Project Zomboid

Project Zomboid

Hydrocraft (Build 40)
Vas 12 Nov, 2019 @ 8:53pm
Suggestions for Improvement
I may have been a little harsh when I originally posted on the mod comments, was frustrated with a lot of things this mod does, and causes permanent unfix-able problems in some areas even. So, I've come to suggest some things to improve the mod.

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First)
Split the mod into modular segments.
Animals in their own mod.
Mining in its own mod.
Plants in another.
So on so forth.

Splitting the mod will allow people to pick and choose what portions they want. For example, I would like to delete the animals, because they appear to be useless and aren't worth having, and spam up the crafting grid with tons of things like the kill animal tab and other areas like adding horses to wagons which don't actually do anything by the look of it.

Feeding these animals and taking care of them constantly, for little to no gain, is pointless, so I'd rather not have this portion of the mod, freeing up load times and space in the crafting grid lowering the crafting screen's load time and saving space in the menus.

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Second)
Turn all your item structures into actual structures.

No more items that are 10 cars tall that appear behind every single structure on the map. I don't want a trade tower that's 1000 in weight, can't be moved, can't be destroyed, sitting there behind my house because I placed it in the wrong spot, or because I built a wall expecting it to appear in front of the wall.

No more carpentry bench that sits there behind walls or behind a bar desk that holds my crafting supplies. I want to build a carpentry bench into a tile like all other structures.

You have no idea how frustrating it is trying to place these structures and not have them appear behind everything in this ugly illogical manner. Not to mention some of these structures, like the carpentry bench, are pixelated as if resized up. Kinda gross to look at.

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Third)
Turn hauling units into vehicles. For example your wagon with no horses and no hood is a car that is very slow moving and has 200-250 capacity.

Add a hood, protects you from rain, made 15% slower.

Add an animal to pull it with, makes it much faster. Animals have a storage for food, and consume this food regularly.

Now you have a vehicle with a custom load-out. The wagon is the start of the vehicle, you access the maintenance of the vehicle to see that the wood wheels are 100% each, the trunk has x amount of capacity, it has two seats, and is missing certain parts that make it move faster, limiting speed, missing the roof protecting you from the elements.

Perhaps a rare chance of finding an old slightly broken version of this vehicle in farm areas instead of having to make it from scratch.

This "equip in both hands" is just not a good option, its terrible. How am I supposed to pull a wagon with me to work on a fence if I can't drop the damn thing to work on the fence because it exceeds the tile limit.

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Fourth)
Animals made generic, no more male and female, just give them a generic status, and having two means you can breed them. Having male and female causes the game to have twice as much crafting options than you need to do everything. Like for example, your wagons have a female horse version, a male horse version.

The game doesn't need to be this complicated. In fact, this step could probably be ignored if you do the third suggestion above, because then you can have it show the part "Male Horse" for Engine 2 and "Female Horse" for Engine 3. So this step mostly just helps in the event you keep using the crafting only option instead of a more real and optimized method.

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I just listed the ideas as numbers, so that they can more easily be replied to if you want to pick a number to specifically reply on. "To your third idea, this this that this". Like so.

I may have more input to add later, I can't test all of the mod, because there is no wiki to tell me what does what and how to get what. All there is, is a recipe list. Everyone who replies to me keeps telling me to use recipe lists to learn the mod. I don't need a recipe list, I need a wiki, telling me "Once you have this, you can then take it to x location and get a y and a z and do that and those to make this thing here". Not "x makes this this and that. x has a spawn chance of 0.1 whatever that means. It can't be crafted.".

I saw in one of the mod screenshots that there are brick walls and stone walls, I'd love to do that, but no idea how to.
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Showing 1-15 of 18 comments
havok6669 13 Nov, 2019 @ 9:40am 
Many of the things you are addressing are not actual issues just a lack of understanding on your behalf. Animals do plenty even if you are unaware of what they do. Horses with wagons are a very strong item you maybe missed the weight reduction on items placed inside the wagon when it has horses.
These were all seperate mods in the past many which have been discontinued but through hydrocraft they are kept working and up to date. It is a combination of mods together. I might suggest using the hydrocraft wiki to actually acquaint yourself with what items do.

http://undeniable.info/pz/wiki/itemlist.php?wherein=0&pn=1&cat=0&type=0&SEARCH=0

It would be nice if they were made into items with bounding boxes yes but there are technical hurdles to this you are unaware of trust me you aren't the first person to hope the items were made as placeable structures if you'd like to understand why they aren't maybe go to the forums for hydrocraft and read through the information there or make it a suggestion. (please read through some of the pages of information and discussion before posting)

https://theindiestone.com/forums/index.php?/topic/11557-hydrocraft-mod/page/174/

Last I checked things like the kiln do not have to be anchored (turning them to 1000 kg) to use they can be used as the item they are made as. It is a useful feature making them immovable for anyone but those with moderator powers on a server and access to infinite carry weight. This way randoms on a server can't just come alone and take your blast furnace lol plus in real life once you build a large machine or structure it often is not possible to be moved without a crane and large flatbed truck.

There is a hydrocraft wiki (linked above) it will tell you in detail all the items in hydrocraft and their stats. It is not a guide maybe you can find a steam guide for hydrocraft but as pz keeps updating and so does the mod it makes it hard to write a solid complete guide. The order you decide to do things has much to do with where you are located and what your goals are as a player so making a do this then that guide is also difficult for that reason.
I found these resources in the past with a quick google search on hydrocraft pz mod. I appreciate you are trying to improve the mod with suggestions but you should really do your due dilligence in looking into things first before posting.
Last edited by havok6669; 13 Nov, 2019 @ 9:40am
Vas 13 Nov, 2019 @ 1:36pm 
I used that wiki to check the horses and wagon stats. The wagon with no roof and no horse is 400 cap 100% reduction. Wagon with roof, same. Wagon with horses, same. Wagon with ox, same. Wagon with horse and roof, same. Wagon with ox and roof, same.

Thats what the wiki says about them, adding the horses does nothing.

The mod can be kept alive without combining it all into one mod. Its just a tiny bit more work updating a modular mod because all you have to do is click upload a few more times.
Vas 15 Nov, 2019 @ 12:03am 
Also, if one of the limitations you are thinking of is that you can't make a structure required in crafting, I don't believe this to be true.

However, if that is the case, design a new UI, right click the crafting station, and load up a crafting UI specific to that crafting station, not showing any other results other than things that can only be done in that structure.
DemolitionDerby  [developer] 15 Nov, 2019 @ 8:29am 
@Vas The main point you seem to be missing is that Hydrocraft is developed for free and each person contributing to the mod does so on their own time.

I agree with havoc6669 in the way that you obviously did not scroll far enough to see the hundreds of posts asking the same thing as you and the hundreds of replies that followed.

It’s easy to say “just do this” or “just do that” but are you aware that any Zomboid update has a risk of breaking any mechanics of the mod and there is a certain limit on the investment of time that everybody is willing to put in.

So much effort has been put in the mod just to see it break after a base game update.

“Heavy” features like having static workbenches has been a want on our side forever but the amount of work that this would require is just ridiculous just to adapt the thousands of recipes to work on a “workbench system” that dosent even exist in the base game. So it would have to be coded from scratch....and since this game is still in early access, all those efforts could go to waste just because the base game received an update that broke something.

I hear you and we would very much like to have this, but it is nowhere close of being a priority for now.

You also clearly do not understand how to use the wiki website.

As for having a wiki that goes over every things that can be done in the mod, care to write it?

This mod was initially intended to have a rather steep learning curve and progress and one of the ideas was for players just to look and discover things by themselves.

Once you understand how the wiki works, you will see it is much easier.

Last minute edit: It was also discussed about “splitting” the mod into multiple parts but it defeats the very purpose of the mod, plus maintaining 10 mods is just not an interesting thing as it does not simply consist of taking a batch of recipes and shoving them in another mod.
Last edited by DemolitionDerby; 15 Nov, 2019 @ 8:39am
Vas 15 Nov, 2019 @ 3:18pm 
Understand the wiki? Its easy. Its an auto exported list of recipes and items. None of which are explained, all it does is say "this makes this, and this can be made by this this and that" "This has a 0.1 chance to spawn in this this and those, whatever 0.1 means, could be percentage, could be decimal percent meaning 10% but who knows cause we didn't explain it!"

So tell me, why is adding animals to a wagon useless according to the wiki?

Wagon with no animal no roof 400 storage 100% reduction 2 handed.
Wagon with roof no animal 400 storage 100% reduction 2 handed.
Wagon with animal no roof 400 storage 100% reduction 2 handed.
Wagon with animal and roof 400 storage 100% reduction 2 handed.

Why add an animal or a roof if it doesn't do anything to benefit the player at all? A roof would logically make the wagon heavier, an animal should logically make the wagon both lighter and carry more. However, I was only looking at the stats on the site, not in game, because its ridiculously complex to make and I have to click each thing in the wiki to figure out wtf makes what and then I have to figure out how the fck I'm supposed to make that in game and wonder what the hell spawn rate of 1 means, whether its 1% or its 100%. I presume its 1% since some numbers go above 1.

There's a problem with leaving your structures as items on the ground. I hear that the server deletes old items when there are too many on the ground. Imagine you have 6 people playing and 3 of them are going around dropping trash on the ground in places they loot. Or what I do when I get back is I drop all items on the floor around my base so my friend can sort, like 300-500 items. The server will inevitably clean up old things. What happens to those admin placed trade posts? Or carpentry benches people placed? For that matter, how do you destroy structure you no longer want. Can't sledge hammer hydrocraft structures. Admin commands can't delete items on the ground that weigh 50+.

Worse still, these structures always ALWAYS appear behind all other structures, a fridge sitting on top of a trade tower, walls going through the middle of it. Its impossible to build a nice looking base around these things.

I've looked at the game code myself to see if I can figure out how to fix it myself, but the developer appears to have hidden all structure code. I can't find any files that relate to picking up structures of any kind, or even set the storage capacity of them. Unless all these files are hidden within the .class section that can't be read.
DemolitionDerby  [developer] 16 Nov, 2019 @ 5:01am 
To be honest, it is possible that some recipes are inconsistent or problematic because they are bugged and need adjustment, I would not be a le to go into details at this very moment as I do not have the mod in front of me, ill get back to you on that.

Servers do not delete items unless you specifically set the exact items you would like the server to cleanup, simply said, the workbench is not in the cleanup list, itll stay there forever so if it gets deleted, it is intentional by the server admin. Never saw anything about a limit of stuff on the ground either (might be wrong)

Lots of base game code is still compiled as java too so some stuff is not really moddable for the time being.

The clipping issue started happening I think on Build 40, might be 39. Base game issue. It has been resolved in Build 41, no more stuff clipping through walls.

There is a lot of things to be done and tweaked in the mod which does make it a bit more difficult and longer to deal with everything as the team is small, in all honesty and by all means, we are always happy to invite other people to contribute so if you would like to bring your own modifications, provided that they are aligned with the rest of Hydrocraft, the mod is on GitHub so that other people can easily share their fixes/modifications.

Don’t know how Git works? Dosen’t matter. If there really is some stuff that you would like to see fixed faster than we can do it and you are able to do so, we can invite you on our Discord server so that you will be able to just send us the modified files so that it can be added.

Also, if you would like to test the mod without having to go through the crafting, you can actually start the game in Debug mode (use -debug launch parameter) and you will be able to spawn items as you wish.

When the game is started in debug, you will have an extra button on the left and by clicking on it, it will pop the debug menu with all the options.

Spacemarine 18 Nov, 2019 @ 3:31am 
friend I already did all the hydrocraft online, your complaints are valid but you can not take anything, it really needs to be fixed,
DemolitionDerby  [developer] 18 Nov, 2019 @ 5:44am 
@spacemarine I’m not sure I understand what you mean, what needs to be fixed?
Hydromancerx  [developer] 18 Nov, 2019 @ 4:35pm 
Hydrocraft was made to link various mods together and as such they now depend upon each other to make new unique things. Seperating it back out into seperate mods is just not possible anymore. At least not with loosing a whole lot of features. Likewise like what Demo said maintaining constiantancy between a bunch of mods makes so much more work for little to no pay off.

As for making things into physical items. We have tried before and it was super glitchy. In short Hydrocraft is a s huge as it is because we found that way around it. Its not perfect but it allows us to do a lot more for less effort

Lastly the base game is still in development. I have seen previews for actual deer in the game. So stuff like animals might get phased out for base game ones. But for now they are just static objects.
Hydromancerx  [developer] 18 Nov, 2019 @ 4:38pm 
On a side note about items clipping. That use to not be a problem. But like i said things change in the base game. But i hear it has been resolved in build 41.
Vas 18 Nov, 2019 @ 8:12pm 
One thing I dislike about Hydrocraft is it adds so much junk to the forage system, I can't find rocks anymore. I foraged hundreds of times trying to find chipped stone or a few stone, never did.

Perhaps you can add a new option to foraging that lets me checkbox "search for stone materials" so I can get stone, chipped stone, and other items one might find when looking for rocks? Like perhaps a rare chance of finding some sort of ore rock laying around, I dunno.

The biggest problem I have though is that everyone just links a recipe list and tells me to figure out the mod based on that. There's no guide to tell me the natural progression, people say its designed to be stupidly complex and impossible to figure out which is probably why I'm very annoyed with it all the time. Hell I tried out the quarry for the first time, and was extremely disappointed. You gotta have a powered drill with some huge battery, can't just charge that battery off of house power or a generator or anything, and it only gets 8 stone before its dead. Uberly disappointing. To make the charging station, I have to figure out how to go through an extremely complex list of recipes to find something that I can actually make. I just can't find it worth my time anymore. :/

Unfortunately, I'm stuck with the mod, because portions of it are wanted by users of the server and the admins.

I see there used to be some sort of stone wall in the mod, I spent forever trying to figure out how to make that so I could all up my base like a medieval fortress, but apparently that was removed too. :/
Vas 18 Nov, 2019 @ 8:14pm 
Anyway, I'm just having immense difficulty trying to figure out the mod, and everyone seems to just link a recipe list instead of any sort of guide. Then they face palm when I say "A recipe list is not a guide".

I do hope we can find ways to solve some of these problems to make things a little more logical and easy so that it doesn't take a physisist to figure out how to do things in your mod. (Can't spell check in Steam cause steam client blows)
DemolitionDerby  [developer] 18 Nov, 2019 @ 8:36pm 
@Vas The best I could suggest is to take your time and explore the mod one small thing at a time. Just play, read the recipes books and explore the crafting menu, at some point you will find something that you want to do and you will be able to help yourself a bit on the “wiki” website by seeing the “recipe progression” and what is needed one step at a time to make the specific item that you want.

Use the favorites in the crafting menu but keep the list small as it’s easy to lose track of what you are doing.

For example, if you want to make a Blast Furnace. You will need quite a few machines to make the actual furnace so you find each of those machines, and add them to your favorites so they are easier to track down and stay focused on what you want to do.

The mod is not about rushing toward getting equipped super fast, on the contrary.

I have quite a few hundreds of hours in Hydrocraft and I’ve been working on the mod for a while and I still find stuff I didn’t know about lol
Last edited by DemolitionDerby; 18 Nov, 2019 @ 8:38pm
Hydromancerx  [developer] 18 Nov, 2019 @ 11:20pm 
@vas there are also tutorials on YouTube that explain many of the systems. Some are even linked above.
Vas 19 Nov, 2019 @ 3:53am 
I have very low data capability, its why I look for guides on wikis and such. Plus it takes forever to go through a video tutorial, you can't go back and reread something, you have to go figure out where in the video the thing was referenced, then you gotta redownload that portion of the video, then you gotta wait 10 minutes to load it, then you watch it again and skip to another part all over again repeating the process.
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