Cataclysm, classic Zombie Survival. In progress

Game Talk The Lab
1

https://github.com/Oddzball/Cataclysm-CZS.git

Added a compiled package for those of you that want it.

[size=14pt]OK, EVERY TIME there is an update, you will need to make a brand new install of CZS. That means delete EVERYTHING, yes even your templates. This stuff is not going to be backwards compatible with all the big changes that are happening with the game.[/size]

DOWNLOAD HERE;
[size=14pt]CataclysmCZSBuild6-4[/size]

Unstable test build with new Mob AI and perception etc;

[size=18pt]What is Cataclysm CZS?[/size]

The ultimate goal of CZS is to take the awesome cataclysm roguelike and turn it into a Zombie survival roguelike with all the great features of cataclysm, plus some new features of my own, and not have all the weird Sci-Fi stuff. Your main enemy will be Zombies of different types(Except weird spitter/boomer L4D ones), wildlife, and other humans.

The goal is to survive as long as possible. You will have to scavenge for food and drinks, you will have to worry about temperature, and you will have to worry about things like disease and psychosis(mental).

This game will probably always be easier than Cataclysm DDA.
DDA loves to kill you.
CZS loves to kill you when you are stupid.

You can expect to face a lot more zombies in CZS however than DDA. I will adjust this as time goes on until I find what I feel is a happy medium.

The types of zombies you encounter may be vastly different than their DDA counterparts, OR entirely new creatures.
The Zombies in CZS as of right now are;
Zombie
Fast Zombie(Less Decayed)
Decayed Zombie(Slow, easy kill)
“Brute” Zombie(Not as tough as DDA Brute, think more like an athlete who died and was zombified)
Child Zombies
And of course some specials, specifically zombies from their old normal jobs ie;
Scientist Zombie(Without weird acid attack and manhacks)
Cop Zombie(Tough because he is wearing Riot gear)
Soldier Zombie(Same as above but even tougher because of military style gear)

I will continue to add new zombie types, and sometimes it will be merely for flavor, and not so much for stats.
I can say my ultimate goal is that your average zombies will not always be exactly the same, some might be slower, some might be faster etc.

I also have already and plan to continue to add a little more variety to the wildlife in CZS. I know DDA is suppose to take place in Europe, but think of CZS as being in “Generic wooded area where ever”

Some of the wildlife will maybe be harmful, or HELPFUL, some of it may even be just for flavor and serve no other purpose.

Basically if you wouldn’t see it in the “real” zombie apocalypse, you probably wont see it in CZS.

CZS also added many new areas to make up for the lack of DDA “Sci-Fi” areas. DDA has even adopted some of these.
The following areas were added to CZS(And some of them rolled over to DDA);

Farms
LMOE Bunker(Think preppers, survivalist nuts)
Fema Camps(http://www.fema.gov/)
New Cabins in the woods.

I plan to add others as well. Top on my list is;
Schools
Prison
Hotels
And probably others as time allows.

As time goes on I will continue to phase out weird sci-fi elements and replace them with more survival related aspects.
Many new items have been made just for CZS, and many more will be made in the future.

I have also added more strict survival mechanics than DDA, the first of which was bleeding.(Which DDA also adopted) I plan on adding more of these features, or using DDA survival specific features
such as SHoes Temp/Survival Mod, or DinoCat’s foraging.

Many of my original goals were already met by the DDA team, so thankfully a lot of that has been rolled into CZS as well, and you will continue to see that as I go along, where feasible.
I primarily support windows for CZS, and do a lot of the fixing for DDA windows as well. SOmetimes I might even break from CZS to help with DDA because ultimately, everything that improves DDA improves CZS as well.

There are also many, many balance changes between DDA and CZS, and general Cataclysm enhancements and bug fixes I have been working on from things related to npcs, all the way to random map generation.

Please feel free to add suggestions to this thread, and report bugs.

And remember, the rule of CZS is;
“Stay smart, stay alive.” (And also pray a wolf or cougar doesn’t get you right after spawn)

2

I may have shot my mouth off about tileset feasibility or how to go about it, but I have no plans to do anything about it myself, once I get in the zone with a roguelike I vastly prefer ASCII to tiles.

Requests/suggestions:
Use github, it makes stealing incorporating your changes easier.
Try to separate your changes into distinct commits, e.g. don’t put a batch of corrections to ammo details in a commit that also removes all the eyebot code.*
Consider adding code to disable features rather than removing them entirely. Particularly for monster spawns, you should be able to just skip over the code that adds spawns for the monsters you don’t like (I was planning on making this more configurable anyway). Haven’t looked into disabling bionics, but it should just be a matter of disabling their spawns rather than ripping the cod out entirely.
As for content suggestions, feel free to grab stuff off my TODO list :wink:

*This isn’t just so we can take your stuff, I try to do the same thing, so that if dda heads in a direction you don’t like it’s easier for you to selectively pull in things as well. If everyone does it we can have a bunch of variations that might somewhat head off in different directions, but when someone does something that helps other branches out, they can incorporate it.

3

[quote=“Kevin Granade, post:2, topic:156”]I may have shot my mouth off about tileset feasibility or how to go about it, but I have no plans to do anything about it myself, once I get in the zone with a roguelike I vastly prefer ASCII to tiles.

Requests/suggestions:
Use github, it makes stealing incorporating your changes easier.
Try to separate your changes into distinct commits, e.g. don’t put a batch of corrections to ammo details in a commit that also removes all the eyebot code.*
Consider adding code to disable features rather than removing them entirely. Particularly for monster spawns, you should be able to just skip over the code that adds spawns for the monsters you don’t like (I was planning on making this more configurable anyway). Haven’t looked into disabling bionics, but it should just be a matter of disabling their spawns rather than ripping the cod out entirely.
As for content suggestions, feel free to grab stuff off my TODO list :wink:

*This isn’t just so we can take your stuff, I try to do the same thing, so that if dda heads in a direction you don’t like it’s easier for you to selectively pull in things as well. If everyone does it we can have a bunch of variations that might somewhat head off in different directions, but when someone does something that helps other branches out, they can incorporate it.[/quote]
I will attempt to setup a github. Trust me, you probably dont want most of my stuff anyway, as I got my computer science degree almost 6 years ago, and instead of programming I sat at a desk doing database support and technical training.(So my code is probably a horrible hack :P)

I will grab your to-do list. The thing is, at the same time we have different goals.

4

[quote=“Oddzball, post:3, topic:156”][quote=“Kevin Granade, post:2, topic:156”]I may have shot my mouth off about tileset feasibility or how to go about it, but I have no plans to do anything about it myself, once I get in the zone with a roguelike I vastly prefer ASCII to tiles.

Requests/suggestions:
Use github, it makes stealing incorporating your changes easier.
Try to separate your changes into distinct commits, e.g. don’t put a batch of corrections to ammo details in a commit that also removes all the eyebot code.*
Consider adding code to disable features rather than removing them entirely. Particularly for monster spawns, you should be able to just skip over the code that adds spawns for the monsters you don’t like (I was planning on making this more configurable anyway). Haven’t looked into disabling bionics, but it should just be a matter of disabling their spawns rather than ripping the cod out entirely.
As for content suggestions, feel free to grab stuff off my TODO list :wink:

*This isn’t just so we can take your stuff, I try to do the same thing, so that if dda heads in a direction you don’t like it’s easier for you to selectively pull in things as well. If everyone does it we can have a bunch of variations that might somewhat head off in different directions, but when someone does something that helps other branches out, they can incorporate it.[/quote]
(So my code is probably a horrible hack :P)[/quote]It’ll fit in perfectly with mine then.

5

I think most people contributing don’t have a CS degree, so you’d be one of the more experienced ones :stuck_out_tongue:
Also I’m perfectly happy to refactor code to make it prettier, way easier/faster than writing it in the first place.

Heh, I assumed, but you asked for suggestions :wink:

6

Excellent ideas Odszball, you have detailed the perfect game for me!

7

I started a github today, I’ll post it shortly, havent really done much yet. Just messed with some of the ascii graphics to make them more visible and started chopping some of the weird zombie stuff out. (no boomer etc)

Need to start making up things to fill in the gaps.

8

https://github.com/Oddzball/CataclysmClassicZombie

I’ve got a good process down for quickly compiling, using svn to pull it back from github into a “compile” folder and then making test builds.

Work done so far;

Better Font and graphics setup for higher resolution

Messing with ASCII graphics (I dont know if you folks knew but on windows ltgreen and green for example look almost identical, same for like, yellow and brown)
-What I did was use different colors where possible(Traits screen) and for say the maps legend, some of the buildings now use “Inverted” Characters) Still a work in progress though.

Chopped out non-traditional zombies from spawn list(mondefgroup)
-(I still think there are special events that spawn them maybe?)

New monster trait (Keennose)

Fixed a bug with hearing? it says in the code that Canine ears is 1.5 hearing, BUT it also had everything by default at 1.5 hearing Considering Hard of hearing is 0.5 I made DEFAULT hearing 1.0

Added feral cats! Made feral dogs slightly more common!

Made zombies a little bit slower.

Added some snack food to House kitchens for spawn, it wasnt spawning any, which is kinda weird.

Started working on map graphics. This is going to be a Work in progress, because we have a few colors that in windows just look to similar, making it difficult to tell what is what.
-Houses and groceries for example.

*Is it possible to make the regular green darker or are we stuck with the ~16 colors? I havent had a lot of time to look at it, but why are colors so bad in windows? They look fine in Linux.

Finally I spent most of the other day reading map gen and figuring out how to make new types of buildings to spawn. I dont get some of the math behind it when it comes to generating rooms, but I DO understand how it works now.

Anyway, I will keep on with my original goal.

Also has toilet water ALWAYS poisoned you if you drink it, or is that a recent thing? I noticed that when playing last night.

9
[i]Nails: more frequent Woodaxe: spawn in outdoor sports and hardwareshops, maybe houses.[/i]

Someone asked for this, and I agree, so adding it to the list.

Also, should be relatively simple to allow crafting of nails.

No full blown blacksmithing, but say you have the “scrap steel” as a component and maybe a hammer or something? Suggestions?

10

Great news!!!
Where I can download it compiled to try it??

Thanks

11

Github is listed above, but keep in mind, its extremely early work. In fact the map graphics arent even done.

I only have about ~2 hours a day to monkey with stuff.

12

Windchimes? Build able sources of noise maybe?

13

I was thinking something like that. Firecrackers, or something fun to mess with the zombies.

14

Stink bombs to mask scent trail?

15

I VERY MUCH approve. It’s a direction I think C:DDA should go in as well (more realism and less of the ‘out there’ stuff), but a fully blown branch sounds great either!

A few thoughts (and I have thought dreamt about this at length):

  • make Z’s a lot harder to kill (as they are already dead!) and possibly hit harder.
  • Possibly include fast zombies (I know I keep posting this in places) as I think being able to always outrun stuff (especially with no projectile zombies) might make it a bit too easy. I think this could be done away with in favour of just ‘shambling hordes’ when an endurance system is implemented.
  • Make first aid take time! auto heal isn’t very realistic - but as has been pointed out before it’s needed for the current cataclysm combat system. This wouldn’t really be the case for CZS as you’d only be facing the shambling hordes.

I’d definitely implore you to compartmentalise (or option in) your code so it’s easier to implement into the current DDA as a sort of patch (the great Granade will probably have a better idea). I’ve seen many projects become split with a side branch having some cool feature/be more what I like but the main branch having more up to date stuff/less buggy.

16

Hi, thank you for such a great mod, Oddzball.
I would love to try it, but unfortunately, I am far from being capable of compiling it for windows.
Is there a way to compile the files for windows on… windows? I really can’t afford to set up a virtual box to… compile it… to play it on windows.
:s

17

[quote=“DoomOnion, post:16, topic:156”]Hi, thank you for such a great mod, Oddzball.
I would love to try it, but unfortunately, I am far from being capable of compiling it for windows.
Is there a way to compile the files for windows on… windows? I really can’t afford to set up a virtual box to… compile it… to play it on windows.
:s[/quote]

I am working on setting up a way to distribute it.

18

Updated first post. New stuff.

19

[quote=“Binky, post:15, topic:156”]I VERY MUCH approve. It’s a direction I think C:DDA should go in as well (more realism and less of the ‘out there’ stuff), but a fully blown branch sounds great either!

A few thoughts (and I have thought dreamt about this at length):

  • make Z’s a lot harder to kill (as they are already dead!) and possibly hit harder.
  • Possibly include fast zombies (I know I keep posting this in places) as I think being able to always outrun stuff (especially with no projectile zombies) might make it a bit too easy. I think this could be done away with in favour of just ‘shambling hordes’ when an endurance system is implemented.
  • Make first aid take time! auto heal isn’t very realistic - but as has been pointed out before it’s needed for the current cataclysm combat system. This wouldn’t really be the case for CZS as you’d only be facing the shambling hordes.

I’d definitely implore you to compartmentalise (or option in) your code so it’s easier to implement into the current DDA as a sort of patch (the great Granade will probably have a better idea). I’ve seen many projects become split with a side branch having some cool feature/be more what I like but the main branch having more up to date stuff/less buggy.[/quote]

I promise to look into making Zeds harder to kill once i get more core goals done. I psend most of my time digging through the code and compiling changes so I dont actually get a lot of time to play and test balance. Maybe I will sit down tonight and pay for a bit.

As to compartmentalized code it is more complicated than that. I am more than fine with Darkling or whomever grabbing anything from my edits off the github, but there are some things that are in totally different directions.

Having an options setup for as many changes as are being made would also be very cumbersome. I could do it, but I mean there are a LOT of little things I modified… would be time consuming…

I could do some sort of “if options says this, do my code, if options say default do original code” but I dont see a way to make that easy…

20

Thank you very much for your work, has great ideas, I’m downloading to try, hopefully soon eliminate (or at least reduce the amount of them) the laboratories, bunkers, temples, missile silos, military outposts and evac-shelters.

Regards