Bunch of ideas

Game Talk The Drawing Board
1

First of all, i think that some people will call these ideas too ‘micromanagement’ ones. But some players, i guess, want Cataclysm to be rather hardcore than casual, and may be there can be two game modes - casual without all this ‘micromanagement’ and hardcore.

Items:
Weapon add-on - rifle belt. This add-on allows you to wear rifle, shotgun or SMG on torso slot, giving you 1-2 encumbrance. Craftable.
Blanket - clothing, covering all the body except head, extremely encumbersome.
UPS - it should be reworked. Instead of (on) and (off) it has to be (plugged) and (off). Why? Because of its volume and huge appetite every turn it’s nearly useless to carry night-vision goggles or high-tech weapons. Instead of this it would be wounderful to write energy consumption of different items. For example - for NV goggles it’s ~20 energy points per turn, for Plasma Rifle - 50 per shot.
Ammo magazines - i know, that it was discussed for many times, that it requires ‘micromanagement’, but it is necessary and hardcore. Plus it will make revolvers and bolt rifles more useful, especially for a beginning - they don’t require clips or something. And speedloaders for revolvers would be nice too.

Changes:
Torso encumbrance - it’s okay to make your combat skills lower, but attack speed penalty is too high. Wearing polo shirt and light jacket makes you too slow in combat, while wearing bulletproof west with something else makes you useless. Penalty has to be halfed or split between torso and arms encumbrance.
Mutation and bionics - in early versions of mod mutagen made your character ‘feel strange’ and mutate after some time with high food and water consumption. So you couldn’t savescum and it was more realistic than momentally-grown tail and beak. Please, return it to game.
Same with bionics - as i see, bionics is some kind of nano-implants than grow in body, building useful structure. So, this may take longer than one moment. Let it be so - applying implant takes ~hour and gives you ‘Implant installing’ effect with occasional (depends on bionic - you can’t replace your arm with fusion blaster without painful procedure) pain and lowered dexterity. After some time - 5-12 hours, depends on bionic complexity, you got a result. As a benefit - you can no longer savescum with bionics.
Start settings - skill and trat-attribute points should be split, because most of the people don’t take skills at beginning at all. Maybe skills should depend on choosen profession - who has your character been before the apocalypse. Peaceful professions require no points at all - clerk, driver, etc., but some useful ones with good starting equipment (policeman, fireworker, etc.) should require it. Also, it may be good to choose time of starting - in very-very ‘Hour Z’ or after some time from disaster. It affects number of NPC and monsters hanging around and world condition - for example, if you start in a week after disaster, you’ll find looted shops, lot of burned houses and rotting corpses. It will be harder, but instead you can pick better starting profession and items.

2

It’s a sling, and should be a 0 encumbrance slot, -1 to arms and hands for a turn or two if you’re unarmed and swap to the rifle to fire it.
Properly worn and adjusted, a sling not only isn’t cumbersome, but enhances your handling and accuracy, especially compared to the unsupported standing position players shoot from in-game.

Blanket - clothing, covering all the body except head, extremely encumbersome. UPS - it should be reworked. Instead of (on) and (off) it has to be (plugged) and (off). Why? Because of its volume and huge appetite [u]every[/u] turn it's nearly useless to carry night-vision goggles or high-tech weapons. Instead of this it would be wounderful to write energy consumption of different items. For example - for NV goggles it's ~20 energy points per turn, for Plasma Rifle - 50 per shot.
Both good ideas.

The rest of them, I don’t care for at all.

3

I agree with the torso encumbarance part.
I’m not sure about you guys but I don’t become 2x slower than usual just because I wear a sweater.

Currently armours are a no-go in most situations.
Why do we even have them then?

4

I think magazines would be a fine thing to have. You already find spare magazines, it’d just add that little bit extra resason to scavenge.
That you can find the best weapon ever, but have only one magazine that fits so reloading it takes minutes. Adds to crafting, if you have a good amount of mechanics and firearms skill, spare metal and advanced tools, you can manufacture your own magazines along with the bullets.
Could play into factions whenver they make their appearance, be useful to them by providing ammunition.

I hope everybody is fine when I throw my ideas in here as well.
I’d like to see crafting for weighted weapons.
Have a pipe, attach screw nuts to it, or large cogs… heck, fill it with sand or shot pellets to make heavier weapons for more blunt damage but lower hit bonus and more weight.
Or sharpen blades for temporary cutting boni, perhaps serrate them for more cutting damage but a far higher amount of the weapon getting stuck, making them higher-end weapons with more skill required.

Of course right now that’s not going to happen, but a way to make locations somewhat safer, say you killed so many zombies in a town that it can slowly be considered ‘safe’ but has to be defended against new hordes wandering near. Make use of survivors you befriend to clean up the buildings in favor of a centralized loot spot with a set tile radius, say a police station or park in the middle of town where they deposit stuff from the buildings around it. Naturally that requires the game to be active in more than the viewport area.

5

it might be nice if you can use a can for a pot… perhaps having a chance to screw it up?

6

Okay, more ideas.
Firefights.
Take [c]over key - ability to take cover behind bush/window/etc. to not get a bullet in the head or to sneak around. Ability to peek from the corner may be binded too - to peek from your cover.
NPC ambushes - 1-3 armed and dangerous NPC, covering in woods or somewhere else, waiting for someone like YOU. High perseption may help you in these cases.
Also - teach NPC to control their recoil, cause after 2 shots they suddenly become useless in firefight.

7

[quote=“Atelerd, post:1, topic:316”]Items:
Weapon add-on - rifle belt. This add-on allows you to wear rifle, shotgun or SMG on torso slot, giving you 1-2 encumbrance. Craftable.[/quote]

Sounds good to me, no problem

Good idea, although I wouldn’t make it encumbersome at all, but instead make it fall off the character if he moves faster than walking speed (would require walking speed to be added as well), this would make it a good option when you want to warm up inside a building or wear it as you fall asleep.

I rarely use any UPS system so I can’t comment.

I would certainly enjoy managing the ammo manually, and It would add another level or realism, but it should be somewhat optional or streamlined for people that don’t want to spend too much time micromanaging.

Everyone wants this, but I don’t think we should plain half the values, but instead reevaluate them. Fighting with a massive military rucksack would be hard, depending on what you are carrying, but even a kevlar flak jacket wouldn’t impede you that much, very much less for poloshirts t shirts ect.

It should also take into account how many layers you are wearing, for example wearing a raincoat over a t-shirt wouldn’t impede you much, but wearing a raincoat over a light jacket over a jumper over a t-shirt would, even more so than the sum of the parts.

[quote=“Atelerd, post:1, topic:316”]Mutation and bionics - in early versions of mod mutagen made your character ‘feel strange’ and mutate after some time with high food and water consumption. So you couldn’t savescum and it was more realistic than momentally-grown tail and beak. Please, return it to game.

Same with bionics - as i see, bionics is some kind of nano-implants than grow in body, building useful structure. So, this may take longer than one moment. Let it be so - applying implant takes ~hour and gives you ‘Implant installing’ effect with occasional (depends on bionic - you can’t replace your arm with fusion blaster without painful procedure) pain and lowered dexterity. After some time - 5-12 hours, depends on bionic complexity, you got a result. As a benefit - you can no longer savescum with bionics.[/quote]

No objections from me on either of these parts.

I support this, letting the stats and traits be up to you while also including a good career system to give you a backstory.

In addition to the starting time, the start of the outbreak should start you off in a house/workplace, with a bunch of NPCs that have limited/no interaction getting attacked by zombies and looting a town. The only problem I can see here is lag, as hundreds of civilians getting attacked by dozens of zombies while also picking up items would be hard on a processor.

[quote=“Atelerd, post:1, topic:316”]Okay, more ideas.
Firefights.
Take [c]over key - ability to take cover behind bush/window/etc. to not get a bullet in the head or to sneak around. Ability to peek from the corner may be binded too - to peek from your cover.
NPC ambushes - 1-3 armed and dangerous NPC, covering in woods or somewhere else, waiting for someone like YOU. High perseption may help you in these cases.
Also - teach NPC to control their recoil, cause after 2 shots they suddenly become useless in firefight.[/quote]

The cover system isn’t a bad idea, although I think it’s very much an afterthought. Maybe add it around the time factions become up and running.

NPC ambushes sounds good, and maybe not even ambushes but just hostile NPCs in a group.

NPC recoil is pretty much a given, so yeah.