I have a vehicle that allows me to craft most everything in the game(onboard forge, welder, FOODCO buddy, and a general cooker) and enough storage space that I’ve never needed to leave something behind. What are the benefits of having a stationary base besides farming?
Essentially just farming and booze.
And easier mass production of charcoal.
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Somewhere to park all those NPCs. And you’ll need to unload all that crap eventually, even if you do have Storage Dimensions, because, Spoiler Alert, they don’t store NEARLY as much crap as they say they do (they can store up to 4096 Liters, IIRC) and they still add to the weight of your vehicle.
Some of it just comes down to individual playstyle.
I used to be a static base person then I discovered mobile bases. 
Now I drive around in my truck o’ doom and set up short term bases as needed. Usually when I’m clearing an area or as DeWolf said, trying to mass produce charcoal or something else.
I use my base as a large storage shed. Come on, I can’t just haul around all those tonnes of food, fuel and scrap. Seriously, I’ve collected so much loot that no vehicle could lift it. Not that I really need that loot, actually… But I just can’t leave it.
Also, brewing. Can’t mount a fermenting vat on a vehicle. Not that I need those wines and vinegars… But what else do I do in this game aside from scavenging and storing?
Also, growing. Not that I need all those veggies, I can easily eat offals and wild veggies, but… what else does one do in this game? [2]
Also, sleeping. Time increments much slower when I’m inside my ride. It looks like the game needs more cycles to calculate… something?.. and the game just runs slower. Around 6 times slower.
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I’ll second the nod to growing. I build a mobile base in every game (that lasts at least into summer) but I usually keep a singular static base somewhere on the map to unload my stuff.
Mostly, though, I like farming. Watching all that canola and marijuana blowing in the breeze . . . Or, you know, whatever. I like farming and I can’t do that on the go.
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Dimensions only store 2^12 vol? that puts a dampener on my plan. Then again, im only 1.5 years in, so i shouldnt need to worry about storage for a couple of in game years.
Ive noticed that it was extremely slow sleeping recently, and sleeping in houses makes night go by much faster. Thanks!
A base is a place to be safe while you craft, read, or whatever. Plus you can install unmoveable or heavy equipment for more advanced crafting. Lugging everything you own everywhere eventually becomes impossible.
Mobile bases are cool albeit less secure.
This is a pressing issue for the game, because stationary bases SHOULD be much more valuable and easier to maintain, but vulnerable to monster attacks. This isn’t handled properly though, so vehicles are better in most ways.
It doesn’t help when mods add things like storage dimensions, if you add that kind of thing it totally wrecks balance.
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I would like to see hordes wander around the map in some sort of ‘stumbling migration’. They could respond to noise, but essentially just be large waves of wandering zeds. You’d hear them coming, and see their vague location on the overmap, and smaller hordes can be anchored to cities.
As far as nerfing vehicles, I think more raiders, or npc aggressors might fix that. NPCs raiding wandering players, factions with ‘outposts’ that can send more organized ‘hunting parties’ after players who don’t play respects or tribute (essentially scripable missions that fire when the player murders said npcs but doesnt disable [xyz]), or some other manner of stalker that follows and catches up to mobile players.
And nerfing the endgame cars. Super-mega steel is going to have to go one day, you know, or players will continue to make vehicles that can hold up to hulks better than concrete walls can…
Fleshing out NPCs to do your chores, or giving them a real reason to be desired, would help. Right now they are equivalent to living books or meatshields. neither requires a stationary base. Making an NPC require an auto shop to train you to level 5 mech would be cool. Or building shed to level up your construction?
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I unfortunately don’t think there’s an easy answer. I think you should focus more on encouraging permanence, rather than nerfing things that are already in-game (though I’m about to flip-flop and suggest nerfing things)
The biggest obstacle, I think, is that electricity is currently only implementable utilizing vehicle frames. Because of this, most of the cool mid/lategame parts rely on power and can be installed in vehicles. Unless you’re willing to remove the vehicle welder, chem-lab, etc. and make them furniture or items, you’re always going to be more rewarded for having a super-vehicle than you will with having a base.
I don’t have any answers, I just think that there’s extremely limited reason to establish a permanent base, beyond farming and dropping off thousands of items I don’t even need. Which is unfortunate. I look at other zombie games, like 7 days to die, and wish that I had a reason to build something in this game that’s elaborate and beautiful, when really any four-walled shack is good enough to farm and dump junk.
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The biggest issue I see is that a stationary base is always going to run out of nearby resources quickly, while a mobile base can be moved closer to resources. The best fix for this, IMO, would be to make it so that you can set up an NPC-manned base and send out scavenging parties to collect resources, because then it adds a base-management aspect to the game and you no longer have limited resources at static bases.
That way a mobile base may be superior in it’s ability to collect resources, but with a static base you can start setting up crafting areas, teachers, guards, etc. If you make your NPCs self-sufficient and get them to produce more than they need, then suddenly all your needs are handled by them and you can focus on quests, fighting, looting, whatever. You could even have it get to the point where you can start having wars with other bases or starting to reclaim substantial areas and work toward a win condition.
Set it up that way and mobile bases are better midgame, while static bases are necessary to access the really good lategame content.
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If only Rim-cataclysm was a game…Rimclysm… Cataworld… Dark days in the Rimworld?..
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Me too [WIP] Hordes 2.0 by kevingranade · Pull Request #14240 · CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA · GitHub
I’m not following how this nerfs vehicles, since the player can presumably just run away. Do you mean that the raiding parties make it unsafe to hang out (sleep, craft, read) in a vehicle in certain (all?) areas? Do they send out vehicular raiding parties to chase the player down?!?
More importantly, why does this not affect someone with a stationary base?
I’d be interested in these kinds of things. In addition, some NPCs should only be willing to do the running around fighting zombies and monsters thing as long as there is no alternative, once there’s a settlement available they should defect to living there, whether it’s run by the player or an independent settlement. Along with this though is having the NPCs consume resources, so dedicated scavenging and farming becomes a necessity instead of an option.
The only part I disagree with is the and, if we make those just as readily available in a fixed base as they are in a vehicle, it’ll remove the distinction, and they’ll compete for other reasons. Though I do think many of the heavier tools (forges, anvils) should have a superior version that isn’t practically mountable on a vehicle (a 500lb anvil is going to cause problems with fuel economy), and some very heavy tools (lathes come to mind, they seem to start at a very high weight)
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Personally, I’d be more inclined to stick around one place if it was easier to farm and sell resources for money. Perhaps you can hire a trader/broker from the Refugee Center to stick around your base and give you money in exchange for goods?
Harvest Moon games always had a small crate in your farm that you could drop things in to sell them once the trader came around every evening. It’d be really cool if we could toss a bunch of items into a special area and then have trade caravans come through and take what they want, leaving a bunch of money or items you specify.
My opinion of it is that immediately after the cataclysm(first 5-10 years), everyone is just in a mad scramble to grab as much power(or land)as possible/get super zombies so they can saturate the world without resistance/organize themselves so they wont die or aren’t in harms way. After that period of time,all the remaining factions begin encroaching on each others territory(Fungus start spreading like mad, zombies encroaching on the last of the survivors, Triffids setting up new hearts, human murdering everything that looks funny, etc.), and start consolidating their power with guards and patrols. The human factions would put up land mines or armed guards to stop random creatures from wandering in, the fungus would put up big slabs of rock/fungus to stop others, the mycus would put shoggoths or some other all devouring beast to assimilate new biomass and im not sure what the triffids would do. My point being, the power of vehicles is that they are able to move around, and can skip most difficult fights or situations. I say once research and comprehensive base building with NPCS is in game, curb the usefullness of vehicles. More and more roadblockers would appear, forcing players to clear out areas bit by bit, or make them leave hotspots altogether.
If they’re actual roadblocks that would be a solid vehicle nerf.
A new contributor appeared that’s making a solid stab at extending the vehicle system further, including adding traction handling, which will finally eliminate the status quo were all vehicles off-road equally well.
After that kind of thing lands, roadblocks just blocking roads would be pretty functional.
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I’d like to see enemy factions do things like park two or three vehicles across a forest/swamp road or a bridge and try to stop players and shake them down for food or ammo or something.
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