Dryke

Two ways I used the crates:
 
As Walls - I build a normal wall, and then a stack of 3 crates in front of it.  A zombie trying to travel through a tile first has to break all three crates and then the wall to get through.  Think of it as a 4x wall but only taking up one tile.  If I could double side the stack with walls I would - (wall)(3crates)(wall) - but it will normally only let you build a wall on one side of the stack.  I choose to build the wall on the inside of the stack so that the zombies hit the crates first.
 
As a crate pattern - zombies LIKE to beat on destructible items.  A destructible item is anything a player builds as well as the 'native' doors and windows.  A horde of zombies approaching my defenses will break up as it tries to pass through the crate pattern and 99.9% of the time they will stop to beat on those crates instead of making it to the wall.  This gives me time to kill them before they hit the actual wall.  It's also useful if I am being chased; I run through the pattern and lose all the zombies chasing me.  I've found that it's best if the lines of crates are offset as you approach in the direction of the wall; sometimes the zombies will travel freely if they can move in a straight line without bumping into a crate, but if they are offset so that the zombie has to path around them, they almost always stop at the crate to attack it.

The mode is literally described as "hardcore." Expect it to be hardcore.

Two ways I used the crates:
 
As Walls - I build a normal wall, and then a stack of 3 crates in front of it.  A zombie trying to travel through a tile first has to break all three crates and then the wall to get through.  Think of it as a 4x wall but only taking up one tile.  If I could double side the stack with walls I would - (wall)(3crates)(wall) - but it will normally only let you build a wall on one side of the stack.  I choose to build the wall on the inside of the stack so that the zombies hit the crates first.
 
As a crate pattern - zombies LIKE to beat on destructible items.  A destructible item is anything a player builds as well as the 'native' doors and windows.  A horde of zombies approaching my defenses will break up as it tries to pass through the crate pattern and 99.9% of the time they will stop to beat on those crates instead of making it to the wall.  This gives me time to kill them before they hit the actual wall.  It's also useful if I am being chased; I run through the pattern and lose all the zombies chasing me.  I've found that it's best if the lines of crates are offset as you approach in the direction of the wall; sometimes the zombies will travel freely if they can move in a straight line without bumping into a crate, but if they are offset so that the zombie has to path around them, they almost always stop at the crate to attack it.

It can do a ton of harm.
 
ETA released. Hype builds. Expectations are super high. The industry focuses in. ETA comes. NPCs aren't ready (or worse are released unfinished). Customers and fans get angry. Devs feel like they failed their base. Industry mocks their NPCs. Depression sets in. Development is delayed or worse halted.
 
-or-
 
NO ETA given. Hype burbles along. Fans/customers occasionally make a demand. Demands are ignored. Expectations are super high. BAM!!! NPCs ARE HERE! Everyone flips out in elation! The love and endless "thank yous" pour in. TIS never has to buy their own drink again!
 
Which would you prefer as a customer?
 
Knowing when NPCs will hit will do you no good. Think about it. What does it change? You gain nothing by thinking they'll be here next week or in a year. What does it matter if they're released this Monday or 104 Mondays from now? All it does is put undue pressure on the team developing them. Your life is in no way better with an ETA. Or at least I can't think of a way how it could be.
 
Just relax, they'll be here when they're here. They assure us they're working on them.
 
If TIS closes the doors and NPCs still aren't here; then we can get angry.

Last save got deleted, made another one.
Day 13 so far.
How am I doing?

http://pzmap.crash-override.net/#0.6328499758058855,0.14199777696660015,237.37631379976963
 

General thoughts on survival:
 
Sheet ropes are your friend.  Zombies can't climb sheet ropes, but you can; this is a powerful advantage.  As an earlier poster noted, if you destroy all the stairways on the ground floor you render it impossible for zombies to get to the upper stories.  Place sheet ropes at several points around a building and then sledge down the stairs and you will create a zone of absolute safety.  Again, as noted in an earlier post you don't want to be surrounded by a horde and out of supplies in the 'safety' of your second floor redoubt, so try to pick a larger building with multiple second or third story exits.
 
Finding food and water is good; producing them for yourself is better.  Initially you may need to scavenge to survive; as a long term strategy, though, scavenging is a bad plan because you need to be out where the zombies are to scavenge.  Water collection is easy once you can build rain barrels - but remember you'll need a way to sterilize the water; a campfire and a kettle or cooking pot will do.  Food is somewhat trickier, but there are several means provided - fishing, farming, trapping, and foraging.  Of these, Farming is most suited to the life of a survivor; you can carry bags of dirt up to a rooftop area and set up a rooftop garden.  Using the 'knock down the stairs' strategy described above, you can end up creating a zone safe from zombies with a limitless supply of food and water.  The rest of the food gathering methods usually require you to leave your safe zone in order to get the food and water you need.
 
Zombies are bad...flaming zombies are worse.  This, of course, depends upon the game settings.  With fire spread off, setting up campfire 'traps' for zombies is actually quite effective (if somewhat unrealistic) since the zombies will wander into them, begin to burn, and eventually die...all with little or no effort on your part.  There are several tactics you can employ to take advantage of such a situation.  With fire spread on, however...a flaming zombie can spread those flames into your safehouse, turning it into an inferno.  For that matter, with fire spread on the fire itself is quite dangerous even without zombies; setting a campfire inside a safehouse is about as smart a plan in the game as it would be for you to light a campfire in your living room in real life.  Know your settings and plan accordingly.
 
The Axe Is Your Gift From God:  Guns are flashy.  With a bit of skill they kill things very quickly.  Pipe bombs are glorious weapons against large hordes.  If you are trying to rack up a huge kill count, these are good things; they kill quickly and are sure to draw every zombie within hearing distance to your location.  If you are trying to survive, you want a melee weapon - and the best weapon out there, hands down, is the axe.  Quiet, lethal, and utilitarian, the axe is the survivor's weapon of choice in the apocalypse.  A single zombie is a trivial challenge with an axe, and even small groups can be managed.  If there are too many zombies to take on with your axe, then you are in a situation where you should be running away anyway.  When you're not chopping down zombies, you can chop down trees instead for your fortifications.
 
Zombies love to destroy the things that you make:  Zombies are attracted to player built constructions.  If they wander near one they have a tendency to stop and beat on them.  Conversely, outside of windows and doors zombies do not damage original structures.  You can use both of these facts to your advantage. As an example of taking advantage of game structures, EniracY posted a location above that shows a house surrounded by a fence with a small opening in one area.  The entire fence is essentially invulnerable to zombies, which means the only area you would need to fortify is the small opening.  (The house only has one story - a negative, in my opinion, since you can't have a second story redoubt - but that's solveable with a little construction).  On the flip side, a great example of utilizing the zombie's tendency to beat on anything YOU build is to build a 'crate pattern'.  Build a bunch of crates in offset lines so that there are winding pathways between them.  Zombies moving through this pattern will almost always stop to beat on the crates - even if they are chasing you.  In the unlikely event that they don't stop, they won't navigate the pattern as quickly as you do anyway.  You can even create a one crate high 'crate maze' entrance to your safehouse.  The zombies WILL eventually break up all the crates if you let them - but they will almost never navigate the whole maze because they will stop to beat at the crates along the way.

We have been working on getting Spiked Log Barriers into the Hydrocraft mod as physical objects. Hopefully your layout will look more realistic with them.
 

Watching and understanding zombie behavior is perhaps the biggest survival trait there is in the game, even moreso than learning how to get food and water IMO.
 
I use a tactic very similar to EnigmaGrey's.  If I have a large group of zombies after me, I'll go completely through one building and I don't start thinking about hiding until I've broken all contact with the zombies behind me.  They tend to get caught up climbing through windows and things in the building I just ran through, or at worst trying to go around them; this gives me chance to go stealthy and sneak into another building further away.
 
When returning to my home base, I will never run straight to it if I'm being followed.  I cut off at an angle and make sure the zombies are following me, and then I keep going along that line until I'm sure I've lost contact with them before turning back towards the base.  The zombies will tend to keep heading in that direction of last contact - and if it's towards your hideout, that's the direction they will also go.

Watching and understanding zombie behavior is perhaps the biggest survival trait there is in the game, even moreso than learning how to get food and water IMO.
 
I use a tactic very similar to EnigmaGrey's.  If I have a large group of zombies after me, I'll go completely through one building and I don't start thinking about hiding until I've broken all contact with the zombies behind me.  They tend to get caught up climbing through windows and things in the building I just ran through, or at worst trying to go around them; this gives me chance to go stealthy and sneak into another building further away.
 
When returning to my home base, I will never run straight to it if I'm being followed.  I cut off at an angle and make sure the zombies are following me, and then I keep going along that line until I'm sure I've lost contact with them before turning back towards the base.  The zombies will tend to keep heading in that direction of last contact - and if it's towards your hideout, that's the direction they will also go.

After the server wipe (to move from IWBUMS to the stable branch), I began a new project
 
I figured out how to surround crates with walls (although most of the time you only need a wall on two sides) so now the walls are wall -> 3 crate stack -> wall, all condensed into the space of a single tile

After the server wipe (to move from IWBUMS to the stable branch), I began a new project
 
I figured out how to surround crates with walls (although most of the time you only need a wall on two sides) so now the walls are wall -> 3 crate stack -> wall, all condensed into the space of a single tile

The Mighty Trap House!

http://zeekshaven.freeforums.net/thread/350/mighty-trap-house

Sorry I was too lazy to re-write it, I was also too lazy to read the forum rules so if that's against the rules to post a link from another forum please delete my message.

Much love

Hey hey it’s Monday morn again, it’s Lemmy again, but this time it’s also a public holiday in the Brit land, so we hope you’ll forgive a slightly lazy Mondoid for this week! We’ll try and cram in something cool and new in picture form, as well as get to those questions we missed last week. Since I forgot to arrange any Mondoid stuff last night it looks like I’ll be answering all the questions myself! Oopsie!
 
“Whaaaaaat kind of cool admin tools (if any) are in the works for mp servers? (i.e. teleport players, quick server setting adjustments, pve zoning, etc.)”
This is one of the cooler side effects to the upcoming Creative Mode. We see no reason why admins shouldn’t be able to access those tools, particularly the mini-map. One idea for combating cheating we thought of was a replay buffer file of sorts, a log that can be replayed on the minimap and show player movements across the map during the game. There are likely a ton of other admin tools that’d be handy too, definitely server setting changes and the like. In particular I’d personally like to see more support for creative stuff like Machinima to be easier as well as game admin tools.
 
“Will claim safehouses get any more attention (fine tuning), or is that in the finished pile?”
To be honest that was a spur of the moment ‘cool idea’ that had a few problems in practice. It’s the sort of thing that probably needs more time thinking about, and to be honest is a little immersion breaking and gamey in its initial form. We’re still undecided on the way to go with this feature.
 
 “We will be able to swim in the lake or river? and another question: Have you been thinking about adding more winter clothes and implement the system of cold and heat?”
Regarding swimming, who knows. A year ago we’d have said no way. Now we’ll say probably not, but maybe?
The second part about winter cold, I will answer with the cunning use of (NOT BUILD 33) pictures from the awesome Martin!

 
There are more, as well as new weapons, items, backpacks and all sorts of other stuff, but sorry they’ll have to wait until the animation system is finished and out there! When it does though, BAM the doors are blown right off for adding new animations, visible backpacks, models, weapons, clothes, character texture overlays (think zombie damage / blood). That’s not build 33 though sorry, but very hopefully 34!
 
So, will Build 33 integrate that new killer animation upgrade that makes you fall from failed climbing attempts ? (because you’re Unlucky or Clumsy)
Erm I guess I just answered this one then.
 
Are you close to having backpacks and damage showing on your character?
Wow three for one!
 
Do we get throwing in the future?
Yes (though as far as I remember it’s already in with the bomb stuff no?), once we get the physics engine integrated fully (to allow vehicles to work on MP) we will be able to do much cooler throwing physics, to make thrown objects move through the air naturally, bounce off walls, smash against stuff, etc.
 
Has adding random occurring optional missions in the game ever been brought up? Objectives like saving a fellow survivor, or getting asked by an npc to find a missing friend?
Oh these will be common place once NPCs go in. Our plan is to have all manner of story events and mission like things being generated by NPCs in the world.
 
Are NPC’s going to be brought into the game any time soon?
Any estimated or a far guess for the arrival of the npc?
Very unlikely in the remainder of this year, realistically speaking. A NETA is all we’re willing to do because it’s the only thing we can know for sure.
 
I know UI isn’t top priority, but is there any way to be able to have a separate location for global chat and local chat in multiplayer, and possibly the ability to change it soon? In multiplayer, this is definitely a hassle.
 
First time I’ve heard of this being an issue, but if there’s enough demand for this as a feature I don’t imagine it’d take too long.
Finally a quick post-edit note from Rathlord which should be good news for Mac users!
 
“May be too late, but if we could give a brief mention about OS X controllers potentially being sorted out in the Mondoid today that’d be awesome. I made a post about it in the latest IWBUMS thread”
 
This week’s little bit of italicized text at the end has been brought to you by the letter Z. Please consider helping with our Wiki and if you’d like this sent to your mail click here. Also thanks to Urban Legend for the header image this week!

I'm not sure it's accurate to say 'its straight up not true', since EnigmaGrey is in a strong position to know what has and has not been done, and there is absolutely no benefit to him to lie about something such as this.  It might be more accurate to say 'something is possibly affecting pathing in an unanticipated way', which would make both EnigmaGrey's declaration that they have not changed pathing AND your declaration that somehow pathing has changed potentially true at the same time. 
 
Being careful about how you say something can go a long way towards not having your concerns simply dismissed as a rant
 
Aside from that, however, as a previous poster mentioned whatever changes may have occurred, you can still change zombie behavior with the range of choices provided for server settings that would result in zombies as dumb (or as smart) as you want them to be.  Given that option, there is very little room for complaint since the choice is entirely up to the players.

Sometimes idiots are job security.  Like with my job; it literally depends on stupid people doing stupid things to other people.  If that wasn't such an absolute certainty, my job would not exist.
 
Even if you are not lucky enough to be able to say that the idiots actually support your lifestyle, you CAN say that idiots are an occupational hazard for almost every other job out there.  Particularly jobs like yours that are oriented towards creating and providing a product for consumers.  You can never make the idiots happy because they are too dumb to realize when they should be happy and they are highly likely to overrate any disappointment they encounter.
 
Short story:  Focus on the smart people, or at least the middle of the road folks; don't sweat the idiots.  They aren't worth your time.

Thank you but since we don't delete or over moderate the steam forums, where some devs would delete or quickly lock that post so it drops off, we instead need to defend ourselves on it. Even if we can't change the OPs mind, or if the OP was just trolling, to newcomers to the forum they would be forgiven for taking that post seriously and avoiding purchasing on account of it. I know we got a lot of support in that thread (though this was after my post) but some really shitty horrible Early Access games get a lot of support and defence in reply to posts too, it doesn't necessarily make it so, so I personally would temper my belief in defenses as well as I would overly aggressive complaints. It also serves to be linked to when future complaint threads, troll or no, come out.
Besides, I'm not going to sit here and claim we've not fucked up when it comes to the NPCs, regardless of how sure I am they will come eventually and be awesome, or that us holding them back is the best thing. I need to own up to that as much as defend myself.

Sometimes idiots are job security.  Like with my job; it literally depends on stupid people doing stupid things to other people.  If that wasn't such an absolute certainty, my job would not exist.
 
Even if you are not lucky enough to be able to say that the idiots actually support your lifestyle, you CAN say that idiots are an occupational hazard for almost every other job out there.  Particularly jobs like yours that are oriented towards creating and providing a product for consumers.  You can never make the idiots happy because they are too dumb to realize when they should be happy and they are highly likely to overrate any disappointment they encounter.
 
Short story:  Focus on the smart people, or at least the middle of the road folks; don't sweat the idiots.  They aren't worth your time.

What I really want to say is 'even if it took me 10 years, I'd hold it back till it was ready, damn everything else' but I refrain because of course, such a statement implies its possible it would take that long, which is ridiculous of course, but I've learnt better from using jokes, analogies or hyperbole when addressing people like this. But that's the sentiment. As long as it takes, no less.

I've said it before, I'll say it again: Keep your chin up, TIS. The amount of pressure on game developers gets overwhelming at times. It's caused more than one team to simply disappear and leave things unfinished, and I greatly admire both your resilience in the face of negativity and your determination to be a company that delivers as promised.
I think a lot of players have a vision of game developers as programming machines with nothing else to do, rather than people with lives. Folks, these guys and gals at Indie Stone have just as many personal things going on in their lives. They have weddings and funerals to plan, children to get to school, babies to change, ailing parents to care for, bills, debts, second jobs, mortgages, loans, college debt....in short, they are every day people with every day problems.
The amount of personal time it takes to make a game in the first place is astonishing. It's a constant juggling act between life and the product you promised. I'm willing to bet the vast majority of folks complaining about either missed ETAs or no ETAs have never worked under the pressure of delivering a product to thousands of folks. The demand is so strenuous that it becomes a tangible thing, and gets so heavy it's hard to even breath or think. When you're in the middle of scripting an incredibly ambitious feature for a game that's already set the bar high with its amazingly solid reputation and girth of content (PZ has both as we speak) the desire and necessity of delivering top-shelf features becomes stifling.
The most constructive thing we can do, as players and fans, is to give the developers a little bit of breathing room and offer them support and good faith that they are indeed doing their best, and won't rest until they deliver. I'm resolute in my belief that TIS is going to give us what we want.
Stick with it, TIS. Do what you do, and do it when you're ready. In case of hyperventilating, open bag, insert face, and breath deeply. In the end, you're going to be a milestone in gaming, and not a footnote.

Ha it's a comparison I like to use, except I feel a bit weird as if saying 'I'm just like that dude who wrote all those amazing books everyone loves' but yeah, my heart BLEEDS for GRR Martin, cause he has a billion times the pressure we do, very much for the same reasons (do we want a rushed and shitty Winds of Winter? NO take ALL the time you need George), but also has to deal with people going on about him dying into the bargain at least I don't have that to deal with.

I think of you guys as the George R.R. Martin of indie game devs. It's a bit of a waiting game, but the stuff you deliver is totally worth it.
 
And there is a lot of unexpected death in the process
 
And zombies
 
Please don't hire GRRM to do the NPC programming for you

All our Mondoids will be about Dragons from now on

Okay, but can we ask about dragons?
I bet they're going to be released alongside the magic system and the "always give an ETA" rule

Oh they are the minority for sure, but their words account for the vast majority when it comes to the effect they have on brains it takes 20 posts of undying love and adoration to psychologically combat one long nasty mean post.