i mean the npc and collapse of society. they beg, plead, and cry, but tired people don’t care anymore or just shoot them for food. Hmm. When does the game start? Outbreak of blobs or extinction of humanity? Oh, I found it: http://cddawiki.chezzo.com/cdda_wiki/index.php?title=Timeline
So it is near extinction of humanity.
Obsidian should be added (I’m not the first to suggest it, of course).
Its a lot of different stuff, sorta like a fan game of war of the worlds, but with their own aliens…
Where would you get obsidian from though? Its new england afterall, maybe lava breaks in the surface? Also Macuahuitl is basically just using glass and putting it into something like a cricket bat. Don’t know how obsidian would change it much, I think something like flint would be better to add in the game, as it would have a lot more uses and is a lot easier to find than obsidian.
Something of a more complex system to code is reworking the skill; Rather than have a number define a character’s skill, have a system of “Ideals, Furnishes, and Specifications”*. Having its own UI, with tabs on each skill. a brief example of the skill, your knowledge of the skill, and maybe what you need to learn to progress in that skill. Ideals would function as the basis for furnishes, such as "Basics of Fabrication (Ideal) = Basics of weapon fabrication (Furnishing) = Large Bladesmithing and sharpening (Specification) to learn more about how to craft cutting weapons))
EX:
Fabrication (Novice) | Mechanics (Experienced) | -First Aid (Mastered) SELECTED- | Etc. (Etc.)
I know everything there is to learn about First Aid; I shouldn't need to study anymore
Proper wound treatment ( +5% to wound treatments) - Basic wound Treatment - Basics to First Aid (Mastered) - Limb Repairation
(Allows crafting of bandages, etc.) | (Allows Crafting of Splints)
Recreational Use - Drug Fabrication (Mastered) - Medical Use
(Allows crafting of Methamphetamine, etc.) (Allows crafting of Tramadol, etc.)
|
Nanobots - New Era Medication (Mastered)
(Allows crafting of Rx Serum^1)
If you haven’t researched the specific ideal that would lead to the furnishings, then it would show up grayed out, while if you have no books that mention the specific Ideal, Furnishing, or Specification, then it would result in ???. Books would also have to be remade, rather than a book letting you level to a certain number, a book would focus on an Ideal, Furnishing, or Specification (Or multiples of the three, such as a book called: Your First Guide to First Aid (which let you develop the “Basics to First Aid” and maybe “Basic Wound Treatments” ideals)).
This would also rework professions too, as some would already add Ideals, the MD obviously wouldn’t be a novice or below as an example.
NPC’s would also have to have reworking, maybe once your character gets to know them more, your character can ask about what they were before the Cataclysm, and then asking them about what they had learned during that (as an alternative to asking them to teach the player a skill.), with some professions not teaching you anything such as survivor, otaku, etc. (More to be editted)
P.S. This is a very basic idea, meaning it’s very malleable in design, and don’t let my example, design, descriptions, and things like (Mastered, Experienced, Novice) bottleneck your ideas (trying to format something in text like that took me almost an hour and a half to complete, and looks very incomplete, but I want to at least show a basic design of it.), as there is always room. Also I want the design to be more like a tree’s top, where you have the basic Ideal in the start, but it slowly branches out from there, also helping with the ideals of more combat, speech, and electronic orientated skills would be good, as I’m having trouble with figuring out what somethings could be for that.
P.S.S. Also descriptions could be different to add a little character, like: “A Rifle only feel at home in my hands ( Rifles: Mastered)”, “I feel comfortable wielding most blades (Cutting: Experienced)”, and “I should have studied Mechanics more in school (Mechanics: Novice)”
Anyways tl;dr : add an in-depth research tree instead of skill numbers…
First thing that comes to mind is adding variety in houses and buildings, perhaps through random furniture placement and internal layouts. It doesn’t need to be every building, but one for every two or three normal versions of that building would spice it up enough. Example implementation: Game generates a house map tile, house type (large suburban family homes or a small condo/bungalow ) is decided by area/surrounding areas, then rooms are placed inside by need (2+ bedrooms add another bathroom, basement if top house is large enough), then finally each room is populated with furniture (Each bedroom needs a bed and dresser, bathroom needs a sink, toilet, and at least one bathroom has a shower or bath). Furniture might come in preset arrangements or pairs to speed up generation, and layouts can be recycled in other towns and/or other houses in the same area.
Second thing that comes to mind is more varied descriptions for items. I’m not asking for a novel, but every rock getting the same description is kinda weird. Perhaps throw in 2 or 3 variants for items, much like the different linux t-shirts. Example: “This is a small, fist sized stone. It is brown/grey/whitish grey in color.”
Thirdly, having more detailed player character/npc descriptions would be nice. Things like body type, hair color, eye color, visual age, etc. This would help make npcs and player characters more relatable and add a bit more life to the apocalypse.
Final thing, and this is a bit of a long shot, but I would like to see a map tile editor/designer being built into the game. Being able to create new building variations and places of interest would not only help the modding community, but add a way for every player to add a bit of their own touch to their cataclysm. Perhaps some players want to add in a shared condo unit with 3 houses surrounding a central laundry building, or make a 99 cent store knockoff, or add their favorite upscale restaurant to be eaten in. If there was a full game editor I would scream with joy, but I’m sure that would require much more work then I’m probably thinking.
Thank you all, and may your Cataclysm be filled with nothing but flying salmon and expired toast-em’s.
Themed zombies.
Like zombie prisoners in prison, zombie doctors in hospitals and zombie furries in hotel on convention. Just imagine army of people in goofy animal costumes coming towards you. Pure, unfiltered terror!
Oh man, stumbling on a zombie furry convention would be hilarious! I love this idea
There should be a building in-game that acts as a convection type building. It will spawn a certain set of themed zombies, such as:
-Furries
-Star wars
-Comic books
-Magic
-ect.
This isn’t just a good idea for the game. This would make an excellent short film.
How hard is it to create buildings for CDDA?
I have a very small expirence in making buildings, but I can tell you the following:
It’s nigh impossible to make one without a text editor for formatting it
The fire station building is a good start when learning
Those Mechanical switches that open and close gates are confusing to understand
Cookies are tasty
This is the kind of thing where it’s best to mostly learn by figuring it out yourself
A lot of people figure it out. There are some guides (https://github.com/CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA/wiki/Guide-to-adding-new-content-to-CDDA-for-first-time-modders and I-am-erk’s mapping tutorial that I would link to except the PR is a mess right now). It’s not super complicated, but it is a little tricky.
More modifications, I feel like the stuff the game has is good, but is overall somewhat lackluster for what there is in the world, I guess if there’s an easy json, I might just start doing some fledgling codes for the items (But I wouldn’t be able to test them, as I use two separate systems for the discourse and actually playing the game, which is something I’m able to do very rarely…) Plus I was thinking about a mod to add more to the description of items. I was thinking about something else, but have completely forgotten, but hey at least Im bumping a decent thread.
Oh yeah, I was thinking about adding blueprints, like being able to place a blueprint marking where an construction could be, and it costing like 4 sticks, splintered wood, or the such.
I was also thinking about how cool it would be to have a crafting expansion almost exactly like dwarf fortress, where you make workshops to craft more advanced items, and that would at least get rid of “only using a single room to craft” ordeal, such as variations of a blacksmiths shop, like “Basic blacksmith’s shop: everything you might need to craft basic swords, and crafting items…” and maybe ending it with something like “Complete Blacksmith’s Shop: Everything you might need to craft basically everything there is to craft. (Well, at least for smithing…)” It could expand into so much more like actually using kitchens to cook, or bedrooms for sleeping.
Also being able to map out your base with precision, and not relying on the board to tell where a base is too, in order to help with the whole “personal property” ordeal(?). This could work with the zoning aspect of the game and workshops too, and maybe with a little twist of some json, you could also code for raids. It would be easy too, since every dead thing in game already has a value, you could add the values of all items in the “base zone” (Maybe add in some turret system like the robots mod), and whatever that value is; make the raid equal to or less than that value. Excuse my poor math, but it would be something like ( Base Value * 1/4 + defense value + density of loot related to defense + size of base = raid strength) And then give each mob it separate living value (Like a naked human would have a living value of 500, Zombie having 150, etc.)
Sorry, I know my suggestions are kind of boring but I’d really like to see…
What these changes would enable (non-exhaustive):
Examples of implementation in other games if you want an idea of how these work:
Unfortunately for me, these are great big changes that would substantially change the feel of the game and - though I feel the changes would only enhance the tone and atmosphere - they’re never going to be implemented. One can dream, huh?
Yeah, I sorta had a run in with mlangsdorf, who said he’d rather not attempt to make a set scale for tiles, and there’s alot more he could add for realism, such as verticle volume and horizontal volume, basically dimensions, so you dont get a hammer that’s the same size as a bottle or something like that.
I would be happy to have a set scale for tiles, as soon as there is a way to play the game in console without having vehicle boards being 1m wide and 1 meter long. That’s a fairly fundamental constraint and I don’t know how to resolve it.
FoV isn’t in the plans and isn’t desired by the core developers. Consistent tile scale is desired but is hard to solve.
I think the main technical limitation behind set tile size is enemies. Jabberwocks are implied to be huge. Having multiple-tile enemies would necessitate a lot of remaking of some of the oldest code in the game.
Adding breaks to some of the overwhelming UI’s, the crafting especially, maybe break every three or so, and label that group by a number.
Ill admit id like to see a “tools” section broken into subcategories instead of tools as a subcategory listed under “other”.
More lore sources maybe? possibly a spawnable govenment building that could hold secret documents and/or have hackable computers?