# Tips, Tricks, and Newb Questions!

**URL:** <https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/tips-tricks-and-newb-questions/42>\
**Category:** The Bunker\
**Created:** [January 3, 2013, 3:04am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/tips-tricks-and-newb-questions/42 "2013-01-03T03:04:39Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 20\
**Page:** 147

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**Author:** ![i2amroy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/i2amroy/32/909_2.png) [@i2amroy](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/i2amroy)\
**Post date:** [April 12, 2014, 7:00am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/tips-tricks-and-newb-questions/42/2921 "2014-04-12T07:00:51Z")

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> [@Aluminumfoil](#):
>
> Dungeons are the same as ever.

Labs have some new stuff, but yeah, most endgame buildings stayed relatively the same (though as mentioned, we’ve added in some more things like a basic form of zombie hordes to provide other !!FUN!! moments).

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**Author:** ![Blackopsman9999](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8797f3/32.png) [@Blackopsman9999](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/Blackopsman9999)\
**Post date:** [April 12, 2014, 7:18am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/tips-tricks-and-newb-questions/42/2922 "2014-04-12T07:18:52Z")

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Ahem, the migo’s chasing your naked just swam from a horde character down and butchering them.

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**Author:** ![Sep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a87d85/32.png) [@Sep](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/Sep)\
**Post date:** [April 12, 2014, 12:28pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/tips-tricks-and-newb-questions/42/2923 "2014-04-12T12:28:25Z")

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> [@Blackopsman9999](#):
>
> Ahem, the migo’s chasing your naked just swam from a horde character down and butchering them.

wow, you just beat me for incomprehensibility!

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**Author:** ![Blackopsman9999](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8797f3/32.png) [@Blackopsman9999](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/Blackopsman9999)\
**Post date:** [April 12, 2014, 6:33pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/tips-tricks-and-newb-questions/42/2924 "2014-04-12T18:33:35Z")

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Ahem, the migos chasing down your character down after swimming from a horde without even a pipe.

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**Author:** ![kevin.granade](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/kevin.granade/32/1316_2.png) [@kevin.granade](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/kevin.granade)\
**Post date:** [April 12, 2014, 9:40pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/tips-tricks-and-newb-questions/42/2925 "2014-04-12T21:40:11Z")

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[quote=“secretfire, post:2903, topic:42”]How does TIME work in the game? No matter how long my previous survivor lasted, when she dies, its always day one for the next, and as -far as I can tell- everything they ever did is already done.

I can think of one of two explanations for this.

1. Everything my other survivors did is really the work of the chaos of the ‘first night’ and they never existed.

2. My other survivors start the day after they died, and the timer is wrong.[/quote]

3. The way we handle time between characters is broken, and all your actions retroactively apply on day one of the new survivor’s game.

> [@secretfire](#):
>
> Though what would be neat would be if the changes they made would kick into effect when they made them, this would be impossible to program. (would be really neat for ‘dwarf fortress overseer passing’ style games) Still, its something I keep wondering about.

This is “possible”, but it would require us to store a snapshot of everything the player ever interacts with, including things that happen at a distance. It would be massively impractical.

> [@secretfire](#):
>
> Edit: Actually, I doubt anyone knows what lightcones are, but I guess you could program it if new characters were guaranteed to start as far away from the previous characters as necessary to ensure they couldn’t get to them in \<x+1) days, with x being the number of days they lasted. Still, I’m overthinking it. And this isn’t a suggestion, lightcones would be merely ‘almost impossible’ to program. It also presumes one character at a time, which is silly.

I’ve considered having a lightcone option, where new characters are spawned far enough away from previous (dead) characters that it would be impossible/impractical for them to reach the effects of the old character before their timelines converged. It’s not actually as hard as you’d think to program as long as you tolerate it breaking in extreme cases like the new character acquiring a vehicle at game start and immediately moving towards the old character at top speed.  
Basically when a character dies, they write their location and death time somewhere, new characters using this system would simply read these values to get a list of exclusion zones, and spawn outside any of them. It’s a relatively simple bit of math if you can derive reasonable constants for maximum move rates.  
And yes, this would only work if you only have one character active at a time, multiple active characters would simply break the system unless you did some kind of scrambling of coordinates behind the scenes to insert new space between the characters as they progress through time.  
A side effect of this would be that save files would grow massively, because new characters would always start in an unexplored area and generate new map content, but that’s probably not too bad.

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**Author:** ![Blackopsman9999](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8797f3/32.png) [@Blackopsman9999](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/Blackopsman9999)\
**Post date:** [April 12, 2014, 10:09pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/tips-tricks-and-newb-questions/42/2926 "2014-04-12T22:09:54Z")

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I feel an option is nice, because losting that power armor due to you forgetting a swat helmet is a bitch, but also it is annoying to spawn in with an empty town and no gas…

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**Author:** ![chintznibbles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/65b543/32.png) [@chintznibbles](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/chintznibbles)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2014, 4:10am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/tips-tricks-and-newb-questions/42/2927 "2014-04-13T04:10:54Z")

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I have a vehicle question: is it possible to make a trailer type vehicle? Like a 3x3 wheeled raft of cargo spaces and solar panels and water tanks and other fun things that I can drag around with my overpowered V12 motorcycle?

Also, tangentially related to that I suppose, is it possible to connect two vehicles together? Can I attach a huge hunk of wreckage to the back of said overpowered motorcycle and drag it back to base for disassembly, instead of being tapped on the shoulder by a zombie brute every time I try to take a part off?

Final bonus vehicle question: is there any difference between - and = panels? What about + shaped frames and H-shaped frames?

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**Author:** ![Blackopsman9999](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8797f3/32.png) [@Blackopsman9999](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/Blackopsman9999)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2014, 4:39am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/tips-tricks-and-newb-questions/42/2928 "2014-04-13T04:39:33Z")

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no, yes

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**Author:** ![Aluminumfoil](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/aluminumfoil/32/5163_2.png) [@Aluminumfoil](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/Aluminumfoil)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2014, 5:11am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/tips-tricks-and-newb-questions/42/2929 "2014-04-13T05:11:52Z")

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Articulated vehicles are not supported. Connecting or separating two vehicles is not supported; you’d have to dismantle the motorcycle and rebuild it on the “trailer” every time.

I don’t know what you mean by the - and = panels.

All vehicle parts with the same name are identical; different shapes are purely cosmetic.

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**Author:** ![i2amroy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/i2amroy/32/909_2.png) [@i2amroy](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/i2amroy)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2014, 6:54am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/tips-tricks-and-newb-questions/42/2930 "2014-04-13T06:54:39Z")

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[quote=“Kevin Granade, post:2925, topic:42”]I’ve considered having a lightcone option, where new characters are spawned far enough away from previous (dead) characters that it would be impossible/impractical for them to reach the effects of the old character before their timelines converged. It’s not actually as hard as you’d think to program as long as you tolerate it breaking in extreme cases like the new character acquiring a vehicle at game start and immediately moving towards the old character at top speed.  
Basically when a character dies, they write their location and death time somewhere, new characters using this system would simply read these values to get a list of exclusion zones, and spawn outside any of them. It’s a relatively simple bit of math if you can derive reasonable constants for maximum move rates.[/quote]  
Personally I’ve always thought this was kinda silly. I mean if you are going to start characters far enough away from each other that they will never reach the other’s effects on the world 99% of the time you might as well just scrap the world and generate a new one after each game; it would have approximately the same effect. As is I’ll vote for funny time effects over not being able to really interact with things done by past players every time.

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**Author:** ![kevin.granade](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/kevin.granade/32/1316_2.png) [@kevin.granade](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/kevin.granade)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2014, 9:49am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/tips-tricks-and-newb-questions/42/2931 "2014-04-13T09:49:43Z")

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> [@i2amroy](#):
>
> Personally I’ve always thought this was kinda silly. I mean if you are going to start characters far enough away from each other that they will never reach the other’s effects on the world 99% of the time you might as well just scrap the world and generate a new one after each game; it would have approximately the same effect. As is I’ll vote for funny time effects over not being able to really interact with things done by past players every time.

To be clear:

1. This would be a secondary option, IMO most people are more interested in seeing the effects of their old games than chronological consistency.
2. It doesn’t prevent you from interacting with past players, it just places you somewhere that you won’t interact with their stuff immediately. Particularly if you have a lot of quick deaths, you may end up with a rather tight cluster of player spawns.

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**Author:** ![Aluminumfoil](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/aluminumfoil/32/5163_2.png) [@Aluminumfoil](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/Aluminumfoil)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2014, 10:08am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/tips-tricks-and-newb-questions/42/2932 "2014-04-13T10:08:01Z")

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Could one just dump a character’s turn counter (and maybe weather information) to a file on death, and give an option to load it to the next character on character generation?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![kevin.granade](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/kevin.granade/32/1316_2.png) [@kevin.granade](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/kevin.granade)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2014, 10:16am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/tips-tricks-and-newb-questions/42/2933 "2014-04-13T10:16:40Z")

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That would be super simple.  
Actually it’s just the turn counter, weather is saved, it’s replayed instead of being randomly generated for the next character.  
彡☆

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**Author:** ![Sep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a87d85/32.png) [@Sep](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/Sep)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2014, 11:35am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/tips-tricks-and-newb-questions/42/2934 "2014-04-13T11:35:13Z")

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perhaps one could RESET the world to virginize it

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**Author:** ![KA101](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/278dde/32.png) [@KA101](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/KA101)\
**Post date:** [April 14, 2014, 11:47pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/tips-tricks-and-newb-questions/42/2935 "2014-04-14T23:47:02Z")

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> [@Inquisitor Dust](#):
>
> A quick question, I’m about to start getting back into the game again, and all the new stuff has me pretty excited, but are there any changes/additions to the end game ‘dungeons’ from the past month or two? Details not necessary, just want to know if there are any

KA101 sends his girls and boys to play with Dust You’ll have ~[ever so much fun](http://smf.cataclysmdda.com/index.php?topic=6018.0)~!

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**Author:** ![HorrorNerd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dbc845/32.png) [@HorrorNerd](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/HorrorNerd)\
**Post date:** [April 15, 2014, 12:14am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/tips-tricks-and-newb-questions/42/2936 "2014-04-15T00:14:42Z")

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what are some things you guys try to make before leaving the shelter?

With every character i try to make:  
Makeshift knife(stone knife ) either one  
Needle  
Stone hammer  
makeshift crowbar  
several makeshift picks  
and a few clothing items along with thread  
and a weapon

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![FunsizeNinja123](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/funsizeninja123/32/118_2.png) [@FunsizeNinja123](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/FunsizeNinja123)\
**Post date:** [April 15, 2014, 12:16am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/tips-tricks-and-newb-questions/42/2937 "2014-04-15T00:16:55Z")

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I always pick the tailor profession, so I like to make a backpack and maybe a coat.

As for other things, I make a makeshift knife and grab a pipe for a weapon for make it into a makeshift crowbar.

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**Author:** ![HorrorNerd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dbc845/32.png) [@HorrorNerd](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/HorrorNerd)\
**Post date:** [April 15, 2014, 1:29am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/tips-tricks-and-newb-questions/42/2938 "2014-04-15T01:29:56Z")

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Sometimes I pick tailoring as a profession but usually I just choose survivor or shower victim.

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**Author:** ![chintznibbles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/65b543/32.png) [@chintznibbles](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/chintznibbles)\
**Post date:** [April 15, 2014, 2:11am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/tips-tricks-and-newb-questions/42/2939 "2014-04-15T02:11:22Z")

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[quote=“Aluminumfoil, post:2929, topic:42”]Articulated vehicles are not supported. Connecting or separating two vehicles is not supported; you’d have to dismantle the motorcycle and rebuild it on the “trailer” every time.

I don’t know what you mean by the - and = panels.

All vehicle parts with the same name are identical; different shapes are purely cosmetic.[/quote]

Ah, too bad. I guess I’ll just have to figure something else out.

Also I didn’t realize that different frame shapes were cosmetic only… I went ahead and answered my own question re: the shapes, though, if anyone is confused. I guess they’re just there to look pretty and/or slightly more realistic.

 ![](http://i.imgur.com/c2cOim8.gif)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Arek\_PL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b77776/32.png) [@Arek\_PL](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/Arek_PL)\
**Post date:** [April 15, 2014, 10:32am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/tips-tricks-and-newb-questions/42/2940 "2014-04-15T10:32:10Z")

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> [@HorrorNerd](#):
>
> what are some things you guys try to make before leaving the shelter?

i make makeshift crowbar and makeshift knife sometimes alslo stone hammer

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