Tips, Tricks, and Newb Questions!

[Rot]

Does an oxygen tank restore breath/stamina when used?

Also, general useful battle stimulants for melee characters in a pickle would be nice.
(Adrenaline, oxygen tanks, cocaine, etc.)

[KiBoy]

I need some general tips on how to clear the city from the horde. I’m mostly an unarmed melee character who has archery as its main ranged skill ( modded reflex recurve bow + metal arrows ).

Right now my archery, melee and unarmed are all at 5. Dodging almost hit 8. I’m currently undergoing a major ant genocide a friendly sparring session with the nearby ant colony.

My stats are: Str 14, Dex 10, Int 14, Per 10 ( 12 negative trait points + really bad day start ).

I have all the heavy survivor gear, but for legs I’m using the wetsuit boots variant with additional Kevlar reinforcing. ( For acid… It’s like the only common thing that can damage me )

I have fought 4 hulks already, 95% of damage was dealt using unarmed without a weapon. I fought two at once when I was being a complete idiot a little bit curious because of the Horde Master mission.

The thing is, the small town I am in has multiple zombie masters who cause major trouble for me, breeding more tanks and other troublesome opponents.

Should I prepare a major ‘trap zone’ ( pits, nail boards, bear traps ) and then lure the horde towards it? Do fragmentation grenades destroy loot? Is there any kind of grenade that works very well on zeds without damaging the surroundings and loot too much?

[BeerBeer]

[quote=“Rot, post:16001, topic:42”]Does an oxygen tank restore breath/stamina when used?

Also, general useful battle stimulants for melee characters in a pickle would be nice.
(Adrenaline, oxygen tanks, cocaine, etc.)[/quote]
Cocaine
Good for melee. Good escape helper. Commonly found. Your general purpose combat assistant. A YouTube letsplayer called Quill18 used a phrase “emergency cocaine”, which I think is a wonderful description of the drug for CDDA. 1 dose a day should be OK.

Adrenaline
Recommended for escapes only and at the end of the fight. You don’t want to be in a fight when the comedown hits. Other than that, feel free to use as much as you want/can. Moderate anti-hulk properties.

Alcohol
Great little help for melee. Found everywhere. Use alcohol in moderation before or during a fight. 1-2 doses a day should be OK. Not sure if the various alcohols provide varying strength bonuses, e.g. beer vs. whiskey vs. chardonnay vs. cocktails.

Pain meds
Pain meds take time to kick in, so take them right BEFORE a big fight or any situation that will inflict pain. Tramadol, oxycodone, codeine… others? Aspirin isn’t so much a painkiller but a quick tool to get rid of the -1 INT penalty that even the slightest pain causes. Oxy is the strongest of the bunch so use it sparingly.

Oxygen tank
Unlike the above, this one doesn’t ruin your health. Use it as much as you want/can. Effects wear out fast, unforch. These puppies weigh a bit, so weaker characters might not want to carry an O2 tank around. Keep one in your car and take a whiff before heading into a fight. Should work against smoke inhalation and toxic gas inhalation. May or may not restore stamina - historically speaking it has NOT restored stamina. Keep an eye out.

Caffeine and sodas
Small and near-harmless boosters for the ranged guys. Caffeine is best left for CBM installation moments though (with Adderall).

Joint, cannabis, marijuana, weed, etc.
At most you smoke a joint AFTER a fight, not before, not during. I suspect weed increases hunger and thirst in the game, but also definitely reduces pain.

Meth
Not even once. Honestly, I have no idea about the in-game effects of meth. Surprise yourself.

[BeerBeer]

[quote=“KiBoy, post:16002, topic:42”]The thing is, the small town I am in has multiple zombie masters who cause major trouble for me, breeding more tanks and other troublesome opponents.

Should I prepare a major ‘trap zone’ ( pits, nail boards, bear traps ) and then lure the horde towards it? Do fragmentation grenades destroy loot? Is there any kind of grenade that works very well on zeds without damaging the surroundings and loot too much?[/quote]
Go after the masters first. If you have grenades, use them liberally. To hell with the loot. There’s always more elsewhere. Fire is a great helper too. Craft a ‘simple flamethrower’ if you can. Lay down a blanket of inferno and pull zombies through it as you take steps back. Do it on the street or at plains. Bows can be a PITA against hordes. Note that there is a variety of arrows to craft (explosive, acid, etc.)

If you have a car, aggro the ants and pull a hundred of them behind a car toward the zombies. Have them fight each other. That’s one clean way to reduce both of their numbers. Keep honking the horn as you drive slowly to keep the ants interested.

[mlangsdorf]

Raid spider basements and bank vaults until you find power armor. Even without a UPS, powered armor makes fighting hulks much less dangerous - they’ll throw you around but won’t generally hurt you much.

[Arek_PL]

adrenaline is alslo realy good learning helper, after 3 doses you gain strong stimulant overdose what last for a long time and increase your inteligence (and other stats but i never noticed what and how much) you will read books ten times faster than ordinary human (because there is cap of 10% reading time so not instant reading of high level skill books) get some drugs and junk food to bost your focus too

[BorkBorkGoesTheCode]

[quote=“BeerBeer, post:16004, topic:42”][quote=“KiBoy, post:16002, topic:42”]The thing is, the small town I am in has multiple zombie masters who cause major trouble for me, breeding more tanks and other troublesome opponents.

Should I prepare a major ‘trap zone’ ( pits, nail boards, bear traps ) and then lure the horde towards it? Do fragmentation grenades destroy loot? Is there any kind of grenade that works very well on zeds without damaging the surroundings and loot too much?[/quote]
Go after the masters first. If you have grenades, use them liberally. To hell with the loot. There’s always more elsewhere. Fire is a great helper too. Craft a ‘simple flamethrower’ if you can. Lay down a blanket of inferno and pull zombies through it as you take steps back. Do it on the street or at plains. Bows can be a PITA against hordes. Note that there is a variety of arrows to craft (explosive, acid, etc.)

If you have a car, aggro the ants and pull a hundred of them behind a car toward the zombies. Have them fight each other. That’s one clean way to reduce both of their numbers. Keep honking the horn as you drive slowly to keep the ants interested.[/quote]
Flamethrowers are borked right now, in the latest experimentals.

[pisskop]

Are they … borkborked?

[noname1208]

I really wish I could +1 you right now pisskop, made me smile

To stay on topic I’ve got a question: I’ve found myself a long Japanese sword (nogaki or something like that, I’m not ingame so I can’t check. The one with 57 or so cut) and use it quite okay but I’ve never dabbled into martial arts/fighting styles. I know there is one style meant for the Japanese swords, but are there any other styles that would work for it should I find one?

Also, how do they work? Do I just read whichever book and I learn?

[Solusphere]

[quote=“noname1208, post:16009, topic:42”]I really wish I could +1 you right now pisskop, made me smile

To stay on topic I’ve got a question: I’ve found myself a long Japanese sword (nogaki or something like that, I’m not ingame so I can’t check. The one with 57 or so cut) and use it quite okay but I’ve never dabbled into martial arts/fighting styles. I know there is one style meant for the Japanese swords, but are there any other styles that would work for it should I find one?

Also, how do they work? Do I just read whichever book and I learn?[/quote]

Yeah, pretty much, the best places to look are dojos and lab barracks, though libraries (both the public libraries and the versions found in schools and mansions) will sometimes have them.

A few notable martial arts that contribute to nodachi use:

1. The japanese swordsmanship martial art, I forget what it’s called. Ideal.
2. Krav Maga. Gives a flat 20% boost to cutting damage.
3. Ninjutsu. Makes the attacks silent, which is honestly not very useful.

[system]

[quote=“KiBoy, post:16002, topic:42”]I need some general tips on how to clear the city from the horde. I’m mostly an unarmed melee character who has archery as its main ranged skill ( modded reflex recurve bow + metal arrows ).

Should I prepare a major ‘trap zone’ ( pits, nail boards, bear traps ) and then lure the horde towards it? Do fragmentation grenades destroy loot? Is there any kind of grenade that works very well on zeds without damaging the surroundings and loot too much?[/quote]

TRAPS, TRAPS, TRAPS, TRAPS, TRAPS

Frags don’t destroy loot (I think. Mines don’t destroy what my players carry when I hold down a move key and step on one), but they might gib some of them zeds you’ll want to butcher for CBMs. Acid doesn’t destroy loot. Fire destroys loot. So, acid grenades/flasks of acid.

Caltrops if you can. Caltrops if you can. Caltrops if you can.

OXXO X = trap (nailboard/caltrop)
XOOX O = open space
XOOX
OXXO

Is a design a love and adore. Using eight nailboard traps in this formation, I can easily clear out a megastore without delivering a single blow.

For archery, go a night, and try to get the nightvision cbm or a night vision mutation.

Bear traps are okay. They do great damage, but you have to reset them every time.

Pits take a long time to make, and cannot be picked up and placed elsewhere. With traveling hordes/dynamic spawn, this is helpful.

Caltrops are better than nailboards in damage (I think, I haven’t been able to discover just how much damage they do, it is at least the same), weight, and volume

Edit: I just examined /src/trapfunc.cpp which suggests that caltrops do 9-30 damage per instance, if I have read the code correctly. I compared it to nailboards, which the wiki cites does 6-10 per instance, and 9-30 was in the same line as 6-10.

[system]

[quote=“Profugo Barbatus, post:16000, topic:42”][quote=“KiBoy, post:15999, topic:42”][quote=“indigorain, post:15997, topic:42”]Have fires been changed?

Is it possible to have a stack of two-by-fours in an oven/fireplace/stove/brazier and ignite them for a continual fire for a long time or will all of them be consumed in the same period of time that it takes to consume a single two-by-four?

Also, in the StatsThroughSkillsMod, how high can your stats go? Is there a hard/soft cap? Is reaching 14 in a stat possible? What attributes do speaking and bartering contribute to?[/quote]

I don’t think stacking stuff inside fireplaces work. To check it you can just place a bunch of rags outside and ignite them. They will burn at about the same pace.

STS skillcap depends on the version, I believe. Some have caps on how high you stats can go, some don’t. I don’t use it so I can’t tell you which versions are capped or not.

Althrough the uncapped one is insane, there was a guy who had his stats in late 20s…[/quote]

The current version distributed with the newer experimental versions seems to approach a cap of 12. My character went from Fabrication 4 to 10 in a glorious binge session, and did not move from 11 strength. I imagine if I 10’s all the strength related stats, I’d hit 12, or maybe 14. I remember in the earlier versions, each skill had a stat like now, but you’d just gain a stat point for every three levels in each skill. Those guys could get to 16 stats within the first week or two, could probably hit 20’s pretty easily. Then stack bionics atop it, and yea, you had some insane characters.[/quote]

I decided to actually test some of this stuff that I asked questions about, 'cause I can totally experiment on my own. The fires seem to last longer. One lasted a good several hours when I had 5 or 6 two-by-fours in an oven.

I am sure that I have hit 13 on one skill. I am debating whether I want to go Alpha mutation or use stats through skills. I could probably debug and discover the limit, though. I think that I’ll do that and post here again.

[noname1208]

Ah okay, thank you Solu Krav Maga is actually one of the three books I found at a boxing studio so I’ll certainly go for that one while keeping an eye out for the Japanese book.

[system]

[quote=“noname1208, post:16009, topic:42”]I really wish I could +1 you right now pisskop, made me smile

To stay on topic I’ve got a question: I’ve found myself a long Japanese sword (nogaki or something like that, I’m not ingame so I can’t check. The one with 57 or so cut) and use it quite okay but I’ve never dabbled into martial arts/fighting styles. I know there is one style meant for the Japanese swords, but are there any other styles that would work for it should I find one?

Also, how do they work? Do I just read whichever book and I learn?[/quote]

Japanese swords - Niten Ichi Ryu - learned by reading The Book of Five Rings
Medieval swords - learned by reading The Medieval Warrior
Fencing/Modern swords - learned by reading The Modern Swordsman

The Nodachi (I presume is what you have) should only gain benefits from Niten Ichi Ryu fighting style. There might be some bugs where you can use a fighting style with an inappropriate weapon. Niten allows you to perform some massive damage.

Personally, I really like Fencing. At 3rd or 4th level of the weapon skill, you get stop thrust, which delivers an auto-attack counter whenever someone attacks you. You could butcher 20 corpses, have 50 zombies attack you, and when you are finished butchering, have 50 more corpses to butcher.

[noname1208]

That fencing sounds pretty cool, I’ve only got the nodachi though so I guess I’ll just have to make do… Thank you though, I’ll keep an eye out for that five rings book for sure

[Litppunk]

What does the Lizard kung-fu actually do? It sais something about fighting using walls, but I’ve not noticed any difference w/ w/o walls I don’t think. Although… I could be mistaken, the zombie child I fought away from a wall was relatively difficult, although I think that was more due to encumbrance, low speed, and bad clothing.

[Solusphere]

That fencing sounds pretty cool, I’ve only got the nodachi though so I guess I’ll just have to make do… Thank you though, I’ll keep an eye out for that five rings book for sure

Edited my post, I meant to say SCHOOL libraries, not labs (though the lab barracks bit still applies). For some reason martial arts books, including weapon based ones, are quite common in school libraries. I guess that helps explain how the survivors in this version of america are generally so badass.

[noname1208]

Ooh okay, I’ll have to see if I can find one when I get back on and finish searching my mansion’s three or four libraries

Edit: Awwww Yeh, Five rings was in my mansion the whole time. Found it in library three

Second Edit: Do bushes damage your car or have I been doing fancy driving for no reason all this time?

[Profugo_Barbatus]

[quote=“noname1208, post:16018, topic:42”]Ooh okay, I’ll have to see if I can find one when I get back on and finish searching my mansion’s three or four libraries

Edit: Awwww Yeh, Five rings was in my mansion the whole time. Found it in library three

Second Edit: Do bushes damage your car or have I been doing fancy driving for no reason all this time?[/quote]

I’ve been pretty aggressively off-roading, and I’ve not seen any damage to my van so far. It might be possible to lose control if your going over safe speed and hit them, but otherwise, they just collapse as long as yer going like, 32 or 48.

[system]

I have never made or used a boat before.I know that oars are the foot pedals equivalent. I can figure out how to get a boat constructed on my own.

Can I use an engine to power a boat? Would I need any extra device to attach to the boat to make it go forward with an engine? I would need vehicle controls, would I not? Can boats go under bridges?