Needful things (simple additions to improve the game)

[Zero]

For a while now you’ve been able to eat from the square you’re standing in. Unfortunately only off the floor, doesn’t work for in-vehicle storage. But it’s still cool.

[Random_dragon]

Which is amusing in that you can eat off the floor, but not out of a minifridge. owo

[deoxy]

[quote=“Cat09, post:2040, topic:5570”]remove linkage of (a)pply and (E)at commands, I want to use my fungicide on the fungus infested ground, not eat it! I’m certain there are other scenarios like that one, and more to crop up w/chem additions over time.
Related: the ability to choose a direction for (E)ating, to grab and eat at the same time, Double tapping “E” would do just your inventory perhaps?[/quote]

More generally, the ability to perform all inventory activities on something that is in your square (or perhaps the next square) without having to pick it up - removing batteries, for instance, or removing liquids (yes, let’s PICK UP that 55 gallon drum full of water to put water in this half-liter bottle… I’m sure that’ll work just great).

[Logrin]

*The ability to use fungicide and other chemicals to craft anti-fungal grenades for your launchers. Large scale spire extermination without the danger of fire.
*With all the pain and vomiting mutation seems traumatic. Maybe a decaying ‘body image’ penalty for new anatomy to represent how most people wouldn’t be all like “Tentacles? Sweet!” Weighted so that becoming grotesque and other high impact mutations hit you harder/last longer (No one wants to be the Elephant man) Some mutations, like gorgeous, should be the same but positive. Suddenly becoming a covergirl would be awesome, but I imagine that eventually the initial thrill wears off. Most importantly once you get used to these things there should be a penalty for removing them–once you get used to having antennae or something losing them would be unsettling to say the least.
*It would be nice if mutating altered morale ups and downs a little bit. Like a spider jumping for joy at the taste of insect meat or felines having their day ruin on account of the rain (But being able to cheer themselves up with a cardboard box)
*Would it be possible to have a sword cane? As in a fancy cane you can activate to transform into a sword?

[Laughing_Fool]

Automarking stairs on the map would be very helpful.

[jokermatt999]

Automarking stairs on the map would be very helpful.

Already an option. Turn on automatic notes. Might be better as a default though

[BeerBeer]

• When issuing a crafting command via the ‘recraft last recipe’ hotkey, a selection menu sometimes pops up, prompting the player for which material to use (if there are multiple options). It would help if there was a count for each available ingredient. For example:

1. water (25 available)
2. clean water (12 available)
3. salt water (4 available)
   (Please be sure to take nearby infinite (water) sources into account)

• In fact, I don’t understand why the time passes FIRST, and THEN the prompt asks which ingredients to use. Is there change coming to that soon? I would love to be able to cancel a crafting project that was issued via the ‘recraft last recipe’ hotkey if I discover that I’ve ran out of commonly available ingredients and I’m now forced to use the hard-to-find stuff. I think the game also needs an intermediary “unfinished product” item/state, that could be continued if the crafting gets interrupted for whatever reason. The unfinished product should copy its freshness from the assumed finished product, but also from its individual ingredients, whichever is weakest, so that the unfinished product could potentially rot away if left uncompleted, just to prevent its exploitation as a food preservation mechanic.

• Favorite recipes or recipe macros for quick access. For example, my favorite dish in CDDA is the ‘woods soup’. Here’s the current procedure I have to go through in order to create it:
  *cook dandelion greens
  *cook broth
  *cook the woods soup itself
  Why not cut the list browsing time and provide some quick ways to access your favorite recipes? The amount of dish choices gets kind of massive as the character’s Cooking skill improves.

• When the player opens the crafting menu, move the Food category (tab) to the left, as the first category. I assume people craft dishes and ammo most often, so they should be the fastest to access. Conversely, armor, weapons and car parts categories should reside more to the right, as they are accessed less occasionally. But then again, vehicle builders might prefer Parts category as the first… And then again, if you had “Favorites” as your first category, the player would have the power to decide which recipes he sees first.

• Optionally the game could remember which crafting tab was viewed last, instead of always reverting to the leftmost tab/category. Furthermore, this could be a toggleable option.

• Move cash cards at the end of the inventory in their very own category… They tend to clutter the view over time as cards are hoarded.

• Inventory tabs! …and a hotkey for switching between “tabbed view” and “list view”.

• Add a hotkey for hiding “lightweight” items when viewing inventory. Just so the player can make a better decision which heavy items or stacks to drop.

• Even better, display item stack weights in the inventory view.

• Express item weights with three decimal accuracy. That way we get to see grams. (for us filthy Europeans and other wretched non-imperial scum…) Also, I need to know how much more does an aspirin pill weigh compared to codeine. I think there are too many items that weigh 0.00kg… but they do weigh something, this I know. I know more decimals exist there… hiding like rrrats.

• Add the ability to compare more than two items, possibly up to 3 or 4.

• Overhaul gun mod attachment procedure. Upon “activating” a gun, prompt user:

1. Remove mods
2. Add mods
3. Cancel
   And if “Add mods” is chosen, display a list of valid available mods from which the user can select multiple mods to be added on the gun. This would be a similar limited list that is displayed when “Eat food/consume item” command is issued, but only with gun mods displayed. Upon selecting a mod that would prohibit the use of some other mods, grey out those other mods, rendering them unselectable… and render them selectable again if the player deselects his first selection.

• More zoom levels. Three is not enough, IMO.

• Add a bunch of configurable hotkeys for activating and deactivating chosen inventory items. I would love a hotkey for the flashlight or the MP3-player I’m carrying. The normal hotkey setup list would show up like
  move north
  move south
  throw item
  open
  close
  activate custom item 1
  activate custom item 2
  activate custom item 3
  (and so on)
  I understand this might confuse the game should the player carry multiple identical items… which is why the game should choose and tag one item specifically, creating an ID for it just to keep that one item chained to the hotkey until the hotkey is cleared by the player. These tagged items could appear in their separate category in the inventory. I only need one MP3-player and I’d also love to be able to keep my used MP3-player and looted MP3-players separated. Alternatively, we could have wearable flashlights and wearable MP3-players that provide zero, or even negative, encumberance, and then have hotkeys for these… uhh… accessories!

• Perhaps add “Unload batteries/charges/ammo” option to the butcher menu (or make a separate menu for it). This would remove batteries from flashlights, duct tape from toolboxes, ammo from guns, threads from sewing kits, etc… but only for the items on the ground directly at the player’s feet.

• When constructing or modifying a vehicle, maybe add a preview, just so that the player knows what the result will look like before committing into it.

• Include sound level stat in gun descriptions. I would like to know how loud my guns are. Noise is a factor, after all… but maybe include the number only if the player has high enough marksmanship or relevant gun skill, or until he has fired the said gun at least once before… which would mean the game would have to track which guns the player has fired previously.

[Azrad]

Those padded clothes thing that dog trainers wear to protect them from dog bites. They have some encumbrance, but they have a better chance to protect against deep bites from zombies, or something.

[RAM]

[quote=“Laughing Fool, post:2045, topic:5570”]Automarking stairs on the map would be very helpful.

Already an option. Turn on automatic notes. Might be better as a default though[/quote]
It would be grand if automatic notes were a whole customisable list with symbol priorities and additive notes. You could have it list traps and constructed terrain and automatic teller machines and (not likely) specific vehicle parts or types, and stacks of more than 20 items and permanent light and fire containment furniture and… It would be nice if it were a checked list in the options with symbol priority based upon adjustible list position or something, but it could probably be set up as a Json list or something.

[vache]

- When the player opens the crafting menu, move the Food category (tab) to the left, as the first category. I assume people craft dishes and ammo most often, so they should be the fastest to access. Conversely, armor, weapons and car parts categories should reside more to the right, as they are accessed less occasionally. But then again, vehicle builders might prefer Parts category as the first… And then again, if you had “Favorites” as your first category, the player would have the power to decide which recipes he sees first.

A most crafted or favorites tab would be great.

- Inventory tabs! …and a hotkey for switching between “tabbed view” and “list view”.

This should already be in there, hitting tab I think will swap between category selection and item selection mode.

- Add a hotkey for hiding “lightweight” items when viewing inventory. Just so the player can make a better decision which heavy items or stacks to drop.

I disagree with adding another hotkey for this. I’d rather have volume/weight as item filters, and make the regular inventory filterable like AIM. It should remember your previous filter (and display it somewhere!) and have an easy way to clear it.

[quote=“BeerBeer, post:2047, topic:5570”]- Add a bunch of configurable hotkeys for activating and deactivating chosen inventory items. I would love a hotkey for the flashlight or the MP3-player I’m carrying. The normal hotkey setup list would show up like
move north
move south
throw item
open
close
activate custom item 1
activate custom item 2
activate custom item 3
(and so on)
I understand this might confuse the game should the player carry multiple identical items… which is why the game should choose and tag one item specifically, creating an ID for it just to keep that one item chained to the hotkey until the hotkey is cleared by the player. These tagged items could appear in their separate category in the inventory. I only need one MP3-player and I’d also love to be able to keep my used MP3-player and looted MP3-players separated. Alternatively, we could have wearable flashlights and wearable MP3-players that provide zero, or even negative, encumberance, and then have hotkeys for these… uhh… accessories![/quote]
This is a good idea, but it should be extended, to something like a “quick action”, where you can bind a set of keys to any action you want to use often, like toggling a bionic/mutation, in addition to activating an item.

- Include sound level stat in gun descriptions. I would like to know how loud my guns are. Noise is a factor, after all… but maybe include the number only if the player has high enough marksmanship or relevant gun skill, or until he has fired the said gun at least once before… which would mean the game would have to track which guns the player has fired previously.

Noise can be guesstimated by comparing the damage output of the gun+bullet combo. Higher damage = more noise.

[Sehn_Knight]

Would this be useful to have for the hospital start scenario? This is probably just an atmosphere object in most situations.

{
“type” : “vehicle”,
“id” : “gurney”,
“name” : “Gurney”,
“blueprint” : “##”,
“parts” : [
{“x”: 0, “y”: 0, “part”: “folding_frame”},
{“x”: 0, “y”: 0, “part”: “folding_seat”},
{“x”: 0, “y”: 0, “part”: “wheel_caster”},
{“x”: 0, “y”: 0, “part”: “controls”},
{“x”: 1, “y”: 0, “part”: “folding_frame”},
{“x”: 1, “y”: 0, “part”: “folding_seat”},
{“x”: 1, “y”: 0, “part”: “wheel_caster”}
]
}

[Random_dragon]

If you start out strapped to it, maybe.

[terroroid]

more variety to other apocalypse creatures, not just zombies.

[Random_dragon]

More Lovecraft reference monsters? <3

[Cat09]

even just more mundane stuff would help with atmosphere, and often danger too. bats and other creatures could carry rabies(!!would need some possibility of a cure…!!) mice could eat your food stores, as could other creatures. butterflies would add rare serene moments, and swarms of mosquitos, gnats, and their kin would add pain, unhappiness, etc.

on another note: traits/mutations stored as ints for variable effects. arachniphobia, karate training, near / farsightedness, etc could have multiple levels to them

back on creatures, has anyone here played metroid prime? the goo and phazon seem to haave some similarities… some cross pollination from there could add some cool stuff.

[Random_dragon]

Rabies. Because a disease that’s generally only survivable with vaccination in a post-apocalyptic game is always Fun.

Then again we do have tetanus in the game, and it’s apparently survivable too for derp reasons.

[renton55555]

Auto-drop zones.

I’m not sure how robust this feature could be given the current code, but in the best case you ought to be able to use parameters for item material, item name, and item type. It would be useful because it would decrease the tedium of sorting out your booty after a supply run. You could just walk onto all of the stacks and it would auto sort and drop things as necessary.

[Rivet]

Then again we do have tetanus in the game, and it’s apparently survivable too for derp reasons.

Making it fatal ~10% of the time (like IRL) is overly dependent on the RNG, so it’s not directly lethal in DDA because death by pure RNG-screw sucks.

[Random_dragon]

So if we did implement rabies, we’d have to make it instead turn you into a rabid maniac. owo

[Nioca]

On the construction front: Atomic Utility Lights and Atomic Lamp Posts.

Atomic Utility Lights (.) would be a form of indoor furniture using an Atomic Nightlight; basically, a light fixture, but without needing any wiring. Just make a mounting bracket for it and hammer/screw it up into the ceiling (as in, Hammer/Screwdriver + Scrap Metal + Atomic Nightlight). Atomic Lamp Posts (7) would be similar, but they’d be slow terrain; basically, an Atomic Lamp mounted on a long post (Soldering Iron + 2x Pipes + Atomic Lamp). Both would be fairly simple construction projects. As an added bonus, they could also have their light ranges extended slightly due to being elevated.