That sort of stuff is also useful when you’re trying to find your way back to The Car in the middle of the night (without revealing your position by turning on a flashlight or something)
Day 2 1130.
Just got out of a city Public works that was at the edge of my initial vison. The ‘city’, was really more of a well-off small town. It has a bar, news station satelite, 2 parks, and several very nice houses. There were several drivable vehicles, or at least they were running until the zombies found them.
I myself found 3 working vehicles. A sports car with a tattered battery, a security van, and a military humvee. But thats a story for Day 2. Day 1 was enough of a struggle.
= = = = =
I awoke in a lounge room/kitchen, with my buddy down the hall shooting at zombies coming through a bedroom window. I ran up to him and looted to nearby corpses for basic storage and warmth, but from him I only found food items. Useless to a person who cant carry what he does have on him.
Running around town, I found a LOT of shady zoms. So many I questioned whether or not the mod groupsspawn lists were in adttition to the defaults instead of a replacement of them. A lot of special Zmen in general, tbh. Which would make sense if you combined the abysmall spawn rate of Greenies with the moderated-but-not-insignificant weights I put on them in my own.
I spent the day without a car in a house in the middle of town. Not so bad when one considers that the middle of town is a field. I even gotg ballsy enough to craft stuff in the sunlight, but I paid for my crimes against Zmen when a necromancer came by. I just got the door shut in time to flee to the basement, where 2 new zombies had spawned and waited for me. I had, however been prepared enough to have crafted weapons by then. I came out of the ordeal with nothing more than a leather vest (because crafting a leather vest repairs the damage the jacket had sustained), a kevlar vest I found on the ground, and a backpack. I crafted warmers for my arms and legs, and even stockings because rags were so tight.
Running out with a makeshift crowbar, some nailknuckles, and a nailboard, I found the security van. I attempted to hijack it but set off its alarm. In despair I began wandering to an electronics store. In there I found a screwdriver kit and flashlight, and on my way through the streets I looked for a car. Instead I found the humvee, one street over from the security can and its alarm.
From there I had plenty of time assess it, and Got out of the town to a public works station. There I found a wrench and 8 shockers. I ran into the open garage building and used the wood pile for kindling and a wepaon against them. When 7 shockers and a spitter were put down I looted the place save an anvil. Ugh, finally some turnaround for my poor character.
An almost-empty military humvee, half a bottle of tequilla, and several electronics are his to behold. And the kevlar vest and newly looted filter mask/hard hat. Yesterday he was failing to craft 2x4arms and destroying cargo pants >.<
If the turbolaser is even vague comparable, then it’s a LOT better… because AMMO.
Also, the thing that I like about the area effect of the turbo laser is getting rid of corpses… including hulk corpses, actually, if you shoot the ground enough times. When you take out the thriller and have a zillion hulk corpses to dispose of, it’s nice.[/quote]
I still greatly prefer the hypervelocity driver. Sure, I have to spend like several in-game days to craft a ton of ammo, but it’s worth it. Regularly run into hordes the number in the hundreds, and when the smoke clears out I only have to butcher like 20 hulks in the end, and the rest are all gory chunks in the ground. The turbolaser requires multiple shots to vaporize a corpse, and that’s not often a guarantee.
That said, the turbolaser is preferable against other organic targets. Ants, triffids, blobs. No need to worry about reviving, after all.
In second place is probably the ripper for me. Crazy powerful (sometimes vaporizes zombies on impact, though not as much as the driver), decent range, and unlike the driver the serrated discs stay intact after firing, or at least has a very good chance to stay intact after firing.
Thundergun is also a good candidate. The smallest amount of range among the mountable guns I’ve used (like seriously, you need to fire the slugs and flechettes at max range or you’ll get hit - forget about the shot, as you will get hit no matter what), but almost as powerful as the hypervelocity driver - and has the distinction of having the flechette as the only one to actually shred a hulk corpse. Ammo can be quickly crafted, and very easy to find if you don’t mind taking apart ammo you find.
Anyways, as for the current winter expedition, running into lots of NPCs. The area around my base barely has any dropping in, so I’m milking this for all its worth. Give them a diamond in trade to make them fork over most of their cash, then threaten them to drop their weapon, then kill them for meat.
Melee’d a fungal spire to death thanks to my ANBC suit and the power of Niten Ichi-Ryu. Didn’t take any damage, either.
Which reminds me that fungal towers are quite lax on things that can spore you to doom. For a challenge, managed to take one down without getting hit… while the survivor is naked. All hail awl pikes, and their three-tile reach.
o_o
I presume you had antifungal drugs on hand?
Funny thing. I had a royal jelly around… (technically, survivor was almost naked, as he still wore a fanny pack: to hold the royal jelly and some cigars he smoked while spearing the tower)… he got spored in the arm, but he went to bed after and didn’t take the royal jelly and was fine the day after. No warning messages about smelling and tasting mushrooms.
He did take the jelly later on, just to be sure.
Cue jokes about you running at the fungaloids and penetrating them.
Triggered.
Been disassembling pretty much all the ammo found during the winter expedition, then smashed a bunch of windows, and now my survivor has 1k blunderbuss flechettes, ready to be used. Helps that crafting ammo takes little time to do so.
Finally got enough tools to work on cars but it was looking like a long grind to achieve the necessary mechanic skill. Located a book about biodiesel that will take me to 6! That puts solar panels within reach! My new motel base will be stronger than ever before! And I can prepare rooms for the other survivors, the friendly ones that don’t point guns at me.
An expedition to the city yielded few useful books other htan the biodiesel one, but I got a collection of swords from the museum, and even plate mail. An idea is formed: I will take a vacation from the apocalypse by pretending to be a knight. Equip power armor, a broadsword, and a leather sack full of haggis and go out to slay some ‘goblins’. Teddy Ruxpin will love that! He’s so bloodthirsty!
Hmm, thundergun isn’t as efficient as I thought it would be. It’s certainly powerful, almost enough to rival the ripper or hypervelocity driver in terms of damage, but the range it has really lowers its usefulness against a large horde. Had to keep on backing up, otherwise the zombies get too close and the blast starts damaging the vehicle. It’s also not as reliable in vaporizing hulk corpses as I expected. It can do so, but requires a fair amount of ammo - and while the hypervelocity driver can fit thousand of steel rails on one cargo carrier, blunderbuss ammo maxes out at 1k in one cargo carrier.
Still used them all, putting my kill count to 46k.
Next time, I’ll try testing out a mountable speargun to see if it can rival the ripper. Tempted to use the storm bolter, and make explosive bolts, but the time it takes to craft 20 bolts is 3 hours… so if I want to make thousands of them it’ll rival the time it takes to make steel rails. 200 steel rails take 33 hours and 20 minutes to craft. 20 exploding bolts take 3 hours and 20 minutes to craft, so 200 bolts will take… well, 33 hours and 20 minutes as well - but that doesn’t take into account the time it takes to craft metal crossbow bolts. Not to mention in terms of damage and dispersion, the hypervelocity driver alone has better stats.
…so probably the rotary speargun instead.
I think I’ll switch to twin hypervelocity drivers as soon as I run out of crossbow bolts.
It’s a great weapon, though ammo can take forever to craft (though at the very least lumps of steel are easy enough to find).
Anyways, amusingly, found a mine. First time ever that I found a mine with only two mine levels, and at the end the thing was waiting for me. Amazingly, it was close to the stairs so I managed to take a picture of its dog form.
The artifact I found was another blade. Carrying it reduces speed by 20… but wielding evens it out by granting 20 speed. Wielding also gives survivor a trickle of insanity/schizophenia, though I suppose that’s not too bad.
It’s activated skill is the one I like. First, it summons friendly shadows to possibly fight for me, and even better it spawns trees. Underground forest for my underground city! It causes some damage to recharge, but all in all the pros outweigh the cons.
Reinforced, cutting damage is 23. Not as high as most swords of its size, but with the current skill of my survivor it’s not that bad.
Better yet, there’s a mine and a strange temple nearby, so more artifacts are waiting!
Hmm, I was wrong about the effect of the artifact: it doesn’t spawn friendly shadows, it spawns hostile ones… however, I discovered its hidden effect: it has a decent chance of temporarily turning surrounding hostiles friendly.
Second mine was a bust, artifact-wise. At the end was a shrine where you can get a petrified eye.
Temple, however, was better. One was an artifact harp that created smoke when carried, as well as reducing speed by 20, electric protection, and force pulling inwards. Activated skill causes the fabric of space to decay. Not really useful.
On the other hand, I got an artifact leather coat. Low encumbrance, lowers speed by 20 (third artifact in a row), int and per is lowered by three… however, it can see through everything. Just as dangerous in breaking any sort of difficulty as the invisibility sword. Bloated zombies and smokers will no longer hide other zombies, and the latter can no longer hide from getting blasted by the hypervelocity driver.
And, at the very least, there would be no need for security cameras and floodlights in the car.
Still, what I want is an artifact that grants nether attention. I wanna hunt down nether creatures for meat and fat!
I tried to break the land speed record, but I only got up to 1300mph and then ran into a giant frog in a swamp road. My whole vehicle exploded, throwing shrapnel, engines, and gas tanks everywhere. To get back I had to take the bike I stuck at the end of the road.
I’m going to try again on a different stretch with 3 vortex engines instead of 8 v12s.
EDIT: That didn’t work, there wasn’t enough power. Oh well.
Also, I found an armored car fully repaired, fueled up, sitting in front of a jewelry store. That would have been a godsend if I was a new survivor.
You know, when a random house happens to have boarded-up windows and metal doors sealing off a room, it might be a sign that you don’t want to fuck with it.
House looked quite quiet until I found multiple smoker zombies, survivor zombies, tough zombies, and at least one gasbag gasbags in that room. Yay for my shelter having had a gas mask in the locker.
A survivor zed dropped The Cleansing Flame. Yesss.
I used to have random NPCs in this world, but I turned it off. However, there were still some NPCs left from that time. I ended up going back through a town from that time and finding some NPCs.
And now one Nettie Crimshaw is napping in the brand new back seat of the Solar Roller VI. I’m making her a gas mask so she doesn’t die around my fungi.
Ohgod I don’t remember hulks being this resistant to Krav Maga. Led it along towards a pizzeria and now it’s brawling with an animatronic cat.
EDIT: Felix got fucked up. Now I’ve got a wounded hulk and two aminatronic rabbits after me. Fight fight fight fight!