is made of bars to permit shooting through the floor. Each side has a "balcony" which is handy for defending the walls from Zs that couldn't be seen through the floor. Each balcony has a hatch to ladders leading down to surface level. This space is completely encased in bars to keep jumping and flying enemies on the outside.
• Inner Wall (surface -4 to surface +8)
  The inner wall is 7x7, centered within the outer "wall," and houses the core of the building. There are 4 entry ways in each cardinal direction, for faster response time. Inside the inner core on the main level (surface + 4) is a hatch leading up to the roof, and a hatch leading down to the store room. In the corners of this level are hatches that lead to two generators and two battery banks, which powered all of the defenses.
• Roof Level (surface +9)
  The roof is built on top of the outer "wall" pillars and is, maybe, 9 blocks above surface. It has a flat runway in the middle for gyro. On the sides of the roof are blisters that contain solar panels, which have garage doors that close automatically to protect them at night. The panels feed the battery banks, of course. On the roof level were two SMG turrets, to pick off any vultures.
• Storeroom (surface -0.5 to surface +3)
  The storeroom, located in the inner core, is a tight space that has only 9 blocks of floor space, lined by 3 high storage boxes and 3 low storage boxes on each side, so 24 boxes in total. Good for separating out things. There are two spaces between the low and high storage boxes, and those spaces are on ground level, so if Zs happened to get in, they might not destroy many of my supplies.
• Workroom (surface -4)
  A ladder continued below to the workroom, 4 blocks below surface. In the workroom were two forges, two mixers, a workbench, and a chem station in the 5x5 floorspace. One side led through a door to the access tunnels, which surrounded the workroom.
• Access Tunnels (surface -4)
  The access tunnels, with a floor 4 blocks below surface, all led to different perimeter posts so, all posts could be repaired and rewired (if need be) from inside. Digging and walling the access tunnels were the most time consuming parts of construction.
• Elevation
  I ended up with basically a short cube, so I ended up replacing a lot of blocks with the special shapes to make it more visually interesting. I especially liked the look of the gable blocks that were shaped like the letter "M".

 

That is a massive design. Am I right that you just had a small part finished by day 14 and that was the reason you were killed? Then maybe it was the wrong part to be built first.

 

In my games I often use POIs as a temporary first horde base exactly because it allows me time to get up a complex horde base for endgame.

 

If that is not acceptable, my first idea would be to temporarily stuff that base with lots of spike traps and barbed wire (and place them level with the earth), probably instead of electrical fences who would just take too much resources so early in the game. Also upgrade some important blocks to concrete and make sure to have molotovs and maybe some explosives on you to combat groups of zombies targetting load-bearing blocks. 

 

10 hours ago, RossLGould said:

So, it was a little bit more than the "box" that the guy prejudged it as being.

 

1. No. I've seen survivors escape zombies like this in countless shows.

2. Yes.

3. YES!!!!!!!!! Any design that funnels all the zombies to one choke point is gaming the AI. It's a bit meta...

 

I don't know what is cheesy about that since every real-life castle that is lucky to have a location to support it is built with the principle of making as few sides as possible assailable and having longwinded entrances where enemies take a long time to cross it and the defender can concentrate his fire. 

 

Also there are explicit perks in the game that operate on the principle that you concentrate or line up your enemies, perception is full of them.

 

10 hours ago, RossLGould said:

4. No, but this is usually combined with #3.

5. No. I like to go all-in, but far be it from me to disparage someone for hedging their bets.

6. No. Not at all. That's probably the least cheesy, IMO. Unless they incorporate #3...

 

 

[Ornias]

They never make it to the door. The few that get past the turrets and don't fall down get hung up on the 1st wedge block. Easy shots then. Have to have 10 into Int though. The turrets are taking more damage so I will upgrade the base to be able to get to the turrets to repair. 

[saltychipmunk]

On 12/12/2021 at 3:56 PM, Ornias said:

Base design now, especially solo, is all about the cheese. I liked it better when the Z's didn't esp path to the weakest point. 

 

I have to admit it might make more sense if tfp vary the ai priority for zombies, make some mindlessly attack what ever is closest to them, make some path to the weakest point etc.  Having every zombie on the same priority means they are mega easy to exploit with the same cheese.

 

 

[meganoth]

22 minutes ago, saltychipmunk said:

 

I have to admit it might make more sense if tfp vary the ai priority for zombies, make some mindlessly attack what ever is closest to them, make some path to the weakest point etc. 

 

Which is exactly what the zombies already do

 

22 minutes ago, saltychipmunk said:

Having every zombie on the same priority means they are mega easy to exploit with the same cheese.

 

[Reth]

I just started playing 7D2D again after a long break. My last game was A17.

Like you, I prefer to build a single, well protected base. Having a separate horde night base or living underground totally kills the immersion for me, so I do not consider it. I also dislike cheesing greatly.

My solution has always been to build a large base (40 by 40) with a smaller inner sanctum (10 by 20 or so).

The outer perimeter has some static defenses, basically whatever is available and what I can afford at the moment - spikes, barb wire etc.

The field between the outer perimeter and the inner sanctum has some obstacles, some more defenses and also raised catwalks and eventually gets upgraded with turrets.

The inner sanctum is protected by the strongest walls I can afford at the moment and is basically for 'oh, crap!' moments.

 

The general idea is that:

1. zombies take some damage from static defenses while breaching outer wall
2. zombies get slowed down and/or crippled
3. zombies get inside where I use obstacles and catwalks to split them and kill them one by one
4. if all else fails, I go inside to get a break, recover and go back outside
5. if that fails, I grab a bike and get the hell out of there
6. if that fails, I die

    
From my experience, it very rarely comes to 5) or 6). It also makes for some fun horde nights. You do need to stock up on food, meds and ammo. You also have to put some points into stamina regen and melee skills to make that approach viable, but you do not have to go all brawler for that.
 

[Kosmic Kerman]

I get that the experience you want is to be surrounded on all sides but chokepoints are a classic military strategy.  Maybe if you had four gaps in your outer walls (N,S,E,W) you could focus your traps on those gaps and be more successful. Or you could use 8 gaps or more if 4 gaps seems too gamey.

[warmer]

I am happy they nerfed the hp of poles and partial blocks. I never make a base with floating pieces to screw with the zed AI. If I win because of cheese I feel no sense if accomplishment.

 

I love that they can now crawl through single blocks. All I want out if the AI is better and more creative attack methods. Building a single ramp with a bridge and blocks every other square to hop over is the standard raid base now and its so cheese and so easy. 

[Roland]

On 12/12/2021 at 12:52 PM, RossLGould said:

All through the life span of Alpha 19, I built, rebuilt, and refined my stockade base design.

 

Was this not fun and rewarding for you? Sounds like you have a lot of pride in what you accomplished. Don't you think it will be fun to go through that process again for A20?

 

Some people here are saying only cheese bases work but they said the same thing in A19 and you proved them wrong by refining a base design that didn't feel like cheese tactics to you. Now here they are saying again that you have to cheese the AI. Are you going to let that stand? Won't you prove them wrong again?

 

The AI is practically the same in A20 as it was in A19, faatal admitted he did nothing beyond letting them crouch and crawl through low spaces and then there was a few fixes in experimental for places he saw them getting stuck. You say that electricity only paralyses for half the time. Are you certain that isn't a bug? Is it mentioned in the patch notes as an intended change? If so, can't  you come up with ways to adapt your design given that new limitation? I'm sure you can once the initial rage wears off.

[Whorhay]

Even with default settings getting to lots of electric fences on day 5 or six is pretty easy, and that's without finding the nerd glasses. I do it by focusing on Int at first and only spending a few points in the other attributes until my base is ready. Days 1-4 are spent questing and gathering materials from POI's. Day 5 I start building the base and if I don't have the skills to make the electric fences when I start on that I'll have them before the base is all finished up on Day 6. That leaves me an extra day to do more quests and gather any supplies I'm short on for the first horde. My base is usually a free standing structure built on stilts with an enclosed elevated path for the zombies to come and eat me. I usually have 8 electric fence posts up but it'd work with just 2-3. No "cheese" outside of giving the zombies a single easy path to get to me, and it's not even long and twisty, just 5 blocks long. I keep the path short because shotguns have pretty minimal range and making it longer means it takes longer to kill each zombie, which holds up another zombie from spawning and getting close enough to be killed. For the early hordes the only problem is that the hordes only take a couple in game hours to mop up, so I usually do the logout and back in trick to keep the fighting up until morning so that my base gets a bit of a workout.

That's all basically the same as in A19, when it worked great with a blunderbuss or two. I haven't noticed the fences being less effective than before, you know other than when I've forgotten to turn them on. I do really like that the pipe shotty uses the same ammo as the others, that was always an early game balancing trick trying not to make too much blundy ammo so I'd still have powder to make shells when I got a double barrel.

[RossLGould]

11 hours ago, meganoth said:

That is a massive design. Am I right that you just had a small part finished by day 14 and that was the reason you were killed? Then maybe it was the wrong part to be built first.

Yeah, definitely. The base was designed to be built in stages from week to week. Previously, I would spend a ton of wood on spiking the area between inner wall and outer wall from stem to stern, but in my Alpha 20 iteration, I saw how easily the Zs were ripping through my walls on the night of Day 7 and, since I had enough money to buy a small engine and half the 12 posts I needed to install the fence, and enough character intelligence and materials to build the other half of them, I pushed for that. It... didn't work too well. 😬

Now that a week has gone by, my frustration has subsided and I'm gonna try again with some tweaks. For example, no more poles because TFP nerfed the heck out of them. Maybe I'll go to arrow slits, so I don't lose all visibility. At any rate, I'm not ready to give up on my traditional base.

 

 

[RossLGould]

7 hours ago, Roland said:

 

Was this not fun and rewarding for you? Sounds like you have a lot of pride in what you accomplished. Don't you think it will be fun to go through that process again for A20?

 

Some people here are saying only cheese bases work but they said the same thing in A19 and you proved them wrong by refining a base design that didn't feel like cheese tactics to you. Now here they are saying again that you have to cheese the AI. Are you going to let that stand? Won't you prove them wrong again?

 

The AI is practically the same in A20 as it was in A19, faatal admitted he did nothing beyond letting them crouch and crawl through low spaces and then there was a few fixes in experimental for places he saw them getting stuck. You say that electricity only paralyses for half the time. Are you certain that isn't a bug? Is it mentioned in the patch notes as an intended change? If so, can't  you come up with ways to adapt your design given that new limitation? I'm sure you can once the initial rage wears off.

A very positive post. I appreciate it.

You are right about the thrill of the challenge, but there is something to be said about being able to take an existing concept, and help it evolve to meet new challenges. Making it as efficient and elegant as I can. Right now, I'm contemplating starting over with a blank sheet of paper-- which is not completely off the table, but it's not the most attractive concept to me.