So, my safehouse has been over run, so I decide to re-board up the door, so no more could go in. I fight, lose, and leave.

The next day, I go back to the safehouse, and there are more zombies. HOW? I re-barricade the door, did they phase through? I think that once you board the barricade back together, no more zombies should randomly appear inside, as well, WHERE are they coming from?

My suggestions:

1) Lookout Posts should be used to shoot zombies outside your barricades. attacking from this vantage point provides protection from zombies and should be limited to rifles and sniper rifles.
Every level increased by the lookout tower increases how many blocks further you can see and snipe zombies.

2) The introduction of a Kitchen wherein you can cook foods rather than eating them raw to gain a Hunger Bonus at the cost of SP

3) The Water Purifier would serve as a work here and gain X money or X fresh water depending on whatever seems more acceptable. It either satiates your need for Money or Hunger depending on circumstances.

4) The introduction of a Clan "Bank", or to be more precise, Charity. Basically, you can give some money to the Bank and gain some XP for your troubles. Where does the money go? Clan leaders as well as certain entitled members can access the money for purchase of Construction materials to upgrade the safehouse and for allocating funds to build new safehouses in other maps.

5) The introduction of the old wild west Caravan system - A small number of survivors wishing to travel between different safehouses can ride the Clan's Caravan so that you can earn some money by protecting the vehicle and gain free transportation to the safehouse of your choice. This option is mostly AI controlled as you cannot cancel while the trip is going on. Travel is slower than going on foot, considering the large numbers of people will undoubtedly invite incoming zombies, not to mention engine failure and other interruptions.
You will lose some ammo if your primary weapon is a gun or lose some hunger if your weapon is a melee. But you will be rewarded with money based on the difficulty of the trip.
Clanhouses may need to supply the caravan vehicle with gasoline or maintenance to keep it in good running condition.

6) The implementation of an Auction House where players can sell they're wares to other players.
They can simply drop off the items they wish to auction, and collect the money once they have been notified by mail that a transaction has been made.

@ rickenbacker95,,,
I see where that is going to be a nasty problem. I really do not know how to help.
@ Carlv,,,
I love some your ideas, but some will prove to be bad ideas.
1. Look out post idea sounds great but honestly its a bad idea. It means anyone in a clan house can make EXP with no cost other then ammo. This is a blow against lone wolves who can't do this, and it means people can literally do nothing but snipe from the lookout post and train. Only having to come out of the safehouse to look for food maybe 1 time a week. I think ultimately it is a bad idea, but I love the idea myself.
Maybe look out posts can up your chance for scavenging for X amount of time after surveying the area?
2. I like it, and have added many suggestions to this as well in other threads
3. Again, I like it, and glad to see some place added in safehouses to work.
4. My issue with this is it would have to be strictly limited to construction materials, so those "incharge" didnt go arming and armoring themselves to the teeth with clan money.
5. I like the jest of this idea, but why AI it? If I might make an alteration to your idea?
Use this idea for both player travel at 0 SP cost and for moving construction materials from safehouse to safehouse. If food and water can be produced in clan houses allow that as well. The way it works is you have to go square by square and fight anything in your way. The % of random attacks are increased by the weight or amounts you are carrying. 100lbs and 1 player doubles your %, 2 hundred lbs and 2 players triples your %, with 400 lbs and 4 players max and a quadruple of the %. This is where it gets tricky. You have to fight from point A to point B. your movement is not controled by you and must be the shortest distance between the 2 points. You can heal and use items brought with you, but can not stop at a store to stock up on supplies as when you stop the zeds will be there is droves and you can not get away. I can see it costing you gass for the vehicle, and even the vehicles would need replacing or repair after every trip due to the zeds smelling fresh meat and tearing it apart looking for the riders. I can see it increasing the safehouse attacks for X amount of turns of filling up all the Zed slots. There is alot you can do with it.
As for being defeated while caravaning, the player awakes in an alley where he was thrown from the wreck, all supplies are lost for good as if dropped, all players traveling are treated as having walked away from their PC's and when they return they will be where the caravan was defeated with a line of zombies on them they must defeat and then return home. This could give rise to the garage in the safehouses for storing and rebuilding vehicles, but it limits the use of them to just safe house to safehouse travel, and make a high cost for doing so as it cost gass, and repair and replacement every use.
6. I like this idea as well but the prices should be set by the server, not the players. That way there is no way for players to cheat the system. You should not be able to tell who put what on the market and such. You can also do this as a clan facility. It sets the price just like a shop. we can use the 1191 custom pital as an example. Normal shop sell price is 3000 and buy price is 5000. To sell or buy it in the clan house you get 2800 for it and it cost 5400. When you level up the clan house facility the price change more in the players favor until at max level its the same price as the shop. The only thing is ONLY things sold to the shop can be bought from the shop.

**edit**
To clarify #5
Those wanting to "travel" for free do not fight but ride, only the 1 player leading the caravan fights. He has an SP cost only those riding face no SP cost. If the leader runs out of SP the caravan stalls and is lost. You would enter a room in the safehouse to "prepare". the leader when ready starts the process and all players in the "prepare" state and all goods loaded will be transfered and the trip begins. When the trip is over the players "riding" will be standing inside the safehouse on next log in.

@carlv_chua

If you could keep #6 inside the clan, it would be a perfect way to arm newer members, perfect ways to get rid of arms you no longer need while helping push your clan forward.

@Lord Simmons Cross,
Thank you for your feedback. let me change some technicalities then:

1) About the Lookout Post,
The main purpose of the look out post is to defend the barricades. Lone wolves won't benefit from this of course because they don't own safehouses. if it annoys you that it is an exploitable method of leveling up, consider that the look out post is a double edged sword. Snipers jeopardize the barricade BECAUSE they're noisy weapons will attract zombies incoming regardless. but at least, this way, survivors holed up inside can defend themselves without endangering their lives.

2) About the Clan Charity,
I see how this may cause problems, considering these kind of corrupt philandering is rampant even before a zombie apocalypse. Maybe if their transactions can be logged or recorded for all the clan to see so as to know their purchases are what the clan needs and not for selfish gains.

3) About the Caravan System,
I apologize for my lack of game know-how. but after reading your feedback, i can see many points that make sense.
Basically, Caravan system would go like this:
a) caravan is loaded with supplies for transporting between safehouses.
b) there will be X amount of volunteer players who will accompany the caravan throughout the trip
c) difficulty will be based on how many players are in the caravan as they will encounter zombies and kill them. at the cost of their SP and ammo.
d) if the caravan is heavily damaged by zombie mobs, its game over unless you can clear away the mob attacking the caravan.
e) traveling in the caravan will cost 0 SP, but will cost maintenance such as gas and materials. (wherein gas replenishes the caravan's SP, and materials replenish its HP)
f) upon arrival, players will be rewarded money for their troubles.

My problem here is that since there will be multiple survivors in a group, what if one survivor went offline or afk or something and they cannot advance since there are still zombies on his side that need to be killed?
This is why i suggested it would be AI controlled wherein your character goes auto attack with his main ranged weapon. All you have to do is wait for the timer to run to 0 and voila! you've arrived in the next safe house.

4) The point of the Auction house is not to sell overpriced weapon but to sell the old weapons and ammo for a more reasonable price. maybe they could earn a few extra money compared to selling them to shops and as Rickenbacker pointed out, its main purpose is to share what you DON'T need anymore to the less fortunate clanmates.

Hopefully, this would help address your issues.

Ah, almost forgot.
I once suggested in this thread but i will reiterate once again,

Now that crafting has been implemented, i would like to start the introduction of safe house defenses such as traps and cages.
Basically,I suggest an option to spend SP and barricade points to build traps for incoming zeds.
The landmine and other explosives you loot or buy in the city is needed for building such a trap, as well as a high amount of technical or smarts to craft more advanced or effective traps.

Since this is a bit unbalanced as the survivors have the advantage, even when they spend sp and money on explosives and parts. So I propose that maybe some of the traps turns out to be a dud or fails to trigger if its not being maintained or if you have inadequate technical skills.

1.-I like the ideas about poison and disease... It would give the game a more realistic tune. Such as hygiene making it actually more complete and difficult. In the water Purifyer Facility you can get clean water to stay bathed or something like that. Costing also SP and some itmes like soap or stuff that would be needed to keep yourself clean and avoid diseases and poisoning. Posoning of eating rotten food could also end up in damaging the character... don't know perhaps -45 HP or less, or more.


2.-Also, the post about traps... what about the traps also affect other survivors by accident?? If a mine explodes when you do not have the technical skill or smart it could be a percentage and get you hurt or killed.


3.-More or less like the percentage on missions but applied to the safehouses' traps. And if they do damage other survivors what about a passerby?? and being able to loot the wounded or healing them??
I had already posted this before reading the last page... so my apologies to repeating of ideas.


4.-Caravan seems like a really nice idea, and I like it. Maybe a little bit more of developing in the idea would be great.


5.-About the lookout post, it is a good idea, but fighting zeds from the security of your base seems like it takes away from the game a little bit of fun. This, however, could be balanced by the noise the snipers make and instead of damaging your XP damaging the barricades of the safehouses (im not sure if u had already noted this). Someone in another thread had posted the idea to get turrets, but... c'mon where will u find automatic turrets that engage zombies only?? And not yourself or other passing survivors?


6.-About the kitchen that lots of people have been talking about, well, it is kind of tricky. My point is that in a post-apocalyptic world, where would u find gas to cook the food?? Also this actually brings the duty of the cooker, and making him gain XP by giving food to others. Maybe with the guild storage (if implemented), to place the food there.. attracting insects (its extermination would cost SP) and rotting the food. Im no fan of the cleansing, but in an uncivilized world, this would seem like a major problem. And you would need to find rare items to be able to produce the food as a "farmer"


7.-About only clan managers being able to build and destroy SH facilities, I differ. Because then, what would the builders do?? If a clan manager gave the ability to build to other people is because they trust them, and if they end up seeing it wasnt such a good idea, well, then they'll have to learn


8.-The posts about useful locations posted by the guild members FOR the guild members actually seem a really nice idea for me.

9.-I know day/night changes could really mess up with some people's schedules, but maybe some wave attacks of bloodthirsty zombies attracted by the noise of the generator at, can spawn randomly as the safehouse is bigger and requires more energy

10.-The labratry is a good idea, not with the actual name (because we are not scientists, we are struggling survivors) but there you could learn or research on a variety of things such as new and rare manufactured weapons, hunger boosting food, a way to kill zeds more efficiently, if durability of weapons is implemented to make the items endure longer, and other things. As you try with different combinations you will consume items, sp, and if it goes wrong maybe some hp as well. The new "technology" would only be available for the safehouse in question. And when it's tried to being researched in other SH, the probability for a succesfull development can go to 90% of failure in the 1st SH... 87% at the second, 75% at the third, 56% fourth, 33% failure, and so on

Please note my english isnt that good, so, I will excuse any ortography or gramatic mistakes

Hi guys! This is my first post here.

Well, i don't know if anyone really suggested this before since i didn't read all the post in this thread but what about a graphical engine for safe houses and indoors in general? I mean, i think it would be nice to add a graphical interface, sorta like the old X-Com games were you can add or delete modules. I don't really know how the safe house system is being planned (I've never went into one or built one yet) but if it's text based like most indoor structures, i think a little visual guide would be nice

Just like Vajhdeken said above, sorry about my english

One room we could add to safehouses is a Communications Center. That way players on the move can keep track of things like a) Safehouses in danger of being breached; b) build requirements of a safehouse's room(s); c) stuff they left behind in each SF's Storage Room (I guess it's too much to ask it be like the original Resident Evil game where you could access your stash from any room with a storage bin...); d) members and/or other players in trouble.

The level or completeness of information would depend on the Com Center's level. Players must have a walkie-talkie.

I like that idea!

I like the comms room idea. It could work well, and although the first two options you said are already existing and one is easily visible from the clan page, It could show the locations of all members on a map as colored squares or something but only when looking inside the safehouse.

The Communication center sounds really really good. We have walkie-talkies now, right? We ought to be able to use them then. Broadcasting a signal and maybe a pop-up message.

I don't know the plans for the Observation Posts, but maybe players who man it can gain Experience (for picking off zeds). Does the OP level lessen the number of zombie hordes and/or damage to the entrance?

[Water Treatment Facility (Safehouse)]
Hello, everyone.

I have an idea i'd like to share with you all about multiple safehouse rooms of the same room kind. Someone suggested I post this idea on the forums, so here I go. I am new at this, so bare with me, please.

I'd like to recommend that certain safehouse rooms -- if not most or all room types -- be allowed to be built in more than one cleared room. In particular, "Water Purifier" rooms. Currently, Water Purifiers at lvl.1 operation provide one bottle of drinkable water per twelve hour period. I realize Water Purifiers are a very recent addition, and are almost certainly going to be improved over time, but I doubt that even at future maximum operating levels they will provide that much water for most clan members -- especially the larger clans.

A simple solution to this would be to allow more than one Water Purifier room to be built in a single safehouse -- even an entire "Water Treatment Facility" style safehouse, if a clan wishes to invest the effort to build it. I really do not believe that this would be a very "game-breaking" addition at all, as even a "Facility" filled with nothing but Water Purifiers at lvl.1 would produce little more than fifty bottles of water daily [2 Bottles per day times 25 Water Purifier rooms], which is only enough to fully feed two-and-a-half individuals daily [1 bottle of water fills 5% hunger times 20 bottles to a max of 100% hunger]. Even for small clans this would be a modest ration for members, and for larger clans this is barely even useful to a handful of members (Although FAR more useful than a single Water Purifier in a safehouse, even for a tiny clan).

Consider also the large amount of effort it takes to build such a "Treatment Facility" safehouse. Even for a large resourceful clan, and the level of protection it would need to keep it safe (And the sacrifice of a Purifier or two, to provide facilities for defenders, like Living Quarters or a Sickbay -- further reducing the Facility's water production efficiency). Furthermore, larger clans especially can easily go to or above one-thousand members, with Headquarter safehouses for a clan often holding two or three hundred people at a time (Therefore, even a maximum-level Purifier would likely not provide very useful at all). Also, there is the simple, unavoidable fact that there are more than a few greedy hands in every clan that would snatch the bottles away as quickly as they are ready to drink. Lastly -- it is not an entirely unrealistic thing to imagine a collective of people, with a strong hold over an area, trapped in an extreme survival situation, to attempt to build a functional agriculture internally, beginning especially with the production of clean water, once shelter is secured.

Again, I understand Water Purifiers are a relatively new safehouse structure, and are bound to be improved in the future -- however, even considering many different possible estimations of how Purifiers with further improve water production with level enhancements, it is very difficult to imagine them being more than scarcely useful overall -- especially with a limit of one Purifier room per safehouse.

Overall, I do believe that allowing more than one Purifier in a safehouse -- even an entire safehouse dedicated to water production -- would NOT lead to "game-breaking", and the large effort to build, and then protect it, would equal in effort the reward of greater water production.

I hope everyone will consider this suggestion seriously, and feedback is welcome.

Thank you for your time,
-J. Carver

What if safehouses have a shop? That way we can buy things we need and sell things we don't need.

Comon guys dont let this hit the second page

forgot, its a sticky ^^

good ideas here hope the admins check this out!

the first two options you said are already existing and one is easily visible from the clan page,

True, but how many of us scrutinize the clan page regularly? It would be nice to get alerts when a SH reaches a certain level. Also, AFAIK the rooms in a SH do show up on the clan page, but not the requirements for one under construction. (Is there a way at present to view this?) I*'d hate to lug that stupid chair around only to find out it's no longer needed. (Currently, I record these things in the Journal, but the info could be out of date.)

Posted By Aya Malevonair on 04-08-2011 12:07 AM
Not exactly a new idea, more like a suggestion.
It has been a bother to me recently after reading a certain thread about two clannies who weren't able to organize their gathering of supplies properly and ended up being left overencumbered and the fact they bought materials from a store hurts even more to see it go to waste. The concept of item requirements is feasible and encourages team work. However, there's is a blunt error to this. Unlike Construction points which simply adds stuff together, item requirements fall more to specific and it can easily get into oversupply and undersupply of requirements.
So what I propose is this: Construction Storage would need to be revamped.
They would be similar to Lockers in Storage but only accepts materials for construction and unlike lockers, items donated to it are locked in place, meaning nobody can withdraw but generally accessible to clan use. There is no item limit capacity however. Only Builders can use the items inside the storage and the only time they are consumed is when a Builder initiates a project. In this way, looters can see what their clan needs the most while Builders can simply focus on...well building stuff. A textbox similar to Journal system could be made there too to tell the clannies what they need to gather for right now.
Construction points could probably be omitted off now that there are item requirements taking their place.
Additional option: Clan Leader or Builder are the only eligible members allowed to take items from the Construction Storage in case of emergencies such a barricade needing immediate repairs. Conversely, Construction points will be used instead to repair Hit Points of damaged facilities instead of starting projects giving them a different purpose.
Additional suggestion: Allow non-builder clannies to have the ability to Clear Space on an Unused one if its not implemented yet. It really helps marginally so as to cut some slack on builders and everyone wants to clear the clutter off their safehouse once its established.

Hi I see lotsa unused construction points in some safehouses,
Aya Malevonair's idea would solve that problem !

At the moment, the behaviour of some players is easily predicable,
lets just compare the immediate benefits of each action (EXP gains),
and the SP costs of the said actions (those to get rid of heavy construction material) :
adding alot of construction material at once in Storage Room costs less SP,
than barricading, and I've already seen some safehouses with thousands of construction points stockpiled,
and still being added even more construction material in storage,
while the barricades were already about to be breached...

current scenario:
player 1: 99999 construction points in storage barricade 1/300HP, please,
I repaired the barricade the whole day to keep them out,
I'm exhausted, mind you help adding stuff in the barricade pal ?

player 2: nah I'm in hurry ! *drops everything in constructiion storage* ah I feel lighter ! Have fun dancing with the zombies in the living room, see you byyyyye !

1) Allowing trusted clan members to barricade with items
from inside the Construction Storage would help...

Oh and althought it could look not reallistic,
it would be fair that there is no competition for grabbing first the water bottles or veggies.
I'm not sure how it works, but according to the previous posts,
it works like there are only few players getting water bottles at water purifier
(that would explain why I had no water after waiting 12 hours so many times).
2) The facilities such as Water Purifier and Garden,
could be used every n hours, by players,
without preventing others to get the same.

Also while we're waiting for clan journal,
3) we also could have the infos of the required items,
for rooms upgrades, when clicking on safehouses details,
in clan/safehouses,

It already shows the progress but not the missing items. It could do like it already does when you're inside the safehouse you want to check for missing items.

First, inside Room Assist boxes (the window that pops up when you click 'Assist' on a room), player coordinates are compared to safehouse location. With same coordinates, the player can add inventory/locker items, else the player can only view.
Second, a link to the Room Assist box is added in Clan/Safehouses/SafeHouseName/RoomName

4) Also players shouldn't be able to start upgrading a room without adding any of the required items, just in order to prevent other players to use them (or rooms should stay available and working while being upgraded).

Thank you for reading !

a post back on page 2 gave me an idea; rather than use the lookout post as a sniping tower, why not build some kind of buildable automated turret that kills zombies in it instead?

it could only attack in the square your safehouse is in,could need rare parts to build, take alot of time to build, only attack when you are offline, need to be provided with ammo and be constantly maintanined. also, it wouldnt gain you any xp.

the benifit? with enough ammo, it could keep your safehouse safe!

comments welcome

Hi peeps, my idea for the lookout tower was rather than use valuable ammunition work as a warning system for fellow clan members that zombies were in the area that the outpost may be attacked, and possibly the use of construction points as i noticed certain safe houses have quite a bit after all a brick say hurled from a high height is going to hurt a lot thus pulling clan members together in a constant supply of materials either to build repair or use as items for ammunition of sorts, Possibly it could work by costing a certain amount of sp per hour for being on guard duty as it were like for example 4 hours guard duty with the chance of gaining a small x amount of exp as a reward and limit it to the amount of people that can stand up there, Anyways just an idea stay frosty peeps its a big bad world out there

I don't know if someone already suggested this but I think safe house renting can be a good idea for lone wolves
(Players who don't want to have clans)

Here is what I think

1. Players without clans (lone wolves) can rent out any clan's SH for resting, crafting and sickbay for a fee per hour say ($3/hour). This would make lone wolves lives a little bit safer since, being a lone wolf means difficulty of finding a safe house to stay while wandering.

2. They can't harvest any food but can use any "training facility" for a fee say, $2/hour

3. The rent paid (income generated) by the clan can be collected by any clan member. This I think is fair enough for clans who can regain their expenses from building the safe house and its facilities

Suggestion for lookout post.
I) Reasons for my suggestion:
1) Currently the lookout post has no use and has a big construction cost.

2) Currently players who chose to playing as lone wolves cannot expect to keep a safehouse.
As soon as they need to be out for several days,
there is not way to prevent their safehouse to crumble.

3) Currently players who chose to join a clan, including bigger ones suffer from the
uncooperative behaviour of some leechers(unhelpful parasites).

4) Currently there are several thousands of useless construction material sitting in
many safehouses.

5) Currently some achievements simply seem not worth it,
because of their huge SP consumption,
and their unknown reward, which could only be a little bunch of EXP
(i.e. : Hammer and Nails).

6) Adding options that allow active defenses to kill zombies is frowned upon by some players.


II) What the Lookout post could do?

The lookout post could add more safety, and fill the role of some emergency backup measure, which is repairing the barricade when it gets lower than a fixed limit, using the stockpiled construction material. in example when the Entrance HP goes below 50 then next damages will be removed from construction material instead of the Entrance HP till the construction storage is empty.
That is the main idea and it can just stop here. All the rest is optionnal, below I give some details on how it could be implemented.

benefits for lone wolves, casual gamers and gameplay
Lone wolves and players who need to be off for several days, can first stockpile some material.

It will be like haveing a friend on guard duty, without needing to give their infos to a friend to log them (which is against the rules, but keeping the safehouse safe is one of the reasons why some players worry so much; that it is an incentive for them to share account and get their account stolen.
This Lookout Post solution would avoid that. The zombies will have the time to damage the barricade a bit, but when Entrance HP falls down to 50, the Lookout Post will be triggered, as if a player arrived, just in time, to move items from construction material into the barricade (till the construction storage becomes empty)).
People with credits can quickly refill their storage before they go. Free players have to scavenge enough material and store them but they still can feel they only play for fun and not because they fear they will lose a safehouse that took alot of their time to build.


How would that be displayed with he button 'INFO'?

Well just a detail but if it can help and there is no other idea about this here's how it could look.
In example here is what you would see in infos:
"
Strong Zombie soldier claws at the barricade (51hP)
SWAT Zombie Policeman claws at the barricade (50hp)
Zombie Clown claws at the barricade but we reinforce it (50hp) -1 CP
Zombie Baby Boy claws at the barricade but we reinforce it (50hp) -1CP
Sewer Worker Zombie claws at the barricades but we reinforce it (50hp) -1CP.*
Construction Worker Zombie claws at the barricade (49hp)
"
* no more points/items available in construction storage.


Benefits for all clans

The selfish behaviour of some players has an impact on the morale of the community, but is fueled by the way the EXP rewards are given. Barricading yields less EXP than adding material, while it takes many more clicks and uses alot of SP to fully repair an entrance.

It would be extremely harmful for all clans to nerf the 'Add material' option, because the 'partly leechers' (those who don't care when the safehouses are about to be breached or destroyed, they never barricade and just unload all material in a safehouse that they see will be breached) would simply not even loot any construction material anymore (they only were thinking about making EXP but their behaviour allowed safehouses to get more construction points).

I rather suggest to adjust the barricading options to make them more rewarding and encourage a more cooperative gameplay as explained below.

Larger global view of the new barricadeing sytem

We can include that kind of changes in a larger view of new barricading system and a link with Achievements:

Players who completed the 'Can we fix it' repair twice as much when using items.
example useing baricading item using a stone
without achievement: cost 1sp with stone repairs +1HP gives 1EXP
with achievement : cost 1sp with stone repairs +2HP gives 2EXP

Players who completed 'hammer and nails'repair more efficiently,
How the 'Barricade' option would be affected:
without achievement: costs 5SP repairs 5HP gives 5EXP
with achievement: costs 5SP* repairs 10HP gives 10EXP
*when equiping hammer and carrying box of nails, the barricade option costs 2SP.


Options at the Lookout post.
Options can all be used once each the same day,
but players without achievements can only use button 1.

Button 1: Checkup the barricade.
Once per 24 hours everyone including players without achievement can repair 10HP for free.

Button 2: Fix the barricade.
Players who completed 'Can we fix it' can repair 1/4 their technical skill worth of HP,
once per 24 hours.

Button 3: Reinforce the barricade.
Players who completed 'Hammer and Nails' can repair for free half of their technical level worth of HP, once per 24hours.

Those options would not give any exp or would give very little EXP but could later give clan reputation.

A clan reputation system could be added later, with ranks allowing to use special features as reward (such as clan shops, and maybe extra options in rooms such as headquarters and those that other players suggested) and/or allowing clan reputation points to be swapped for rewards.


Temporary limitations for optionnal Lookout Post buttons

Here are at least temporary limitations to make that feature easier to implement:

The 3 Lookout Post options mentionned above are independent from any safehouse (except that there has to be a lookout post at the place where you want to use them).

Those options can only be used once per day.

As there is no counter for the already repaired HP, it's impossible to carry over the remaining HP points.

In example : John Doe has got 50points in technical skill. John Doe uses 'Fix the barricade' at lookout post, it can repair 12HP (50/4=12.5). But at that moment the Entrance already had 315HP/325. The Entrance only needed 10HP more to be maxed out, John Doe could have repaired 12HP but only repaired the 10 missing HP. The remaining 2HP can not be used later.
Being able to carry over points during the same 24hours could be a later improvement that will give more freedom to players but is not essential.


Possible tweaks or changes.

There can be a limited quantity of construction material used for the emergency repairs by the sentries from the lookout post everyday. It can depend on the construction storage level (thus adding levels for construction storages) or simpler it can depend only on Lookout Post level.

As many extra uses will be available for construction storage material, the already stored material will drop down more quickly in larger clans, like material being used to build traps or new rooms/features previously suggested by other players (or example below), that will prevent high level clans to have too many contruction points sleeping in storage.

In example clan members with high reputation could be allowed to search a limited number of times (like searchable items once per 72hours) into the Construction Storage, with more chances to find what they're looking for, than in random rubble.

There could be searchable items in construction storage, such as:
Pile of planks (stick, 2x4 lumber, wooden pannel) each search costs 50 construction points.
Pile of pipes (lead pipe, iron pipe, steel pipe) each seach costs 3 construction points and finds a random pipe.
Pile of bricks(Bricks) each search costs 5 construction points no SP and finds 1 brick 100% chances (it is just like removing one brick from the pile).
Pile of Junk (any item related to safehouse building, more odds for cheap stuff such as junk suitable for
barricading) costs 20 construction points to search.


For Lookout Post, optionnal Button 4:'Guard duty' (works like training sessions).

The Guard duty improves the Lookout Post functionnality, this action would give several rewards to clan members who chose to watch out for zombies, while their comrades rest or train (First Exp then clan reputation when it is implemented.
Clan reputation could be traded against EXp, Training time in clan training rooms. Larger amount of clan reputation points could be swapped for special Clan Perks, unlock access to features, etc).

The beneficial effects for the safehouse could be: the guard duties help sentries watching out the barricade levels thus allowing extra items from construction storage to be used for reinforceing the barricades during attacks.

But the Lookout Post shall be able to work alone with Guard duty being optional, else it would be an incentive for some players in some clans to create 'alts' for each safehouse, that would uselessly clutter the server's performance (multiaccounts that would just guard, because they have to put someone, they won't feel they need to do that if the Lookout Post works alone).


other remarks


If there is a clan reputation sytem, then there could be limits for the amount of clan reputation points that every player can swap everyday for rewards.

If there are changes done to the construction storage, then keeping the current amount of the already gathered construction material will keep existing clans happy and allowing large available space in even level 1 construction storage will be fair for new clans.

The lookout post change could relieve the most helpful clanmates in any clan. They won't feel like stuck with all the barricading duty. Currently they have to keep running from safehouse to safehouse and cleanse and barricade them all the time, to prevent them to crumble, and they're doing the job of the too many people who don't help.
All players would then stand the same chance to focus on other aspects of the game.

Remember the behaviour of many players depends on what they think is the most profitable thing to do, and it can allow to predict what this typical behaviour multiplied by the number of players will result in.
Larger clans probably also are the largest gamers communities, alas they suffer from more leechers. Lots of people not helping with barricading and triggering zombies attacks = lots of safehouses in bad shape.
The most helpful people get annoyed to have all the weight on their shoulders and quit, all safehouses crumble, leechers then move and annoy another clan, which dies too, snowball effect.
There too should not be any flaw, any weakness that would be an incentive for abusers to make griefing cheating alts and annoy other clans (currently it is useless to grief another clan, but it has to be fixed before pvp is implemented).

By adjusting the game sytem, so that it improves the behaviour of that kind of players, it will be beneficial for everyone.
That is why I suggested those tweaks to transform the lookout post, a currently dummy room, into a way to make the barricades not an annoying duty for a few but a more manageable aspect of the game that leaves enough freedom to all players to explore all aspects of the game.

as what many here says and my clan members ask me what is the use of construction points when all the facilities on the SAFehouse are already built? (max level) of course the answer is nothing...

we really cant blame someone on why he chose to drop his 10 bricks on the construction pool instead of using it for barricade...

Construction points - 1 click (add all) = 50 xp
Barricade with items - 10 click (-10 sp) = 50 xp

its like playing zp that whether your premium or not, you all have 480 sp...

Suggestion:

1. put a Use Construction points for barricade right after the "add material" (construction pool)
2. remove the "BARRICADE WITH ITEMS"
3. the "BARRICADE" button that uses SP to barricade will remain as it is...

*when you click "Use construction points for barricade" it will deduct 10 construction points of the SAFehouse and will only add 5 points points on the barricade of the SAFehouse... it will not cost SP nor give XP in return...

*the drop materials on construction pool will now cost -1 sp for every add/add all items and still gives the corresponding XP bonus

The reason why "use construction points for barricade" doesnt use SP is because it is now shifted on the "add materials" to construction pool... also on why it does not give an xp bonus is to PREVENT EXPLOIT (you just keep on barricading and will have a bonus xp)

the idea of my suggestion are:

1. Construction points will now have a use.
2. the scenario of "im low at sp but dont have any items that can be use for barricade... and the barricade is too low" will be gone.
3. the EXPLOIT of dropping items at the construction pool will be gone (yes i know there is an exploit there... just imagine it gives you XP with no SP USED)

Posted By avidson: on 14-02-2012 10:54 PM
...
3. the EXPLOIT of dropping items at the construction pool will be gone (yes i know there is an exploit there... just imagine it gives you XP with no SP USED)

If it was an exploit, then it would be too obvious to stay not noticed by game developpers. There is no way to get construction material out of thin air, without first paying credits (it then costs something) or traveling (4SP x number of tiles, not counting random attacks triggered when travelling) and searching (3SP x number of search attempts, not counting the zombies attacks triggered when searching, finite number of search atempts per location, and counters that last several days before new search attempt available), which costs twice some amounts SP. Also there is a finite number of items that one can carry, which is limited by encumbrance.
In my humble opinion, it is not an exploit at all.

Edit sorry I read in diagonals and did not underestand properly. when put in the context of the new upgrade it makes more sense. Off course you are not saying that the existing system is allowing exploit, you're saying what to do in order to your suggested system to work and not being used for exploits. Please accept my apologies for not reading properly.

a laboratory is a nice idea, i was thinking more of a workbench thing cause a high tech lab, well it would be hard to get by. Where u can upgrade ur things and make ammo and weapons or stuff..

What if the Lookout Post functions like this?

imagine an ENTER button within the Lookout Post...

and when a clan member is inside the Lookout Post, that character will get a pop-up message that indicates when a zombie or a group of zombies will be arriving near the Safehouse...

so lets say a clan member by the name of "Baneslayer Demon" (my character by the way) is inside a Safehouse, and a zombie or a group of zombies is approaching, a pop-up message will appear over that character's screen saying "a zombie/a group of zombies is spotted and is expected to be in the vicinity of the safehouse in x hours/x minutes"

in that way, that clan member can log-in in that specific hour (x hour) and can engage the zombie/group of zombies

wouldn't it be cool if a pop-up message would say "a horde of zombies is spotted and is expected to be in the vicinity of the safehouse in 5 minutes"?

hehehe, just a suggestion...

Posted By henrikito on 28-01-2012 03:00 AM
I don't know if someone already suggested this but I think safe house renting can be a good idea for lone wolves
(Players who don't want to have clans)

Here is what I think

1. Players without clans (lone wolves) can rent out any clan's SH for resting, crafting and sickbay for a fee per hour say ($3/hour). This would make lone wolves lives a little bit safer since, being a lone wolf means difficulty of finding a safe house to stay while wandering.

2. They can't harvest any food but can use any "training facility" for a fee say, $2/hour

3. The rent paid (income generated) by the clan can be collected by any clan member. This I think is fair enough for clans who can regain their expenses from building the safe house and its facilities

Hello
To add and comment on that. Maybe my search skills lack but I couldn't find any information as to why you cannot have a safehouse without being in a clan. Why has it been chosen that you have to be in a clan to build one?
I usually play the loner type and SH have a lot of features like crafting (later?), storage etc which can be very useful. Is it because they may not be protected? Maybe you could allow "shared" feature in loner SHs with friends. ie allow some of your friends (selected ones with click option say) to use/barricade etc your safehouse and not needing to be in a clan.

...You can just start your own clan of one if you want to be a "lonewolf" with a safehouse. BTW, check your forum messages

delete this post.

i havent read all this thread so sorry but i had a few ideas for safehouse rooms... first a kitchen upgradeing the kitchen makes food eaten in the safe house more effective maybe level 1 is 5% more effective level 5 is 25% more effective i think its a good idea for a room..

second.. Communications tower/room do like ham radios and stuff =P at level 1 it gives you the ability to see the status on your other safehouses like how well the barricades are doing and work progress (with out it you cant inless you go there if this is implemented) also gives a safe house chat for everyone in all safe houses of your clan.... then level 2 lets you chat with other clans safe houses in a sorta "general chat" for anyone in a safe house with level 2 coms and level 3 would allow people with a walkie talkie in the clan to communicate with members that have a walkie talkie or are in the safe house