Profesion ideas & more

Game Talk The Drawing Board
1

Since were making professions now it seems like a great addition to the game. I came up with some of my own. Feel free to debate on what is feasible to add.

Army Veteran
Costs 3 points
(insert clever text here)
Starts off with a green beret, m16 and 60 rounds. + 2 to Firearms.

Joe the plumber
Costs 2 points
With lots of abandoned house and back up sewers, it looks like a job for you to clean up the streets!
Starts off with a plunger, utility vest, and a flashlight (100) +1 to mechanics.

Evil Doctor
Costs 1 point
Now you can practice on humans above-ground in peace!
Starts with an chainsaw, blood stained apron. +2 to survival skill. Npcs will attack on sight.

Doctor Whew
Costs 2 points
With experimenting now ok after the apocalypse, no one calls you an old crazy crow.
Starts off with a teleporter (20), lab coat. and +2 to computer skill.

School Bully
Costs -1 points.
You loved beating up children and now your dream of helping society by beating up children zombie children has come true!
Starts off with ripped jeans, ripped leather jacket, sunglasses, and a pipe. +2 to melee. Npcs avoid you. Zombie children run in fear, while the big ones come to challenge you.

The Hulk
Costs 4 points.
Often moody due to the fact that your horribly addicted to steroids.
Starts off with moderately high addiction to steroids, steroids (4). +5 to Str. Gains mood swings, and growling voice.

2

Why use points for pprofessions which gives you skills? They must give some starting equipment, maybe some sort of unique perk which can’t be taken other way than by acquiring specific profession. I agree that “Evil” doc/scientist may end up fighting with NPCs much more because some people heard something about him before outbreak (and some may think that he is the one who unleashed this plague), therefore this profession must give you points.
How abut changing those professions a bit:
Veteran: starts with army pants, boots, belt rig, 9mm pistol + 2-3 clips, combat knife. Due to high experience in firearms he is more accurate with any weapon.
Plumber (it’s more of a joke but still…) : Starts with jumpsuit, wrench, steeltoed boots, gloves, hallucinogenic mushrooms. His second name is Mario. Instead of zombies he fights turtles and evil mushrooms (why not?).
Meatman (Serial killer) : Start with butcher knife, mask, leather outfit. NPC afraid of you and you have morale boost when you butcher corpses.
Gamer (Crazy/nerd) : Thinks that he is in some sort of game. Start with machete, shotgun, crowbar, backpack, armor (military style). After enemy killed gain morale boost, if you find computer/console which isn’t brocken gain huge morale boost.
Researcher : You are loner type person who don’t like when someone disturbs him when he’s working. Start with hazmat suit, gas mask, scalpel. Crafting time is reduced by 15%.
Wrestler/hulk/boxer/juggernaut/etc. : Start as very tough guy (+50% more HP, damage reduction increased by 33%) who is quite big (1.5 of average bodybuilder), melee attack speed reduced by 10%.
As you can see it’s slightly upgraded idea, but i think it’s better than adding skill points to character.

3

These seem really easy to implement so lets go nuts with making them, but try to keep them balanced. I know I like taking mechanic profession just because it starts me off with a weapon and some books, two things I’m always on the lookout for ingame. That, plus the belt rig, make it worth the two points in my opinion. 3 points to start with a gun and ammo seems to be a little excessive.

Tailor:
Stitching more than just wounds.
Start with fitted dress/suit depending on sex (Would only be balanced if the Dress was made better because right now the Suit is superior)
start with a handful of rags, leather patches, a pair of scissors, and a sewing kit, maybe a ‘Sew What?’ book. Useful for crafting your own starting outfit right off the bat. Cost perhaps 2 points?

Unfortunate accident:
Start off already injured/infectious bite’d, but spawn a corpse with minor loot in your starting shelter. Simulating that your sheltermate turned into a zombie, or decided to try and kill you for some other reason. 0 points.

Bandit:
You’re here to kick ass and chew bubblegum and the whole world’s out of gum.
Start out in tattered leathers with sunglasses and/or bandanna and some sort of minor weapon like a nail board, but NPCs will always either flee or attack you on sight, and will never talk to you. Perhaps 2 points, because most people I talk to kill off all NPCs sooner or later anyway and don’t bother boosting speech/barter in the least, plus NPCs are currently a bit rare. If social characters and leaders become more viable down the road, the price could go down.

Bartender:
Without many useful skills anymore (Nobody much cares if you can juggle liquor bottles while pouring drinks) you just start out with a few bottles of booze and your uniform, a suit. 1 point.

College student: The cataclysm is no reason to stop your learning. Spawn with high level books and a backpack. 1 point.

Doomsayer: You’ve been telling people this was going to happen for years and nobody believed you.
Get a tinfoil hat and a can of beans, perhaps tattered and ill fitting clothing. 0 points

OK Lumberjack:
Not much has changed in the cataclysm, you’re just as likely to split zombie skulls as you are tree trunks with your trusty axe.
Start with a wood axe and wood saw, jeans, boots, and someone would have to make a flannel shirt. 1 point.

Hunter:
As it turns out, hanging out in the woods with a gun is a good way to survive a disaster like this.
Spawn with a basic firearm and a pittance of ammo, and a rabbit snare trap. Single barrel shotgun ought to do nicely for 2 points. Not sure what kind of clothing to start with though.

The harder I think about professions the more I think more items need to be coded in, so adding content so you can add content I guess would be a bit much to ask for.

4

Other than the obligatory crafty jobs (woodsman, electrician…), I’d like to hand out some kudos for the new pre-game customization. All hail DDA.

Touring Band Member
Cost: ?
Whoa, dude. Total bummer about the band getting devoured. You start out with an instrument and some drugs. Possibly some heavy addiction there, Ozzy.

Ventriloquist
Cost: ?
You always were the silent mouse type of person. You have a unique talent of being able to seemingly throw your voice. Goes well with your silent, nimble nature.

New-Age Freak
Cost: ?
Whether it be the mood stabilizing meds in your pockets or the belief that all is one and one is all, you feel pretty calm knowing that none of this is real. This is only a facet of reality, a page in an infinite book of possibilities. Well, at least as long as post-apocalyptic pharmacies fill your various prescriptions.

Dapper Individual
Cost: ?
My word! Hark! Verily, your appearance is striking. Wonder if you’d be able to store a sandwich in that top hat.

5

Basement dweller

Points: 1

Only the inevitable zombie apocalypse would make you go outside. After you fight out to a not-so-friendly zombie pizza-man you carry your weight to the evac shelter with two of your most precious possessions. A laptop computer, because the internet was built PRECISELY to survive even doomsday scenarios (right… right?) and a pair of sunglasses, to protect your eyes from the merciless sun. Most of your life you’ve been (mentally) preparing yourself for this event (or for the menace of an evil rogue AI, or an alien invasion, or…). Make it count.

Equipment: jeans, t shirt, sneakers, laptop computer, sunglasses.

NOTES: Computer skill should be at least 3. We’re talking about someone that definitely knows “how to browse the web”.

[hr]

Hipster

Points: 2 (maybe 3)

You always knew you were a breed apart, probably superior, definitely more intellectual than the rest. And now the World has decided to agree with you! You’re surrounded by zombies. Real ones! Isn’t that ironic? With that said… circumstances might have forced you to become just a simple survivor of the zombie apocalypse (really?), and you will be, but just ironically. You run to the evac shelter with a self-sufficient smile in your face. The zombies surely won’t get it.

Equipment: jeans, t shirt/dress shirt, sneakers/boots, eyeglasses/sunglasses, scarf, messenger bag.

NOTES: I think the innate fashion sense of a hipster wouldn’t allow him/her to go out without kitting properly up, even in a zombie apocalypse. More than likely he/she was wearing all that already.

6

Many of these ideas seem either overpowered or silly and without clear purpose.

I like the Band Member suggestion by Slax and the Plumber suggestion by MassiveEffectz. I dont think proffesions should give skills or modify attributes, but giving them negative/positive traits like those we can start with sounds legitimate.

More suggestions:

Burglar +2
Starts with a hammer, picklock kit, hoodie, tank top, jeans, sneakers, light gloves, pocket knife, matches and fanny pack.

This would be useful for players who want to penetrate deep into town early on.

Backpacker +2
Starts with a rain coat, T-shirt, jeans, socks, boots, military rucksack, matches, pocket knife, plastic canteen of water and a bedroll.

A good choice for players who want to go off into the wild early on.

Security Guard +1
Starts with a holster, Sweater, shirt, pants, socks, boots, nightstick, two-way radio and caffine pills.

Starting with a holster early basically equates to free storage you otherwise wouldn’t have, and caffine pills will help with the first raiding and offset the disadvantage of not starting with sneakers. Nightstick would be a fairly good blunt weapon to start with (though no pocket knife or matches).

7

I really wanted to start a professional thread, but the comical value was too great.

Heres a realistic setup

Hiker
Costs 2 points
Starts with a back-pack and boots.

8

[quote=“sodapop, post:3, topic:748”]Tailor:
Stitching more than just wounds.
Start with fitted dress/suit depending on sex (Would only be balanced if the Dress was made better because right now the Suit is superior)
start with a handful of rags, leather patches, a pair of scissors, and a sewing kit, maybe a ‘Sew What?’ book. Useful for crafting your own starting outfit right off the bat. Cost perhaps 2 points?[/quote]

Added this one with some modifications. I thought it was thematic, interesting, and easy to add with the current framework.

Speaking of which, other people can feel free to add professions, too - all it takes is editing data/raw/professions.json. Submitting a patch (aka pull request) via Github gives you the highest chance of inclusion, followed by posting the JSON for your profession, followed by posting ideas. Basically, if you do some or all of the work for us, there’s a better chance of it making it into the official version :).

9

[quote=“Soron, post:8, topic:748”][quote=“sodapop, post:3, topic:748”]Tailor:
Stitching more than just wounds.
Start with fitted dress/suit depending on sex (Would only be balanced if the Dress was made better because right now the Suit is superior)
start with a handful of rags, leather patches, a pair of scissors, and a sewing kit, maybe a ‘Sew What?’ book. Useful for crafting your own starting outfit right off the bat. Cost perhaps 2 points?[/quote]

Added this one with some modifications. I thought it was thematic, interesting, and easy to add with the current framework.

Speaking of which, other people can feel free to add professions, too - all it takes is editing data/raw/professions.json. Submitting a patch (aka pull request) via Github gives you the highest chance of inclusion, followed by posting the JSON for your profession, followed by posting ideas. Basically, if you do some or all of the work for us, there’s a better chance of it making it into the official version :).[/quote]

Hey cool, I like it when people enjoy my suggestions.

I just thought this thread was for people to get ideas to mod their own professions in, since that sort of thing is apparently doable now without actually coding? I haven’t messed with it myself, but I already debug spawned myself certain gear to fit various roles even before the professions system was in place. I actually did that with the tailor, and she did SURPRISINGLY well with beating zombies to death using her high heels before getting cornered in a gas station bathroom after i’d managed to gear up.

In the other Professions thread I might see if I can figure out how to code these in and provide links or paste-able code swatches for you guys, either to make them official or just for private use more easily.

10

IMO, there’s no reason NOT to submit your stuff for inclusion on the grounds that you’re “just a player”. I mean, I’m just a player who decided to fix a bug, and then kept hacking on the project.

Also, just to reiterate: if you give us something that can just be pasted in, it’s much more likely to get included (less work for us). Submitting it via Github is even better, of course, but I don’t necessarily expect non-coders to be familiar with that.

11

Is there a list of all the item names somewhere to work from?

12

Grab the source and look in the file itypedef.cpp. You’ll see a bunch of lines that say something like “TOOL(…”, “BOOK(…”, “FOO(…”, which are what you’re looking for. They all start with two names. The second of those two names is the user-facing name, whereas the first of those two names is the one that professions.json (and the rest of the code) expects to see.

Here’s an example, the fire extinguisher:

TOOL("extinguisher", "fire extinguisher",20,700,';', c_red,	IRON,	MNULL,
// VOL WGT DAM CUT HIT MAX DEF USE SEC FUEL	REVERT	  FUNCTION
   16, 20, 26,  0, -1,  80, 80, 1,  0, AT_NULL, "null", &iuse::extinguisher,0,
"Use a fire extinguisher to put out adjacent fires.");

So, if you want to give your profession a fire extinguisher to start with, you’d write “extinguisher” in the appropriate place.

(now I’m wondering if I should start up a modding Q&A thread, incidentally)