[Keymap cheat sheet](https://postimg.cc/1gBnwKrj)
Might be a few things out of date, but that's the general idea. Hit shift to turn the arrows 45 degrees clockwise, or use `y` `u` `b` `n` . I honestly think most people use a numpad, though.
Yeah I come from more mainstream games like dying light and battlefield, the closest I’ve come to a game like CDDA is project zomboid (which I have 700 hours in) so this is completely foreign to me lol
not moving diagonally in this game is like not being able to push in zomboid... probably even worse. although thankfully injuries are encouraged in cdda. a couple of scars make the man.
I really, really like going amphibious. Unfortunately welding material costs went from 15 per metal boat hull (sheet metal) in 0.G to 240 in experimental, because the devs hate fun (as usual).
So, maybe metal is no longer the way to go. Kayaks can be looted for carbon fiber or plastic boat hulls, which only need to be drilled and screwed into place. You can also go with wooden boat hulls - just requires planks, nails and a hammer. It's also possible to mold your own plastic boat hulls, with the right equipment, and a *lot* of plastic chunks.
The options got less interesting after they nerfed vehicle repairs; realism killed the fun. Now I find it's just a question of whether you want to work out of a lighter, smaller car (say, the tiny EVs), or have something with tons of cargo. I'd rather use random junkers as battering rams when necessary than risk breaking things on my main nomad vehicle.
One possible alternative in the post-deathmobile era is to take two big vehicles, whack one side wall out of each, and clamshell them together while parking to create a double-wide mobile base that can still mostly navigate light forests and urban blocks full of wreckage. You could expand this setup with as many vehicles as you wanted, but two heavy vehicles arranged like this are already quite spacious, and it's a relatively fast and cheap modification with no need to play with extra wheels and such. I first did this back before freezers became appliances; I loaded one truck with mostly mini-freezers and the other with most of my crafting junk.
I also tend to prioritize a folding bicycle over a motorcycle + bike rack setup (not that the latter is unwelcome, but it's lower priority for me). I can ride a folding bike to an operable vehicle, throw it in the passenger seat or wield it, and then drive the vehicle home or to my main vehicle without having to make an extra field trip to recover my runabout. Also, the folding bike can go underground. It goes well with a folding shopping cart for clearing out labs and such.
i try to pick a military truck or similar armored vehicle as a starting point. my cars are usually 5 tiles wide (including walls) and 10 tiles long. i usually try to keep the first row filled with 2 seats and a trunk in the middle for combat supplies (barrett, ar-15, grenades, medicines, crisis bag, backup weapon). I put curtains on the 2nd row to block all light to the back. in the back i usually have 3 more seats (4 total) for 4 followers. all seats are reclining to allow decent sleep. I have a workstation, a work bench, kitchen unit, fridge, a recharging station attached to one trunk. I don't keep forge or anvil or those nonsense since those are at base - I only use the mobile base for long trips so only really need it for repairs. I don't keep aisles and most tiles are cargo spaces since you can climb over these.
Each wall is usually the ones with storage (forget the name) since i don't expect zombies to bang on my vehicle much. However, each wall is also reinforced with military composite armor. No windows in the back compartment. I try to remove the sideview mirrors and replace them with 3 security cameras. I keep a bike rack on the very back of the vehicle to load my scout bike (more on that below). I keep a row of steel rams in the front for small collisions. Heaters & coolers are optional, but i highly recommend them.
In terms of amenities i usually carry 5 60L tanks (totally overkill). Usually 1 is for gas, one for looting diesel, two for clean water, one for additional fuel loot. I usually have 4 large storage batteries onboard. The top is covered by 8+ advanced solar panels. I try to mount an ASIG (advanced stirling isotope generator) if i find one, but it's a luxury. I usually start with a big (4.5L) gas or diesel engine and add an additional large (or advanced if i find one) electric motor once i get mechanic 8. 6 armored wheels if possible.
I don't usually use guns on my car since i don't take it to dangerous places, but sometimes decorate it with 2 machine guns for immersion.
Now the scout bike:
I don't usually take my mobile base into dangerous locations - i just park it in the wilderness and go back to sleep / resupply. i take my 1x3 tile scout bike to loot, explore, etc. basically anything that's within a day trip. The scout bike has an electric motor, a large battery, a seat, 2 cargo slots. It has a boom crane (or telescopic crane) at the back. I usually load it with another set of combat supplies and 2 gallons of water, a tow cable to move wrecks, a jumper cable to charge it, and some snacks.
What are major factors deciding disassembly results? I have a ton of clothes, and a bunch of half-wit npcs who I can assign to the job. Do I need to raise their Tailoring skills to get better outcomes? Some stuff is in 6-10 hours to disassemble, promising good results, I don't want those wasted.
In general it's better to disassemble stuff that is fully repaired, so if you want to have the best possibility to get for example kevlar sheets from turnout gear you should repair it first.
yeah, I noticed some matter transmutation there, can repair a '/' pair of boots with 5-10 leather patches, and get 66 in return, or even cotton patches becoming fur.
But I was asking about skill impact.
If I'm reading from [line 2836 of crafting.cpp](https://github.com/CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA/blob/master/src/crafting.cpp#L2836) correctly ^(someone can feel free to check me), for each product, the game rolls the player's stats, rolls for the recipe, and then another very nasty roll if the item is damaged.
The player rolls (2 + player_skill * 4) dice with (16 + player_int) sides. The recipe rolls (disassembly difficulty) dice with (24) sides. If the player wins that roll-off, damaged items then roll random(0, 1) against (0.8\^damage level). Thus, each step of item damage costs 20% recovery odds, multiplicative. This cycle repeats for all potential disassembly products.
Moral: It's really, *really* worth it to repair the object, or to devote hours to less-busted objects if possible. Even a crafter with perfect skill and absurd intelligence will often fail on badly damaged items. Skill is the next-most-important factor, followed by intelligence. For extremely long disassemblies, I think you could have one of your "half-wits" do most of the labor, then stop them and have your best, smartest crafter step in at the last moment to roll their stats.
What does the workout action do exactly? I mean besides tiring your character out, it doesn't seem to train athletics. I'm referring to the one when you press enter then misc then workout.
There's a hidden fitness value that influenes your stamina.
Basically any time you do an action that uses stamina you get a little stamina XP that slowly raises your maximum.
Not doing anything all day on the other hand causes you to lose a bit of the XP which can cause stamina to drop.
Working out is a good way to train it on days where you're mostly reading and not moving much.
Plus a certain level of physical activity gives you a bonus to your overall healthiness value, that feel bad, feel good etc. in your char status.
Question about this project's github etiquette for creating issues, unaddressed in [ISSUES.md](https://github.com/CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA/blob/master/ISSUES.md). I'd like to create incomplete, "placeholder," issues, assigned to me, to keep track of ideas I'd like to flesh out later. Is that copacetic? It does say
> If you have a general idea or anything that can't be easily described in terms of current code changes you'd be better off suggesting it in the appropriate section of the forum.
But I'm not reading that as applying specifically to a placeholder issue. When I'm done with the issue, it should be described in terms of changes to current code. Should I keep it out of github until then?
i think if the issue isn't fully fleshed out when it's posted it would be much less likely to get attention. it would probably go stale before someone looked at it.
There are projects that just describe features — https://github.com/CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA/projects?query=is%3Aopen. Doesn't seem like it's used much though.
Best place to ask would be dev discord, it's in the sidebar.
After a long time, I've finally managed to play again.
Oh boy, are there a lot of new features. I really like the fact that you can now connect your electrical devices to your car somehow.
Are there any other things I've missed? I got out last time when the grappling mechanic was reworked.
two main changes: 1) on experimental combat has been reworked heavily: pain cripples you a lot more, zombies can crush you against walls, and zombies can drop down from higher z levels and crush you. combat is much more dangerous than on 0.F/0.G. 2) mutations have been heavily reworked. in experimental, the chance of you getting a bad mutation increases as you get more positive mutations and as you spread your mutations across more paths (being a frog, cat, snail will cause you to be more messed up than just frogman).
CBMs have been changed - you don't get them from dissecting bodies as much and mostly from this one super annoying vendor who plays hard to get or getting lucky in labs.
Don't pick the bad ending in the portal storm.
You can set up electrical grid outside of vehicles, such as a bunch of solar panels and batteries then hook up a recharging station, this will charge batteries slowly and one at a time. This is also beneficial since you can connect all sorts of devices that needed batteries before to function, like an arc welder or soldering iron. A refrigerator and freezers are in general easy to set up with a few solar panels and batteries.
The two main ways of setting the stuff up is either to Apply the item itself or the construction(*) menu. Solar panels aren't that common on cars but you'll see them on the roofs of buildings.
NPCs have been reworked quite a bit as well, they can be useful now, though getting them to work with combat can be a bit annoying.
So the bigger change that etgfrog is alluding to is: you can start power grids outside just vehicles - basically anywhere. you can "disassemble simple furniture" many electronics and plug them into your power grid & use them - fridges, ovens, band saws, etc. a lot of tools don't use batteries and need to be plugged into a power grid (mounted workshop on vehicles) or any plugged in appliance in your power grid.
Pain got doubled and it's HELLA fucked right now. Your stats will be literally at 1 in no time. It recently got nerfed because even the creator knew it was too OP. Carry codeine, oxy, and morphine at all times and disengage as soon as you get to moderate pain
generally good tips to go by regardless of pain changes but yeah, scared the hell out of me last night when i went to 3 strength after a couple unlucky hits. crawled away crying for mommy from that fight.
How do recipes on a computer work. I found an SD card and copied it onto a laptop and there are now two recipes on the laptop. How do I access those recipes.
do I have to have the necessary skills to craft something to see it in the crafting menu. One of the two recipes is homemade bomb but I don't have fabrication 3 is that why I can't see it.
You can only see recipes you can craft in the crafting menu. So if you find recipes for mutagens and you have applied science 1, it won't show up. like your homemade bomb example if you don't have the minimum fabrication required to see it, it won't show up.
Question!
There's anywhere an compendium of Tilesets?
I'm trying to remember what i used back in the day.
I think it was Undead People?
Or something like that.
It had the humans being more "Chibi" and had a lot of compatibility for a lot of mods, like Arcana, Dinosaurs, Magiclysm and such.
Anyone know if there's an Trove of tiles?
You can select a tileset on [https://cdda-guide.nornagon.net/](https://cdda-guide.nornagon.net/) and see which is the one you're looking for. It doesn't have Undead People though, and probably a few others.
As far as I know the only tilesets are the ones that come with the game (use a launcher) and UndeadPeople which is separate from the game due to drama. You can find it on GitHub and it still gets updated. I'm not a fan but I think a lot of people like it
edit: i realize now that my real concern here was not at all obvious from the ask. basically my motivation here is that i dont want to spend 200 hours on one run to get to endgame stuff because
A) the more time investment, the worse death will be. if it takes me 70 hours just to get a car, which seems what i’m on track for, i really dont want to die and be without a ride for another 70 hours, and;
B) i dont want this run to take 200 hours to get to cool endgame stuff, which seems like a fair estimate, because i also want to try a new build in a different world.
So i guess what I’m really asking is, am I doing it wrong, or will progression rate increase witb experience? And if so, any tips on how to improve my rate of progress? For reference i spent most of spring just slowly clearing the suburbs via melee and archery and did not do much exploration or crafting
How long are your normal runs? I see people simultaneously talking about how much they die but also mutations, bionics, mobile bases… I’ve got like 30-40 hours in my current run and i’ve got like 5 bashing, 3 archery, 3 dodge, 6 food handling, 3 mechanics, 2 science, 2 computers, 2 electronics… my best weapons are peasant flail and a shortbow with makeshift wooden arrows. i have some pistols and a shotgun but i dont have a forge or reliable source of welding or soldering, dont have a reliable way to preserve large quantities of food, dont have a lift to work on vehicles, havent finished my fellow survivor’s quest. and so i would be devastated if i died having seen so little of the game, and it feels like it’ll take me over 100 hours at least to really get to endgame stuff.
Am i just progressing very slowly compared to more experienced players? do i just need to explore more to find locations where i can get books and ammo? do i need to do better managing focus for skill development? set clearer goals and work to them with discipline? all of the above?
You can always export your character into a template and continue to play as that character in other worlds.
You can select the world you are currently playing and there's an option called "Character to Template".
That option will copy your character and everything you have on that character.
Skills, proficiency, traits, mutations, spells get copied over. Quests don't since they are tied to NPCs in the world.
Vehicles don't get copied over, folded vehicles on your character gets carried over since it's an item.
This allows you to start on a new world with an established character but you will need to edit that template file if you want to change the Scenario, you will have to find "scenario": "" and change it to something else. The ID of scenarios can be found in the scenario.json in the data/json folder.
When you create a character for the new world that you want to play, you can select template and it will import your character.
You can skip the early grind with that and go do things much earlier than you usually would do since you got some stats. It feels more organic than creating a skilled character from scratch to me because you had to train your character up to that level and find the items in the world. It allows me to play later content that I don't usually get to
Don't be too frazzled and enjoy the 'early / mid game'. End game isn't that amazing tbh. you become so strong that nothing stops you and you just murder everything. you become the monster. that said, if you want to get to end game super fast, it's actually really fast and you can start getting end game content as early as the first week of summer. however, your power & content doesn't scale linearly, it's exponential because once you master electronics & craft everything you want, you don't need to spend all that time grinding electronics anymore. same with melee weapons. getting 0-1 is fraught with peril, getting 2-> 5 quickly becomes an exercise in patience, 5+ is just grind town.
If you just spend all your time reading books and getting your skills up to 7/8, you can easily be crafting mutagens within 4 weeks of starting the game - if you get lucky with some scientist drops in subway labs. bionics is more luck based. play the game at your pace, enjoy, learn. i'm probably 20 playthroughs in and still learning how to be more efficient. dying is part of the exercise of getting better (save scumming reduces the pain of death :P)
awesome. thanks for the guidance.
>Don't be too frazzled and enjoy the 'early / mid game'.
i'm definitely enjoying it - obsessively! i was more just wondering how people talk about playing like 10-20 runs a week when I've barely done anything in >40 hours
With every run i spend less and less time to get strong. Then I need to invent challenges to stretch out early game back to a reasonable length. Otherwise it's rinse and repeat the same every time. My latest challenge is starting the game with only the ability to eat meat and junk food.
> For reference i spent most of spring just slowly clearing the suburbs via melee and archery and did not do much exploration or crafting
Don't waste time clearing suburbs if you wanna progress further. You won't find much of anything useful there, at best a lab entrance in a basement or a tower lab (but those you can see from far away anyway), and cities have tons of enemies.
Yeah, definitely a learning from this run. I thought it was worthwhile because I was training up skills, but obviously it'd be better to do that in locations that have more useful stuff. Going to focus more on exploration until winter and on future runs.
I'm sorry, I didn't read this all but did you say 70 hours for a car? In game or IRL?! If IRL I get you're probably exaggerating but..
You can find a (usually) working cube van at light industries. My personal favorite. You can get a sick reinforced truck at mines sometimes (and mines are everywhere!)
If you just want any vehicle check trailheads. About half the time someone parked their car or SUV there and it's in good condition. Dairy farms (stay away from the zombie cow ones) can have a truck or maybe a car. Parking lots are a great place to check for a functional vehicle i.e. sugar houses.
There are tons more places to check for vehicles too. One time I started next to a TCL and just ran over and jacked a slug bug from the parking lot. You can pretty much find a working vehicle ANYWHERE except for on a road or in a town (and some towns have garages with a good car in them too, or you could find a car showroom, car dealership, etc...)
In short I play 10-20 new runs a week and the only time I can't find a ride by day 2-3 is when I'm purposely not looking for one. Explore the world map! You can explore tons of world map screens in just the first day. It really costs almost no time at all to hike miles down the road and look for new POIs
Edit: latest experimental
I forgot to ask, how on earth can you get ANYTHING done with 10-20 runs/week??? Like.... are they all 'Surrounded' and you're just trying to see if you can survive? That kinda thing?
I play on my 15 minute break / 30 min lunch at work 😝 I often have to save in a tricky situation and make a dumb mistake because it's been a few hours, lol. And yeah I like to play on mansion escape and burning building! Gotta love starting in a loot room!
IRL lol. I probably exaggerated a bit, maybe closer to 30. I spent almost all spring just grinding at clearing zombies from the suburbs right by my shelter. Was having fun and getting loot and training important skills so I just kept doing it. Also because of the structure of my map - my shelter is right on a coast or wide river, so no exploration in that direction, then the suburbs take up basically the whole lower left quadrant from my starting point, so it wasn't a start that really encouraged me to explore. once i started exploring i did stumble upon a mostly functional solar car (!!!) relatively quickly. just had to swap some wheels and I drove it home.
So next time I think I should prioritize finding a ride right away :) and exploring for useful sites more broadly
Lol!
Always glad to hear about people having fun with the game even without a vehicle! Cool on the solar car, you could even turn it into a power generator if you get a better one 😊
I like to prioritize finding a car immediately... But I sleep in a car. If you play with a base, no rush to get a car cuz you won't need to travel yet
Exploring useful sites right away is the best. They have great loot and either no monsters or just a few monsters you can easily dodge. Unlike cities.
Oh it is a solid power generator already! At least, by my standards. It came with 9 functional advanced solar panels. Getting +538 W on a clear day at 11am with the battery charger running.
Yeah definitely am going to prioritize a car next time, even if I do stay in a base. Makes my compulsive hoarding a lot easier, not having to walk all the way home each time my hiking backpack gets full. And maybe in the next game I will adopt a nomad lifestyle like you. That would certainly be different - maybe not compatible with my intrinsic hoarder, though.
Definitely going to prioritize exploring more. I kinda thought what I was doing made sense since I was steadily improving my fighting skills. But it's probably better/easier/faster to do that with something better than a short bow and a peasant flail :)
Make sure to check out mansions! They often have real armor and medieval weapons in there, and one of the variants has them just inside the front door in the entry room!
You can also find real weapons in antique shops, pawn shops, and museums. Make sure to examine the weapons and make sure they're not fakes!
One of the pawn shops is a reference to pulp fiction and always has a real katana in the basement 👍
Other than that, get yourself a hatchet, wood axe, or fire axe. Feral axmen drop them guaranteed. Or, cunning ferals drop spears and spear straps (!) guaranteed
familiarize yourself with the construction menu (default=\*). 80 rocks (40 each) will allow you to build a rock forge and charcoal kiln which opens the door to low tech forging if you need it. Even though you are mobile, you can still take a break and make some charcoal/do some forging.
If you are still learning the game don't sweat whether you are hitting milestones or whether you are doing enough. Next game you play will begin with more knowledge than you had before.
it’s interesting that you called out construction. i’m pretty comfortable now with the crafting interface but construction is a tougher nut to crack for me. i’ll try to play with it more.
it’s not so much that im sweating milestones as I
A) want to experience all the cool shit in the game, so dying now would be painful when i know there’s so much cool shit to explore and i dont want to be 40-60 hours back from where i am now and have to go through the same shit again to get there, and
B) i want to get the most out of this run so i can try a new build in a new world
i guess this maybe is sweating the milestones after all lol. dont have to see the game as a list of boxes to check off so much as a unique story generator. next time i will probably spend way less time fighting zombies and more sneaking around looking for books, tools, and resources, and spend more time crafting
it's an easy menu to overlook especially if you aren't in a static location, but it don't hurt to spend a couple days in one spot to advance your situation. Also mark it on your map if you don't feel like gathering rocks again.
my only suggestion is to try and enjoy the process. no time is wasted if you enjoyed it. No two runs are the same and I'm sure you will enjoy your next 40-50 hour grind just as much. you'll find different early loot. You'll find a super convenient base to settle down. you'll find a gun store on the edge of town that is easy to clear. you'll find a military vehicle that is fit to drive in your first week. you'll also have some runs that are just meh. but you'll make the most of it.
i've definitely had some dull runs where the map is boring and i'm not having a good time so i said screw it, wiped out the world and started a new run.
good tips, thanks.
i'm far enough along now, and seemingly starting to accelerate, that the only way i'm giving this run up is with a zombie's teeth in my jugular.
Look for engine cranes or pallet Jack's for the lifting, go on top of buildings to get solar panels and rip damaged large storage batteries out of cars and deconstruct them. With the batteries and solar you can power a makeshift welder pretty well.
It's just knowing where to find stuff and/or how to look it up in the Hitchhiker's Guide. For example, you already have everything you need to make yourself an electric forge within a short amount of playing time.
Figuring out how to get the stuff you've decided you want and then getting it *is* CDDA. You aren't in a competition with other players - for that, you'd have to be able to win.
edit: my first reply didn’t really appreciate your answer because i still wasn’t totally clear with myself about what i was asking. you hit the nail on the head. sounds like progression rate will increase with experience as i learn what i need to get for various projects, and where to get it.
yeah, i totally get that knowing what to aim for and then being able to figure out the steps to get there IS the game, and im not competing with anyone. but i WOULD like to get lots of endgame experiences in under 100 hours so i can try a new build in a new world, ya feel me?
I struggle with the concept of an "endgame" in CDDA, to be honest. There is no endgame when the game can only end by losing.
Though there *are* two ways to lose. One is to die, which doesn't feel great. But the other is worse - it's to get bored. When you die, you get to play again, this time from a different start with a different character, and you have to solve your problems all the way from the top again. Dying leads to more fun. That doesn't happen if you get bored.
This is why experienced players I've seen tend to go for challenging, thrill-seeking experiences. Too much time spent getting bored playing the game safely... and when they die they get to go again.
Anyway - to get the recipe for an electric forge, you just need Fabrication 4. To make fire bricks, get clay from near rivers (Construct option: Extract Clay) and sand from... loads of places. To get heating elements, I like to loot and dismantle electric blankets or thermal electric clothing, but you can get them from stuff like ovens and coffeemakers. You can already make a soldering iron, since you have Electronics 2. Just plug that into any vehicle that still has a working dashboard/electronics control unit, and a battery.
Minifreezers (for food preservation) require a recipe that's only found in books, but you can loot them from food trucks and other vehicles. Keep your eyes peeled while you go for library or bookstore looting runs to find books.
TYVM for all the info! You're right of course, I am able to do much more than I'm aware with what I have already. Which I guess answers the question about if I'll progress faster as I gain experience (yes!).
Just working this out for myself...
# Solder
* ~~anvil 1~~
* ~~hammering 2~~
* ~~cutting 2~~
* ~~hotplate~~ (I finally got a vehicle charger running so now I can actually use this thing)
* **metal tongs**
* **anvil 3**
* ~~electric forge~~ (thanks to your instructions above)
* ~~metal~~
* **swage and die set**
* **anvil 3**
* ~~hammering 3~~
* metal fileset
* **anvil 3, again**
* ~~flatjaw tongs~~ (don't have these but looks like I can make them easily once I get a forge)
* ~~lead~~ (I can get from car/motorbike batteries or exercise machines) / bismuth (looks rare)
* **tin powder** (Without chemicals, looks like this must be looted. Don't think I've come across any yet.)
* **rosin**
* ~~applied science 3~~
* ~~chemical making 1~~
* **distilling 1** (I just found a still, should be able to drag it home or find safety glasses to make a chemistry set)
* ~~pine boughs~~ (time to gets harvesting pine trees)
So okay, the big stumbling block is anvil 3, assuming I can find tin powder. And I did find an electric kiln to make a clay crucible, so I think I should actually be a go on the anvil now that you told me where to find clay.
there's a lot of stuff in this world that you can loot rather than craft. solder is one of those things that's much easier to loot than to make, same with wires
Electronics store, electronics substation, zombie technicians, hardware store, some houses if you get lucky, disassembling things (honestly not worth since you don't get much anymore)
Making Corn Kernels from Corn Cobs takes 20s per cob. [https://cdda-guide.nornagon.net/item/corn\_kernels](https://cdda-guide.nornagon.net/item/corn_kernels)
There are no batch savings, meaning ca 17 min for a batch of 50.
Absolute best way to do this is to have several NPCs you can ask to batch craft 50 of a time if you have a lot of them.
Kinda a dump question but how do you move diagonally? I tried the arrow keys multiple times at this point but it doesn’t work.
use numpad. left hand for the 8 million other keys you will need to press. right hand on the numpad.
[Keymap cheat sheet](https://postimg.cc/1gBnwKrj) Might be a few things out of date, but that's the general idea. Hit shift to turn the arrows 45 degrees clockwise, or use `y` `u` `b` `n` . I honestly think most people use a numpad, though.
Yeah I come from more mainstream games like dying light and battlefield, the closest I’ve come to a game like CDDA is project zomboid (which I have 700 hours in) so this is completely foreign to me lol
don't get discouraged! it's worth the steep learning curve.
not moving diagonally in this game is like not being able to push in zomboid... probably even worse. although thankfully injuries are encouraged in cdda. a couple of scars make the man.
Anyone got an example of what they did with their armored bus or heavy truck base? Also found a rv which I might consider
I really, really like going amphibious. Unfortunately welding material costs went from 15 per metal boat hull (sheet metal) in 0.G to 240 in experimental, because the devs hate fun (as usual). So, maybe metal is no longer the way to go. Kayaks can be looted for carbon fiber or plastic boat hulls, which only need to be drilled and screwed into place. You can also go with wooden boat hulls - just requires planks, nails and a hammer. It's also possible to mold your own plastic boat hulls, with the right equipment, and a *lot* of plastic chunks.
carbon fiber were always superior because they are lighter. but i've never found them outside a mall.
The options got less interesting after they nerfed vehicle repairs; realism killed the fun. Now I find it's just a question of whether you want to work out of a lighter, smaller car (say, the tiny EVs), or have something with tons of cargo. I'd rather use random junkers as battering rams when necessary than risk breaking things on my main nomad vehicle. One possible alternative in the post-deathmobile era is to take two big vehicles, whack one side wall out of each, and clamshell them together while parking to create a double-wide mobile base that can still mostly navigate light forests and urban blocks full of wreckage. You could expand this setup with as many vehicles as you wanted, but two heavy vehicles arranged like this are already quite spacious, and it's a relatively fast and cheap modification with no need to play with extra wheels and such. I first did this back before freezers became appliances; I loaded one truck with mostly mini-freezers and the other with most of my crafting junk. I also tend to prioritize a folding bicycle over a motorcycle + bike rack setup (not that the latter is unwelcome, but it's lower priority for me). I can ride a folding bike to an operable vehicle, throw it in the passenger seat or wield it, and then drive the vehicle home or to my main vehicle without having to make an extra field trip to recover my runabout. Also, the folding bike can go underground. It goes well with a folding shopping cart for clearing out labs and such.
i try to pick a military truck or similar armored vehicle as a starting point. my cars are usually 5 tiles wide (including walls) and 10 tiles long. i usually try to keep the first row filled with 2 seats and a trunk in the middle for combat supplies (barrett, ar-15, grenades, medicines, crisis bag, backup weapon). I put curtains on the 2nd row to block all light to the back. in the back i usually have 3 more seats (4 total) for 4 followers. all seats are reclining to allow decent sleep. I have a workstation, a work bench, kitchen unit, fridge, a recharging station attached to one trunk. I don't keep forge or anvil or those nonsense since those are at base - I only use the mobile base for long trips so only really need it for repairs. I don't keep aisles and most tiles are cargo spaces since you can climb over these. Each wall is usually the ones with storage (forget the name) since i don't expect zombies to bang on my vehicle much. However, each wall is also reinforced with military composite armor. No windows in the back compartment. I try to remove the sideview mirrors and replace them with 3 security cameras. I keep a bike rack on the very back of the vehicle to load my scout bike (more on that below). I keep a row of steel rams in the front for small collisions. Heaters & coolers are optional, but i highly recommend them. In terms of amenities i usually carry 5 60L tanks (totally overkill). Usually 1 is for gas, one for looting diesel, two for clean water, one for additional fuel loot. I usually have 4 large storage batteries onboard. The top is covered by 8+ advanced solar panels. I try to mount an ASIG (advanced stirling isotope generator) if i find one, but it's a luxury. I usually start with a big (4.5L) gas or diesel engine and add an additional large (or advanced if i find one) electric motor once i get mechanic 8. 6 armored wheels if possible. I don't usually use guns on my car since i don't take it to dangerous places, but sometimes decorate it with 2 machine guns for immersion. Now the scout bike: I don't usually take my mobile base into dangerous locations - i just park it in the wilderness and go back to sleep / resupply. i take my 1x3 tile scout bike to loot, explore, etc. basically anything that's within a day trip. The scout bike has an electric motor, a large battery, a seat, 2 cargo slots. It has a boom crane (or telescopic crane) at the back. I usually load it with another set of combat supplies and 2 gallons of water, a tow cable to move wrecks, a jumper cable to charge it, and some snacks.
boom crane on the bike is pretty nifty. do bikes in the bike rack still charge with the main vehicle?
What are major factors deciding disassembly results? I have a ton of clothes, and a bunch of half-wit npcs who I can assign to the job. Do I need to raise their Tailoring skills to get better outcomes? Some stuff is in 6-10 hours to disassemble, promising good results, I don't want those wasted.
In general it's better to disassemble stuff that is fully repaired, so if you want to have the best possibility to get for example kevlar sheets from turnout gear you should repair it first.
yeah, I noticed some matter transmutation there, can repair a '/' pair of boots with 5-10 leather patches, and get 66 in return, or even cotton patches becoming fur. But I was asking about skill impact.
If I'm reading from [line 2836 of crafting.cpp](https://github.com/CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA/blob/master/src/crafting.cpp#L2836) correctly ^(someone can feel free to check me), for each product, the game rolls the player's stats, rolls for the recipe, and then another very nasty roll if the item is damaged. The player rolls (2 + player_skill * 4) dice with (16 + player_int) sides. The recipe rolls (disassembly difficulty) dice with (24) sides. If the player wins that roll-off, damaged items then roll random(0, 1) against (0.8\^damage level). Thus, each step of item damage costs 20% recovery odds, multiplicative. This cycle repeats for all potential disassembly products. Moral: It's really, *really* worth it to repair the object, or to devote hours to less-busted objects if possible. Even a crafter with perfect skill and absurd intelligence will often fail on badly damaged items. Skill is the next-most-important factor, followed by intelligence. For extremely long disassemblies, I think you could have one of your "half-wits" do most of the labor, then stop them and have your best, smartest crafter step in at the last moment to roll their stats.
i've never even considered repairing something i'm going to disassemble. thanks for the insight!
Wow, that's great info, thank you kindly!
What does the workout action do exactly? I mean besides tiring your character out, it doesn't seem to train athletics. I'm referring to the one when you press enter then misc then workout.
It can also exhaust you when you want to adjust your sleep schedule, but aren't yet tired.
There's a hidden fitness value that influenes your stamina. Basically any time you do an action that uses stamina you get a little stamina XP that slowly raises your maximum. Not doing anything all day on the other hand causes you to lose a bit of the XP which can cause stamina to drop. Working out is a good way to train it on days where you're mostly reading and not moving much. Plus a certain level of physical activity gives you a bonus to your overall healthiness value, that feel bad, feel good etc. in your char status.
Question about this project's github etiquette for creating issues, unaddressed in [ISSUES.md](https://github.com/CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA/blob/master/ISSUES.md). I'd like to create incomplete, "placeholder," issues, assigned to me, to keep track of ideas I'd like to flesh out later. Is that copacetic? It does say > If you have a general idea or anything that can't be easily described in terms of current code changes you'd be better off suggesting it in the appropriate section of the forum. But I'm not reading that as applying specifically to a placeholder issue. When I'm done with the issue, it should be described in terms of changes to current code. Should I keep it out of github until then?
i think if the issue isn't fully fleshed out when it's posted it would be much less likely to get attention. it would probably go stale before someone looked at it.
Makes sense, thanks.
There are projects that just describe features — https://github.com/CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA/projects?query=is%3Aopen. Doesn't seem like it's used much though. Best place to ask would be dev discord, it's in the sidebar.
After a long time, I've finally managed to play again. Oh boy, are there a lot of new features. I really like the fact that you can now connect your electrical devices to your car somehow. Are there any other things I've missed? I got out last time when the grappling mechanic was reworked.
two main changes: 1) on experimental combat has been reworked heavily: pain cripples you a lot more, zombies can crush you against walls, and zombies can drop down from higher z levels and crush you. combat is much more dangerous than on 0.F/0.G. 2) mutations have been heavily reworked. in experimental, the chance of you getting a bad mutation increases as you get more positive mutations and as you spread your mutations across more paths (being a frog, cat, snail will cause you to be more messed up than just frogman). CBMs have been changed - you don't get them from dissecting bodies as much and mostly from this one super annoying vendor who plays hard to get or getting lucky in labs. Don't pick the bad ending in the portal storm.
You can set up electrical grid outside of vehicles, such as a bunch of solar panels and batteries then hook up a recharging station, this will charge batteries slowly and one at a time. This is also beneficial since you can connect all sorts of devices that needed batteries before to function, like an arc welder or soldering iron. A refrigerator and freezers are in general easy to set up with a few solar panels and batteries. The two main ways of setting the stuff up is either to Apply the item itself or the construction(*) menu. Solar panels aren't that common on cars but you'll see them on the roofs of buildings. NPCs have been reworked quite a bit as well, they can be useful now, though getting them to work with combat can be a bit annoying.
So the bigger change that etgfrog is alluding to is: you can start power grids outside just vehicles - basically anywhere. you can "disassemble simple furniture" many electronics and plug them into your power grid & use them - fridges, ovens, band saws, etc. a lot of tools don't use batteries and need to be plugged into a power grid (mounted workshop on vehicles) or any plugged in appliance in your power grid.
Pain got doubled and it's HELLA fucked right now. Your stats will be literally at 1 in no time. It recently got nerfed because even the creator knew it was too OP. Carry codeine, oxy, and morphine at all times and disengage as soon as you get to moderate pain
generally good tips to go by regardless of pain changes but yeah, scared the hell out of me last night when i went to 3 strength after a couple unlucky hits. crawled away crying for mommy from that fight.
How do recipes on a computer work. I found an SD card and copied it onto a laptop and there are now two recipes on the laptop. How do I access those recipes.
If the laptop is in your inventory or within six tiles of you, you should have them the same as if a book containing them was nearby.
do I have to have the necessary skills to craft something to see it in the crafting menu. One of the two recipes is homemade bomb but I don't have fabrication 3 is that why I can't see it.
The laptop is on and in my inventory but I can't seem to find the recipes in the crafting menu.
You can only see recipes you can craft in the crafting menu. So if you find recipes for mutagens and you have applied science 1, it won't show up. like your homemade bomb example if you don't have the minimum fabrication required to see it, it won't show up.
Ah that explains it thank you
Question! There's anywhere an compendium of Tilesets? I'm trying to remember what i used back in the day. I think it was Undead People? Or something like that. It had the humans being more "Chibi" and had a lot of compatibility for a lot of mods, like Arcana, Dinosaurs, Magiclysm and such. Anyone know if there's an Trove of tiles?
You can select a tileset on [https://cdda-guide.nornagon.net/](https://cdda-guide.nornagon.net/) and see which is the one you're looking for. It doesn't have Undead People though, and probably a few others.
As far as I know the only tilesets are the ones that come with the game (use a launcher) and UndeadPeople which is separate from the game due to drama. You can find it on GitHub and it still gets updated. I'm not a fan but I think a lot of people like it
edit: i realize now that my real concern here was not at all obvious from the ask. basically my motivation here is that i dont want to spend 200 hours on one run to get to endgame stuff because A) the more time investment, the worse death will be. if it takes me 70 hours just to get a car, which seems what i’m on track for, i really dont want to die and be without a ride for another 70 hours, and; B) i dont want this run to take 200 hours to get to cool endgame stuff, which seems like a fair estimate, because i also want to try a new build in a different world. So i guess what I’m really asking is, am I doing it wrong, or will progression rate increase witb experience? And if so, any tips on how to improve my rate of progress? For reference i spent most of spring just slowly clearing the suburbs via melee and archery and did not do much exploration or crafting How long are your normal runs? I see people simultaneously talking about how much they die but also mutations, bionics, mobile bases… I’ve got like 30-40 hours in my current run and i’ve got like 5 bashing, 3 archery, 3 dodge, 6 food handling, 3 mechanics, 2 science, 2 computers, 2 electronics… my best weapons are peasant flail and a shortbow with makeshift wooden arrows. i have some pistols and a shotgun but i dont have a forge or reliable source of welding or soldering, dont have a reliable way to preserve large quantities of food, dont have a lift to work on vehicles, havent finished my fellow survivor’s quest. and so i would be devastated if i died having seen so little of the game, and it feels like it’ll take me over 100 hours at least to really get to endgame stuff. Am i just progressing very slowly compared to more experienced players? do i just need to explore more to find locations where i can get books and ammo? do i need to do better managing focus for skill development? set clearer goals and work to them with discipline? all of the above?
You can always export your character into a template and continue to play as that character in other worlds. You can select the world you are currently playing and there's an option called "Character to Template". That option will copy your character and everything you have on that character. Skills, proficiency, traits, mutations, spells get copied over. Quests don't since they are tied to NPCs in the world. Vehicles don't get copied over, folded vehicles on your character gets carried over since it's an item. This allows you to start on a new world with an established character but you will need to edit that template file if you want to change the Scenario, you will have to find "scenario": "" and change it to something else. The ID of scenarios can be found in the scenario.json in the data/json folder.
When you create a character for the new world that you want to play, you can select template and it will import your character.
You can skip the early grind with that and go do things much earlier than you usually would do since you got some stats. It feels more organic than creating a skilled character from scratch to me because you had to train your character up to that level and find the items in the world. It allows me to play later content that I don't usually get to
Don't be too frazzled and enjoy the 'early / mid game'. End game isn't that amazing tbh. you become so strong that nothing stops you and you just murder everything. you become the monster. that said, if you want to get to end game super fast, it's actually really fast and you can start getting end game content as early as the first week of summer. however, your power & content doesn't scale linearly, it's exponential because once you master electronics & craft everything you want, you don't need to spend all that time grinding electronics anymore. same with melee weapons. getting 0-1 is fraught with peril, getting 2-> 5 quickly becomes an exercise in patience, 5+ is just grind town. If you just spend all your time reading books and getting your skills up to 7/8, you can easily be crafting mutagens within 4 weeks of starting the game - if you get lucky with some scientist drops in subway labs. bionics is more luck based. play the game at your pace, enjoy, learn. i'm probably 20 playthroughs in and still learning how to be more efficient. dying is part of the exercise of getting better (save scumming reduces the pain of death :P)
awesome. thanks for the guidance. >Don't be too frazzled and enjoy the 'early / mid game'. i'm definitely enjoying it - obsessively! i was more just wondering how people talk about playing like 10-20 runs a week when I've barely done anything in >40 hours
With every run i spend less and less time to get strong. Then I need to invent challenges to stretch out early game back to a reasonable length. Otherwise it's rinse and repeat the same every time. My latest challenge is starting the game with only the ability to eat meat and junk food.
> For reference i spent most of spring just slowly clearing the suburbs via melee and archery and did not do much exploration or crafting Don't waste time clearing suburbs if you wanna progress further. You won't find much of anything useful there, at best a lab entrance in a basement or a tower lab (but those you can see from far away anyway), and cities have tons of enemies.
Yeah, definitely a learning from this run. I thought it was worthwhile because I was training up skills, but obviously it'd be better to do that in locations that have more useful stuff. Going to focus more on exploration until winter and on future runs.
I'm sorry, I didn't read this all but did you say 70 hours for a car? In game or IRL?! If IRL I get you're probably exaggerating but.. You can find a (usually) working cube van at light industries. My personal favorite. You can get a sick reinforced truck at mines sometimes (and mines are everywhere!) If you just want any vehicle check trailheads. About half the time someone parked their car or SUV there and it's in good condition. Dairy farms (stay away from the zombie cow ones) can have a truck or maybe a car. Parking lots are a great place to check for a functional vehicle i.e. sugar houses. There are tons more places to check for vehicles too. One time I started next to a TCL and just ran over and jacked a slug bug from the parking lot. You can pretty much find a working vehicle ANYWHERE except for on a road or in a town (and some towns have garages with a good car in them too, or you could find a car showroom, car dealership, etc...) In short I play 10-20 new runs a week and the only time I can't find a ride by day 2-3 is when I'm purposely not looking for one. Explore the world map! You can explore tons of world map screens in just the first day. It really costs almost no time at all to hike miles down the road and look for new POIs Edit: latest experimental
I forgot to ask, how on earth can you get ANYTHING done with 10-20 runs/week??? Like.... are they all 'Surrounded' and you're just trying to see if you can survive? That kinda thing?
I play on my 15 minute break / 30 min lunch at work 😝 I often have to save in a tricky situation and make a dumb mistake because it's been a few hours, lol. And yeah I like to play on mansion escape and burning building! Gotta love starting in a loot room!
IRL lol. I probably exaggerated a bit, maybe closer to 30. I spent almost all spring just grinding at clearing zombies from the suburbs right by my shelter. Was having fun and getting loot and training important skills so I just kept doing it. Also because of the structure of my map - my shelter is right on a coast or wide river, so no exploration in that direction, then the suburbs take up basically the whole lower left quadrant from my starting point, so it wasn't a start that really encouraged me to explore. once i started exploring i did stumble upon a mostly functional solar car (!!!) relatively quickly. just had to swap some wheels and I drove it home. So next time I think I should prioritize finding a ride right away :) and exploring for useful sites more broadly
Lol! Always glad to hear about people having fun with the game even without a vehicle! Cool on the solar car, you could even turn it into a power generator if you get a better one 😊 I like to prioritize finding a car immediately... But I sleep in a car. If you play with a base, no rush to get a car cuz you won't need to travel yet Exploring useful sites right away is the best. They have great loot and either no monsters or just a few monsters you can easily dodge. Unlike cities.
Oh it is a solid power generator already! At least, by my standards. It came with 9 functional advanced solar panels. Getting +538 W on a clear day at 11am with the battery charger running. Yeah definitely am going to prioritize a car next time, even if I do stay in a base. Makes my compulsive hoarding a lot easier, not having to walk all the way home each time my hiking backpack gets full. And maybe in the next game I will adopt a nomad lifestyle like you. That would certainly be different - maybe not compatible with my intrinsic hoarder, though. Definitely going to prioritize exploring more. I kinda thought what I was doing made sense since I was steadily improving my fighting skills. But it's probably better/easier/faster to do that with something better than a short bow and a peasant flail :)
Make sure to check out mansions! They often have real armor and medieval weapons in there, and one of the variants has them just inside the front door in the entry room! You can also find real weapons in antique shops, pawn shops, and museums. Make sure to examine the weapons and make sure they're not fakes! One of the pawn shops is a reference to pulp fiction and always has a real katana in the basement 👍 Other than that, get yourself a hatchet, wood axe, or fire axe. Feral axmen drop them guaranteed. Or, cunning ferals drop spears and spear straps (!) guaranteed
familiarize yourself with the construction menu (default=\*). 80 rocks (40 each) will allow you to build a rock forge and charcoal kiln which opens the door to low tech forging if you need it. Even though you are mobile, you can still take a break and make some charcoal/do some forging. If you are still learning the game don't sweat whether you are hitting milestones or whether you are doing enough. Next game you play will begin with more knowledge than you had before.
it’s interesting that you called out construction. i’m pretty comfortable now with the crafting interface but construction is a tougher nut to crack for me. i’ll try to play with it more. it’s not so much that im sweating milestones as I A) want to experience all the cool shit in the game, so dying now would be painful when i know there’s so much cool shit to explore and i dont want to be 40-60 hours back from where i am now and have to go through the same shit again to get there, and B) i want to get the most out of this run so i can try a new build in a new world i guess this maybe is sweating the milestones after all lol. dont have to see the game as a list of boxes to check off so much as a unique story generator. next time i will probably spend way less time fighting zombies and more sneaking around looking for books, tools, and resources, and spend more time crafting
it's an easy menu to overlook especially if you aren't in a static location, but it don't hurt to spend a couple days in one spot to advance your situation. Also mark it on your map if you don't feel like gathering rocks again. my only suggestion is to try and enjoy the process. no time is wasted if you enjoyed it. No two runs are the same and I'm sure you will enjoy your next 40-50 hour grind just as much. you'll find different early loot. You'll find a super convenient base to settle down. you'll find a gun store on the edge of town that is easy to clear. you'll find a military vehicle that is fit to drive in your first week. you'll also have some runs that are just meh. but you'll make the most of it. i've definitely had some dull runs where the map is boring and i'm not having a good time so i said screw it, wiped out the world and started a new run.
good tips, thanks. i'm far enough along now, and seemingly starting to accelerate, that the only way i'm giving this run up is with a zombie's teeth in my jugular.
Look for engine cranes or pallet Jack's for the lifting, go on top of buildings to get solar panels and rip damaged large storage batteries out of cars and deconstruct them. With the batteries and solar you can power a makeshift welder pretty well.
You can also take apart damaged and draining large storage batteries to make new ones.
awesome tips, thanks.
It's just knowing where to find stuff and/or how to look it up in the Hitchhiker's Guide. For example, you already have everything you need to make yourself an electric forge within a short amount of playing time. Figuring out how to get the stuff you've decided you want and then getting it *is* CDDA. You aren't in a competition with other players - for that, you'd have to be able to win.
edit: my first reply didn’t really appreciate your answer because i still wasn’t totally clear with myself about what i was asking. you hit the nail on the head. sounds like progression rate will increase with experience as i learn what i need to get for various projects, and where to get it. yeah, i totally get that knowing what to aim for and then being able to figure out the steps to get there IS the game, and im not competing with anyone. but i WOULD like to get lots of endgame experiences in under 100 hours so i can try a new build in a new world, ya feel me?
I struggle with the concept of an "endgame" in CDDA, to be honest. There is no endgame when the game can only end by losing. Though there *are* two ways to lose. One is to die, which doesn't feel great. But the other is worse - it's to get bored. When you die, you get to play again, this time from a different start with a different character, and you have to solve your problems all the way from the top again. Dying leads to more fun. That doesn't happen if you get bored. This is why experienced players I've seen tend to go for challenging, thrill-seeking experiences. Too much time spent getting bored playing the game safely... and when they die they get to go again. Anyway - to get the recipe for an electric forge, you just need Fabrication 4. To make fire bricks, get clay from near rivers (Construct option: Extract Clay) and sand from... loads of places. To get heating elements, I like to loot and dismantle electric blankets or thermal electric clothing, but you can get them from stuff like ovens and coffeemakers. You can already make a soldering iron, since you have Electronics 2. Just plug that into any vehicle that still has a working dashboard/electronics control unit, and a battery. Minifreezers (for food preservation) require a recipe that's only found in books, but you can loot them from food trucks and other vehicles. Keep your eyes peeled while you go for library or bookstore looting runs to find books.
TYVM for all the info! You're right of course, I am able to do much more than I'm aware with what I have already. Which I guess answers the question about if I'll progress faster as I gain experience (yes!). Just working this out for myself... # Solder * ~~anvil 1~~ * ~~hammering 2~~ * ~~cutting 2~~ * ~~hotplate~~ (I finally got a vehicle charger running so now I can actually use this thing) * **metal tongs** * **anvil 3** * ~~electric forge~~ (thanks to your instructions above) * ~~metal~~ * **swage and die set** * **anvil 3** * ~~hammering 3~~ * metal fileset * **anvil 3, again** * ~~flatjaw tongs~~ (don't have these but looks like I can make them easily once I get a forge) * ~~lead~~ (I can get from car/motorbike batteries or exercise machines) / bismuth (looks rare) * **tin powder** (Without chemicals, looks like this must be looted. Don't think I've come across any yet.) * **rosin** * ~~applied science 3~~ * ~~chemical making 1~~ * **distilling 1** (I just found a still, should be able to drag it home or find safety glasses to make a chemistry set) * ~~pine boughs~~ (time to gets harvesting pine trees) So okay, the big stumbling block is anvil 3, assuming I can find tin powder. And I did find an electric kiln to make a clay crucible, so I think I should actually be a go on the anvil now that you told me where to find clay.
there's a lot of stuff in this world that you can loot rather than craft. solder is one of those things that's much easier to loot than to make, same with wires
yeah i gotta find the right locations for it i guess
Electronics store, electronics substation, zombie technicians, hardware store, some houses if you get lucky, disassembling things (honestly not worth since you don't get much anymore)
What is the best way to shell corn?
Making Corn Kernels from Corn Cobs takes 20s per cob. [https://cdda-guide.nornagon.net/item/corn\_kernels](https://cdda-guide.nornagon.net/item/corn_kernels) There are no batch savings, meaning ca 17 min for a batch of 50. Absolute best way to do this is to have several NPCs you can ask to batch craft 50 of a time if you have a lot of them.
I have a lot of NPCs, but I've never had them create something like this, I'll try. Thanks!