I miss the old gun assembly system.

[Zuao]

If you've been around long enough to remember it, you probably know what I'm talking about.

But for the newer playerbase, hear me out.
There used to be this mechanic in the game where insted of crafting a highly complex and precisely manufactured firearm, you instead would acquire parts through looting or disassembling looted firearms with varying qualities and the final weapon quality was the weighted average form the parts that make it.

For example, to assemble ("craft") a pistol, you would take a Pistol Barrel, a Pistol Frame, a Pistol Slide and Pistol Trigger Parts, each with quality form 1-600, with the assembled pistol quality being the weighted average of the parts that make it (I tested it, and IIRC, the Barrel quality influenced the pistol quality the most, which is true to real life).

Crafting was still there. You would take a part and a block of clay and make a mould out of it, which you could then fill with iron in a forge, but I personally don't care about that aspect since I play on house rules that I cannot craft what I would need industrial machinery to craft (well, Khyber Pass gunsmiths would disagree).

Anyways, this mechanic was SO much fun, especially since it didn't depend on skill, unless you wanted to craft parts yourself.

So, can we have that back? Pleeeeeeeease?

[Trooper Bri]

That was one of my favorite mechanics as well. Even the minibike was upgraded by looting for higher quality parts. TFP removed it for A17.

[RasaNova]

I have to agree. I don't miss needing to constantly dismantle and reassemble guns to raise the skill, but I did really like the modular system, and that feeling you get when finding a higher quality part to upgrade your favorite gun.

It did turn inventory management in to a bit of a chore, though...

[JimmyIowa]

This is part of what old timers think is weird about people complaining it's already day 8 and they don't have a powerful full auto gun yet. In A16 you could go many weeks before assembling your first extremely low quality hunting rifle. (aside from blunder which could be crafted). Now people wet their pants if they don't have a full-auto arsenal in week1. xD

I have been of the opinion that loot in general (rather than just guns) was made vastly over-plentiful in A17. In A16 and back you could loot an entire row of houses and find some pieces of paper, maybe some food, and a jar of water. After A17, every house has a mega hyper stash of fully assembled ultra-loot in it. It's like King Midas vomited all over the apocalypse. I wish they would scale it back a bit and return a little bit of survival to the mix.

[Daenorth]

Originally posted by JimmyIowa:

This is part of what old timers think is weird about people complaining it's already day 8 and they don't have a powerful full auto gun yet. In A16 you could go many weeks before assembling your first extremely low quality hunting rifle. (aside from blunder which could be crafted). Now people wet their pants if they don't have a full-auto arsenal in week1. xD

I have been of the opinion that loot in general (rather than just guns) was made vastly over-plentiful in A17. In A16 and back you could loot an entire row of houses and find some pieces of paper, maybe some food, and a jar of water. After A17, every house has a mega hyper stash of fully assembled ultra-loot in it. It's like King Midas vomited all over the apocalypse. I wish they would scale it back a bit and return a little bit of survival to the mix.

You can scale it back yourself with the loot settings?

[SylenThunder]

I tell ya, I don't miss the grid system at all. I do miss the old assembly system though.

Originally posted by JimmyIowa:

I have been of the opinion that loot in general (rather than just guns) was made vastly over-plentiful in A17. In A16 and back you could loot an entire row of houses and find some pieces of paper, maybe some food, and a jar of water. After A17, every house has a mega hyper stash of fully assembled ultra-loot in it. It's like King Midas vomited all over the apocalypse. I wish they would scale it back a bit and return a little bit of survival to the mix.

The developer is in a similar opinions, and is working on re-balancing loot considerably for a20.

[JimmyIowa]

Originally posted by Daenorth:

You can scale it back yourself with the loot settings?

I and many other people do already, but it is a poor solution. The problem is loot percentages means that items that only show up as single items (rather than a stack) such as tools never show up at all. Because 1 item multiplied by .5 or .25 ends up being nothing. So at low loot settings you still end up with an oversupply of stackable loot types, and no tools or armor. And so you have to rely on the trader which feels very un-survivalist after a while.

[Trooper Bri]

Originally posted by JimmyIowa:

This is part of what old timers think is weird about people complaining it's already day 8 and they don't have a powerful full auto gun yet. In A16 you could go many weeks before assembling your first extremely low quality hunting rifle. (aside from blunder which could be crafted). Now people wet their pants if they don't have a full-auto arsenal in week1. xD

Two of my favorite early game weapons are the torch, and a bone knife. I can go for days with just those two.
The torch is free from spawn, doesn't need repairing, and causes fire damage. The shiv takes minutes to find and craft, and causes bleed damage. Give 'em a stab and a whack, and you can watch them bleed out and burn at the same time.

[JimmyIowa]

Originally posted by SylenThunder:

The developer is in a similar opinions, and is working on re-balancing loot considerably for a20.

Very good to hear. Thank you.

[Shurenai]

While I do also kindof miss the old assembly systems, I have a few major concerns about bringing it back.

1: The current weapon mod system is built out of the old assembly system. The two can't really coexist. So either weapon mods would need to go, Or the devs would have to make an entirely new system to add it in again.

2: Inventory space. My god, inventory space. Back in the day there weren't nearly as many items or materials; So you could carry a few weapon parts without overfilling your inventory. But if you want to quintuple the amount of pieces you can find of guns now? Oof. Also with the addition of being able to be overburdened, you'd be shoved into that overburdened state so much faster if you could find a ton of gun parts.

3: The quality system is not as fine as it used to be. When weapons had 600 quality, the averaging amongst your gun parts made a pretty significant difference in the guns effects and quality level- Now that quality level has been condensed from 600 to 6, you'd have to change several parts to get an increase in quality level; And it won't feel nearly as rewarding.
3b: And that's before getting into randomized chances that gear has now.

[Zuao]

If we had to pick, I'd pick the modding system any day of the week.

I obviously haven't looked at the underlying code, but isn't the crafting system separate from mod application?

It would just be a matter of changing crafting recipes. But unless we are fine with having to scrap (to get the individual parts) and craft the weapon again, with the system picking the best parts by itself, it would require the grid to be brought back in some form.

Anyway you look at it, they'll have to implement a whole new system, but based on building blocks from past releases.

They would also have to bring the old 600 quality system back. Though don't bring back the degradation after repair if you didn't have the skill. That's way more annoying than fun.

And yes, the thing about swapping out a part to get a little more quality was part of the fun.

I'd say it's worth it. But I won't have to foot the bill of whoever implements it.

[SylenThunder]

Originally posted by Zuao:

I obviously haven't looked at the underlying code, but isn't the crafting system separate from mod application?

The current mod system is using the same base code that the old assembly system did. That's why it was basically one or the other.

You wouldn't need to bring back the old 600 quality system though. just average the gun's tier and stats based on the sum of the parts. You would still be able to swap parts to get a lil more dps or accuracy. In fact the specific stats would be based on the quality of that associated part.
But again, it's one system or the other.

[Vi-El]

Originally posted by Shurenai:

While I do also kindof miss the old assembly systems, I have a few major concerns about bringing it back.

1: The current weapon mod system is built out of the old assembly system. The two can't really coexist. So either weapon mods would need to go, Or the devs would have to make an entirely new system to add it in again.

2: Inventory space. My god, inventory space. Back in the day there weren't nearly as many items or materials; So you could carry a few weapon parts without overfilling your inventory. But if you want to quintuple the amount of pieces you can find of guns now? Oof. Also with the addition of being able to be overburdened, you'd be shoved into that overburdened state so much faster if you could find a ton of gun parts.

3: The quality system is not as fine as it used to be. When weapons had 600 quality, the averaging amongst your gun parts made a pretty significant difference in the guns effects and quality level- Now that quality level has been condensed from 600 to 6, you'd have to change several parts to get an increase in quality level; And it won't feel nearly as rewarding.
3b: And that's before getting into randomized chances that gear has now.

I dont see why the systems couldnt possible merge in terms of the attachments. Considering that we dont really need to change too much, and mainly combine them?

Wait, lemme explain proper. Think of the old gun system, pretty much the same way it has been but now with additional slots for attachments the same way we have it right now. This would I would argue be fairly easy cause the base system for both already exist. Now ok maybe combining the systems could be a challenging endeavor cause I bet both are not the same code base but it certainly isnt impossible.

As for the inventory space, I will admit I dont quite get the big issue. Most items already get scrapped automatically till midgame where you have a vehicle. And if you dont manage your inventory proper that is partially your own fault in the zombie apocalypse. Like, whats more important? A gun part or 23 pieces of paper?

And if you mean for storage... Shurenai we have massive boxes xD
No offense but as soon as you have a Forge, inventory management isnt really a big problem anymore.

As for 3: Wouldnt it be easy to change the quality system back? From what I can tell its the same system with a few options disabled (such as combining tools directly for higher levels like in earlier alphas).

[George Droyd MK77]

really hope a modder can bring back the old system + new weapon mod system and quality level 1-600

if you have 600 quality levels and each repair reduces the level you allways have a need for new high level items thats the good thing about that system. Right now you dont really loose your tools and weapons once you have them at tier 6.

[SylenThunder]

Originally posted by Richard:

really hope a modder can bring back the old system + new weapon mod system and quality level 1-600

if you have 600 quality levels and each repair reduces the level you allways have a need for new high level items thats the good thing about that system. Right now you dont really loose your tools and weapons once you have them at tier 6.

They've had a couple years to do it, and no one has yet.

[vgifford]

Originally posted by Richard:

really hope a modder can bring back the old system + new weapon mod system and quality level 1-600

if you have 600 quality levels and each repair reduces the level you allways have a need for new high level items thats the good thing about that system. Right now you dont really loose your tools and weapons once you have them at tier 6.

Just looked online for a mod to do it, NOTHING... So its obviously NOT easy to do or someone would have already