Tag: Smelting

Thursdays, Footings, Patch

Thursdays, Footings, Patch

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Hey Bumfuzzlers! I’ve got a few updates for ya as we head into this month’s first wipe! We’ve got a patch coming today which should give us some new goodies, I’ve made some tweaks and we’ve got the results of the 5 week wipe cycle situation, plus more custom map talk! Read on.

Player Skins (Modtopia)

Not sure if you know it, but you can buy skins and set them as default (/skin shop) so that anytime you craft certain items, you’ll get the skins you love! This is great if you’re very particular and like having your boxes and doors all the same skin or have an outfit you enjoy!

I’ve made a couple of small changes:

  • Purchasing skins now cost 100 RP instead of the old 1 RP. This was done to match the recent changes to the store and economy.
  • I’ve excluded a couple of skins that shouldn’t have been available due to them being Skin Perks.

Smelting (Modtopia)

I’ve slowed smelting and lowered the charcoal byproduct ever so slightly. You shouldn’t see a massive difference, but I’m hoping it will slow the aggression down just a little.

Foundations (Modtopia)

Foundation wiping is real! LOL, I’ve seen several situations where players sign on and no trace of their structures could be found! So I’m trying to make some changes to reduce the possibility of that happening. I love raiding, but it’s no fun to have your base foundation wiped every other day. It also bypasses the defenses and structure people build into their bases!

To directly tackle this, I’ve raised the health of foundations again. It was set to 150% of the original health, but now I’ve upped it to 200% of the original health. This should give incentives to raid using other means and it should also give more time for decay to happen after a cupboard is destroyed. This way players who are raided might have the chance to salvage something.

Gathering

I’ve been doing the math on gathering wood, stone and the like and I found room for some adjustments here and there.

I’ve made the following changes:

  • Gathering resources during the day was reduced by about 3%
  • Gathering resources at night was reduced by about 8%
  • Lowered Zlevel points gained at night by about 66% so you’ll gain points and earn levels faster, but it’s not astronomical.

You shouldn’t notice a massive difference. I’m just making slight adjustments to find the sweet spot. Keep in mind while gathering at night was lowered a little, there’s still around a 10% boost for night gathering and of course the quarries are boosted at night too!

Wipe (Modtopia)

This January we had 5 Thursdays which means this last cycle, was 3 weeks instead of 2. The next time this will happen in 2019 is in May, August and October. So I took a poll in Discord.

The poll in Discord was overwhelmingly in favor of the idea that in months where the last wipe cycle is 3 weeks long, we’re going to wipe, but likely we’ll wipe with an experimental custom map. The next time this will happen is in May, August, and October!

Next Patch

There’s a lot of very interesting items surfacing that may make their way into the February 7th patch.

  • HBHF (Heartbeat Breathing Humidity Footstep) Sensor: Electrical component that detects players, using line-of-sight, who come within a certain range of it.
  • Rand Switch: Electrical component that sends a random true or false signal to other electronic devices.
  • Siren Light: Electrical component that shows a circular red warning signal.
  • Flasher Light: Electrical component that flashes a light.
  • Oil Rig Monument: Large and small oil rig monuments.

  • RF Receiver: Electronic component that works like a switch used with a detonator
  • Detonator: Electronic component used to trigger electronic components using RF Receivers.
  • RF Broadcaster: Electronic component that broadcasts a message.
  • RF Pager: Electronic device carried with the player to receive the RF Broadcaster signal.
  • Minicopter: Findable 2-seat copter, fueled by low-grade fuel and targetable by SAM sites.

I’m certainly looking forward to the next patch and seeing what you Bumfuzzlers think about wiping with a custom map for the last week of these 3-week wipe cycles. Until then, have fun out there and continue to give me feedback!

I’ve just recently installed the mapping tools and if I have time, I might be beginning to work on a custom map just for Modtopia 🙂 Should be fun.

Rodeo, Melting, Abodes

Rodeo, Melting, Abodes

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Hey Bumfuzzlers! I hope you had a great Christmas and are starting off the New Year by resolving to play more Rust! 🙂 I have a bunch of updates for you (probably more than usual due to the holidays) on topics like treasure, rodeos, trading enhancements, home improvements, store changes, kit delays, skin perk availability, smelting and more! Read on!

Dangerous Treasure (Modtopia)

The /dtd events are lots of fun and it’s a great source of quality loot, but maybe the loot was just a little too good. You’d pretty much get nothing but ammo and guns! To make it a little less absurd, I slightly nerfed the event’s loot so that it still gives great ammo and guns, but it also gives a couple of other items so it won’t be so saturated. The event itself is now also slightly less common so it will hopefully become more valuable. I’d like to see more competition for it.

Here’s what was changed:

  • Increased timing of event from between 2 and 3 hours to between 4 and 6 hours
  • Added a couple other loot items to the mix so rare loot is not so concentrated

Home Improvement (Modtopia)

You may have noticed that Homes (/home) has gotten a few new features. Now not only will you see your remaining daily uses in the upper left corner, but you can now delete homes straight from the interface which makes life much easier to hang your hat.

To delete homes, type /home and click delete. You’ll notice each home shows a small red delete button next to the home. Simply click that red delete button next to the home and poof! It’s gone! 🙂

Zambies (Modtopia)

With the increased map size from a few wipes back (went from 3500 to 4000), zambies needed some adjustment. At the same time, I fiddled with some other settings as well. I like the idea of ‘world danger’ so going out into the wilderness poses the possibility of dealing with something unexpected.

I’ve changed the following:

  • I upped the hordes from 15 to 20 to make zambie sightings more frequent.
  • Their loot items will now range from 2 to 4 items instead of the previous 1 to 4
  • I’ve upped their roam area from 50 meters to 500 meters
  • I’ve raised their speed multiplier from 0 to 0.25 (it’s a fairly small increase, players can still outrun them)
  • I fixed the weird names that were showing in kill messages. Now it just says Zambie again.

Keep in mind the items the zambies carry are great for quests (/q) which give you access to hard to find items!

The Rodeo

Up until now, you could only ride horses, but now you can ride any animal you’d like! Yes, you can even ride chickens and bears 🙂

The command has changed from /stophorse to /tame to make it simpler, but other than that it works the same! Simply type /tame and any animal within 25 meters will stop into a calm submissive state for a short bit of time. Just press your Activate key (typically E) and you’ll mount the animal. Press SPACEBAR to dismount.

  • Animals will stay stopped for 5 seconds
  • Animals are invincible when riding and when they’re stopped

If you forget and type /stophorse don’t worry, the bot has your back 🙂

Trading Safely (Modtopia)

Previously when trading you had to trust that the other person’s item was in good condition. There was always a possibility your trading partner was selling you a broken or busted salvaged ax and you were paying top dollar for mint condition! Well, no more. Now, in the trade window, you should see the condition of the items being traded!

Hunting Food (Modtopia)

Because of the map size increase, animals were a little scarce. I’ve raised boar counts by 15%. This was really a quick fix for the situation, but I’ll put more thought into it down the road. I might consider exchanging boar counts with stags or horses to make it slightly harder for hunters or maybe just lower the boar count a little bit. It’ll depend on how easy hunting becomes.

Stacking (Modtopia)

It appears the Incendiary 12 gauge ammunition was only stacking to 64. Now it’s up to 256 as the others are.

Thanks for the feedback CannonFodder.

Jason Vorhees (Modtopia)

I have to be honest. I love that Jason terrorizes you all. You can see a tiny smile on my face when I see players saying things like “Jason Bumfuzzler sucks” or “Bumfuzzler you Jason!” When I see “[Death Notes] Jason Vorhees experimented with <InsertPlayerNameHere>.” in the server console, it’s clear Jason has done his job. The problem is, he has gotten a little predictable and we can’t have that!

I’ve changed Jason in the following ways:

  • Roam range changed from 2000 to 2500
  • Radius changed from 250 to 500

This should ensure Jason is less likely to be where he was last time you saw him and will move around the map more often. Watch your back out there 🙂

C4 Availability (Modtopia)

For a while, we’ve had C4 in airdrops and I believe this is where many are getting it at the beginning of a wipe. Thing is, it shouldn’t be so available. Timed Explosives are the most coveted item in Rust! Because of that, I’ve gone ahead and removed C4 from airdrops for now, but will toy with whether or not I can make it less common in the airdrops in a realistic way.

Right now, destroying the Bradley or the SuperHeli gives you the best possibility of finding C4, but it is out there in loot like the other items.

Ladder Availability

At first, I considered lowering the rarity of wooden ladders in the loot to 2 (it was 3 which is rare, 2 is uncommon), but I changed my mind and set them back to rare. I had removed the blueprint from the store the last wipe so it wasn’t as easy to get a hold of them. My intention was to reduce the raiding on the first few days and I think that’s still a noble goal so I’ll leave it as is for now.

Keep in mind you can recycle a Ladder Hatch to get one.

Thanks, Slim Jim for your feedback.

Store Changes (Modtopia)

I made some immediate changes, but other changes won’t come until the wipe at the beginning of February. My goal is to make it take just a little bit longer to get blueprints, especially for guns and ammo. Again, I’d like to hold back the raiding for a day or two.

As of now, I’m planning to make the following changes:

Doubling the cost of items in the following sections (taking effect on February 7th wipe):

  • Tool blueprints
  • Construction blueprints
  • Attire blueprints
  • Traps blueprints

Tripling the cost of items in the following sections (taking effect on February 7th wipe):

  • Ammo blueprints
  • Weapon blueprints

Added the following items (taking effect on February 7th wipe):

  • Jackhammer blueprint

Removed the following blueprints (changes already made):

  • Code Lock blueprints
  • Sheet metal door blueprints
  • Sheet metal double door blueprints
  • Wood double door blueprints

Removed the following items (changes already made):

  • Christmas door wreath
  • Christmas lights
  • Festive doorway garland
  • Festive window garland
  • Jack o lantern angry
  • Jack o lantern happy
  • Scarecrow
  • Skull fire pit
  • Snowman
  • Binoculars
  • Chainsaw
  • Flare
  • Flashlight
  • Torch
  • Water jug
  • Large banner hanging
  • Large banner on a pole
  • Frog Boots

I’m still trying to find time to expand the store’s ability to allow the selling of special skin items. I’m hoping to get to it soon.

Kit Delays

In an effort to regulate loot at the start of a wipe, the server will have delayed usage on a couple of kits.

The following kits will be unavailable for the first 2 days of wipes:

  • Subscriber: gives you 3 supply signals for subscribing to www.bumfuzzler.net
  • Signal: gives you 1 supply signal
  • M249: VIPs (Level 25, 10,000 loyalty points /loyalty) get an M249 kit

You can still vote once per day to get a supply signal and you can earn the player challenges (/pc) to earn kits in those first two days.

Hopefully, this creates a gathering & building phase without the ability to get crazy loot too soon.

Special Skins (Modtopia)

Now that I removed the special Skin Perk items from the store, it’s essential you’re able to find them out in the world. Unfortunately, you could find the 1.25x items out there quite often, but the 1.5x and 2.x were really rare.

It used to be that your odds for finding special items were as follows:

  • 1x = 41% chance
  • 1.25x = 33% chance
  • 1.5x = 26% chance
  • 2x = 6% chance

Now, the odds are much more even, but still following the rarity model:

  • 1x = 40% chance
  • 1.25x = 30% chance
  • 1.5x = 20% chance
  • 2x = 10% chance

So, the odds of getting a normal item is still around 40%, but the chances that you’ll get a 1.5x or 2x item is much higher now while still being rare.

Thanks, bogarum for the feedback

Server Restarts

I noticed a few performance issues here and there so decided to add back the second restart we used to have, but I’m trying to figure out the best time for it. The early morning restart at 4 AM seems ok as this is a low traffic time, but I want to have one near 180 degrees from that time that won’t interrupt people’s gaming. I set it to 12 noon, but I’m not sure how it’s working for you all. Let me know if it’s interrupting or if you think the old setting of 4pm and 4am EST is easier.

Thanks for the feedback CannonFodder.

Smelting

After the last patch, an issue with the Smelting plugin arose, it was updated, but it wasn’t fixed. So I switched plugins to one that should have been more advanced functionality, except that has some issues too. I’ve ironed most of the issues out such as food burning and extreme slowness on smelting, but now the settings seem to use far more wood and produce more slowly. I’ve heard feedback from many of you that you like it the way it is so I may leave it for now and see how it goes.

Let me know how you all feel about it.

Thanks, CannonFodder for noticing the original issue.

Bumfuzzler Art

To finish up the post, I thought it’d be fun to include a little Bumfuzzler art by bogarum. Nice job capturing the spirit of Bumfuzzler! 🙂

Thanks to all you Bumfuzzlers for your feedback as always. I really appreciate it. Keep it coming as we continuously attempt to balance this crazy game of Rust! It’s such an ongoing battle that seems to never end! Keep in mind there’s a wipe coming on Thursday 1/17, but it will just be a map wipe which is typical of middle-of-the-month wipes. Have fun out there!

Goods, Melt, Build

Goods, Melt, Build

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Hey Bumfuzzlers, I have some changes to report on! We’ve just wiped Modtopia today and I’ve got some massive changes to zambies, kits, loot, crafting, smelting and the wipe cycle! Dig in!

Map Size (Modtopia)

For the last couple map wipes I’ve been going with a size 2700 map and this week is no different. I figured I’d give it a shot for a while and see if there’s any interesting increased action. Next wipe on September 6th will be a large map. I’m thinking 3000 or 3500. This is due to the wipe cycle changing.

Zambies (Modtopia)

Due to the map size reduction, I’ve lowered the amount of zambies to 10 hordes of 15 zambies max. This should ensure players don’t spawn into a group of the undead and that it’s manageable if you get caught off guard. As the map size increases again I’ll be increasing the zambies also, but it will be proportional.

Backpack Issue (Modtopia)

It turns out medium backpacks weren’t working for Level 21, 22, 23 and 24. Not sure what caused it, but fiddling with permissions fixed it. Now we’re all good and you early 20 levels can carry more stuff as planned!

Thanks to Slim Jim for reporting the issue!

Loot Tables (Modtopia)

I’ve been wanting to drastically change the server for a while. It seems like there’s no difficulty in gaining access to items and that’s probably due to the fact that there’s a 5 times multiplier on all loot. Well, I’ve gone and reset the loot back to the original settings with the expectation that I would increase them back up a little over time. Scrap is slightly more increased, but I still have to work on that a bit. Due to this reduction I’ll be changing the wipe cycle at the next wipe.

Kit Changes (Modtopia)

I’ve removed some of the default kits like Build, Weapons and Medical. This is in line with what I mentioned above regarding the reduction of items in the world. The other kits still exist so Trump kits and challenges will still pack a punch to your inventory.

Smelting (Modtopia)

Along with the loot and kit changes, I’ve increased the time it takes to smelt resources. The multiplier was set to 2.5, but I’ve lowered it to 1.5. Sure as the other items are subject to change so is this, but I felt that players were quickly getting access to crafted items far too quickly.

Crafting (Modtopia)

Yes. You may hate me for a few moments (don’t make me cry!), but I’ve slightly increased the time it takes to craft items. Seriously it doesn’t feel like it’s that much increased.

Now it will take 25% of the default crafting speed. It shouldn’t be harsh, but it won’t insta-craft. Again, I don’t want people have 50 c4 and 200 rockets on the second day of the wipe. It’s just too outrageous. It also makes things a bit less valuable.

Wipe Cycle (Modtopia)

Along with these changes, as soon as we wipe on September 6th, we’ll switch over to a 1 month wipe cycle. This will make the reduced item count a little easier to swallow as players will now have more time to build and such. Mind you, by next week, I hope to increase items a little bit and hopefully I get feedback from players so I know if it’s tolerable or they are freaking out.

While I make these changes, please bear with me and provide me with feedback. If you hate it, let me know. If you love me let it show. I want to try to make the server a little more serious than just an experimental sandbox server and give players a reason to struggle just a little bit more than they do now.

 

Protection, Prestige, Blacklist

Protection, Prestige, Blacklist

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Hello Bumfuzzlers! Again I have some pretty big changes for you to be aware of! We have some nicey nice updates to the interface, smelting adjustments courtesy of the latest patch apparently, signage punishment, offline raid protection, raid sympathy, and the toughening up of Mr. Jason Vorehees! Buckle up! 🙂

Info Toolbar (Modtopia)

With the addition of the recent patch’s compass, it screwed up the toolbar a little bit. The toolbar I’m talking about shows the time, player count, heli/airdrop/radiation indicator, currency, coordinates and direction. So, I had to painfully arrange it. At the same time, I figured I’d take the time to make it look nicer with color images, adjust the font sizes, etc.

It still needs more tweaking, but it’s good for now. I hope you like it!

Melting & Smelting (Modtopia)

When the patch hit, it apparently doubled all of the output and speed of the furnaces 🙁 I’m unsure if this was the patch itself or the plugin I was using to control smelting. Some of you surely got away with some good cookin’, but now, I’ve cut production and even a little speed as well.

The by product, like charcoal and high quality metal, should now be back down to a realistic output and as I mentioned I lowered the speed just a little. I’ll likely tweak this slightly higher by next wipe, but we’ll play it by ear. I was just concerned with ensuring resources weren’t out of control.

I’m going to possibly consider changing smelting plugins so that I can better control the way it’s all handled. For instance, I can foresee large furnaces not only holding more items (as they do already), but maybe yielding more returns and smelting much faster.

Thanks for heads up MrNiceGuy!

Sign Blacklist

Too many fools, too little time. I’m getting a little tired of people making signs that are just downright evil. So I have a present for everyone including those fools.

If you’re found making signs that are vulgar, racist or the like, I will personally deface your sign to make it something I doubt you’d want, and I’m going to add you to a list so you can’t work with signs again. No mercy! Grow up or shut up! 🙂

Jason Vorhees

It appears the zambies are killing Jason. He doesn’t have a chance. All these Freddy vs. Jason movies were somewhat balanced (even though I think Jason is the man — or err something of man), but this zambie vs. Jason setup just ain’t!

I’ve adjusted Jason in the following ways to give him a chance against the zambies:

  • Health raised by 250 for a total of 750
  • Damage raised by .1
  • Accuracy raised by .1
  • Now that I have more control over agression:
    • Aggro range is 100
    • Deaggro range is 50

Hopefully this means you can find him in places other than beneath piles of zambies!

Raid Protection

You’ve been warned! Raid Protection is dropping for some of you. As of this post, I’ll be reducing the Anti-Offline Raid Protection to Prestige levels 1-9 (/loyalty). This should give newer players protections for a short while, but remove it from the more savvy, veteran players. Hopefully this results in more grown up Bumfuzzlers!

This means, as soon as you hit Level 10 (Legitimate), you’ll no longer have Anti-Offline Raid Protection (!offline). Be careful out there!

Additionally, to compensate for some easier raiding, I’ll be further modifying Raid Sympathy.

Raid Sympathy

Until now, Raid Sympathy has been set to 75%. This means if someone destroys your base during a raid, you’d get 75% of the resources back for walls, furnaces, boxes, doors, etc.

Due to the reduction in Anti-Offline Raid Protection, I’m going to increase the Raid Sympathy to 100%. It’s still not much because when people raid, you only lose some resources through destruction. Most of it’s from losing your loot. However, it is nice to get some goodies back!

Cross-hair

It turns out Prestige Level 14 and Level 15 (/loyalty) were unable to use cross-hairs. I’ve resolved this thanks to feedback from Doc and JoePerry. Aim away!

Prestige Levels

I’ve made a few adjustments to the Prestige levels by assigning various permissions across a few levels instead of just giving them out like candy to all players.

Here are the changes:

  • Level 1 – Level 10
    • Anti-Offline Raid Protection
  • Level 9
    • Tame horses, extend your inventory
    • Trigger multiple C4 at once (!tec)
  • Level 12
    • Easily grab loot with Loot All box function
  • Level 14
    • Tame wolves, extend your inventory
  • Level 16
    • Tame stags, extend your inventory
  • Level 17
    • Create an automatic dump box
  • Level 21
    • Tame bear, extend your inventory

SuperHeli

Originally, players complained the SuperHeli was always hanging around so I dropped it’s lifespan from 15 to 7 minutes. Unfortunately, I believe this caused an unintended consequence. What might be happening is that at 7 minutes, whether you’re in a battle with the chopper or not, it flies away. For the Bumfuzzler who is fighting a smoking, nearly destroyed SuperHeli, that can be frustrating!

I’ve increases the time one more minute to 8 minutes. It’s not much, but it’s something. I’ll adjust it more and more in time as needed to get the balance right. Thanks Obey Mike Opp for the feedback!

Thanks all you Bumfuzzlers for the feedback and your loyalty (/loyalty). Please have fun out there and let me know if you need anything!