Tips, Tricks and Newb Questions: Reborn!

Game Talk The Bunker
343

So, after about 3 or even 4 years since the first time I played Cata, I have finally made it into the lab, Yay for me. So I was rather excited, and I’m glad labs are so big. It’s fun exploring them.

But as I have discovered mutagen, bionics and other stuff that I really never really had a chance to play with, there’s a few questions I have.

Mutagen, I’m specifically thinking of going for Alpha for the overall basic but powerful bonuses, and Medical because it’s Medical.

  • WIll it be difficult to get most of the positive mutations from both of those categories before breaking a threshold in one of them?
  • Which one is better post-threshold wise? I do have Robust Genetics on my char.

Bionics.

  • So, I’ve already found an autodoc and installed a single Power Storage mk II, and it’s apparently impossible to craft Power Storages now. Is it at least possible to upgrade PS to their mk II variants?
  • How about anestesia, can you craft it?
  • Do surgeons require you to have anestesia too?

Shoggoths. I freed one because I remembered reading they are ridiculously hard to kill. Because I didn’t know they absorb stuff and even split when absored enough, I have at least 2 now. Three if the second one absorbed the arrows I’ve shot at it. I was wondering how to kill it, since I’m absolutely not leaving the lab until they are dead.

My Archery is 10, Marksmanship is 8, my Unarmed is 6, and Melee is 5. Nothing else is substantial. I cannot try to kill it with my fists since my character has only 2 Dodge and its attacks hurt but I have full Heavy Survival gear on. The arrows do better, about 35-40 per each, thing is I cannot whittle it down when it’s coming for me and moving away will give it time to regen. So my idea was to try bear traps ( and traps in general ) to slow/help whittle it down, but I’m not sure if they work on Shoggoths.

Basically, I should be able to kill it if it’s slowed enough and far away from me, with maybe a little outside DPS.

344

I think medical is much stronger post threshold. Acid blood, immunity to everything, and health for days. Especially if you can manage to get regeneration. My favorite characters have all been deep in that tree because honestly it’s hard to ignore the benefits of being punched through a brick house and still being able to keep on trucking at basically 100%

1 Like
345

Tfw you get the super masochist trait but have deadened (or vice versa) :frowning:

346

I have an Alpha mutant, and I used some Medical and some… I think it was Troglobite to get him Regeneration before I started the Alpha tree. (Actually that was the second time I started Alpha) Most of the negatives from Troglobite are canceled by the positives in Alpha and Alpha’s worst trait is Disintegration. If that comes up (possible even with Robust Genetics) then instead of just getting it, you move one step away from Regeneration. The idea behind my strategy was that you should be able to finish the Alpha and still have at least normal healing.

Shoggoths seem to have gotten easier of late. Rob Keys, the aforementioned Alpha mutant, just melee’d one to death with his two companions in a recent experimental, but a source of stunning is absolutely vital to melee those things and live. I’d suggest a big roaring fire, maybe toss a molotov into the room it’s in and hope for the best.
Otherwise lure it into a small empty room and shut the door. One with blob traps might even be able to turn Shoggoths into a harmless blob, but I haven’t tried. It works on everything else I’ve tried, however.

347

Here’s a tip, don’t run out of a long moving vehicle, you’ll probably run yourself over.

348

Well, an update of sorts:

First of all, I decided to train my skills a bit. Shooting with arrows just wouldn’t work, and since I’ve already made a Nodachi and had an anthill ( two even ) nearby decided to pay the ants a visit and slaugher two thousand of their workers, soldiers and children spar with them to raise my skills. Things were fine and dandy and with newfound confidence, I came back to my eldritch friends.

First of all, before this training I tried to use bear traps on the Shoggoths, the problem was they multiplied to at least 5 when I came back and even if I somehow could bow one to death, four at once was too much.

So I return to the lab, come to the Shoggoth level, brandish my fists ( yes, despite already making a Nodachi I mostly trained unarmed and dodge ) I arrived at the room. I wait for one to approach and boom!

Massive critical hit for 2 damage.

Well, shit. I didn’t know they had insane bash damage resistance.

So I slowly retreat, sending them reeling backwards.

Now that I think about it, running through a room full of Fungaloid corpses wasn’t the smartest idea. The last thing I saw before seriously running away was about 20-30 Shoggoths rushing me.

At least I already finished the lab, but I’ll be damned if I let those things disrespect me like this.

I’ll be back for round… five? I guess. I will take them down.

On the upside, I did some bionic enhancement. Installed 4 mk II Power Storages, Internal Furnace, Cranial Flashlight and the Titanium Enhancement which lets you carry more weight, it helped a ton since I’m running an 8/8/8/8 survivor. I have some other useful CBMs but sadly not enough skills to install them. 2 lab libraries and a school, yet those darned electonics books are so darned rare.

349

Fire is your only hope at this point, IMO. Get a flamethrower and fill it with napalm.

1 Like
350

How to change your in game screen’s color to grey, like this ?

51208361-c0b70580-190d-11e9-8088-f0cb4093c17f
51208361-c0b70580-190d-11e9-8088-f0cb4093c17f.png823×877 129 KB

351

Fighting a horde of Shoggoths is a hopeless cause. But if you insist that you must, you will need heavy firepower. Something along the lines of a couple dozen LAWs or a mininuke launcher might help you out as long as you don’t die in the explosions.

352

Bruh that font and background are beautiful. I routinely change fonts, but I would love that color palette.

353

Play ASCII in a terminal, set your own colors.

I don’t recognize the font. It kinda reminds me of Fantasque, but some of the glyphs are different.

354

Can i make something usefull from nuclear waste?

355

I do not think so. However, you could probably drink it ( assuming it’s a liquid and you have radiation mutation “on” ) to mutate. If you have Robust Genetics and you have a relatively young character it might be worth a try to get some useful mutations, and eventually just purifier them away later on.

356

If i remember correctly, 10 round burst point blank with scar-h can kill shoggoth, but its not 100% sure. But i used relatively mundane scar, if you modify it for max recoil reduction, it might work better. Rifles and marksman 5-6 are needed too. With 50rounds drum magazine it gives 5 shoogoths before need to reload. Brass catcher is essential too in case of a bigger horde. Havent tried it, but m60 with 500 round belt might work even better. I am not sure if brass catcher catches belt connections too. RM614 LMG and RM298 HMG with 500 drum magazines sound cool too, but they have strange burst size, 5 and 30 respectivelly, one is not enough, and second is overkill.
For melee options for 8/8/8/8character… I had one such survivor with 11 melee and 11 piercing who won extreamly long fight with a shoggoth using rapier. I had to drink one beer before fight for +1 strenght. But back then i did not realise they have soo much armor. Estoc would be much better choice. Diamond coated one. With krav maga for additional x1.2 piercing dmg. Find and install Wired Reflexes, muscule augumentation, get some strenght and dexterity mutations, get dodge 11, find as many drugs as you can, including: weak alcocholl, meth, adrenaline, rivtech stimulants and RA21E medical capsules, adderal. And dont forget morale.
If you go full alpha, then you 8/8/8/8 character can get:
strenght - 8 + 6 from mutations + 2 from augumentation + 1 from morale + 1 from alcocholl + i think 1 from rivtech stimulants and 1 from medical capsule + 5 from adrenaline = 25 str. You could use hydraulic muscules for additional 20 strenght.
dexterity - you get 1 less from mutation, but stimulants boosts are higher, i think you could reach arround 30.
Now equip diamond estoc, and you should be able to kill one with 2 criths, while having crit rate of about or above 50%. With additional speed you could be able to kill one in one turn.
Other melee options - nodachi and Niten - havent ever used it because only found that book once and died soon after, but i heard its powerfull.
Chainsaw lajatang with ninjutsu - not so power full characters can achive +400dmg crits, with this setup you should do arround 600dmg.
Oh, and another idea of ranged extermination. Create small shopping cart you can drag with .50 M2 mounted on it and 100r belt.
Edit. Even more ideas:
Heavy rail rifle. Works like a little weaker m107, but you can produce ammo yourself. Does not leave brass.
Shoggoths cannot cross many obstacles like hulks or similar monsters. Steel wire fence blocks them. But you can shoot over it. lure them into corridor where you put a trap with said fence and a gate for you to cross it and close.
Explosives: Grenades now do shit aganist slightly/well armored anemies, but pipe bombs are quite powerfull and easy to craft, but i am not 100% sure they will be enough.
Vorpal strike diamond weapons: I never had one, but i’ve read they do 99x cut damage. Text log says something about beheading an oponnent, so it might work only aganist enemies with head, and shoggoth has no head. Probably does not work on piercing weapons.

357

Wow, thanks a lot for this wall of text. I’ve been clearing more labs and working on getting my melee skills up, mainly dodging and cutting weapons, since nodachi is so strong. I still want to melee my first Shoggoth solo, but once that is done I’ll definitely think of an efficient extermination method.

I also have a CVD Machine in the second lab I’ve raided but sadly I’ve encountered zero hydrogen so far. I’ve been also hunting for a stabilized portal since my mobile base is running out of space already and the cargo dimension is a packrat’s wet dream. I have an internal steel boom as a placeholder for now.

Third lab was probably the worst one. Not only is it an ice lab, but I needed TWO thermal electic outfits just to survive on the bottommost floor, only to discover a mutagen container as a lab finale while I can already mass produce it and can’t even get since it’s frozen :sob:. No anestesia either, so I’ve been stuck with Cranial Flashlight and Internal Furnace to power it for now. At least I should be able to craft them soonish, even if them seem pretty expensive to make.

I haven’t really started mutating yet, I wanted to get a little more bionics inside myself before doing that, and I’m still on the fence how should I mutate. Troglodybite is apparently good, since Alpha nullifies most of the bad mutations, but I wonder where should I fit Medical in all of this.

EDIT: I’ve decided to post-threshold Medical, mainly for Deadened. If it lets me install bionics without anestesia that’s even better. But now I’ve been shooting myself up with medical serum and I seem to have become addicted. How bad is the Mutagen Withdrawal? I only have occassional pains, which are nowhere as annoying as Schizofrenic. Even Narcoleptic doesn’t seem that bad.

EDIT2: Yep, Deadened works for installing bionics without anestesia. Shot everything with <15% chance of failure into my system, still trying to figure out how to bring down 40%+ of failure bionics back down. Autodoc uses Mechanics and Computers correct? Probably gonna do Troglobite then Alpha soon, after I purify the bad mutations I got.

358

How do you change the terminal background specifically in Windows? I found the font, just want to change the bg color. Changing the color in the template doesn’t cut it

359

Make sure you set the autosave to True. I’m just saying.

360

EMP grenade can only be crafted from books ? Or is the recipe auto-learned at level 5 electronics ?

361

recipe

Unless you start with electronics four, only those two books will be where you can learn the recipe.

362

Is there any way I can build a sundial? Or heck, a garage door opener so I don’t have to exit the vehicle to open up the door?