Build Log #04
The Production Line
The fourth biweekly report of the MLM beta
The last log was about claiming space. This one is about making things. Over two weeks the world gained a working production chain: a dripper that filters water, extracts lye, and activates charcoal; liquid alchemy that mixes qualities; honey extraction from wild bee hollows; and the first steps toward soap. Underneath the town, the sewers became a full traversal network you can cross with the right gear. Most of it was tested extensively by the players before it settled.
Less was added to look at this period. Much more was added to do. This groundwork is deliberate: later in the beta, drinking and eating will be needed to survive, so the systems that produce clean water and food had to come first.
01What changed on the server side
Grouped by subject.
The dripper and water purification
- The dripper is the centerpiece. A placeable device that runs slow filtering processes. It holds up to three cartridge-and-container pairs, and each slot produces 0.01 L of product per 10 minutes at full condition. Clicking it with an empty hand shows its status.
- Three processes. With the right cartridge and water, a dripper can filter water, extract lye, or activate charcoal. Wrong combinations are blocked, since some processes produce liquid waste that would ruin the container beneath.
- A full production cycle. The processes chain: lye feeds charcoal activation, activated charcoal filters water. Filtering removes chemical contamination; to kill microbes you still put the container in a campfire, where roughly half die after five minutes.
- Condition, not quality, sets the speed. A dripper never loses condition while running, only its cartridges do. A dripper at 40% condition produces about 2.5x slower. Repair it to 100% and it runs 5x faster than a worn one. Cartridge and water quality set the quality of the product; the dripper's quality only affects how often it needs repair.
- It runs forever, if protected. Kept out of harsh weather, a dripper lasts indefinitely. Placing one is the final step in the newbie quest chain.
- It makes noise. A running dripper makes a "drip" sound. Placed against an outer wall, a neighbor on the other side can hear it, so hide it well.
Liquid alchemy and mixing
- Mix qualities to upgrade liquids. Pouring liquids of different qualities into one container gambles on the result. Mix 1 L of Q1 with 3 L of Q5 and the 4 L comes out Q5 with 75% chance, Q1 with 25%, weighted by volume.
- Pouring has rules. A single pour moves one fifth of the source container's capacity, never less than 0.05 L or more than 1.00 L. Small containers make precise steps; to move tiny amounts, pour through an intermediate small container.
- Contamination averages, quality gambles. Mixing dirty and clean water averages the contamination rather than rolling for it, unlike quality. Filtering removes only chemical contamination, so microbes still need heat.
The sewers become traversable
- A full underground network. The sewers grew into a way to cross the town out of sight, with two main tunnels and an older red-marked section linking them. Ladders sit every 60 meters, rising above the toxic gas so you can surface to breathe.
- Cross on one breath, or with gear. With full lungs you can dive through the gas to the next ladder. Roller skates or blades let you cover the distance without breathing equipment. A crafted breathing tube lets you walk one meter lower than normal.
- Rainwater tubes and crawlspaces. Narrow rainwater tubes sit about three meters below the surface with no gas, where kids can crouch and move, or anyone with a Wolf Pack-craftable slitherboard can move quickly lying down.
- What's down there. The old sewers lead to a special facility at their north end, and some house basements are now reachable from below, a few unlockable from inside.
Honey, bees, and the natural economy
- Honey extraction. With a honeycomb in the right hand and a liquid container in the left, plus a crushing tool, you extract honey. Honeycomb quality carries into the honey, and beeswax is produced alongside.
- Wild bee hollows. Wild bee hollows hold 10 to 20 honeycombs and replenish over time, making a found hollow a lasting resource. Reading the insects book reveals them from the ground. Bird hollows hold rare eggs.
- Keep honey for medicine. Honey of the same quality can be mixed and stored as liquid rather than combs. It's worth keeping for future medicine.
Soap and waste chemistry
- Soap from fat and lye. Combining fat and lye is the first step toward soap, with the hand each is held in affecting the result, since quality during a combine can only stay the same or drop.
- Waste has a use. Charcoal activation produces liquid waste as a by-product. High-quality waste can poison river water, enough to cause real problems for others, part of a broader waste-operating mechanic.
- The river can be cleaned. Poisoning the river is answered by the player who operates the pound lock, deciding when the river gets cleaned.
Tools, repair, and movement
- Repair got deeper. Drippers, cartridges, and clay half-rounds can be repaired, but repairing with lower-quality material can lower the item's quality. Half-rounds repair at a 1:6 ratio with clay. Above 60% condition a repair also needs sticks, above 90% it needs rope.
- Ziplines and skating. New ziplines were placed, including one between the wings of the H building. Roller skates and blades give a movement bonus on any firm surface, useful for the sewer crossings.
- The funnel as a voice tool. A funnel or makeshift funnel held in the right hand magnifies your voice from normal to a shout, raising its range from about 15 meters to 75. Message colour can be changed the same way.
- Rainwater and containers. Buckets and other containers can collect and pour water at a river bank. A liquid container clicked on yourself no longer risks an accidental drink in the wrong situations, after testing.
- Locks and keys expanded. Different lock types now exist for boxes, doors, gates, vehicles, and plastic-card devices, each with their own keys and lockpicks. Some yard doors can be locked from inside, so a second character can let you through.
Custom demental sounds
- Bring your own sounds. A dedicated client build lets players supply their own demental sounds. It's optional and not needed to play. WAV files in 16-bit 44.1 kHz format, named by their sound ID, go into the Sounds folder and replace the defaults.
- A community proposal. The feature came from a player suggestion, and a starter sound pack was shared alongside it.
Clans and community expansion
- Match Lords held its public token sale. The Match Lords ($ML) clan opened its public sale on June 26 and sold out within days. Match Lords brings a squad of veteran players into My Last Match.
- Two clans now anchor the world. Wolf Pack and Match Lords are both active, each with its own token, giving the player-driven economy and politics real organized groups to run on.
- Room for more. The design intent is for more clans to join beyond these two. As the community put it, total dominance by any single group is not healthy for the world; a working economy needs many organized groups and individuals. More clans bring more balance to the game's dynamics.
Bug hunting and stability
- The tree-chop crash. Much of the period was spent chasing a crash tied to chopping trees, which could roll back progress. Reproducing it took organized group testing, repeated many times, to isolate the cause.
- The immortality bug. A critical bug was traced to the warfork's push feature breaking post-death teleportation, letting characters avoid dying. Found through testing and fixed.
- Colour scheme reworked. Item quality colours were changed for better contrast, moving to red, yellow, green, cyan, purple.
- Reporting is the work. As the developer put it, reporting a bug is 10% of the fix. Rewards were given to players who found serious bugs, and to those who helped kill others stuck in critical situations.
02What changed on the client side
Releases
Multiple client builds shipped across the period, several flagged as required to see new world changes: the retargeted forest teleport, the extended sewers, dripper and cartridge handling, the reworked quality colours, and the new map areas. Each major change came paired with a client update and the usual notice.
New map, new items, and sound support
A build early in the period brought a new map section and new items, improved visualization of mobs hidden behind trees, updated poses for dead mobs, and the reworked colour scheme for item qualities. A later build added support for player-supplied demental sounds, kept separate so it stays optional.
03Community contributions
If your name isn't here and you contributed, post in the forum and we'll catch you in Build Log #05.
04Events
Forest teleport retargeted, June 28. The forest teleport was moved, with players warned to relocate anything buried in the old forest first. The new forest added a picnic area, cans in a dumpster, and hundreds of Q5 hardwood branches to be claimed.
Helper reward draw, June 28. A reward was drawn among players who had helped kill others stuck in critical situations, assembled from community nominations.
Sewers opened for crossing, late June. The sewer network became a real way to cross town, and players spent days testing breathing limits, skates, blades, and breathing tubes to find what worked.
Match Lords public sale, June 26. The Match Lords clan opened its public token sale and sold out within days, bringing a squad of veteran players into the game and giving the world a second organized clan alongside Wolf Pack.
Custom sounds shipped, July 1. A client build with player-supplied demental sounds went out, along with a community starter pack.
Alchemy and honey came online, late June to early July. Liquid mixing, the full dripper cycle, and honey extraction were enabled and tested live, turning raw materials into a production economy.
Military cache hunt continued. With hotel rooms still selling, one player bought out remaining rooms hunting the cache hidden in a random one. By the close of the period the outcome was still unresolved.
05On the bench
Named but not yet shipped:
- Partial looting. Still not enabled. Combat continued to be tuned in preparation.
- Survival needs. Drinking and eating are not yet required to stay alive, but they will be later in the beta. This period's water treatment and food production are the groundwork for that.
- Death without fees. Death is planned without resurrection fees. Instead, a player who dies will have to relearn all their skills by reading again.
- Oxygen death. Running out of air doesn't kill yet, but the system is in place for when it does.
- Character stats. Strength, Dexterity, and Intelligence exist but currently only gate which tools and actions you can use, not their speed. Their full effects come later.
- Body decay. Rotting and related handling of corpses is planned, which will change several areas including the cemetery.
- More clans. The economy is built for more clans to join beyond Wolf Pack and Match Lords, which both launched tokens this period.
- Honey and soap production to be deepened, alongside more buildings and reincarnation points on the expanded map.
06By the numbers
A quick snapshot of the period:
07Closing
Build Log #05 will cover July 5 through July 18.
The world can now purify its own water, brew its own chemistry, and harvest its own honey. This groundwork is deliberate. Later in the beta, drinking and eating will be required to keep a character alive, so water treatment and food production had to exist first. Death is being designed without resurrection fees, but with a real cost: a player who dies will have to relearn all their skills by reading again. The next step is still looting.