Stackable Spears?

[Endzeit]

What are the chances we could get stackable spears? Whenever I pick them up they just go into my backpack and I have to stop fighting to open it and put them back on my toolbelt.

[Samaelka]

Its never happened for me =\ They are always back at the toolbelt slot where it was.

[Shurenai]

Originally posted by Samaelka:

Its never happened for me =\ They are always back at the toolbelt slot where it was.

It only happens if you have more than one type of the same spear on your toolbelt; EG: 2x stone spear. The first goes back into it's slot like it should, but then the second goes into your inventory because the game has built in protection for the hotbar to prevent duplicate items; So you dont end up with a hotbar full of looted items constantly.

It can be bypassed by using multiple spear types though, 1 stone spear, 1 iron spear, 1 steel spear; because each is its own item they can each have a hotbar slot without triggering the duplicate protection.

[Endzeit]

Originally posted by Shurenai:

Originally posted by Samaelka:

Its never happened for me =\ They are always back at the toolbelt slot where it was.

It only happens if you have more than one type of the same spear on your toolbelt; EG: 2x stone spear. The first goes back into it's slot like it should, but then the second goes into your inventory because the game has built in protection for the hotbar to prevent duplicate items; So you dont end up with a hotbar full of looted items constantly.

It can be bypassed by using multiple spear types though, 1 stone spear, 1 iron spear, 1 steel spear; because each is its own item they can each have a hotbar slot without triggering the duplicate protection.

Thanks I'll try the different spear types.

[BrookieCookiez]

Originally posted by Kaos:

What are the chances we could get stackable spears? Whenever I pick them up they just go into my backpack and I have to stop fighting to open it and put them back on my toolbelt.

Do you mean like stacking how ammo stacks? Under one slot? Would be cool though, however unrealistic. When I was new to the game I thought I could make multiple level 2 stone spears under one slot and just throw them one by one, but I discovered they each take up a slot. I was bummed lol I don't wanna risk losing my higher end spears in a horde, falling off the map into oblivion

[NocternalDaze]

Originally posted by BrookieCookiez:

Originally posted by Kaos:

What are the chances we could get stackable spears? Whenever I pick them up they just go into my backpack and I have to stop fighting to open it and put them back on my toolbelt.

Do you mean like stacking how ammo stacks? Under one slot? Would be cool though, however unrealistic. When I was new to the game I thought I could make multiple level 2 stone spears under one slot and just throw them one by one, but I discovered they each take up a slot. I was bummed lol I don't wanna risk losing my higher end spears in a horde, falling off the map into oblivion

He means having say a stone spear in slots 1 and 2 but after thrown only slot one gets placed back in and slot 2 one goes back into inventory.

[RasaNova]

yeah I agree it would be nice, but I understand why we can't have it. Stackable spears would only work if they didn't have quality, durability, or mods.

Retrievable spears might work though... tie a rope around your spear to pull it back if you miss.

[CoinSpin]

Wonder if they could do something to make it auto-equip into an open toolbelt slot? Like tap E to retrieve normally, hold down E (or alt+E or something) to retrieve and equip into first available slot on belt.

[Seftak]

Originally posted by CoinSpin:

Wonder if they could do something to make it auto-equip into an open toolbelt slot? Like tap E to retrieve normally, hold down E (or alt+E or something) to retrieve and equip into first available slot on belt.

This would actually be a good solution.

But i frankly do not understand the limitation to have 2 of the same item on the hotbar. Are the hotbar slot not remembered independently? I guess the hotbar just have a "queue" way of remembering things that were on it and add them to a free slot when you pick one up?

[NocternalDaze]

Originally posted by Seftak:

Originally posted by CoinSpin:

Wonder if they could do something to make it auto-equip into an open toolbelt slot? Like tap E to retrieve normally, hold down E (or alt+E or something) to retrieve and equip into first available slot on belt.

This would actually be a good solution.

But i frankly do not understand the limitation to have 2 of the same item on the hotbar. Are the hotbar slot not remembered independently? I guess the hotbar just have a "queue" way of remembering things that were on it and add them to a free slot when you pick one up?

Shurenai already said the reason why it has the limitation is to stop items from duplicating themselves.

[Shurenai]

Originally posted by Seftak:

Originally posted by CoinSpin:

Wonder if they could do something to make it auto-equip into an open toolbelt slot? Like tap E to retrieve normally, hold down E (or alt+E or something) to retrieve and equip into first available slot on belt.

This would actually be a good solution.

But i frankly do not understand the limitation to have 2 of the same item on the hotbar. Are the hotbar slot not remembered independently? I guess the hotbar just have a "queue" way of remembering things that were on it and add them to a free slot when you pick one up?

I stated why above, but, I'll elaborate slightly anyway. Essentially there was a -lot- of outcry from people who want to keep their hotbar clean so they can access their hands or for whatever other reasons they might have for that.

Issue was, back then all loot prioritized the hotbar. That was of course an easy fix so they made it prioritize the backpack; But now all loot goes there including if you accidentally dropped a tool or what have you; So there were complaints about that. So they changed it so that the hotbar 'Remembers' what is in it.......But this then lead to any additional copies you found of any item on your hotbar ending up in your hotbar. (EG: IF you went looting with only an AK47 on your hotbar, and found 5 AK47s, you would then have 6 AK47s on your hotbar).

So, under popular complaint again, they tweaked it such that the hotbar will remember what is in it -and- will prevent duplicate entries from erroneously entering the hotbar. So no matter what, Only what you put in the hotbar ends up in the hotbar unless your backpack is full.

And this works great, For every item except Spears. After all, Even IF you want 2 of any other item in your hotbar, since you never drop or throw them it's fine; And the one off accidental drop is not as much of an issue when you already have two of it on the hotbar.

Spears on the other hand were added long after all the above changes.. Because spears can be thrown but are an unstackable item with durability, they have created a unique desire to have more than one on the hotbar so you can throw them one after the other and retrieve them or be able to throw one and still have one to stab with.

But due to all the above, The hotbar will remember that there was 'Stone Spear' there, but after picking up the first it will then prevent duplicate entries from being added to the hotbar; Even though the player had 3 of them in their hotbar on purpose it will only allow one back in.


So basically, The addition of Spears created a niche issue in the hotbar sorting that normally works perfectly fine and noone really had any complaints about previously. I'm unsure if TFP has any ideas on how to solve this currently.

[CoinSpin]

Great explanation of the whys and hows of the design decision that is causing the issue the OP is trying to fight, @Shurenai.

Seems to me, though, that there are some basic properties of each and every gun or weapon or other item with stats and durability factors in general that are fairly unique. Basically, what you could consider a digital fingerprint. You'd be hard pressed to just randomly find 2 items with the exact same everything due to the RNG in the game. Crafting is a little more likely to create identical items, but still, somewhat unique.

So, in the case of spears in particular... If you have Spear 1 in slot 1 and Spear 2 in slot 2 of your belt, if the interface keeps a snapshot of the "fingerprint" of that last item, when you pick up Spear 1 and its fingerprint exactly matches that snapshot in slot 1, it should pop into that slot. Same for Spear 2, it will match the snapshot in slot 2. In the case of Spear 1 being identical to Spear 2, if there is no truly unique identifier that differentiates between the 2, then when you pick up a spear it should pop into the first slot with a snapshot that matches. When you pick up Spear 2 it drops into the next slot that has a snapshot matching its ID. And so on.

Very similar to what is already happening, but it feels like the current check is a little more vague and generic. If it's using a little more specific detail about the item in the toolbelt, it should operate the way people expect. Even in fringe cases with more weapons than slots. Example: You have 3 spears on the belt, 2 in inventory. You throw spears 1-3, open inventory, and put the other 2 spears on the belt. Those snapshots for the 2 slots you just used are updated. You throw those 2 spears. You pick up the first 3 spears - only 1 goes to the slot that still matches that spear's Id, the other 2 go to inventory. Because they weren't the last ones you used. You pick up the other 2 spears and they go to the right slots on the belt, because they match the latest snapshots.

Relatively simple in theory. Just seems like a matter of tracking a few extra bits of data for each item in each tool belt slot. An enhancement of what is already in place, perhaps.

[Seftak]

Originally posted by Shurenai:

Originally posted by Seftak:

This would actually be a good solution.

But i frankly do not understand the limitation to have 2 of the same item on the hotbar. Are the hotbar slot not remembered independently? I guess the hotbar just have a "queue" way of remembering things that were on it and add them to a free slot when you pick one up?

I stated why above, but, I'll elaborate slightly anyway. Essentially there was a -lot- of outcry from people who want to keep their hotbar clean so they can access their hands or for whatever other reasons they might have for that.

Issue was, back then all loot prioritized the hotbar. That was of course an easy fix so they made it prioritize the backpack; But now all loot goes there including if you accidentally dropped a tool or what have you; So there were complaints about that. So they changed it so that the hotbar 'Remembers' what is in it.......But this then lead to any additional copies you found of any item on your hotbar ending up in your hotbar. (EG: IF you went looting with only an AK47 on your hotbar, and found 5 AK47s, you would then have 6 AK47s on your hotbar).

So, under popular complaint again, they tweaked it such that the hotbar will remember what is in it -and- will prevent duplicate entries from erroneously entering the hotbar. So no matter what, Only what you put in the hotbar ends up in the hotbar unless your backpack is full.

And this works great, For every item except Spears. After all, Even IF you want 2 of any other item in your hotbar, since you never drop or throw them it's fine; And the one off accidental drop is not as much of an issue when you already have two of it on the hotbar.

Spears on the other hand were added long after all the above changes.. Because spears can be thrown but are an unstackable item with durability, they have created a unique desire to have more than one on the hotbar so you can throw them one after the other and retrieve them or be able to throw one and still have one to stab with.

But due to all the above, The hotbar will remember that there was 'Stone Spear' there, but after picking up the first it will then prevent duplicate entries from being added to the hotbar; Even though the player had 3 of them in their hotbar on purpose it will only allow one back in.


So basically, The addition of Spears created a niche issue in the hotbar sorting that normally works perfectly fine and noone really had any complaints about previously. I'm unsure if TFP has any ideas on how to solve this currently.

So as i expected it's because the hotbar is remembered as a whole and not as each separate spaces. A good way to code it would have been to have it remeber what is in slot 1 AND slot 2 AND slot 3 etc. Not just "in the hotbar".

So the game would know there was a spear in slot 5 and even if you drop all your hotbar then pick up the spear it will go to the 5th space and not the first one available.

This would fix the problem everyone has when picking up their backpack after dying.

[Shurenai]

Originally posted by Seftak:

So as i expected it's because the hotbar is remembered as a whole and not as each separate spaces. A good way to code it would have been to have it remeber what is in slot 1 AND slot 2 AND slot 3 etc. Not just "in the hotbar".

So the game would know there was a spear in slot 5 and even if you drop all your hotbar then pick up the spear it will go to the 5th space and not the first one available.

This would fix the problem everyone has when picking up their backpack after dying.

Not quite. It does remember each separate space.. It just also remembers what is in the hotbar as a whole. It remembers what is in each slot- so if you drop three items, they should return to the three proper slots regardless of what order you pick them up or any intervening empty spaces.

It's just that in the case of a duplicate item it will catch it in the middle and throw it to the backpack; Because that part of the inventory/hotbar sorting function takes precedence over putting things back into the bar.

As an example, Let's say we have a hotbar with:
1: Stone Axe
2: Stone Spear
3: Stone Spear
4: Wrench
5: Knife
6: Claw Hamer
7: Wooden Bow
8: Bandages

If you drop all 8 items from your hotbar at once, it doesn't matter what order you pick them up, It should return each to it's appropriate slot. However in the case of the two Stone Spears, The first will be put to slot 2; But then the second will be thrown to the inventory by duplicate protection because as far as the hotbar is concerned there is already a Stone Spear in the hotbar, And this second one is a duplicate. It currently cannot/does not even get to check if there is a second slot in the hotbar in need of a stone spear as the duplicate check comes first and takes priority.

[CynicalFinch]

Ark has similar spear mechanics, with the main difference being that they stack in your inventory or hotbar to a max of 3. I think this should be the case in 7Days as well. would be a great 'quality of life' improvement. Lets be real for a second: I can run around with a stack of 6000 wood in a single inventory slot, but I can't stack 3 of the same quality spears in a single inventory slot? O_o

[Shurenai]

Originally posted by LethalFinch:

Ark has similar spear mechanics, with the main difference being that they stack in your inventory or hotbar to a max of 3. I think this should be the case in 7Days as well. would be a great 'quality of life' improvement. Lets be real for a second: I can run around with a stack of 6000 wood in a single inventory slot, but I can't stack 3 of the same quality spears in a single inventory slot? O_o

You might note that your 6000 wood has no durability and cannot have mods installed onto it. This is largely why usable items are not stackable; There's a lot more information needed in a spear than in a raw resource that is only used as a crafting material.


Spear stats are also variable based on how many/what mods are installed on it as well- So two spears could have very different stats; And thats before any of the random variance of stats that items can have (Primitive items like the stone spear have guaranteed stats- Iron and above do not though.)