Hi Everyone!
The idea is simple: create a mod that makes Cataclysm DDA post-nuclear cataclysm game. This is quite a large suggestion that consist of many parts since large-scale nuclear war would have a lot of different dire effects. Each own probably deserves a separate subject (or even several subjects) if idea in general is supported. I see it as really long-term feature if it’s ever implemented.
- Nuclear Fallout
Yes, starting with the obvious. And what’s a post-nuclear world without radiation, right? The main effect is to contaminate the terrain:
- Places where fallout is carried by rainwater should be most dangerous: rivers, swamps, probably severs if rainwater comes there in New England.
- All the other outdoor tiles should be less contaminated but still high.
- It should be relatively safe indoors but still amount of fallout on the roof, around the building and inside it carried there by wind won’t make it perfectly safe.
- Underground should probably be free from radiation.
This sound like a lot of troubles already but IRL it would be more dangerous:
- Clothes, especially footwear, would accumulate fallout as you walk through contaminated areas. Radioactive items would further contaminate clean areas and irradiate the player.
- Food would be contaminated as well, including just random food in the cities, crops and wildlife. Rainwater and even water from wells wouldn’t be safe to drink as well.
To my knowledge items in CDDA aren’t able to accumulate radiation. Which would allow characters to wear anything and eat anything just fine.
There’s one more issue in the core game: pick robust genetics or even start in a lab and pick radiogenic as well. You’re well adopted to the world. I think this really needs a change. Yes, radiation surely can cause mutations but nope, you’re very unlikely to grow wines, fur and tail fin because of this. I think radiation deserves its own special mutations category (aka fallout-style ghul). It should mostly include negative real-world mutations that irradiated human is likely to get (stomach problems, body decay, etc.) and supernatural ghul-like traits post-threshold, e.g. radiogenic which could be extended, heating, glowing, etc.
Finally the world would need some adjustments: irradiated wanderers should become more common, wildlife shouldn’t be that abundant, prices for anti-rad gear and medicine should spike and probably more. I think it’s a valid point for all the effect so I won’t be mentioning it further.
- Nuclear Winter
I refer to the article: http://www.nucleardarkness.org/warconsequences/hundredfiftytonessmoke/
So, first of all we’re blocking 70% of sunlight. Making solar panel somewhat ineffective. In practice they’ll be quickly covered by dust in such hard environment making the even more useless. Leaves mutation qualifies as well.
Secondly we drop temperature by 20°C. Meaning no farming and warm clothes all year. And in winter it must be really surviving. I’m not kinda sure if zombies should die from cold though…
Then we drop precipitation by 45%. Not sure if it has any in-game effect except for evaporation bionic but willing to find out. In any case rainfall isn’t possible in CDDA below 0°C as far as I know. Well, who needs that radioactive rain anyway, right?
As one more climatic change I would add (radioactive?) dust storms. Fits thematically and might be possible effect.
Fumaroles concern me. They suddenly like a very good place to park near. How about making them emit toxic gas that would expand?
I’m not sure if such effects should kick in instantly as soon as the game starts. Don’t think the should wear off anyway.
- EMP
My favorite. Ability to generate devastating EMP by nuclear weapons that would knock out even very well-protected circuit boards might exist nowadays. Assumption is that such weapons were used.
I suggest frying every item, vehicle component, furniture, robot and bionic in the world with a few exceptions. I’ll list them below:
- solar cells (not panel though)
- some simple electronics, e.g. small electric motors, alternators, soldering irons, heating elements, etc. I would go through entire list of CCDA items and decide but suggestions are welcome.
- military-grade electronics, robots and probably some bionics. Sure these guys must be prepared.
- bionics that doesn’t seems to have electronics once installed, e.g. alloy plating.
- items in Faraday-caged crates that would appear rarely in labs, military areas, prepper houses and some items in warehouses, storage units, steel-plated vehicles. Sometimes zombie corpses should be able to give a bionics on assumption their Dielectric Capacitance System was turned on at the blast time and managed to survive it, though sounds unlikely.
Meaning. No vehicles, you’re stuck with bicycle and in a long run you can build a “deathmobile” running on two small electric motors and a foot crank. No fancy bionics, only a few will be there and not readily available. No fancy tools like mp3 player, jackhammer, control laptop… And these terminals in labs and hospitals and really dead now. Well, gasoline is still useful to survive nuclear winter, cook on fire and scorch zombies.
There’s major issue I see here - the core game doesn’t have much support for EMP: mininukes lack EMP at all (intended?), EMP grenades seem to damage only robots. I’m not making a fried duplicate of each item that can be fried for sure. How would good implementation look like that would supposedly make EMP fry electronics from your point of view?
- Destruction of ozone layer
Doesn’t matter much unless you’re going naked through the radioactive wastelands. Though if you’re you should probably be punished like any well-mutated troglo.
- Nuclear Blasts
I won’t say anything more than was already said here: Nuked cities
By the way, initial destruction is one of the thing I love about post-apocalyptic RPGs and th one that I badly would love to see in CDDA.
- Pollution (secondary effect)
Imagine industrial zone set on nuclear fire. Lots of chemicals and contaminants will be released into environment. Don’t think it will be ever safe to breathe, to drink and to eat ever, at least definitely not as safe as it is in the current CDDA.
I’m not a C++ developer and never made a PR or even a suggestion for CDDA. Moreover I never participated in open source project. So it might take a while to implement even a small portion of it. Nevertheless I’m determined to make it all work one day.
What do you think about it overall? What do you think about some part of it in particular? I’d love to receive any feedback.