Getting too lucky

Game Talk The Bunker
1

So far I found a public works at the start in pretty sweet spot where I haven’t been in any danger of attack. Found a great cache of weapons and supplies. Ran into some basic but handy bionics which got installed without incident. Got a wheelbarrow and replaced the box with a trunk to carry more stuff during night raids. Encountered a farm which I pillaged for seeds. Thanks to the tools at the public works, and the wheelbarrow, managed to craft wooden barrels so I wouldn’t be in trouble water-wise once summer rolls in 50 days. Then while sorting through a pretty poor military bunker, I got a granade. Amazingly, luck held out and gave me buffs, and before that found an artifact that’s kinda okay on a desperate situation. And early on I found an atomic coffee maker.

And most recently, due north from the public works, I found a LMOE shelter. Not a lot of stuff, practically nothing compared to all the stuff I got stored in the public works base, but it’s close to the farm, and I reckon with around 10k or so units of gasoline I can tunnel my way to that shelter, which is also close to the farm.

So basically, a good run so far. I haven’t even seen a fungaloid or triffid yet. So that’s my conundrum. It’s become a pretty relaxed game so long as I play carefully. I wonder if I should try to make it more challenging, or accept my current run of luck and roll with it. Finish setting up my main public works base, then set up a network of tunnels leading to several more areas. One thing to note is the public works is surrounded by decent-sized towns, and the LMOE shelter is relatively close to a huge city, so if I decide to start to wage a war on the zombies, I could have a lot of fun later.

So, like should I keep on going, or will the boredom of being too lucky reduce a lot of fun?

2

I thought the topic title served some ‘getting laid’ experimental feature.

Sorry. :smiley:

3

Once you get a good idea of what to do in the game, harder runs are generally more fun. I usually scrap the character when zombies can no longer kill me.

4

[quote=“vultures, post:2, topic:9214”]I thought the topic title served some ‘getting laid’ experimental feature.

Sorry. :D[/quote]

I suppose that’ll be the next step after those maid outfits and wolf suits, heh.

That’s the feeling I’m getting, really. Though, if I set up my super base I wanna test it to see how it holds out. Lately I’ve been trying to avoid smashing or butchering zombies in towns so I can later get to fight them. Basic plan is to set up the entire base first, then provoke and lure as many monsters as I possibly can and fight them out in my fort, see if it’ll be a last stand or not.

No point in setting up turrets, manhacks, minefields, spike traps, booby traps, underground tunnels filled with fire and smoke if they ain’t gonna be used.

5

Build an atomic deathwagon bristling with guns and grenade launchers and steamrollers. Make war upon the undead. Purge cities. Raid labs. Inject yourself with mutagens and become an all-powerful freak. Burn down churches and eat people. Look the apocalypse in the eye and say “I’LL SHOW YOU WHO’S BAD!” as you roam the streets slaying monsters and devouring them. Throw the game over your knee and give it a spanking.

6

That’s one plan, more or less. I’ve been collecting car parts from garages (and the modified wheelbarrow is really helping out a ton with that. Even if there’s a slight weight limit in dragging around the wheelbarrow, it’s still pretty high and all.

Right now I’m just setting up bases. Lots of underground passages from one basement to another. From public works to a cathedral in a fairly large city, it takes 4 and a half hours to go from one point to another. Pretty quiet journey, but it speeds things up a bit. Also set up wheelbarrows everywhere, including one underground so I can transfer goods when needed. Plus with all the rock there is I’d have no trouble setting up walls.

7

So, luck intensifies. Raided an outpost, found three granades. First one sucked. Nerfs on perception and dex. Then Bugfixes… then some serious buffs. Like all stats, with strength and intelligence with the highest increase. Strength at 23, intelligence at 30. Like holy crap, I didn’t even know you can raise it that high.

Now I’m really wondering if I should start over. But at the same time, I’ve invested a fair amount on time on building a network of bases that it’ll be a shame to stop now.

8

[quote=“Azrad, post:7, topic:9214”]So, luck intensifies. Raided an outpost, found three granades. First one sucked. Nerfs on perception and dex. Then Bugfixes… then some serious buffs. Like all stats, with strength and intelligence with the highest increase. Strength at 23, intelligence at 30. Like holy crap, I didn’t even know you can raise it that high.

Now I’m really wondering if I should start over. But at the same time, I’ve invested a fair amount on time on building a network of bases that it’ll be a shame to stop now.[/quote]
No limit on increase from what I have seen. I have 100str, 133dex, 80 int, and I think 93per? Gone through over 50 of the things though, nerfs suck.

9

[quote=“Lorith, post:8, topic:9214”][quote=“Azrad, post:7, topic:9214”]So, luck intensifies. Raided an outpost, found three granades. First one sucked. Nerfs on perception and dex. Then Bugfixes… then some serious buffs. Like all stats, with strength and intelligence with the highest increase. Strength at 23, intelligence at 30. Like holy crap, I didn’t even know you can raise it that high.

Now I’m really wondering if I should start over. But at the same time, I’ve invested a fair amount on time on building a network of bases that it’ll be a shame to stop now.[/quote]
No limit on increase from what I have seen. I have 100str, 133dex, 80 int, and I think 93per? Gone through over 50 of the things though, nerfs suck.[/quote]

Yow, those are some crazy stats. And nerfs do suck, had a few players whose stats reached a low where it’d be a mercy to just kill them on the spot. Thankfully in this run none of my stats go under 10, thanks to the last buff.

The high stats are certainly convenient, but I gotta wonder if it’s too much. Like… would I have an easy time raiding through towns? Too easy would be a bit boring. Melee-wise, I’d have some trouble on crowds, but the newly found autoshotgun is pretty much clearing out crowds with too much ease.

10

It does get a bit nuts at high stats like that. Jackhammer? Punch wall a few times. Locked metal door? Punch a few times. Reinforced glass in the way? One punch fixes that. Truck in the way? Just swat it aside with one hand. Gotta refill your vehicle? Just carry a 55 gal drum to a few gas stations. Hulk around corner? Poke with feather, not even a corpse left. You know you are OP when you switch to a 50 cal rifle to reduce your damage. I highly recommend setting a limit for yourself and not going over it, that or find new challenges aside from the zombies.

I’ve actually started a new world because being that strong is a bit boring, even if it is occasionally fun to go on an unstoppable rampage.

11

[quote=“Lorith, post:10, topic:9214”]It does get a bit nuts at high stats like that. Jackhammer? Punch wall a few times. Locked metal door? Punch a few times. Reinforced glass in the way? One punch fixes that. Truck in the way? Just swat it aside with one hand. Gotta refill your vehicle? Just carry a 55 gal drum to a few gas stations. Hulk around corner? Poke with feather, not even a corpse left. You know you are OP when you switch to a 50 cal rifle to reduce your damage. I highly recommend setting a limit for yourself and not going over it, that or find new challenges aside from the zombies.

I’ve actually started a new world because being that strong is a bit boring, even if it is occasionally fun to go on an unstoppable rampage.[/quote]

Yeah, I probably need to set a limit. Stop taking mutagens, since robust genetics might help me out more than harm me. Or take some purifiers to remove some mutations (though I might end up getting rid of the negative ones instead). Either way, the fun of night raids, the whole sneaking aspect, has been reduced somewhat. No more sneaking around, since I can easily wipe the floor with zombies with the rising sun (which I chose mainly to look cool, I make a fwooosh sound when I light it up in the middle of a dark street). Crowds in the dark can be killed quickly with the autoshotgun. No point in being sneaky when being sneaky was a way to not die, and since the chance of dying is ultra low with my current gear, no point in trying to grope around in the dark since I can raid in the day. Kinda loses the fun of collecting things and strategizing about what to get and all.

On the flipside, this speeds up the construction process of the bases of death. I reckon I might as well make it huge and elaborate. Like town-sized. Not just a big fortress, but a slice of paradise compared to the hellworld the zombies have made.

Just hoping I don’t kill everything before I finish up. Lately I’ve been avoiding smashing or butchering zombies so I can have an enemy to defend against when the time comes. Shockers, shocker brutes, bio-operators and scientists are still fair game because power storage.

12

Is that with savescumming? As according to the code, there should be an equal chance of nerfs and buffs, and the magnitude of the nerfs should be more than enough to offset the buffs. In my last extended playthrough in 0.B, I didn’t touch Granades because I was trying to adhere to a no-savescumming rule, and near as I can tell, Granades are a losing proposition in large numbers.*

*Mathematical reasoning:[spoiler]

According to the Granade functional code in iuse.cpp, the “BUFFS!!” effect adds between 0 and 50% to the value of each stat, and the “NERFS!!” code should subtract between 0 and 50%. Assuming a flat RNG, this should mean that the average buff is 25%, and the average nerf is also 25%. Moreover, if you’re using enough of them, the order that the effects happen in shouldn’t matter. Therefore, for a sufficiently large population of Granades, the expected value of a given stat S should be:

S[sub]expected[/sub] = S[sub]initial/sub[sup]n/sup[sup]b[/sup]

Where b is the number of Granades that are “BUFFS!!”, and n is the number that are “NERFS!!”

Now according to the code, the selection between buffs, nerfs and other effects is accomplished with a simple switch case, with all cases having the same weight. Since both buffs and nerfs have a 20% chance of occurring, b=n, so:

S[sub]expected[/sub] = S[sub]initial/sub[sup]n/sup[sup]n[/sup] = S[sub]initial/sub[sup]n[/sup]

Therefore, for G, a given number of Granades:

S[sub]expected[/sub] = S[sub]initial/sub[sup]0.4G[/sup]

As you can see, S[sub]expected[/sub] will go to 0 as G goes to infinity, (though in practice I don’t believe you should be able to ever get below 1 due to integer typecasting, although at that point you’d be stuck and “BUFFS!!” would provide no bonus.) Now admittedly, this analysis is a tad primitive, and you certainly can get legitmately high stats for small numbers of Granades if you’re lucky, but it should accurate for large numbers as far as I can tell. If you were to scour dozens of bunkers and get a pile of 100 Granades, then spend a week setting them off, accepting whatever effect they have, (and sleeping off the damage from “NERFS!!” and running from bees,) you would be a quivering shell with 1’s or 2’s for all your base stats.

Any corrections on the math are welcome, and if you have experience that flatly contradicts this, there’s probably something I’m missing. I don’t think that implicit typecasting in _max / 2 should change this analysis much, but I’d be happy to be proven wrong.

13

Granades are very much based on luck - you can get five buffs in a row, zero buffs out of ten, or multiple nerfs in a row. Personally, I only savescum if it drops my stats below 8, otherwise I deal with whatever it gives me.

They have a 40% chance of being bad, 40% chance of being good, 20% of mostly useless. If you are lucky enough to avoid the 20% extra-bad one, you don’t have much to worry about as long as you are in a safe area. But again, it requires a lot of luck over time. I’ve gotten about ten nerfs at least, but I’ve gotten more buffs overall. I started with more int/per than anything else, yet due to the random hits from the nerfs, those are now my lowest stats. Additonally, order does matter. The buff can boost stats by up to 50% of what they currently are, and the nerf can remove 50% - so if you get a buff, then a nerf, then another buff, you will still have less than if you just had the first buff. Each buff makes the next buff more powerful, each nerf makes the next nerf weaker.

That said, you are correct overall, if you don’t have constant good luck, you will eventually, if you use enough, end up useless.

14

savescumming is bout the same as simply using the debug menu. Just more time consuming . Thus if you scum for best results on granades or mutagen/bioniks you could also just debug your desires saveing a lot of trouble. Well unless you like rolling the die for the heck of it.

15

I don’t doubt that’s possible, I just think it’s unlikely enough that I wonder if there’s some aspect of the probability that I’m missing.

I think I may have miscommunicated: The order certainly matters for small sample sizes, but if you’re trying to figure out if Granade use converges to 0 or infinity with an even distribution of buffs and nerfs, it doesn’t, (with the exception of fringe cases where you get enough nerfs early on that you’re stuck at 1 in a given stat.)

I’m not a hardcore anti-savescumer, really. It’s a single-player game, and it can take weeks of IRL time to get a character to godlike levels, so I can’t really fault people for savescumming past a rare CBM install failure or a bullshit tankbot death on a character that they have lots of time invested in. Usually, by the time I’m high-level and starting to get bored with a character I’ll give in and start savescumming to get the last couple bionics I want, mainly because its either that or quit because of tedium. About the only time I’ll shamelessly savescum earlier than that is if I’m knocking out a wall to make another door for my base and want to avoid having the ceiling come down, because you really should be able to safely remove walls given enough time and material to reinforce the structure.

16

Avoiding death is one thing and wasting time on aquiering something via savescumming that can be done faster using the debug menu is another thing.
So people aparently love roling the die. If i am cheating anyway i can do it the fast way right? I am not rating the action itself at all (cheating good/bad). I am just stating that doing so is a waste of time.

17

[quote=“Valpo, post:16, topic:9214”]Avoiding death is one thing and wasting time on aquiering something via savescumming that can be done faster using the debug menu is another thing.
So people aparently love roling the die. If i am cheating anyway i can do it the fast way right? I am not rating the action itself at all (cheating good/bad). I am just stating that doing so is a waste of time.[/quote]

We don’t expressly condemn quit-without-saving; in fact, I (for one) engaged in the practice back when I played regularly. Handy way to experiment, and saved frustration when RNG decided that things weren’t gonna work out.

We do so condemn using the debug menu.

So I can understand why folks reroll. This is also why I didn’t care for the chargen points/caps options getting stuck under a “debug” tab in the options menu: though we don’t consider that per se cheating, folks much prefer to find exploits in the chargen rather than just give themselves more points or higher caps.

18

Savescum to avoid death for the win. I have zero use for the roguelike “play the early game four billion times because dying is fun amirite” ethos. You play a game, you die, you restore from save. It’s good enough for every other kind of RPG. Savescumming stuff like Granades is just ridiculous though. You very quickly become so godlike that it’s just silly. I at least want to be ABLE to go “Aw crap!” and have to reload.

19

What if we provided a use for the cloning vats in labs beyond eating mutated parts?

You visit a lab, step into the dissector and it takes you apart and creates a six-pack of clones at the moment you were dissected. When clone #1 dies you go on your merry way starting from the lab with the stats and abilities that you had upon dissection. Eventually you level up enough that you have to dissect yourself again so you don’t waste time.

I just came across blank bodies in the basement of a cathedral, so this is on my mind - maybe you have to prime the cloning vats with blank bodies you’ve found in your travels so it’s not too easy.

It doesn’t totally remove the need to replay the early game since it’s something you wouldn’t be able to handle until mid-game but once you get to that level you can do risky things like assault a military outpost, or go deeper in the science lab, without worry that the RNG will end your travels. Plus it’ll be great fun to go try to recover your body!

20

In general, to keep my playthrough of my lucky character boring, I decided a change of pace by playing through a different world instead. And somehow… I got lucky again, to a certain extent.

Like… started as a firefighter, in the middle of a really huge city. Made my escape as fast as possible since I was surrounded by firefighting Zs, using the starting NPC as a meat shield. Would have liked to get his gun, but due to being in a hurry I just asked for an item and got a lighter.

So I made my way out, crashing into houses through the windows and whatnot to escape everything. Found my way to a grocery store, found a shopping cart, and continued to run my ass off. Found myself at the outskirts of town, into a mansion. Before that I somehow picked up some shotgun shells… not sure where I got it. On one of the dead zombies or bodies I encountered during my running. There’s a Mi-go in the distance, but I’ll be mostly safe in the mansion.

Was hoping for a katana, but I found something better for the situation. Chain mail armor that fits, and a mace. Then I switched the mace with a rapier I found in another room, so I can be dapper. In the mansion there’s a pool, and on the room below it there it was, lava.

So the chain mail and rapier helped kill all the zombies plaguing the mansion. Pool has a good source of water, there’s an infinite supply of light and fire and no smoke, and an atomic coffee maker in the next room.

Then on another room I found a Saiga. At that point I decided to press Q and start a new game for the alternate playthrough.