The no-trader challenge

[Max Headroom]

So we're now at day 31. There are three of us and we've specialized in order to not diffuse progress in key skill areas. We now have 2 workbenches, 2 forges, a secure home base (Taylor Manor) protected by a system of turrets outside the wall. We just found a beaker and crafted up a chem-bench. In my standard play-throughs the chem-bench was usually a quest reward as were many of the better weapons. In this game we've crafted almost everything so many things have come later than usual. We tool around on minibikes and just need some more wheels to step up to motorcycles.

 

We are using existing POIs (some mods allowed) for horde nights. The last horde-night went well. We used a pair of linked buildings simply called "Downtown Apartments". Some demo-zombies showed up but we didn't set any of them off. We were one mistake away from failure. 😉 

 

At this point we have shown to ourselves that we can thrive without trader questing with the single exception of dew collector filters. I'm not sure how much farther we will go with many of the key achievements in the bag. It's no longer a struggle to survive. So we're looking for new things to strive for. Perhaps surviving horde night without any horde base? Just running around? I've seen videos like that.

[Rotor]

Your team is pretty good.  I am always solo, so it is even slower than what you describe.  Kudos on sticking with it.  I believe it is the better game IMnsHO.

[8_Hussars]

1 hour ago, Max Headroom said:

In standard trader-driven play-through I feel like I would have had a wrench sooner is all I'm saying. 

Fair enough.

I still don't see the connection to "no trader" or how that would change it though...

Edited February 20 by 8_Hussars (see edit history)

[FranticDan]

On 2/8/2024 at 9:00 PM, SylenThunder said:

IIRC there are three POI's with a broken dew collector. Looting that has something like a 5% chance to have a filter in it when you loot it. Destroying it doesn't do you any good.

5% of a 5% chance actually. So a 1/400 chance

[Rotor]

22 minutes ago, FranticDan said:

5% of a 5% chance actually. So a 1/400 chance

 

Anyone got the odds on the one arm bandits?

[Max Headroom]

Thought of something else. Since we aren't doing "clear" quests where the object is to kill every last zombie, we never have an issue with zeds not spawning because of trigger issues. 

 

🙂

[Max Headroom]

So we just cleared the day 42 horde night. We are operating under a self-imposed rule of using existing POIs for horde nights instead of constructing elaborate horde bases.

 

This time we used a multi-level parking garage POI that featured a long set of stairs running up one side in a series of switchbacks. I think it was five levels high. The structure has steel columns and concrete floors so it's pretty solid. We set up punch-turrets on three of the stairway landings. We fought on the landings, starting with one of the lower landings and falling back to higher landings as the fight progressed. At the top floor things got hairy as the horde pushed us off the top landing and I started to get chewed up pretty bad. I finally had to jump off the building and commenced running around the outside, reloading and applying med kits. At some point I picked up a pursuing pack of zeds that included a demolisher. I managed to shoot him on his button and he took out most of the pack when he exploded. 🙂

 

We are each around gamestage 115 at this point so the hordes are getting pretty serious. Also true of the higher level POIs we raid. Lots of ferrals and radiated zeds. A particularly nasty prefab is Baslica Cistern by MPLoque. Diabolical! MPLoque has some really interesting prefabs.

[Max Headroom]

We decided that a good finale for this play-through would be to host the day 56 horde in Dishong Tower. We made very little in the way of changes to the tower. Our game-stages were around 150. 

 

Turns out the horde can't get through Dishong. From the top we couldn't even HEAR them. It was ... boring.

[zztong]

11 hours ago, Max Headroom said:

Turns out the horde can't get through Dishong. From the top we couldn't even HEAR them. It was ... boring.

 

Yeh, in A19 four of us fought a late game horde on the steps between floors 1 and 2. I remember having to create holes to help the horde get into the building.

[Scyris]

On 2/8/2024 at 1:29 PM, zombiehunter said:

I've done a few no trader playthroughs and it does make the game feel a lot different, although I only play single player.  I think you'll enjoy it.

 

Thats how the game was in earlier alpha's there was no trader, then there was a trader but they did not have quests at first, you could just buy and sell items with them and that was it. Then the quests were added which basically broke the balance as trader quests are one of the best ways to get dukes and gear. Why would I go loot a random poi anymore when I can grab a quest to loot one instead? that will reward something usually far better than I would be able to loot. I mean tier 4 quests aren't hard and offer t3-5 steel tools and the guns like auto shotguns etc. If you do trader quests only to loot poi's well most anyway as some like crack a books or certain ones do not have quests, you can basically get fully geared just from those quests and never really have to touch the crafting system, In fact its actually more efficent to just do trader quests to explore poi's, As you not only get the loot at the end as normal you also get a decent amount of exp, dukes and a choice of sometimes some really good items.

 

Sadly the game is basically balanced around the trader for the most part now in a21, and the jar change basically means you almost have to interact with the trader now as the thing you can loot for a chance of a filter is super rare. I honestly feel the water filters should also spawn in Lab loot crates, or even Shamway boxes as it is food/drink related.

On 3/9/2024 at 9:20 PM, Max Headroom said:

We decided that a good finale for this play-through would be to host the day 56 horde in Dishong Tower. We made very little in the way of changes to the tower. Our game-stages were around 150. 

 

Turns out the horde can't get through Dishong. From the top we couldn't even HEAR them. It was ... boring.

 

Thats because there is a max path distance for performance reasons, once your that far away from them the pathing essentally breaks and they go into random destruction mode. its not just Dishong tower either, any tall building will cause this as its too far for them to path even on horde night.

[Max Headroom]

I've begun another no-trader game. I've added a mod to allow crafting the filter and removed the traders from prefabs.xml. 

 

Spawned out in the boon-docks. It took me 2 days to find a town. Don't underestimate the value of being led straight to a town.

 

This mod works very well server-side.

https://www.nexusmods.com/7daystodie/mods/3134

[zztong]

11 hours ago, Max Headroom said:

I've added a mod to allow crafting the filter

 

Our recipes are similar.

 

Your recipe:

 

20 Polymers

10 Coal

10 Sand

5 Cloth

3 Glue

 

My recipe: (My own private Mod)

 

25 Polymers

10 Coal

10 Sand

20 Cloth

10 Stone

 

I also have an "Unfiltered Dew Collector" that is the normal Dew Collector recipe but leaves out the Filter and generates Murky Water. You can change it into a normal Dew Collector by adding a Filter.

Edited March 13 by zztong (see edit history)

[Max Headroom]

1 hour ago, zztong said:

I also have an "Unfiltered Dew Collector" that is the normal Dew Collector recipe but leaves out the Filter and generates Murky Water. You can change it into a normal Dew Collector by adding a Filter.

Now that's interesting.

 

Edited March 13 by Max Headroom (see edit history)

[8_Hussars]

4 hours ago, zztong said:

I also have an "Unfiltered Dew Collector" that is the normal Dew Collector recipe but leaves out the Filter and generates Murky Water. You can change it into a normal Dew Collector by adding a Filter.

I like that idea!

In general I like to assume all water is contaminated and should be filtered for particulates (and parasites) as well as being treated (filtration and boiling/chemicals) for bacteria, viruses, and other pathogens.

Arguably its may be busy work and may not enhance the game experience of many.  But to simplify and expand the water system;

Tier 1 - Introduce a Rain Barrell workstation (with a craftable Gravity Water Filter); that collects up to 4 jars of murky water at 50% of the collection rate of the vanilla dew collector.  The Rain Barrell unlocks at Workstation Level 3 and the Gravity Water filter at Medical Level 3.  

Tier 2 - Would be the vanilla Dew Collector workstation (with a craftable Water Filter); that collects up to 3 jars of murky water at the rate of the vanilla Dew Collector.  The Dew Collector workstation unlocks at Workstation Level 10 and the Water filter at Medical Level 10.   This workstation could also employ tools; a Bottle Rack (Workstation Level 5) to increase storage to 6 jars and an Activated Charcoal Filter (Medical Level 15) to produce clean instead of murky water.

 

Tier 3 - Would introduce a Potable Water Station (with a craftable Water Filter); that collects up to 6 jars of clean water at 125% of the collection rate of the vanilla dew collector.  The Potable Water Station unlocks at Workstation Level 25 and the Activated Charcoal Filter (Medical Level 15).  This workstation could also employ tools; a Bottle Rack to increase storage to 9 jars, a Solar Still that increases the collection rate by 15%, and an Activated Charcoal Filter (Medical Level 15) to produce clean instead of murky water.    

Edited March 13 by 8_Hussars (see edit history)

[zztong]

17 hours ago, 8_Hussars said:

In general I like to assume all water is contaminated and should be filtered for particulates (and parasites) as well as being treated (filtration and boiling/chemicals) for bacteria, viruses, and other pathogens.

 

Me too. I have bottled water (the variety coming from boiling and normal dew collectors) as having a chance of dysentery -- enough that Iron Gut can eliminate. Only the game's "mineral water" is what I consider to be drinking water and it is made at a chemistry station which I assume includes a still.

 

I do like the multiple tiers idea and the progression you layout. If I had any criticism, it would be that we don't have multiple tiers of workstations now -- arguably, having multiple tiers for cooking sounds good to me. (Campfire > Wood Burning Stove > Electric Range) -- but that's not where TFP has gone. Instead, I think giving the Dew Collector slots for tools fits the spirit of the current workstation design. Then a filter (or even multiple tiers of filters) could do cool things.

 

BTW (trivia), I recently designed a POI where the entire POI is one giant Dew Collector. See below...

 

Edited March 14 by zztong (see edit history)

[8_Hussars]

 

4 minutes ago, zztong said:

Me too. I have bottled water (the variety coming from boiling and normal dew collectors) as having a chance of dysentery -- enough that Iron Gut can eliminate. Only the game's "mineral water" is what I consider to be drinking water and it is made at a chemistry station which I assume includes a still.

 

In one of my earlier drafts I had the Advanced Water Filter creating Mineral Water (without coal, and the plants).  I eventually thought that was less useful as one of the biggest player complaints is mass producing glue for duct tape.  Maybe better water make more glue?

 

4 minutes ago, zztong said:

BTW (trivia), I recently designed a POI where the entire POI is one giant Dew Collector. See below...

 

 

Love your POIs.  How big is the filter in this one 😉

 

[zztong]

7 hours ago, 8_Hussars said:

How big is the filter in this one

 

It's a 13x13 funnel of cloth blocks (meant to be a bit tarp) that leads to a pipe that leads to a single Dew Collector. In a good rainstorm, there would be a lot of water running into those blue barrels -- though the game doesn't work that way. In game terms, a dew collector would be 3x3 = 9 blocks of surface area. The 13x13 construction is 169 blocks of surface area, so (if it really worked) would be like 18.78 dew collectors putting out 56.33 jars of water a day.

[zombieron]

i have been playing no traders for a long time now, no dew collector or water filter mod either and dead is dead. it helps draw out the early game experience of survival  which for me is where the fun is, once water and food are no longer a problem and im geared up the game is kinda boring usually around day 22 after the 3rd blood moon its over.

[zztong]

I've been playing no-traders lately and am approaching the day 21 horde. I do like the way it plays without quests and having to either find or make everything. It really slows the game down and it has some of that feel of the earlier alphas. I need to slow down the loot and zombie refresh. They're happening too fast which would make me range farther from base.

[Rotor]

I use the zombie no respawn mod and loot no respawn.

3 hours ago, zztong said:

I need to slow down the loot and zombie refresh. They're happening too fast which would make me range farther from base.

 

[zztong]

20 hours ago, Rotor said:

I use the zombie no respawn mod and loot no respawn.

 

I kind of like zombie respawn, as if zombies are moving about and keep infiltrating the area, though I'm not sure what frequency would give the desired feeling. Of course there are always random spawns and wandering hordes, so maybe that does make sense.

 

Maybe no loot respawn makes sense. I'd not really thought about it, but with no defending zombies I guess that makes sense too. I suppose that means the feature to respawn chunks (or whatever they're called) should be off too.

[Rotor]

3 hours ago, zztong said:

 

I kind of like zombie respawn, as if zombies are moving about and keep infiltrating the area, though I'm not sure what frequency would give the desired feeling. Of course there are always random spawns and wandering hordes, so maybe that does make sense.

 

Maybe no loot respawn makes sense. I'd not really thought about it, but with no defending zombies I guess that makes sense too. I suppose that means the feature to respawn chunks (or whatever they're called) should be off too.

 

No so sure what chunks do or dont.  If it means you are getting something that you got before then I would turn it off too, but havent delved into that.

 

It really forces you to relocate after you clear a town.... and why I dont like current water implementation, so enter "bucket mod" as well :).

Edited March 26 by Rotor (see edit history)

[zztong]

In my current no-trader playthrough (which I love) I've gathered some gold and silver. I've no use for it and I've been trying to think of a recipe I could make that would give them a purpose. The best I've thought of is to let them scrap into Brass. Admittedly, that's not really what you could do to gold and silver.

 

Do you have any ideas?

[8_Hussars]

47 minutes ago, zztong said:

In my current no-trader playthrough (which I love) I've gathered some gold and silver. I've no use for it and I've been trying to think of a recipe I could make that would give them a purpose. The best I've thought of is to let them scrap into Brass. Admittedly, that's not really what you could do to gold and silver.

 

Do you have any ideas?

I would have them be ingredients in higher end electrical/electronic items; craftable Solar Cells, drones, sledge or junk turrets, etc.

 

Then again I prefer that the electrical tiers were flipped. 1 Solar > 2 Batteries > 3 Gen Set.  Solar with restricted low power output is only good for one or two items or trickle charging batteries.  To run massive trap factories you need gen sets and fuel, that sound more end game to me.

Maybe use gold and silver in a Mod for the bicycle;  An E-Rover Mod that provides an electrical boost (speed boost/stamina reduction) to the bicycle.  

[Roland]

You can also choose to only use the trader on horde night days or on airdrop days. Ignoring the trader completely and spamming quests daily are two choices but they aren't the only choices.