# "Ascension mod" or: "Winning DDA: the mod"

**URL:** <https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/ascension-mod-or-winning-dda-the-mod/14799>\
**Category:** The Lab\
**Tags:** mod\
**Created:** [January 13, 2018, 8:22pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/ascension-mod-or-winning-dda-the-mod/14799 "2018-01-13T20:22:12Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 20\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![trelatyraelis](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/trelatyraelis/32/1054_2.png) [@trelatyraelis](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/trelatyraelis)\
**Post date:** [January 13, 2018, 8:22pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/ascension-mod-or-winning-dda-the-mod/14799/1 "2018-01-13T20:22:12Z")

</div>

Ever got a survivor through its first year and started getting bored of killing hulks like flies?

Are you annoyed at the fact that nothing can even scratch your heavy survivor armor?

Do the first days of mad scavenging still hold a special place in your heart?

Do you feel like bashing your head against a wall when you realize that there’s nothing left for you to do with your extremely overpowered character?

But most importantly:  
**Do you want to feel the challenge again?**

Well then, if you answered yes to even one of those questions this might be the mod for you.

Introducing ASCENSION! Experience Arcana and PK’s rebalancing together at last in a mod that has been described as the hottest thing since the Hellmouth.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to craft an elixir to tear a hole in reality and sublime into a higher plane of existence. Maybe become a demigod in the meantime.

Erect an altar with the new death drops from all the toughest monsters in the game (A zombie megabear is several stories high and you could turn its skull into a jacuzzi, if you really wanted to), with the BRUTAL additions from PK’s mod.

Every single faction boss monster (triffids/mycus/ants/blob/DOOM, you name it) drops a quest-specific item on death that you can use to erect a blasphemous altar resonating with reality-altering blob energies, then hallow it with the purifying light of the Diamond Obelisk and then go scavenging inside a completely new strange temple end for the source of its power to let you craft the final elixir that will seal your fate and let you Ascend.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Where’s this amazing mod?

Right here.

> [Releases · SilearFlare/Ascension · GitHub](https://github.com/tyrael93/Ascension/releases/)

And here are the links with the constantly updated side mods needed to run it:  
PK’s Rebalancing: Adds a lot of dangerous monsters and locations.

[GitHub - Siyalatas/PKs\_Rebalancing: This fork aims to fix the immediate errors in the sparsely maintained mod, as well as add some rebalancing for the more 'hardcore' features of the mod. In case you don't want the rebalancing, the vanilla-errorfixed branch should serve you well. Credit for initial error fixes goes to /u/dissociativity of the Cataclysm discourse forum.](https://github.com/Siyalatas/PKs_Rebalancing) (updated less often, a lot of QoL changes)  
[GitHub - dissociativity/PKs\_Rebalancing: This fork aims to fix the immediate errors in the sparsely maintained mod, as well as add some rebalancing for the more 'hardcore' features of the mod. In case you don't want the rebalancing, the vanilla-errorfixed branch should serve you well. Credit for initial error fixes goes to /u/dissociativity of the Cataclysm discourse forum.](https://github.com/Dissociativity/PKs_Rebalancing) (bleeding edge)

Arcana: Magic, arcane energies, eldritch monsters from far beyond the veil and lots of new locations, items and mechanics.  
[GitHub - chaosvolt/cdda-arcana-mod: Arcana and Magic Items mod for Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead](https://github.com/chaosvolt/cdda-arcana-mod) .  
What more could you want?

Go play it!

F.A.Q.

> How do I install this?

It’s the easiest thing in the world, really.

1. Download latest release from github link
2. Unzip and place in your inside your /data/mods folder. Rememeber: this mod needs both PK and Arcana to load correctly!
3. Done! As easy as 1, 2 , 3. The new mod is now in the modloader. Select “Ascension” to load the whole mod bundle at worldgen.

> Do I need to add specific mods? Does this mod not work with other mods?

Nope! Selecting Ascension in the mod loader in the world generation loads all dependent mods before it.

> There’s a bug!

If you find anything that might be a problem regarding the mod, please post about it here! I’ll look into it.

Special thanks to @dissociativity and @barbascientiam for their incredible work on maintaining PK afloat enduring all the recent gamebreaking changes with, I really couldn’t have done this without you guys, you’re my personal heroes.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![darktoes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@darktoes](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/darktoes)\
**Post date:** [January 13, 2018, 10:53pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/ascension-mod-or-winning-dda-the-mod/14799/2 "2018-01-13T22:53:13Z")

</div>

So how does this work in terms of pre-existing saves with those mods already installed? Do I NEED a new save? Can I install it to an existing one and just disable the existing copies of Blazemod and PK’s Rebalance?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![psyxypher](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/psyxypher/32/11778_2.png) [@psyxypher](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/psyxypher)\
**Post date:** [January 14, 2018, 12:53am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/ascension-mod-or-winning-dda-the-mod/14799/3 "2018-01-14T00:53:55Z")

</div>

How the hell do you even get those Megabear Skulls? I’ve been dying to get one…

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![trelatyraelis](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/trelatyraelis/32/1054_2.png) [@trelatyraelis](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/trelatyraelis)\
**Post date:** [January 14, 2018, 6:37am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/ascension-mod-or-winning-dda-the-mod/14799/4 "2018-01-14T06:37:14Z")

</div>

The mod has been tested with old saves and it does work.  
But mapgen is not retroactive. That means that you’ll have to travel far away from your current spot to trigger the spawn of a new overlap to generate the mod’s edited PK structure ( the spire) and all of arcana’s structures and something else.  
Basically just drive far enough into the fog of war to spawn a new map and you’ll be fine.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![trelatyraelis](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/trelatyraelis/32/1054_2.png) [@trelatyraelis](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/trelatyraelis)\
**Post date:** [January 14, 2018, 6:41am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/ascension-mod-or-winning-dda-the-mod/14799/5 "2018-01-14T06:41:01Z")

</div>

The function of the altar is to concentrate dimensional energies into a field of critical planar instability to tear a hole in reality. That means that we want the highest concentration of blob-related and extraterrestrial items in a single spot.  
We wouldn’t have any use for a healthy megabear, would we?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![trelatyraelis](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/trelatyraelis/32/1054_2.png) [@trelatyraelis](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/trelatyraelis)\
**Post date:** [January 19, 2018, 7:30am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/ascension-mod-or-winning-dda-the-mod/14799/6 "2018-01-19T07:30:05Z")

</div>

Went on a bugfixing spree and decided to fix a lot of the syntax problems with PK’s mod, plus removing the chelated iron effect from PK, which still worked even if vitamins were disabled by default and was never actually properly explained in-game ( resulting in a small buff to the two deradding items, the aquarium fertilizer and the gummy vitamin, but I couldn’t add yet another dependency for the mod), renaming the megabear skull needed for the altar to Zombified Megabear to avoid confusion and a bunch of other, minor fixes. Everything should be good now!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![pisskop](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/pisskop/32/1327_2.png) [@pisskop](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/pisskop)\
**Post date:** [January 19, 2018, 4:33pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/ascension-mod-or-winning-dda-the-mod/14799/7 "2018-01-19T16:33:26Z")

</div>

i approve. I’ve been unable to contribute to the mod recently, and have been considering handing it off even.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![proxiehunter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e68b1a/32.png) [@proxiehunter](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/proxiehunter)\
**Post date:** [January 19, 2018, 8:58pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/ascension-mod-or-winning-dda-the-mod/14799/8 "2018-01-19T20:58:05Z")

</div>

I assume no one has actually manage to ascend yet. But how’s it going for those who are using it? And do I have to separately enable the sub mods or does just enabling Winning DDA enable them?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![evilcyborgmrt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b782af/32.png) [@evilcyborgmrt](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/evilcyborgmrt)\
**Post date:** [January 19, 2018, 10:36pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/ascension-mod-or-winning-dda-the-mod/14799/9 "2018-01-19T22:36:52Z")

</div>

Really want to try this out but I can’t seem to get a world to load with this version of pk’s enabled. I have tried enabling/disabling all the mods affected individually and pk’s is the only one that causes a problem.  
Every time I enter character creation with pk’s enabled i get the following messages:

attack effect rad\_tenths of monster mon\_amigara \_horror is unknown

starting location hospital\_2 for scenario riot\_cop does not exist

invalid overmap terrain id “underground\_sub\_station”

In overmap special “Office\_Tower\_2.0”, terrain “underground\_sub\_station” is invalid

Then when I try to finish making a new character the game freezes. I’ve tried changing city size/spacing since that has resolved some of my issues in the past but it’s not helping here. Anyone got any idea what’s going on here?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![trelatyraelis](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/trelatyraelis/32/1054_2.png) [@trelatyraelis](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/trelatyraelis)\
**Post date:** [January 20, 2018, 11:07am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/ascension-mod-or-winning-dda-the-mod/14799/11 "2018-01-20T11:07:13Z")

</div>

That needs bugfixing, stat! I’ll get working on it straight away.

A couple questions first:  
1)how old is your experimental version?  
2)Did you delete all existing modfolders and replace them with the new ones provided?

I’ve done some extensive tests and I’m sure rad\_tenths does work because I downloaded a clean DDA save, slapped the mods in the mod folder and spawned a bunch of Amigara horrors that worked fine. Besides, rad\_tenths is just one of the few radiation attacks coming from PK so it should be a problem coming from the Jabberwock and some other dudes too.

I’ve tried testing various instances of office tower 2 buildings and sub station placing but I can’t reproduce the bug for the life of me. Moreover, not only I haven’t even touched the mapgen in more\_locations, but the sub station isn’t even a mod, it’s a core feature of the game!  
Which brings me back to points 1 & 2. Occam’s razor tells me you need to update your game version.

Try to download a new version and add the new mods by deleting the original mod folders in /data/mods first, Windows might have bugged out on merging some files. Tell me if it works out for you!

@pisskop  
Thank you! Your mod is tons of fun and I’m glad you approve of this style change!  
By all means do tell me if you enjoy the new Hellspire arena layout (and beyond!), I’ve read the signs and decided to stop being a lazy bum and help out with the mapgen 😁

@proxiehunter  
Nope! I’ve added the mods as dependencies for the Ascension mod, so the moment you choose it the dependency mods get added immediately to your world. It’s super easy, but since I’ve got 4 of them I actually couldn’t add a description, because it overlapped the line that was used to list the mods needed for the mod to work! That’s a serious UI bug, kind of annoying.

UPDATES:

Downloaded new experimental (21/1/18) and found out that acidbomb\_act was deprecated, which caused bugs with PK’s acidbombs.  
Fixed.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![redxlaser15](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/redxlaser15/32/1573_2.png) [@redxlaser15](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/redxlaser15)\
**Post date:** [January 21, 2018, 11:47pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/ascension-mod-or-winning-dda-the-mod/14799/12 "2018-01-21T23:47:18Z")

</div>

How would this work with putting it on the launcher?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![trelatyraelis](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/trelatyraelis/32/1054_2.png) [@trelatyraelis](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/trelatyraelis)\
**Post date:** [January 22, 2018, 8:11am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/ascension-mod-or-winning-dda-the-mod/14799/13 "2018-01-22T08:11:20Z")

</div>

@redxlaser15  
Oh, technically it’d be super easy. It’s all self-contained json so you can just paste that stuff into a PR and not get any error messages. The real tricky part is that to make it to the mainline we’d actually have to mainline PK, arcana and the new blazemod fork with the obelisk, which is literally not going to happen because blaze and PK are more or less not updated frequently anymore which results in bugs like yesterday’s.  
I’m not taking responsibility for handling PK as a whole, that’s beyond the scope of this mod. Arcana can stand on its feet, but blazemod has all sorts of things that can and will go wrong if something happens with slight mainline alterations.

So never. Which is one of the reasons why I didn’t end up cooking some code edits for the mod. That way the bugs are a lot simpler to fix for everybody and don’t need me to PR stuff to Cleverraven, but simply edit my own json, making it compatible even with future versions.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![redxlaser15](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/redxlaser15/32/1573_2.png) [@redxlaser15](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/redxlaser15)\
**Post date:** [January 22, 2018, 8:06pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/ascension-mod-or-winning-dda-the-mod/14799/14 "2018-01-22T20:06:34Z")

</div>

Wait wut? So can I do it or not and how exactly can I if I am able to? It’s not that clear to me…

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![proxiehunter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e68b1a/32.png) [@proxiehunter](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/proxiehunter)\
**Post date:** [January 22, 2018, 8:53pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/ascension-mod-or-winning-dda-the-mod/14799/15 "2018-01-22T20:53:43Z")

</div>

You can’t put it in the launcher, you aren’t in charge of that. You can however put it in your mods folder and use in your game.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![redxlaser15](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/redxlaser15/32/1573_2.png) [@redxlaser15](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/redxlaser15)\
**Post date:** [January 22, 2018, 8:59pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/ascension-mod-or-winning-dda-the-mod/14799/16 "2018-01-22T20:59:47Z")

</div>

Does that mean that it won’t update with the launcher though? The launcher updates my current saves, but will it ruin anything?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![trelatyraelis](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/trelatyraelis/32/1054_2.png) [@trelatyraelis](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/trelatyraelis)\
**Post date:** [January 22, 2018, 9:04pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/ascension-mod-or-winning-dda-the-mod/14799/17 "2018-01-22T21:04:39Z")

</div>

@redxlaser15  
Here’s how it works, and I’ll add it to the OP too so there’s no confusion:

You click the github link. You download the latest release. You unzip the file. You will get four different folders. Winning\_dda, blazemod, pk’s rebalance and arcana.

These are the mods.  
Open your DDA then, your data, then your mod folder.  
Delete the existing folder named “blazemod” and “PK’s rebalance” (if you have it, it’s no longer mainlined.)  
Paste the four new folders you unzipped inside the mod folder where you just deleted blazemod et al.

The launcher will now load these new mods when you start a new world.  
Hope I’ve been clear.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mentos046](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/mentos046/32/11932_2.png) [@mentos046](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/mentos046)\
**Post date:** [January 22, 2018, 9:14pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/ascension-mod-or-winning-dda-the-mod/14799/18 "2018-01-22T21:14:22Z")

</div>

You’re asking if you will need to manually replace the mods that this super-mod adds every time you update via the launcher, correct?

If that’s the case, your answer is most likely yes. Last time I checked, the downloader gets an entirely new copy of the game, default mods included, and writes them to the location it detects your game at. That means that all the mods that this one has will need to be deleted again every time you update via the updater, and replaced with the ones from this super-mod, except the ones that are not in the list of pre-packaged mods.

Edit: It moves your worlds & saves to a temporary location, then writes the new copy of the game, and returns your worlds & saves back to the folder they came from.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![psyxypher](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/psyxypher/32/11778_2.png) [@psyxypher](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/psyxypher)\
**Post date:** [January 22, 2018, 11:37pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/ascension-mod-or-winning-dda-the-mod/14799/19 "2018-01-22T23:37:34Z")

</div>

Well, its not the Mutant Super-mod I was hoping for (PK’s comes close, though), but It’ll have to do. So, can I just stuff this into any old world or should I be starting a new one?

EDIT: Wait no, I rolled a Critical Failure on my Perception Check.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![proxiehunter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e68b1a/32.png) [@proxiehunter](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/proxiehunter)\
**Post date:** [January 24, 2018, 12:05am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/ascension-mod-or-winning-dda-the-mod/14799/20 "2018-01-24T00:05:09Z")

</div>

It looks like some additions got added to Blazemod recently. I’d gotten the impression somewhere that you did some dinking around with the version of Blazemod packaged with this and I’m not sure I can use the new version instead of yours without breaking something. Do you need to do anything to merge the version here with the current version?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![psyxypher](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/psyxypher/32/11778_2.png) [@psyxypher](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/psyxypher)\
**Post date:** [January 24, 2018, 1:55am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/ascension-mod-or-winning-dda-the-mod/14799/21 "2018-01-24T01:55:02Z")

</div>

So, I’m trying to get this into an older world, and I’m not sure what I’m supposed to add; The Four Mods that make up this pack, or just “Ascension”. I killed a Zombie Megabear and it didn’t give me its skull, sadly, so I’m assuming something either wrong with the Megabear family of creatures giving skulls or with the mod.

I’ve never been able to get a Megabear Skull in the normal mod, either…

[Next page](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/ascension-mod-or-winning-dda-the-mod/14799.md?page=2)