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the survivor suits that basically everyone ever is going to gravitate toward for general purpose armor count as waterproof, so it becomes a non-issue regardless after you leave the early game proper.
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Apr 4, 2017 00:32
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i've been playing without survivor suits in my past few games, and even then it isn't an issue at all. the foldable poncho has an encumbrance of 0 and also covers your head.
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Apr 4, 2017 00:34
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Switzerland posted:My character just encountered a shoggoth for the first time. Almost the last time, too, if it weren't for running away. My only positive Shoggoth experience was them on the other side of a glass lab wall and me with a laser rifle of some kind.
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Apr 4, 2017 02:09
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Plowing through them with a killcar works very well.
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Apr 4, 2017 02:13
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i used fire they burn pretty good
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Apr 4, 2017 02:15
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Do they even have any ranged attacks? As long as you're faster than them and don't trap yourself on geometry you'll win with any sort of projectile.
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Apr 4, 2017 03:47
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Mzbundifund posted:Do they even have any ranged attacks? As long as you're faster than them and don't trap yourself on geometry you'll win with any sort of projectile. Unless something has changed, they do not, but they DO have gobs of health and regeneration, making wittling them down much more of a chore.
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Apr 4, 2017 10:14
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Hm ok, so you'll need to at least outpace their regen. I thought I remembered killing them with a crossbow without too much difficulty, but the crossbow's whole deal is big spiky damage which is generally good vs. regeneration.
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Apr 4, 2017 17:28
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I always carry a LAW around with me when I find one for those sorts of 'Of poo poo this must die now" encounters. I've only nearly killed myself with the blast twice!
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Apr 4, 2017 22:13
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I seem to remember last time I played this I primarily used the LAW to open doors.
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Apr 4, 2017 22:16
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I managed to run away from the shoggoth. Next day, rounded a corner OH HELLO ZOMBIE GRENADIER 
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Apr 5, 2017 00:15
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Based on what people are saying about grenadiers, I'm guessing they broke explosive damage at some point, or made grenadiers more focused or something? As I recall explosions were, at one point, dangerous, but primarily because of the amount of pain they inflicted and their large AoE rather than pure damage output (they spread their damage out over multiple types or something and were heavily resisted by armor). Grenadiers at that time were a threat, but generally if your reaction to rounding a corner into a grenadier was just immediately sprinting away while popping whatever drugs you had on hand, you could survive a grenade or C4 hack and limp away to safety while the grenadier bumbled around semi-aimlessly. This was true even with fairly minimal mid-game armor. A grenade hack should not be ripping through survivor armor or power armor like people have been saying, that's WAY too strong, hilariously so. Even mines do less damage than that! ...granted, there's at least one hack-robot that I can think of that SHOULD be a threat to pretty much anyone, but if grenadiers can launch THOSE, it must be vanishingly rare. And hilarious.
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Apr 5, 2017 01:17
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They can.
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Apr 5, 2017 01:26
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From what I understand, they tend to open with the nuke-hack things and there's generally gently caress nothing you can do about it. Other than die, that is.
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Apr 5, 2017 13:23
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In addition to that, there are two other zombie grenadier bullshit things to watch out for: 1. They can and will deploy C4 hacks and/or drop primed C4 upon death. C4 WILL kill your rear end dead if you're nearby when it blows, irrespective of armour. I took out a grenadier inside a military outpost bunker while peeking through the door, saw it drop C4, slammed the door shut and sprinted away, and I still took half my 15-strength health in damage on every body part through my full heavy survivor armour - plus triple-digit pain and significant equipment damage. Also, the concrete bunker almost entirely disintegrated trying to contain the blast. C4 will loving kill you, even if you're so diesel you can walk up to milspec turrets and melee them. 2. There are elite zombie grenadiers. Angry Diplomat fucked around with this message at 14:59 on Apr 5, 2017 |
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Apr 5, 2017 14:57
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I don't feel bad at all about disabling exploding monsters.
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Apr 5, 2017 15:03
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Explosives and explosions in general are just kind of fucky I think. I recently had a black gunpowder charge just straight up instantly explode in my face when I lit it, killing me outright, in spite of the description saying its fuse would burn for like 10 turns. The recoilless rifle does like 1000+ damage with 100+ armour penetration when loaded with explosive rounds. Setting off a land mine is a toss-up between mildly scratching your 100%-coverage heavy survivour armour or taking 40 damage to three randomly selected body parts and instantly mangling every item you're wearing under your 100%-coverage heavy survivor armour. You can stroll up to a turret with bullets bouncing harmlessly off you like raindrops, but when you punch the turret until it explodes you take a bunch of damage and your underwear disintegrates. 
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Apr 5, 2017 16:06
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I'm used to item damage being fucky, but I'm certain that explosions were not always that powerful. It seems like an odd change; I wonder if it's intentional or a knock-on effect from other things changing, because I felt like explosions were pretty reasonable the last time I played. They hosed you up proper if you were unarmored, but were mostly a nuisance if you were armored, which feels appropriate. There's a reason things like the LAW do impact damage to simulate shaped charge detonation (unless that's been stupidly changed as well), undirected explosive force is not that great at damaging armor. I mean, granted, wild and crazy pitches and fits in the game balance is pretty much CDDA.txt, but the system worked so well for a brief period before I'm actually wondering what must have happened for it to be changed. Granted, it could be like the vehicle engine fuel consumption problem a little while back when it seemed like no one really knew WHY it had ended up the way it did, but everyone monkeying with the arcane vehicle code to fix it just kept making things worse until it was finally reverted entirely. E: Another fun little thing that reminds me of. Without giving away too much, Irradiated Wanderers are potentially a great source of dodge training if you have heavy endgame armor, because they're old and broken and have an almost-guaranted-to-hit attack targeting your torso. Just try not to be wearing anything made of cloth; when the attack connects, it has an absurdly high chance of shredding any item worn on the torso, up to and including your underwear under power armor. Shady Amish Terror fucked around with this message at 21:07 on Apr 5, 2017 |
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Apr 5, 2017 21:02
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assuming 0.C counts as the world before, we used to live in a world where a LAW could struggle to kill a hulk. so yes, i feel it is a safe general bet that explosive damage has been tweaked at some point, though how intentional that tweak is could probably be debated.
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Apr 5, 2017 22:09
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Coolguye posted:assuming 0.C counts as the world before, we used to live in a world where a LAW could struggle to kill a hulk. so yes, i feel it is a safe general bet that explosive damage has been tweaked at some point, though how intentional that tweak is could probably be debated. I admit I don't recall if I was play 0.C or just an experimental from some years back at that point, though I guess I can see the point you're making in as much as a Hulk's health would barely be dented if the rocket didn't hit them dead on, which is, in a surprising moment of actual realism, hard to guarantee as some git who stumbled over a rocket launcher and is trying to hit a moving target. While, yes, fun is the goal, if the idea was to beef up the player's explosive access then just straight boosting explosions isn't a very good way to do it, as the perfectably reasonable sourness in the thread about explosive enemies has demonstrated. I was just surprised to have been lucky enough to avoid the problem so far, especially as, again, it used to not be so bad so I've probably done a lot of lethally stupid things in recent builds without realizing it.
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Apr 5, 2017 22:29
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my point was more that explosive damage historically has been more about doing an okay amount of damage to a wide area, not utterly obliterating ground zero and the twenty meters around. the ethos has definitely shifted at some point, though i am not sure how intentional it was. flavor-wise, i would generally prefer explosions being terminally lethal, but the player needs more ways to deal with them. grenadier zombies are good in that they can scare even end game players, but they are bad in that the prescribed way to take them is not possible until very late in the game. and even when it is possible, it is not always practical.
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Apr 5, 2017 22:39
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What IS the prescribed way to take them? Keep a super-accurate firearm in your hands at all times and kill them on the first turn they're revealed before they get an action?
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Apr 5, 2017 22:47
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in one word: yes. in more words: holstering any heavy caliber pistol or a laser pistol will work as well, so long as your ranged skill is high enough that you can unholster it smoothly. prioritizing the spawned hacks is more important than shooting the grenadier, because the hacks have fairly low HP. if they blow up close to the grenadier, the deadhead is likely going up in the fireball.
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Apr 5, 2017 22:54
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I suppose that's always been more or less my approach, in as much that if I come upon a grenadier I immediately sprint away to put distance on us and to stay out of line of sight, and then engage with ranged weapons from outside their aggro range. I can see situations where you'd just be screwed, with as powerful as explosions are now. The game being a bit lethal if you're doing something dumb is to be expected, but explosive hacks are extremely fast and aggressive so I'm not sure I like the idea of them being one-shot kills even on endgame players, because unless you have the Za Warudo CBM and a bunch of speed boosts and make a point of very carefully playing one move at a time (valid in most roguelikes, feels a little silly in Cataclysm where the gameplay experience is padded by long stretches of travel and busy work), you will probably eventually run into a situation where you round a corner into a grenadier who responds by releasing an explosive-hack of some kind at point blank range, which is just game over even if you kill it I guess? It seems kind of loving dumb. E: Wait, hacks don't have a chance of just randomly going off when shot now? I guess that helps a little, though man, that REALLY emphasizes the need for a good holster setup. Or, maybe I misread that. If they still do, then being Billy the Kid doesn't matter much if they just blow up in your face anyways. E2: That also implies a need to grind up handguns skill, which is kind of amusing given how the game has always sort of treated handguns as a dangerous crutch for new characters and not much else. Shady Amish Terror fucked around with this message at 23:02 on Apr 5, 2017 |
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Apr 5, 2017 22:57
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you can actually make a pretty reasonably accurate pocket shotgun with a sawed off loaded with slug rounds. but that just means you need to grind shotguns instead, so.
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Apr 5, 2017 23:11
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A sawed-off double-barrelled shotgun with flechette rounds loaded makes a spectacular last-ditch panic weapon in close quarters. I like to wander around with a sheathed broadsword for melee, the above hand cannon holstered for emergencies, and a customized to hell Barrett sniper rifle with a rifle scope and extended barrel sitting in the doomtruck within arm's reach of the driver's seat. I do find that unexpected mid-range engagements are kind of a problem sometimes, but my survivor is an ultrabionic hell machine with the ability to shoot chain lightning and whatnot, so it typically works out anyway. The Barrett is also perfectly capable of killing anything extremely dead at any range, I just have to be carrying the massive loving thing and most of the time I can't be bothered 
Angry Diplomat fucked around with this message at 01:38 on Apr 6, 2017 |
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Apr 6, 2017 01:32
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I've actually really been warming up to SMGs lately, but that might be in part because I have some of the gun-related mods on and they seem to be fond of them. The MP5 is a good, compact mid-range weapon using a (relatively) abundant ammo type, and I've been having a lot of fun with some goofy near-future SMG that I can't recall whether its part of the base game or not (RMG2000 or something like that). The ability to select full-auto is a real plus on a smaller mid-range weapon, I've found, but I still end up having to enter melee pretty regularly because reloading sucks if you don't have lots of holders and spare clips around.
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Apr 6, 2017 02:35
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that actually is a good point. i wonder if you could get a half decent SMG into a pistol holster that straps to you nicely. irl you can get them about the same size as a sawed-off as long as you're not using solid stocks or anything, so it's a fair question i think. i'll get another game going tonight and see what i can rustle up.
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Apr 6, 2017 02:49
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There is also some sort of near future flechette pistol that has semi-auto, burst (2), and full auto. Its pretty great.
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Apr 6, 2017 07:28
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Telsa Cola posted:There is also some sort of near future flechette pistol that has semi-auto, burst (2), and full auto. Its pretty great. Is that the one that has a 20-round capacity or something absurd like that? It might as well be an SMG itself.
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Apr 6, 2017 10:13
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Just about any Rivtech weapon is almost certainly going to be quite good, although keeping them fed can be pretty awful unless you have the recipes and skills needed to make homebrew caseless ammunition or whatever their dumb proprietary rounds are (5x50mm?). Shotguns are great for the opposite reasons: their ammunition is ubiquitous and they'll completely shred most common threats up close irrespective of your skill. If you can get one, a .50cal weapon in single-shot mode is probably the best you're going to get your hands on for sniping at range, since a) .50cal rounds do a poo poo-ton of damage and b) .50cal rounds are ridiculously common given that you can unload ammo belts containing 100+ of them from machine guns on military vehicles and like three of them is enough to kill almost anything in the game.
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Apr 6, 2017 10:43
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If memory serves, it's 5x50mm for the rifles, 8x40mm for the handguns and smgs (although I think the stats on those two ammo types are fairly similar?) and 20x66mm for the goofy Rivtech proprietary shotguns. I had forgotten that Rivtech is most of the goofy near-future stuff (and I think Leadworks is a similar brand for weapons that use more conventional ammo types?). Also of note is that the .50 caliber round is quite accurate and one of the few conventional ammo types to reach out beyond about 30 tiles, and the Barrett sniper rifle also has low base dispersion, so yeah, it's pretty much the cream of the crop for sniping. A bit loud, as you would expect, but, y'know. Guns.
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Apr 6, 2017 14:41
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the l39b-45 used to be my go-to before i was enlightened and just went all emergency shotguns all the time
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Apr 6, 2017 14:48
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the relative greater importance of firearms with explosive things on is what makes me favor unarmed combat as my melee after the first couple of days even the basic Brawling style is sufficient to handle almost all threats if your armor is up to snuff, and it's a right pain to keep trying to pull out your knife or sword when the explosive guys make you walk around with your gun out.
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Apr 6, 2017 15:23
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Zui Quan is just shy of being straight broken, to the point that I tend to take it in min-maxed builds. Dodging bonuses paired with retaliatory strikes is just ridiculously good. It feels like the damage output can't outpace most other martial arts, but when it's still sufficient to take on all the common enemies in the game, that's fine. I'll use my oh-poo poo buttons on anything I want to use resources on, while drunken brawling's massive bonuses to crowd control just let me sort of not worry about little things like that. The forbidden martial arts styles probably have more powerful techniques (I think one gives you unarmed sweep attacks in addition to movement/attack/dodge bonuses and retaliatory strikes; Tiger or something like that, maybe?), but I haven't played around with them recently. It's nice to just have a reliable attack method that pairs well with dodging and can do some amount of crowd control.
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Apr 6, 2017 16:10
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A punch dagger in a sheath/ankle sheath/survivor belt is light, blindingly quick to draw or sheath, both accurate and speedy, and will absolutely loving murder everything if you use it with Krav Maga, as it benefits from both the unarmed and edged damage bonuses. It'll take a while to whittle down heavily armoured opponents, but anything flimsier than a soldier zombie will eat poo poo to a Krav Maga punch dagger very, very fast, and you can have that thing in your hands in less than 50 tiny nondescript time increments if you drop whatever you're holding to draw it. I'm enjoying the RM99 caseless revolver a lot. Give it a laser sight, red dot sight, ergonomic grip, and barrel extension and you've got a big, stylish, accurate, ammo-efficient, fuckoff powerful handgun that still fits in an XL holster, plus it reloads remarkably fast for a revolver. Play bionic cowboy in style!
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Apr 6, 2017 16:12
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Shady Amish Terror posted:Is that the one that has a 20-round capacity or something absurd like that? It might as well be an SMG itself. Better, it has a 50 round capacity.
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Apr 6, 2017 17:40
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So, I found a sweet flamethrower in a military bunker, and HAD to use it on something... I picked a huge beehive, just because preliminary testing seemed to imply that honeycomb wasn't destroyed by fire, making the whole place much easier to loot once I cleared the bees and scarred zombies out. The problem is, I sprayed it a little too liberally and now every single tile of the 3x3 map size beehive is a raging fire, and it doesn't seem very interested in ever going out. After two weeks I pitched a tent right outside and started living there, just in case it was outside my reality bubble or something - no dice. Is there anything I can do to speed along the process, or does the fire just live there now?
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Apr 11, 2017 06:37
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Random rear end in a top hat posted:So, I found a sweet flamethrower in a military bunker, and HAD to use it on something... I picked a huge beehive, just because preliminary testing seemed to imply that honeycomb wasn't destroyed by fire, making the whole place much easier to loot once I cleared the bees and scarred zombies out. The problem is, I sprayed it a little too liberally and now every single tile of the 3x3 map size beehive is a raging fire, and it doesn't seem very interested in ever going out. After two weeks I pitched a tent right outside and started living there, just in case it was outside my reality bubble or something - no dice. Is there anything I can do to speed along the process, or does the fire just live there now? Fire lives there now. So, the way fire works is a little goofy. As far as I know, AND THIS IS NOT DEFINITIVE, SO I COULD BE WRONG, fire basically has a per-tile value representing the amount of fire there. It goes up when it consumes flammable things, goes down slowly over time, and goes down quickly if its exposed to rain or fire-fighting chemicals. If there's enough fire in a tile, it has a chance of forcing out some of its fire value into an adjacent tile each turn, with the chance going up the more fire is in that tile and if flammable terrain is in adjacent tiles (bushes, carpet, slime oddly enough). A very few things are nearly immune to fire, which is probably a result of their material value both being very durable and being non-flammable, and perhaps also being small (rocks, nails, ceramic shards). ALMOST EVERYTHING ELSE will either be consumed by fire, or suffer item damage/tile damage/vehicle damage until its destruction, this includes bodies, most metal objects, pretty much all food, and obviously anything flammable. Some structures are also mostly immune to fire, which can then lead to goofy poo poo. If a fire breaks out in a cement or metal building, it can potentially consume flammables like items and furniture such that it ends up filling the structure with fire...that then refuses to go out for eons. Recall that fire dissipates quickly when exposed to rain. If fire can't bring your structure down, it might never end up exposed to the sky, and so you instead have to wait for the fire to VERY, VERY SLOWLY dissipate on its own. A well-fed fire can potentially last for weeks or entire seasons, and even once its extinguished the heat might well take even longer to fully dissipate. If you were making liberal use of a flamethrower in a hive full of, say, flammable dead bodies, it's entirely possible that fire has several weeks worth of fuel in it. You're also right in that the fire will stay in magical stasis if its removed from the reality bubble. I've taken a Bad Day start and come back a year later to my starting house to find it only just now burning down. You CAN try to gather fire extinguishers of various kinds if you want to play fireman, and water hose weapons may have some effect as well. Your best bet there is to raid a fire station (or, oddly, something like a Lab or Public Works just because of the large number of loot rolls), don some turnout gear if you can find it, and go hog-wild....but, full disclosure, fire-fighting has always been a questionable prospect at best in Cataclysm, and I don't know how effective the extinguisher gear currently is. Shady Amish Terror fucked around with this message at 07:02 on Apr 11, 2017 |
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Apr 11, 2017 06:59
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Shady Amish Terror posted:...If there's enough fire in a tile, it has a chance of forcing out some of its fire value into an adjacent tile each turn, with the chance going up the more fire is in that tile and if flammable terrain is in adjacent tiles... This seems like a really good way of coding a sort of a positive feedback loop that ends with a neverending conflagration.
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Apr 11, 2017 10:14
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