General questions from an intermediate player- Long term survival (Farming, ect)

Game Talk The Bunker
1

Hey, I’ve played Cataclysm:DDA for quite a while now, and you probably don’t care to hear my life story

So, I have recently gained a pretty stable location and I’m now looking for the long-term survival aspect, instead of a rogue-like spawn, rush, die, spawn, rush, die system. I have stabled myself with a HEFTY amount of food and drink, and other various supplies including firearms and tools. I’m wondering how the farming system works. I’ll just list my questions in a neat numerical list for easy answering.

1: How worth it is farming crops? How would I go about setting up an adequate farm?

2: What kind of cool stuff can I do with animal remains? (ie; deer hide, sinew, and bones)

3: What are the ways I can purify water? How in hell do I get water (Or any fluid, for that matter) into an empty container, like a pot or a plastic bottle? (Seriously; I have played CDDA for a while and still have not found out how to do this. ( q)_( q) )

4: What are the best ways to fortify a structure?

5: If you could list a few of the bare essentials for long-term survival, please do. If not, ignore this one.

6: What are the best vehicles to use, in your honest opinion? How would I go about repairing/building a vehicle from a chassis. Also, I read that you can put turrets on a vehicle… how‽

7: Any notes I leave on the map don’t stay over deaths. Is it supposed to be this way?

That’s pretty much all I can think about that’s buggerin’ my noggin’. Thanks!

2

  1. Farming isn’t implemented (yet)

  2. The very basics:

  • A hunting weapon you’re skilled in (usually bows -archery- and wooden spears - throwing- are preferred, as you won’t have problems with ammo using those).
  • A stable water supply (you mentioned farming, so I guess you set up in a farm, and there’s a toilet there).
  • A pot or stone pot. Only a few cooking recipes can be crafted with a wooden spear or a frying pan, while all of them can be crafted with a pot or stone pot. So, they are preferred.

With that you have the two essentials covered: food and clean water. I’d also add:

  • A bone needle or sewing kit. To repair, adjust and create clothes and containers as needed.
  • A hammer (necessary to build most stuff), a shovel (to dig deep pits to secure your shelter and to build some stuff) and a wood axe (to chop down trees and cut logs for either building stuff or burning). Create stone versions of those if you haven’t find them yet.
  • A flashlight. You’ll eventually go out to explore areas where you’ll have to go underground. You’ll need some artificial light down there.
  • A couple plastic canteens or waterskins. You’ll take one with you when going out and leave the other as backup for emergencies.
  • A gallon jug. To transport the toilet water to the area where you have your fire.
  • A brazier or wood stove to be able to cook indoors.
  • Some torso piece of clothing with a warmth of 35 or more, or a rain coat, to be able to go out when raining without the morale penalty.
  • A way to increase morale other than eating cooked meat (an mp3 player if you have the batteries, or a drama book).
  • Some kind of powerful gun to deal with the most resistant and durable creatures (anything above a 9mm should do). Also, plenty of ammo for that gun.
  • Several wearable containers or clothing pieces that allow to store cargo (such as utility vests, belt rigs, etc).
  • Several cloth pieces to be able to survive the different seasons. You’ll be able to craft most of those with enough tailoring skill and some hunting or scavenging.

The rest are just commodities or components.

  1. A matter of preference. Ideally you’d have two. One for scouting (something fast and light, like a motorbike) and another to destroy zombie populations and move to another shelter if things turn hairy (triffids, swamp creatures, etc). Any vehicle that it’s not a bicycle is good enough. For the rest, read the last paragraph of this post.

  2. Yes. For more permanent messages use spray cans instead (TBH I haven’t ever tried this, but they supposedly have this only purpose).

Check out the wiki, particularly the FAQ page. That should answer most of your questions right away. Reading your post, you’ll be most interested in the crafting and vehicles section.

3

1.I don’t think we can farm crops (yet).

  1. Pelts can be used to make coats and hats and maybe a couple of other things, sinews act like thread and used to make all sorts of clothing, Bones can be made into bone needles used for sewing instead of a sewing kit.

  2. To get water go to any source rivers/toilets/streams and press e and press the direction of the water and select your container. To purify you can either boil (using a hot plate or a fire with a pot[I think]) or find a water purifier and 'a’pply it to a
    container of water.

  3. 2 entrances at most, remote and an underground section tend to work best for me.

  4. A water source nearby,a way to clean water(and a few bottles), forest (wild animals still re spawn so you have as much food as you need)

  5. 'e’xamine your vehicle have Welders,wrenchs and possibly spare parts depending on the damage for repairs and turrets only use a select few guns afaik (I don’t know which, never used turrets on vehicles before)

  6. I thinknotes do stay after death you may have just spawned in a different piece of the world ( I COULD be wrong on this).

4

Also, quick note about bones: they make a darn good non-perishable ready-to-eat food supply, since you can just butcher a wolf and eat’s it ribcage and go from hungry to full quite easily. And they never spoil. So, even if you don’t feel like/can’t cook meat, just go eat someone else’s spine and you’ll be fine.

5

Notes don’t carry over from one character to another, sadly enough. Usually you’ll spawn in a different part of the world, but occasionally you’ll get to somewhere you’ve already visited. Kinda sad, I’d love to write all my notes down and leave them in an evac shelter for the next suicidal folk to pass through.

Aka ‘all the main roads are mined. Use the semi at your peril’ kinda notes. >.>

Also you call yourself an intermediate player but couldn’t figure out how to put water into a container? strange lol. o_0 I’m not having a dig, by the way. just seems weird.
(e)xamine a toilet, make sure you have a plastic bottle or carboy to hand, pour water into container. then boil it over a fire (and make sure you have a spare container to put the clean water in.)
Tools like Pots and frying pans aren’t containers, they’re tools. Best thing to do is loot houses for carboys/gallon jugs of ammonia and bleach, empty them then fill 'em up with water. better yet, grab a few plastic or steel jerrycans.
God, I hate wasting ammonia and bleach.
Ammonia Carboy = Infinite supply of batteries.
Bleach carboy = Infinite supply of superglue and therefore bandages. (again, I hate wasting duct tape.)

used to ask you if you wanted to pour the water on the ground first, THEN ask what container. Thankfully they’ve swapped that around now.

As for the best vehicle to use: Military trucks, pickups, semis. However you can do just fine with a car if you add some armour and spikes. They all make great base vehicles to mod. P

One thing to stay away from: Golf carts, mopeds, scooters and motorbikes. Motorbikes are actually pretty good for just general transportation, but if you hit anything with these little things you’ll go flying.
Best thing to do is just find a car, a welder and a wrench. Then modify it however you see fit :slight_smile:
First thing I like to do is rip out all the non-driver seats and add in some more trunks and an extra gas tank, then some spiked armour to the front, blades and spikes everywhere else.