[7D2D] Progress report

[max2go]

So... Soulfinger and a few friends of his have been playing 7D2D for a while and I joined in recently.

So far we have been PMing each other with updates on what's happening and general discussions, but because there are several people on the server (and hopefully more joining in), it's time to get a proper thread started (and perhaps that'll turn at some point into its own forum).

In case you're reading this out of curiosity and don't know about 7D2D, here's the jiff:

It's a survival game (one of around 5 or so that recently - in the last two years - were released) with a horror theme (AKA zombies). Survival means that you have to keep your wellness up (food and hydration) and that allows your health meter to automatically replenish, and from time to time your maximum health (starting at I think 50 out of 200, which is the limit you can reach) increases (some items increase your maximum health also, such as vitamins and venison stew). For food you can build your own garden or hunt wildlife. 7D2D has a fully destructibe landscape (AKA mindcraft but without the "blockiness"), which gives your resources (next to grass, trees and leather from animals) that you use to build camp fires, forges, tools, armor, weapons and all sort of other items. You use the camp fire to boil water to make it drinkable and cook food - you can drink water without boiling and eat food without cooking, but there's a good chance you'll develop diarrhea, which reduces your hydration level considerably, so that is not advisable to do, just like in real life. So yeah, you basically do whatever it takes to survive, just like you would in such a situation in real life - except in 7D2D you also get to enjoy the company of zombies

Also I should note is that, although you can play the game by yourself, it's much more enjoyable as a group!

[max2go]

So next, I'd like to give a quick recap of what had happened so far:

Soulfinger and a few of his friends have established a base on top of the roof in a gas station.

Because when you start out in 7D2D you spawn in different locations, I went to a nearby lake and built a wooden shack in a nearby shallow river - the reason for that is, when in water, even shallow one, slows the movement of all NPCs by about half, which helps with evading / escaping. However, hordes of zombies spawn (usually around midnight and at around 6am in-game time) and they fairly quickly got into my building, even though it had some spikes on the ground but not enough by a long shot, as it seems, and they destroyed my respawn point (bed) eventually.

I then made my way to Soulfinger and to his base, but zombies seem to be able to get in, especially with the amount of hordes that spawn and if the defenses are not being kept up all the time. I have quite an experience with building in 7D2D and in my experience underground bases work the best, so I decided to make my way to a nearby area that is a ditch surrounded by a hilly area, and I started digging straight down and surrounding the entrance with a 3x3 reinforced wooden structure with a reinforced hatch as the entrance. I then put wooden stick spikes all around it leaving a small path to the entrance) and with a bit of a gap, around that wooden log spikes.

This worked fine for a while but eventually zombies were able to get to the hatch and destroy it and get into my base and kill me off several times in a row. They got in by destroying the log spikes, I realized at that point what I had to do is, put the log spikes directly on top of the 3x3 reinforced wooden area surrounding my entrance, and immediately surrounding those with stick spikes. That way, while attacking the log spikes, the zombies will get damaged and probably killed off in time by the log spikes. I don't have enough scrap iron yet to reinforce the log spikes.

The other issue is that we haven't found the "forge ahead" book (AKA black book - because it's black) anywhere yet, and we have even been to the "Born and Noble" bookstore... and without that book and learning the skill, a forge can't be built and therefore we can't make iron ingots, which are required for the better tools and weapons (especially crossbow). On the positive side though, while looting, I did come across a sniper rifle and sniper ammo, and later on a shotgun and ammo, in general we found quite a bit of nice supplies... with the exception of that cursed black book!

At times I got a bit low on food, mainly meat, because my main focus had been on looting to find this black book. However, there is a farm with a corn field nearby, so that gives at least a little bit of nutrition. Although as Soulfinger has noted in his own thread from a while back, food isn't right now really the issue, because we don't survive long enough for starvation to hit... so yeah, dying (a lot!) is a very common occurrence at the moment At least when respawning, the wellness levels are back to full. Btw, I've been able to stockpile vitamins and antibiotics, but until we're able to create a properly reinforced base that can't be overrun by z-waves anymore, there's no point in using those.

As a last note / tip and to finish up the recap... for the time being it's best not to boil anything, because that uses up the glass jar (you don't get an empty one back), whereas if you drink or convert the bottled water to coffee or tea, I guess because it's still a drink, you do get an empty jar back that you can then refill with dirty water and then turn that into bottled water for safe consumption. I already have a mold to make glass jars, but without a forge I can't make them... gaaaahhh that cursed black book, where is it!?
(Btw, with the exception of the bullet tip, I have made all the molds - there's plenty of clay to be found down there where my base is!)

[max2go]

So after getting stupidly killed by a bear by having it lured to my base and me not being able to get in there fast enough and closing the hatch in time (doh!) and as a result the entrance getting partially destroyed and the bear getting into the base and destroying my sleeping bag and the dropped tool-belt (with the fire axe in it... ahhhhhh) I decided that it'll probably be a better idea (after fixing up the base) to run after a supply crate that dropped at that time. However, it disappeared all the way to the east behind a hill and by the time I was on the hill, the flare was gone - I continued on but still couldn't find it. I did make an interesting discovery though - I was that that time in a snowy area and there are a bunch of wood stumps - almost every one has a can of food in them! Though canned food (unless it's a broth) dehydrates you, and I didn't bring any water along

I did have a bunch of empty jars and a coffee with me, so i filled up the jars at a tiny lake I came across on my way back to my base and I made it in time back and boiled water and got hydrated. It was then around middle of the day and I had the choice of either improving the base, going hunting or looting. I decided to use the sunlight (believe it or not, but it wasn't actually raining for a change - it's been raining almost non-stop the whole time, with occasionally snowing in-between!) to go looting - maybe my luck will turn and I'll find that cursed black book (yeah right, who am I kidding!?)...

On my way to the village just south of my base I come across a pig, which I shoot at with bow and arrows and successfully hunted down. That was a lucky break... a deer would've been better but would've taking also longer to hunt down, so at least I didn't stray away from where I wanted to loot. Even with the raw meat in my inventory (AKA zombie magnet), I decided to loot instead of going back to base, mainly because I didn't encounter a single zombie on the way so far.

So out of curiosity I went back into the house that Soulfinger and I had looted the previous evening (as in, RL evening), because items are supposed to respawn at some point. Strangely that already was triggered (maybe a bug?) and I searched a few places that said they weren't looted (though I know we did loot them the previous evening), but they were empty. There was only two book cases left and I thought to myself "hey, maybe I'll find the black book in there... hahaha yeah, right!"... and guess what, it was in there.

That's right, I found it. The cursed black book. And you can bet on it that I immediately read it.

Although there was still some time left before night time would've set in, I decided to instead go back to base, build the forge and start making iron ingots, so I could build a crossbow and fire axe. I did build the forge but then decided to take a break to write all this, to get anyone interested up-to-speed on my luck... I mean, progress that can be solely attributed to my hard work

But yeah, it was quite hard work involved, it was tough dying over and over again and having to partially rebuild and improve the base several times, not to mention losing the only fire axe I've found so far. But the tough times should be over (soon) - time to get building those pick axes and getting on digging and splitting rocks!

[max2go]

As the title says, a new version has been released and no more black book needed from now on needed to build the forge... I don't understand why they didn't just leave it in the game and just improved the spawn probability (or have a "forging" section in "born and noble" where this book and other books relating to forging spawn. Anyhow, to note is that, although no book is required anymore to build the forge, a new item, "bellows", was introduced, which apparently requires a lot of hide to make, from what I've read in the official dev changelog.

Another thing that we've noticed in the game and were not happy about was that it pretty much rained 24/7. And although it's more a visual / mood kind of thing rather than having an effect on player or items, it was still quite annoying. This was addressed now, plus the climate / weather of the various "biomes" have been tweaked - higher chance of snow in colder areas, little chance of rain in desert area.

Anyhow, here's what I've been up to:

Actually, before I get into this, just a quick note about something else I've found out - with v12, a new book was introduced: “Set In Concrete”. I used to make concrete in the past without it and before I read about the new book, I was puzzled why the mold for concrete wasn't shown in my crafting recipes - I found out via gamepedia at the very bottom of the concrete item page. This is quite an issue, as I have a dire need to improving the durability of my base and it seems that this book, considering that I haven't come across it so far in v12, that it's even rarer than the cursed black book... sigh!

I went out smashing lots of rocks to get iron ore, for several in-game-days in a row. I turned the iron ore into ingots and some of these into forged iron, to get then metal bars out of those and turn those into metal strips, mainly for repairing metal pick axes and fire axes. Yesterday I also made another crossbow and today another one. I did a little bit of exploring though and I came across a few more blueprints, one being the one for the claw hammer, I immediately made a few of them - repairing and upgrading items with it is now so much faster!

Running out of space, I also added another chest, to keep things more organized... though I need to make more, once the underground base is further dug out.

Which brings me to the next subject - surviving and how the base has held up, after having its defenses improved and a "bridge" built (to cross the spikes on the ground safely) with a trap door in the middle - the idea is to keep that trap door open when in the base, so that zombies can't cross it. The issue though is that the bridge is made of reinforced wood blocks, which can't take too much punishment, so I'll probably have to do a lot of rebuilding and repairing, until I find the book to make cement so I can make concrete / reinforced concrete blocks

Though for the time being I might have found a way around this... after I built the bridge, I started digging some more, to enlarge the space to put more storage boxes / chests down, but I also came up with the idea of digging down and then a straight corridor into the rock and putting a hard metal door there, after that I dug toward the side to put my sleeping bag / respawn point there. This should help with not having my sleeping bag destroyed anymore (so easily) and respawning in a secure area. The door has a bit of gap underneath, I don't think crawlers can go through there but it should allow to shoot through that gap at least, in case zombies make it into the initial section of the base.

Anyhow, what I found out is that, if you dig in rock, it gives you rock pieces (not small rocks, but you can convert those rock pieces into small rocks). Those, when put into your equipment bar, can then be placed, to put some rock area back. I think zombies will have quite a difficult time to destroying rock, considering how long it takes to get rock with a metal pick axe. So I decided to dig out the walls and the ceiling of the main base area, because that's dirt / clay and that's much easier destroyed, and replace that with rock. This should help tremendously with zombies not getting in by "digging through dirt". Speaking about digging - I can make items now with the quality grade of "good" and I made an iron shovel - it now takes only one hit with it to dig a hole in dirt or clay, compared to the 4 to 5 it took with the stone shovel!

Back to the bridge, I'm thinking of, once the bridge gets too much damaged or destroyed, to replace its parts by putting down stone pieces, see if that holds up much better than wooden blocks. Once I have found the book to make cement, I'll replace the rock with concrete blocks - I already have plenty of gravel, the other ingredient required to make concrete!

[max2go]

I just got overrun by a feral zombie horde, with the kind of zombie that takes a lot of punishment than any of the others combined. They dug trough earth and even stone within seconds. I think only reinforced concrete will stop them - I will focus on looting every single day from now on, until I find this ominous cement book.

On top of that, a swarm of hornets seem to have been invited to the party too. Fun times. As a result of all this, I died. A few times. Lost my shotgun.

[Soulfinger]

Loaf and I fought a Feral zombie on the Day 49 hoard. There is a chance they will spawn with every "day 7" hoard currently set at 5%. FYI the Day 7 hoard is:
entity name="zombie04" prob="0.05"
<entity name="zombie05" prob="0.05"
<entity name="zombie06" prob="0.05"
<entity name="zombie07" prob="0.05"
<entity name="zombiegal01" prob="0.05"
<entity name="zombiegal02" prob="0.05"
<entity name="zombiegal03" prob="0.05"
<entity name="zombiegal04" prob="0.05"
<entity name="fatzombie" prob="0.05"
<entity name="hornet" prob="0.15"
<entity name="zombiedog" prob="0.15"
<entity name="zombiecrawler" prob="0.05"
<entity name="fatzombiecop" prob="0.15"
<entity name="burntzombie" prob="0.05"
<entity name="zombieferal" prob="0.05"

That all adds up to 100%, so there's as much chance of finding a Feral zombie as a "Nude walker". You do however have a 40% chance at a "normal" zombie with crawlers and fat zombies adding another 10%. But yes, that day 7 hoard is NASTY. Ferals do have good loot on them, but the one we beat took about 5 gunshot hits and probably 30 arrows.

The server has been updated to 12.4 and you can see sunshine in the forest now (not only rain). Beware though that there is fog too which can be quite dense.

I think I logged out on the roof of the garage which was totally over-run when I got there. I grabbed some supplies to bring back to your underground lair - we'll see if it's still there when I get back.


PS - forgot to say ... the new patch now has "sundown" at 10PM. Zombies start running at 10PM until 2 AM based on my server setting of 20 hour daylight. That also means that the sun rises at 2AM, which is more than a bit strange... we'll have to discuss if we want to change that 4 hour night to a 6 hour night...

[max2go]

Thank you for the 7d horde info, good to know. I actually had 2 feral ones in my base kicking my butt, that was no fun but eventually I did get them.

About when zombies start running, I figured it was at 10pm - though... a few in-game days aga, right after the update, I was out and about and made my way back at 7pm, thinking I had plenty of time because I observed the zombies in the past starting to run at 10pm. I was not too far away from my base, I run into a zombie horde at 8pm and they did start running after me! I figured the devs changed that in the new update, but you say your server settings are 10 to 2 for night, so I guess it's a bug that they start running at 8?

So for now I'm making my way back to my base at 6 whenever I'm a bit further away, or at 7 if I'm close by gathering resources. Because when they chased me, I was not able to escape in time into my base and close the hatch, so they killed me off in there several times in a row.

Re changing server settings from 2am to 4am... considering that it seems that zombies start running at 8, I think leave it for now at 2am, or we'll have too long of a down-time.

On other news, I was a dummy and converted all the hide into leather, which means until we get plenty of hide again, I can't build another forge

But we still have that forge in my base, with the underground part I have expanded and improved a bit. When the 7d horde attacked yesterday and dug through dirt and stone and then smashed through the hard metal door I put up downstairs to protect my bed, I realized that I have to come up with something for that not to happen again - and I did, however it's not tested yet:

Entering the base, the area with the forge, fire place and storage, this I call now the "common area". Going down a side there, you find a wooden door - this door needs to be kept open at all times, unless zombies make it into the common area is so this door is there just to delay them a bit.

Immediately past the door, a staircase goes down and when it ends a small area of the ground is covered by wooden frames. Because you can see through them, you will see that I dug quite deep down into the rock - what you don't see is that there are wooden spikes at the bottom (not log spikes, though might be worthwhile to put those down instead). On the opposite side of the hole is a hard metal door.

So, the idea is that if zombies break through into the common area, the door where the stairs start there is to delay them, to allow for enough time to make it to the hard metal door, going through it and turning around to then collect the wooden frames and close the hard metal door. Any zombie will immediately fall down there and even the feral ones probably won't survive for too long, or if they do, what can they do really, should be easy to kill them off from the top. Only spider zombies could climb the walls, and I haven't seen any so far on this map, I think they're only on the random gen one.

A corridor leads past this hard metal door into a junction, which then leads to "private chambers". I built mine already, which is has a secure wooden door there that's always locked, so nobody but myself is allowed in there and you guys are welcome to make your own. I'll expand that junction into a hub, I think a 9x9 area should suffice. The reason why so big is because I'd like in the middle of it a shaft going down, which should be our entry to a mine for us to get coal and iron. Also, when we get more people on there, on the vertical level more hubs can be created, with horizontally interconnected private chambers to each of the hubs, which will avoid getting into each other's way.

This is the plan so far, I look forward seeing how it all pans out!

[Soulfinger]

Looking forward to seeing it! The only risk is that if enough zombies come into the spike-trap room that they will leave gore-piles high enough that the following zombies can just walk over...

[max2go]

It's not really a "spike trap room" but more like a "spike trap abyss"... though bad news - it doesn't work

I was just fortunate enough so have been blessed with a 7d horde. Several ferals and cops.

The issue is that the devs made those zombies fairly "smart" aka they gave them proper "path finding", which I find ridiculous and I hope they'll change that sooner than later, zombies aren't supposed to have higher brain functions anymore, after all. So what happened was that they got into the common area, I closed the wooden door and ran down the stairs to take away the wood frames above the "wooden spike abyss" in front of the common area, then I closed the metal door. The zombies didn't fall down, instead they started hitting the wall next to the hole and past the door - the metal door didn't even get a dent! And I died, of course.

So I think the only way right now is to dig a deep ditch all around the area with the spikes at the top, at least only dog zombies can jump over that unless it's made wide enough (or can other zombies jump too?). As long as the ditch is far enough from the walls on the inside of the base, the zombies shouldn't make it and die from all the spikes down there, I'd say. And we'll just cross a bridge with a few trap doors on it, that we open before hunkering down for the night.

This is the only solution I see so far, unless you have any other ideas. Once we have the concrete recipe, we can create a tower at the entrance, 3 blocks thick should easily be enough, and then we can have fun sniping from above without having to worry for any zombies to be coming through, not even feral ones.

So, right now my priority is finishing up the ditch all around the base, then I'll continue work on the underground hub.

One last thing, I noticed that, when logging off while deeper underground, when logging back on you spawn above ground - which means, inside the spike field
When logging out at the common area, the problem doesn't exist, you'll spawn right there when logging back in. I guess they just had to introduce a new bug with the latest release, I've never had that happening before...

[Soulfinger]

One last thing, I noticed that, when logging off while deeper underground, when logging back on you spawn above ground - which means, inside the spike field

This made me LOL.

Yes, the Devs have been working at making underground bases "not guaranteed secure". It seems there needs to be a mix of above ground and underground base layouts...

One thing I notices at the garage - the old ladder from inside to the roof was destroyed by a zombie. I couldn't rebuild the ladder, so I made a tower outside with a jump to the roof. Not ideal to have to go outside to get up, but it works.

The interesting thing is that the zombie pathfinding still sends them inside to try to get to the roof, probably because it is the "roof of structure 1" instead of anything to do with "structure 2" (the jump). Perhaps a strategy in base design is to have multiple buildings with ramps/accesses that are inconsistent. Like you have a big building which is the "main base" with no actual direct access. Access is done by building a tower with a ramp leading to a 2nd tower which has a tunnel leading to the main base. The 2 access points would probably be fairly secure (as in not attacked) because most hoard activity would be directed at the main base.

An ideal configuration would be towers around the main base. It would work like a reverse castle wall design. Instead of the towers being used to keep attackers back from the wall, you're actually encouraging the Z's to pass PAST the towers and attack the main base while you snipe them from the towers. As long as not many target you, you should be ok. If they do target you, you zip down to the underground tunnels and move onto tower #2, and so on.

This tactic works moderately well at the garage where we have an L design on the main base (you can attack from 2 vantage points) and I have built the little sniper platform at the back to attack zombies attacking the back of the garage.

of course, this design would take a lot of wood (need at least two 3 story tall 3X3 tower) plus the main base tower (which would probably be at least a 5X5 interior, 2 floors tall, and would need walls at least 3 blocks thick to delay the hoard entering) - plus spikes all around. I'm happy to work out the math on the amount of wood needed, but "a lot" is probably good enough to get started...

Finally, your base likely has a VERY high heat content -meaning day 7s it will be the focal point. The garage will likely have a much lower heat level, so may be a safer place to be. The tiny hole in the ground I made to the South-West of Deersville likely has a nonexistant heat map since I haven't been there for weeks (game time). If we dug that out over the week, cooked and crafted at your base and slept at the garage, that would probably be somewhat safe as the two holes would attract the zombies while the garage would be "quite" in heat-map terms. Just have to hope that the Zombies don't do too much damage to the abandoned bases.