[2020] Alpha 19 News!! -- Developer Diary and Dev Clean Thread links and commentary!

Welcome to the Alpha 19 Dev Diary. As of this time we don't even know what to call Alpha 19. It might be small named updates like "The New Combat Book Update" which could start at "19.0", with the "Vehicle Update" landing on 19.2, etc. What we do know is we're working on some new books, a vehicle update, etc but how and when we roll out what is to be determined. Hopefully it can be several point release patches to get you guys more frequent updates over 6-12 months instead of one big drop in a year.

Weapons Update All weapons will have 3 tiers.
New top tier Auto Shotgun
New mid tier Machine Gun
New low tier Junk Sledge
New top tier Junk Drone
Most pre-alpha 18 weapons have new models and textures
New Steel Fireaxe, new Steel Club.


New Books Tech Junkie Learn from MacDyver himself to build useful gadgets from common household junk!
Grease Monkey Learn to modify and craft vehicles of all shapes and sizes
Bar Brawling Learn from Irish legend "Lucky Bastard" himself and never get bested in a good ol' fashioned bar room brawl.
Spear Hunter Get connected with your inner caveman and master the forgotten art of spear hunting.

Perk tree reduction Many non combat perks didn't feel like they were worth investing into or the cost was too great for what they offered, so many perks are being reduced to 3 ranks instead of 5.

Lucky Looter: removed all digging bonuses.

New perception perk: Treasure Hunter: Become one of the greatest treasure hunters of all time learning tricks that would even make Blackbeard envious. Rank 1: Plunderer Narrow down treasure locations to 7 meters and find 10% more items in buried treasure. Rank 2: Maurader: 5 meters and 20% more items. Treasure Hunter: 3 meters and 30% more items.

The Infiltrator, Animal Tracker, The Penetrator, Lockpicking, Sexual Rex, Well Insulated, Living off the Land, Rule #1 Cardio, Run and Gun, Flurry of Blows, Parkour, Hidden Strike, From the Shadows, Daring Adventurer, Charismatic Nature, Physician will all have reductions or changes made to them. Yeah science will be removed and its perks distributed to others.

Candy Candy will be added to vending machines, making canned foods more scarce in the process. Candy has zero calories but will boost attributes or provide special abilities for a short duration, like recog and fortbites. Here are a few examples of over 10 new candy items coming to A19.

Skull Crushers
Rock hard candy that gives you a rock hard punch. Increases melee damage 50% for 2 minutes.

Atom Junkies
Atom sized candy and atomic sized power! Increase explosive damage 50% for 2 minutes.

Sugar Butts
If ifs and butts were candy and nuts every day would be Christmas! Well now it can be with one tasty Sugar Butts Candy. Increases Better Barter one rank for 2 minutes.

New super filling foods All new super foods have 0% food poisoning.
Gumbo Stew
Shepard's Pie
Spaghetti
Tuna Fish Gravy on Toast

Vehicle Update - pushed to a20 Vehicle Mods
Vehicle break down and collision system

Improved Player Animations Player arms in third person will no longer be stiff when moving with one handed tools, fists or weapons, instead their arms will move more naturally when they walk and run.

Loading Screen Tips Loading screens will come with interactive survival tips the user can advance or go back to read the next or previous tip.

Random World Gen Improvements Random biomes!

Traders now have specialized inventory All traders still sell everything, but now each one specializes in something. Joel sells armor, Jen sells meds, Bob sells vehicles and tools, Hugh sells weapons and ammo, and Rekt will sell food and seeds.

New Art Tools[pbs.twimg.com]
Stone Axe[pbs.twimg.com]
New Trader Jen. (voice updated in 18.3 by Caitlyn Glass.)
New iron club and its mods!
New twin bed and mattresses
Junk Sledge!
New Clothing racks
4 new shots for Fun Pimps Fridays!
Automatic Shotgun
Desert Eagle inspired weapon concept!
New Impact Driver
Junk Drone
Arlene's new HD model
https://twitter.com/7DaystoDie/status/1242541406993825792]The new T3 handgun unmodded and fully modded for A19![/url]
Quick look of how Arlene's new model looks in-game for A19
The new top tier sniper rifle
New player backpack model for A19
Marlene's new HD model
Sneak peek of the new ranger outpost and another shot at Arlene's new model
the new cold storage models for grocery/convenience store POI's
Updated sectional couches[discordapp.com]
New concept art for Steve, Darlene and momma zombies

--- to be continued.

Originally posted by madmole: POIs will continue to be upgraded or added. I think we are done adding new world model art for now. We're focusing on bandit modeling, upgrading trader art and zombie art as a lower priority.

Right now the roadmap I'm involved looks like this:

Dec: New books, Perk reduction (making many 5 rank non combat perks 3 ranks)
New candy items for vending machines, which will reduce food some in vending. Candy boosts attributes and skills and is not food.
Jan: Vehicle mods and crit system for vehicles and players.
Feb: Legendary items.
March: Testing/Balance.



That is just me specifically, other people are working on stuff, like DMS, POIs, quest improvements, new quest types, etc.

Release notes are in the History/Release Notes Thread

Current near daily interaction, includes off-topic commentary at times Alpha 19 Dev Diary!![7daystodie.com]
https://7daystodie.com/forums/showthread.php?135665-Alpha-19-Dev-Diary

Additional ways to track developers: https://steamcommunity.com/app/251570/discussions/0/1700542332332590347/#c1700542332332591985

a19 is not available to the public yes. I will be testing save compatibility in a bit though.

Originally posted by XEKLIMER: Thank you for continuing to update the game. It's come a long way.
Is this compatible with saves from the last alpha build?

EDIT: loaded my save and spawned with an infection that I did not have before.

Just finished some initial testing. I was able to load up a18.1 and a18.2 into a19 without any noticeable issues.

Nice improvement in hardware optimizations too.