Yeah, I wasn’t really thinking there. In my defense, I really did think I’d cleared out that part- I was essentially ambushed by the hunter. I was eager particularly because there was an extremely expensive item I wanted to buy (a utility vest with 171 items in it, costing $2600). Incidentally, is there any way to buy only the vest and not all of the items in it? I don’t even know what I’m buying.
Ah, apologies. I reread the part of your earlier post about mending factors- I was indeed Very Thirsty much of the time, due to forgetting to drink while studying or during multi-hour crafting sessions, which explains another part. Hopefully, my arm should be able to mend in no more than two weeks now.
This is actually looking more and more tempting, now that my arm’s back to square one anyway. Magic Missile at the maximum of Level 15, which I’ve reached, does an average of 24 damage per hit, which is slightly (?)(don’t have the numbers) worse than an M4A1, has a range of 20, which is somewhat better than an M4A1, takes 100 movement points, or one second, to cast, which is considerably better than an M4A1, can be cast 54 times using my current mana pool of 2700 before needing to regenerate for several hours, which is probably worse than an M4A1 in the short term but considerably better in the long term, and, of course, does guaranteed damage at any range, which can in no way be reduced or evaded. In addition, I have an actual M4A1 for backup, with more than 50 rounds of ammo, a full set of military armor, and a combat knife for melee as well (although I don’t actually have any skill in rifles and no current way to train them). @Valase, @Rot Thoughts?
Edit: I have a short-range teleportation spell (Phase Door) as well, which consumes 100 mana per casting but is quite useful for getting out of melee.
Sadly, not that I’m aware of any. I guess it’s not possible because they’d need another bag or clothing to put in all that stuff you don’t want, and the code is still a bit wonky…
But you can take a look at what’s inside of it, if you press the / key during trading and then press the letter associated to the item. So you’d get at least that information…
Edit:
As for your edited question about the hospital: I would not risk it. Given that you’ve already taken a hit from a single Zombie hunter, combined with how overrun hospitals usually are… That does not look good.
Even if you manage to find a working autodoc and manage to get treatment, it just boosts your mending state a bit (to 50%) and does not heal you to full health.
So yeah, that’s my opinion. Just stay away from anything that wants to hit you and invest the time it takes to recover…
Understandable. I also got a quest from an NPC to analyze zombie blood in an autoclave, which is another reason I was considering it. I’m not quite sure why your criteria had to do with the zombie hunter, though- I spotted it at range 5 or so, and combined with its fast speed I had a hard time killing it before it got to me. How many zombies are usually in a hospital- more than a hundred? I was entertaining clearing the hospital out over multiple days.
Number of zombies in a hospital? A lot. I’d say well over a hundred (on normal settings with the standard game). The hospitals I’ve cleared were processed by luring as many zombies outside as possible to mow them down with a vehicle, followed by forays inside to slowly whittle away at the remaining couple of dozen (lots of rests to recover fatigue from when the buggers appeared around the corner and thus came into melee range immediately). And once you’ve cleared the hospital the zombies have probably wrecked the centrifuge, while there’s some chance they haven’t destroyed all autodocs.
Exactly that. What are you going to do if you meet 5 of them at the hospital, right as you round the corner?
Assuming you didn’t change around any spawn settings, yes. I’ve counted 82 89 Zombies just on the parking space alone.
Edit: Since PALU posted while I was finishing my response - and since I was at the hospital already - I’ve made a tally…: In total, there were exactly 485 Zombies, not counting all the bodies that are probably risen in your game by now (not that many)…
Ah. I’ll wait on the hospital for now, then- I’m currently clearing out the city with the help of two clay golems http://cdda-trunk.chezzo.com/monsters/mon_claygolem . They’re armored and can mow down the zombies, but aren’t fast enough to run me down, so I can lure them into crowds. In addition, I do it at night, so the zombies usually lose sight of me quickly. Afterwards, I circle back around, pulp the 10+ corpses and repeat. If it comes to it, I’m confident in my ability to kill the golems- armor won’t be any use against me. Honestly, they might be able to clear out most of the city by themselves. I’m making sure to stay at a distance and not let anything near me- the golem is usually the closer target, anyway. I’ve ‘killed’ ~100 zombies this way so far and am hoping to net a lot more.
Edit: I lost the golem, so I took matters into my own hands a bit and killed quite a few zombies by luring them through windows and meleeing them with my combat knife- I just got the “Centinel” achievement (kill 100 zombies). Yes, I’m taking damage on my left arm, but what can I say, I got a bit bored and I do need to stock up on some food, now that my weight’s gone from Obese to Overweight (also, I have my eye on a bookstore that should give me plenty to do while my arm heals.) I’ll let it heal once I’ve cleared out the outskirts. At any rate, nothing has been remotely threatening, except for a scare when a grappler zombie pulled me out the window.
Edit: Well, I caught the flu. Sigh. I guess I’m going to have to stay inside… at least I did manage to get some food. Hopefully my arm will still mend a bit even though my health is going to tank. (Also, I just threw up on my bed. Ick.)
Well, it’s Day 80 and my arm just mended… that was surprisingly quick, it’s only been five days since I put the splint back on (I took it off for a bit after my arm got rebroken.) The only real difference is that my character is no longer Obese and is now only Overweight- how much does that affect health?
If I remember right, “Owerweight” is not that big of a deal and shouldn’t affect health that much… Given that you’re eating (and otherwise stay) healthy.
Bow would be a better call. Headshots and stealth. Clear the area without your backpacks and plan your retreats properly. Patience and prep work and hospitals are cake walks. I suggest training throw some for the oh shit grenade moments.
Maybe for newer survivors that haven’t had the luxury of being fully mutated, trained and kitted out with cybernetics it would work, it not fast but it can work.
The only problem is that arrows in my opinion only really work for a small amount of zombies, as in, you kill an occasional zombie silently as you loot a building, not clear out an entire hospital with over a couple hundred zombies with a large quiver of arrows. Plus the time put into specializing into another combat skill.
It’s definitely doable but it would take a lot of time to do, not sure if you can even draw a bow with a broken arm.
It would work, it’ll take time but I’m not confident that you’d kill tougher zombies and their evolved variants within one spell shot, considering how you need to rest for a long while to recoup the mana as well it would take even longer. Plus the 50 rounds would only really do in an emergency if you can aim at the zombies in time. I recommend going slow regardless, and to play it smart.
Personally if I was in that situation I’d lure all the zombies out and toss molotovs at them a safe distance away from the hospital. Cheaper to do, time investment is minimal, and I can use my other resources to kill the stragglers left.
Also I think burnt zombies don’t rise again, don’t quote me on that, I play with revivification off.
I find melee combat to be broken, as you very quickly lose your breath and have to stand in a corner for 15 minutes (it might only be 10, but it’s a substantial amount of time), plus that you almost never hit the target, whereas I managed to hit targets most of the time using a bow and aiming fully. That usually worked to take out normal zombies while back pedaling, pulp them, rinse and repeat. Slow going, and pre processing the bulk with a vehicle helps a lot.
Note that my character was as trained as I could make him in everything I could train, but bow at least increased at a somewhat reasonable rate, while melee took forever when training in practice (The stamina budget allowed for about 20 swings before out of stamina, and I may be able to kill two normal zombies with those, given how rare hits are: don’t start on basement spider and similar ilk, as hitting them is rare indeed).
Burnt zombies raise as scorched zombies unless they were destroyed (at least when killed by burning buildings, and I have no reason to assume molotovs would work differently.)
Well, the situation’s a bit different now considering my arm’s healed. I’m currently waging a war on the Mycus- I burned back the bloom that was near the refugee center reality bubble, at any rate, and the rest shouldn’t be a threat as long as I stay well away. Assaulting the hospital is still a goal, since I need an autoclave to analyze zombie blood. Molotov cocktails would be great… if I had any fuel. I don’t have a chemistry set or still to distill denatured alcohol from all the alcoholic beverages I looted from a bar, unfortunately. Would it be doable to hunt for a gas station in the city?
I have six grenades, in addition. Or at least I would have had six grenades if I hadn’t dropped them in a fire by accident while torching the Mycus and promptly had them explode. I can probably get quite a bit more ammunition from clearing out the city, judging by the frequency of soldier zombies and ammo on zombies so far. I can hold my own in melee with my combat knife and ranged with Magic Missile, and I spotted a stone golem in a nearby forest that I can lure into town (hopefully I can find another one, though, because that one followed me to the Mycus and I really don’t want to enter the fungus reality bubble again.) With a bit of luck I might be able to find a relevant book, but for now I don’t really have any way to train rifles- how much preparation would I need to start clearing the hospital? I can probably loot a couple of spellbooks from magical structures in the city- I’m particularly hoping for a pyromancy book to assist me against the Mycus when I do eventually go back.
I actually took quite a bit of damage from the stone golem when luring it to the Mycus- my torso’s currently at one bar, so I’ll be staying inside for a few days at least. After my torso heals, I’m hoping to go hunt down the three bandits for the Free Merchants quest- at least one of them is going to have a gun, but I’m fairly unworried given my full military armor. I’m going to bring my rifle and pistols as well, of course, though I’ll probably only fall back on them after my mana runs out. I’m debating whether it would be better to engage in full daylight or at night- on the one hand, I unquestionably have the range advantage with Magic Missile's range of 20, but on the other hand I might be able to stealth attack at night given that I have Night Vision and they most likely don’t.
Melee combat is pretty wonky right now, but I still prefer it due to simplicity’s sake. If you want more efficiency then I suggest that you get a weapon with “wide sweep” like a Lucerne hammer (best all-round melee weapon imo) or others like a nodachi or zweihander. At higher levels of skill you can sweep and kill 3 enemies at a time regularly, which makes killing hordes a surprisingly quick and easy task.
Finding out that scorched zombies exist is also kind of a bummer, but it just further shows that reanimating zombies are just tedious and not very fun.
I recommend luring that stone golem first and foremost, it seems to be the easiest solution to the hospital problem.
I trained rifles using BB guns and .22 rifles and plinking weak zombies before, so you don’t necessarily need books, just a decent amount of ammo.
I personally loved pneumatic weapons but they’re obsolete now, but crossbows use the rifle skill so you can train and use those to clear out zombies, saves the trouble of finding a bow, a corresponding book and other things to train it.
I personally always did night raids at camps because they have a surprising amount of gun wielding bandits that can easily shoot you down. As long as you can kill them with ranged before they find you, the better. Though I will say that I did get a good amount of firearms, they didn’t have much ammo on them. You’re better off finding a military outpost and destroying the turrets for ammo, though they’re extremely dangerous to take down both during day and night, it’s a high risk high reward scenario that can net you with thousands of 5.56, 7.62 and .50 BMG rounds and military grade guns.
I don’t have a book with the crossbow recipe, unfortunately. Luring the stone golem to the hospital is a good idea, although I’ll certainly let it smash some zombies on the way. The advice on the bandit camp is appreciated and makes sense- I can probably sneak up, Magic Missile the guards and start shooting if and when my mana runs out, preferably while staying out of sight radius.
I’m equipped with an ESAPI ballistic vest, army helmet, scrap armguards and leg guards, and will soon be able to craft a light survivor suit (when I find 200 duct tape… I hear kitchens are a good source?) I have Tailoring 6 and am training up Fabrication (it’s at 4 right now.) I’m also hoping to craft chitinous/biosicilified armor, if I run into any ants (I’ll need to find a chemistry textbook first, but that should be easy enough given the bookstores and number of houses I can clear out.) I see M249 autonomous CROWS II have only 40 hp- would it be feasible to simply put on my heaviest armor, bicycle or drive within range of the turrets, and take each of them out with two Magic Missiles? Since I really won’t care about my melee or dodging skill in that situation, I’d be able to layer multiple ESAPI vests over each other- I’m pretty sure gunfire is biased towards striking your torso, which all the armor will take care of handily, my head should be decently protected by the army helmet, and at any rate if I do get my arms and legs broken I should still be able to cast Magic Missile. I would suggest just walking up, given that I don’t have a vehicle right now, except for the fact it appears that turrets have ~30 tiles of range to my 20, so that seems like it would be an efficient manner of suicide.
All this depends, of course, on actually finding a military outpost, which I suspect will require quite a bit of traveling- do you know how common they generally are?
At any rate, my torso and left arm are currently at three bars each and healing- I’ve been spending the time leveling fabrication and crafting armor. Ideally, normal zombies should deal severely reduced damage when I go raiding in a few days- how protective are the 10 bash 10 cut scrap arm guards, exactly? (Other than the 80% coverage, of course.) I’m having a bit of a hard time quantifying protection values.
All in all, things are going quite well- it’s surprisingly satisfying growing stronger and crafting equipment for myself. I’ve made a few nailboard traps which should help me with melee in the city, although I can sadly only take one at a time.
Military outposts are usually surrounded by forests, so getting close isn’t the problem, making sure you have no blind spots where several turrets can shoot you. Good thing is, they’re blind at night, bad thing is, there are military spotlights turrets that will detect and illuminate you at night for the more dangerous turrets to target you.
Also I recommend armoring up as much as possible but to check yourself and make sure you’re not cocky as it might stop a 5.56 or 7.62, but a .50 Cal will rip through your armor.
These outposts are pretty uncommon and only really found in forests. I recommend finding a science lab and downloading overmap data from the computers inside to help you find them.
For you arm and leg protection, metal guards should work perfectly. If you’re having trouble looking at or making sense of the protection values, try looking at other items of similar protection and base it off there. For instance, Kevlar vest protection in comparison to the metal arm guards.
Also as a cautionary note, I don’t think they completely concentrate just on your torso. I’ve had situations where I’ve been shot at by turrets and security bots and they’ve ripped apart my arms, legs and whole body.
Speaking of security bots, there will be a couple inside the outpost building, so I recommend going in at night to open doors and shoot them dead (they don’t have night vision) if you’re feeling brave, or destroy them using scrambler or EMP grenades.
Great! The military searchlights might be a bit dangerous, but it looks like they have even less hp than the turrets- I’ll just make sure to take them out first.
Also I recommend armoring up as much as possible but to check yourself and make sure you’re not cocky as it might stop a 5.56 or 7.62, but a .50 Cal will rip through your armor.
I do appreciate the concern, but if I don’t care about encumbrance I can wear two ESAPI and two Kevlar vests at once, for a ballistic protection value of 132 on my torso- as much as heavy power armor.
I don’t think I need to worry about anything getting through that.
The vests each have a coverage value of 85%, of course, as opposed to heavy power armor’s coverage value of 100%, but the odds of a shot ignoring all four layers of armor is checks calculator 0.050625%, about 1 in 2000, and the odds of gunfire bypassing both the ESAPI vests is 2.25%, about 1 in 40. I’m good, thanks.
Actually, this is making me think I should use the same setup to assault the bandit camp as well…
These outposts are pretty uncommon and only really found in forests. I recommend finding a science lab and downloading overmap data from the computers inside to help you find them.
The information is appreciated, although that’s a little discouraging given that (a.) it would necessitate clearing a science lab, and (b.) it suggests that science labs are more common than military outposts, which is rather worrisome.
For you arm and leg protection, metal guards should work perfectly. If you’re having trouble looking at or making sense of the protection values, try looking at other items of similar protection and base it off there. For instance, Kevlar vest protection in comparison to the metal arm guards.
Nice! When you put it in perspective like that, the lamellar guards do seem quite effective.
Also as a cautionary note, I don’t think they completely concentrate just on your torso. I’ve had situations where I’ve been shot at by turrets and security bots and they’ve ripped apart my arms, legs and whole body.
Yeah, I am expecting to get hit in my other limbs a bit. The area I really don’t want fire focused on is my head, since it has only a comparatively measly 27 ballistic protection Army helmet - Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead and it’s a part I, of course, can’t afford to lose- as I mentioned, if my limbs are broken I should still be able to finish the job, while being dead rather precludes that.
Speaking of security bots, there will be a couple inside the outpost building, so I recommend going in at night to open doors and shoot them dead (they don’t have night vision) if you’re feeling brave, or destroy them using scrambler or EMP grenades.