Alpha 21 Discussion Overflow

[Xeraphim]

in real life, getting water is super easy: dig a well.

we have augers. There are underground rivers in the real world. Finding water below ground should be easy. It rains enough, there should be a "water table" and a "dry line".

As for transporting it, so long as anything is watertight it should be fine, whether it is a bucket, a barrel, a truck bed, or whatever. Making water hard to get by making the player character a blithering idiot does not help things.

furthermore: our PCs are smart enough to make robotic turrets and complex circuits. Surely we can figure out a simple water pump. Pumping systems are a "duh" thing. TFP making it nearly impossible to lug around water will just result in the mod community flipping them the bird and modding their way back into sanity and a player character with an IQ over 3.

Thus, going the way of Khaine (Darkness Falls overhaul mod) and making a Working Sink is far more reasonable and "post-apocalypse probable" (because we already know how they work, there is no rocket science involved, and you can trial-and-error your way to the perfect plumbing without having to read a book on it) than being unable to even carry a canteen or three with distilled water (https://www.waterwise.com/water/ - you just boil the steam into a catch and then drip it into a container, can be done with a campfire) simply because someone intentionally forgot how to make things to carry other things with.

even the guy that does Undead Legacy mod figured out that a well can be dug and so added that as a low-tech option for the PC to obtain water at a low rate, and permitted that the PC can go around lugging plastic water barrels from POIs back to home base to fill with said water.

 

Water should not be an issue, but water that is not irradiated or contaminated should be hard to find at first as all above ground still waters should be polluted in a post-nuclear scenario. Wells should give access to clean water and rivers tend to come from underground fresh spring water from magmatic sources so they run clean.

For the truly industrious survivor: making a 5,000 gallon water bladder for a "water truck" out of polymers and a few other things that can be filled through a hose dropped into a well or lake is totally a thing that can be done in real life, but in the game the PC simply can't figure it out.

Edited October 5, 2022 by Xeraphim
we have electricity too, mentioning mods concerning wells/sinks (see edit history)

[Roland]

40 minutes ago, Xeraphim said:

will just result in the mod community flipping them the bird

 

What if it results in the mod community giving them a friendly wave since most of the mod authors, themselves, usually express gratitude for the abilities TFP have made open and easy to access? Its only some players, like you, that imagine some kind of adversarial relationship between modders and the devs like they are at war or something or like TFP wishes the modders would stop modifying the vanilla game.

 

smh...

[Roland]

11 hours ago, Xeraphim said:

The game itself is like a well made intro to a series, like book 1-2 of what could easily become 200, and this is why mods are so very important to keep the playability alive which is why i am super glad that we can mod this game without the devs getting upset

 

Here you seem to get it. I totally agree with this statement.  Mods are further chapters in a great book series. I like that. You should stick with this.

[zztong]

3 hours ago, Xeraphim said:

in real life, getting water is super easy: dig a well.

 

Unless you're in a desert, it's even easier -- walk to the river around which your town was probably built, collect rain, or find a farm pond. As you go on to discuss, purifying water is the real trick. You have to deal with both organic and inorganic issues. The SW USA is facing water scarcity issues. Maybe the game is taking those to heart, but the Forest biome is pretty green and it does rain a lot. Then there's all that snow, too.

 

Oddly enough, places like POIs seem to me to become less and less likely to be places to find water. First, survivors will consume it, as they clearly have all the food. Second, as we saw during the pandemic with mothballed buildings, water in toilets and drain traps evaporates. Once a city's water storage is exhausted or otherwise loses pressure there's nothing to get from faucets. I'm foggy on what happens to water in a water heater. Could that be a source of water for _years_? A 40-gallon tank would be what... 320 jars?

 

Alas, I'm game to try the new approach and I can recognize they're trying for an improvement.

[Riamus]

21 hours ago, Roland said:

Well it’s been this way for a couple of alphas now so there was a big discussion at the time when it was implemented.  The game reason was that there needs to be an ongoing food drain into the late game since there is no spoilage. The thematic reason is that by driving crazy fast over the rough uneven terrain you actually would be using quite a bit of core strength to keep yourself stabilized in your vehicle. The world we drive in in the game world is quite a bit different than the world you drive in. I’m sure you don’t burn any stamina clicking on your cruise control. But try 4 wheeling in a river bed for a couple of hours and you might be ready for a big meal…and some Tylenol. 

Ok, that sure make sense, though personally, I stick to level or near level terrain most of the time if I can.  The vertical distance adds to your drive time so if there is easier terrain close, I'll use that instead of a lot of rough terrain.  I also get tired of the motorcycle changing directions when it hits terrain wrong.  But at least this makes sense.  Though spoilage would also make sense.  Considering a fridge is in the game, we could use that to prolong food life easily enough.

[Roland]

6 hours ago, Riamus said:

Ok, that sure make sense, though personally, I stick to level or near level terrain most of the time if I can.  The vertical distance adds to your drive time so if there is easier terrain close, I'll use that instead of a lot of rough terrain.  I also get tired of the motorcycle changing directions when it hits terrain wrong.  But at least this makes sense.  Though spoilage would also make sense.  Considering a fridge is in the game, we could use that to prolong food life easily enough.

 

I would love spoilage but it is a divisive feature with lots of hate as well as love-- even on the dev team... Not going to happen at this point for this game.

[Uncle Al]

1 hour ago, Falcon197 said:

And to anyone thinking "oh this won't be abused at all" then consider what happens if you were to pave most of an active chunk to limit or prevent blood moon spawns altogether.  The current system has its own potential exploits.  I just want to stop having zombies appear inside of my walls.

 

Edit: I would even throw in an anti-exploit condition that says if and only if all the checks above fail and there's no ground available for spawns to migrate to, then the land claim / on terrain parameters get overridden to prevent people from trying to cover a chunk in land claims or pave everything and totally stop all spawns.

I don't think risk of exploit is really a concern. Maximum spawn distance is at least 100 blocks so to pave an area enough to block horde spawns you'd need 40,000 blocks. You're probably not doing that without using the creative menu, and if you have access to creative you can just turn off horde night in the game settings. 

 

Or were you proposing horde zombies should only spawn in the player's active chunk?  I thought a chunk is 16x16 so doing that will prevent horde spawns if you sit in the middle of a medium size base.  Even if you don't block spawns, zombies would all appear magically at point blank range.  That seems exactly what you don't want.

 

TFP, rightly, seem a lot more concerned about people accidentally doing stuff that breaks their game, like digging a basement and being totally safe by accident back when zombies couldn't dig, than preventing someone who is setting out to game the system with foreknowledge.

Edited October 7, 2022 by Uncle Al (see edit history)

[Roland]

The issue here is that there are tech limitations for horde night spawning that people are exceeding by building such large bases. If there is a flaw, here, it is that the game allows players to build bases with a footprint larger than can be supported. 
 

The fix would be to force a limit to how large of a base players can be built. 
 

or….people can just self limit themselves so that the game works properly for horde night and then people who want to build epic large scale bases but not use them for horde nights (or accept that some spawns will happen in their interiors) can still do so. 
 

My vote is that you’ll downscale your base to the point that it fits the parameters of horde night if you plan to use it for horde night. It’s not like it is critical for gameplay that you’ve overbuilt to the point that your base perimeter extends past the point where zombies spawn in. 
 

Let’s say for a moment the devs are able to solve the tech limits that would allow your size of base to work. Tomorrow there would be the next guy who wants to build even bigger and would be on here complaining that zombies are spawning inside his base. 
 

The spawn distances aren’t arbitrary. They are at the limits of what can be done. Therefore if players find zombies spawning inside it is their responsibility to reduce the footprint of their base until it works or not use the epic base for horde nights. 

Edited October 7, 2022 by Roland (see edit history)

[doughphunghus]

3 hours ago, Falcon197 said:

Edit: I would even throw in an anti-exploit condition that says if and only if all the checks above fail and there's no ground available for spawns to migrate to, then the land claim / on terrain parameters get overridden to prevent people from trying to cover a chunk in land claims or pave everything and totally stop all spawns.

I think if this exploit were detected, 50% of new spawns should be done underground as bears/screamers/wolves  and "distance away from player" would not be a consideration... so they will dig up to get you and burst through the floors, also possibly compromising your base supports. If you have a basement, they would get a "digging head start" by spawning underground close to you. The underground screamers would be to bring more on the surface.

 

[Falcon197]

2 hours ago, Roland said:

The spawn distances aren’t arbitrary. They are at the limits of what can be done. Therefore if players find zombies spawning inside it is their responsibility to reduce the footprint of their base until it works or not use the epic base for horde nights. 

 

Treating a bug like it's a feature or limitation doesn't negate the root issue here, which is that there is a viable fix that doesn't require an extension of the tech to support bigger bases so that people like me just raise the ante by building to the new max limit and then complaining it isn't enough.  I'm not in that camp.

 

My base design happens to be aligned to the rough dimensions of a real structure and therefore doesn't offer much flexibility to downscale.  Further, this issue also limits the types of POIs players can occupy based on size (and there are more POIs now that are far larger than bases like mine which would make for viable spots to set up, but for this issue).  I made my base fit within the limits of a max radius land claim (71 blocks), and yet I am still penalized for compliance with this limit by having to deal with spawns inside my perimeter.

 

I see nothing unreasonable about adding a simple logic check for land claims to the existing setup, since the worst it would do is force spawns to drop along the same edge of an active land claim (if all players are clustered to where it can't drop spawns behind them without landing inside the land claim).  But if the players are spread out along different edges, spawns would function quite normally sans the issue of the occasional spawn inside the land claim or base.

Edited October 7, 2022 by Falcon197 (see edit history)

[Roland]

42 minutes ago, Falcon197 said:

 

Treating a bug like it's a feature or limitation doesn't negate the root issue here, which is that there is a viable fix that doesn't require an extension of the tech to support bigger bases so that people like me just raise the ante by building to the new max limit and then complaining it isn't enough.  I'm not in that camp.

 

My base design happens to be aligned to the rough dimensions of a real structure and therefore doesn't offer much flexibility to downscale.  Further, this issue also limits the types of POIs players can occupy based on size (and there are more POIs now that are far larger than bases like mine which would make for viable spots to set up, but for this issue).  I made my base fit within the limits of a max radius land claim (71 blocks), and yet I am still penalized for compliance with this limit by having to deal with spawns inside my perimeter.

 

I see nothing unreasonable about adding a simple logic check for land claims to the existing setup, since the worst it would do is force spawns to drop along the same edge of an active land claim (if all players are clustered to where it can't drop spawns behind them without landing inside the land claim).  But if the players are spread out along different edges, spawns would function quite normally sans the issue of the occasional spawn inside the land claim or base.

 

You may be right. I don't know whether that is possible or not. I tend to think that if it was possible then it would have been implemented but it is possible that they may not have tried your suggestion and that if they did it would be an easy fix for your base.

 

That doesn't negate the fact that there will always be a base size that is just too big to prevent spawns from occurring inside. Even if you are correct and they run your fix we will eventually get someone else who wants their base to work and at some point that is going to be impossible given the current tech.

 

So, I'm not treating a bug like it's a feature. I'm saying that there might not be a fix if what you are trying to do is beyond the limit of the tech. You say the fix is simple and reasonable. Maybe it is and maybe it isn't. I'll make sure they hear about it if they don't come on and read it first and I hope it is simple and reasonable and just something that was missed. If so, we should be fine until the next guy with a base several meters larger than yours comes wondering why he gets spawns inside...

[Falcon197]

7 minutes ago, Roland said:

So, I'm not treating a bug like it's a feature. I'm saying that there might not be a fix if what you are trying to do is beyond the limit of the tech. You say the fix is simple and reasonable. Maybe it is and maybe it isn't. I'll make sure they hear about it if they don't come on and read it first and I hope it is simple and reasonable and just something that was missed. If so, we should be fine until the next guy with a base several meters larger than yours comes wondering why he gets spawns inside...

 

Fair enough - I get that there's a legitimate dev perspective and grounded reasons for the spawns being setup as they currently are.

 

The concern about the next guy, though, waters down a bit if this issue is treated within the limitations of land claims as they are today.  The max radius of 71 blocks would have to be expanded, which isn't what I'm asking for.  Let the hypothetical next guy wrestle with that and be told he needs to scale within the maximum.  I'm limiting my ask to ensuring that bases built within that established radius don't suffer from buggy spawns on horde night.

[Fanatical_Meat]

Dammit time to talk about when we will be able to play A21.

Don't be a @%$# and say “When it’s done/ready”

Edited October 7, 2022 by Fanatical_Meat (see edit history)

[Guest]

Quote

Therefore if players find zombies spawning inside it is their responsibility to reduce the footprint of their base until it works or not use the epic base for horde nights. 

 

I'm struggling a bit here.

 

If we're saying the LCB is too big and that causes issues with zombie spawns, isn't the problem that the LCB is too big? Not that players need to try and fix zombie spawns which they don't have agency over surely.

 

 

 

 

[Roland]

12 minutes ago, Pyrrhrick said:

 

I'm struggling a bit here.

 

If we're saying the LCB is too big and that causes issues with zombie spawns, isn't the problem that the LCB is too big? Not that players need to try and fix zombie spawns which they don't have agency over surely.

 

 

 

 

 

The LCB doesn't prevent Horde Night spawns so whatever the size of the LCB protection field it has nothing to do with this issue.

 

The agency that players have is to build a base that works. You can test the limits of how spread out your base is and not get any spawns inside. You can then resolve to build smaller than that and now the issue is completely fixed. For example, me: I have never had a single zombie spawn inside my horde night base during horde night. The size of my base is completely the reason and I chose to keep my base within the parameters that prevent that from happening. Could someone still build a 1:1 Enterprise? Sure, but don't sit in the captain's chair during horde night or expect Klingons to be beaming on board...

 

If you want to do a large epic build, that's fine. Either don't use it for Horde Night Defense or use it with the knowledge that you will get zombies spawning inside.

 

If the proposed fix works in the current case then that's great. But in general, there is going to be a limit of how big you can make a base if you don't want zombies spawning inside during Horde Night.

Edited October 7, 2022 by Roland (see edit history)

[Roland]

1 hour ago, Fanatical_Meat said:

Dammit time to talk about when we will be able to play A21.

Don't be a @%$# and say “When it’s done/ready”

 

I can give some additional details.

 

It will be on a Monday... but not on an October Monday.

1 hour ago, Falcon197 said:

I'm limiting my ask to ensuring that bases built within that established radius don't suffer from buggy spawns on horde night.

 

Also fair enough. I guess what my point is that what you are calling an established radius with buggy spawns might just actually be a case where you have built beyond the maximum radius the game can handle and the spawns are working properly. But I will slip a note to faatal and ask him to look at it if he has the time.

[Guest]

5 minutes ago, Roland said:

 

The LCB doesn't prevent Horde Night spawns so whatever the size of the LCB protection field it has nothing to do with this issue.

 

The agency that players have is to build a base that works. You can test the limits of how spread out your base is and not get any spawns inside. You can then resolve to build smaller than that and now the issue is completely fixed.

 

If you want to do a large epic build, that's fine. Either don't use it for Horde Night Defense or use it with the knowledge that you will get zombies spawning inside.

 

If the proposed fix works in the current case then that's great. But in general, there is going to be a limit of how big you can make a base if you don't want zombies spawning inside during Horde Night.

Ah I misunderstood how the LCB worked sorry. I thought it was supposed to prevent spawns inside its perimeter.

 

If it's not a bug and intended then really game systems should support that in an ideal world. Leaving players to guess when a base may or may not be an appropriate size isn't particularly great game design.

 

Maybe something that could be looked at before Gold (e.g. a blue line within the LCB which shows those limits)

[unholyjoe]

1 hour ago, Fanatical_Meat said:

Dammit time to talk about when we will be able to play A21.

Don't be a @%$# and say “When it’s done/ready”

i have a question... you been around here enough to know the drill and the process so why do you think its gonna change?

 

thanks @Roland for your response... you actually beat me to it.

 

[Roland]

4 minutes ago, Pyrrhrick said:

Ah I misunderstood how the LCB worked sorry. I thought it was supposed to prevent spawns inside its perimeter.

 

If it's not a bug and intended then really game systems should support that in an ideal world. Leaving players to guess when a base may or may not be an appropriate size isn't particularly great game design.

 

Maybe something that could be looked at before Gold (e.g. a blue line within the LCB which shows those limits)

 

I just hope that "game systems supporting that" doesn't translate to the devs preventing players from building past a certain radius because there are plenty of people who like to build large and don't use that large base for horde night. It would be a shame to have to be limited on how big we can build just because some people want to make sure nothing can be built that doesn't work for horde night.

Edited October 7, 2022 by Roland (see edit history)

[Fanatical_Meat]

2 minutes ago, unholyjoe said:

i have a question... you been around here enough to know the drill and the process so why do you think its gonna change?

 

thanks @Roland for your response... you actually beat me to it.

 

Persistence 

Zero fear of the answer

Throwing stuff out to see what happens 

[NekoPawtato]

17 minutes ago, Roland said:

 

It will be on a Monday... but not on an October Monday.

Now I don't have to get my hopes up for a Halloween release 😋

Only 8 possible Mondays left in the year once you exclude October.

Edited October 7, 2022 by NekoPawtato (see edit history)

[VestedStorm6108]

On 9/30/2022 at 8:52 PM, Roland said:

As for giving extra copies to others…why? You can already craft the best. They don’t need the recipes unlocked since they have you. Just craft them one of whatever you can do that they can’t. There isn’t really a need for multiple people to be able to craft the same best things. Mags don’t give any skill benefits.  They are purely unlocks for crafting recipes.

Most of the time when at least I play in a group each player has certain tasks or jobs. Some people are looters who speedrun through quests and pois to get as much stuff as they can fit in their pockets. Some people are fighters who typically would tag along the speedrunners and just kill anything in that said speedrunners way (or being a mule for things they can't carry). Some people like to avoid looting and fighting all together and mine resources. Some people like to build epic mansions or underground bunkers. And some people like to craft. Having this new mag system completely removes MULTIPLE ways of playing the game. Crafting, building, and mining will be almost completely irrelevant if I need to not only find magazines, but have to go out of my way to loot to find MORE of those said magazines. Instead of having a dedicated looter have a (smaller) chance of finding ANY book, recipe, schematic, but lets ME play how I want to play. Not forcing me to play how YOU may play the game. Now the only way ANOYONE will be able to play is to loot for yourself...

I LOVE the idea of going back to a "use to learn" based system. Rewarding ALL playstyles. Speedrunners get looting, lockpicking, storage, and athletics. Fighters get weapon and armor skills. Miners get tool based skills. Builders wouldn't get too much but maybe crafting and storage skills? And crafters would get, well, crafting skills. This implementation is absolutely atrocious and I will refuse to play it until mods revert it, or its changed back to at least a20 system.

[Guest]

14 minutes ago, Roland said:

 

I just hope that "game systems supporting that" doesn't translate to the devs preventing players from building past a certain radius because there are plenty of people who like to build large and don't use that large base for horde night. It would be a shame to have to be limited on how big we can build just because some people want to make sure nothing can be built that doesn't work for horde night.

Yeh couldn't agree more, which is why I suggested just having a blue line (like the green one for LCB) in the UI. It at least gives players the knowledge of when a base becomes too large to be functional as a base - leaves it up to them. Currently it's an unknown which especially for new players / people who don't read the forums / go into XML might be confusing.

 

I've played all this time and thought it was just a bug that would be fixed haha. But if its staying like that for live release, UI can help a lot in guiding players. Just a thought anyway 

 

As always, appreciate you taking the time to explain this stuff to a pleb like me

Edited October 7, 2022 by Pyrrhrick (see edit history)

[Roland]

2 minutes ago, VestedStorm6108 said:

Most of the time when at least I play in a group each player has certain tasks or jobs. Some people are looters who speedrun through quests and pois to get as much stuff as they can fit in their pockets. Some people are fighters who typically would tag along the speedrunners and just kill anything in that said speedrunners way (or being a mule for things they can't carry). Some people like to avoid looting and fighting all together and mine resources. Some people like to build epic mansions or underground bunkers. And some people like to craft. Having this new mag system completely removes MULTIPLE ways of playing the game. Crafting, building, and mining will be almost completely irrelevant if I need to not only find magazines, but have to go out of my way to loot to find MORE of those said magazines. Instead of having a dedicated looter have a (smaller) chance of finding ANY book, recipe, schematic, but lets ME play how I want to play. Not forcing me to play how YOU may play the game. Now the only way ANOYONE will be able to play is to loot for yourself...

I LOVE the idea of going back to a "use to learn" based system. Rewarding ALL playstyles. Speedrunners get looting, lockpicking, storage, and athletics. Fighters get weapon and armor skills. Miners get tool based skills. Builders wouldn't get too much but maybe crafting and storage skills? And crafters would get, well, crafting skills. This implementation is absolutely atrocious and I will refuse to play it until mods revert it, or its changed back to at least a20 system.

 

If you are playing in a group then you can absolutely continue to play as you have in A20. Those who find mags can craft you anything you need. Under the old system they probably brought you what you needed from their looting. You are making huge assumptions of how the game will play without having played it or even having the full picture in front of you. Go ahead and refuse to play at all until mods revert it. We definitely want you to have fun with the game your way. 

[VestedStorm6108]

6 minutes ago, Roland said:

Those who find mags can craft you anything you need.

This IS the issue. Those people don't WANT to craft. They want to be out in the world exploring, looting, or killing. Whereas I WANT to craft, mine, and build, but now am being forced to go out and loot for the magazines that scale with how many magazines I have. Especially since the magazines ONLY effect crafting and not how effective those tools, weapons, armor are.

It's a lose-lose for everyone involved.

Edited October 7, 2022 by VestedStorm6108 (see edit history)