# 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:** 91

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**Author:** ![John\_Candlebury](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/john_candlebury/32/6437_2.png) [@John\_Candlebury](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/John_Candlebury)\
**Post date:** [November 21, 2013, 6:40am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/tips-tricks-and-newb-questions/42/1801 "2013-11-21T06:40:11Z")

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I think they are functionally the same. Judging by the description they could help in persuasion rolls

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**Author:** ![Chaz](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/chaz/32/3870_2.png) [@Chaz](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/Chaz)\
**Post date:** [November 21, 2013, 6:52am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/tips-tricks-and-newb-questions/42/1802 "2013-11-21T06:52:44Z")

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I have a couple of questions too. First off, what does the black road option do? I’ve heard it mentioned a couple times so I’m curious.

Secondly, I read a while back that there was a glitch where setting the spawn density before 1 would automatically set it to 0. Has this been addressed? I wouldn’t mind lowering the density to 0.5 or so to lower the number of zeds around towns, but I don’t wanna obliterate them totally! I’d like some challenge XD

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**Author:** ![John\_Candlebury](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/john_candlebury/32/6437_2.png) [@John\_Candlebury](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/John_Candlebury)\
**Post date:** [November 21, 2013, 6:55am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/tips-tricks-and-newb-questions/42/1803 "2013-11-21T06:55:58Z")

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The black road option spawns zombies in the starting shelter.

The option seems to work well in the experimental I downloaded yesterday, so um perhaps update the game?

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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:** [November 21, 2013, 7:07am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/tips-tricks-and-newb-questions/42/1804 "2013-11-21T07:07:30Z")

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[quote=“jimboblordofeskimos, post:1800, topic:42”]Anybody know what fey eyes and fey vision do? Are they an upgrade to the night vision they replaced?

Edit: I seem to be able to read in the dark. They are damn good by the looks[/quote]

Fey Eyes, yeah, they tend to make social interactions smoother. Some other small differences in Fey Vision, nothing hugely out there.

Now, you have been making and drinking Elf-a? If so: drink responsibly…and Robustly. 😉

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**Author:** ![Lord\_Sunder](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/lord_sunder/32/215_2.png) [@Lord\_Sunder](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/Lord_Sunder)\
**Post date:** [November 21, 2013, 2:44pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/tips-tricks-and-newb-questions/42/1805 "2013-11-21T14:44:21Z")

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Can I just profess my love to whoever thought up the atomic night light? That thing means I don’t need to snuggle up to consoles to read at night anymore, which is awesome, since using most light sources short of solar headlights to read is very wasteful. Very portable, too. If you find one, hold onto it, because it’s an endless source of light that takes up a minuscule amount of inventory space. Don’t seem too common, either.

Question, though… how does one make a FOODCO Kitchen Buddy? I remember seeing the original mod, but I can’t for the life of me remember the recipe, and I don’t think I have the skill to see it on my list yet.

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**Author:** ![Dominae](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/dominae/32/53_2.png) [@Dominae](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/Dominae)\
**Post date:** [November 21, 2013, 5:39pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/tips-tricks-and-newb-questions/42/1806 "2013-11-21T17:39:12Z")

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> [@Lord Sunder](#):
>
> Can I just profess my love to whoever thought up the atomic night light? That thing means I don’t need to snuggle up to consoles to read at night anymore, which is awesome, since using most light sources short of solar headlights to read is very wasteful. Very portable, too. If you find one, hold onto it, because it’s an endless source of light that takes up a minuscule amount of inventory space. Don’t seem too common, either.

Totally agree with this, lol. I stumbled across one the other day (and then a second one at a different location - feels like one of those Infomercials - “One for home and one for the car!”) and nearly never let it out of my sight. Though, I’m slightly afraid it might be radioactive. I imagine it looks like a 70s lavalamp with green ooze in it.

I have a hole in my base’s fence right now. If I fix it, Zombears just break it again the next night. So I dropped some traps and left a nightlight there and now, at night, when anything wanders into the glow it’ll interrupt what I’m doing because I can see the enemy.

> Question, though... how does one make a FOODCO Kitchen Buddy? I remember seeing the original mod, but I can't for the life of me remember the recipe, and I don't think I have the skill to see it on my list yet.

Sure …

Electronics: 4

1x Steel Frame  
1x Vacuum Sealer  
1x Water Purifier  
1x Hand Press & Die Set  
5x Copper Wire

You’ll need the typical automotive-repair-gear on you: a welding device & goggles, hacksaw and wrench.

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**Author:** ![Lord\_Sunder](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/lord_sunder/32/215_2.png) [@Lord\_Sunder](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/Lord_Sunder)\
**Post date:** [November 21, 2013, 6:01pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/tips-tricks-and-newb-questions/42/1807 "2013-11-21T18:01:44Z")

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Ah, thanks much.

Also, not sure if it’s been mentioned yet (121 pages? It might have, but don’t really want to check) but as it stands you can cook rotten fruit into edible fruit leather, and rotten meat into edible jerky, so it can still be worth it to collect rotten fruit.

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**Author:** ![Chaz](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/chaz/32/3870_2.png) [@Chaz](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/Chaz)\
**Post date:** [November 21, 2013, 6:46pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/tips-tricks-and-newb-questions/42/1808 "2013-11-21T18:46:31Z")

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[quote=“John Candlebury, post:1803, topic:42”]The black road option spawns zombies in the starting shelter.

The option seems to work well in the experimental I downloaded yesterday, so um perhaps update the game?[/quote]

Thanks for clearing that up! I’ll know not to activate Black Road until I’m good and ready. And I’m on 0.9 stable right now, I just wasn’t sure how old that spawn density issue is or whether it had been solved before 0.9 stable. I’ll give it a try next world I start, and see what happens. I’m forever afraid of taking the latest experimental build because the git version gets updated several times a day so I never know if the version I have has some other serious bugs. XD

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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:** [November 21, 2013, 7:01pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/tips-tricks-and-newb-questions/42/1809 "2013-11-21T19:01:50Z")

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Hmmm, are you playing on a version of Windows/Mac/Linux that uses something other then a ‘.’ for the decimal points? I seem to remember we had a problem like that a while back, but I thought we had fixed it already…

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**Author:** ![Chaz](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/chaz/32/3870_2.png) [@Chaz](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/Chaz)\
**Post date:** [November 21, 2013, 7:07pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/tips-tricks-and-newb-questions/42/1810 "2013-11-21T19:07:42Z")

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I actually haven’t tried it yet, I’d just been googling “Cataclysm DDA Spawn Density” to see what it did, and one of the first results was the following git thread from August: [https://github.com/CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA/issues/2725](https://github.com/CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA/issues/2725) which is still marked as open, so I thought I’d check and see before trying it myself, but all that said, I’m gonna set up a secondary world and see what happens, and I’ll report back with the results.

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**Author:** ![dwarfkoala](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/dwarfkoala/32/9_2.png) [@dwarfkoala](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/dwarfkoala)\
**Post date:** [November 21, 2013, 7:12pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/tips-tricks-and-newb-questions/42/1811 "2013-11-21T19:12:21Z")

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Found a mine. Does The Thing at the bottom of mines cause Thinglike symptoms? Should I get me a flamethrower or should guns or melee be fine?

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**Author:** ![Weyrling](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/7bcc69/32.png) [@Weyrling](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/Weyrling)\
**Post date:** [November 21, 2013, 8:48pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/tips-tricks-and-newb-questions/42/1812 "2013-11-21T20:48:48Z")

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> [@dwarfkoala](#):
>
> Found a mine. Does The Thing at the bottom of mines cause Thinglike symptoms? Should I get me a flamethrower or should guns or melee be fine?

My opinion is you should always get a flamethrower, regardless of circumstance, but some molotovs, bear traps, and burst fire weapons should work fine (depending on your skill), I don’t know about melee, never tried it.  
I find a good trick is to keep several (dozen) loaded guns on me and just unload all of them onto the enemy in a row, rather than waste time reloading.

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**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:** [November 21, 2013, 8:55pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/tips-tricks-and-newb-questions/42/1813 "2013-11-21T20:55:17Z")

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Pfft, look at bows boieeeesss…

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**Author:** ![dwarfkoala](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/dwarfkoala/32/9_2.png) [@dwarfkoala](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/dwarfkoala)\
**Post date:** [November 21, 2013, 10:50pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/tips-tricks-and-newb-questions/42/1814 "2013-11-21T22:50:58Z")

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So If I go and smack down the Thing with like a rock or something i’ll be fine? I won’t become a weird Thing/human… thing?

That’s either good or bad, depending on your perspective. Apart from the dog \> tentacle dog \> Thing part of the fight, it’s not that interesting if it doesn’t have basic Thingness.

Would be cool to go around as an evil predatory amorphous tentacle beast thing though. ASSIMILATE ALL THE ZOMBIES

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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:** [November 21, 2013, 10:54pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/tips-tricks-and-newb-questions/42/1815 "2013-11-21T22:54:42Z")

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[quote=“dwarfkoala, post:1814, topic:42”]So If I go and smack down the Thing with like a rock or something i’ll be fine? I won’t become a weird Thing/human… thing?

That’s either good or bad, depending on your perspective. Apart from the dog \> tentacle dog \> Thing part of the fight, it’s not that interesting if it doesn’t have basic Thingness.

Would be cool to go around as an evil predatory amorphous tentacle beast thing though. ASSIMILATE ALL THE ZOMBIES[/quote]

Nah, the Thing doesn’t infect you or anything like that. Besides, in the original “Who Goes There?” six or so people were enough to just dogpile Things and beat 'em to death. Electric prod worked a treat though.

I had been wondering what the vector(s) for Nether mutations might be, though. Thanks for the reminder! 🙂

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**Author:** ![timtek](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/timtek/32/103_2.png) [@timtek](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/timtek)\
**Post date:** [November 22, 2013, 2:48am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/tips-tricks-and-newb-questions/42/1816 "2013-11-22T02:48:00Z")

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I just finished a lab and killed some interesting critters in there. After I left I got a very very bad feeling and some other strange messages. Then I started tripping. My blood filter stopped the hallucinations but I’m still not sure what happened. Anyone care to shed some light on this?

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**Author:** ![Pumbletron](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/pumbletron/32/222_2.png) [@Pumbletron](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/Pumbletron)\
**Post date:** [November 22, 2013, 2:54am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/tips-tricks-and-newb-questions/42/1817 "2013-11-22T02:54:07Z")

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Are there more mutations in game now since 0.9, more than the ones listed on the WIKI? If so…so cool. I love mutations.

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**Author:** ![Rivet](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/rivet/32/11_2.png) [@Rivet](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/Rivet)\
**Post date:** [November 22, 2013, 3:02am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/tips-tricks-and-newb-questions/42/1818 "2013-11-22T03:02:23Z")

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> [@timtek](#):
>
> I just finished a lab and killed some interesting critters in there. After I left I got a very very bad feeling and some other strange messages. Then I started tripping. My blood filter stopped the hallucinations but I’m still not sure what happened. Anyone care to shed some light on this?

You probably got stared at by a flying eyeball. They can have all kinds of weird effects on you.

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**Author:** ![timtek](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/timtek/32/103_2.png) [@timtek](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/timtek)\
**Post date:** [November 22, 2013, 3:09am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/tips-tricks-and-newb-questions/42/1819 "2013-11-22T03:09:05Z")

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Yes I did, thanks rivet. Is this gonna be a permanent issue for me?

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**Author:** ![EkarusRyndren](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/ekarusryndren/32/80_2.png) [@EkarusRyndren](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/EkarusRyndren)\
**Post date:** [November 22, 2013, 3:17am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/tips-tricks-and-newb-questions/42/1820 "2013-11-22T03:17:16Z")

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Just cleared out a mansion naked with a walking cane.

Having smashed an oven and cut up the only clothes I found to make a rag to make a makeshift knife and then cauterize my wounds, and washed down the pain with some vodka I’ve discovered a secondary use for the walking cane… walking while intoxicated.

EDIT: …Right and that a makeshift knife and some matches can be the difference between the end of a game from infection… Not used to starting without a knife and a matchbook yet XD

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