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Tin Tim
Jun 4, 2012

Live by the pun - Die by the pun

Leal posted:

One time I had a start in one of those small 4 house towns. Each one of their basements dropped you into straight lava.
At first I wanted to say heck yeah because the 4 house town start is really sweet if you're the type that builds a base to hoard poo poo (me) but then ayy lmao

Coolguye posted:

basements all around are extremely useful for a lot of things, not the least of which is just being completely safe as long as nothing saw you go down the stairs. a basement was always my preferred place to either sleep off sicknesses or get lots of reading done back when i was playing regularly just because i knew for a drat fact that nothing was going to bother me down there.

it's probably for the best that they are now actually kind of dangerous because before they were basically free money and inviolate fortresses besides.
Tbf you'll learn to tell the difference after some time. If you come down and the area around you is open then you're in the chill basement type with a slight chance for critters but if you come down and see a door or an open space with carpet then you better clench your cheeks because you can encounter almost anything between a roach and a skelly jugg. There are a few more special types of basements but I'm not sure how varied their populations can be since I see them so rarely. But I'm also personally affected by basement-dread because I have a couple of very sharp memories of early game characters getting murked by a devourer or kevlar zombie that jumped out of the shadows while other chaff blocked my escape. Hence my habit of never going into basements before I find a shotgun! I also have the suspicion that the evolution/spawn rules for basements are different from the overworld and especially the evolution aspect may be out of whack. It's just uncanny how many OOD type encounters I've had in basements during spring :shrug:

goatsestretchgoals posted:

Counterpoint: weed basements are worth it. Game win status is having >1000 joints in your storage.
I have marked so many weed houses and I never return to collect :effort:

Also with the power of the debug menu now at my hand what is the most hosed up dwarf mutant I could make? Preferably without a neck and with a keen interest for garbage

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Tin Tim
Jun 4, 2012

Live by the pun - Die by the pun

You can check the info page of the vehicle to figure out if it swims. Look for draft and sealed hull height or something like that. Draft needs to be lower or water will leak in/the boat will sink. The basic gist is that you need a frame and instal a piece of boat hull into it. Most likely made from wood but there are some other materials you can use. That's the main body of your boat and it needs to be crafted before you can instal it on the frame. In the past you needed to make at least three tiles with frame+boat hull (used to be called "boat boards") but I'm not sure if that's required anymore. After you have your frames+boat hull pieces done you also need to instal a seat and some hand paddles(craft a set of oars) to steer and move the boat. Oh you also need to build it on land and drag it into the water later. That's pretty much it I think. Make sure you have a source/stash of enough nails and planks!

Tin Tim fucked around with this message at 18:32 on May 6, 2021

Tin Tim
Jun 4, 2012

Live by the pun - Die by the pun

Vib Rib posted:

But otherwise yes, any place that's cleared of zombies will stay that way. You can always have others wandering in from the (uncleared) and following you but if you clear like an entire town and just hang out in the middle you won't see any new zombies.
Worth mentioning that clearing towns is often a long and laborious affair that carries the risk of making you burn-out on the game. I usually end up clearing the closest town to my base if it isn't too big but I'm unlikely to ever do it again. I just stick to clearing the way into whatever specific locations I want to loot after that.


After getting sorta shafted with my island start I've grown to like the water-heavy map I've gotten. Never played one before and the restrictions on effecient travel are interesting to me. I'll get back to my crappy starter boat and check if my version of the game lets me boat past bridges. If yes then I'll look into building a proper gun-boat to roam with. Gonna take a while though because I have a lot of points of interest to explore. Never found a strange temple before but I assume it's janky content? Also there is a mi-go base on an island so I know where I can go if I want to rip&tear later on

Tin Tim
Jun 4, 2012

Live by the pun - Die by the pun

Telsa Cola posted:

Clearing towns is easy and fast with automated laser turrets.
Which version are you playing? I thought lasers were removed at some point

Tin Tim
Jun 4, 2012

Live by the pun - Die by the pun

I could swear there was something in regards to laser weaponry that got cut not too long ago. Maybe it was the lasers that you could build yourself and sorta infinitely power with solar panels? Don't quite remember but I'm pretty sure we bitched about it itt

Anyway my current game keeps showing me cool things I never saw before. Found a proper bandit camp in the woods with walls, tents, vehicles and eleven bandits that I sniped through the forest :v:

Tin Tim
Jun 4, 2012

Live by the pun - Die by the pun

Maybe my memory is bugged then? Could swear there was something but whatever :v:

I was just about to write off FEMA camps as a waste of time outside of nabbing a flamethrower but then I found a rivtech battle rifle in the armory and some autoclave pouches in the central structure. Chances for drops as those are hard to resist tbh

Tin Tim
Jun 4, 2012

Live by the pun - Die by the pun

Iirc you can also cut down the stock on some guns with the hacksaw so it might work there too? Wanna say a double barrel can fit into a large pistol holster with cut stock&barrel

Never tried it myself so lol I will once I find a 50. rifle

Tin Tim
Jun 4, 2012

Live by the pun - Die by the pun

Do labs have turrets at the entrance when you bust in instead of using a science ID? I think I never had to do that but yeah my current game has given me zero science ID cards

Tin Tim
Jun 4, 2012

Live by the pun - Die by the pun

Manager Hoyden posted:

Speaking of labs, I am tempted to learn how to make a mod just to replace the newer labs with old science labs. They are nearly useless except for getting hydrogen canisters.
Yeah not really a fan myself. I mean the number of enemies is kinda fun if you got an m249 and a few belts to burn but the chem themed loot is mostly useless and boring. You can score a few CBMs or other choice items but it's not really worth compared to the effort&risk of clearing the place


Also, TIL that you can use the vibrator to quickly recover mood&focus during long reading sessions. How did I not learn this sooner wth

Tin Tim
Jun 4, 2012

Live by the pun - Die by the pun

Telsa Cola posted:

Mp3 players are generally better because they provide the mood boost and resultant focus boost throughout/while you are doing an activity so you don't have to stop.
The Mp3 player is almost constantly on in my games. But if you for example read a book with -1 joy then it will eventually negate the buff and books with more negative joy can push you into negative mood after a few hours. And focus depletes naturally when you read a bunch so quickly restoring it has value there. Just use the vibrator like twice after a few hours of reading and you're right back in the gains

Never tried a harmonica myself so I'm gonna keep an eye out for one

E:stepped down into the first lab of the run and found a slightly damaged mini nuke on the floor after a few steps....not feeling good about this one

Tin Tim fucked around with this message at 22:15 on May 13, 2021

Tin Tim
Jun 4, 2012

Live by the pun - Die by the pun

Lesson of the day: you can kill a shoggoth with an m249 but only if you stand right next to it and spam f because any time spent on aiming will make it regen too much

Also hope that your links and casings don't land on its square :v:

Found a G80 Railgun und several mags on the first floor. No ammo or UPS which is a bummer but iirc the G80 is super rare to see in the first place

Tin Tim
Jun 4, 2012

Live by the pun - Die by the pun

I actually found 20 rounds for the G80 after clearing the third armory in the lab :kiddo:

No UPS and no autoclave though

Since mechs were brought up, you hack them with the control laptop, right? I've never done it but there is an active x-02 in the finale room of my lab

Tin Tim
Jun 4, 2012

Live by the pun - Die by the pun

Yeah mil card worked on the exo and I got out of the lab and into a livestock carrier on the 1% battery power it has. Might get lucky and find another battery in the next lab I've scoped out and get to try the laser rifle

Tin Tim
Jun 4, 2012

Live by the pun - Die by the pun

Not sure about that one since it uses H&K 12mm which can't be crafted as far as I can tell. There is a railgun CBM that you might be thinking about?

Dandywalken posted:

I found my first G80 a few days ago in BN. Its great versus armored targets but Im hesitant to use it vs most things due to ammo scarcity.
The good old RL habit of winning/dying with an inventory full of strong stuff that you never wanted to waste :v:

But yeah it makes sense for the G80 tbh. Totally hoarding my rounds until I find a military instalation I want to raid


Anyway my next lab turned out to be one of the new and cramped ones. Burned almost two belts of 5.56 just to pacify the entrance after coming down the elevator. And of course it already has kevlar hulks in early summer. Going ham with the m249 was fun but I'm not sure if I want to deal with everything else running around down there. Might just dissect all the scientists and then ignore the place.

Tin Tim
Jun 4, 2012

Live by the pun - Die by the pun

Funny you say that because I got a zombie scientist stuck in the elevator limbo forever. Every time I traveled between the lab and the surface I got the message that I was suddenly getting block by z scientist on the stairs but slipped past :v:

Anyway I couldn't resist the call of my inner loot-goblin and cleared the lab. What it got me was the contents of a mutagen storage and several interesting loot drops from scientists. Autoclave, some CBMs, some books I was missing and other little things. Nothing amazing but not a waste of time either I think. Two evolved mutants and the numerous security robots also did a lot of the fighting for me so it didn't take too long. The lab had a subway connection and I found a second one in there without surface access as it seems

Tin Tim
Jun 4, 2012

Live by the pun - Die by the pun

Dr. Arbitrary posted:

I've fiddled around with debug mode and boats and it seems like there's actually some pretty realistic benefits for going big.

If I can find a way to turn off fatigue, I'd be tempted to write out the stats for various sizes and dimensions. Even though a big boat is heavier, less is below the waterline, which means less friction and higher efficiency.
Is it possible to build boats with an engine or are you restricted to rowing?

Tin Tim
Jun 4, 2012

Live by the pun - Die by the pun

Well are there "wheels " for boats outside of the oars then? :v:

If I could build a serious boat that I don't have to move myself then I would be much more inclined to do such a thing. And there are a lot of options for the engine tbh. Could even go with solar/steam if you don't want the usual

Tin Tim fucked around with this message at 19:02 on May 16, 2021

Tin Tim
Jun 4, 2012

Live by the pun - Die by the pun

Manager Hoyden posted:

PSA: You can press | and choose to wait until you catch your breath. I've been holding tab until my stamina meter is full like a buffoon all this time.
Game keeps on giving even after all this time :v:

Thanks for the info! The debug boat is exactly what I had in mind tbh. I'm still on 0.E so I have to check if I can boat through bridges. Would be cool because my map keeps on being made of river networks


So I have a few more thoughts on the small lab type after clearing three of them and seeing a different "theme" each time. They all have the same enemies, the same chem loot, and mostly the same layout. Also only one turret(past the metal doors next to the elevator) as it seems. They only differ in some very minor changes to the sealed loot rooms you will find. So you really can't tell what type you're dealing with before you kill a ton of enemies and find one of the real loot rooms. There are also small side rooms that you need to bust open but those usually just have more chem loot. It's all about the bigger sealed rooms.

1. Mutagen lab
Found one sealed loot chamber(fairly central) that had several mutagens and serums on shelves. Nice find if you're into that since serums are what you really want to lock your mutation path iirc

2. Utility lab
This one sucks because it just has electrical supplies, parts, and tools. I mean yes they have value but you're usually past needing an arc welder at this stage of the game. And you can get your electrical parts/tools a lot easier than in this manner. Real bummer when you bust open the loot room tbh. The one I found had no surface access and was part of the subway network between some labs. So I guess it could be meant as a sort of support/utility facility? Obviously you don't want to spend your time with this type but there's no good way to identify it aside from the main loot room. A lot of electrical loot in the open is a hint but not a clear sign since you'll also find that in another type of lab

3. CBM lab
This one is the best I found so far. Two sealed loot rooms with multiple experimental cyborgs and several stacks of mid to high-grade CBMs. Pretty solid haul to set you on your path to cyber-god. The barracks type rooms in this lab can also have a small stack of low to mid-grade CMBs on the floor and an experimental cyborg. Found two such rooms in my lab. There's also electrical loot around just like in the utility labs so that's why I said that it's not a good way to identify the type

No idea if there are more types but yeah that's what I know so far. Are they worth the effort? If you just want to explore then heck no. But if you're looking for specific things and know that you can get them there, then yeah mostly. I mean type 2 is straight trash but the other types can set you up nicely for mutations or CBMs. It's just a question of if you're willing to deal with all the crap down there. There are tons of zombies, small blobs, security bots, and some mutants/cyborgs. And due to the cramped layout they will easily funnel towards you in clumps if they don't get caught by in-fighting. It's no joke that you have to fight through like 30 enemies before you can even move on from the elevator. It's messy and also it's real easy to get trapped because 15 zombies suddenly spill out into the corridor behind you. So yeah come prepared and don't take risks once you move into the lab proper. Getting cut-off from the elevator sucks real bad

It's not all bad though because the fighting between bots and everything else will take down a lot of zombies. I mean the zombies will eventually win but if you spend a few hours on the surface after you've poked the nest then you'll be rewarded with a lot of easy pulping. The bots aren't that dangerous for you btw. An M4 can take them down with a couple shots if you have some skills. The manhack swarms do suck but at least they're just melee and not explosive. There's usually a small and sorta fixed number of security/military type zombies around. You'll always see security guards and usually two bio operators. I think those are a fixed spawn in one of the security closets. Then there are a small number of advanced military zombies that you can run into. Not sure how much evolution comes into play here but I've seen like 2-5 of them per lab. For me those could be kevlar zombies/hulks, black-ops, or grenadiers/elite-grenadiers. So the threat here is sorta predictable and not bad outside of hulks/elites. The experimental mutants/prototype cyborgs aren't that dangerous either but can take down a surprisingly large number of zombies. However an evolved mutant just dunks on zombies/bots and yeah you should full-auto him right away no questions asked. So the threat in these labs doesn't really come from quality but from the sheer quantity of enemies.

The big reason for why I think that it can be worth all the trouble isn't really the loot room but the loot tables of bots and scientists. Scientists can drop a lot of nifty items. Pretty much all types of CBMs, autoclaves, high-grade drugs/meds, adrenalin shots, teleporters, lab journals, ID cards, and more stuff. If you're looking for these things then it's worth the risk. The loot quality of scientists isn't that obvious in the old lab types due to the smaller numbers but if you get 50+ rolls on their loot table then you're going to be seeing some nice drops. Me praising the bot loot table is something I also have to explain further. The brunt of drops is trash outside of maybe kevlar/ceramic plates if you want to make certain armors. But there is a rare chance for lab bots, skitters, and manhacks to drop a stack of five plutonium fuel cells! With the number of bots around it's almost sure that you'll walk out with at least five cells and maybe more. That's a pretty compelling reason to go there depending on your character. You can even disassemble some of the bots for another chance of one cell per wreck.

So yeah as said you pretty much have to know what you're doing and what you want to pick up. Otherwise it's probably best to give these labs a pass

Tin Tim fucked around with this message at 21:08 on May 17, 2021

Tin Tim
Jun 4, 2012

Live by the pun - Die by the pun

Hot drat CBM lab didn't disapoint



I mean some of them came from scientist loot but each of the sealed rooms had several CBMs in the open and a vault locked with a terminal. You also find an autodoc and a kit in each room so you could instal two of them right away. You can get more if you spend time dissecting cyborgs and scientists but I'm good. Yeah this lab is very much worth the hassle but good luck finding it :v:

Tin Tim
Jun 4, 2012

Live by the pun - Die by the pun

Can you find anything besides scrap when you dig through wreckage on chopper crash sites?

Tin Tim
Jun 4, 2012

Live by the pun - Die by the pun

Not to my knowledge. The only time I ever found something under shed-rubble was when I killed a bandit and its corpse dropped on the rubble tile so I had to dig it away to get the loot :v:

Tin Tim
Jun 4, 2012

Live by the pun - Die by the pun

Had my first encounter with the leech plant monsters in a small lab and yikes they spawn chaff creatures like crazy. Had to retreat and dug up 8 grenades from the loot piles in my car. Not sure if throwing nades at the plutonium based generators in the lab is a good idea but hey you never know until you try!

This encounter also got me thinking that there might not be that many ways of aoe-killing? Like wielding an LMG is cool at first but then you realize that it's not much better against hordes than an m4 because you still pump your bursts into single targets instead of spraying rounds over an area to hit multiple targets. What weapons actually do aoe damage outside of explosives and flamers/launchers?

Tin Tim fucked around with this message at 14:15 on May 22, 2021

Tin Tim
Jun 4, 2012

Live by the pun - Die by the pun

So if you ever encounter the leech plant monsters just gtfo because the place is a total loss. I flipped on debug god and threw around 8 grenades until I had cleared the central infestation around the generators. The insane amount of spawned critters and the grenade blasts would have killed me ten times over before I cleared the core of this mess. And of course that accomplished basically nothing because as long as a single stalk is alive it will quickly transform into a new blossom and keep spawning new stuff. They also handily beat zombies and lab defenses so it's basically impossible to clear them out without massive cheating. Interesting enemy concept tbh but completely unbalanced and not worth your time or efforts

Vib Rib posted:

It's a shame labs have the best loot because they're always so loving boring. Whether you're weak or strong, they're boring, just in slightly different ways, and in the speed you can move through them.
Yeah both types of labs are in dire need of a major overhaul to be enjoyable gameplay. Also my stance on the small labs has worsened since I've found another type with absolutely zero loot outside of the chem stuff

E: Make that two. Central room with two winches for shutters that had crates and each one was empty...

So aside from going for the scientist loot drops it seems that the best way to get something from the small labs is to bust through the metal door at the subway entrance security station because the three lockers there have high chances for advanced ammo/weapons. Found small amounts of special ammo (caseless, H&K12mm, etc) very reliably there and even a pristine minigun but that was probably an outlier. I mean you can try and hunt for a loot room but it's tedious and your chances are bad as it seems

Tin Tim fucked around with this message at 18:24 on May 22, 2021

Tin Tim
Jun 4, 2012

Live by the pun - Die by the pun

What was your location? Mine was a small lab where you can't really do that because most rooms have several entrances where the spawns can spill out of. And I'm not kidding when I say that the spawn rate easily produced between 10-20 in a couple of rounds. They just kept spawning faster than I could kill them without grenades. The real problem were the stalks and infested bodies in the nooks and crannies around the central infestation though. I walked around a little after dealing with the central clump and picked off stalks that turned into a new blossom and suddenly a fresh wave of critters came rolling towards me. Killed them, found the blossom and killed it and was greeted by a new wave from a different direction a few turns later. I guess fire helps more than plain grenades but I still think that it's a huge waste of time to try and deal with this

E: I used debug to teleport back to the place and take some screens since I feel like my words don't really convey what's going on in that lab


I approached the generators from the east. You can already see tons of critter corpses on the ground from my first contact and infested pod corpses in the side rooms


Here's where the central infestation was. Most of the corpse piles are 10+ deep and I had to throw grenades at my feet to even be able to move a tile after a few rounds of relentless spawning happened


Here's a zoomed out shot of the generator room showing that your blocking strat(which is clever btw) wouldn't really have worked. Two tile exits in all four directions. The north and east are clean but south and west have stalks, blossoms, and corpse pods scattered about which keep spawning


Walked a bit towards the south and yep another blossom that spawns. These guys also tend to overwhelm you faster than you can shoot the blossom btw because for some reason they are fairly hard to hit at range even for an endgame char with a 5.56 SCAR rifle


Moved back towards the generator room and yeah there's another wave coming from the west.


Walked a bit towards the wave and sure enough there is another blossom and I got boxed-in pretty much right away

Not gonna believe that you can deal with this without cheating, sorry. Eventually you get boxed-in by the critter spawns and run out of stam/ammo. The lab area just makes this more difficult than it should be I guess. The infighting happens from the moment you get the lab in your bubble so the plants have an easy time to make tons of corpse pods and spread stalks into the nooks around the generator room. And while you try to clear the remnants in one of the nooks the blossoms in other areas keep spawning. Like you fight through one of the critter waves, take a few steps, and bam they're replaced with a fresh batch :shrug:

Tin Tim fucked around with this message at 16:32 on May 23, 2021

Tin Tim
Jun 4, 2012

Live by the pun - Die by the pun

Morbid Fiesta posted:

I think I burned through 2-3k rounds of 5.56 with my m4a1 when it was all said and done.
This puts a lot more perspective on what you're saying :v: I still bet that it was a massive waste of time but yeah I get it how you managed it

Tin Tim
Jun 4, 2012

Live by the pun - Die by the pun

The Lone Badger posted:

tl;dr don't use a rifle against someone in melee with you
I think you can by just pressing F as your fire-mode which will fire without aiming. It's wildly inacurrate of course and I think you need a bit of skill to have it hit basic sized targets

Tin Tim
Jun 4, 2012

Live by the pun - Die by the pun

I've been thinking about playing a run with a big mobile base but I'm not really sure how to build it

Let's say we take this sweet boat as a blueprint for a landship. Where do you have to put the wheels? How many would you need and which should be steerable? Do you maybe need rollers? I assume two V12 engines should be enough to move quite a lot of mass so that's not an issue. There's obviously terrain and road restrictions in the game for large vehicles but I think most can be overcome in one way or another except for bridges whoch puts a hard cap on your width I guess

Tin Tim
Jun 4, 2012

Live by the pun - Die by the pun

Coolguye posted:

plan out your functions first, then plan out your structure surrounding it. taking a finished design is going about it the wrong way. a couple of questions for you:

1) what sort of external visibility profile do you need from your HQ? is full opaqueness required or is it ok to have a windshield?
2) how much life support do you need on the base? is a week enough, or do you require a season or more? how many people are being supported?
3) what sort of crafting requirements do you have? how many disciplines do you want to support, and how many tools do you need for those disciplines?
4) is it OK to use fossil fuel, or do you need full electric? what sort of uptime do you need?
5) do you have bionics that you expect your base to help power? or will you?
6) what are your sleeping requirements? is a comfortable place to sleep enough, or does your character require a comfortable place to sleep plus full darkness?

you will likely need a lot less space overall than you think, but it all depends on the answers to some of these questions.
Normally yeah I would agree with your approach but in this case I don't actually care about being efficient and mostly want something cool looking. That's why I started with an established layout instead of making it from scratch

1) Mostly frontal cone vision should suffice. Like a windshield in front and a hatch/door with a vision slit on the left and right to the control seat. Not opposed to cameras for the back but it's probably not required
2) All the life support for a single person. Several watertanks, a freezer+fridge and a metric gently caress ton of storage for canned goods/MREs that I'll probably never get through before I die/get bored. We're going full hog on the storage space btw. Aside from food there will be piles of guns, ammo, clothes, and all kinds of items that should be neatly organized. I'm a huge pack-rat what can I say
3) Smithing, cooking, welding, and general crafting. I don't know if you can instal a workbench in a vehicle but it would be good. Tools will not be an issue since I know what I need to find and keep. I usually don't get into chems but I assume I'll find a solution if I want to make some explosives
4) Gas/diesel will do but I expect to need several large storage batteries supported by solar panels on the roof. You can usually get by quite easily if you charge the batteries before you instal them so uptime also isn't really a concern
5) Maybe? I mean there are several ways to fuel your bionics so I wouldn't say that it's vital to have your base be able to do that. More of like an emergency fallback when needed type of deal
6) My standard setup for cars is a reclining chair with an electric blanket(not powered)+pillow and a blindfold

Dr. Arbitrary posted:

I haven't actually messed with cars much, but if you don't plan to stay on the road, you'll need a lot of wheels

https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/does-it-make-sense-to-put-more-than-4-wheels-on-an-advanced-armored-car/21258/3
Thanks that's indeed good to know

Rynoto posted:

You should make every single tile of your vehicles wheels because it also acts as a giant pulverizer when you run over zombies/wildlife so that they can't revive. Also cleans up all that junk on the ground.
:sickos:

RabidWeasel posted:

I've always found the way that melee combat damage works in this game to be fairly opaque and I never really know which weapon to choose so I've been doing a bunch of testing recently to try to get a better feel for how some things work.
Thanks for the insight! Where does medieval swordfighting and the arming sword fall in your rating? I always picked that as my default because the arming sword seems to have very stable performance against any enemy that doesn't use heavy armor and quickly cuts through the chaff enemies once your skill gets up. Also you can easily carry it in a scabard for quick draw. Blocking&counter techniques seem to proc reasonably often for me but I can't say that I love them. In fights with larger groups of weak enemies they often fatigue me because a bunch of procs chain together

Tin Tim fucked around with this message at 21:44 on Jun 28, 2021

Tin Tim
Jun 4, 2012

Live by the pun - Die by the pun

Killer-of-Lawyers posted:

Is there a mod that let's you make flying vehicles? I tire of a luxury rv that is a boat, and I require more.
Iirc you can fly helicopters if you pick the needed skill on char gen. Never tried it so I can't say if it works well

tweet my meat posted:

I'm actually thinking of doing a pretty heavy custom job on a limo near my base to basically set up the back area as an open air bike rack docking platform with little bays to tuck my 1 tile utility carts into and a long rack on the other side for my dirtbike if it can handle the weight.
Not sure right now but livestock carriers might be able to fit 1 tile vehicles. I only used them to transport exo-suits so far but it's worth a try since they aren't hard to make

E: here's my usual setup when I start to seriously roam


Custom humvee with full composite armor and lots of storage. Though I might add another row in the back since I'm addicted to loot. No cooking needed since MREs are plenty at some point and I got several jugs of pine tea stashed. I also got welding stuff and whatever else I need in storage on both sides of the seat under the turret mount. Also some folded 1 tile vehicles for looting/jacking. Pretty easy to sustain on long trips tbh. The cage in the back is the livestock carrier because I still have hope to find a fuel cell for my exo-suit :v:


Two tanks, a large battery, solar panels, and lots of room for supplies&gear make this baby go the distance. Ignore the m249 though it should be a 50.cal at my stage of the game

Tin Tim fucked around with this message at 23:30 on Jul 2, 2021

Tin Tim
Jun 4, 2012

Live by the pun - Die by the pun

Go for it, I was just offering a suggestion. There's lots of things I do in my games just because I think it's cool

tweet my meat posted:

hot swappable mounting
:heysexy:

Tin Tim
Jun 4, 2012

Live by the pun - Die by the pun

Manager Hoyden posted:

Did they put a new type of lab in the game? Newer than the useless single-level labs with nothing but chemicals in them I mean.
Nah

tweet my meat posted:

I'm temporarily set up in the Hub 01 parking lot and there's a lab nearby that seems to be the new design, how's the loot in those and are they as tough as I've heard?
I've recently been posting about the re-designed labs so let me fetch that real quick

Tin Tim posted:

So I have a few more thoughts on the small lab type after clearing three of them and seeing a different "theme" each time. They all have the same enemies, the same chem loot, and mostly the same layout. Also only one turret(past the metal doors next to the elevator) as it seems. They only differ in some very minor changes to the sealed loot rooms you will find. So you really can't tell what type you're dealing with before you kill a ton of enemies and find one of the real loot rooms. There are also small side rooms that you need to bust open but those usually just have more chem loot. It's all about the bigger sealed rooms.

1. Mutagen lab
Found one sealed loot chamber(fairly central) that had several mutagens and serums on shelves. Nice find if you're into that since serums are what you really want to lock your mutation path iirc

2. Utility lab
This one sucks because it just has electrical supplies, parts, and tools. I mean yes they have value but you're usually past needing an arc welder at this stage of the game. And you can get your electrical parts/tools a lot easier than in this manner. Real bummer when you bust open the loot room tbh. The one I found had no surface access and was part of the subway network between some labs. So I guess it could be meant as a sort of support/utility facility? Obviously you don't want to spend your time with this type but there's no good way to identify it aside from the main loot room. A lot of electrical loot in the open is a hint but not a clear sign since you'll also find that in another type of lab

3. CBM lab
This one is the best I found so far. Two sealed loot rooms with multiple experimental cyborgs and several stacks of mid to high-grade CBMs. Pretty solid haul to set you on your path to cyber-god. The barracks type rooms in this lab can also have a small stack of low to mid-grade CMBs on the floor and an experimental cyborg. Found two such rooms in my lab. There's also electrical loot around just like in the utility labs so that's why I said that it's not a good way to identify the type

No idea if there are more types but yeah that's what I know so far. Are they worth the effort? If you just want to explore then heck no. But if you're looking for specific things and know that you can get them there, then yeah mostly. I mean type 2 is straight trash but the other types can set you up nicely for mutations or CBMs. It's just a question of if you're willing to deal with all the crap down there. There are tons of zombies, small blobs, security bots, and some mutants/cyborgs. And due to the cramped layout they will easily funnel towards you in clumps if they don't get caught by in-fighting. It's no joke that you have to fight through like 30 enemies before you can even move on from the elevator. It's messy and also it's real easy to get trapped because 15 zombies suddenly spill out into the corridor behind you. So yeah come prepared and don't take risks once you move into the lab proper. Getting cut-off from the elevator sucks real bad

It's not all bad though because the fighting between bots and everything else will take down a lot of zombies. I mean the zombies will eventually win but if you spend a few hours on the surface after you've poked the nest then you'll be rewarded with a lot of easy pulping. The bots aren't that dangerous for you btw. An M4 can take them down with a couple shots if you have some skills. The manhack swarms do suck but at least they're just melee and not explosive. There's usually a small and sorta fixed number of security/military type zombies around. You'll always see security guards and usually two bio operators. I think those are a fixed spawn in one of the security closets. Then there are a small number of advanced military zombies that you can run into. Not sure how much evolution comes into play here but I've seen like 2-5 of them per lab. For me those could be kevlar zombies/hulks, black-ops, or grenadiers/elite-grenadiers. So the threat here is sorta predictable and not bad outside of hulks/elites. The experimental mutants/prototype cyborgs aren't that dangerous either but can take down a surprisingly large number of zombies. However an evolved mutant just dunks on zombies/bots and yeah you should full-auto him right away no questions asked. So the threat in these labs doesn't really come from quality but from the sheer quantity of enemies.

The big reason for why I think that it can be worth all the trouble isn't really the loot room but the loot tables of bots and scientists. Scientists can drop a lot of nifty items. Pretty much all types of CBMs, autoclaves, high-grade drugs/meds, adrenalin shots, teleporters, lab journals, ID cards, and more stuff. If you're looking for these things then it's worth the risk. The loot quality of scientists isn't that obvious in the old lab types due to the smaller numbers but if you get 50+ rolls on their loot table then you're going to be seeing some nice drops. Me praising the bot loot table is something I also have to explain further. The brunt of drops is trash outside of maybe kevlar/ceramic plates if you want to make certain armors. But there is a rare chance for lab bots, skitters, and manhacks to drop a stack of five plutonium fuel cells! With the number of bots around it's almost sure that you'll walk out with at least five cells and maybe more. That's a pretty compelling reason to go there depending on your character. You can even disassemble some of the bots for another chance of one cell per wreck.

So yeah as said you pretty much have to know what you're doing and what you want to pick up. Otherwise it's probably best to give these labs a pass

Tin Tim posted:

Yeah both types of labs are in dire need of a major overhaul to be enjoyable gameplay. Also my stance on the small labs has worsened since I've found another type with absolutely zero loot outside of the chem stuff

E: Make that two. Central room with two winches for shutters that had crates and each one was empty...

So aside from going for the scientist loot drops it seems that the best way to get something from the small labs is to bust through the metal door at the subway entrance security station because the three lockers there have high chances for advanced ammo/weapons. Found small amounts of special ammo (caseless, H&K12mm, etc) very reliably there and even a pristine minigun but that was probably an outlier. I mean you can try and hunt for a loot room but it's tedious and your chances are bad as it seems

The TL;DR is that it's most likey not worth the effort and risk imo. There are a few reasons to chew through them but you gotta know what you're looking for

Also if you happen to encounter small blue creatures or blue plants in a small lab then run the gently caress away and never ever come back

RabidWeasel posted:

The new labs as in the big overground ones? They have chem equipment and a warehouse full of random crap and are a surprisingly good source of shoes (for leather patches) but otherwise don't have much exciting.
Pretty sure you're refering to the "Research Facility" type. I've only done one so far but the ground floor and the floors above it are a waste of time. I mean you can find autoclave pouches in fume hoods and the facility has a metric gently caress ton of them but the chance is very low as it seems. I only found two spawns of pouches after fighting up to the 5th floor. I mean you're probably not going to need more since that still comes up to 50 pouches but it's real tedious to get them this way. The underground is interesting though because in my case it had one of the old lab designs with barracks+armory, some CBMs, and a higher than usual amount of mutagen storage vaults. Good times but also a lot of combat on the surface before you can get into the facility. And in my case it also had portals and was bombed so I had to wear my best rad-suit which put a further strain on the combat portion

Tin Tim fucked around with this message at 01:54 on Jul 4, 2021

Tin Tim
Jun 4, 2012

Live by the pun - Die by the pun

So today I went into a garage for looting and when I came out I found that a random zombie decided to smash my beloved folding shopping cart to bits which spilled all the loot in it across the street. Luckily I could rebuild it with the loot from the garage but still lol I don't think this has ever happened before. Guess it was in the way the zombie absolutely wanted to take towards me :shrug:

Tin Tim
Jun 4, 2012

Live by the pun - Die by the pun

At least they had a good time before the cataclysm hit...

Tin Tim
Jun 4, 2012

Live by the pun - Die by the pun

goatsestretchgoals posted:

All I see in that screenshot is two Milsurp stores and those sweet sweet MREs.
Yeah it's kinda lovely to display the right size on the forums but what made me lol was a group of dead college kids on top of a sex shop because I'm 12

Tin Tim
Jun 4, 2012

Live by the pun - Die by the pun

Manager Hoyden posted:

Pretty lol that the volume of shopping carts was lowered from 150L. Real shopping carts have a volume of 300+ but hey realism only matters when it makes the game more tedious on the main DDA branch
Wasn't aware of that tbh because I just always build my own. Folding wire basket still has 150l in 0.E

Tin Tim
Jun 4, 2012

Live by the pun - Die by the pun

e: never mind I was loving up some controls with the livestock carrier. Turns out the direction for capture counts from your position and not from the carrier's position

Collected two out of the three exo-suits now. Just need to find batteries to have fun with them

Tin Tim fucked around with this message at 20:02 on Jul 13, 2021

Tin Tim
Jun 4, 2012

Live by the pun - Die by the pun

Caidin posted:

I think the most detailed set of quests in the game at the moment is probably HUB, but thats still only 5 missions or something.
When I first discovered the HUB I thought that it was neat even if the quests were real basic. Then they sent me to recover something from a collapsed building and it turned out to be miles and miles away deep in the heart of a giant city. How about no?

Also I've gone down into an old lab and was wondering why the lower floors were so dang big and just kept going and going until I checked my map and read "central lab". Turns out the lab was right next to a central lab (which has a sneaky surface entrance in the woods) and the third floor just melted together between both. Do not think this is supposed to generate like that because wth I've been exploring and looting for several in-game days and I still have another floor to go.

I mean look at this huge mess the game calls "floor 3"



Kinda dread the moment when I'm going to find another stair down on floor 4. Upside to this is that my loot pile on the surface is massive by now due to multiple finale rooms, armories, and serum/CBM vaults.

Tin Tim
Jun 4, 2012

Live by the pun - Die by the pun

RabidWeasel posted:

I saw a Youtube video from someone who figured out a way to use the zones system to autosort an entire hypermarket full of stuff and it was amazing
Link pls if you remember

I usually end up building a ton of dressers in my base where I carefully sort my loot into because my own personal system of order has several aspects that the zone system doesn't cover

Tin Tim
Jun 4, 2012

Live by the pun - Die by the pun

Inglonias posted:

Labs are some of the oldest dungeons in the game. They're procedurally generated and many aspects of them are still hardcoded and not defined in JSON.
I'm mostly aware but still think that it wasn't intended to generate on such a scale? Though tbh I didn't know that some stuff around the old design is still hardcoded and probably real tedious to fix. I've never seen a lab like this but maybe it's more common than I know? Seeing how fixing the old labs is probaly a big task, I wish that whoever came up with the re-worked lab design recognized that there is a middle ground between "large and empty" and "cramped and filled to the brim". I mean the lovely chem loot and low reward chance in the new labs is an issue in itself but the visual design and general room layout isn't bad. It does look much more like an actual lab compared to the old layout and the repetition in room designs is also a bit less noticeable. The rooms just needed to be a bit less cramped and the enemey numbers should have been dialed down by like 30% and we would have come close to an enjoyable dungeon

Vib Rib posted:

Honestly, a lot of the stuff you'd want to stockpile you don't actually need that much of.

Galaga Galaxian posted:

Limiting myself to whatever I can carry plus a single 150L shopping cart is making for a very different experience.
Pack rat best rat :v:

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Tin Tim
Jun 4, 2012

Live by the pun - Die by the pun

The Lone Badger posted:

The only escape method I will accept is a deathmobile fast enough and heavy enough to smash through in one hit.
Might get disappointed on that front. I skimmed through one playthrough where Vorm built a huge vehicle with cells for captured creatures on the inside and in the end they floored it straight down the road into a city. Depsite being the biggest vehicle I've ever seen in the game it shattered kinda right away and the game had a seizure before the death screen finally came

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