Demonata Core

Demonata Core — Player Patch Notes

Update v1.2.0 (Compatible with 7 Days to Die Patch 2.5 ONLY)

Summary: This update addresses compatibility issues with 7 Days to Die Patch 2.5 and introduces a major overhaul to the Jar Economy and Workstations (Apiary/Dew Collector). These changes establish a resource "attrition" loop and standardize workstation mechanics.

2.5 Compatibility Fixes

• HUD Transparency: Fixed transparency issues introduced in game patch 2.5.
• Particle Effects: Fixed black particle smoke appearing when the player coughs (patch 2.5 bug).

Workstation Overhaul (Apiary & Dew Collector)

• Forge-Style Mechanics: The Apiary and Dew Collector now function like a Forge.

  • You must learn them via Forge Ahead Magazines.
    • They now use an input system (requiring Empty Jars as an ingredient) rather than passive generation.
    • Crafting Time: Items take 2 hours real-time to craft honey and 8 hours real-time to craft water. These times keep the base game values intact. Changing the in-game 24-hour cycle speed does not speed this up.
    • Crafting Time: Items take 2 hours real-time to craft honey and 8 hours real-time to craft water.
      These times keep the base game values intact. Changing the in-game 24-hour cycle speed does not speed this up.

• Apiary Changes:

  • Honey: Now craftable via the Apiary using Empty Jars. There are 3 recipes, one for each flower type.
  • Tool Updates:
    • Brood Box: Now reduces ingredient costs (flowers) by 50%.
    • Extractor: Now reduces crafting time by 50%.
  • Smoker: The Apiary Smoker is no longer required or functional (Bee Swarms no longer spawn from the Apiary).

• Dew Collector Changes:

  • Functions identically to the new Apiary logic (requires jars, 8 hours real-time) Additionally, you get 2 waters for 2 jars per crafting cycle.
  • All existing Dew Collector tools function as they did before, adapted to the new system.

The Jar Economy & Attrition

• Crafting Removal: Empty Jars have been removed from the crafting system.
  • Intent: This introduces an "attrition system." Jars are a finite resource supplied only through looting.
  • Settings Recommendation: It is highly recommended to set Jar Refund (Advanced Tab) to 100%.
    • For Roleplay/Sim: Set to 80–90% to simulate occasional breakage.
    • For Struggle: Set to 40–60%.
• Food & Jar Returns:
  • Gumbo Stew: Now returns an Empty Jar when eaten.
  • Chili Dogs: No longer return an Empty Jar.

Consumables & Drops

• Bees Wax: Increased drop chance from tree stumps (now equals Honey probability).
  • Reading Wasteland Treasures Vol 1 increases this further (book description updated).
• Dysentery Risks:
  • Honey Glazed Sham and Fort Bites now carry Dysentery risk. This aligns them with other rotten-flesh based foods.
• Honey Nerfs (Infection):
  • Infection cure reduced from 5% → 2.5% for Honey Glazed Sham, Honey Brisket, and Honey Tea. This aligns them with previous nerfs to raw Honey.
  • Infection cure reduced from 5% → 2.5% for Honey Glazed Sham, Honey Brisket, and Honey Tea.
    This aligns them with previous nerfs to raw Honey.

Skills & Perks

• Fortitude Tree: Well Insulated has been added back to the Fortitude skill tree.
  • UI Note: The Fortitude tree is now 2 pages long. Remember to flip the page to see all skills.

Known issues

• Localizations have not been updated to include any of these new changes. This is still a WIP and will come in a later update.

Demonata Core — Release

Demonata Core — Player Patch Notes

Summary: Demonata Core restores the sandbox, puts real weight behind progression, and rewards skillful play. Expect headshot-centric combat, smarter spawns, tougher choices, and quality-of-life fixes that cut grind without gutting survival.

---

Highlights

• Headshots Only (ranged, knives, spears): Precision matters; spray-and-pray is dead. Shotguns are exempt.
• Difficulty-aware balance: Headshot damage and zombie HP scale by difficulty to keep TTK fair.
• Sandbox restored: The world, spawns, economy, and crafting tie back into meaningful choices.
• QoL without shortcuts: Annoyances trimmed (reach, pickups, stacks) while risk stays real.

---

World & Biomes

• Infection “Survival Ladder” (Tree Stumps):

  • Pine Forest: spawn rate 0.000575 (≈ +50% vs vanilla).
  • Burnt Forest: 0.0001917 (≈ –4% vs vanilla; Pine ≈ 3× Burnt).
  • Snow: 0.0001095 (≈ –45% vs vanilla; Burnt ≈ 1.75×, Pine ≈ 5.25× Snow).
  • Honey drop per stump remains 20% (vanilla).
  • Impact: Snow sick? Sprint to Burnt for faster odds, or push to Pine for best odds—your risk, your reward.

• Mines added to all biomes. Terrain is dangerous again; watch your step.

• Wasteland ambience: Increased gore decorations for a harsher vibe.

• Fog tuning: Adjusted across biomes/weather to raise tension while keeping visibility playable.

• Gore hazards: Gore blocks now have a 50% chance to cause Infection on contact.

---

Combat, AI & Enemies

• Headshots Only (ranged, knives, spears):

  • Headshot damage modifiers by difficulty:

    • Scavenger: –50%
    • Adventurer: ±0%
    • Nomad: +100%
    • Warrior: +200%
    • Survivalist: +300%
    • Insane: +400%

• Difficulty-based zombie health (preserves vanilla ±15% variance):

  • Scavenger: –25% | Adventurer: ±0% | Nomad: +10% | Warrior: +20% | Survivalist: +30% | Insane: +40%
  • Intent: Higher difficulties hit harder but don’t turn enemies into pure bullet sponges.

• Zombie reach overhaul: Calibrated around spear-length melee.

  • Longer reach retained for Cops, Mutated, Frostclaw, Plague Spitters to keep them scary.

• Zombies no longer climb ladders. (Lore/realism pass.)
  Re-think base paths—no more easy ladder baiting.

---

Spawns, Hordes & Blood Moon

• Custom entity groups: Spawns now respect biomes and RWG tile tags, reinforcing theme and pacing.
• Wandering hordes: Composition and counts adjusted to sharpen difficulty and variety.
• Blood Moon: Now lasts all night. The final wave loops until dawn.
  Note: This is step one toward a larger future BM rework.

---

Loot, Items & Medicine

• Z-Paks: Now last 45 minutes. Slightly increased drop chance.

• Chickens: Harvesting can yield eggs (because… chickens).

• Compass cleanup: Removed red zombie dots—use your eyes and ears.

• Lanterns & traps pickup:

  • Writable storage containers and lanterns can be picked up when not inside a Land Claim by destroy/harvest.
    No material refunds (balance).
  • Mines, wooden/iron spikes, and barbed wire can be picked up.

• Honey nerf: Cure strength –50% to offset increased stump access.

---

Weapons & Gunplay

• Crosshairs removed from ranged weapons (shotgun exempt) and from laser/scopes.
• Bullet spread reduced to support headshot-only precision (does not affect shotguns).

---

Crafting, Repairs & Economy

• Repairs require parts:

  • Armor repairs use Armor Parts.
  • Tools & weapons use their respective parts.

• Nails economy: Increased nail drop rates; many wood items now require nails.

  • Frame Shapes (helper variant) now require nails (nerf to easy nerd-poling).

• Recipes tuned for scarcity & play:

  • Rotten meat recipes cost 10 (it’s everywhere).
  • Raw meat recipes cost 8 (encourages hunting).
  • Planted crops (e.g., Corn) cost 4 per recipe (promotes real farming).
  • Dynamite: 2 per craft (pack smarter).

• Stack sizes:

  • Resources: up to 12,000
  • Food/Drugs/Drinks: 20 (Rotting Meat reduced 125 → 20)
  • Medical supplies: 15

---

Food & Disease

• Canned foods:

  • Tuna & Beef: 30 food
  • Chicken: 35 food
  • All others: 20 food

• Dysentery realism: Because of rotting meat,

  • Hobo Stew, Sham Chowder, Canned Sham have 12% Dysentery chance.

---

Progression & XP

• XP sources trimmed: Only quests and zombie/animal kills grant XP by default.
  Intent: Crafting/survival matter; kills and missions carry progression.

• Curve rebalanced:

  • Base XP/level = 9,000 (vanilla: 3,000–10,000 by version)
  • +4% XP per level (vanilla +5%)
  • Clamp at Level 50 (vanilla 60) with ~61,500 per-level post-clamp (vanilla ~177,897)
  • Attributes: cost multiplier +16%/level (was 14%)
  • Feel: Faster midgame; roughly ~47% faster to midgame vs vanilla. Total XP to 300 ~60–65% lower (playstyle dependent).

• Optional Module: An XP Tuning add-on lives in the mod root so creators can adjust pacing for videos/streams.

---

Traders & Economy Loop

• Shops open 12 hours with staggered schedules to nudge exploration:

  • Joel: 06:00–18:00
  • Jen: 09:00–21:00
  • Bob: 00:00–12:00
  • Hugh: 03:00–15:00
  • Rekt: 06:00–18:00

---

UI, UX & Atmosphere

• Lighting pass: Interior/exterior lighting adjusted for mood and readability.
• Fog pass: (See World & Biomes) More tension without cheap blindness.
• HUD tweaks: Food/Water bars moved to left; toolbelt lowered slightly for clarity.

---

Persistence & Death

• Injuries and debuffs persist through death. Death isn’t a full reset—plan accordingly.

---

Notes for Players

• Pickups by destroy/harvest never refund mats—this is intentional.
• Shotguns ignore headshot-only rules (pellet identity).
• New saves recommended for best results due to broad spawn/progression changes.

---

If something doesn’t play like it reads here, tell me. I’ll investigate and tune. Now go make the apocalypse behave.

---

Recommended Mods (Optional, but spicy)

These pair well with Demonata Core’s “player agency + balanced realism” approach. None are required. If a mod uses Harmony/DLLs, check its page for EAC/server requirements.

Biome Hazard Comfort (useful when Biome Progression is ON)

• Screen Effects Be Gone — Hides the harsh biome hazard screen overlays. Keeps visibility and readability high while you deal with the actual mechanics.
• Sound Effects Be Gone — Mutes the auto-played “pain/cold/heat” vocal stingers from biome hazard buffs. Less noise, same danger.

World, POIs & Exploration

• CompoPack Classic — All-in-One — Big POI expansion across all biomes. Synergizes with Demonata’s exploration-first pacing.
• Big Cities, Big Maps (Compo optional add-on) — Restores large city generation to Pine Forest. Great for early-mid game route planning.
• GNS — Beautiful Bases — Lets you recover decorative items (posters, etc.) from POIs. More personality for player bases.
• **Stallionsden’s Loot
• able Objects** — Makes more world props lootable. Pairs with our scarcity/stack changes to reward thorough scavenging.

Inventory, Crafting & Storage QoL

• Asylum Smart Storage — Auto-sorts into your containers. Cuts management time without handing you free power.
• Craft From Containers Plus — Crafting stations pull from nearby storage. Streamlines the loop while keeping material costs intact.

Lighting & Visibility

• OCB Light Enabler (POI) — Lets you switch on POI lights. Demonata Core darkens interiors a bit; this helps non-torch enjoyers keep things visible.

AI, Combat & Quests

• Path Smoothing — Cleans up zombie pathing so challenges come from encounters, not nav jank. Works well with our reach and headshot rules.
• KhaineGB — Zombie Fall Damage — Zombies actually take fall damage. Complements base designs without trivializing combat.
• MultiQuest — Hold multiple trader quests at once. Extra handy now that trader hours are staggered.

If two mods touch the same XML areas, load the one you want to “win” after the other (prefix with zzz_ if needed). When in doubt, start clean and add one at a time.

---

Notes & Caveats

• New World Recommended for big POI packs and city-gen changes.
• Overhauls: Don’t stack other total overhauls that change core spawns/progression/gunplay—pick one philosophy (hint: ours 😇).
• EAC/Servers: Some of these may use Harmony; check each page and match client/server installs.
• Performance: Large POI packs and light toggling can increase CPU/GPU load in cities.

Short version: these mods keep Demonata Core’s intent intact—more agency, less busywork, smarter world—without sandblasting the balance. Use what fits your playstyle (or your video pacing) and leave the rest.

Demonata Core Beta

Changelog

[v1.0.0-beta.2] - 2025-08-14

Added

• Degradation added to the following items:
  • Bone Knife
  • Wooden Club
  • Baseball Bat
  • Candy Club
  • Steel Club
  • Pipe Baton

Changed

• Challenges XP restored: The following Challenge Groups now reward lump-sum XP at the trader:
  • White River Citizen (Basic Survival Challenge)
  • Homesteading
  • Advanced Survival
  • Crafting
  • Trader Quests
  • Harvesting
  • Gatherer
  • Farmer
  • Healer
  • Survivor
  • Burnt Biome
  • Desert Biome
  • Snow Biome
  • Wasteland Biome
• All other challenges continue to work correctly as they do in vanilla.

Fixed

• None listed for this build.

[v1.0.0-beta.1] - 2025-08-13

Added

• Headshots-only rule for ranged, knives, and spears (shotguns exempt).
• Mines seeded across all biomes.
• Gore hazard: gore blocks can infect on contact (50% chance).
• Custom entity groups for biome/tile-aware spawns; wandering horde variants.
• Pickup-by-harvest for lanterns, mines, spikes, barbed wire, and writable storage (no material refunds).
• Chickens can yield eggs on harvest.
• Optional “XP Tuning” module for creators/streamers.

Changed

• Difficulty-aware combat:
  • Headshot damage scales by difficulty; zombie HP scales to keep TTK sane.
  • Zombies no longer climb ladders.
  • Bullet spread reduced; crosshairs removed (shotguns/laser/scopes excluded where noted).
  • Zombie reach recalibrated; special types keep longer reach.
• Blood Moon now lasts all night; final wave loops until dawn.
• Z-Paks last 45 minutes; drop rate slightly increased.
• Compass cleanup: removed red zombie dots.
• Repairs require parts: armor uses Armor Parts; tools/weapons use their respective parts.
• Nails economy: more nail drops; some wood items (incl. Frame Shapes helper) require nails.
• Recipes: Rotten Meat 10, Raw Meat 8, planted crops 4; Dynamite crafts 2.
• Stack sizes: resources → 12,000; food/drinks → 20; medical → 15; Rotting Meat 125 → 20.
• Canned food values: Tuna/Beef 30, Chicken 35, others 20.
• Dysentery realism: Hobo Stew, Sham Chowder, Canned Sham 12% chance.
• Progression/XP: only kills & quests grant XP; base 9,000 XP/level, +4% per level, clamp 50; attributes +16%/lvl.
• Traders: staggered 12-hour schedules (Joel 06–18, Jen 09–21, Bob 00–12, Hugh 03–15, Rekt 06–18).
• World/UX: lighting & fog passes; HUD tweaks (food/water left; toolbelt lowered).
• Persistence: injuries/debuffs persist through death.

Fixed

• None listed for this build.

Notes

• Initial public beta of Demonata Core. Expect balance churn; report issues on GitHub.

Demonata Core Beta

[v1.0.0-beta.1] - 2025-08-13

Added

• Headshots-only rule for ranged, knives, and spears (shotguns exempt).
• Mines seeded across all biomes.
• Gore hazard: gore blocks can infect on contact (50% chance).
• Custom entity groups for biome/tile-aware spawns; wandering horde variants.
• Pickup-by-harvest for lanterns, mines, spikes, barbed wire, and writable storage (no material refunds).
• Chickens can yield eggs on harvest.
• Optional “XP Tuning” module for creators/streamers.

Changed

• Difficulty-aware combat:
  • Headshot damage scales by difficulty; zombie HP scales to keep TTK sane.
  • Zombies no longer climb ladders.
  • Bullet spread reduced; crosshairs removed (shotguns/laser/scopes excluded where noted).
  • Zombie reach recalibrated; special types keep longer reach.
• Blood Moon now lasts all night; final wave loops until dawn.
• Z-Paks last 45 minutes; drop rate slightly increased.
• Compass cleanup: removed red zombie dots.
• Repairs require parts: armor uses Armor Parts; tools/weapons use their respective parts.
• Nails economy: more nail drops; some wood items (incl. Frame Shapes helper) require nails.
• Recipes: Rotten Meat 10, Raw Meat 8, planted crops 4; Dynamite crafts 2.
• Stack sizes: resources → 12,000; food/drinks → 20; medical → 15; Rotting Meat 125 → 20.
• Canned food values: Tuna/Beef 30, Chicken 35, others 20.
• Dysentery realism: Hobo Stew, Sham Chowder, Canned Sham 12% chance.
• Progression/XP: only kills & quests grant XP; base 9,000 XP/level, +4% per level, clamp 50; attributes +16%/lvl.
• Traders: staggered 12-hour schedules (Joel 06–18, Jen 09–21, Bob 00–12, Hugh 03–15, Rekt 06–18).
• World/UX: lighting & fog passes; HUD tweaks (food/water left; toolbelt lowered).
• Persistence: injuries/debuffs persist through death.

Fixed

• None listed for this build.

Notes

• Initial public beta of Demonata Core. Expect balance churn; report issues on GitHub.