Alpha 21 Dev Diary

[RipClaw]

4 hours ago, Roland said:

"They" seem to prefer looting and exploring to building and mining except when "They" prefer building and mining and hate looting and exploring...

You're not half as funny as you might think. There are different types of players who love this game. There are the players whose favorite pastime is to loot and explore and there are players who prefer to build and mine. I belong to the second group, but I'm pretty sure I'm in a minority. And I'm pretty sure that the players who prefer to loot and explore are in the majority.

 

 

[RipClaw]

10 hours ago, bdubyah said:

Extremely? So spending maybe half a day once every two weeks is annoying? To me, if that's true, then you can just walk or ride a bike everywhere. Vehicles should be more of a privilege that you have to put at least some work in to have.

Sure you have to put in some work but the question is how much is some work? I think if players wrench cars and get enough gas out of them to make several short trips a day, that's enough work. If you want to make longer trips or use the auger then you have to mine oil shale but I would say investing half a day every two weeks is too much.

 

11 hours ago, bdubyah said:

Eh, it isn't that different. It's something that should be a point of struggle that can be fairly easily(no, not as easy as water, but still) remedied fairly early into a game. Again, I'd consider that an issue.

When you will be able to solve the fuel problem depends on two factors. It depends on when you have a chemistry station and when you find the desert. Both can happen early in the game or much later.

 

12 hours ago, bdubyah said:

I mean, that is totally doable right now. Wrenching a couple cars can give you enough to drive around most of the day. While I personally would want that reduced some, it isn't too big of a deal. But I've been mostly talking about oil shale this whole time, as it is too easily mined and produces too much gas for the time invested.

As I wrote at the beginning. I don't think the Fun Pimps want gasoline to be scarce in the long run. At the beginning the player should supply his needs by wrenching cars and looting gas stations but eventually he should overcome the problem.

 

When they talk about balancing gasoline, it can also mean that they are balancing the amount you find or get from cars. I don't think they want to force the player to mine oil shale every two weeks.

 

If it bothers you that you get so much gasoline from oil shale you can easily create a mod that reduces the amount.

 

[zztong]

Related to gasoline, I'm not sure the game needs it, but I wonder if an earlier tier of fuel with less range would be appealing. Perhaps an alcohol fuel, like methanol or ethanol? Not that reality matters, but I'd find the imagery of a bunch of survivor kooks running a still to make alcohol from wood to be kind of entertaining. Cue the dueling banjos.

[RipClaw]

1 hour ago, zztong said:

Related to gasoline, I'm not sure the game needs it, but I wonder if an earlier tier of fuel with less range would be appealing. Perhaps an alcohol fuel, like methanol or ethanol? Not that reality matters, but I'd find the imagery of a bunch of survivor kooks running a still to make alcohol from wood to be kind of entertaining. Cue the dueling banjos.

In fact, we once had something similar already in the game. It was possible to process animal fat into biofuel.

 

https://7daystodie.fandom.com/wiki/Bio_Fuel

 

EDIT: I notice that in the past there were some more recipes for making gasoline.

 

https://7daystodie.fandom.com/wiki/Gas_Can?oldid=110587

Edited January 24, 2023 by RipClaw (see edit history)

[Callum123456789]

to be honest i think making bio fuel return would be awesome and for the gas situation make gas 4x as expensive to craft in the chem station and lower gas yields from harvesting cars by 30-40% thats just my idea i imagine youd have to do these activities a lot more to actually get a reliable set of gas.

[Morloc]

5 minutes ago, Callum123456789 said:

to be honest i think making bio fuel return would be awesome and for the gas situation make gas 4x as expensive to craft in the chem station and lower gas yields from harvesting cars by 30-40% thats just my idea i imagine youd have to do these activities a lot more to actually get a reliable set of gas.

 

 

The backstory/timeline of the game is not set in stone (or even Jello) so it's difficult to tell how much time has passed since the zombie apocalypse and if it was a massive takedown, or if areas of the U.S. continued to function under siege for years after the first infection.

Gasoline is only good for a couple years. If we're finding gas in cars or gas stations, then it's been less than two years since Z-day (/salute Z'ha'dum!).

 

Logically we'd need another source of fuel if there was to be a future. Of course, game-balance is a thing too.

 

 

-Arch Necromancer Morloc 💀

[Roland]

6 hours ago, RipClaw said:

You're not half as funny as you might think.

 

"They" think I'm hilarious.

[doughphunghus]

1 hour ago, Morloc said:

 

 

The backstory/timeline of the game is not set in stone (or even Jello) so it's difficult to tell how much time has passed since the zombie apocalypse and if it was a massive takedown, or if areas of the U.S. continued to function under siege for years after the first infection.

Gasoline is only good for a couple years. If we're finding gas in cars or gas stations, then it's been less than two years since Z-day (/salute Z'ha'dum!).

 

Logically we'd need another source of fuel if there was to be a future. Of course, game-balance is a thing too.

 

 

-Arch Necromancer Morloc 💀

It might be interesting to make "found gas" register as "unuseable gas" or similar, that requires processing (but not at chem station) to use. And shale remains a different recipe. Then just balance it out (ha!) so that harvested gas (not infinite, but a little can just be found without car disassembling) require  quite a bit of processing to get a small amount of gas, and shale (since it is infinite and harvested on day 1) the end game gas, but make it not so op to craft a ton very fast.

 

I always have a ton of gas just from looting and i wish vanilla has some extra obstacles to overcome to get to that point. I think it should be kinda scarce/hard to make so driving anything but gyro is more challenging to go far. Having another source of gasoline equivalent use fuel (with less energy) would be cool IMHO but it was removed awhile back so bet "its never coming back"

 

i guess an alternative might be to mod in so the vehicles all require different "grades" of fuel so that the gyro requires "refined gas+high octane" fuel only. Maybe minibike can run on crap/slightly refined and 4x4 requires refined gas? Allow harvesting to be "normal" but processing each grade of gas is more difficult and makes less gas of that grade? Maybe make "anything but minibike grade" all require chem station?

Edited January 24, 2023 by doughphunghus (see edit history)

[BFT2020]

1 hour ago, doughphunghus said:

It might be interesting to make "found gas" register as "unuseable gas" or similar, that requires processing (but not at chem station) to use. And shale remains a different recipe. Then just balance it out (ha!) so that harvested gas (not infinite, but a little can just be found without car disassembling) require  quite a bit of processing to get a small amount of gas, and shale (since it is infinite and harvested on day 1) the end game gas, but make it not so op to craft a ton very fast.

 

That is what I have gone for.  I imagine the timeline as being further along so anything you pull from vehicles has to be processed first to be usable - but that's because I like games where you forced to prepare ahead of time and punished if you don't (quarter of tank of gas and long drive, but don't take any spare gas with you - expect to walk back to your base when you run out). Added bonus is processing it requires more materials and you don't get back a 1:1 ratio of fuel.

 

1 hour ago, doughphunghus said:

I always have a ton of gas just from looting and i wish vanilla has some extra obstacles to overcome to get to that point. I think it should be kinda scarce/hard to make so driving anything but gyro is more challenging to go far. Having another source of gasoline equivalent use fuel (with less energy) would be cool IMHO but it was removed awhile back so bet "its never coming back"

 

I understand why they are doing what they are doing (based on their objectives and vision).  But it is great that they have made this game easy to mod so if you want to put your different vision on the game, you have the capability of doing so based on your skillset.

 

1 hour ago, doughphunghus said:

i guess an alternative might be to mod in so the vehicles all require different "grades" of fuel so that the gyro requires "refined gas+high octane" fuel only. Maybe minibike can run on crap/slightly refined and 4x4 requires refined gas? Allow harvesting to be "normal" but processing each grade of gas is more difficult and makes less gas of that grade? Maybe make "anything but minibike grade" all require chem station?

 

I like this idea myself, I may use it as a jumping point for what I am working on  😉

[meilodasreh]

9 hours ago, RipClaw said:

You're not half as funny as you might think.

I like him. He feeds me stuff.

You know, bits of information...little riddles and so on...something to nibble.

Well of course I'd prefer some rodent live stock, but still...I like him. He gives what he can reasonably give.

[zacday113]

Not sure if this is the right place to ask but can we expect crossplatform play for pc and ps4 any time soon?

 

[crazywildfire]

12 minutes ago, zacday113 said:

Not sure if this is the right place to ask but can we expect crossplatform play for pc and ps4 any time soon?

 

 

Last gen is done so no.... but next/this gen they mentioned after it goes gold and release it on those consoles that they hope to be able to do it then. 

Edited January 24, 2023 by crazywildfire (see edit history)

[bdubyah]

9 hours ago, RipClaw said:

Sure you have to put in some work but the question is how much is some work? I think if players wrench cars and get enough gas out of them to make several short trips a day, that's enough work. If you want to make longer trips or use the auger then you have to mine oil shale but I would say investing half a day every two weeks is too much.

So 30 minutes out of every 14 hours is too much? I guess as you're one of the stay at base people that makes sense. You never want to have to leave. That's fine, and your choice, but then that's what the bike is for. Unless in MP and having someone else make gas.

 

9 hours ago, RipClaw said:

When you will be able to solve the fuel problem depends on two factors. It depends on when you have a chemistry station and when you find the desert. Both can happen early in the game or much later.

You keep bringing this up like it is some major hurdle. Again, as a base hermit maybe it's a bigger deal to you than most. But it has never taken me very long to at least spot the desert to know where it is. And between the perk, schematic, or traders it is not hard to all to get a chem station super quick. Gas recipe is the same way. Easily perked into, though I usually find the schem within at least the first 2 weeks.

 

9 hours ago, RipClaw said:

As I wrote at the beginning. I don't think the Fun Pimps want gasoline to be scarce in the long run. At the beginning the player should supply his needs by wrenching cars and looting gas stations but eventually he should overcome the problem.

 

When they talk about balancing gasoline, it can also mean that they are balancing the amount you find or get from cars. I don't think they want to force the player to mine oil shale every two weeks.

 

If it bothers you that you get so much gasoline from oil shale you can easily create a mod that reduces the amount.

I just think it isn't balanced very well. If most people do a moderate amount of scavenging once they find a wrench, they have enough gas stocked up by the time they get a gas vehicle that it will last them more than long enough to find oil shale. Unless you just ignore scavenging for gas, there is never a struggle. Cities especially made this worse as there are now cars everywhere. I remember using a car respawner mod in previous alphas, even in SP, as it could easily get to the point where you had cleaned out giant parts of the map. But of course things like batteries and engines seemed much harder to come by back then as well. Now you're always swimming in them.

 

I can't guess what the average game length is among all players, but I'd bet it's short of day 100, especially in SP games. So say maybe roughly 8 weeks. That would mean you'd have to mine shale a whopping 4 times, if that, as it is now. Saying you actually spend half a day doing it, that's 2 whole days spent getting gas. I don't see that as too extreme. How many times you go hunting or harvest crops? Or go mine stone or other building mats in that kind of time frame?

And I've already said in my mod I've changed these things greatly. But that doesn't mean it's fine as-is for vanilla.

[zacday113]

what is the time span between gens like?
 

[Roland]

1 hour ago, meilodasreh said:

I like him. He feeds me stuff.

You know, bits of information...little riddles and so on...something to nibble.

Well of course I'd prefer some rodent live stock, but still...I like him. He gives what he can reasonably give.

 

Unfortunately, that can no longer be the basis of our relationship. Now its just my charm and style to sustain us.

 

But I know tha.... Meilo....?   Hello....?  Where did you go...?

[Trankitas]

Release the squid I can't take it anymore

 

Edited January 24, 2023 by Trankitas (see edit history)

[Roland]

3 minutes ago, zacday113 said:

what is the time span between gens like?
 

 

Work on the new console version is already underway. It will be fully compatible and consistent to the PC version. We don't know how long of a time span there will be after the PC version releases and the console versions release but it shouldn't be too long of a wait.

[maxousara]

1 hour ago, Roland said:

 

Work on the new console version is already underway. It will be fully compatible and consistent to the PC version. We don't know how long of a time span there will be after the PC version releases and the console versions release but it shouldn't be too long of a wait.

This year about console ??

[Riamus]

2 hours ago, bdubyah said:

You keep bringing this up like it is some major hurdle. Again, as a base hermit maybe it's a bigger deal to you than most. But it has never taken me very long to at least spot the desert to know where it is. And between the perk, schematic, or traders it is not hard to all to get a chem station super quick. Gas recipe is the same way. Easily perked into, though I usually find the schem within at least the first 2 weeks.

It's funny... I typically find the gas can schematic on day one or maybe two, and the chem station schematic in one of the first couple chem stations I loot, which is often from the trader's chem station.  Those are some of the easiest schematics to find for me.

[bdubyah]

5 hours ago, Riamus said:

It's funny... I typically find the gas can schematic on day one or maybe two, and the chem station schematic in one of the first couple chem stations I loot, which is often from the trader's chem station.  Those are some of the easiest schematics to find for me.

Same here. And I know it's RNG and all, but between the chances of looting the schem, or the trader having either the schem or the whole station, it's not hard to get one if you try. And you always have the fallback of perking into it. Not sure about A21, but in A20 you can unlock it from either Physician or Advanced Engineering.

[Aldranon]

8 hours ago, Trankitas said:

Release the squid I can't take it anymore

 

 

Done worry! 

I told Liam Neeson at his book signing "It isn't easy being a god", that I needed an extraction team with a special set of skills. 

He handed me this and called "Security!"

 

 

As they were dragging me out of the convention hall he yelled "Don't worry, he likes nuts!"

I don't know what that meant, but if you find this guy tell him we need his help!

[RipClaw]

3 hours ago, bdubyah said:

Same here. And I know it's RNG and all, but between the chances of looting the schem, or the trader having either the schem or the whole station, it's not hard to get one if you try. And you always have the fallback of perking into it. Not sure about A21, but in A20 you can unlock it from either Physician or Advanced Engineering.

The bottleneck is not the schematics but the beaker that you need to build one. There have been several threads in this forum from players who couldn't find a beaker even in the late game.

 

Yes, you can buy the chemistry station from the trader if he offers it. And you can also get it as a quest reward when you complete the tier 3 quests. But this is all RNG.

 

[Jost Amman]

4 hours ago, RipClaw said:

The bottleneck is not the schematics but the beaker that you need to build one. There have been several threads in this forum from players who couldn't find a beaker even in the late game.

 

Yes, you can buy the chemistry station from the trader if he offers it. And you can also get it as a quest reward when you complete the tier 3 quests. But this is all RNG.

They should add the possibility to craft the Beaker, maybe as one of the last recipes in the Tools magazine series.

That way it'll become "deterministic" but you'll have to work hard to get there if RNG fails and find the necessary high grade materials and stuff as ingredients.

[BFT2020]

@bdubyah @RipClaw  Both approaches are legitimate ways to limit gasoline, but have different pros and cons (though these will change in A21)

 

Keeping it as is, you are dependent on RNG (but can use perks in certain instances) in order to get supplies of gas) - beaker, chemistry station (perk also), gas recipe (perk also).  But once you got all of those items, the only thing limiting you at that point is A) time to mine the resources, and B) capacity (how many chem stations you have up and running).  And at end game, it really is trivial at that point to make gasoline.

 

Changing the recipe, reducing yield - as of A20, still depends on RNG, but with A21, some of the unlocks will now be tied to the magazines.  Depending on how you change the recipe and yield amounts, this would increase the effort required to produce gasoline.  Sure you can still harvest a ton of shale, but that decreases the time you would spend on other activities.  EDIT - you can also increase the time to craft it.

 

Another approach - remove shale as a source of gas altogether (leave it for oil though).  Add gasoline as purchasable from traders.  Then your sources are just finding it as loot or buying it from traders.  This would be the more extreme way of limiting gas.  Might have to add a biofuel option that players can gather and craft to supplement the gas from the traders.  Heck, you could even combine it with @doughphunghusidea about higher grade gasolines.  Maybe have the lower quality engine items (minibike, tools, generators) run off of either biofuel or gasoline, but items like the motorcycle, 4x4, and gyro require gasoline only.

 

 

Edited January 25, 2023 by BFT2020 (see edit history)

[RipClaw]

39 minutes ago, BFT2020 said:

Keeping it as is, you are dependent on RNG (but can use perks in certain instances) in order to get supplies of gas) - beaker, chemistry station (perk also), gas recipe (perk also).  But once you got all of those items, the only thing limiting you at that point is A) time to mine the resources, and B) capacity (how many chem stations you have up and running).  And at end game, it really is trivial at that point to make gasoline.

 

The question is whether it is even necessary to limit gasoline in the late game and what sense it would have at all. Even water will be limited in A21 only by the number of dew collectors and according to some who already played A21 you will be able to build the dew collector very early in the game and the trader has the filter always in stock.

 

Hardcore survival players want everything to always be scarce, but as I understand the balancing of the Fun Pimps, the goal is to overcome scarcity at a certain point in the game.