Quick Guide: Constructible Storage

Game Talk The Bunker
1

I wrote this because I noticed an appalling lack of at-a-glance information on storage furniture - IE, area things which hold your stuff, and which may or may not block either or both of vision or pathing, and which may or may not reveal their contents unless you are adjacent.

Note: For crafting purposes, you can use objects inside distant vision-blockers like crates! As long as it’s within 4 squares of you, you’re good.

Conclusion: Dressers are the ideal storage device for the interior of your crafting lair (IE, the 9x9 square with you at the center,) as they do not block sight, letting you draw LoS to more distant containers and make use of their contents as well. Bookcases and Lockers (your choice; down to whichever you have more of and whether or not you want to see the last thing you put in) are as good but no better than dressers in terms of storage on the outside perimeter of your crafting lair, but not good inside it as they will block LoS. Display Racks are your only craftable choice if you want something you can see the contents of at a distance that does not block LoS, but you lose 250L of storage volume for that privilege.

Free
Bare floor: 1,000 Liters, blocks nothing, can see contents at a distance.

Things you can construct
Display Rack: 1,750 Liters, does not block sight, blocks movement, can see contents at a distance.
Locker: 2,000 Liters, blocks sight, blocks movement, can not see contents at a distance.
Bookcase: 2,000 Liters, blocks sight, blocks movement, can see contents at a distance.
Dresser: 2,000 Liters, does not block sight, blocks movement, can not see contents at a distance.
Coffin: 1,000 Liters, blocks sight, blocks movement, can not see contents at a distance, can be nailed shut. Functionally identical to Crate except worse because it requires sheets or blankets. Use for decoration only.
Open Crate: 1,000 Litres, blocks movement, can not see contents at a distance. You can seal it up with nails if you want to.
Table: 1,000 Litres, blocks nothing, can see contents at a distance. Not superior to the floor; use only for decoration/organization/zombie delay barricades.
Counter: 1,000 Litres, blocks nothing, can see contents at a distance. Functionally identical to Table.
Cupboard: 1,000 Litres, blocks nothing, can not see contents at a distance. Superior to the floor only if you hate seeing objects spread out randomly.

Not really containers but can be constructed for useful purposes anyway:
Wood Stove: 1,000 Liters, blocks nothing, can not see contents at a distance.
Fireplace: 1,000 Liters, blocks nothing, can not see contents at a distance.

Things you can not construct:

Refrigerator 1,750 Liters, Blocks Everything, can not see contents at a Distance.
Glass-Door Refrigerator: 1,750 Liters, Blocks Everything, can see contents at a Distance.

Sink: 1,000 Liters, blocks nothing, can not see contents at a distance.
Oven: 1,000 Liters, blocks nothing, can not see contents at a distance.
Shower: 1,000 Liters, blocks nothing, can not see contents at a distance.
Bathtub: 1,000 Liters, blocks nothing, can not see contents at a distance.
Trashcan: 1,000 Liters, blocks nothing, can not see contents at a distance.
Desk: 1,000 Liters, blocks nothing, can not see contents at a distance.
Dumpster: 1,000 Liters, blocks nothing, can not see contents at a distance.
Dryer: 1,000 Liters, blocks nothing, can not see contents at a distance.
Washing Machine: 1,000 Liters, blocks nothing, can not see contents at a distance.

Parting thought: The lack of a glass-doored locker-equivalent item makes itself apparent, as does the bewildering inability to construct desks. If you’re willing to cheat a little, the debug menu lets you build desks and glass-doored fridges.

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2

This is pretty sweet man I just started building my first Cata-car. Am I able to place lockers or bookcases inside of the car.

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You are not.

To the best of my knowledge, the very best in vehicular storage is the ‘Cargo Space,’ with a meagre 250L storage. The rest is even lower, even Stow Board, which can not be seen/moved over.

4

Damn. For now I’ve got a portable welder and a shopping cart basket. You seem pretty well read on Cataclysm.

If I read a book and it has recipes do I automatically learn those when I finish the book? Or do I just have a chance to learn them?

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If you have a welder, I would suggest trying to find a shopping trolley and a farm-truck - the ones with the six cargo spaces in the back - and putting the cargo space on the shopping trolley instead of its basket. That would give you five times the storage space in your kart.

And you do not learn recipes by reading books. You can use the book as reference material whilst making the recipe. When you do that, there’s a chance you’ll memorize the recipe.

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keep ALL yellow books with you. yellow means “unable to gain skill from but still contains unmemorized recipes”. when you craft something that is in a book you get a chance to memorize it.

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Note that the big drawback of the cargo space is that it’s terribly slow to move over. Floor trunks hold only 87.5L but don’t slow you down, making them a good choice for aisles where you’ll have to walk.

8

If the speed at which you can hop over your cargo spaces is an issue, something is very wrong with the way you’re building your Trukk, in my opinion. But then, I’m working out of a homebase and coming back to it, so I don’t need literally every imaginable space filled full; I fill the cargo hold, I come home, I sort my loot.

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I’m using a Luxury RV, 5x12 or so tiles now. I inadvisably replaced some of the floor trunks I had previously been using in the aisle with cargo spaces. At the time I didn’t realize just how bad the speed penalty was. It seems worse than doors and trunks, and recently it was a problem when I was awakened by something outside bashing on the vehicle – a zed had broken the camera so I couldn’t just flip on the camera controls and shoot him with a turret while still in bed, but rather had to jump out and go kill him. The slowness of moving past the cargo spaces gave him time to smash a floodlight and nearly bust a solar panel too.
I need to rearrange things, but it’s a pain because I’ve got a bunch of stuff in those cargo spaces now. I figured I’d warn other folks not to do the same dumb thing I did.

10

Try redundant cameras, armor plating on things hard to replace (like cameras,) move your solars inboard from your hull boards, and last but not least - automatic turrets with mounted M2 Browning HMGs.

That last is gross overkill on literally anything short of a brute, but…

11

Well thanks guys I appreciate all the feed back right now I have an electric golf cart “Vanwelder” I call it. Luckily I held on to my yellow and pink books.

12

Niice.

Me, I have a two-ton heavy thing with twin V8 diesel engines, but we all start somewhere, right?

Just remember to install a seatbelt! Preferably a 5-point racing harness, which is made from Long Rope.

You DO NOT want to go flying, road-traffic collision is absurdly - realistically - lethal in CDDA. That’s how my first survivor died.

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If you’re using PK’s rebalance it’s the Stabalized Portal at 200000L :smiley: Extremely late game crafting requirements.

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Yeah, the problem is lack of tiles to add extra stuff on. Every extra camera tile means either removing a floodlight (rendering the camera useless at night) or a solar panel. I’ve got reinforced upgraded ones on the outside, so they don’t get broken too much. It’s mostly the floodlights that break all the time. A monster so much as sneezes at one of my floodlights and it breaks.

I’ll have to see about armoring the tiles they’re on. I’d like to lower my weight actually, but if it saves me enough trouble with crafting and replacing those things it might be worth it.

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16

what are you doing that you need that much solar for? i have the inner area solar paneled up and i never run out of juice, unless you are doing electric engines?

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Lol seatbelt was the second thing I i stalled after solar panels and the storage.

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i dont get why people would sit in one pleace and… get that much stuff? just go from town to town and see how long you can survice, i think its more fun (says the one who only recently knows how to play on normal world settings whitout dyng)

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Well, I’ve got a minifridge (but that’s trivial at this point), a large electric motor pushing roughly 20 thousand pounds of vehicle, a UPS charger for all my tools (as I can’t spare the tiles for stuff like the chemistry station and etc), a cable charging system for my bionics, and the biggest consumer of power, a pair of A7 laser rifles set to auto-target and full auto.
When driving past an anthill or a slime pit, or pushing into a town center, I can run through two whole storage batteries easy. More power is always better, though, because it saves me having to turn on the reactor and burn precious plutonium when the horde starts piling up and necromancers begin raising the ones in front, eating more shots.
At the moment I can drive in sunny weather with almost no loss of power, but poor weather will start to chew through batteries if I don’t use diesel or nuclear.

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Name Capacity, liters Blocks sight? Blocks movement? Can see contents in distance? Is constructible? Comments
Bare floor 1000 no no yes yes -
Display Rack 1750 no yes yes yes -
Locker 2000 yes yes no yes -
Bookcase 2000 yes yes yes yes -
Dresser 2000 no yes no yes -
Coffin 1000 yes yes no yes Can be nailed shut. Functionally identical to Crate (except worse because it requires sheets or blankets to construct). Use for decoration only.
Open Crate 1000 no yes no yes You can seal it up with nails if you want to.
Table 1000 no no yes yes Not superior to the floor. Use only for decoration/organization/zombie delay/barricades.
Counter 1000 no no yes yes Functionally identical to Table.
Cupboard 1000 no no no yes Superior to the floor only if you hate seeing objects spread out randomly.
Wood Stove 1000 no no no yes -
Fireplace 1000 no no no yes -
Refrigerator 1750 yes yes no no -
Glass-Door Refrigerator 1750 yes yes yes no -
Sink 1000 no no no no -
Oven 1000 no no no no -
Shower 1000 no no no no -
Bathtub 1000 no no no no -
Trashcan 1000 no no no no -
Desk 1000 no no no no -
Dumpster 1000 no no no no -
Dryer 1000 no no no no -
Washing Machine 1000 no no no no -
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