Needful things (simple additions to improve the game)

Plastic knuckles; the only unarmed weapon at the moment that lacks a metal flag (nail knuckles, oddly enough) has volume and also lacks the DURABLE_MELEE flag. Plastic knuckles, ideally, would have a point or two less damage than brass knuckles and weigh less, but retain the 0 volume and DURABLE_MELEE–mostly just a backup for facepunchers staring down a shocker/shocker brute/bio-op/etc.

This sounds like a really good way to unhorse yourself from your bike and end up breaking an arm and a leg while your vehicle goes skidding off into a tree. I like it.

Knight Riders!

Unarmed weapons don’t let you bypass zapback, even when made of proper material.
I guess there’s an assumption that when striking unarmed, you still make contact.

If we were going by realism here, wearing rubber gloves should prevent damage from pure unarmed zapback.

[quote=“Coolthulhu, post:1283, topic:5570”]Unarmed weapons don’t let you bypass zapback, even when made of proper material.
I guess there’s an assumption that when striking unarmed, you still make contact.

If we were going by realism here, wearing rubber gloves should prevent damage from pure unarmed zapback.[/quote]

sadness

(it occurs to me that rubber gloves would probably also prevent weapon zapback, but that’s neither here nor there)

Mushroom Gravy?

[quote=“AllisonW, post:1281, topic:5570”]Plastic knuckles; the only unarmed weapon at the moment that lacks a metal flag (nail knuckles, oddly enough) has volume and also lacks the DURABLE_MELEE flag. Plastic knuckles, ideally, would have a point or two less damage than brass knuckles and weigh less, but retain the 0 volume and DURABLE_MELEE–mostly just a backup for facepunchers staring down a shocker/shocker brute/bio-op/etc.

This sounds like a really good way to unhorse yourself from your bike and end up breaking an arm and a leg while your vehicle goes skidding off into a tree. I like it.[/quote]

Given that people used to do this on horseback with wooden poles, I’d say that using it with a sharpened piece of rebar from a motorcycle is fine.

I do think that some kind of shock absorber might be useful though, for when you start couching lances at speeds much higher than that of a horse.

Yes, that is exactly the problem.

Dare I also suggest some kind of seat actually designed for retention and a five-point harness rather than the standard motorcycle saddle, though this might limit your ability to dodge.

Maybe design it so we can couch weapons against our vehicle itself as to not accidentally impale ourselves with or otherwise lose hold of our weapon when we lance a particularly big zombie?.. wait we have those. Spikes/blades.
Would be nice if they were deployable though, so retracted until we press a switch as to not get it caught on unsightly terrain. Perhaps make two tiles long ones as well so we have a larger threshold of spacing to hit enemies with.

You would want some sort of casing to contain the pressure, or a compactor to crush the projectile into an air-tight seal. Maybe you could rig it up with an airtight mechanism that could be wound back to largely reset the pressure, ehh, such a mechanism would suffer insane amounts of wear and probably slow down the pressure release too much…

I also want to say that wearing rubber gloves doesn’t make you immune to electric shocks from touching things. But we already have electricity, of low enough charge that it doesn’t convert the victim to ash, travelling several metres overland and forming dangerous static clouds. Not to mention the electricity leaving the zombie through any port other than its feet. So rubber gloves acting as an impervious barrier rather than just a discouraging walk seem entirely plausible.

re: motorcycle jousting…I like the idea of it being safe up to a certain speed, but anything over that speed should definitely unseat the rider. Also, the weight and size of the zed should play a factor. Motorjousting a hulk would be MUCH more dangerous than doing it to a zombie child.

Some culinary and farming stuff that has probably been mentioned a bajillion times before by other people:

On what I imagine would be the quicker and easier end, recipes like making red sauce from tomatoes and mushroom soup from mushrooms. More sealed-jar-of-food recipes, like jams, soups, sauces, broths, pastas, and the like. Maybe new seeds/crops, like oats, rice, and possibly soy. Maybe milk substitute recipes from things like rice and soy.

On culinary stuff that might require new systems as opposed to just new recipes/crops, maybe keeping a cow or goat for milk (I imagine a goat would be easier to keep and support, should you be able to find one), or cattle mutants being able to produce milk for a hunger cost. Maybe crafting cheese from milk, if you can get the supplies and recipes for it. Cheeses that age better or keep longer (which would probably require more to make than shorter-lived cheeses). Maybe even diving for clams, though this might be limited to freshwater mussels, which apparently are less tasty than marine clams and dangerous to eat raw, until/unless ocean tiles make it in.

If cattle mutants can produce milk… can male cattle mutants, and, for that matter, if female cattle mutants can produce milk, then can female non-cattle mutants. I think that there are just a few too many questions there for it to make it in. I mean, sure, maybe they got the genetic samples from cattle that had been bred for milk-production, but, umm, why? Wouldn’t they be aiming for strong cattle that could drag large loads around to be engineers or something?

O the other hand, rice farming should totally be a thing, but it should only grow in swamps…

[quote=“RAM, post:1292, topic:5570”]Wouldn’t they be aiming for strong cattle that could drag large loads around to be engineers or something?[/quote]The mutations from mutagen do not care what you pesky humans want to mutate into. They’re literally just some ingredients mixed into blobmatter, with tendencies towards whatever biological information got mixed into it. Alpha and medical are only seemingly “just right” by primarily luck, and secondarily not taking a particularly volatile approach. The individual components, on a mutation by mutation basis, are not “chosen” by the scientists.
That said, restricting milk production to females seems to be a given, unless the mutation has an effect that crosses sexual dimorphism.
While males /technically/ can lactate, it is both rare and difficult to achieve.
Hmmm, maybe a cattle mutant male could lactate if they find a sufficient supply of fenugreek? Sounds like an awful lot of effort for just milk though…

Unfortunately lactation tends to start down the slippery slope toward sexuality. I’m not interested in adding mutations for that purpose, and it is most certainly NOT a needful thing.

Actual cows you could milk though, that would be nice

We’ve got cows and sheep. We just need to code it.

Possibly add it to pigs, too.

A nice warm glass of pilk.

If this gets added I’m going to become a milk baron, buying what’s left of the world one metal drum of moo juice at a time.

Buildable curtains, held up by sticks or pipes. Can be passed and peeked through without interference, but can be smashed down in a single swing, which most enemies will attempt before passing bullet projectiles that isnt shotgun or launcher base will hardly damage it.
An equivalent for vehicles, that can be placed on any frame, including opaque ones. Will conceal contents of frame and frame itself (wheel excluded) unless in construction menu or immediately adjacent to it, or open.

Catapult traps, that hurl whatever steps on them in some direction.

[quote=“RAM, post:1299, topic:5570”]Catapult traps, that hurl whatever steps on them in some direction.[/quote]I can imagine just building a looooong line of those things and using it as improvised Fast Travel.