Morale boost : some tips?

[Taraq]

[quote=“deknegt, post:39, topic:10794”]After my latest survivor sadly died after surviving 30 days (90 day seasons), I can pretty much say using an instrument is the easiest way to keep your focus high at almost all times if you’re going to do a buttload of reading.

Simply sitting in a bright corner of the building wearing/using a saxophone almost kept his focus points above 70 at all times, if not closer to 100 most of the times. The only times it dipped was when he got hungry/thirsty and I had to do a quick coffee/meatzza break before returning back to the reading.

It’s also wonderful karma to know that he died trying to get his sax out of the trunk of the car, because I suddenly got ambushed by a horde in the middle of the night giving me no time to leg it.[/quote]

Focus affects reading!?

[Oragepoilu]

Depend. If you read only for a recipe, who care.

But every time you try to increase your skill, it take some point from the focus pool to do it.

[Azrad]

[quote=“Oragepoilu, post:40, topic:10794”]Haha yes. My actual save have yet to find any instrument (I don’t know if there is some place with higher chance ?) but using gourmant & stylish I’m near elated. I hope i’ll find an atomic coffee maker soon. (stilysh +25, food ± 30 for both smoked meat and fish)

(I also hope i find more coffee supply, damn)[/quote]

For food, gourmand plus cannibal plus spiritual and jerk jerky. Eating enough to be full will make the character euphoric. Atomic coffee plus a long session with the… massager will also add a ton of morale.

[Oragepoilu]

If you talk about the vibrator, it’s not worth it, because it doesn’t last long, cost quite some time, and meanwhile you will start to loose time on other morale buff. Better do what you have to do instead.

[Azrad]

It kind of works if you start with some coffee, use the vibrator once or twice, then drink one more shot of coffee, then eat some food. If reading the hard books, adderals, and if you’re currently fancy and mp3 using, then the books should pose no problems in leveling up skills.

[Oragepoilu]

Okay, i’m out of coffee to get the buff. Any idea where I should look first to get more ? atm i’m checking houses around, but i’m in a middle of a big city and there is plenty of special building around.

[deknegt]

Coffee shops are the obvious pick to find anything related to coffee.

Also restaurants and bars sometimes have coffee-related things too.

[Oragepoilu]

Didn’t knew they existed (coffee shop). Found one using the search option in my town, gonna check it when my leg go healed from acid (6 though acid zombie in the coffee shop -_-)

[scorpion451]

Masochism is an awesome trait, one of my go-to picks.
Every time you see some red or yellow text, its a small boost to moral instead of a loss.
You can easily see Masochism hit 30+ when you’re in really bad shape, which also happens to be when your character most needs a moral boost.

That broken arm that keeps aching, cauterizing yourself yet again after taking out a feral predator; getting frostnip when exploring an ice lab; the sharp pains and nausea of minor radiation poisoning; hitting high levels of need during long crafting or reading sessions; dragging home those two duffel bags worth of gear while famished, dehydrated, and exhausted; food poisoning; putting on a dinosaur suit in the middle of summer and marching down main street playing bagpipes to train your dodge and melee skills… all of these things cause long stretches of repeated, small pains that quickly fade, leaving only the moral boost- and then you can add the typical moral boosts like hot toast-ums.

Basically, with Masochist what doesn’t kill you only helps put a 8D on your character’s face.

[Taraq]

[quote=“scorpion451, post:49, topic:10794”]Masochism is an awesome trait, one of my go-to picks.
Every time you see some red or yellow text, its a small boost to moral instead of a loss.
You can easily see Masochism hit 30+ when you’re in really bad shape, which also happens to be when your character most needs a moral boost.

That broken arm that keeps aching, cauterizing yourself yet again after taking out a feral predator; getting frostnip when exploring an ice lab; the sharp pains and nausea of minor radiation poisoning; hitting high levels of need during long crafting or reading sessions; dragging home those two duffel bags worth of gear while famished, dehydrated, and exhausted; food poisoning; putting on a dinosaur suit in the middle of summer and marching down main street playing bagpipes to train your dodge and melee skills… all of these things cause long stretches of repeated, small pains that quickly fade, leaving only the moral boost- and then you can add the typical moral boosts like hot toast-ums.

Basically, with Masochist what doesn’t kill you only helps put a 8D on your character’s face.[/quote]

The opposite is my biggest gripe of managing Dragon style. One single fucking hit and your int (and damage) are dropping unless you pop aspirin like candy. Opiates=the poor man’s masochism.

[scorpion451]

Masochism and Dragon style make for a beautiful combination- there’s a sweet spot between “bloodied” and “actually in trouble” where the occasional hits dragon style lets through can actually help keep you one-shotting zombie brutes. That and a canteen of atomic coffee has gotten me out of more than a few sticky situations.

[Azrad]

Currently got a unified power system CBM and a mp3 with a UPS mod. Total power is only 1.2k, but it’s pretty much enough to run the mp3 player permanently. Even got an enhanced hearing to prevent getting deafened.

MP3 music is giving 97 morale. 13 points to stylish and now the survivor’s default state is elated. Only a 4% increase in speed and +1 to intelligence, but pretty good overall.

[Oragepoilu]

Yeah, my music bonus s stuck at 167 atm, no idea why it’s doing this. 25 stylish and a few other thing, perma 8D x)

it nearly use no energy, walking a few meter here and here is enough to supply it. Quite op

[Taraq]

[quote=“Azrad, post:52, topic:10794”]Currently got a unified power system CBM and a mp3 with a UPS mod. Total power is only 1.2k, but it’s pretty much enough to run the mp3 player permanently. Even got an enhanced hearing to prevent getting deafened.

MP3 music is giving 97 morale. 13 points to stylish and now the survivor’s default state is elated. Only a 4% increase in speed and +1 to intelligence, but pretty good overall.[/quote]

I kept reading all of this morale and spiritual talk and I was thinking ha kids these days and they’re silly morale don’t they realize that you can just kill some children for chocolate if you need to craft or read or learn skills but MORALE PROVIDES STAT BOOSTS THE FUCK

[Azrad]

[quote=“Taraq, post:54, topic:10794”][quote=“Azrad, post:52, topic:10794”]Currently got a unified power system CBM and a mp3 with a UPS mod. Total power is only 1.2k, but it’s pretty much enough to run the mp3 player permanently. Even got an enhanced hearing to prevent getting deafened.

MP3 music is giving 97 morale. 13 points to stylish and now the survivor’s default state is elated. Only a 4% increase in speed and +1 to intelligence, but pretty good overall.[/quote]

I kept reading all of this morale and spiritual talk and I was thinking ha kids these days and they’re silly morale don’t they realize that you can just kill some children for chocolate if you need to craft or read or learn skills but MORALE PROVIDES STAT BOOSTS THE FUCK[/quote]

It’s not a lot, mind you. Somewhere around 110 only gives +1 to intelligence and 4% increase to speed, though I suppose the speed bonus is real nice. 8D gives +1 to intelligence and perception, and 8% increase to speed.

110 is somewhat manageable with an mp3 player if you’re lucky enough for the music bonus goes over 50, but 8D is harder to maintain.

[Taraq]

[quote=“Azrad, post:55, topic:10794”][quote=“Taraq, post:54, topic:10794”][quote=“Azrad, post:52, topic:10794”]Currently got a unified power system CBM and a mp3 with a UPS mod. Total power is only 1.2k, but it’s pretty much enough to run the mp3 player permanently. Even got an enhanced hearing to prevent getting deafened.

MP3 music is giving 97 morale. 13 points to stylish and now the survivor’s default state is elated. Only a 4% increase in speed and +1 to intelligence, but pretty good overall.[/quote]

I kept reading all of this morale and spiritual talk and I was thinking ha kids these days and they’re silly morale don’t they realize that you can just kill some children for chocolate if you need to craft or read or learn skills but MORALE PROVIDES STAT BOOSTS THE FUCK[/quote]

It’s not a lot, mind you. Somewhere around 110 only gives +1 to intelligence and 4% increase to speed, though I suppose the speed bonus is real nice. 8D gives +1 to intelligence and perception, and 8% increase to speed.

110 is somewhat manageable with an mp3 player if you’re lucky enough for the music bonus goes over 50, but 8D is harder to maintain.[/quote]

When in doubt, more heroin.

[Commodore]

Ideally, you have high int, fast reader and gourmand for the easiest go at it.

Gourmand:
This lets you break out your “nice food” stocks and munch down on 3 of like 8 different candies and snacks to get a good 100+ morale. As long as you don’t overdo it, a liquor store will provide an ample amount of additional morale. The snacks from zombie drops also help reduce the stock consumption.

Fast reader:
http://cdda-trunk.estilofusion.com/books/fun
Take 3 of the +4 morale books with you. Read once from each of them 3 times and you’ll shoot back up to 150 or so. thanks to your int and fast reader you cruise through them so it’s actually pretty reasonable to kill a group, go read one or two cycles then repeat without getting bogged down too much. Alternatively, doing the same with time magazine/computer gaming/comic book is the poor man’s version. Doesn’t require as much but isn’t as effective.

Battery powered:
Keep the MP3 player on and do a hit or more of the vibrator before reading.

To keep them powered there’s a couple options. You can spend spring getting a charcoal forge setup and a hoe forged. Find a permanent source of water like a house pool, hotel basement pool, swimming pool, etc. If you haven’t found a mechanics book, make all the improvised lockpicks and pick every single locked door at >100 focus until you get mechanics 2 so you can remove gas tanks for bulk liquids or grind zombies for leather. Spend all of summer harvesting berry bushes in fields to make fruit juice. Process it into unfermented vinegar and ferment it. Replant often. Store up battery materials and craft when you need it.

A vehicle recharger or a ups conversion mod with the ups and torsion ratchet bionic are swell as well.

Install a stereo in your vehicle and put in a music cd. Turn it on when you travel to arrive ready to go. An instrument you find is the poor man’s version but watch the volume/enc/speed penalty so it doesn’t get you hurt.

[Azrad]

Using an MP3 player permanently powered via UPS seems to be the most effective for me. If the morale boost is high enough to be at elated status, I can read through the big morale downers and only worry about hunger, thirst, and fatigue.