Hardened survivors looking for new world

Game Talk The Bunker
1

Alright guys, I have something of a conundrum on my hands here. I’ve been playing the game for a little while, tweaking world stats and getting my survivors killed by animals and car accidents and zombie hordes. All the usual fun stuff. Well, I recently got into a world where I opted for a lab start. I managed to pull a comrade whose opening conversation was a quest invite for antibiotics which I was able to obtain easily enough. Super. I managed to get my hands on enough lizard mutagens to turn into a WHF Saurian and I eeked my way to the top of the lab with more chemicals, books, and clothing stocks than I knew what to do with. Explored the area, found a public works that I turned into a base. Got another NPC. Found a mansion with a katana. Gave katana to new NPC. Raided a town, smoked every zombie fight I came across, and new I’m loaded for bear.

So now I’m left feeling… hollow. After nearly a dozen dead corpses (AKA: Tutorial meat) in evac, town, and crashed helicopter modes, I have managed to obtain stability, a base, and two very capable combatant NPCs to accompany my scaly killing machine. I know I’ve not touched the upper end of the sorts of things I might encounter… fungal spires, triphids, the shit in the mines, etc… I’ve not made survivor gear or become Lizard-man 2.0 via ALL OF THE CYBERNETICS… yet I feel like I’ve crested over a plateau now that I am able to waltz into town without more than a bunch of leather armor, a bow, a katana, and some nasty natural weapons.

Does the game get harder? Is my fun now to be found in laying down the proper roots of a new society? Is starvation my only remaining viable foe?

I’ve considered screen capping my NPCs and taking the whole party into a new world with their current allotment of gear of skills. If I was to do that what sort of world would I want to make in order to regain the thrill and the nerves I once felt when I saw more than five or six zombies coming at me from all angles? Are there mods that I could be using? Or just an increase of enemy power via the options already in the core game?

I beseech of thee, good survivors of the cataclysm, to provide me with a realm or a perspective in which I can take this trio on a grand adventure worthy of retelling to the forums.

2

theres a hell of a lot you can do
enable tough , fast and night vision zombies
put evo raye at 0,01 , enable hordes , bump spawn rate to 50

3

You’re a lizard eh?

  1. Start a new world. Set season to winter, permanent.
  2. Take off all clothing. Drop all carried items.
  3. Transport JUST your character to the frozen waste.

Also, are you running PK’s Mod? If not I suggest it, it makes things much more interesting.

4

Gnorse: Tough, fast, night vision zombies sound like they may be up my alley. Hordes are already enabled, but I haven’t messed with evolution and spawn rate too much. Will those numbers net me some some gigantic groups of standard zombies?

TheWumpus: XD Holy crap man, that starter would see me dead in a day for sure. I’m looking for a challenge that I might port my current trio into as they are. That’s like a suicide lizardsickle run! LMAO. Still… a thought for later.

I am not running PK’s mod yet. I’ve heard that you have to be a freaking god to even stand a chance at it. What sorts of changes does it make and what sorts of new fun and nastiness can I expect to encounter?

5

Well, it’s the end-state of most games that don’t have a forced ending. First you struggle, then you overcome, then you reach unfaltering supremacy and eventually grow bored because nothing really threatens you. It’s just the natural course of events. The game doesn’t really get harder, depending on your zombie evolution rate setting, in which case you’ll have to pass the time to see more advanced zombies (not that there are many AFAIK). What are the most dangerous zombies you’ve encountered in your opinion? CDDA is mostly about setting your own goals and choosing your risks and tasks. Safe life is very often an option in CATA. The catch is that when you yourself notice that you’ve reached the point of safety - the point when you think “If I don’t do anything blatantly stupid from here on and assuming nothing catastrophically unlucky happens, I’m going to be OK”.

I also suggest trying a winter start (not permanent though). Lower item drops, and pick Fast Metabolism. Food becomes kind of an issue then. Lowering item drops below 1.0 carries a risk though - some already rare items might become annoyingly difficult to find.

Personally, what often keeps me sticking with an advanced character is curiosity about a specific unexplored road. Could there be a lab down that road? A farm, finally? I’m always missing a CBM, and ever-searching that gunsmith kit, or whatever. There’s always something to search out. And I’m always backtracking to locations because I didn’t have the means to enter some place or whatever. Or if I see like 5 gun shops in a city, I start thinking “Could I loot all those in one night, before sunrise? Only one way to find out.” That’s sometimes/usually when adventure happens, and things might not play out like I had planned :stuck_out_tongue: Nothing quite like seeking refuge in a basement or a sewer after escaping a horde - not an actual horde, but like, first you fight a few zombies in the dark, and then they just keep coming, and you finally flash a light, and you see like 30 coming your way, and realize “Yeah, I can’t fight these, I need to get the hell out…”

6

[quote=“CK_Kirbi, post:4, topic:12977”]Gnorse: Tough, fast, night vision zombies sound like they may be up my alley. Hordes are already enabled, but I haven’t messed with evolution and spawn rate too much. Will those numbers net me some some gigantic groups of standard zombies?

TheWumpus: XD Holy crap man, that starter would see me dead in a day for sure. I’m looking for a challenge that I might port my current trio into as they are. That’s like a suicide lizardsickle run! LMAO. Still… a thought for later.

I am not running PK’s mod yet. I’ve heard that you have to be a freaking god to even stand a chance at it. What sorts of changes does it make and what sorts of new fun and nastiness can I expect to encounter?[/quote]
PK and Noct’s mods will kill you dead really, really fast if you’re not super careful. I tend to run really cheaty characters and turn the spawns up (even sometimes playing with roaming spawns on, but I find they break the game design) and even with crazy powerful mutant characters I actually had to turn everything waaaaaay down, close to normal, when using both of those mods together.

PK’s adds new variations of normal enemies, some that remain moderately dangerous even in full survivor gear with cybernetics, and DOOM enemies which you’re generally just better running from because FIRE BAD. Noct’s mod adds bionic weapon enemies with laser guns and blow-your-ass-up weapons.

Honestly, the mods are a bit insta-gibby and will probably result in you pulling your hair out unless you save scrub. But you might give them a try if you want a challenge, you can use this neat little tool to transplant existing characters into new worlds: http://smf.cataclysmdda.com/index.php?topic=12119

7

I have dealt with this same problem myself, and I have found a few different ways to combat this problem, which I will share with you now.

  1. Take a break

There have been many times when I simply played this game out too much. Sometimes you have to step back and focus on something else, another game or something, for a few weeks in order to be able to go back and get enjoyment out of the simple perils of post-apocalyptic life.

  1. Play the endgame

The endgame in cataclysm is open-ended, but there are a few scenarios that most survivors don’t have access to until they are legitimate badasses. These include mines, lab raids, strange temples, and mycus. If you don’t know what mycus is, I’m not going to spoil it for you, but it has to do with triffids. If you’ve never ventured into a triffid grove to try and kill the precious heart, I would strongly recommend it. It’s really hard to exterminate the bastards completely, and it’s extremely easy to die in the close-quarters hallways of the triffid base.

  1. Put your current game on hold and pick up a new character

Sometimes the RNG in this game is just too kind and you find yourself perfectly equipped to survive the entire cataclysm and die of old age in your bed with 15 NPCs crowding around you (which will never happen), but honestly, sometimes you just get lucky and do really well, which can be kind of boring. The reason why cataclysm is so fun is that it causes the player to make decisions and be in circumstances that are so far removed from the norm, and that are so dangerous and insane that it makes doing normal mundane stuff in your actual life have a kind of satisfaction, especially if you’ve been playing cataclysm for a few hours at a time and you’re completely engrossed in the life-or death nature of the game.

  1. Play with different restrictions/a better story

Role play. Cataclysm is really good for this, and it’s fun to do. Spawn an NPC and role play that you are their bodyguard, and that if they die, the game is over. Set a destination at the beginning of the game, however far away. Try to reach 0,0 on the map. Take every drug you find. Honestly, anything really far outside of the box has a tendency to make the game more fun when you decide to play a serious game again. Try all the different professions, all the different start locations. Play the game with all of your stats at 6. Play the game with city size set to 1 and city spacing set to 100. Play the game with city size set to 100 and city spacing set to 1. Play the game with 100-day long seasons, and item spawns set to .1. Play the game with NPCs set to 100 (it’s basically day Z).

  1. Horde mode

If you aren’t playing the experimental version of the game, download it now and play with horde generation on. It’s really hard, especially if you set the spawn rate to 5.00+. It makes the whole game different, given the fact that you can literally die at any time from a horde randomly spawning in a field that you are strolling through. It makes the game much more intense, and you will lose a lot more characters this way. (also, you can manually turn horde mode on in world options for a game that doesn’t have hordes activated… just be warned, you cannot reverse this change once the option is modified.)

  1. Modding

Mod the game yourself. Download Notepad++ and make your own guns, weapons, armor, tools. It’s really fun and it’s not actually that difficult. The most fun that I’ve had in cataclysm in the past year of gameplay has been in characters whose professions and items I have modded in myself. I don’t know if anyone has mentioned it already to you, but if you don’t have the Add Bandits mod, type it into the search bar right now and download it. It adds a new faction of human bandits with various guns and armor that can squash your week old character like a black rat, and in groups, can even pose a serious challenge to the toughest survivor. One pistol-wielding bandit may be easy to pick off, but a group of 10-15 bandits can spit a stupid number of 9mm at your characters, and they have a tendency to clear cities and claim them for themselves. Also, it’s really fun to see a streetful of zombies descend on a group of bandits and watch the ensuing destruction.

That’s pretty much all I can suggest, but I hope one of those things helps!

8
(also, you can manually turn horde mode on in world options for a game that doesn't have hordes activated.. just be warned, you cannot reverse this change once the option is modified.)
How can I do that? Can you please let me know where can I get instructions?
9

[quote=“Straume21, post:7, topic:12977”]I have dealt with this same problem myself, and I have found a few different ways to combat this problem, which I will share with you now.

  1. Play the endgame

The endgame in cataclysm is open-ended, but there are a few scenarios that most survivors don’t have access to until they are legitimate badasses. These include mines, lab raids, strange temples, and mycus. If you don’t know what mycus is, I’m not going to spoil it for you, but it has to do with triffids. If you’ve never ventured into a triffid grove to try and kill the precious heart, I would strongly recommend it. It’s really hard to exterminate the bastards completely, and it’s extremely easy to die in the close-quarters hallways of the triffid base.

  1. Play with different restrictions/a better story

Role play. Cataclysm is really good for this, and it’s fun to do. Spawn an NPC and role play that you are their bodyguard, and that if they die, the game is over. Set a destination at the beginning of the game, however far away. Try to reach 0,0 on the map. Take every drug you find. Honestly, anything really far outside of the box has a tendency to make the game more fun when you decide to play a serious game again. Try all the different professions, all the different start locations. Play the game with all of your stats at 6. Play the game with city size set to 1 and city spacing set to 100. Play the game with city size set to 100 and city spacing set to 1. Play the game with 100-day long seasons, and item spawns set to .1. Play the game with NPCs set to 100 (it’s basically day Z).

  1. Horde mode

If you aren’t playing the experimental version of the game, download it now and play with horde generation on. It’s really hard, especially if you set the spawn rate to 5.00+. It makes the whole game different, given the fact that you can literally die at any time from a horde randomly spawning in a field that you are strolling through. It makes the game much more intense, and you will lose a lot more characters this way. (also, you can manually turn horde mode on in world options for a game that doesn’t have hordes activated… just be warned, you cannot reverse this change once the option is modified.)

  1. Modding

Mod the game yourself. Download Notepad++ and make your own guns, weapons, armor, tools. It’s really fun and it’s not actually that difficult. The most fun that I’ve had in cataclysm in the past year of gameplay has been in characters whose professions and items I have modded in myself. I don’t know if anyone has mentioned it already to you, but if you don’t have the Add Bandits mod, type it into the search bar right now and download it. It adds a new faction of human bandits with various guns and armor that can squash your week old character like a black rat, and in groups, can even pose a serious challenge to the toughest survivor. One pistol-wielding bandit may be easy to pick off, but a group of 10-15 bandits can spit a stupid number of 9mm at your characters, and they have a tendency to clear cities and claim them for themselves. Also, it’s really fun to see a streetful of zombies descend on a group of bandits and watch the ensuing destruction.

That’s pretty much all I can suggest, but I hope one of those things helps![/quote]

Alright! On those particular notes I have a few questions/comments.

2: Is raiding a lab different than starting in one? The character I’m rolling around with right now was a volunteer mutant experiment who started in a lab. Lizard serum was the mutagen the game seemed to favor spawning into the various chemical rooms so that was the stuff I used on my guy. Nasty opening location, but nothing an abundance of caution couldn’t handle. Are labs different if you attack them from the surface?

4: A lot of that looks like good stuff to consider with new characters! However, I was under the impression that city sizes maxed out at 16 and distance maxed out at 8. How do you get the ability to unlock the capacities of those options to 100?

5: Is Horde Mode the combination of turning static spawn to false and wandering spawn to true? I ask because that was my initial impression of how to operate with moving hordes of zombies, but I haven’t confirmed this and I haven’t upped the zombie spawn rate.

6: Bandit mode sounds like a bloody blast! I had heard that it was an obsolete mod (I’m using up to date experimental builds) so I’ve overlooked it so far. However, if it’s still something worth grabbing then I definitely will do so.

10

[quote=“CK_Kirbi, post:9, topic:12977”]Alright! On those particular notes I have a few questions/comments.

2: Is raiding a lab different than starting in one? The character I’m rolling around with right now was a volunteer mutant experiment who started in a lab. Lizard serum was the mutagen the game seemed to favor spawning into the various chemical rooms so that was the stuff I used on my guy. Nasty opening location, but nothing an abundance of caution couldn’t handle. Are labs different if you attack them from the surface?

4: A lot of that looks like good stuff to consider with new characters!

5: Is Horde Mode the combination of turning static spawn to false and wandering spawn to true? I ask because that was my initial impression of how to operate with moving hordes of zombies, but I haven’t confirmed this and I haven’t upped the zombie spawn rate.[/quote]

Labs are the same, whether you start in one or spawn in one. Both can be quite deadly, as I am sure you are aware.

Hordes can be turned on with static or dynamic spawning of zombies. I do think that with static + horde, some zombies might disappear (something about killing the limit of zombies in the area, so they no longer spawn in a specific area; I found a mansion flooded with zeds, ran, killed a bunch of zombies, came back to the mansion and it was completely empty… this was ~6-12 months ago)

I’m kind of bored with my character too. I turned on NPCs in the middle of my run, so that has been interesting. I’m working on building a base. I think that after I get it set up, I might 'Q’uicide this character and leave it as a treasure trove for any characters that spawn in the world after it. I have an ant colony within an easy trip, an apple orchard across the river (and a boat to make the trek), and I’m working on a super set-up swank kitchen/crafting area and a farm to supply it.

The next two characters that I want to make will be a fungus-man and a psychotic cannibal. There are a lot of mutations that I have never tried, as I just try to go for what would best suit my typical game-style.

11

I have another challenge for you Kirby. Raid an Ice Lab. If you’ve never encountered an Ice Lab, you’ll know when you find one. They’re difficult for pretty much everyone, especially if they go more than 2 z-levels down. On the plus side they make excellent bases because you can store perishable food pretty much forever, usually right below the world level.

12

http://smf.cataclysmdda.com/index.php?topic=7891.0

I’d like to link this ancient thread I made. Try some of the challenges! Feel free to necro!

13

[quote=“Straume21, post:7, topic:12977”]2. Play the endgame

The endgame in cataclysm is open-ended, but there are a few scenarios that most survivors don’t have access to until they are legitimate badasses. These include mines, lab raids, strange temples, and mycus. If you don’t know what mycus is, I’m not going to spoil it for you, but it has to do with triffids. If you’ve never ventured into a triffid grove to try and kill the precious heart, I would strongly recommend it. It’s really hard to exterminate the bastards completely, and it’s extremely easy to die in the close-quarters hallways of the triffid base.[/quote]

Mycus is fungus related, not trifffid related. Neither present all that much of a challenge, really, but the triffid heart thing can be a little tough. Dealing with fungus is mostly just an endurance issue (both for the PC and the player).

I’ve actually quit starting in labs because they are too easy - occasionally, yes, they do kill you, yes, but that’s rare, and one you’ve escaped, they make CRAZY good bases.

Mines are usually nothing, but once in a while, they’ve got a nasty at the bottom.

Strange temples aren’t dangerous, they’re puzzles.

If you want a decent end-game set of monster/locations/challenges, try the Arcana mod - there are 4 good endgame locations. I also hear that Pisskop’s mod provides an even more crazy end-game.

14

All of this looks pretty damn sweet folks. I’ve tagged it all as ideas for future runs and potential goals for other characters.

After a bit more play through on my end I’ve found that some of my issues solved themselves. I think I simply grew too impatient for my own good so now that I’ve found what a freaking disaster post apocalyptia can be before I start swinging for giants, my urge to find meaningful and exciting game play is satiated for now and (with this list of extra mods and trials to endure) for the future.

15

Try the mod(s)

Its not so bad.

  • You know how to play basegame. I dont alter any major mechanics or change how combat works.
  • Take a combat survivor. For your first trip, take a combative survivor and dont fight anything you dont know.
  • Stay out of cities at first. Most of the ‘worst’ stuff is everywhere, but zeds are dangerous. Triffids and fungus are fairly much the safest to hang out with.
  • Ask questions, look at the wiki.
16

Oh I’ve eyeballed some of the material from your mod, Pisskop. It’s high up on the list of things to play when I feel like I’ve got liter sized gonads. One of the very first things that drew me to this game was a story someone told on these very forums about a fight he got into in one of the Hell Castles from your mod. Something to the effect of being backhanded by a demonic baron so hard that his character flew against a stone wall and the the wall turned to rubble.

I’m not man enough for that level of visceral carnage, but I am working my way up to it. Someday I shall too will know what it is like to be backhanded into a wall by a Hell Baron.

17

You haven’t lived until you help a zombie hulk kill a hell baron.

18

Why would we help the hulk? =O

19

Because the hulk is less dangerous.

20

Can confirm, I’ve had Ice Labs kill endgame survivors before. I once had one that went to about 13 floors down, and it’s temperature at the lowest floors was over 100 degrees below absolute zero. My kit for descending was a FULL suit of Heavy Power Armour, as well as no less than 7 Thermal Electric Suits(using the exploit that TES can be worn on top of power armour) with UPS Mod attached to them all, in addition to my bionic air conditioning unit, and a handy-dandy flamethrower for if I got entirely too cold.

I had 24,000 bionic power to spend, which I had to split between my lasrifle and my ridiculous heating setup. On the final floor I found a flaming eye. It’s eyebeams destroyed three of my TES. I then died of frostbite within the span of about… I want to say 6 turns? It was a delayed death anyway, as the harsh fighting brought me down to only 300 BP remaining. I had 180 seconds to live basically, and each volley fired from my lasrifle would have shaved 15 seconds of my remaining life. Me losing too many heat layers caused a fairly rapid death from the extreme cold.