Candlebury's ISG -Idea thread and poll (See the Guide!)

Game Talk The Bunker
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[size=14pt]As of now you can see the work in progress here: The Guide
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So I have had this Idea in the back of my head from some time now, and now that i think will have a relatively free amount of time in the next month, I will start working on it.

I not only plan to make a comprehensive and as complete as possible survival guide for the game, which would be very great project by itself, but also to illustrate it as much as I can. And in the best possible of scenarios it would become the case of thing that we direct new players to read in order to get better at the game.

This is possibly the most ambitious thing I have ever done with my art and in the internet and I will be needing as much help as you are willing to give.

But regarding the actual guide:
[size=14pt]
ART[/size]
The expected art would be something along the lines of this dude, who is
John Candlebury and our designated victim survivor.

[size=14pt]SURVIVAL CONTENT
[/size]Truth is that the survival content is the most important thing in a survival guide and that while i could possibly say a lot by myself; the guide will be more complete and possibly more fun to read if you gave me suggestions on what to draw and what tips to include in the guide. The planned first chapters are roughly as follows:

1st Title:Suggested starting kits
2nd Title: Im in a shelter what now?

The first steps for initiating your adventures (Get basic weapon, check basement, use the map to view your surroundings)
Looting if Fun! (combat in towns and were to go and what to and not to take)
Life in the woods (wilderness survival)
The stuff of life (Ways to get water and food)
The suggested inventory (basic weapons, tools, clothes you should be wearing other useful items)

After that is overd we should probably dwell into more complex stuff, but lets start simple shall we?

(Something I should change?, something imporant i forgot?

Please feel free to vote and to post your suggestions opinions and survival tips to start the Guide

2

Some ideas of my own

Basic inventory (Dont really need much other than this)

Frying Pan
Lighter
Knife
Sewing kit
Bottle 2x
Crowbar
Painkillers
Time keeping device (clock or cellphone)

The basic apparel (provides max inventory without encumberance)

Cargo pants
Cargo Shorts
Tank top
Messenger bag
Trenchcoat
Boots
Holster
Quiver

The starter weapons

Wrench (even though it has less bashing damage than a crowbar its use of one less movement point guarrantees that a quick unharmed character will be able to hit an average zombie twice without risking damage, unlike the crowbar it only uses the bash skill, concentraiting Xp gain, however it lacks much of the early game utility of a crowbar and must be found or started with)

Crowbar (the crowbar is one of the must versatile tools in the game, not only is it good for hitting zombies, it can also be [a]pplied to doors and windows to allow for relatively silent. In a pinch, the crowbar can also be [a]pplied to lift manhole covers providing acces to the sewers and a route of escape. It has the advantage of being easly crafted from smashing a shelter locker for a pipe and a rock.

Nail board the game describes it as a great melee weapon, and it is right. It provides greatest damage of the starting weapons at the price of being the slowest. It can bee made from smashing a bench and combining the planks and nails with a rock as the tool.

Knife spear the spear offers similar damage and speed than a nailboard. However it also has a rapid attack bonus which comes handy in several situations and can be used as a knife. The knife spear is very deadly when thrown and a headshot will instakill most basic zombies. It is however slightly complex to craft and requires a survival of 1.

Pointy stick a pointy stick is not a great weapon. It does an amount of damage similar to a bayonet when thrown, and occupies 5 units of volume; in melee, the weapon is rather slow for its damage output but offers a somewhat redeeming slight blocking bonus. It can be used to cook food in the wildreness, but the same think can be achieved by a much smaller skewer.

Selfbow a selfbow in my opinion its a mediocre weapon at best. Both the weapon and the starting arrows you can make for it have small damage and a very short range, making it only useful for leveling archery. It can be made from smashing a window and requires archery level 2.

Crossbow the crossbow is a great weapon when starting out as it provides great range and damage . The crossbow is great for killing lone or small groups of zombies, but dont feel to confident, as the reload time means you’ll get cornered fast when dealing with several or fast. Crossbows and a single steel bolt can be obtained from disarming traps (a process that will hurt you at low skill levels) more bolts can be made with fabrication and archery level 2 and 1 respectively.

Spike a spike is a terrible meele weapon, however they are small and when throw will do enough damage to instakill small wildlife even though not apparently better than a rock when you are starting out, a head shot with a spike tends to about 3 times the damage. I personally suggest carrying at least 2 everywhere for hunting purposes. At least 3 can be made from scrapmetal from smashed evac lockers and a rock

Rock A simple throwaway rock, it has a decent damage when thrown and has the advantage of being found everywhere. It can also be used as a tool for most beginner recipes and is essential for making most of the weapons of this guide.

Bayonet a bayonet offers the same uses as a spike with the added benefit of doing +6 dame, they are however much larger than spikes and occupy the double amount of volume. They can be made from combining the string from smashing windows with already existing spikes and require 1 skill in fabrication

Did I miss an easy to make or get starting weapon? Be sure to tell me

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Reserved

4

You haven’t forgotten anything, now you need to form your clipart base and have tasks.
Say, you want to depict scenes that make the player character aggressive towards the enviroment; you can pick a symbolic fist, something stylish in a romboid-square sign with edges. That clipart (and it can get redone if you wish or the situation calls for it) is your signature; tasks may get more complex, you may want (for ex.) to brief everyone through a short yet illustrated intro. So to say, finishing that task, that wraps up many things spoken about through the FAQ and around the Tips, is YOUR navigation buoy with the rest of your Survival Guide.
There are nice .pdf books around which won’t be mentioned here without some greater demand for their content, but I’m pretty sure about “image being worth thousand words” is embodied in the suspense of a doorway and a hall, whereas the player character is, standing against the wall, peeking at lots of Zs holding nothing but scissors in one hand; there’s surely a perfectly good example of something similar, but this one could be called “Take on 'em one by one”.

Anyway, whatever you do - I’m sure it’ll be featured with the Wikis, and I think that hand-drawn art is the spot-on thing for a roguelike’s Wiki. But you do your thing, even a sarcastic guide will suffice if you do it.

5

I like it. Art design kinda looks sort of “Vault Boy” reminiscent, reminds me of Fallout.

You missed rocks on your list of easily accessible starting weapons. I always like to get twenty or so of them when I find a back pack, and practice on squirrels. It’s silent, and an okay alternative to archery if you don’t have the sinew, or skill yet.

Anyone can pick up rocks and throw them.

6

Hey man I like the ideas in here and have a few if you would like to hear them though I would recommend joining the IRC channel so we can talk better.

7

I’ll help you a bit:

The Trusty Pocket Knife
Known better as “Your Only Friend” once you decide to break from the shelter. Its clumsy butcher handling is superceeded by, well, everything you’ll want to accomplish in the very beginning. It’s tiny enough to lose a battle over multiple enemies, but surely will put down an occasional hostile entity. You can learn how to handle knives with this baby.

The Stick That Hurts More
So you’ve discovered Heavy Stick magic, and the variety it yields when you apply your crafts. One of the basics is the Pointy variety, your companion for cooking and poking small game from the very start. More than that, if you have excess weaponry on yourself you can really hurt an opponent closing in on you with throwing skill used. Remember, the more you craft from raw, rawer, rawest materials - the more you’ll know about even deadlier tools of war.

The Hammer of Zs
So you’ve picked up your broken heart for the decaying world and you’re heading for the first settlement only to find throngs of green, purple and other soda-coloured zombies walking about. You invite 'em to a choke point, crush their flesh-hungry faces only to find the Trusty Hammer on one of them. Don’t bother trying to poke your undead with screwdrivers, hacksaws or tongs of kinds, punch some holes with this baby that is similar to a crowbar you’ve (very much obligatory) made yourself, or at least it is when it comes to damage and wielding speeds. Keep it for building, too.

Hockey-Stickey
You’ll find that pre-Cataclysm world was a place of jolly sporting events - billiard tournaments, baseball games, swimming contests and, well of course, hockey team clashes. Now you can put the gear to somewhat different use, and aim it at the undead fans. The stick that pushes the puck is very well ballanced for bashing the skulls of the decayed, so you may want to stick with it for a while if you lack better options in current zombie infestation.

Cutting Implements Repository
Or the CIR, may be your undead neighbour’s home or, well, his rotting carcass. The survivors have more use of 'em, those sharp blades, and you may want to pack the Butcher or the Combat utensil of the Knife kind. You’ll be cutting everything in no time, from kevlar to sinew of the unlucky dog or wolf. You’ll stick with them through the obvious part of the game, and they’ll make a fine companion for zombie resistance until you find some larger and deadlier cutting weapons. Just don’t mind the steak knife or even worse, the butter knife’s dull blade, as the mentioned fence poorly in close encounters.

The Pain of a Crossbow
So you’re too into traps, aren’t you? Between the nasty metal jaws ment for bears and the double-barrelled trap for those crazy enough to ask for permadeath lies a Crossbow Trap. So you think, what the heck, I can do it - maybe you dodge it and then then BLAM! - you’re bleeding like a stuck pig, all because of a bolt fired from a powerful weapon, the Crossbow That Mangled You. Of course you wish to keep it, and learn how to make ammo and remember never again try and disarm a crossbow trap in the front of the weapon. You’ll find it satisfactory that you’re not the only one burnt by this powerfull projectile-hurling device once you get it on with some Zs. Needless to say, metal bolts can damage armor and cause electric pain to the CPU-brains of many robotic foes. Keep in mind when to reload, 'cause this baby has only one candy to set, draw and fire, at a time…

The Woodchopper
Have you ever swung an axe at something? Would you like Zs to get up and learn how to handle their weapons? Better dispose of those horrors and strip them buck naked, only to find they’ll never use the trusty Axe like you will instead of 'em. You’ll want this baby on you when dropping trees and such, but this also is a weapon of choice. And a deadly choice it is. If you don’t mind being set back by the slowness due to the size of this bone-crushing device, you can just wear as much protection as you can and go with choppity-chop-chop.

There are swords and bats, chains and barrel-rigged nail guns, but this is pretty much the spot.

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Thanks for the suggestion vulturs, will be adding the pocket knife, crossbow, pointy stick to the list Im unsure about the hockey and the wood axe, as they are somewhat uncommon as far as I know.

Nickboom, I will prefer if you were to post or alternatively PM your suggestions. Mostly so that I can more easeier keep a digital record of them and because I am a complete noob when it comes to using the IRC

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Re IRC: pretty much the same here, and I kinda like having a record of what’s been said. Not sure if people in IRC appreciate that though.

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So, I felt that I should update this in someway.

This is an esample for an illustrated crafting recipe.
Ideally this would show the most common ways to get base materials (in this case smashing locker and a window) a smashinng is the lined dot, a tool is the empty arrow and the other arrow implies the object is consumed
It describes how to make a knife spear, one of the most complex starting items (excuse me If I forgot a step, pulled it straight from my memory as I couldnt acces a copy of the game, still it should suffice as an example)

Real ones would be colored

20lWgff.gif600×800

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Uh, the right side gets a little busy. Having the arrow-legend on-picture might help too.

Good idea though. Multiple formats FTW.

12

Yeh, it kinda does I guess i needed more drawing space, will take note of this

13

Ill happily throw some stuff in the pile if you are interested, though it would probably come in wall of text format.

Wont be offended at all if you feel you have it covered yourself though. Interested?

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Of course I am interested bring it all!!!

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[quote=“John Candlebury, post:10, topic:2940”]So, I felt that I should update this in someway.

This is an esample for an illustrated crafting recipe.
Ideally this would show the most common ways to get base materials (in this case smashing locker and a window) a smashinng is the lined dot, a tool is the empty arrow and the other arrow implies the object is consumed
It describes how to make a knife spear, one of the most complex starting items (excuse me If I forgot a step, pulled it straight from my memory as I couldnt acces a copy of the game, still it should suffice as an example)

Real ones would be colored

20lWgff.gif600×800

Absolutely love visual art that has content infused in it.

Totally badass man.

Definitely do one for a Molotov cocktail

Simple, yet incredibly handy.

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So I realized that the past fallout like drawing style is very inappropriate for depicting action so I will draw the guide in this style (which actually works to depict running melee and etc.)

gkfljZg.png519×800

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I’m totally jealous of your art ability, and honored that I can contribute any inspiration :smiley:

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He and Pth must have a draw-off.

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[quote=“John Candlebury, post:16, topic:2940”]So I realized that the past fallout like drawing style is very inappropriate for depicting action so I will draw the guide in this style (which actually works to depict running melee and etc.)

gkfljZg.png519×800
[/quote]

LMAO

Think you need to carve up some nones, then use a sewing kit to repair it mang.

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Have another illustrated recipe (this one is very close to how an actual one would look its just missing the shadows and the final inking)

However I actually have a very important question to ask related to the recipes:

Do you think it will be better if I only illustrate the most numerous or easy to get source for a reagent (like I have been doing) or should I illustrate most of them?
The problem with this is that in the first way we must first reach consensus about the easier source and that in the second way the recipes can look kinda cluttered

QHBYodn.png600×776