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Odds are pretty high that more stuff will be added; he just posted that content is the biggest portion of the game still unfinished, so I think that will be fleshed out quite a bit in the upcoming months. As for dying of hypothermia early, if it's raining outside you can hide out in the cryo facility for a bit and wait for it to stop. Lighting fires is also a source of warmth, although you need to find a lighter first (can you make fires via the "rubbing sticks together" method yet? I'm not sure)
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Jul 10, 2013 19:26
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The Cheshire Cat posted:(can you make fires via the "rubbing sticks together" method yet? I'm not sure) You can but you need the Trapping skill to do it. Honestly Trapping has gone from "the best skill in the game" to "Jesus Christ how is this skill even this good." You can skin anything for quality meat and pelts, you can make squirrel snares and use them to catch squirrels, you can cure meat, you can make noise traps to keep you safe while you sleep, you can make fire without a lighter or torch, it's ridiculous. Always always always take Trapping if you have trouble staying alive.
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Jul 10, 2013 19:28
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Angry Diplomat posted:You can but you need the Trapping skill to do it. Honestly Trapping has gone from "the best skill in the game" to "Jesus Christ how is this skill even this good." You can skin anything for quality meat and pelts, you can make squirrel snares and use them to catch squirrels, you can cure meat, you can make noise traps to keep you safe while you sleep, you can make fire without a lighter or torch, it's ridiculous. Always always always take Trapping if you have trouble staying alive. you've convinced me. I used to take tough, strong, melee and hiding
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Jul 10, 2013 19:32
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Also I don't know if it's intended or not, but whenever you go to sleep you drop whatever's being carried in either hand, and man forest shacks drop way less stuff than they used to thanks to loot table changes. Most of the stuff I get from them is basically junk like stones and torches. Not that I'm going to harp on it too much since it's the test version but still.
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Jul 10, 2013 19:42
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Maybe some of the trapping stuff should be split off into other skills? One that comes to mind is skinning/curing animals could be added to the tracking skill, and then rename it to "hunting". Making fires could be covered under botany and have it be called "foraging" or something (I'm not sure what making fires would have to do with foraging, but you can kind of see the fire from sticks = plants connection I'm making). Maybe just have some of those broadly useful abilities granted by more than one skill, so you can skin animals if you have trapping OR hunting, since it's relevant to both.
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Jul 10, 2013 19:55
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Zip posted:you've convinced me. I used to take tough, strong, melee and hiding I like to take Insomnia and grab Strong, Tough, Melee, Athletic, and Trapping for  ultimate hunter modeOccasionally I'll grab Myopic as well and add Ranged to the list. Myopic can be partly countered with binoculars or a scoped rifle, especially since binoculars can have neck straps now, leaving both hands free. e: I sure hope there aren't any implemented penalties for eating people, because these loving raiders keep chasing me around surrendering to me every turn and I end up getting irritated and killing them and then I'm like, "well, no sense letting a perfectly good corpse go to waste" and well long story short I'm now a moderately rich and very well-fed cooked meat and guns tycoon. e2: after selling many backpacks and shopping carts full of roasted mystery meat, I've got the bionic eyes with both upgrades and god drat they make a difference. You can see an incredible distance in the day, and you're completely unhindered by darkness at night and while scavenging. It's awesome to finally have them, but I do have to say, cooked peoplemeat is kind of broken. You can just go to the first ruin that gives you a low Stealth value and use a crowbar and Strong to generate a bunch of looters, then murder them all because they suck, then drop some sticks, make a fire, and cook up a shitton of meat to haul back to the junk market for anywhere between $30 and upwards of $40 per chunk depending on how long you take to get there. On top of that, cooked medium meat gives a ton of nutrition and hydration. Either cooked peoplemeat should be a different, inferior item to cooked animal/dogman meat, or there should be some sort of consequences to indulging in it - health repercussions, maybe a lynch mob or something if you sell a bunch to the Junk Market ("wait, he's been feeding us WHAT? Let's kill that son of a bitch!"), whatever. On a random side note, I've noticed that wielding a reach weapon like a spear seems to let you use attacks like trips and headbutts at spear range. As funny as it is to imagine my scavenger suddenly rocketing forehead-first into an astonished looter's ribcage, I'm guessing that's not working as intended! Other than that and the weird, irritating AI behaviour that makes them constantly chase you in huge mobs to charge at you and then surrender en masse over and over and over until you eat them all to silence the screaming this is a really drat slick update. Thanks so much for all the hard work 
Angry Diplomat fucked around with this message at 22:51 on Jul 10, 2013 |
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Jul 10, 2013 20:01
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Re: enthusiastic surrenders, I'll have to check that out. A lot of folks are saying it's overused by AI and/or used illogically after a 15-range charge. Re: people meat salesman, that's an interesting outcome I hadn't considered. People meat was meant to be an "undocumented feature" for people to discover when applying a knife to a humanoid corpse, not a lucrative and easy career I like the idea of there being social consequences to it, though I'm not sure if it can be done without making a lot of parallel versions of existing meat items, conditions, recipes, etc. It's on my radar, though.Re: headbutt range with spears, that's definitely a bug! Re: trapping being OP, that might be the case now. I'll keep watching this, and may have to split or juggle skill stuff to rebalance. @Thompsons, the dropping of items when sleeping is an accidental side-effect of some recent changes. However, I kinda like it. Sneaking up on a critter means it'll wake unarmed, while alerting it beyond melee range gives it a chance to gear-up. And the forest shack definitely got a bit of nerfing. It's still has a bit more to offer than other places, so when it's good, it's great. But the chances are lower now. @Zip, glad to hear it's a hit with your friends! As Cheshire says, more content is the plan. Definitely more encounters and items, likely more creatures, and probably an unpredictable scattershot of other stuff. Thanks for all the detailed and useful feedback, guys. There are some great points and catches here! BlueBottleGames fucked around with this message at 02:28 on Jul 11, 2013 |
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Jul 11, 2013 02:25
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I actually don't mind the change to forest shacks, mostly was just concerned as to whether or not it was working as intended what with this being a new update and all  And dropping both hand items while sleeping isn't a dealbreaker or anything, but it is just kind of annoying since I'm not really used to it and sometimes leave important stuff at my campsite. It's less of an issue since carts/sleds/other vehicles are so much more common now.
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Jul 11, 2013 02:53
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I am extremely disappointed that I cannot eat and/or make coats out of Enfield Horrors  At least let me wear one's skull like a helmet to go with my dogman cloak so I can strike terror into the hearts of Thompsons posted:And dropping both hand items while sleeping isn't a dealbreaker or anything, but it is just kind of annoying since I'm not really used to it and sometimes leave important stuff at my campsite. It's less of an issue since carts/sleds/other vehicles are so much more common now. I'd like to second this. I understand the tactical significance of needing to grab one's weapon if an ambush happens while the player is asleep, but I don't see why the player doesn't automatically recover the dropped items upon awakening normally. It's a little tedious having to remember to pick them up every time, and incredibly so having to backtrack when I inevitably forget.
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Jul 11, 2013 14:41
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Another player on the forums pointed out that enemies can scoop up the dropped items before battle starts, even from great range, which somewhat ruins the immersion. I may have to change how that works after all. Re: enfield horrors, I'm actually working on a corpse for them as well. I meant to right after the humanoid one, but I must've got distracted
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Jul 11, 2013 15:29
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I need the new recipes. Want to build a bow and arrows and hunt me DEER.
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Jul 11, 2013 15:39
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Pau posted:I need the new recipes. Want to build a bow and arrows and hunt me DEER. I don't know how to make bows yet, but you can make a sharpened spear with a large branch and a cutting edge, or a broad spear with a large branch, a cutting edge, something to bind with (like a rag or strap), and the Trapping skill. You can make a hardened spear with a sharpened spear and a fire and something else that I forget. I think you can make your own arrows with a small branch, some rags or paper, a cutting edge, and possibly something to bind with.
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Jul 11, 2013 15:47
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I don't remember exactly what it was, but it was something along the lines of medium-size pliable shafts + medium string + ranged skill for bows, probably a cutting edge as well.
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Jul 11, 2013 16:01
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Thompsons posted:I don't remember exactly what it was, but it was something along the lines of medium-size pliable shafts + medium string + ranged skill for bows, probably a cutting edge as well. That's for a greenwood bow, right? I found one of those, but I've also found a bunch of compound bows. I wonder if/how one can make those. It also seems you can attach a strap to compound bows (and probably greenwood bows too). Very handy for being able to stow one on your back when not in use.
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Jul 11, 2013 16:29
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This probably sounds like a dumb question, but will there be plans on adding more craftables for food? Like being able to scavenge bread and combining it with meat, or just being able to combine ketchup with stuff?
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Jul 12, 2013 17:44
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@Thompsons, I do have plans for more food items, though I may do some more raw ingredients before food recipes. E.g. finding apples, pet food, canned cheese, etc. Combining food items may be more for morale and taste than anything else, so more of a role-playing/atmospheric thing. (E.g. ketchup plus potatoes may taste better, but in practice no different than eating the two serially) I still like the idea, though, time permitting! Re: archery, the greenwood bow is the only one that can be made via crafting. Crude arrows can be made too, though I stupidly messed up the recipe, so they won't work until next build. The compound bow can be upgraded with a strap for shoulder storage, while (iirc) the greenwood can be stowed there by default (just slip string over shoulder). Still hammering out some kinks right now. That last content dump was rife with weird bugs
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Jul 12, 2013 21:40
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Just bought the game, it seems pretty awesome. Time to scavenge my rear end off  edit: is there a way to purify all your water at once? it's pretty tedious to do it one by one and having to select your pot and campfire each time. ekuNNN fucked around with this message at 04:05 on Jul 14, 2013 |
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Jul 14, 2013 02:43
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Omg yes that is a drat fine idea. Also is the hacking skill useful and do those iPads do anything? And what's the chances we will see this on iPad. Because it is the perfect touch screen game. You'd probably make millions from it.
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Jul 14, 2013 10:25
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Zip posted:And what's the chances we will see this on iPad. Because it is the perfect touch screen game. You'd probably make millions from it. The chances are probably zero since NEO is built in Flash and Apple do not allow it on their mobile devices. I don't in anyway speak for Dan or Blue Bottle Games though so take what I say that with a grain of salt. For all I know, Dan is secretly working on porting NEO to Haxe.
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Jul 14, 2013 11:04
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Re: purifying water, there's a recipe for 2x and 3x drops at a time. It's meant to be used with the saucepan, though a bug causes the tin can to work in this case too. Also, I haven't tested it yet, but in 0.972t (the experimental download build beneath the normal download button links on bluebottlegames.com) the recent changes to crafting should make it possible to load up the inputs with as much water as one wants, and spam the "Confirm" button to repeat the same recipe. The update that keeps ingredients in place after crafting was supposed to help a bit with this. Re: hacking and iSlabs, there are a few uses for both hacking and iSlabs, but they're mostly encounter-based. They still need more love. Re: NEO Scavenger on tablets, Xik pretty much has it. Apple and Flash don't play well together, and Adobe gave up on Flash for Android. Adobe AIR is supposed to be a solution here, but most who've tried it agree the performance is unacceptable. That said, I *do* want to get NEO Scavenger onto tablets some day. I think it'd be a great fit for curling up on the couch and playing a slow-paced, strategic game on a touchscreen. Haxe may be the way to go, here, and I've dog-eared it for further investigation once NEO Scavenger PC is finished.
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Jul 14, 2013 18:42
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You are a pretty loving awesome dev you know that? Only the paradox devs are equally as awesome about answering their fanbase's questions on SA.
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Jul 15, 2013 04:19
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Are you not supposed to fix up the Exam Room in the demo? After I found the room I tried starting up a character with Electrician and Mechanics but it just seems to make the HVAC and lighting bug out when I try to examine / use them. e: Started a character with Strong/Tough/Melee/Electrician. I can examine the vent just fine, but if I try to examine the wiring it's treated as my not having selected an option. If I double-click it back and forth a couple of times it totally vanishes while still being 'there':  Same thing happens in reverse if I have Mechanics. Stelas fucked around with this message at 16:15 on Jul 15, 2013 |
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Jul 15, 2013 16:07
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@Zip, thanks! Xik was actually the one who sold me on the idea, and I'm glad I followed his advice! @Stelas, yeah, it looks like I broke the HVAC/panel options in v0.971. 0.972t seems to be working, and I'm planning on updating the both beta and demo with those fixes soon. Thanks for the heads-up!
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Jul 15, 2013 17:27
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No problem, just checking I wasn't going mad or overlooking something incredibly dumb. Thanks.
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Jul 15, 2013 19:20
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BlueBottleGames posted:Re: purifying water, there's a recipe for 2x and 3x drops at a time. It's meant to be used with the saucepan, though a bug causes the tin can to work in this case too. Also, I haven't tested it yet, but in 0.972t (the experimental download build beneath the normal download button links on bluebottlegames.com) the recent changes to crafting should make it possible to load up the inputs with as much water as one wants, and spam the "Confirm" button to repeat the same recipe. The update that keeps ingredients in place after crafting was supposed to help a bit with this. Ah, having the crafting ingredients stay in place is like the perfect solution, I'll go and install the experimental build then. I had a backpack full of bottles of water that needed to be purified and it was kinda stopping me from playing, because it felt like a chore edit: hmmm, I can't see the links to the test build underneath the download buttons? They should be here, right? 
ekuNNN fucked around with this message at 03:06 on Jul 16, 2013 |
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Jul 16, 2013 02:04
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ekuNNN posted:edit: hmmm, I can't see the links to the test build underneath the download buttons? They should be here, right? Yeah, that's where the test build was, but that test build is currently the beta build now so just grab the beta. I think Dan only did a test build this time because it had been so long since the previous build and he wanted to get feedback on new features/bugs. The test builds haven't always been a thing. Apparently there has been poo poo loads of bug fixes in this latest build, here is a summary straight from Dan:  New Beta and Demo Builds Beta and Demo changes:
Beta only updates:
 So much shiny new stuff, I've been trying to hang out and wait for release before I dump heaps of hours into it again, but it gets more difficult to wait every time I read a news post.
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Jul 16, 2013 04:18
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@Xik, "it is pointless to resist..." @ekuNNN, it turns out I'm partially wrong with my "spam the confirm button" idea. The unused ingredients stay in place, but the used ones (e.g. fire, container) move. And the confirm button disappears until the yield box is cleared. So it's not as smooth as I pictured it. This issue (tedious repeat crafting) is one which several folks have asked about, so it warrants some more thought.
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Jul 16, 2013 15:13
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Hey,Dan, just want to let you know that you're on the right track when it comes to creatures and encounters. I posted the Philip K. Dick suggestion in your forums ages ago, and still think that the setting really has that PKD post-apoc flavor. Any chance of adding more skin-walker encounters or space-related locations, like a camp/hiding spot for weredogs for the former or a relay station for the latter? Also, are you the only one doing illustrations?
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Jul 17, 2013 08:47
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Thanks LotsBread. There's definitely some PKD love in the game, though I'm admittedly a fairly uneducated PKD fan (I've probably read more *about* PKD's works than actually reading them). More encounters are on the way, and I hope to strike a healthy balance between plausibility and sci-fi/supernatural. We may see some more spiritual encounters. I think skinwalkers are more of a Navajo belief (American southwest), and are mentioned in headlines as a way to alert the player that stuff like that is going on "out there." The lakes region definitely has some cryptids and spiritualisms of its own, though. (e.g. dogmen, as you point out) And I deliberately mentioned asteroid mining in the headlines because I want players to know NEO Scavenger takes place at a time when there is/was a more established economy in space. And so far, I've been doing all the illustrations myself. In fact, just about everything, from code to writing, art, and design. I had some excellent help from Cameron on design and plot, and Josh has provided an enchanting soundtrack. However, I tend to hoard all the fun for myself where I can.
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Jul 17, 2013 15:17
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A few combat issues with the new build (to me at least, could be intentional) - how come you can have tough and strong, with something like a crowbar, vs a bandit who has tough and strong and punches.. and consistently lose? Not to mention the chain-tackling gets pretty irritating.
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Jul 17, 2013 16:55
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You've encountered a 1950s space alien! He sure looks rubber.
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Jul 17, 2013 16:56
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Re: combat, assuming there isn't a bug, it sounds like it's more a matter of strategy than character build. The way the system is setup, skills and equipment don't necessarily determine battle success, they have more impact on the duration of the encounter. And there isn't any fudging of numbers for players vs. AI, so I don't think it's anything systemic. In a one-on-one fight, the timing of moves is probably what determines the outcome. An attack on a fallen target is going to be more severe than a standing one, so if the AI is tackling you a lot, this could be part of it. Also, the AI tends to use parry and dodge when things are going sour, which is significant. Parry and dodge are almost all one needs to win a one-on-one battle, if used advantageously. Block incoming attacks until the enemy trips up, becomes vulnerable, or is recovering, and you basically get a free attack. Better yet, parry/dodge a tackle, and you have a prone target ripe for a beating. Special moves are also worth exploring. Head-butt and trip are effective on their own, but can also open the opponent up for a follow-up attack. Tackling is a risk, but also a major advantage if successful. Kicking is almost always worth it, unless you're worried about being pulled down. And both lure and throw debris can be worth the gamble. Oh, and tough/strong have little bearing on ability to land a hit. They're more about dealing/absorbing damage. Melee will make one more likely to hit, and it's not displayed on opponents. Of course, all that falls apart when it's a group vs. one. Better to run in that case
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Jul 17, 2013 17:28
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Thanks for the response, and yeah, I pretty much get all that in terms of how the combat works. The issue I have with using things like Lure is that it doesn't matter if it succeeds, the enemy still gets in whatever attack they were doing. So in terms of the combat log they can get lured, trip, but still get in a flurry blow/tackle which seems to make it almost pointless since you take a penalty for the Lure off the bat. Is there something I'm missing in that regard?
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Jul 17, 2013 17:35
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The trick to winning in melee is to get a good spear, stab everything at range 3, and run away from everything closer than range 3 until you can stab them at range 3. Dogmen can be tricky since they cover ground incredibly fast, but they like to attack-and-retreat so sometimes they'll give you giftwrapped opportunities to attack. If you think a dogman or similar is going to be able to rush in and attack you before you can gain the upper hand, parry or dodge.
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Jul 17, 2013 17:44
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The combat is designed to be simultaneous, so both combatants get their moves executed each turn. That said, moves have an execution priority, so some will happen before others. Parry and dodge are good examples, as their defensive effects can cause an attack to miss later in the execution order, while it might've hit otherwise. Most offensive moves have about the same execution order, so a tackle isn't meant to stop an impending attack. Rather, the tackle/head-butt/trip is setting up the next turn. However, it's possible that Lure is flawed in that it doesn't offer appropriate reward for the risk. The "flurry" move was a lot like that at one time: it automatically caused the attacker to lose their next turn for up to two hits, but the target was free to attack next turn. It was only after adding a "recover" to the target and extra attack that it became more worth the risk. It's also possible that I need to look into execution order and penalties a bit more. I think death and unconsciousness are the only two effects that prevent a move from executing. Maybe I need to consider fallen, stunned, or other effects.
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Jul 17, 2013 19:57
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My biggest problem with the combat as of now, is how hard it is to gauge what state you or enemies are actually in. At the beginning of my last game, I encountered a bandit shortly after leaving the cryo lab. He had a crowbar, while I had a metal pot. I decided to engage instead of running. Risky, yes, but I also had strong&tough so I chanced it. Well, I fought with him for a while, landing many good blows while only taking a few minor hits. He even fled twice, and I hunted him down. The result? When I caught up to him for the third time, I just died of internal bleeding. It's also kinda weird how much damage he could take, while I apparently was hosed as soon as he caused that internal wound. Yeah, a metal pot is clearly not as dangerous as a crowbar, but I got much more hits in(Flurry, headbuts, normal strikes.) Like, is there even a menu where I can check for conditions like that? I dominated the bandit pretty hard, only to keel over out of the blue.
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Jul 17, 2013 20:41
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Tin Tim posted:Like, is there even a menu where I can check for conditions like that? I dominated the bandit pretty hard, only to keel over out of the blue. I'm not 100% certain, since I never used the skill, but on the medical screen it says "Medic skill required to see detailed health bars", I'm assuming with the medic skill you can see which organs are spewing which liquids.
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Jul 18, 2013 00:54
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The medic skill will tell you if you're low on blood and/or in lots of pain. I don't think you can get a detailed idea of how any bandits you're fighting are doing though.
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Jul 18, 2013 01:39
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First of all, I apologize for the battle UI. It's hardly ideal, and really falls apart in multi-opponent combat. It's serviceable in one-on-one combat, but even then, clunky. I'm not sure I'll have time to properly redo it, but I'm willing to hear ideas. And if there are easy changes with big impacts, I may be able to squeeze those in sooner. That said, it *should* give you a rough idea of your and your target's health. Any condition which is realistically visible will be listed under each combatant. So bleeding and stunned show up, but internal bleeding doesn't. The "conditions" screen is where you would go to get a more detailed report on your own health. This should list anything you know about your wounds on the right side, including the medic-only bars Danaru and Ignatius mention. The wounds themselves are also displayed on the silhouette, with blood coming out where applicable, and lightning bolts fading in with more pain. If you're at melee range, though, that screen is inaccessible. There isn't really time to examine oneself and apply bandages while wrestling for one's life. In that case, the best you can do is rely on the health meter at the bottom of the stats UI along the left side of the screen. This is visible at all times, and always shows the most critical of your three health stats: pain, blood loss, and infection. E.g. if your pain and infection are green, but blood is red, it'll show red. Basically, it's a high-level meter to help one decide when to run. In theory, I'd expect that bar to be red from blood loss if you were that close to bleeding to death. I suppose it's possible you were bleeding from everywhere, and could've been green on one turn but drained the next. But if that were the case, I'd at least expect the pain to be pretty bad from all those wounds. So I agree. It sounds fishy. Were you by any chance on some hydrocodone during the battle? Maybe your pain meter was misleading from painkillers?
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Jul 18, 2013 02:40
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Tin Tim posted:My biggest problem with the combat as of now, is how hard it is to gauge what state you or enemies are actually in. At the beginning of my last game, I encountered a bandit shortly after leaving the cryo lab. He had a crowbar, while I had a metal pot. I decided to engage instead of running. Risky, yes, but I also had strong&tough so I chanced it. Well, I fought with him for a while, landing many good blows while only taking a few minor hits. He even fled twice, and I hunted him down. The result? When I caught up to him for the third time, I just died of internal bleeding. It's also kinda weird how much damage he could take, while I apparently was hosed as soon as he caused that internal wound. Yeah, a metal pot is clearly not as dangerous as a crowbar, but I got much more hits in(Flurry, headbuts, normal strikes.) The tipoff for internal bleeding is if you cough up blood. If that happens you should really try to avoid combat because it's a serious blood loss risk.
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Jul 18, 2013 07:06
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