Here are some Ideas that I think would make neat additons to CDDA

Game Talk The Drawing Board
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I’m reasonably new to the discord, and have been playing CDDA for about a year. I’ve thought of a few little things I would like to see in the game. I don’t have any expierence in editing .json files, but would be willing to give it a try if people like the suggestions. I apologize in advance if any of these have been suggested, these are just some things I believe would be cool to add. It would be neat to see some of them to become canon, but I would be fine with making a mod.

–Combs
Found in bedrooms, bathrooms, pharmacies, grocery stores, super/mega stores etc. Zombies can drop filthy ones. Use it to get a really small mood boost, and maybe more of a boost if you have the stylish perk. Several of them can be melted together into plastic chunks.

–Toothpaste/toothbrush/mouth wash.
Found in bathrooms, pharmacies, grocery stores, super/mega stores. Maybe malls or other “catch all” locations.

Tooth paste would come in three different sizes, six, twelve, and 24 uses, but they would be stackable like contact lenses. Mouth wash should either be in plastic bottles, or gallon jugs (I understand that may be a little unrealistic, but I don’t like the idea of adding a new empty container type)

Four tooth brushes/empty toothpaste tubes could be melted into plastic chunks. Should you be able to convert toothpaste to antiseptic or another chemical? Mouthwash could be treated like alchohol in the crafting menu (which again I know may not be entirely realistic, since most modern mouth wash doesn’t have alcohol in it anymore)

Using toothpaste with a toothbrush, or mouthwash will provide you with a “minty fresh” mood boost for awhile. Maybe you could drink the mouth wash it get drunk (see above), or eat the toothpaste for little nutrition and a negative mood boost.

–Casts
Higher skill requirement and more resource intensive version of the splint, mends limbs slightly faster, and is slightly less encumbering. Maybe instead of the faster mending offer a little defence and a chance to protect the limb from “re-breaking” or resetting the mend timer. Made from neoprene and plastic.

–Underbarrel Chainsaw
Similar to the ripper from the Fallout games, or the Lancer from Gears of War, but just the chainsaw part. I understand the may not be entirely realistic, but I think it would be an interesting addition as another underbarrel melee alternative. I also don’t think it would be entirely unrealistic in the cdda universe either. I’m thinking of the manhacks in particular, if they are the same/similar to the Half Life ones. They are small enough that I believe you could jury rig something out of them.

Mid game player crafted only, kinda heavy (for a gun mod), hits dispersion, hits accuracy, noisey when active, consumes gas (maybe a diesel alternative?) Or a quiter plutonium fueled one. Gas powered ones would let out puffs of smoke occasionally.

–Ripper Fists/Manhackers
Battery/fuel powered circular saw/manhacks on your hands, or chainsaw “gloves” so to speak. Completely covers your hands, essentially a box or cage over your hands that keep the from getting damaged and able to control the blades. Heavy, encumbering, loud, and really rips apart stuff that isn’t made of metal. Mid game craftable.

–Hand Guns
Think ballistic fist from Fallout New Vegas or the gun gloves from Inglorious Basterds. Only a few shots at most, but they pack a WAY harder punch than normal. Maybe a few different calibers, but nothing too large. When out of ammo, or unloaded they act like a worse version of brass knuckles. Craftable when you can start making the slightly more advanced pipe weapons.

–Hydraulic Powered Arms/Legs
Armor you have to strap onto your outer body, and is pretty bulky. Would be able to select each limb similar to splints. Thinking more like an exoskeleton than power armor.

Three craftable versions, simple jury rigged support frame, powered support frame, and hydraulic powered frame. Each one uses the previous version to build upon. Should you be able to equip a power armor hauling frame while wearing these? There should also be a lab finale version, muscle suit.

Jury rigged is pretty much just a light frame and some pipes around your arms or legs, just kinda armor. Serves as a stepping stone for the next versions. Able to craft fairly early.

Powered frame would take wiring, various electonic parts, battery compartment mod, small storage battery, small electric motor, and the jury rigged frame. It is also going to be more encumbering and heavier. Gives +1 strength when active and slightly less encumberance, for a maximum of +4 strength (one per limb). Mid to late game craftable, and kinda fragile. Could be used for carrying engines, filled drums, full barrels, corpses, etc possibly.

Hydraulic powered frame takes hydraulic muscle cbm, in addition to various electronic parts, wiring, ups battery (charging station maybe?), plutonium cells, burnt out bionics, powered frame, and steel or military composite plating. Reallying encumbering and heavy when not active. Gives a decent strength bonus and less encumberance when active, but still more strength and encumberance than the muscle suit. Think of it as an alternative to the CBM. Has to be recharged at a ups station. Late game craftable only, and normal damage resist.

Muscle suit would be a combo of the RM13 and powered armor kinda. Essentially a bulky rubberized suit meant to be worn under strapped on armor. Kinda like the Nanosuit from the first Crysis game, or the rubber power suits from the Gantz comic/manga. Must have skin contact, and covers everything besides head, mouth, eyes. Made of rubber (plastic) and superalloy. Has 2500 charge capacity of plutonium cells. Between the powered frame and hydraulic frame for weight and encumberance, but provides a lot more strength than the powered frame. If it’s possible I would like it to drain your hunger and thirst faster when active.

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You could implement casts, underbarrel chainsaws, ripper fists, and hand guns in JSON today. Read doc/JSON_INFO.md and doc/JSON_FLAGS.md, open up a text editor, and start editing files in data/json/items. People will be happy to help you with any issues you have.

Combs and toothbrushes are probably not going to be accepted into mainline (too likely to be tedious busywork unless implemented very carefully).

Your approach to power armor has been okayed by the maintainers, but I’m not sure how much you can do in C++ versus JSON. But I’d start with the ballistic gloves and such so you can learn editing JSON for CDDA.

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Thank you for this post. I was confused as to how he thought some of this stuff (mainly a new heal rate on casts) was possible through JSON.

This forced me to look into the code and the json until I found the answers to my questions. So . . . <3’s for you both.

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Ok I’ll give it a try when I am able. I just thought that the personal grooming could be expanded slightly, since shaving kits are pretty much it. I like to imagine a well established survior still maintains themselves, or someone fresh into the cataclysm would still have the old habit of grooming themselves.

On a side note, I have changed Dwarf fortress around quite a bit, and I did a fair share of editing weapon, armor, and item stats in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games, so If it is remotely similar I think I could figure it out, with a little trial and error of course.

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It’s not the maintainers are opposed to personal grooming. They’re opposed to an implementation that requires you, the player behind the keyboard, to go through a series of routine keypresses every morning to get the grooming benefit. It needs to be automated somehow so you consume resources and get the benefit without being tedious.

Note the design of the current shaving kit is a prime example of tedious.

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Ok that makes since. I was thinking the you could simply (a)ctivate the comb and take 30 seconds to comb your hair. Same goes for the toothbrush. Use it with toothpaste in your inventory or nearby, consumes 1 use, takes a minute or two, and you get a small boost to moral for a while. I’ll see about making it so you can’t spam it to get huge chunks of moral.

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I like the ideal, especially if it stacks with Stylish.

There are plenty of tedious things in cata but doing something once a day is no worse than having to eat or drink. Plus its not a requirment to be minty fresh and well groomed. It could also give you a bonus during trading and speaking to NPCs.

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It’d be nice if there was just a “Morning routine” action that checks for a comb/hairbrush, toothbrush, mouthwash, a shaving kit, etc. Just goes through and uses anything within range, applies all the morale bonuses, maybe an extra bonus for doing it just after getting up. Apply passive bonuses for certain furniture, like having a mirror nearby or a wash basin. Could even let you use showers if they were implemented as a vehicle part.

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See, that would be a sensible implementation. One key press, it’s optional if you decide you want to flee the zombies bursting through your door.

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@TheKobold
That’s what I was hoping to achieve, just a small mood boost, but I like the boost to NPC interaction as well. I don’t know how hard that would be, but I’m willing try it.

@darktoes
I like the idea of “morning routine” as well, maybe provide an additonal bonus for all of them being done a once, like “refreshed” or “ready for the day” something along those lines. I’m afraid that it may be a little too complicated for me atm. I haven’t even tried implimenting any of these yet, so it’s going to be a learning expierence.

@mlangsdorf
I agree, I’ll see how complicated it’s going to be to do it. Speaking of zombies beating down the door, I’ll try to make it interruptable too.

I also had a thought about the “morning routine” rather than having it check for everything wouldn’t it be easier to make a new item the combines all of them? Like a “bathroom bag” or something, but preferably a better name. Kinda makes it sounds like a bag for going to the bathroom in…

What about thoughts on the exo gear or weapons? I plan on tackling the simple stuff first, like the comb and toothbrush/paste just to get a feel for how hard or tedious it’s going to be. Then I’ll work on the weapons, armor will probably be last since it sounds like it would be the hardest atm, but I could be wrong.

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The weapons are probably simpler than the combs and toothpaste. There’s dozens of examples of weapons in data/json ; morale boosting items are less common. And the backing code for a long_action player_activity is not as simple as it could be, while you could add a weapon in about 5 minutes if you know what you’re doing and an hour if you don’t.

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I’m sure that moose will be thinking to himself “what minty fresh breath” as he’s ripping out my intestines. -_-

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