Tips, Tricks and Newb Questions: Reborn!

Thanks for the information. If I find a CVD machine I might just spawn in a +2 for testing to confirm.

In any case, I usually ‘cheat’ a little and turn on color coded map tiles so I can see which forest tiles are actually different vs normal tiles.

So far I usually just find demon spiders or whatever, not super fun to deal with.

In any case, I’m not worried or scared of anything in the game, my current character is way too overpowered to care. Though I will keep an eye out since it’s unknown territory that I’m poking through.

tryna start a Mycus cult with npcs. how do I go down the Mycus mutation route?

Next question: How does the zone hierarchy work?
I know of the zone manager and i sort of get it to work (although weird things happen [companions finishing dismantling vehicles and then proceeding to “sort” things into weird locations that are not loot zones {with those locations being the same ones, rather than random locations}, or items into Unsorted zones]). However, there’s some implicit zone type hierarchy at work with zones, but I don’t know the details.

  • If I have a food zone, but no perishable food zone, all food seems to end up in the more generic one (rather than the perishables not being placed in any zone at all).
  • The same goes with dirty and clean clothing/armor.
  • I found that corpses ended up in the Other zone (rather than being left where they were) when no corpse zone was set up, so the Other zone is apparently part of some kind of hierarchy, but it seems some kinds of items won’t be placed in the Other zone even if they don’t have any of their own (and maps don’t even belong to any of the zone types, but still won’t go into Other).
  • When a zone is full, sorting tends to stop claiming everything has been sorted, leaving items that do have free destination zone space available unsorted (and there’s no indication that sorting is actually aborted rather than done, let alone indicate which item it gave up on [so you can figure out which zone is full]).
  • The sorting option seems to operate within a 60 tile radius centered on the PC, which means the PC has to stand within range of everything to be sorted if companions are to do the sorting, but the PC itself can sort out things in a larger radius because of the movement of the radius while sorting, although it comes down to luck whether the complete intended range is used. As a result of the above, the PC participating in sorting may cut the sorting range.
  • There’s a 60 tile range for “visibility” of a zone from the item to be sorted, so even if the PC is standing at the center of a 120 tile “radius” block, companions can only sort things within that range, so they can shift things from the edges to the center, but not from one edge to the other.
  • Zones on one Z level are not visible from another level, so you can’t auto sort things down into the frost free basement (but root cellars are considered to be surface level tiles, and so, are valid frost free targets).

So, what does the zone hierarchy actually look like, beyond what’s mentioned above?

On top of the above, there are the custom zones. They seem to sort of work in that some stuff end up in them, but they also seem to sort of not work in that some of the things expected to end up in the custom zone seem to end up in the standard zone that would take those items. Does that mean you have to go fully custom to have a custom zone for the custom zone stuff, and an inverted custom zone that is the standard one tailored to explicitly exclude the things meant for the “real” custom zone?

And what happens if two zones (custom or otherwise) permit the same items? I suspect the items are moved to the zone closest to the item’s location, probably respecting zone hierarchies.

Edit: Some gotchas discovered when trying to understand what’s going on using a debugger:

  • If there are several zones of the same type, it’s essentially random which one is used to sort out loot. The closest one does NOT have to be the one selected. In fact I suspect the oldest ones are selected first.
  • The “Y” menu can not be trusted fully. If some but not all tiles for a zone are within range it might not be listed.

I have a game where portians of the map become unexplored Is this intentional or is this a result of me exploring to much of the map. (cut off line is straight so might it have to do with a cetain overmap becoming unexplored?)

Any idea why a skeleton juggernaut is attacking and killing other zombies repeatedly? It doesn’t seem like any of the other zombies are attacking back.

I’m sitting in my vehicle honking the horn to attract them, but to no avail: I’m too far away for them to be aggroed, and the fence around the resort blocks me from driving in (unless I smash it).

I thought it was a gimmic the same way that a hulk might also attack zombies if they are in the way. This is sort of like a smaller zombie getting crushed/hit accidentally as these much larger monstroseties try to move through. I think the same might happen if a bunch of zombie get close together and all try to move in one direction than some might get walked underfoot and get damaged.

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Yup, it’s especially noticeable when there’s a number of zombies trying to get at you through a window, for example.

Thanks to both of you. It sort of explains why many places have a lot of dead zombies in them even though there’s no apparent cause for their termination (I’ve seen some kill themselves by repeatedly getting injured by pits or rubble, but I consider a corpse in such a location to have a cause).

Sadly they can only kill the weaker zombies. So hulks and skeletal juggernauts wound’t ever kill eachother.

Sometimes they also get killed because they start smashing a bulding and it collapses over them.
The zombies will eventually reanimate and get out again, but you’ll notice they won’t have any items on them (and you’ll be forced to dig the rubble to recover them).

Unlike most other zombies, the Skeletal Juggernaut has a ‘Long Reach’ attack (similar to weapons like the Awl Pike). Any zombies standing in the 2 spaces between the SkelJug and it’s target get hit (and commonly killed).

That makes sense for when the skeletal juggernaut has anything to attack, but not while in the middle of a milling horde, unless randomly smashing up the place is considered an attack.

Most common reason for finding lots of dead zombies in a group that YOU did not kill is an Incandescent Husk zombie. It’s electrical field damages/kills every adjacent zombie and since they like to group up you occasionally stumble across the resulting carnage.

What happened to vehicle heaters? I cannot install it anywhere. Tried 5 vehicles, and it doesn’t even show in potentially available parts. Judging by vehicle cooler - which IS shown for some tiles - it should be in utility category but it just isn’t there. Is there some obscure condition preventing its installation, or should I make a bug report?

In my game (0.E2 stable), looking at my current vehicle, I do find vehicle-mounted heater and cooler in the Utility category, as stated, but the heater seems to have some additional conditions, as I can add it to the front corner of the vehicle, but not the side below it, while a cooler can be placed in both locations.
I haven’t tried much beyond that, though.

Vehicle coolers have to be mounted on_roof, so make sure there’s nothing else in that spot.

So, it seems that “location”:“center” allows installing only one thing at it. If you have an aisle then you cannot have a heater. Hilarious.

I’ve been able to buy them from the Arcane Smith, but I’ve never found one “in the wild”, so to speak.

Is an Excavator vehicle usable for excavation/digging? If so, how do you use it?

I encountered one, looked at it and saw only a Lifter (boom crane), drove it outside and tried the controls, finding nothing, exited and stood by the boom and looked at the construction menu without finding anything.

It’s more a matter of general knowledge than a need, as I don’t think I have a need for digging.

Edit:
And the next question:
I’m doing the photonic circuit quest for Intercom, but something is off:
After some trouble I managed to gt downstairs and find a nanoreplicator (a zombie hulk and some skeleton juggernauts later), with two blueprints for other stuff nearby, but not the target one. In addition to that, the tile with the replicator is actually not the target tile, but one tile north of it (although markers have been wrong in the past). The marked tile has some small tunnels in a small part of it, but seemingly nothing of interest.
There are also some unreachable sections north of the fabricator and west of the target, respectively, in which some local monsters pace, and I haven’t found any boss downstairs (events on to ground level led me to expect one).
Mining tunnels to reach the two inaccessible sections, as well as exploring the target tile would be possible, but its a fairly substantial undertaking, so I’d avoid it if possible.

Any advice?

Edit 2:
Through save game searching I’ve found that the item should be called something like “NANOFAB_ITEM_ID”:"", as that’s what the others are called. However, there is none in my save (I’ve seen there are ones in places I’ve visited elsewhere in the world that I presumably have missed).
Either the quest is bugged or the item spawn requires something to happen, such as an item drop, but I can’t find anything. Digging randomly in the target tile has released a few monster (zombies and local ones), as well as revealed various non rock tiles with junk on them, but it would be completely silly if you have to mine out the complete tile to randomly find the item.

Hi guys, playing the game after a few years away and while wandering around in a lab i find a mech; the 'spectre ’ recon.
i got the gist, you use it like its a vehicle (^ to mount/dismount), but how on earth do you fire the damn things weapons?