Tips, Tricks and Newb Questions: Reborn!

I used it to free people from mi-go towers and encampments it destroyed the walls easily (the most it took to destroy a wall was 4 uses (most of the time it took only 1)

You must mean the resin cages, the resin walls have str_min 250 and there’s no way resonator works unless I’m missing something.

yeah, I am an idiot.

When ramming something that spawns useful things (including corpses you want to butcher) with a vehicle, remember that wheels damage and eventually destroy everything that goes under them.

and road rollers do a lot more damage than others

Remember that wheels destroy items underneath them making them quite effective waste dispels.

Yes, I’ve found that things (that I don’t care about) have been destroyed by running over them.

Next question: How can you deal with heat in summer? As far as I’ve read, and think I’ve seen, being in a vehicle (with 3*3 roof coverage centered on PC?) activates an implicit aircon/heater, and being underground is chilly. However, when out in the field that’s not practical, as many vehicles morph when not driving in a cardinal direction, and just sitting it out, waiting for the over heating indication to go away and fading to comfortable, is rather boring (assuming it works).
My current situation is an example of that: Having walked a bit (essentially naked, carrying combat gear) my character went on a trip in a car (no road access to the “base” apart from through the z infested larger town), a fair distance in my (probably early) terms, and found I couldn’t pass the razor claws camping beside the road (I’d hoped to be able to drive past without angering them). My character geared up and wiped out about half of them with a bow and some manoevering to recover arrows, but when about to tackle the rest “Warm” changed to “Very hot”, and it became time to try to handle the heat somehow. The razor claws aren’t even my objective, but rather an obstacle on the road to a town that seems to have some useful stores (and, I presume, is crawling with zombies). This means I’d expect to see more fighting when actually reaching the objective. That, however, doesn’t work if I can’t even get there without getting overheated (once in the town I assume it might be possible to find and clear out a basement for cooling down (bring a book!), once a path has been cleared to that basement.

Edit:
Another question: Where can I find what the restrictions are for what you can mount on various vehicle frames?
Background:
I’m considering building a stationary “vehicle” to house all kinds of crafting, as a luxury RV is a bit small to deal with all needs. Since it’s not intended to take any kind of abuse, I’d prefer to make each section as cheaply and quickly as possible, which would mean a light wooden frame most of the time. My understanding is that as long as the doors are closed and there is a roof above, the temperature is kept in check, and so I can build it above ground. If not I’ll have to go below ground and wait until I can get hold of extended jumper cables.
I think I’ve seen that you need a heavy frame to mount truck wheels as an example of a restriction (which wouldn’t affect my current application, of course).

First, ill say that heat being a problem in summer is realistic. I was sweating like a dog today wearing everyday clothes tossing trash into a dumpster for 10 mins. I couldn’t imagine dodging monsters and shooting arrows at them wouldn’t get me sweaty. That being said, the penalties for getting too hot can be a little overboard.

2nd, don’t forget you can always sleep during the day and work at night. Night-vision googles or something similar would be needed, but it is doable. If daytime is a must, your best bet for dealing is to make sure your wearing proper armor. I know you have said before there were issues in that area, but maybe things have improved by now. The better armor you can make/find typically doesn’t need to be layered much at all, making it more heat efficient. For example, the Heavy Survivor Suit offers great protection with only 15 warmth (boxer shorts are 5, for comparison). Also, make sure what you have on needs to be on. Take off that welding mask, drop backpacks, don’t wear clothing that offers no protection, like socks or underpants/shirts. Every little bit will count.

Inside of a vehicle, “vehicle cooler” car part acts as an air conditioner that can be left on to keep you nice and comfortable. The recipe is written down in a book that shouldn’t be hard to find.

As for what can be mounted on frames, I have to say I didn’t know there were limitations at all. Building a pseudo-vehicle-workshop-house-thing should be very doable with just wooden frames. If not, light frames should be just about everywhere. But make sure you have the large “panels” to actually act as walls, not quarter panels. Also, keep in mind that there can be some wonkyness in regards to the reality bubble. The more you come and go from being close enough to your car-fort, the more likely things like frozen foods can unfreeze and rot on you.

Thanks.

Night vision is not visible on the crafting radar yet, so night time is out of the question. My character basically relies on using a bow and luring away enemies one or a few at a time, kill them, recover the arrows, repeat. The armor situation has improved a bit, and I can produce some survival gear (I’ve found a single fire truck’s worth of gear so far, so supplies are limited). Silicochitin armor seems fairly reasonable, and I’ve just made a full set of that, only to get the rude surprise that it actually didn’t protect against the blasted acid from acid ants (reading indicates the protection value has to be 5 as a minimum). With that armor I shed the metal arm guards and greaves which probably doesn’t provides much heat, but they certainly have weight.

I’m basically operating in three modes:

  1. Combat mode: Armor, bow, arrows, spear. Almost no carrying capacity.
  2. Home on the ranch: Naked with backpack (and a saxophone), plus the bow, spear, and some tools.
  3. Gathering stuff: Combat mode + backpack, with spear wielded rather than bow, in case nasties are encountered in buildings and cellars. Traveling to and from the area of operation the armor is carried rather than worn.

Looks like I have to try to make the survivor gear (and it’s bewildering with the different versions, but I guess I’ll aim for the heavy variant).

It can be noted that I didn’t aim to use the silico chitin armor to attack the hive (I suspect that’s suicidal at my “level”), but rather to be able to actually fight ants at close quarter when encountered in buildings being explored.

I’ve had one reality bubble gotcha where I removed 6 raw sausages from the fridge to cook them, but when trying to do that I was met by the message that they were rotten (that was the very next action: my character didn’t move or do anything else). That’s also when I learned that you can cook items that are still in the fridge (which I successfully did with the remaining 4 sausages from the same batch).

“…Home on the ranch: Naked with backpack (and a saxophone)…”

President Clinton, is that you?!? :grin:

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The armor you have is pretty solid, the only downside being the 90% coverage. If you didn’t know, less raw # are ok if you get better coverage %. Some of the hits that go through that 10% can be nasty. Night vision googles can be found, not sure if crafted, but they can open up a whole new world for you.

Actually, you might be expecting too much vis-à-vis heat and combat if you’re getting too hot wearing the chitin armor. The Survivor gear can be almost OP, but it won’t keep you any cooler. There is a CBM that can help, if you ever get that far ( I hardly ever do ) but being hot and sweaty while fighting is going to happen. The vehicle cooler could help a lot though, get rid of the heat faster.

Yeah anything that isn’t 100% can’t be trusted. Stuff with minimal encumbrance (but low coverage) like elbow/knee pads are good only as supplementary armor. Also, don’t be a dummy like me and forget eye coverage. You can end up blinded by ordinary attacks. I recommend ballistic glasses. Dunno if this has been mentioned but mouth encumbrance is extremely debilitating since it lowers stamina recovery. Be careful with that, it’s a much bigger deal than encumbrance anywhere else. Mouth encumbrance is the one thing keeping me from being an unstoppable monster in an unpowered rm13 suit.

Somewhat related, can you walk in acid with 90-95% feet coverage? If not that’s kinda stupid. I don’t remember exactly.

IDK about that actually, I avoid acid like people should be avoiding plagues. Cataclysm has rifles in it for a reason, and acid ants are one of them.

no it requires 100%, I just tested. (survivor boots with 1 acid protection, 100% coverage, no acid damage) (bioliscified chitin boots 95% coverage, 4 acid protection, took acid damage)

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Yeah, I thought as much. Thanks for checking. What is even the point of having acid protection on shoes with less than 100%? Seems like an oversight to me.

Thanks for the answers.

@Sediment: Jeremy Harris isn’t named Clinton, the intern is named Cecil Saldivar, and the relation is strictly at the level of friendly.

If you require 100% coverage to get acid protection then claiming something that won’t be dissolved together with you has acid protection doesn’t really match up, I fully agree with that.

Acid ants aren’t that much of a problem in the open when you can engage them at range, but your rifle (or my bow) won’t help you that much when you descend into a cellar and is greeted by “baaarf!”.

The point about coverage is very useful, as it isn’t obvious that it’s an important factor, and I had no idea about the mouth encumbrance either.

Edit: Heavy Survival Boots do NOT protect against acid ant acid, as I just stupidly tested (without saving immediately before the test). Thus, I assume the thread that mentioned a minimum protection value of 5 to be (reasonably?) safe is more correct. Ah well, hopefully the heavy survival gear is good against regular damage…

Heavy Survivor Suit is strong enough that you could play dodgeball with zombie hulks. As the ball. At least for a while. I’ve been punted through walls and fought hulks hand-to-hand and won. Low-tier non-special zombies basically can’t hurt you with HSS on.

As for downsides:

  • Stuff like Hulks and Skele Juggs can, and will get through the armor.
  • Acid. HSS alone won’t protect you.
  • Special attacks, like Zombie Predators’ chest stab that I believe ignores defense.

When testing (not expecting to succeed) I found that it doesn’t hold up to a razerclaw alpha either. I’m still not going to let regular zombies close unless I have to, though, at least until I get confident (I DO have a need to train melee abilities, though).

Heavy survivor armor is some of the most OPed armor in the game, but it will still not make you invincible to some of the heavier hitting monsters. Alpha razorclaws are among those hard hitting monsters, in fact their max and average damage is higher than that of a hulk! You won’t be tanking that in anything less than power armor, so don’t be quick to write off survivor gear, it completely trivializes most non elemental zombies.

I’m certainly not writing the heavy survivor armor off. It’s the best I can see at my current point. I did find, however, that it’s not resistant to a recurve bow (which I found early on) broadhead arrow, as my companion foolishly decided to place himself between my character and the target (26 points, I think, to chest).
The zombies I had to fight hand to hand didn’t harm my character, but did nick some gear (easily repaired).

When it comes to heat management, it seems going on an expedition early in the morning can give me a few hours of fighting time before the heat starts to demand breaks. I sure would want a stage between “warm” and “hot and taking damage”, though.