I’d like to start a !!SCIENCE!! board, specifically to determine certain effects within the game.
IE: Weaponizing fire to be efficient and ‘controlled’ (see: burns almost everything)
efficient building practices for vehicles (X engine consumes Y fuel for every Z kg or steel frames can withstand ramming into a build at X mph)
Methods for Kitting zombies and their friends
etc etc.
This is not a “aww dude, i did this and it totally worked!!”
this is more of a “Place 2 sticks in a pile, 7 tiles long, light the middle stick when z’s are 8 tiles away and you’ve created a wall of fire” (tested a few times, works 70% of the time with spectacular results after a sizeable horde has accumulated)
I was going through a really bad time and discovered this:
Have Web Weaver.
Have the mini-flamethrower, a lighter, matchbook, etc. I used the flamethrower but anything should do.
Kite a couple enemies toward you- set a few blocks of web on fire and run away.
Since not every space walked produces a web, it’s hardly that dangerous. The tile you set on fire has a “fire” while all the others are “small fires” but almost anything that goes through the gauntlet dies.
If you don’t have Web Weaver, dropping 2x4’s on the ground works in a pinch, just takes more time.
Cleared out half a town without a weapon this way.
Do be very careful with fire around any area you frequent regularly as a web weaver, though. I’ve nearly killed myself before by causing flash fires in my own base with my own webs.
An easy way to clear a small town is to get a motorcycle with no muffler, drive around the town until you have every zombie you can find following you, and then lure them to a gas station. Place a noise emitter once you park your bike safely on the other side of the station, and lob a molotov at the tanks.
I don’t believe there’s any great need for an investigation of fuel efficiency since gasoline is very plentiful, multiple gas tanks can be installed and keeping a few steel jerries full of gas in the trunk is a no-brainer.
I think something to do with vehicle construction would be more valuable, in the event that the player must cobble weld together a starter vehicle out of compressed scraps and abandoned bicycle wheels for example. It might be nice to optimize for a zed-proof cab to sleep in, a design which can survive high-speed collisions, a getaway car that can save the player when their speed has been dramatically reduced, the tradeoff between storage and engine performance, et cetera.
Well, i fear that plentiful gas may not be a long lasting solution as the devs plan on nerfing that a bit (i don’t know to what levels but it may be quite a bit.)
How heavy of a vehicle do you need to smash through a house and keep going? and at what speeds?
Yeah right now the “best human skill” is sort of balanced for a skill level of 10, so once you get above that then you are moving into the superhuman range (or at least that’s the current balance documentation, who knows what the older code is balanced towards :P).
Combat code has been balanced for 10-12 as top/line for a while, IIRC: you can get your mutation-based attacks out every turn with 10 DX and that much Unarmed skill.
Well, eastern lite cavalry messed up quite a few armies of medieval knights with their javelins. They were so heavy that they were ment only for close combat, and yes, they penetrated a full set of plates.
So if you wanna know, throwing a coin off a twelve story building cannot kill a human being. But if I am a super-owner-of-the-world and with my STR 15 wield one big car wheel in every hand, I’m expected to kill seven zombies in front of me in this round.
And you can make paper planes out of wrappers or slash the Zs with your big toenail - know this - sledge was the most terrible of gear in Fallout. And it’s a bloody rock. (!)
