Alpha 21 Dev Diary

[Drithyl]

I did misunderstand, my bad. Yeah, removing the dependency on the filter but raising the bar to craft the collector itself would be a viable option, as you say.

[gpcstargate]

Good Day TFP's

I Have one serious question. Since you removed the ability to make glass JARS ... How does the Rain Collector make glass jars with No glass in it???  Just wondering. 

[Riamus]

1 hour ago, kattenijin said:

The map is at least 50% forest, if not closer to 60%. I passed two other Rekts (it sent me to a 3rd) and I'm not sure of the third, I only know it wasn't a Jen. Tried attaching a picture, but I keep getting "Error 200".

Remnant_Skyscraper_01 is in the forest biome in a town by itself. Dishong, Crack A Book HQ, and Higashi are in a forest biome town within a block of each other. The new Vanity Apartments is also in that town in the same area, so basically 4 skyscrapers in one city. The tower construction site is off by itself in a winter biome town. There are at least 8 good sized town/cities on the map, leaving 6 of them as "why bother". Ok, maybe there's a tier 5 factory or prison in them. In that case its just a matter of spreading stuff out for the sake of spreading stuff out, which is bad game mechanics. Maybe its time to revert all the way back to Alpha 7-8 days (I don't know about before, I only started in 7) and have one central "big bad city" with everything else surrounding it.

I'd definitely give them the map seed (it is in the MapInfo.xml file if you forgot it) and the map settings when creating the map and also the spawnpoints.xml file so they can't look into it.

[Phoenixshade35]

I have been noticing something odd with the zombies, it seems like they are getting hung up on nothing and jumping in place until you get close or hit them, i watched a roaming horde near my place just jumping for no reason, is this a possible pathing bug?

[Morloc]

The roaming hoards seem to sometimes have a destination (usually your location, or close to it). When they get there, and there's nobody to fight, they just mull around. Is that possibly what you're seeing? It's not new though.

 

 

-Arch Necromancer Morloc 💀

 

 

[Phoenixshade35]

3 minutes ago, Morloc said:

The roaming hoards seem to sometimes have a destination (usually your location, or close to it). When they get there, and there's nobody to fight, they just mull around. Is that possibly what you're seeing? It's not new though.

 

 

-Arch Necromancer Morloc 💀

 

 

This behaviour is new to me though, usually roaming hordes would path past me and keep going if i did not engage, this time it was like they were stuck on air, day one walking down a road i watched a hobo zombie do the same thing alone, just jumping for no reason, its amusing but makes me wonder if something is wrong

[Cr0wst0rm]

Maybe just a question about memory management to the devs -> can there be something done to reduce the memory footprint in regard to preview world gen? I have 128 gb ram, however the game stalls at ~23 gb ram usage. Tried to run preview world generation twice, on second occasion it completely halted (1 hour).

[icehot]

Just been building my new horde base, and wondered if the electric fence wires are meant to join from down the pole now?  Or is that a bug?  In A20, they joined from the very top,  most people probably don't notice this, but I have them placed lowered and now the zombies walk right over them

 

Posting here, cos I really don't know if this is a bug/oversight/intended.

 

Attached a pic of me experimenting to show it:

 

 

[meganoth]

48 minutes ago, gpcstargate said:

Good Day TFP's

I Have one serious question. Since you removed the ability to make glass JARS ... How does the Rain Collector make glass jars with No glass in it???  Just wondering. 

 

How do you make gas cans when you wrench down a car or loot a gas pump without plastic? If you answer me this serious question I'll answer yours.

 

 

[Riamus]

1 hour ago, kattenijin said:

 

Please delete... Duplicate post.

Edited June 14, 2023 by Riamus (see edit history)

[Moldy Bread]

So is stealth useless now? Because it seems that sneaking doesn't work, most of the sleepers appear to be even activated, they wake up one you get close enough or enter a room.

[Jost Amman]

37 minutes ago, gpcstargate said:

I Have one serious question. Since you removed the ability to make glass JARS ... How does the Rain Collector make glass jars with No glass in it???  Just wondering. 

Spoiler

 

 

[Cr0wst0rm]

5 minutes ago, meganoth said:

 

How do you make gas cans when you wrench down a car or loot a gas pump without plastic? If you answer me this serious question I'll answer yours.

 

 

I honestly think the guy has a good point. They could maybe instead make full glass jars non-stackable item or just replace them with pots (also non stackable) (which would make more sense for boiling the water, because glass can break with differentiating temperatures).

[meganoth]

1 hour ago, katarynna said:

 

You misunderstood me. Maybe i didn't phrase it well.

 

The filter would cost the same as now, 1500 dukes at the trader.

 

The dew collector recipe currently includes 100 polymer. I was suggesting increasing the amount of polymer required for the dew collector to 250. Just so you couldn't spam craft 3 or 4 dew collectors immediately because they would no longer require the water filter as a rare, non-craftable ingredient.

 

Getting your first dew collector would be arguably more difficult because of the increased polymer requirement. However in reality it would be about the same, as gathering 1500 dukes at the start of the game could take a similar amount of time as gathering an extra 150 polymer.

 

Also, that was one extra change to the dew collector beyond removing the water filter requirement. Any change that would greatly decrease the ability to spam many dew collectors if the filter was a tool instead of an ingredient would work.

 

This is an alternative, sure, but I would spread the load to other ingredients like mechanical parts and electrical parts so polymer isn't the one and only thing everyone has to hunt for at game start. The filter has the advantage that you just can collect anything valuable and convert it to a filter by way of the trader.

 

 

 

 

11 minutes ago, Cr0wst0rm said:

I honestly think the guy has a good point. They could maybe instead make full glass jars non-stackable item or just replace them with pots (also non stackable) (which would make more sense for boiling the water, because glass can break with differentiating temperatures).

 

And my point isn't too bad either: No fluid containers were simulated in the game except water containers. And nobody cared!! Because everyone was used to it and just accepted that if you need fluid containers you had unlimited amounts of them or somehow fluid transport was taken care of.

 

Tell me in two months if you still miss glass jars. And first try out a modded game where you can't stack full glass jars and tell me if you liked it. I doubt *I* would like such an inventory grind

 

Edited June 14, 2023 by meganoth (see edit history)

[katarynna]

1 minute ago, meganoth said:

 

This is an alternative, sure, but I would spread the load to other ingredients like mechanical parts and electrical parts so polymer isn't the one and only thing everyone has to hunt for at game start. The filter has the advantage that you just can collect anything valuable and convert it to a filter by way of the trader.

 

 

 

 

 

The reason I suggested polymer rather than mechanical or electrical parts is i feel that a dew collector should be craftable by anyone who tries by day 2. Gathering mechanical and electrical parts, barring extremely good looting luck or availability at the trader, requires a wrench which can take a bit to obtain. It is easier now that a workbench isn't required to craft a wrench, but polymer can be gathered right away just by breaking tires and such with a stone ax.

 

However, that could work too, i guess. It just depends on how soft-gated you want the dew collector to be. I could deal with either, and am fine if it doesn't change. Again, i just think the choice between quickly buying a water filter to use as a tool to get clean water vs just gathering murky water and trying to build a 2nd quickly makes it more interesting.

 

 

[ComPage]

2 hours ago, meganoth said:

 

In my single player game I had exactly the same problem. Tried to experiment (without much hope) if I could get mechanical parts from cars or appliances with a stone axe. When I was sure it wasn#t going to work I went to the trader to buy them and to a hardware store and gas station to find them. If I remember correctly I had the required amount very fast.

 

 

Unfortunately, I was in Navezgane working for Joel and he didn't have any mechanical parts and there were no gas stations or hardware stores around within reasonable walking distance.

[meganoth]

1 hour ago, katarynna said:

 

The reason I suggested polymer rather than mechanical or electrical parts is i feel that a dew collector should be craftable by anyone who tries by day 2. Gathering mechanical and electrical parts, barring extremely good looting luck or availability at the trader, requires a wrench which can take a bit to obtain. It is easier now that a workbench isn't required to craft a wrench, but polymer can be gathered right away just by breaking tires and such with a stone ax.

 

However, that could work too, i guess. It just depends on how soft-gated you want the dew collector to be. I could deal with either, and am fine if it doesn't change. Again, i just think the choice between quickly buying a water filter to use as a tool to get clean water vs just gathering murky water and trying to build a 2nd quickly makes it more interesting.

 

 

 

I can promise you I won't buy such an optional water filter in the first days at any price.  They could as well remove it if they implement the idea. Or keep it so I am tempted to buy them for comfort when my money bag is overflowing with dukes much much later in the game.

 

You are right about parts being a problem without a wrench, but I am not sure TFP's goal is that people should have a "guaranteed" dew collector on day 2 anyway. And when you can buy them at the trader they are the McGuffin you have to buy with Dukes earned any which way.

 

In other words at game start it would be exactly the same as now, but later on you could wrench yourself as many dew collectors as you want

 

Edited June 14, 2023 by meganoth (see edit history)

[RipClaw]

1 hour ago, gpcstargate said:

Good Day TFP's

I Have one serious question. Since you removed the ability to make glass JARS ... How does the Rain Collector make glass jars with No glass in it???  Just wondering. 

 

[Exxodous]

4 hours ago, Neminsis said:

The third would just be changing the frequency that it appears in traders inventory. For that matter just a broader array of stone tools at the trader would be more affordable and that would be handled similarly, but even though the books are more expensive there's something nice about crafting it yourself. 

I don't think you'd really want to add books to the starter gear because it would affect everyone of every playstyle and throw off the balance.

 

Oh, I wasn't suggesting the Fun Pimps make the change to the game, I was suggesting individuals who found it problematic could make those changes fairly easy to their own games.

[Riamus]

38 minutes ago, Moldy Bread said:

So is stealth useless now? Because it seems that sneaking doesn't work, most of the sleepers appear to be even activated, they wake up one you get close enough or enter a room.

Stealth seems to work just fine.  I never stealth but have tried in A21 without much difficulty.  Took me a minute to realize my helmet light being on was waking them up since I normally don't stealth and never thought about it before.  Turned it off and I can "walk" right up to them, kill them and move on to the next in the room.  Granted, there are many zombies in places that you can't do with stealth, at least not well.  But overall it works fine 

[hiemfire]

7 hours ago, Diragor said:

FOR REAL?? Finally that was long needed. Now add them into the Horde Night xD true insanity

From what I've seen in vids so far it doesn't look like poi spawn screamers summon hordes. They do make for one heck of a jump scare and "Oh @%$#" moment though.

[HB_H4wk]

I was riding my bike on the road last night in my single player game and the wife chimed in, as I turned my head to respond to her I heard a Squeal... so I stopped my bike and looked back a bit.. Whammo I ran over a wabbit, then I was able to hunt down a chicken with my bike. I love this new Hunting Feature that has been added, although I have yet to try it with a deer or any large animal.

[Aldranon]

It's POSSIBLE to argue that rainwater needs a filter to remove radioactive particles that could remain in the atmosphere for quite some time. 

Nobody knows for sure how long particles that are shot up to the stratosphere would remain there, slowing drifting down over a long time.

 

So, there is a somewhat good reason the filter is needed.

[hiemfire]

Biggest critique I can give at the moment being as I've only been watching others play is the following: That is not how the human eye works TFP. Standing in a dark section of a room and looking into another area of the room or even another room that has light sources does not cause our vision to got to near pitch black and stay there, especially when there is a light source shining from behind us and regardless of if the sky gets cloudy or is clear. Our eyes adjust so that we can see. I've got a headache right now thanks to my eyes fighting to adjust to the lower light level.

 

Yes I know this is how they've had it programmed for ages but this update looks to have doubled down and made it even worse than the previous one.

[Kosmic Kerman]

Just now, hiemfire said:

Biggest critique I can give at the moment being as I've only been watching others play is the following: That is not how the human eye works TFP. Standing in a dark section of a room and looking into another area of the room or even another room that has light sources does not cause our vision to got to near pitch black and stay there, especially when there is a light source shining from behind us and regardless of if the sky gets cloudy or is clear. Our eyes adjust so that we can see. I've got a headache right now thanks to my eyes fighting to adjust to the lower light level.

 

Yes I know this is how they've had it programmed for ages but this update looks to have doubled down and made it even worse than the previous one.

The drastic change in lighting is my least favorite part of A21 especially inside of buildings.