Before I go into the update to Unnecessarily Beautiful But Immersive for Alpha 21, I want to first say how humbled I am to have received the resounding support over the last couple of years. When I first started working on rebuilding Unnecessary But Beautiful and rebranding the mod as Unnecessarily Beautiful But Immersive (UBBI for short) with Hernan's blessing, a lot of this was new to me.

I had always played games like Skyrim and Subnautica with mods, but I never once thought I could create them, but here I am. With the help of many modding community members, I was able to learn how to create XML code, use XPATH, use Unity and bring my vision of immersion to 7 Days to Die with items from a mod I grew to quickly enjoy and felt driven to improve.

If I am being honest with myself and you guys, I almost thought about moving on from modding. I have a hyper focus personality and while this was a genuine passion for a time, I wanted to take time to myself and try to spend time with my family. However, with kind words from the gaming community and encouragement from the 7 Days to Die modding community in Discord, I felt compelled to return to modding.

The Stable Alpha 21 Update is Here

So that was a heartfelt introduction, but I'm sure you all want to know the juicy details of the latest update for Alpha 21. It's true, the 4.0.0.0 update to UBBI is out and finally available to download. I know a lot of you have been asking if it was coming and yes, you can now download it today! So, you may be asking questions like: what's changed, what's stayed the same and has anything been added? Well, I'm here to tell you all about it in today's article.

To start, three years since I started this journey, Hernan has now given me the original files for Unnecessary But Beautiful for Unity so that I could truly improve the playing experience with UBBI for Alpha 21. Not only this, but I was also given permission to give UBBI more of my identity to boot. This is mostly a coding thing, but I promise this is all positive news for players.

The most important part about this update was making UBBI compatible with A21. However, along the way I ended up completely restructuring the mod by thinning out code, removing duplicate items, downsizing and rebundling Unity files, removing unnecessary files and many other back-end changes. With access to all original assets, I was able to improve the performance, loading and even the appearance of all items.

The Highlights, Changes & Additions

Aside from restructuring, probably the biggest change is to how unlocking lights works in Alpha 21. In general, various crafting skills are now unlocked by reading magazines spread around your travels, for sale by traders and even earned by traders for quest rewards. Once I was privy to this, I made sure that lights were still unlockable by reading the "Wiring 101" magazines to earn points towards the Electrician skill and reach mastery of Tier 1: Basic Electricity.

While looking at the workbench, you can still view the individual recipes for all items added by UBBI, which consist of kitchen furniture, kitchen appliances, decor, tables & chairs, sofa furniture, bedroom furniture, electronics, lights, pool & outdoor furniture, wooden doors and glass doors and windows. As a shortcut, you can now use the letters "ZT" to quickly find all recipes at once.

I have added a couple new items to the electronics, which include a decorative miniature Ferris Wheel and an Arcade Terminal. As far as items go, some of my most common inquiries have been to fix brightness. I can confirm that the problem was that the files were using an outdated Unity version and an outdated bundling method that was being used in Alpha 20. Now, all items look much better, and I have fixed brightness for the Puff cushion and bathroom towel.

An Important Update Notice

Due to changes made for Alpha 21, a new game is required for players that are switching from A20 to A21. If this is your first time playing with UBBI or you are already on Alpha 21, you should be able to seamlessly install this mod into your game's mod folder. If you tried to use UBBI's 3.0.0.0 update in A21, please start a new game after you download the new update!

Similarly, to the previous alphas, I have not tested UBBI with any overhauls. I cannot guarantee compatibility, as many overhauls make changes to workbench functionality, resource types and UI element changes to name a few things that may trigger errors or crashes when UBBI is placed in those respective mod folders. This decision is out of self-preservation, as I have a full-time job in a slightly different industry.

The 4.0.0.0 version of UBBI is only compatible with Alpha 21. However, I have two good pieces of information to share with you. It took weeks of coding, restructuring and cleaning files, but the latest version is finally here. For those wanting to play on Alpha 20, you can still download the 3.0.0.0 version!

Ztensity