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Your mod was a perfect fit. I know just enough (now) .xml editing to make minor tweaks, but you have provided the skeleton that frames the game. Picking one of your classes causes me to to re-think my "standard" strategies and / or test out different survival choices. Sorry I was not able to help with the last set of betas. I see some minor lag issues with recipe loading, but not enough to make a real impact. Would have been happy to see if any of your tweaks changed that.
I suspected the Medieval project was not "secret", anymore, since I was pretty certain I remembered you mentioned it in a comment. But you had been hinting at a new project for quite a while - but back then you could not say anything more. (I am only guessing this was the same project. : )
I still plan to spend a few hours (or more) doing a couple more starts with your mod, this week-end. Especially if we get the snow as projected. You had asked a few questions which I had not had a chance to look into (basic items that should be available in normal crafting, etc.) and I want to see the changes you made with skill book costs, etc.
Witcher 3 is good, but I get bored real easily. Very short attention span and all that. So a break from it, to spend a little time in 7D2D sounds like a nice plan.
Itself is not really a mod in the traditional sense. It's a resource for modders and players to use. Kinda. I can only be cryptic about it though and not really say more out of respect for the creator since, again, Im not sure how much he wants to be known at this moment since its still a work-in-progress.
So are we talking "Island in a Sea of Time" post apocalypse / time rift to jolly old England and the "virus" is the black plague? (Makes as much sense as any "back story" provided by the Pimps . . . no one knows what caused anything <LOL>)
Anyway, I am heading home, hoping to beat the snows, with your latest .zip file - anxious to see what goodies there are in there.
And, just FYI, I am in the habit of doing clean game installs, whenever I plan on doing fresh games or testing. Good advice from J^G^, back in the day. Oddly enough, when I remember to follow the advice, I find I have a lot fewer unexpected glitches. So I deleted my local files and re-installed the game, at the same time I was downloading your latest.
P.S. - one thing I forgot to mention. The cave oddity is in vanilla, as well, so it is not related to your ore tweak as far as I can tell. I actually noticed the open pit mining look in vanilla, when I was testing A13.6, before I added your mod into the mix.
(And for anyone who is bothering to read my lengthy posts, yes, the last was also an homage to Mr. Stardust. RIP.)
That being said I will probably make a "Evil Dead" varsion that lets you start off with a chainsaw and shotgun (boomstick - which my Valmod already includes :) )
The cave issue is a bit of an annoyance to me and I hope they resovle it. The real quicker is that the caves are still there... they just are rarely connected to the surface. No-clipping through the ground can sometimes show these great large and disconnected cave systems that are kinda... just there.
"Island" and "Connecticut Yankee" both have some modern tech ported back, so why not a Boomstick and chainsaw : )
<LOL> You use no-clip to find cave systems that don't connect to the surface. I end up falling into cave systems that connect in so many places the map looks like Swiss cheese. High grass makes the openings on fairly level ground hard to see, especially when running or fighting zombies. Or ground that looks perfectly solid is just a physics trap waiting for my unwary foot, before I crash through a block with the structural strength of tissue paper. (Oddly enough zombies and animals don't seem to have this problem - either the zombie GPS not only provides a direct route to the player, but warns of potential geography hazards. Or neither animals or zombies have any weight. Which would certainly explain the chicken I saw walk across the surface of a large body of water, yesterday : )
So just a couple quick notes.
You snuck the feral crawler and exploding fat guys back in the mix! I actually noticed the feral crawler and thought he looked odd, kept my distance until he was good and dead. The exploding fat guy caught me off guard. (Did you give him the stomp walk?) Shot him at a distance, he fell stunned or dead and as I ran up to give him a nice double tap, I noticed that there was a strange sound effect playing - just before he exploded in my face : )
Started paying a bit more attention after that and had a couple more do the same thing - first shot dropped them to prone position (which meant they were very hard to see in the tall grass) and then they exploded. Sigh. All that nice loot. Gone. But there were still oddly distorted zombie bodies left on the ground (partially dismembered?)
Gunman seems to have only 30 rounds of ammo for the "make my day" special. Possibly an oversight (30 rounds seems standard for pistol for "non-combat" classes vs. 50 rounds for rifleman / firearm specialized classes.)
Yucca plants only give yucca fruit when harvested by hand. There does not seem to be any way to get the yucca plant - which is needed to create the frosty Yucca Juice beverage, so important when it is 250 degs. in the shade, in the desert.
Tried a number of "warm" vs. "normal" dishes and I think it was chicken soup that the numbers seemed "off", but the warm variety did give additional benefits, so that was probably the issue.
Definitely started hording the cling wrap. Especially when I discovered I could use it on fresh meat (previously I had only discovered the goodness that was wrapped cooked varieties.)
Found a beaker, fairly early, in one game. (Actually had three of them by day 5 - I don't think I have ever had 3 beakers : ) Became an elitist, disdaining any alcoholic beverage except blueberry mead, after I brewed up a couple bottles to use up some excess honey and a couple blueberries. Most excellent.
Still some odd issues with "learning skills" and reading books. Some books I could re-read and some I could not. But sometimes (I did not make the connection right away) it seemed that when I read one of your schematics, I also gained a point in some skill. I don't know if that was A: coincidence, B: funpimps snuck in an unannounced update so skill books did what they said they were supposed to do, C: you added this to your special books.
My money is on 'C'. If so, great addition. Makes finding duplicate books a little less of a disappointment - since only "plain" books have the option of making 20 pieces of paper from a recipe. All schematics can only be "scraped" which is a few pieces of paper. (Did I mention that my latest game, I decided I was tired of beating on a safe for hours and decided to try a "tnt key"? After all, tnt does 1000 points of damage. It takes 1000 points of damage to make a safe feel "insecure" and allow you to loot it . . .
Silly me. I was obviously forgeting Pimps math. 1000 points of damage from fists, stone tools or a steel pickaxe = 1000 points of damage. 1000 points of damage from tnt = >1000 points of damage and a completely destroyed safe. While the floor (wooden) it sits on is only severely damaged : )
Survivor notes added to "normal" vs. suspicious tree stumps makes a huge difference. First game "Thin White Duke" dropped me in the artic circle, where it was -50 degs. Inside a building. With a fire going. I alternately starved to death and froze to death until I found a small pine glade, where, magically the temp was +60 degs. I could run out and scavange for a short period and found a lot of loot / stumps / kill several frozen zombies. Buy day 5 or 6 I had probably found 40+ notes and picked up some needed skills using notes. My second game "Space Oddity" dropped me in a wasteland that never ended. Well, after a full day (120 minute days) of running west I finally found a burned zone and a small desert. With a very large body of water. In the desert : ) But there are no stumps to loot in the wasteland, in the burned biome, or in the desert. By day 6 I had 11 notes . . .
Big Guy and Rusty -
Yep, our old friends return. They should be largely like you remember from before. So yes, the exploding fatty does indeed stomp at you. Do you think their spawn rate is too high?
Gunman -
Actually him only having 30 rounds as opposed to 50 is intentional. Mainly because the magnum is one of the strongest guns in the game. Its a like a sniper in your hand. Depending on the quality it can OHK most zombies in the chest last time I used it (A12).
Yucca -
Good catch. I will adjust the recipe to use fruit and also add a harvest line to the block to let you “dig up” the plant with a shovel. Hopefully this will be a part of the next update, whenever that comes.
Warm Food -
Ah, you're right, the warm chicken soup is less, other than wellness. Thank you. I will make a note of that for the next update.
Skill Books -
I don't think ALL books are meant to give you skill points when re-read. Though I'll admit I haven't really delved too deeply into their skill system either. So I'm not sure how it all works out. I think if the book teaches you something that has a action or crafting skill group it adds to level associated with that group. Which would, perhaps, explain why not everything can be re-read since not everything has groups.
For example, if the above assumption is true, you wouldn't be able to re-read the Junk_Salvage book since what it teaches are items which have no actual skill group assigned to me. I'd need to test and play around with this at some point to figure it out though, this is all guesses on my part.
TNT Safecracker -
Actually its set to give 3000 points of blockdamage. As for why it destroyed the safe completely, it may be part of its “particle” that makes it hit twice. As you might have noticed blocks that “downgrade” into other blocks, such as a safe, do not actually destroy when broken. They downgrade. Like breaking a wood block will downgrade it to a frame. The particle, I believe, makes it hit “twice” which is why it completely destroys it with one go. Though again, just my assumption.
This does give me the idea of making Safe-Cracker TNT though. Lol. I will investigate this later to see if I can find a balance that lets you blow up a safe with tnt without literally blowing it up. Could be fun. :)
Survivor Notes -
Did you find the balance too be too easy given the new costs for recipe books? 40 within 5 days seems a bit much. You say it was mostly from stumps, huh. Was this mostly in the snow biome? I now stomps like to spawn like crazy there – lol. Maybe the danger of snow will offset the high note drop. Hm.
On another note I might also look into making weather adjustments for the next update. Or perhaps even consider making it so the player won't ever spawn in the snow. Clockwork Orange I believe made some “fixes” to the weather system in his unofficial patch. I will consider porting some of that over, assuming he did.
Physics Traps: Theoretically it seems simple - a basic hay bay block with a slight improvement to "stability" - just enough to keep it from falling down, when supported on four side by other blocks. But even a small amount of weight and it falls. Realistically, I suspect the wonky physics system would still have something go wrong. And, while PvP would probably work, the super GPS zombies would either simply path around the trap, or just float above it. (Do I sound a little bitter? Just because a player takes a huge movement hit to go uphill and yet a zombie can actually ascend slopes that stop me dead, etc.)
Big Guy and Rusty: spawn rate did not seem high. In fact I may have missed a couple, since I did not even know the fat bomber was back until he blew up in my face. Certainly did not seem to be like it was in my early testing, back A12.x (I think) where they were everywhere (with such nice loot it was worth "hunting" them : ) The issue, for me, is one of the new animation - where they now "fall down" and become very difficult to see in any biome with grass - making a kill really difficult / dangerous. With the old animation (and I believe current fat cop) they ran at you. This added a bit of adreniline rush as you had to quickly decide to get out of explosion range, or rush to kill them before they exploded. Now you have to "hunt" for them in the grass, and if your first shot was from a range, chances are slim that you will be able to get close enough to get in an attack before they explode. No adreniline rush. Just disappointment, if your head shot / stealth attack did not kill them. And no fat loot.
Or maybe I am just not a big fan of the spastic St. Vitus dance that is the default animation for the new high def. zombies. I guess it makes perfect sense if your only design concern is "how can we make it as hard as possible for players to hit the zombies." Makes a little less sense if you are creating a believable world, albiet one with zombies, but a world that still follows the laws of physics and biology.
30 rounds of ammo until you die : ) Ah, I understand. The gun is powerful. But so is the sawed off shotgun. My bruiser can head shot = kill most zombies, when they are close, but if the shot does not kill them, it will usually stun / knock them down for an easy finish with his melee weapon. And he has two options for killing zombies, so his ammo can be saved for "special" encounters. The Magnum guy? He gets 30 dead zombies. If he is lucky and never misses / wastes a shot. 30 zombies gets you a meager handfull of notes. Hardly enough to pick up some needed survival skills, while he tries to find a forge and gather resources to craft more ammo. Magnum ammo? Pretty rare. Shotgun ammo? Pretty common.
Now I did not actually test him with only 30 rounds. I thought it was an oversight, and I was modding the .xml files to give him gunpowder, tips and casings so he could craft his ammo and gain needed skill from crafting. But it was tough to keep him viable even with 50 rounds. Even with all the notes from stumps, etc. If all I had was notes from zombie kills? I think I would have hit a wall about day 3 or 4.
Yucca: dig would be a good option, but requires a shovel. Stone shovel easy to craft, but it is another item in the backpack. However, current harvest requires open hand and a second open space, so that is probably a wash. I do have an issue with Yucca "fruit" from the plants - but it is from an old memory of survival training in the desert (fruit from some cactii could be eaten, but don't remember "yucca fruit" - it may be a thing, but the world seems inconsistent when I get the same fruit from three very different plants : ) My memory is bad, but yucca juice is so useful, it also makes sense from a balance standpoint if harvesting yucca only gave you the "leaves" that could be turned into juice, without a handy food item, also. Bashing either of the other two types of cactii gives you plant fibers and a couple pieces of fruit, for more of a time investment.
Warm soup: But, after I considered all the benefits, I decided that warm soup was worth it. Wellness is the hardest to gain, so I am happy to trade a little health / fullness. Did wonder if there was a way to have warm food help with freezing to death. In my snow biome, it felt a little silly to be eating a bowl of nice hot soup, sitting in front of two fires, inside a POI, wearing a decent collection of clothing . . . and still freezing to death. We have a couple of food items that help cool us off, why not something to help us stay warm?
Skill books and skill gains - I may have misunderstood, but when the Mole "revealed" that we had the basics of skills, I thought he said that reading a book gave you skill and doing something, in game, gave you skill. The discussion was why using a hammer / tool gave you more skill at *crafting* said hammer / tool. It seemed pretty straight forward that reading a book would improve your knowledge . . . Obviously I have not studied all of the code, which, as we know is sometimes as little flawed, to see if every activity is actually tied to a skill gain. For instance, your example of "junk salvage". There is not an obvious direct skill connection. But they do have a couple "catch all" skills, for instance the non specific crafting skill. A more elegant set of code / rules would apply the "salvage" skill gain to either a specific "salvage" skill (higher skill allows you to get "more" raw materials) or a more complex system that looked at the item you salvaged. Rip up enough clothing items to get stips of cloth and you gain related skill in the cloth fabrication skill.
Trouble is that I did not *see* any actual skill gains from reading books in my A13.x vanilla games. I still seemed to end up with a lot of useless / redundant skill books. Which from an educator's point of view is silly. I often re-read text books I have used for my classes and still find / learn something I may have overlooked or missed in previous readings. Sometimes the "new" info is just because I have actually applied that material, in teaching a class, etc. So you really can learn new things, even from books you have already read.
TNT: 3000? That would explain it. I must really be getting old. I was certain I read that it did 1000 points of damage. Even so, it is still odd that a wood floor (500 points, with a frame degrade with very few points) would still have the frame intact after the same explosion that completely destroyed a hard metal safe that requires 1000 points of damage just to break the lock open. If it is two rays, each doing 1000 points, that *might* explain the safe - first ray breaks the lock, second ray destroyes the safe. But . . . 1000 points destroys the wood upgrade, leaving the basic wood frame? And the wood frame does not get destroyed by a second ray that pulverized a hard metal safe? Inconsistent : ) Even if there are three layers of wood, say the first 500, the second 200 and the third 100, I fail to understand a logical system that has 1000 points of damage completely destroy a hard metal item (which is likely made of layers of metal, truth be told) when a wooden item with a max of 800 points manages to survive 2000 points of total damage . . .
Survivor notes and book costs: honestly I did not notice a huge change in costs. Some items seemed to cost a couple notes less, but, using my previous example of forge, ammunition nation, chemistry / explosives and iron working - all of which are required to be able to do the simplest of crafting needed to maintain a firearm as a viable weapon against zombies, you still needed to kill several hundred zombies - with only your starting ammo. (Mileage will vary based on initial class - non combat / support classes will need a lot more notes, while firearm focused classes may already know how to craft gunpowder, bullet tips and casings. But not the iron needed to make a repair kit.)
The game where I collected so many notes was primarily located in snow biome, where stumps are very frequent. It was not uncommon to find clusters of 4-5 stumps - 90% were the normal stumps, but some were suspicious. But, the snow biome is an incredibly harsh environment. Normal resouce gathering is impossible. My best tactic was a hit and run - not fighting zombies, but to find resources. Sit at a fire to get temp up to just above the "you are freezing to death, level one", then run to a point where I got that first warning message, and head back to the fire. Literally 10 - 15 minutes of game play, before I needed to be back by a fire. Heading in different directions gave me a chance to explore a decent amount of the local area and find dozens of stumps, in a single "day" of game time. If I was lucky I might kill a few snow zombies and net some food, or clothing. If I was real lucky I could kill an animal and bring back some meat to cook. My food bar was often at 25%, or less.
POI's were very scarce, and you did not have time to do a usual careful looting - exploring a couple rooms and you started freezing to death. It took me a whole day just to loot one decent sized building with an upstairs, a garage and an attic and I had to build campfires in three different locations in that building, with two right next to each other in the kitchen - my central camping spot. But the "extra" notes from the stumps meant I could build a forge. I could maximize my return on "junk" by turning it into iron bars for repair kits or craft more bullet tips so my weapon was still useable.
The contrast was to the game where most of the first few days were in Wasteland biome, burnt biome and desert. None of which have stumps. After a similar amount of time, I actually had less knowlege - especially critical stuff like forge and ability to craft repair kits. My ammo supply was really low and that ammo was used on zombies, since now a single deer / pig would provide enough food for a couple days, vs. burning through the same food in less than a day of exploration in the snow biome.
All in all I don't think the new reduced costs made it "too easy". I would need to spend some time in a less hostile biome (forest or plains) to be certain. But if anything I am still advocating adding some suspicious stumps (or other note / resource option) to the wasteland and burned biome. Desert would be nice, but they would need to be more rare, since there are actually a lot of resources in the desert. Just easy to gather / craft food and drink is really nice. You could technically live off yucca fruit and juice, indefinitely. But I also like the roleplaying aspect and so I would love to be able to "waste" a few notes to learn animal trapping, etc.
Even the Pimps seemed to admit the weather system was pretty screwed up, when they included a simple command to eliminate weather effects. Would not surprise me if a lot of players did just that. But there will always be some of us who suffer through in the interests of giving things a fair play testing : )
But I do have a request for you to consider, if you are bored. Well two requests, actually. The first is pretty straightforward. A damage (zombie not PvP) option for the tranq gun. It is about the only item that has no possible purpose in a SP game, yet it is a fairly high rate loot. Lately I have just removed those lines in the loot list, since it causes me so much mental anquish to find such a nice item and know I cannot use it : (
How easy would it be to add an "explosive" dart (based on exploding bolt / arrow) or caustic dart (acid from the car batteries?). I am not thinking of an "effect" such as burning. Too little damage and most zombies completely ignore such a minor inconvenience as being on fire. It would need to be an instant damage to work within the current game parameters. I can even give you a "logical" in game reason - the medic, with training in "normal" physiology / anatomy / biology / organic chemistry is able to create chemicals which are highly destructive to the abnormal zombie. Of course sulfuric acid is normally damaging but what if the chemical was something that cured normal people, but was incredibly toxic to zombies. For instance, aspirin, which dulls our pain sensors and helps reduce fevers might interfer with whatever it is that animates zombies, preventing signals from being transmitted through the zombie nerve system, or takes the normal zombie temp to an even lower state where the body actually locks up or suffers some other systems collapse. Basic recipe would be any pain reliever and alcohol base.
Second request is an "official" option for what I often do with your system, on the fly. Could be an option for MP, but really focused on SP, where you can't count on a group of friends to fill out key skills.
Idea is simple - a point buy system to allow you to create a character with the specific skills and equipment you want them to have. You already have a system in place for this - using notes to buy skill books. I think I mentioned, previously, the idea of giving the "ala carte'" character a set number of notes, based on my spreadsheet / the vanilla character, and allow them to decide what skills their character knew before day Zero.
The part that does not exist is this: a new "crafting station" to handle not only the skill book aqcuisiton, but allowing a new character to "buy" starting items. This crafting station is only available as a starting option - a new recipe in the class selection menu, which gives you the crafting station vs. the starting suitcase. To prevent abuse, the crafting station would have a degrade timer or would be destroyed upon player exiting the crafting menu.
Unfortunately it would be a lot of work as the crafting station would need spcific 'recipes' for any potential starting item. Some items would not be needed (honey ham is great, but . . .) Other items might be consolidated ("starting clothes" vs. 150 different entries) And an obvious limitation would be to only have the potential for a player to select any item that is already given in a class package - so you could pick a basic pistol, a magnum, or a hunting rifle, but not a scoped, silenced sniper rifle of doom . . .
Anyway, that is my dream and my requests. Actually I already do this, myself, but I can't help thinking that there are other players who would love the chance to make more choices in crafting a starting character, pouring over choices and trade offs (for instance, both chemistry and explosives allow you to craft gunpowder . . . but chemistry allows you to make blueberry mead and fuel logs, while explosives, well TNT is still a fun option for quick entry into many POI's . . . so which do I select, etc.)
Like I said, I'm pretty sure another modder has done something like this already so I assume it is possible. I'll ask him for the code later if I catch him online, see if its something that pleases me. You make a good point about the zombie gps – they might just avoid it. I'm not really sure. We will see.
Coincidentally I was thinking of this for my medieval project and had a neat idea that might work. Illusion Walls. Imagine being in a dungeon that has hidden passage ways. At first I was going to use the Valmod hidden doors and switch the remote for a magic wand or something... which I still might do – mind you... but now I'm thinking of making a “door” block that doesn't “collide” with the player.
Think of grass – its technically a block but obviously you can walk through it (air is a block too if you want to be super technical). I could possibly do that with any block. So while it might look like a solid wall there could be a section where you can walk right through. If I get it working I can see this also being something cool for the Valmod Pack – only with a projector instead of a magical illusion spell. Lol.
Big Guy and Rusty -
I never had them kneel but I can see now why that might be an issue. To be “fair” I didn't playtest them much with the new system. I saw that they still worked and that was the end of it. I believe I can modify their stun animations (make them not get stunned) so this doesn't happen. Or at least lower their stun time so it doesn't last as long. I'll look into this on the next update.
Their “dance animation” approach I think can also be reverted back. Pretty sure the oldschool zombie walk type is still in the game (zombie04). Not positive if the new models will look right or even more right with the old walktype but it could work in theory. A easy thing to test out in any rate if you're interested.
30 Rounds -
True, magnum ammo is common – though at least ammo rates are increased in the mod. That being said you do make a good point. My counter would be that the bruiser has to be up close and personal with the sawed off shotgun for it to kill them. It has to be a headshot usually. Theres more risk due to having to be close. The magnum is a handheld sniper. You can ohk zombies in the back from a distance. 6 shots before a reload too.
However I might bump it up to 45.
Yucca -
Well, once I “fix” the recipe you wouldn't really need the plant anymore anyway since it wouldn't be used for anything.
The reason I made yucca fruit drop from the yucca plant and not just the cacti is because cacti are only in deserts which are pretty rare. Plus I wanted them to be farmable so making yucca plants give yucca just made sense to me.
Warm soup -
Funny story... when I was prepping this mod for A13 before A13's release (I had internal testing access) I noticed there was a “warmfood” buff for some foods, I believe it was the stews. I added it to all my warm bowls. It looked right – a buff that increased your warmth. A nice idea, imo. However before A13 released something surprising happened – they removed the buff.
I straight up do not really know anything about the buffs.xml so I wasn't sure why they removed it. I assumed they had a good reason and thought maybe it was because the buff was broken or didn't behave the way they wanted. Or that there was some exploit. Or maybe if you ate too many on siting you burned to death. I don't know. But since they removed it, I removed it.
I expected it to come back in one of the patches but so far it hasn't. I will make note to investigate it later to see if it can work out as I do still think its a good idea.
Btw, on the subject of cold – try to find a wool scarf. They can help. I will also be making some new winter clothes in the next big update that you might enjoy.
Skill Books and Gains -
Honestly if I understood how the recipe books worked I would probably added custom skills for classes and have them gain it when reading the knowledge book you start off with. Maybe I'm just being dense but their skill system really confuses me. Everytime I try to understand or think I understand my mind turns to goop and I lose everything.
Survivor Notes and Book Costs -
It shouldn't take several hundred zombie kills to get those mentioned books. Plus there is normal looting. The survivor note system, afterall, was never really meant to completely replace the need to loot. It was more for those situations where you've been searching endlessly for that one recipe that alludes you and just cannot find it. Back in my day that was the leathertanning book. Lol.
What if I had the support classes start off with 5 survivor notes? Would that “fix” things any?
I will look into making the stumps spawn in the other biomes a bit more. Not sure about the burnt biome though. I mean, it is all burnt n such. Maybe the burnt zombies have a chance to drop notes more. Though they're all burnt up too... but hey, its a game. Liberties and what not.
Damage Dart Gun -
I will lower its loot chance a bit.
Making it hurt zombies but heal players... Im not sure if its possible. A good idea, but may not be possible. The buffs.xml is a bit of a mystery to me written in alien language. I will ask around about it though to see how plausible it is.
Otherwise having an acid-type dart for damage isn't a bad idea. Though its not a very reliable damage-weapon regardless so I don't see anyone picking it over a pistol. I'd be surprised if it was really used that often in PVP/PVE situations, actually.
I'm not sure explosive are something I can add to a ranged weapon (bow/crossbow are launchers). Correction, let me rephrase that... I know its possible because I did before. I just don't remember how. If I recall correctly it required me knowing a “prefab” explosion particle effect to attach to a buff. I really, really, really, really, REALLY wish I could find out how I did it. I really want it back. I lost the file a long time ago that had it. I even asked the modding community but no one seemed to know.
I'll look in on it again though later and see if I can have any luck.
Awesomeness -
I recall the “custom” class option. Its still an idea I like and want to do. Balancing will be a bit of a ♥♥♥♥♥, though. Especially now that I've adjusted the cost of a lot of the note recipes. What is a good amount to start off with?
As for having a one-time-use shop... Funny you mention this since my medieval mod will have “merchants” where you can purchase or sell goods (well, maybe sell) with a in-game currency. I can see this code being implemented into Valmod for this purpose. Though this is pretty far down the line.
That being said there are other issues. For starters I don't think I can make it a one-time use item, sadly. There is no “Destroy on close” for workstations and they cannot be set, far as I know, to vanish after a set period of time. They have a “class” assigned to them and you cannot have multiple classes on one block except for some exceptions.
I'm not sure how many people would sit down and go through this like you though. I'm not even sure how many people even read the guide considering how often Im asked questions that are IN THE TOPIC DESCRIPTION.
Anyway, yes. Good ideas. I will see what can be done. Perhaps you can assist by providing another spreadsheet factoring in the current set costs of recipes. Will be a bit tricky I think since some knowledge books only teach one or two things that from a recipe book. But still, having a general bases would be handy. Essentially what I'm hoping for is something that points out what a good basic number is to start off with for survivor notes. How many notes should the custom class get?
Things like purchasing items/blocks will come later down the line. Its not so much that its difficult to do but it would be really time consuming and I'm a bit more focused on my medieval project atm. Though since it will be having vendors like this, as mentioned earlier, I can see this being something that will benefit both mods when I get to writing it.
Thanks again for your continued support.
However, you have knowledge of the limitations of the game and blocks. Did not think about workstations being a special code, where every other item in the world seems to be destructable.
So the quick note: I have some of what you are suggesting already in my spreadsheet. For each "knowledge" skill I used the number of notes required to purchse the applicable skill book. Then for the gear I set a (somewhat arbitrary) "value" based on whether it was one time use (food, bandage, ammo) or long term (weapon, tool) and how difficult it was to learn the skill required to craft the item (where applicable.)
As I say, it is rough, but that was how I was able to compare the starting skills / knowledge / gear of the classes and the basic vanilla start.
One aspect of gear "purchase". If memory serves there was someone considering making a mod to allow you to buy gear on the fly (I think for casino tokens?). Did not get a lot of support from the community, since most seemed to think just carrying around a bunch of "money" and magically creating gear when you needed it was not very "realistic" (and don't get me started on which of those most vocal were the same ones to shout down anyone who suggested various aspects of the game were not realistic : ) I think his avatar name was "tomwithTime" or something like that.
He may have already done some of the work of assigning a value to gear (and I am guessing he was using recipes, iteam 'x' requires raw materials of 15 coins, etc.)
I am now even more interested to see your implementation of the medieval mod. I like merchants.
Okay a couple more minutes . . . old style animations might work, but . . . I think the new rigging and animations are here to stay. The falling to the ground is part of the dismemberment wonderfullness (although I can't imagine why anyone would want to make more crawlers, which are harder to fight, harder to see in the grass, etc.) It might be that simply choosing another of the new animations - to hint that this is not the normal "fat zombie" is the best we can hope for. Spending a lot of time trying to fix this issue is likely to reap few rewards and it will go back to broken the next AX.x version release.
Before I forget, something I thought of between classes. What if the Starting Crafting startion required a key to open? And the key was destroyed on use? (Is that even possible? Probably not.)
I think there are already wall illusions in the game. I see doors, iron bars, even walls and I can't pass through them. But zombies / dogs make their "disbelieve" roll and come right through . . .
Seriously I would need to think about this a bit. I have not actually played with the hidden door / drawbridge option lately. I tried it many months ago, but it took a lot of rare loot parts (if I recall) so it ended up having a fairly limited usefullness for me - much easier to just build a ramp / staircase with a gap and fill the gap with frames. Well, until I accidently Picked UP the frame and fell down onto my spikes.
30 rounds for magnum - I do find more of those rounds in loot compared to previously, but they are still more rare (in my experience) over time when compared to any other type of ammo. In some games where I did not use a bow, I would have hundreds of steel arrows, sitting unused in storage and perhaps 40-50 rounds for a .44 In my 'bruiser" game, I did make a lot of shotgun shells to feed my habit, but even so I still had a full stack of 250, plus another couple hundred in storage. For most of the game, the sawed off shotgun was my go to weapon, but I was stockpiling magnum ammo, hoping to find a book. The loot rate was probably closed to 5 to 1 (shotgun shells to magnum). At least that was the way it seemed. If I get time this week-end I can try and see if anything in the loot .xml stands out as to why this seems to be the case.
Wool Scarf - I have actually found a few of those. Was quite happy to see the option, since it gave me something to trade off with the typical face gear (which reduced temp, oddly enough - yes, a wet bandana can be quite refreshing on a hike, or to wick away sweat, or to act like a dust mask. I just don't ever remember putting one on and thinking man, I feel like it is 10 deg. cooler : )
Expanded farming makes a good reason to have yucca fruit from that plant. After A13.x hordes killed my frame rate, I have given up on most farming, and just sticking to a roaming play style. I may throw a few seeds in the ground at a camp / POI, just in case I am back there and need some quick food, but the desert has no fertile earth, so I have never bothered to plant Yucca. And it is just everywhere. There are just so many great options for MP, in your mod, but since I don't do MP, I am completely unaware of them.
Skill Books / Skill system: I am pretty certain you are not the only one confused. And there are bugs, so it is hard to know if something happens as it should, or not. (Take Quality Joe, for instance - can't count the number of times I decided to buy a single level, early, only to find out that if you did not have 60 points to invest and buy all three levels at once, it reset to show you having nothing. So many points wasted.)
Perhaps I will give myself some of your admin tools with the skill gain options to see what happens. I know they are admin tools, but I would think the logic would be similar - use the item and gain a skill point.
The 'Zen' of exploding fat guys: or, if a fall guy falls in the grass, can anyone see him running : ) Just FYI, they don't kneel. They fall flat on their back. A13.x feature. Very confusing at first, since they look "dead". Then they get back up and come after you. That is A13.x animation. With the exploders, when they get enough damage to get knocked down, that also sets up their run / explode timer. But even though the sound animation of running plays, they are still just flat on their back. In open ground, it is pretty cool to run up and unload another 9 mm in their face (reg. zombies) But the timing of the explosion is such that they tend to explode just when you get close enough to tag them with that second shot. The fact that it is very hard to see any zombie in grass just adds to the futility.
Several hundred zombie kills to get books - true, a couple nice random loots can be a game changer. If I recall, my bruiser found three copies of the forge book in the first couple of days. Two from trash and one in a bookshelf. Other times I have looted several POI's and ended up with half a dozen blank books. My comment was based on the note drop rate and the idea that with stats, a hundred instances is likely to give you the expected return vs. less than ten instances of searching book shelves. With your standard note rate, from zombies (which are available in all biomes, etc.) you would need about 100 zombie kills / loots to have enough notes to get each of those required books. So that was not only my "worst case", but the one I could most accurately predict as being statistically accurate. (It reallly used to piss me off, when someone would post about how difficult it was to find a forge book, and another player would dismiss the complaint because "they" found several in the first day. But these people never stopped to consider that a book that randomly drops 1 / 20 time, does not become less rare simply because someone did get that 1 - this is not directed at you, it is just a reflection of the time I have spent trying to figure out the random loot system and reaching the realization that I am not certain even the Pimps staff understand - or care. Additions to loot tables, changes in block hit points, so many things are changed in the vanilla game without any analysis of impact - other than "it will make the game 'harder'" - when all it really does is make the game "longer" by adding tedious monotony and grind.)
One of the things I really like about your note system is that it (potentially) opens up so many different play styles. Someone who just wants to kill zombies does not have to waste time searching POI's for that one elusive book shelf. Another player who is not as good at combat, or as interested, can actually do well just searching trash or, better yet, stumps. A player may be able to make choices based on interest and role-playing reasons vs. "required" to survive (for instance my choice to get "Chemistry" so I could make fuel logs and blueberry mead. I don't require either to survive, but it was a fun change to have a character who did not carry half a forest in his back pack and could enjoy an elitest attitude of turning up his nose at basic beer, grain alcohol, etc. and enjoy a tasty smooth homebrewed mead, instead.)
Dart gun loot - I would not change it. I suspect it is a great item in MP. Not overpowered, but can have a significant impact on team play. But to clarify, my "request" was not for a dual purpose DART - hit a player and it heals, hit a zombie and it damages. I was suggesting an alternative ammo. The user of the weapon would select which ammo to use - healing darts to help my front line fighters, or a damage / attack option for fighting zombies. My heal / hurts info was just an attempt to give a decent justification why a medic type would be able to figure out a way to hurt zombies. And it does not need to be an explosion. It was just the idea that damage over time (a buff like burning) is really useless against zombies. A useful weapon option needed to do direct damage in the same way a gun or knife did. The idea of explosion or acid was just a way to get at higher damage for a fairly small dart. The dose carried by those darts is pretty small, so it would have to be fairly potent.
Stumps in other biomes: I just picked stumps because you had already created the block / loot. It would be wonderful if each biome had something "special" about it. For instance, several versions ago, coal was hard to find, but you could "harvest" coal from the larger burning blocks in the burnt biome. A player had a reason to spend time in that biome. A forest has lots of trees, an important resource. Corn is oddly plentiful in the plains. Water in the desert : )
Unfortunately, a play style that relies on your notes system is at a severe disadvantage in the desert, wasteland and burnt biomes. Those biomes are pretty harsh, anyway (much like the north pole biome). Right now, in my opinion, this causes a bit of a balance issue, where a player is faced with a no-brainer choice in the game - go to the forest / plains. Best temp. Good resources. And stumps. Why go anywhere else?
Long term players may enjoy the added challenge of surviving in other biomes, long term. Or (for SP where you don't have a team) want to try some hit and run looting in the wasteland, but realize there is not much of a chance to live long enough to loot a POI in the wasteland. (I barely managed to break into the cabin with the forge and look the fridge and some cabinets before I had 5-10 zombies closing in on me. But I was able to loot several ice chests on my long days run West. Something like a stump, but unique to the wasteland would be a nice addition - like the coolers, easy to spot, run there, quick loot and back on the move before you get swarmed.)
In the burnt biome, there is not much of anything. Mostly the destroyed buildings. But a fair number of pigs and deer. I have seen a couple of dogs, but that is not common. Mostly the only zombies are the burning ones. It is boring and bland. Not a place to hang out for very long. But it could be. A biome specific "stump" type item, adding a chance for notes (no bookcases in the burnt ruins), clothing items, food items, ammo / weapon parts - all the things that are required for long term survival - would make it a more viable biome for long term play.
Okay, I hope this helps explain. As always, although I listed some as "requests", they are really just ideas. Some are things I already do by editing your files. So I am not anxiously awaiting you updating the mod just so I can play my way : )
You may be absolutely correct that few people would appreciate the nuances, or bother to look carefully at the system. But I suspect there are a few more of us "old schoolers" out there that remember (fondly) getting a new game and pouring over the manual and planning out our character, long before we even started up the computer.
The Medeival mod sounds fun and worthy of your time / focus. I can't wait to see what it looks like. And if you need some testing done, just let me know.
Anyhow, just a few things l saw that you can take or leave.
To skill up, the admin tool, l believe, doesn't really work. l always build huge things underground and fancy tunnels from my base to other areas, i.e. to a close town, other players bases, a mine, etc. l feel in love with this game more for the fact that it's possible to build anything. Zombies are just an additional challenge to my structures and surviving. Anyhow, with admin axe, l'll dig a 2 kilometer tunnel or cut down 100 trees in no time but it gives me no xp l'm pretty sure. However, with auger or chainsaw, l'll have leveled a few times doing a similar job.
You are right about gaming styles, as l just mentioned, zombies are just a challenge not to die for me. l rarely loot them and l build my bases in a secure way that if l'm on a particular project that l'm enjoying, l won't bother killing them even on horde night. So any notes or thing's l'd need to find for gaming, would need to be in trash or container loot.
As for what you were saying about the desert biome, l have to disagree. lt's actually my favorite biome to build in. Oil shale is plentiful so l'll spend 8 hours mining there early on, then l'm good for gas for a month of gaming. Building/digging underground is child's play. l haven't tried steel armor yet so l don't know their attributes, but for the iron armor, it has a negative heat aspect so fully armored against zombies with the magically cooling bandana, you're perfectly fine there. Trees can be planted in the sand and it doesn't take that long to terraform a patch of land with fertile dirt to make your farm.
Again, you are absolutely correct about old school players still being out there. l think before l played 5 full hours of this game, l must of logged out and read forum after forum of info and watched 12+ hours of YouTube game play or how to videos. l read your and any other mod manual over and over to try and get 100% out of it. On the server l play, everyone comes to me when they want to know how to do something or if it's possible to do it. I'm thankful for the time you put into explaining things, makes my gaming much more enjoyable.
l'm no modding guru, but if you need testers, l'm willing to help out any way l can. Same for building medieval buildings, l particularly enjoy this aspect. l'm working on making a whole medieval city with stables, inns, blacksmith, castle etc.
Keep up the great work!
Glad to hear from someone who does feel "old school" approach is valid : ) Perhaps someday we will be as accepted as the "fart jokes and turd tosser" clan.
Question, though - the admin tools you are using are the basic building tools, correct? Have you tried the specific admin tool that is supposed to actually give one point of skill gain when used (three "charges" per item, if I remember correctly.) This is what I was planning on testing, since it the admin tool option works, then Valmar has a basic way to give skill gain directly. If it is glitchy / not 100% dependable, then it is probably the vanilla system and it would not be very productive to spend time on it until the bugs are quashed in vanilla.
Desert is actually my "favorite" biome, also. Yucca fruit and juice deal with food and beverages, are are very easy to find and harvest - even for a starting character. I also tend to find actual bodies of water and coal and potassium resources more easily (don't know whether they are more of them, of just easier to spot.) POI's do seem to be few and far between (other than single sheds, houses and water towers. That is when I really feel the pain of no "stumps" or other similar biome unique block item (rock cairn, etc.)
*Edit* - Since I do SP only, my loot "respawn" rate is essentially never. My thought is that if I looted that bookcase once, the library fairy does not magically restock the shelf. Thus, the standard ploy of simply hitting all the POI's every re-stock period is not an option, making books, especially, a little harder to come by.
Here is what I had for the item section on the class analysis. Most costs based on the note cost for the book, for persistent items, 1/5 cost for single use. Some arbitrary choices - ammo = 1, bedroll = 5, repair kit = 5, etc. (I significantly decreased the "standard" value of wood and basic wood frames, since this raw material is easy to gather / craft, and in some ways actually ends up costing the player, since they loose out on a big chunk of crafting XP.)
I think this is a comprehensive list of all items you give as starting gear to a class.
10 10 Forged Iron
4 4 torches
50 7.62 mm bullets (50)
30 9 mm bullet (30)
50 9 mm bullets (50)
20 Animal Hide Armor (all)
5 Antibiotics
60 arrows (60)
20 Assault Rifle
1 Bandage
5 beaker
5 bed roll
60 bolts (60)
1 boots
15 Camo Kevlar Vest
1 Campfire
1 canned food
30 Combat Axe
5 Cooking Pot
5 Doctor's Drug
10 Duster
10 Fireaxe
5 First Aid Kit (2?)
30 First Aid Kits (6)
5 Flashlight
10 Hammer
1 hat
14 healing darts (14)
30 Herbal Antibiotic(6)
10 Hunting Knife
15 Hunting Rifle
30 Iron bow
30 Iron Crossbow
15 Kevlar helmet
15 Mining Helmet
1 Painkillers
1 pants
3 peroxide (3)
10 Pistol
10 repair kits (2)
20 repair kits (4)
15 Sawed off Shotgun
60 Scrap Iron Armor (x4)
8 seeds (8)
1 shirt
50 Shotgun shells (50)
15 Sledgehammer
30 Steel Pickaxe
1 stone axe
15 Swat Helmet
6 torches (6)
5 Trank gun
1 water
5 wood (500)
6.4 wood frames (64)
Here is the basics of my %chances of book drops analysis (old, but should be close.)
Common book list has 23 recipe books and "blank" book with modifier of 20, so there are essentially 43 "different" common books that can drop as a single loot call.
Rare books has 27 recipes. At level 20 and below (character level) any book loot has a 20% chance of being a rare book. (Forge, Iron Working are both rare, I believe)
So, if my stats are correct, and perfect RNG distribution occurred, a character would need to loot 86 bookcases to get one of each recipe and 20 "blank" books. (Each bookcase has 0-1 books, so 50% of all bookcases will be empty, 50% will have a single book.)
This means that a specific, common recipe has about a 1.16% chance of dropping at a single book case loot.
Now, 20% of those loots will be rare, so actually we would need some 106 bookcases, to net 86 commons and 20 rares, so this is a little rough.
But with only 50% bookcases actually having a book, this means about 10% of the bookcases looted will have a rare book. So to get a best case / perfect distribution of 27 unique loots, a character needs to loot 270 bookcases. In other words, the chances of a single specific rare book being generated on a bookcase loot is about 0.37%.
This is essentially zero, for most players and my argument for the importance of your notes system.
Hope that makes sense.