Tips, Tricks, and Newb Questions!

[Cornuthaum]

Yo, what are stethoscopes even good for? Activation does nothing in all cases I’ve tried so far.

Safecracking! It just netted me two Minireactors from the same bank, leaving me to wonder what the hell I’m supposed to do with those.

[Azrad]

As I recall, you attach it to your car and it uses plutonium, which I guess is an alternative to regular car batteries. Not sure how safe is that, since I don’t know if a damaged minireactor will leak radiation or explode.

[Pthalocy]

Haha, man, I can’t use the stethoscope to check my own breathing when playing a med resident, but I can fuckin’ rob banks with it? Groovy. I know a random cough with no cold/flu is a good indicator for parasites, but it’d be neat if the stethoscope actually did it’s intended job in telling you something about your heart or lungs’ health. I know that opens a whole can of discussion worms regarding diagnostic skills but dang, lol.

Thanks though.

As for those minireactors, I’ve never gotten that far in my crafting skills to make anything reactor-powered. Daaaaaang. Like Azrad said though, if the product is listed as damaged in it’s little item hp indicator, you is getting exposed.

[Laughing_Fool]

How can I push a wrecked car off the bridge so I can drive through with my new found working swat truck?

[DeWolf]

[quote=“Azrad, post:8186, topic:42”]In some gas stations, there’s a tank of gasoline that’s firmly sealed. Can anything be done with it?

Great question! I set out to experiment upon a gas station tank and here’s what happened:

• The following tools were useless against it: Jackhammer, acetylene torch, wrench, toolkit, screwdriver, hacksaw, boltcutters, crowbar, rubber hose… off the top of my head.
• Oddly enough, after about 50 hits from the sledgehammer, I still hadn’t received the “You don’t seem to be damaging it” message. My character’s STR is 16. Only the sledgehammer sustained damage.
• Fired several rounds from my pimped out M14 at it (standard 7.62x51mm bullets). No effect.
• Fired several volleys from my pulse laser and perforator turrets at it. No effect.
• Explosives: useless. Tried LAW, C4, grenades, molotov cocktails. I don’t have a nuke or a mininuke, so only those are left to try!
• Final trial: Rammed my military truck at it at about 200km/h or faster. No effect… other than I nearly died, and half of my truck’s frames were destroyed but the truck oddly still remained in one piece, too.

I don’t know what it’s made of but I want my house and body armor made of it.[/quote]
One thing I like to do is modify that tile so that way you can siphon fuel from it. With that said in those kinds of gas stations that tank contains ALL OF THE GAS. So yopu can’t just empty it and then empty the other dispensers as they too will now be empty.

[DeWolf]

How can I push a wrecked car off the bridge so I can drive through with my new found working swat truck?

You cannot push it but you can wreck it by hand, dissassemble it, blow it up (eventually cars are pretty explosion resilient if there is no gas in them) or you can angle your truck then attempt to ram it off the road.

[Shopkeeper]

Very slowly, so long as it’s facing in the opposite direction of the bridge your traveling along you can gently nudge it out of the way and with enough force knock it off the bridge. Otherwise you’ve got a Swat Truck man, just push it out of the way. Just be careful not to hit the opposing car’s gas tank to hard, or better yet drain it of fuel beforehand for you post-apocalyptic road trip and then ram it out of the way!

[Cornuthaum]

So, can someone explain this to me - I suddenly stopped gaining Marksmanship points from using the same gun - an accurized and heavily modded RW SPIW - at 6/33%. Since I need 7 Mm to install the gyrostabilizer I found, this is somewhat vexatious, especially as skill rust has set in and my Mm percentage is going down despite the fact that I’m still shooting and aiming properly.

[DeWolf]

So, can someone explain this to me - I suddenly stopped gaining Marksmanship points from using the same gun - an accurized and heavily modded RW SPIW - at 6/33%. Since I need 7 Mm to install the gyrostabilizer I found, this is somewhat vexatious, especially as skill rust has set in and my Mm percentage is going down despite the fact that I’m still shooting and aiming properly.

The answer will always be find a more accurate gun, different ammo or read a book. However at that point really the only thing to improve that is to start using rifles. To me this system does not entirely make sense I know the process is you getting used to the gun but still wouldn’t that mean that you should use a less accurate gun to increase your marksmanship skills (with exceptions of flintlocks and shotguns) or am I thinking like a dumb ass.

[Random_dragon]

I would assume that the idea behind it is that if the gun itself is inherently inconsistent, then being a steadier hand and a more precise shot doesn’t yield better results than what the gun itself can manage. While that makes sense, whether this translates into not LEARNING anything from firing it, I have no idea. In the real world, most people aren’t accurate enough firing off-hand for a gun’s mechanical “on the bench rest” performance to be the dominant factor, unless their gun of choice really is that shitty.

[Azrad]

[quote=“Azrad, post:8186, topic:42”]In some gas stations, there’s a tank of gasoline that’s firmly sealed. Can anything be done with it?

Great question! I set out to experiment upon a gas station tank and here’s what happened:

• The following tools were useless against it: Jackhammer, acetylene torch, wrench, toolkit, screwdriver, hacksaw, boltcutters, crowbar, rubber hose… off the top of my head.
• Oddly enough, after about 50 hits from the sledgehammer, I still hadn’t received the “You don’t seem to be damaging it” message. My character’s STR is 16. Only the sledgehammer sustained damage.
• Fired several rounds from my pimped out M14 at it (standard 7.62x51mm bullets). No effect.
• Fired several volleys from my pulse laser and perforator turrets at it. No effect.
• Explosives: useless. Tried LAW, C4, grenades, molotov cocktails. I don’t have a nuke or a mininuke, so only those are left to try!
• Final trial: Rammed my military truck at it at about 200km/h or faster. No effect… other than I nearly died, and half of my truck’s frames were destroyed but the truck oddly still remained in one piece, too.

I don’t know what it’s made of but I want my house and body armor made of it.[/quote]

Tried a few more things on it using a new world and debug mode.

-Flaming eyes. Destroyed everything around it except for the tank.
-RDX charge, nothing.
-Acid bombs, also nothing.

The only thing left probably is to find a silo and launch a nuke from it.

edit: a nuke from a silo did destroy it. probably the only thing that did. dug around the rubble, no trace of it anywhere.

[troll_from_behind]

Is there a limit of how many NPCs the game does generate, meaning can I run out of NPCs to kill…errr interact with?
Was about to try a “Day Zero” start turning the NPCs on and the number to the max, but if they just keep on coming EVEN after beign killed by dozens might need to reconsider.
Speaking of Day Zero should the zombies be turned mundane and how high should the spawn rate be set to be in line with the lore.

[Zireael]

There is a NPC spawn rate in the options, but it’s only for random NPCs.

[troll_from_behind]

Which isn’t quite the what I’m looking for.
Basically in my opinion Day Zero would see a lot of NPCs while the zeds would slowly start to appear with growing numbers while the NPCs keep dwindling for “natural reasons”.

Thinking the current worldgen doesn’t quite cover this, since the rates are fixed and there’s no way to adjust robot/Nether spawnrates nor does it allow a gradual dicrease/increase.
Beign able to change from dynamic to static gradually would be cool and quite fitting imo.

[Azrad]

Was looking through the making a supercar guide, but couldn’t find an answer.

Will it make any difference to have different wheel sizes on a car? Like having a set of 23" armored wheels alongside a set of 28" armored wheels, will that cause problems? Also does it matter if a car has 8 wheels instead of 4?

[Shopkeeper]

I haven’t had any issues with my 8x8 mobile base, which uses three different varieties of armored wheel and is currently down four wheels due to repeated run ins with minefields, but I think the more wheels you have the less fuel efficient you are.

[DeWolf]

I haven’t had any issues with my 8x8 mobile base, which using three different varieties of armored wheel and is currently down four wheels due to repeated run ins with minefields, but I think the more wheels you have the less fuel efficient you are.

For some reason most of the time when I drive through minefield I come out with out a scratch. And I’m going in with a semi truck.

[BeerBeer]

Wheel size matters.
http://www.wiki.cataclysmdda.com/index.php?title=Vehicles (note the links to more articles in upper right corner)
http://www.wiki.cataclysmdda.com/index.php?title=Making_a_Supercar:_Guide
http://www.wiki.cataclysmdda.com/index.php?title=Vehicle_parts

From “Vehicle Parts” above:

[i]Ideal wheel configuration depends mostly on the vehicle’s mass. When trying to maximize safe speed, total wheel area should be ~1.58 sqrt( mass ). Here “sqrt” means square root and mass is in kilograms.

Increasing the wheel area above that may increase acceleration, but it will decrease safe speed and thus also maximum speed and fuel economy.

For example, a 2500 kg (5512 lbs) truck should have a total wheel area of around 79. This can be achieved by installing just a single maximum sized armored wheel (20 width * 36 diameter / 9 = 80 area). The truck still needs more than one wheel to move, but the second wheel can be just a set of casters. [/i]

[Cornuthaum]

I’m currently trying to kit my Lootbox Mk IV/Armored Survivor Carrier further, but I can’t find a Stereo System anywhere, and I don’t know how to craft one. Some advice would be highly welcome.

[DeWolf]

I’m currently trying to kit my Lootbox Mk IV/Armored Survivor Carrier further, but I can’t find a Stereo System anywhere, and I don’t know how to craft one. Some advice would be highly welcome.

Electronics stores or garages you may get lucky with some houses as well.