So where are we heading?

[Justin_Case]

I picked up cataclysm a couple of months ago and since then, it has become my favorite game. Im missing from contemporary games, that involve imagination and immersion. So congrats to everybody involved in the Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead project. I still dont know a lot of things how to do stuff (for example base related things), but i have evolved into a competent survivor. I usually set up a couple of characters into the same world and try to rally them to the same spot, and establish a stronghold. I was wondering where does the development going? what are now the focuses, cause i have some questions:

-is it possible to transport a character? What i mean, that two characters are in the same world. One character ends his turn (saves and quit) in a car, on the passenger seat. The other character gets into the same car, as the driver and drives to a different location. Ends his turn (save and quit). First character on the passenger seats loads the game, and is on the new location where the car is now. Rightnow the character stays at the spot, even if the car has been moved.

-Is it possible to make multiple player character exist in the same world? If I play characterA and move in the generated world, I can bumb into characterB as a stationary NPC.

I have to admit, that i dont posses any coding skills or experience, but i was thinking about possible functions to existing things, but I dont know where i could post about this. If anybody would be so kind to point me to the right direction, would be aprecitiated

[X-PLODE]

No to everything.

[TheFlame52]

The direction we’re heading is ‘whichever direction the folks making PRs feel like heading’. Note that there are over 300 contributors, though nearly all of them are inactive.

[RedPine]

Huh, I never thought of intentionally making multiple simultaneous characters and basing all of them at the same location. That sounds pretty cool, both gameplay wise and RP wise.

As for the development, expect a major update to stable every 6-12 months. Don’t worry, it will take 1-3 years to experience all the content the current game has to offer. If you like playing with stuff that updates more often, try the experimental builds.

There’s probably a way to spawn NPC’s with stats and traits that match your other characters, so you could bring them into your world that way. There are probably ways to teleport your characters if you want to “move” them in a van, but tbh I haven’t looked into file editing or the debug menu yet.

[X-PLODE]

As for the development, expect a major update to stable every 6-12 months.

Lol.

[PlasmaChroma]

If only it was anywhere near getting a new stable 0.D release.

Site has 0.C listed as 2015-03-11. So we are 605 days past the last stable… 1 year 7 months and 25 days past.

[Justin_Case]

Thanks for the answer guys. I also havent tried the debug menu, but strolling through the topics, made it clear its useful. Sorry to hear that the developers are currently inactive. How complicated is to edit json files? I dont have any coding skills as i stated before, but im willing to invest some time and energy to get some basics. Im also thinking to give a look on the language and translate some of it to hungarian. That would be sweet I was wondering is there a possibility, to implement more descriptive text to the game. For instance “you hear the wind howling” or “you hear zombies growling”? And is it possible to add a 'journal"? You could write anything that you want and could save it to txt file…

And a really dumb question…
how the f.ck do you make screenshots from the game?

[hexman]

[quote=“Justin Case, post:7, topic:12864”]And a really dumb question…
how the f.ck do you make screenshots from the game?[/quote]

Most Linux distros include a screenshot utility (like GNOME-Screenshot) by default which can be activated by pressing Print Scr. (“Print Screen”). A distro-independent solution would be Shutter (http://shutter-project.org/). If you prefer using a terminal then you can use fbgrab (https://fbgrab.monells.se), it can even take screenshots of linux-framebuffers (virtual-terminals, etc).

On Windows you can press Print-Scr. to copy the whole screen to the clipboard and use a graphics-program like MS-Paint to paste it and save as a .png image (or whatever). You can even take screenshot of the CMD.EXE terminal this way (if you still use it ).

Mac OS and OS X should have similar solutions but I don’t know about them.

The Linux solutions should work fine for any *BSD.

[Shopkeeper]

Sorry to hear that the developers are currently inactive.

Those 100+ individuals are mostly contributors. You’ll be lucky if a fraction of them have added anything really substantial. There are 5-6 really active developers that do the majority of the grunt work for major revisions to the game.

[quote=“Justin Case, post:7, topic:12864”]And a really dumb question…
how the f.ck do you make screenshots from the game?[/quote]

If you’re gonna post any screenshots please use ‘Alt + Prnt Screen’ and click on the active Cataclysm window. That way people don’t cram threads full of desktop sized images.

[Justin_Case]

well i was thinking to write some stories about life in the world after the cataclysm… what mods do you guys advise to use? i use the ones comeing with the unstable release. Im only playing that. Whats the difference between the two version?

[sacrier133]

well i was thinking to write some stories about life in the world after the cataclysm… what mods do you guys advise to use? i use the ones comeing with the unstable release. Im only playing that. Whats the difference between the two version?

Stable and the “experimental”? Well, stable is a good… Well pointed out earlier in the thread almost two years old in a few months. Experimental has a /lot/ more in it, and personally I recommend it over stable any day of the week. But just be aware that the experimental easily has updates every day or few days. If you want to do experimental I also highly recommend the cataclysm dda launcher https://www.reddit.com/r/cataclysmdda/comments/3yv7d7/cdda_game_launcher_automatic_updates_and_more/ to keep things nice and fresh/updated if you want.

[Justin_Case]

Thanks for the info guys… i also prefer the unstable release. it seems more frequently polished. Whats the longest you guys have survived?

[sacrier133]

Well… I’m hitting the point where I’ve survived a year and a season. So I think this is the longest I’ve survived. I’m terrible at the game though so I’m sure someone has had characters survive for years.

[TheFlame52]

MMR has survived over ten years. I doubled the season lengths and now he’s only in year 5.

[sacrier133]

MMR has survived over ten years. I doubled the season lengths and now he’s only in year 5.

Any tips? At one year I don’t really have much in the way of combat stats because I try to avoid combat, now I’m facing scary things like hulks/masters/shocker brutes more often and I can only resort to blasting their faces with a shotgun a few times for fear of being mauled. Should I create a training pit or does that have very little return for the effort?

[snow_dwarf]

If you are on Windows there is a much better way to take screens. Find a thing called, I think, cutting tool open it and you should be able to figure it out from there. Windows tools are under-used.

[mlangsdorf]

Any tips? At one year I don’t really have much in the way of combat stats because I try to avoid combat, now I’m facing scary things like hulks/masters/shocker brutes more often and I can only resort to blasting their faces with a shotgun a few times for fear of being mauled. Should I create a training pit or does that have very little return for the effort?

Picking up melee after a year is going to be hard, but not impossible.
Start with books - you should have plenty, use those to get you up to level 3.
Craft good weapons and armor - a steel spear and survivor gear at a minimum.
Use NPCs for teaching - teaching is fast and should get you up to level 4-6 without much difficulty.
Melee in safe spaces - mansions have predictable zombies. Hospitals will mostly have acid and boomer zombies - you can melee them with proper armor and come out okay. Use those spaces to train up to fighting nastier monsters.

[TheFlame52]

[quote=“TheFlame52, post:14, topic:12864”]MMR has survived over ten years. I doubled the season lengths and now he’s only in year 5.

Any tips? At one year I don’t really have much in the way of combat stats because I try to avoid combat, now I’m facing scary things like hulks/masters/shocker brutes more often and I can only resort to blasting their faces with a shotgun a few times for fear of being mauled. Should I create a training pit or does that have very little return for the effort?[/quote]
Honestly, my biggest tip would have been to get some BUFFS!!. But they got removed. MMR is a relic from when characters were more powerful, before the time of the Great Nerfing.

Invest in a doomcar and cover it in turrets. Get some RM13 armor, that stuff is amazing. Get an A7 laser rifle and a shitload of bionic power.

[Zanos]

[quote=“sacrier133, post:15, topic:12864”][quote=“TheFlame52, post:14, topic:12864”]MMR has survived over ten years. I doubled the season lengths and now he’s only in year 5.

Any tips? At one year I don’t really have much in the way of combat stats because I try to avoid combat, now I’m facing scary things like hulks/masters/shocker brutes more often and I can only resort to blasting their faces with a shotgun a few times for fear of being mauled. Should I create a training pit or does that have very little return for the effort?[/quote]
Honestly, my biggest tip would have been to get some BUFFS!!. But they got removed. MMR is a relic from when characters were more powerful, before the time of the Great Nerfing.

Invest in a doomcar and cover it in turrets. Get some RM13 armor, that stuff is amazing. Get an A7 laser rifle and a shitload of bionic power.[/quote]
Wasn’t RM13 armor nerfed into the ground?

I’ve had success personally with heavy survivor gear with flame resistant gear underneath, a duster, and various holsters. The pneumatic bolt driver is really cheap to craft ammo for, and headshots will kill most enemies in one shot. Keep an automagnum(and some magazines) in a holster so you have a backup if the bolt driver runs out of ammo and it’s too nasty to reload, or something dangerous spawns and you need to drop it fast. 8x40m HVP rounds will kill pretty much anything in that gun.

If you have a lot of ammo, you can use a rifle instead as your primary weapon. A modded SCAR-H with 7.62x51 incendiary rounds is extremely accurate for single shots and has a good burst if you need to dump a lot of death at something quickly. Also supports drum magazines. Kind of makes the automagnum redundant, but I keep it anyway just in case.

Your murderbus should be fully coated in military composite plating, and is kind of always a work in progress. I haven’t found turrets strictly necessary, but my preferred setup for these is extremely heavy with tons of armor. Put the necessary parts in there to support life, solar panels/funnels on top, kitchen units/buddies/welders/forges/chemistry/etc. and you can pretty much keep an endless supply of dehydrated meats/veggies and clean water.

[TheFlame52]

Before I nearly died to a bunch of bandits wielding M4A1s. With the RM13 I can shrug off their bullets like it’s nothing.