0.B First Day Ritual

[KA101]

[quote=“Tannen, post:18, topic:8939”]Addictive Personality, Fast Healer, Fleet-footed, Glass Jaw, Heavy Sleeper, Less Sleep, Night Vision, Parkour Expert, Robust Genetics, Substance Tolerance, Trigger Happy, Truth Teller, Ugly

I would actually suggest against Glass Jaw as it lowers one of your most important heath stats significantly. Maybe consider near sighted, insomniac, or wool allergy first?

Create stone knife.

Maybe checkout the makeshift knife instead of the stone one. It takes a lot less time to craft :)[/quote]

Head HP can be adequately protected by an army helmet, etc: head encumbrance doesn’t seriously impair you so it’s OK to use the heavy-duty gear there. Torso, etc is another story.

[Coolthulhu]

Head HP can be adequately protected by an army helmet, etc: head encumbrance doesn’t seriously impair you so it’s OK to use the heavy-duty gear there. Torso, etc is another story.

Early on (before I can steamroll Fast Zombie hulks barehanded), my head and torso tend to take similar amount of damage from combat.
Good helmets are hard to find compared to good 0 encumbrance armor for all bodyparts except eyes, mouth and hands.

[Tannen]

[quote=“Tannen, post:18, topic:8939”]Addictive Personality, Fast Healer, Fleet-footed, Glass Jaw, Heavy Sleeper, Less Sleep, Night Vision, Parkour Expert, Robust Genetics, Substance Tolerance, Trigger Happy, Truth Teller, Ugly

I would actually suggest against Glass Jaw as it lowers one of your most important heath stats significantly. Maybe consider near sighted, insomniac, or wool allergy first?[/quote]

Prefer the -X% to head health. Reasoning : Helmets negate this almost entirely and by the time that you need to have one to negate the kind of damage that will save your life you’ll have it. Before you need one if something can murder you by smashing your head, you’re going to be murdered by it smashing your torso/legs/arms/whatever (ie: The threat was too great for you, you should have just run away).

The one exception to this rule is when you have power armour but no power armour helm. Then you’ll occasionally be (unluckily) shot in the head through your army helmet/ballistic mask/whatever combo. Even then I’m fairly confident that having the extra 20% health wouldn’t have helped.

[quote=“Tannen, post:18, topic:8939”]Create stone knife.

Maybe checkout the makeshift knife instead of the stone one. It takes a lot less time to craft :)[/quote]

I agree: the time to make the stone knife is punishing, however, a makeshift knife requires a spike, and I usually (remember that this is while I’m naked and not taking chances – so one less door opened is one less chance of encountering death) only get enough steel chunks/scrap metal for one of those. Stone knife only requires a stone. I’ll usually use the spike to craft my knife spear instead, as it will be my primary means of defence for the next few days.

[quote=“KA101, post:21, topic:8939”]Head HP can be adequately protected by an army helmet, etc: head encumbrance doesn’t seriously impair you so it’s OK to use the heavy-duty gear there. Torso, etc is another story.

Early on (before I can steamroll Fast Zombie hulks barehanded), my head and torso tend to take similar amount of damage from combat.
Good helmets are hard to find compared to good 0 encumbrance armor for all bodyparts except eyes, mouth and hands.[/quote]

I tend to go full melee, raise the heck out of my dodge / unarmed skills on normal zombies, use a weapon that can quick strike and stay away from anything that can “Smash” me until I’m around 4ish or more in both. I can’t say that I’ve noticed my head taking a lot of damage – at least, not significantly vs the other parts of my body. However, I’ve never played with the fast zombie mod. Sounds like fun though, possibly next game.

[Labtop_215]

1. I run from the shelter because it is surrounded by zombies. If I can grab a folded blanket, an emergency jacket, and a long string while I am at it I am good to go. Although I often skip the long string.
2. I either forage for metal or look for an unoccupied road with a vehicle on it and smash the vehicle for metal, to make a metal spike and then craft a makeshift knife with. I could in theory use a stone knife, but it seems stupid really as far as role playing is concerned so I don’t bother, even if I’m in a pinch.
3. Find a place with some water nearby if at all possible, like a little piece of isolated swampland to camp near, but not at since I don’t want to fall into a sinkhole and slowly dehydrate to death. (Which is stupid, if you fall in a sinkhole in a swamp in the real world you do something of the opposite actually.)
4. If I managed to grab a long string before having to flee the Evacuation shelter, work on getting my survival up enough to craft a fire drill, else I forage until I have rags so that I can actually make a makeshift knife and then thread to make into small strings for a fire drill. Either way, I keep foraging if I don’t also have either an aluminum can or a tin can, a watertight container (preferably a 3L glass jar, but most any bottle or jar will suffice), and food that isn’t eggs (since I role play as myself and I’m allergic to eggs in real life.)
5. I work from there to make a digging stick and dig out a small area around where I intend to camp until my construction goes up to 1, and then upgrade to a stone shovel to go from shallow pits to deep pits.
6. I burn tons of wood to get a major fire going, so that I can stop freezing to death.
7. From there, depends on what’s around me. If I can get a firearm with ammo (shotgun preferably) I start looking for groups of people that have died but have not risen again yet, mostly. If I can find a farm I’ll look for something that is better than my knife as a weapon and attempt to clear out the wildlife, using the barbed fence to my advantage either way. If I can see a school I attempt to raid that for supplies and combat experience since I often start out with no combat abilities at all.
8. I work my way up to better clothing, a quarterstaff that I also hope to replace with a decent machete, and I focus on collecting skill books.

On that note, the survivor mess kit is really nice actually. Runs on lantern fuel.

[StopSignal]

Run around.
Get killed by a moose.

[TheWumpus]

1. Figure out how not to freeze to death until nightfall
2. Hit the town
3. Flee because of the blasted zombies breaking through doors to beat on a car left idling drew the ones I carefully moved around into threat range
4. Freeze to death anyway

I think the starting gear for classes other than survivor needs some looking into as far as warmth goes…

[Coolthulhu]

I think the starting gear for classes other than survivor needs some looking into as far as warmth goes…

Possibly. Starting gear has the advantage of not upsetting the balance in long term, so buffing it isn’t a bad idea.
I use dexterity as a measure of point value: if instead of taking option x it would be better to spend all those points on dexterity, option x is bad. By this measure, almost all starting scenarios are bad.

Though the only time I have serious problems with warmth is when I start in “sheltered” scenario, where the only reliable source of rags is bashing down your own bed.
Even with the foot talon mutation I always take on mutant characters I only get to “very cold” on my feet, with everything else being comfortable.

Maybe try spending the whole first day on crafting gear? Hunger won’t hurt you that much, even if you have fast metabolism, high thirst and chemical imbalance. Unless you’re playing with Zombie NV, night is the best time for raiding towns anyway.

[StopSignal]

Run around.
Get killed by a pack of wolves.

[Tannen]

I think the starting gear for classes other than survivor needs some looking into as far as warmth goes…

Nah. Starting gear is fine. Even if you start as a shower victim (soap and wet towel), you can, before the sun sets on the first day, literally make all the gear that you need to be almost invulnerable to normal zombies and give you no problems with warmth without ever leaving the shelter.

Full cookbook in the spoiler.

• Wear the emergency blanket and the emergency jacket for warmth while crafting. If you’re missing either of these, you’ll have to suck up a bit of frostnip while crafting, but it shouldn’t be enough to kill you.
• Tear down 4 sets of curtains. (+8 sheets, +4 long stings, +4 heavy sticks)
• Wield one of the heavy sticks.
• Smash 2 lockers (+~2 chunks of steel, +~10scrap metal, +~2pipes)
• Smash 4 benches (+~7 two by four, +~4 splintered wood, +~30 nails)
• If you do not have at least one chunk of steel (they have hammering 1), smash more lockers.
• If you don’t have any more lockers and still no chunk of steel, go get a rock from outside.
• Gather all those mats somewhere close by.
• Butcher/disassemble the long strings from the curtains. (+24 small strings)
• Create a spike out of the scrap metal.
• Create a makeshift knife (cutting 1) out of the spike and 2 small strings.
• Butcher 4 of the sheets from the curtains. (+~75 rags)
• Create 1 bindle to hold stuff while crafting.
• Create 1 picklock and 3 fish hooks to raise your fabrication to level 1.
• Create a wooden needle.
• Disassemble 4 small strings. (+200 thread) Don’t disassemble rags for thread as that’ll take ~2 hours vs ~20 mins.
• Reload your needle with the thread.
• Create a simple patchwork scarf, wear it – you’ll probably have frostnip on your mouth, but don’t worry about it.
• Create and Disassemble a Bindle until you get Survival 1 (it’ll take ~5 times)
• Reinforce the things that you have at hand to get your Tailoring to level 2, move onto the next item if you either succeed or damage the item, you can reinforce the leftover sheets if you run out of actual items before you get here. It’ll take (~10 tries before you get to 1, and another 20 or so to get to 2, less if you succeed)
• Create and wear two balaclavas.
• Create the following items – you may need to disassemble more small strings to make threads or butcher more sheets for rags if you run out – boxer shorts, long underwear top, long underwear bottom, cargo shorts, pair of light gloves, 2 pairs of stockings.
• You should have gone up to Tailoring 3 at this point, if you haven’t reinforce the things that you’ve made until you are.
• Repair any items you damaged when you were just starting out.
• Create the following items – hoodie, sleeveless trenchcoat.
• Reinforce all the things you just made. Wear them all, and take off the emergency jacket and blanket – at this point you should have comfortable warmth and 0 encumbrance on all your parts except the hands.
• Re-layer the clothing so that it’s all “correct” (ie you’re not wearing your boxers outside your shorts. )
• Create another spike out of scrap metal and then create a knife spear out of that spike.
• Create a makeshift crowbar. (This is a tool for opening things, do not use it as your weapon, unlike the knife spear it does not allow you to use Rapid Strike or Parry)
• You are good to go. Do not go above 0 encumbrance on the your torso and you can step outside, straight into a moose and kill it no problems.
  – Things to consider: You’ll want to get some boots/shoes asap, the armour on your feet is lowish at present and the two sets of stockings (needed for warmth) are encumbering your legs. You can create another Cargo shorts, but I usually just wait until I kill a zombie with cargo pants instead (Little more storage, little more coverage).

It’s the starting (eg challenge) scenarios that make the starting gear “not fine” in terms of warmth, however the challenge there is surviving until you can make gear, rather than any issues with the gear itself. Generally If you’re forced to flee naked you will die.

The main reason that I only start from challenge scenarios is that it’s too easy to get set up from the evac shelter. There generally isn’t any threat close by until you leave (in fact the animals that are close by and hostile are generally a bonus rather than a hinderance). Hunger and Thirst aren’t an issue when you can kill almost anything that would normally keep you from those things (food/water).

Cheers.

[Steelmaniac]

Start home mechanic in burning house, find garage, acquire aa bit of shit by scavenging and then go on to make myself a death mobile.

[Arek_PL]

this is simple

1. get a rock
2. smash locker
3. makeshift crowbar
4. carry everything what i can and bring it to base (if i can’t return later to get it)
   5.craft and read
5. go again to 4

[Pandromidal]

I love this thread! So many great conversations. One of the patterns I see emerging on this thread is that people with a ritual spend a bunch of time the first day sewing. A good set of clothing can make almost anything (or even nothing) an ok starting weapon, but the opposite isn’t true (I don’t think). A good set of clothing will go a long ways to keep your character healthy and in shape. Ultimately your clothing is a NEED to stay alive.

So I guess we should all go buy sewing machines in case there is an apocalypse tomorrow!

[Steelmaniac]

[quote=“Pandromidal, post:32, topic:8939”]I love this thread! So many great conversations. One of the patterns I see emerging on this thread is that people with a ritual spend a bunch of time the first day sewing. When I made this thread I hadn’t fully realized how important clothing is. A good set of clothing can make almost anything (or even nothing) an ok starting weapon, but the opposite isn’t true (I don’t think). A good set of clothing will go a long ways to your character in healthy and in shape. Ultimately your clothing is NEED to stay alive.

So I guess we should all go buy sewing machines in case there is an apocalypse tomorrow![/quote]

I used to die a shitton because of encumberance and non reinforced/damaged clothes. When someone told me about sewing, my character became armored with cloth. It’s fucking amazing.

[Rhodri]

[quote=“Steelmaniac, post:33, topic:8939”][quote=“Pandromidal, post:32, topic:8939”]I love this thread! So many great conversations. One of the patterns I see emerging on this thread is that people with a ritual spend a bunch of time the first day sewing. When I made this thread I hadn’t fully realized how important clothing is. A good set of clothing can make almost anything (or even nothing) an ok starting weapon, but the opposite isn’t true (I don’t think). A good set of clothing will go a long ways to your character in healthy and in shape. Ultimately your clothing is NEED to stay alive.

So I guess we should all go buy sewing machines in case there is an apocalypse tomorrow![/quote]

I used to die a shitton because of encumberance and non reinforced/damaged clothes. When someone told me about sewing, my character became armored with cloth. It’s fucking amazing.[/quote]
Same here. How long before I found a sewing kit determined if I would become an immediate badass or die horribly.

Then I discovered the tailoring profession. I could become unstoppable* before even leaving the shelter.

*Well, except to hulks, brutes, tank drones, chicken walkers, ect.

[Jakers]

Wooden needle. All the protection ever at your fingertips. Simply smash a bench, get a cutting tool ready, create 5 fishing hooks to get to fabrication level one, then create the wooden needle from the splintered wood.

Grab thread from disassembling string from curtains. Voila! Reinforcement!

[Pandromidal]

Grab thread from disassembling string from curtains.

In some cases string is hard to come by. There are a number of ways to get around this.

[ul][li]You can now find it in bushes which is nice for LMOE shelter characters.[/li]
[li]You can disassemble rags very slowly.[/li]
[li]You can disassemble felt quickly.[/li]
[li]At lvl 3 tailoring you can convert rags to thread more efficiently by crafting short rope and then disassembling.[/li]
[li]Probably more things.[/li][/ul]

These work-arounds are probably only needed for some of the more punishing starting locations such as Labs or LMOE shelters.

[StopSignal]

Yeah, for a normal play through just tearing down curtains is far more than enough.

[system]

I just run away like hell as long I hear the zombies and see the fire.
Really Bad Day Challege FTW!

[TheWumpus]

[quote=“TheWumpus, post:26, topic:8939”]I think the starting gear for classes other than survivor needs some looking into as far as warmth goes…

Possibly. Starting gear has the advantage of not upsetting the balance in long term, so buffing it isn’t a bad idea.
I use dexterity as a measure of point value: if instead of taking option x it would be better to spend all those points on dexterity, option x is bad. By this measure, almost all starting scenarios are bad.

Though the only time I have serious problems with warmth is when I start in “sheltered” scenario, where the only reliable source of rags is bashing down your own bed.
Even with the foot talon mutation I always take on mutant characters I only get to “very cold” on my feet, with everything else being comfortable.

Maybe try spending the whole first day on crafting gear? Hunger won’t hurt you that much, even if you have fast metabolism, high thirst and chemical imbalance. Unless you’re playing with Zombie NV, night is the best time for raiding towns anyway.[/quote]

Rather difficult to craft gear when you start in the woods in the middle of a blizzard (yay spring in New England!). Because starting in EVAC and LMOE shelters is E-Z mode. You’d think the military would equip their troops with some cold weather gear knowing what they’re getting into…

Lumberjack isn’t terrible in terms of early game heat management, nor is Bow Hunter, but they start with decent tools. As we all know an unsilenced rifle is a liability in the apocalypse.

Just for the heck of it though I’m gonna try a shower victim in a woods start. That should be amusing. (never tried that one)

EDIT: Disregard that, this entire time I’ve been overlooking the ability to start the game in a different season in the world gen. I feel silly. And I suppose if I really dislike the starting gear that much I could just get into the JSON and make it more suitable.

[KA101]

OK, easy enough to change the mil drops to winter gear.