Tips, Tricks, and Newb Questions!

[Rot]

What’s the best motorcycle engine in the game?

[noname1208]

I’ve got a question myself:

I recently came across /basic/ power armour in a mil surplus and not five minutes later found a /heavy/ power armour helmet laying on the ground in a field. Will those two work together? And if so, if I come across a basic power armour helmet would it be better to use that one instead?

[SpadeDraco]

What’s the best motorcycle engine in the game?

2.5L Inline 4 Engine.

Can be observed in its natural habitat by examining the rarely spawning “superbike”.

[deoxy]

What’s the best motorcycle engine in the game?

V12, of course, preferably as large as possible.

5. What’s the best backpack, for when you are on foot? And how necessary is dropping worn bags during close quarter combat?

“Best” is highly subjective and dependent on the situation. The duffel bag holds the most, for instance, but the encumbrance on it is HUGE. Dropping worn bags when entering melee can range from “always a good idea” to “ABSOLUTELY REQUIRED OR YOU WILL DIE”, depending on the situation.

The problem is encumbrance - torso encumbrance will make it harder for you to hit (which can be offset by high skill and weapons with bonuses to hit) AND slow you down by making your melee attacks take more time (I don’t know of anything that helps with that, so even on high level characters, it can still matter).

With decent dex and a weapon with a hit bonus, you can reliably kill regular zombies even with CRAZY high encumbrance, but go up against something that’s even slightly harder to hit (zombie child, skeletal dog), and a high encumbrance means you’ll NEVER hit them. Mi-go, giant wasp, manhack? Yeah, not going to happen.

Generally, I try to keep torso encumbrance under 30 for melee combat, even for pretty skilled characters. I’ll carry a duffel bag for bringing the loot home, but if there’s something other than a regular zombie in my way, the duffel bag comes OFF.

[BorkBorkGoesTheCode]

[quote=“noname1208, post:15022, topic:42”]I’ve got a question myself:

I recently came across /basic/ power armour in a mil surplus and not five minutes later found a /heavy/ power armour helmet laying on the ground in a field. Will those two work together? And if so, if I come across a basic power armour helmet would it be better to use that one instead?[/quote]
Heavy powered armor helmets can be worn with basic powered armor. I don’t know if the radiation resistance ability still works if you do it though.

[BeerBeer]

[quote=“LostHere, post:15018, topic:42”]5. What’s the best backpack, for when you are on foot? And how necessary is dropping worn bags during close quarter combat?

6. What’s the “next stage up” from a Glock 19?[/quote]

7. It depends. To me it’s a balancing act between torso encumbrance, backpack durability and current tailoring skill (=repairability). Leather backpack is a great early find. MOLLE backpack is great too. Military rucksack is nice, possibly with kevlar reinforcement, depending how much you let zombies attack you. But the downside then is a high encumbrance. Note that I organize my clothing “realistically”, so my backpack is always on top of my coat, so it’s always exposed to beating. I rarely if ever drop my backpack in combat. I tend to drop damaged backpacks early and not see them destroyed… Unless I have a ranged character and plenty of ammo. Also if there’s another backpack nearby, that affects my decision whether to keep going, to leave, or to drop something with the backpack. Highly situational.

8. Again, it depends. CDDA is a complex game with complex firearm, ammo and accessory system, not to mention monster variety. You use what you find, as wisely as possible. A Glock 19 with JHP rounds is ineffective against bots, unlike FN Five-Seven with its highly armor-piercing rounds, but the JHP rounds are great against unarmored targets, such as animals or most zombies at point blank ranges. It’s more about the ammo than the gun. Of course I could always claim that SMGs are the next step up. Are you planning to master pistols or are you willing to use other firearms? Are you planning to assault a horde of zombies? There’s a dozen variables at play here. Your plans, your current supplies, your character’s status. I don’t know any of them. Only you know what’s best for you, and you learn by experimenting, young grasshopper. Would I rather carry a Glock 19 with 60 JHP rounds, or a Desert Eagle with 40 FMJ rounds, or would I make room for both? I don’t know. It depends. Although I might start with Desert Eagle, which is a less accurate weapon. The thing about skill advancement is that in order to advance you need more precise weapons as you progress. The logic would dictate that you’d spare the most accurate guns and their ammo for later, or in other words, you’d spend the less accurate ammo first.

[Arek_PL]

once you get a7, decent bionic storage and interchanged metabolism you do not need to care about torso encumbrance, if you get right mutations what you cant get from any mutagen you will have infinite ammo and food

[rremyroy]

Okay, how does one go about tapping for maple syrup? I’ve drilled in a spile and put a 30 gallon drum under it, but when I came back after a few weeks, there wasn’t even a single drop of syrup. Is there an additional step that I missed or is it a bug?

Maple sap will be produced between late winter and early spring as mentioned in the tree spile description. You just have to wait like when you are farming crops.

[Malaxxor]

[quote=“Alasnuyo, post:14798, topic:42”]Okay, how does one go about tapping for maple syrup? I’ve drilled in a spile and put a 30 gallon drum under it, but when I came back after a few weeks, there wasn’t even a single drop of syrup. Is there an additional step that I missed or is it a bug?

Maple sap will be produced between late winter and early spring as mentioned in the tree spile description. You just have to wait like when you are farming crops.[/quote]

Side question: how damn rare are maple trees? I checked quite a large area of forest, but I haven’t managed to find a single one of them…

[X-PLODE]

One in 40 or so trees are maple.

[BeerBeer]

Side question: how damn rare are maple trees? I checked quite a large area of forest, but I haven’t managed to find a single one of them…

Are you using any tileset?

[Malaxxor]

[quote=“Malaxxor, post:15029, topic:42”]Side question: how damn rare are maple trees? I checked quite a large area of forest, but I haven’t managed to find a single one of them…

Are you using any tileset?[/quote]

I am - Retrodays to be specific. I haven’t really SEEN a maple tree and that’s not really suprising, actually. But I have CHECKED so many trees by looking at them with X and still never found one…

[jcd]

[quote=“BeerBeer, post:15031, topic:42”][quote=“Malaxxor, post:15029, topic:42”]Side question: how damn rare are maple trees? I checked quite a large area of forest, but I haven’t managed to find a single one of them…

Are you using any tileset?[/quote]

I am - Retrodays to be specific. I haven’t really SEEN a maple tree and that’s not really suprising, actually. But I have CHECKED so many trees by looking at them with X and still never found one…[/quote]

Ehm, special trees ‘should’ show up in a different way from normal generic trees. This should apply for tilesets and maple trees, but of course the tileset maker may be using anything to represent them.

Anyway, from mapgen_functions.cpp i see that the chances for one to spawn are 1 in 256 (and not 1 in 40), same as for willow and birch trees. So it is rather likely to find maple trees in a large-ish forest (but checking all trees is bound to get you nothing, as you could manually even check 500 trees and not see a maple with chance of (255/256)^500 = 14.1% (which is considerable, considering you just checked 500 trees one-by-one)

You could disable the tileset and check again i guess. Maples were colored red last i checked (to my longtime dismay as initially cherry and plum trees were red, and since when maples took their place as the red trees, i cannot spot cherries and plums with ascii gfx)

[deoxy]

[quote=“Malaxxor, post:15032, topic:42”][quote=“BeerBeer, post:15031, topic:42”][quote=“Malaxxor, post:15029, topic:42”]Side question: how damn rare are maple trees? I checked quite a large area of forest, but I haven’t managed to find a single one of them…

Are you using any tileset?[/quote]

I am - Retrodays to be specific. I haven’t really SEEN a maple tree and that’s not really suprising, actually. But I have CHECKED so many trees by looking at them with X and still never found one…[/quote]

Ehm, special trees ‘should’ show up in a different way from normal generic trees. This should apply for tilesets and maple trees, but of course the tileset maker may be using anything to represent them.

Anyway, from mapgen_functions.cpp i see that the chances for one to spawn are 1 in 256 (and not 1 in 40), same as for willow and birch trees. So it is rather likely to find maple trees in a large-ish forest (but checking all trees is bound to get you nothing, as you could manually even check 500 trees and not see a maple with chance of (255/256)^500 = 14.1% (which is considerable, considering you just checked 500 trees one-by-one)

You could disable the tileset and check again i guess. Maples were colored red last i checked (to my longtime dismay as initially cherry and plum trees were red, and since when maples took their place as the red trees, i cannot spot cherries and plums with ascii gfx)[/quote]

Maple trees also show up a different color on the mini-map like fruit trees, or at least they did last I checked.

[Szara]

Where the heck is all the magnesium? I’ve searched high and low, but I’ve only found 200 total, which is not very much at all. Half I forget where I found, and the other small bottle in a lab. I haven’t found a mine in this game yet, but I did branch out from that lab’s first basement level with an electric jackhammer for awhile and found nothing but all the usual stuff.

Edit: Experimental versions of course.

[survivornaginata]

any tip of avodiing situation with npc exploding heads and just vanishing in thin air?happened just now that i lost two npcs left in car when i retuned and this is not first time.before that third in same game npc lost head becuse of i think mission 10 i didnt even accepted.

[Coolthulhu]

any tip of avodiing situation with npc exploding heads and just vanishing in thin air?

Describe the situation.
If you’re playing experimental, it specifically causes a pause and turns on debug mode to print some data that should describe why is it killing the NPC.

[survivornaginata]

[quote=“survivornaginata, post:15036, topic:42”]any tip of avodiing situation with npc exploding heads and just vanishing in thin air?

Describe the situation.
If you’re playing experimental, it specifically causes a pause and turns on debug mode to print some data that should describe why is it killing the NPC.[/quote]
well i past from that point to print log but my last npc died because of mission 10 i think as it paused and said it in debug as you told. msiion requires killing number of zombies .I tried times to load previous autosave to avoid it by iniiiating mission as it wasnt, setting him on guard but no matter what i did he died after certain time period and it reported that mission in debug.this is not first time they die on me for mission in debug .

as for vanishing npcs when i think of it it mostly happen when they are left in car and several time during driving and only once when attacking city when yhry vanished in thin air leaving me alone cursing bugs and retuned after several turns.sometimes game return them back after certain period sometimes not.In my last occasion of them vanishing in car debug detected them when i entered seats in debug and said something about pasdsenger though i cant remember what.
Well i shoudl not leave them in car anymore.

[Coolthulhu]

Mission debugmsg is a different bug.

Exploding head generally turns on debug mode, but writes the actual info to the regular log.
It typically looks like:

Urist Kogan selects action: eat food
Selected food: lighter

But with some numbers like positions, danger level etc.

[survivornaginata]

[quote=“Coolthulhu, post:15039, topic:42”]Mission debugmsg is a different bug.

Exploding head generally turns on debug mode, but writes the actual info to the regular log.
It typically looks like:

Urist Kogan selects action: eat food
Selected food: lighter

But with some numbers like positions, danger level etc.[/quote]
my bad i think he just spontanosly died without message of exploding head-it just said npc x died or something similar without mentioning exploding head. it mistakenly treated all spontaneous deaths of npcs as exploding heads as it was norm previously.