Tips, Tricks, and Newb Questions!

[system]

[size=18pt]Protip![/size]

Spider webs and the spiders themselves [size=12pt]Burn![/size]

[TaintedHolyWater]

As do all things with a bit of work my pyromaniac friend.

Non-flaming protip.

Their poison only works up close. Shoot them. Grenade them. Throw a rock though their skull. Or… burn them alive.

[Sep]

Tailoring, which isn’t easy to level up past 4 or so. I’ve got the arm guards (they work well for melee characters) but not the helmet. Fortunately my Army helmet is only Scratched.

huh?! i just wound up with lvl 6+ in tailoring from reinforcing clothing and then scissoring it up for just over 200 bandages. i might be min-maxing it a little bit but i just love that they don’t weigh a thing and take up no space. plus neither the tape nor the liquor is an issue. obviously i’m not playing static spawn though. plus ymmv. just saying that tailoring isn’t all that hard to push

I’d rather not fight spiders or wasps to get chitin, as the poison can be quite crippling.

hey, don’t fight them, throw spikes and rocks at them from behind a bush, they may neve know what hit them! like tailoring and first aid, throwing has been a must-have skill for me. i can level it b4 i ever get into melee range with anything. i must admit i got lucky with the tazers though, meaning i can get away from stuff that gets too close. and yes, making cutting damage spikes to bail you out when you’re in a tight sport has really been worth the effort!

[Iosyn]

Yeah, but they’re damn fast. Most of the time I try to whack them from a safe window, but they always poison me. Oh well, back to chucking spears.

Also goddamn whoever said throwing gets powerful sure ain’t kidding-- almost oneshotted a brute with throwing skill 4.

[MassiveEffectz]

how do i refill a vehicle with gas?

[Auspice]

how do i refill a vehicle with gas?

You either need a container full of gasoline in your inventory (such as a jerrycan) or you need to be close to a gas pump.

If you have gas in your inventory, (e)xamine your car, use the arrow keys to locate the gas tank on the display, and the option to refill will highlight.

If you have your car near a gas pump, (e)xamine the gas pump. Say yes, you want to pump gas and then say you want to refill your vehicle. You might also have to say that no, you don’t want to pump gas all over the ground.

[Caconym]

What’s the difference between yellow ?'s and red ones when something is outside your vision?

[Searry]

When I press . or 5 the game just says debug and something about wacky scent and I can only press spacebar. Nothing else happens and I have to alt+f4.

[Auspice]

What’s the difference between yellow ?'s and red ones when something is outside your vision?

Yellow is something you hear. Its placement is speculative.

You only get red if you have acquired infrared vision via mutation (or, I think, bionics). A red question mark is a warm critter you can see in infrared. Its position is exact.

Note that you can both hear a critter and see it in infrared, resulting in both a yellow and a red question mark for the same critter.

[Caconym]

[quote=“Caconym, post:307, topic:42”]What’s the difference between yellow ?'s and red ones when something is outside your vision?

Yellow is something you hear. Its placement is speculative.

You only get red if you have acquired infrared vision via mutation (or, I think, bionics). A red question mark is a warm critter you can see in infrared. Its position is exact.

Note that you can both hear a critter and see it in infrared, resulting in both a yellow and a red question mark for the same critter.[/quote]
Ah so thats what the infrared mutation does, all this time I thought it did nothing.

[AseaHeru]

Is it not useful?
I think you can get red marks with antenna as well.

[Caconym]

[quote=“AseaHeru, post:311, topic:42”]Is it not useful?
I think you can get red marks with antenna as well.[/quote]
It’s somewhat useful, gives you an accurate idea of how many things want to eat your face are around. Would be nice when out in the open you can shoot at it since it’s a precise location.

[system]

[quote=“Caconym, post:312, topic:42”][quote=“AseaHeru, post:311, topic:42”]Is it not useful?
I think you can get red marks with antenna as well.[/quote]
It’s somewhat useful, gives you an accurate idea of how many things want to eat your face are around. Would be nice when out in the open you can shoot at it since it’s a precise location.[/quote]

Be carfeful with that because You can even look through walls with it! This is good for outrunning Zs in towns at night. I also got the antenna mutation so the only way to surprise me is in my sleep.

[KA101]

[quote=“KA101, post:299, topic:42”]Tailoring, which isn’t easy to level up past 4 or so. I’ve got the arm guards (they work well for melee characters) but not the helmet. Fortunately my Army helmet is only Scratched.

huh?! i just wound up with lvl 6+ in tailoring from reinforcing clothing and then scissoring it up for just over 200 bandages. i might be min-maxing it a little bit but i just love that they don’t weigh a thing and take up no space. plus neither the tape nor the liquor is an issue. obviously i’m not playing static spawn though. plus ymmv. just saying that tailoring isn’t all that hard to push

I’d rather not fight spiders or wasps to get chitin, as the poison can be quite crippling.

hey, don’t fight them, throw spikes and rocks at them from behind a bush, they may neve know what hit them! like tailoring and first aid, throwing has been a must-have skill for me. i can level it b4 i ever get into melee range with anything. i must admit i got lucky with the tazers though, meaning i can get away from stuff that gets too close. and yes, making cutting damage spikes to bail you out when you’re in a tight sport has really been worth the effort![/quote]
I was playing with skill rust capped at base levels, no static spawn here either though. Thanks for the advice. (I raid Science Labs often and scrounge Bandages from the vivisection labs, so making them hadn’t occurred to me.)

[Sep]

I was playing with skill rust capped at base levels, no static spawn here either though. Thanks for the advice. (I raid Science Labs often and scrounge Bandages from the vivisection labs, so making them hadn’t occurred to me.)

no skill rust here cause i do pretend to have a rl, but bandaging is myself up at every turn has really been one of the best things for me to do. it does not take long to enhance/cut-up a pile of clothing and you get this wonderfully free stack of heals-you-better-as-your-skill-goes-up-magic. i’ve seen bandaging heal for 7…10. first-aid’s become a vanity-item to stash next to the bed. so go for it!

p.s. do you know if taking forgetful and then turning skill-rust off can be exploited for an extra point at startup?

[KA101]

Seems like the sort of exploit that would justify removing Forgetful. I try to make characters I have some handle on, and I don’t like the idea of being Forgetful, so I’ve never taken it.

(Kinda why I liked HP Ignorant, because I don’t know exactly how damaged/not I am.)

Based on TDW’s official permission to disable skill rust, I’ve gone ahead and disabled it. Skill 9 was possible with rust, but it required metagame-y levels of grinding. Disabling rust is probably the better course of action.

[marvalis]

p.s. do you know if taking forgetful and then turning skill-rust off can be exploited for an extra point at startup?

You probably can, setting skill run option to ‘2’ makes the rust check return without doing anything.
You can also just set the number of skill points you start the game with higher, which has exactly the same effect.

[spoiler]void game::rustCheck() {
if (OPTIONS[OPT_SKILL_RUST] == 2)
return;

for (std::vector<Skill*>::iterator aSkill = Skill::skills.begin()++;
aSkill != Skill::skills.end(); ++aSkill) {
int skillLevel = u.skillLevel(*aSkill);
int forgetCap = skillLevel > 7 ? 7 : skillLevel;

if (skillLevel > 0 && turn % (8192 / int(pow(2, double(forgetCap - 1)))) == 0) {
  if (rng(1,12) % (u.has_trait(PF_FORGETFUL) ? 3 : 4)) {
    if (u.has_bionic(bio_memory) && u.power_level > 0) {
      if (one_in(5))
        u.power_level--;
    } else {
      if (OPTIONS[OPT_SKILL_RUST] == 0 || u.skillLevel(*aSkill).exercise() > 0) {
        int newLevel;
        u.skillLevel(*aSkill).rust(newLevel);

        if (newLevel < skillLevel) {
          add_msg("Your skill in %s has reduced to %d!", (*aSkill)->name().c_str(), newLevel);
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

}
}[/spoiler]

[geldonyetich]

Wish combat was easier? Here’s a power combination to try:

• Start with the “Martial Arts Training” perk. Choose “karate” as your martial art.
• Try to get your tailoring up high enough to make chitin arm guards.

How this works is that “karate” has a “two free blocks on every successful attack” component. Karate will also have you blocking with your left or right arms, not your legs. Blocking seems to damage the clothing until it is gone, then actually affect the hit points on the limb you use for blocking. (I’m not sure what the exact logic is, this is just my observation.) Chitin arm guards are pretty much invulnerable right now. When you put everything together, using karate while wearing chitin arm guards means you’re basically invulnerable.

Of course, there are a few catches to be aware of:

[ul][]You should maneuver in such a way that you will not be taking more than 3 attacks per round. Walking into the middle of a pack of zombies is still suicide.
[]I’m pretty sure blocking does not work against ranged attacks, so don’t expect to be punching any turrets to death.
[]Certain enemies, such as hulks and grabbers, will be able to sneak some attacks through, not to mention be so powerful that you find yourself relying on crits to do any damage. It’s a good idea to get them to stand in fire and use your blocking as a delaying tactic.
[]It will be a little while until you get tailoring high enough to make chitin arm guards - not to mention secure the chitin off insects. In the meanwhile, try using other arm guards found in the world.
[]Anything you wear on your arms other than your chitin arm guards will be trashed in short order. Don’t expect to be wearing any trenchcoats.
[]For that matter, overburdening your torso with a kevlar vest may work against you by slowing down your rate of melee attack and therefore your rate of blocking; trust karate’s blocking with the arms to keep your torso and head safe.
[]There’s a chance karate or chitin arm guards will be nerfed in a future build, so don’t bet on this working forever.
[]Warning: trivializing melee combat may lead to distinctive lack of “fun.”[/ul]

[Sep]

Seems like the sort of exploit that would justify removing Forgetful. I try to make characters I have some handle on, and I don’t like the idea of being Forgetful, so I’ve never taken it. …Disabling rust is probably the better course of action.

it might justify it for you, but leave it in cause i might like to use that once and if i have to spend a point to be hp-aware. imagine i had ginko-biloba, sold as a kind of a memory-aid in rl, growing next to my shelter, it might not grow next to yours, but it would protect me without it ever having to be modeled in the game.

… now come up with a rationale for ‘self-aware’, in other words, not being able to see your arms and legs to know how badly you are hurt… and then tell me that that makes any sense unless its called extreme-far-sightedness and had special high-encumbrance glasses that allowed you to see your stats.

so i think self-aware is fundamental to the kind of sentience we’re modelling here, you might think its good. and making changes either way could alienate either one of us – what i’m trying to say is, its good that i got to start out being able to cook rotten meat, that i had unlimited water from toilets (but not sinks?), that i was able to play with 24 skill-points. this gave a wide path to me and 2 friends who are now just as engaged in their worlds as i am. making this path narrower … while the ui is still cumbersome and the npc’s braindead just seems wrong to me.

but listen, i’ve now played quite a few 24 hr death-run games to learn to see what happens, and to me, what’s not working in the first place is that — i have to skill my guy before i go into the world!

say i learned that i would immediately choose meat-allergy if i saw triffids or bees in the first neighborhood. since i still have to invest everything right away (the @ menu being so simple) i would break immersion if i didn’t see a payoff for that choice after a few days of exploring. so my choice of traits devolve into templated average guys that i can roll against the map. thats not ideal at all…

with that in mind, of course i disable skill-rust, just not my kind of thing. and i would look to using forgetful to compensate for what (to this noob) feels like a very strange decision (self-aware turning into a paid-for-option)

so thats the story behind my out of context question

@marvalis, thanks for the excerpt!

[KA101]

Did I say I like Self-Aware? I hope not, because I despise the shift from HP Ignorant.

My concern was that Forgetful only increases the chance of skill rust. Taking it, but having skill rust disabled entirely, seems to defeat the purpose of taking Forgetful. So I’d go with disabling skill rust and simply giving yourself the points if you want a better character. By comparison, taking Truth-Teller without planning to use the Lie option still leaves the option available but tougher. As a player who doesn’t lie and doesn’t like his characters lying, I take it as a playstyle-enforcement–just because 95% of the NPCs are buggy in the versions I have doesn’t mean that I don’t try to interact with them.

Last one was an axe-wielder whose clothes were losing to a Fast and three regular zeds. I intervened, killed all four zeds, was told to get off her turf, and couldn’t reestablish contact, even to drop off some assorted clothing items I’d reinforced. (Even before body-temp tracking, autumn seems like a bad time to be shirtless with shredded pants–though I can understand why she might have wanted my male character to leave in a hurry.)

(If you’re familiar with VtM:Bloodlines, there was a character option to disable ranged skill in exchange for starting with better melee skills. Even though this wouldn’t impair a dedicated melee player, it still reduced the player’s options. Enforcing a character concept is worth points IMO.)

It was my impression that the forum frowned on players taking additional points at character generation; I take additional points for the martial-arts traits, as a workaround for buggy NPCs.