Packmule is basically an essential trait like nightvision
It’s nowhere near NV. It is obsoleted by just dragging a cart.
I pick these traits all the time.
GREEN
Less Sleep
Night Vision
Pack Mule
Parkour Expert
Robust Genetics
Tough
RED
Addictive Personality
Animal Discord
Heavy Sleeper
Insomniac
Poor Hearing
Strong Scent
Thin-Skinned (maybe)
Trigger Happy
Truth Teller
Ugly
I debug Psycopath at start, cos nobody got time to feel bad killing NPC’s and eating their delicious flesh.
I don’t start with any skills, all 0 unless i’m playing a scenario/character with basic skills.
I pump my stats instead, 12/12/13/12, most of the times INT is at 13 and i can lower the other stats based on scenario/character points.
In my early days of playing i cheesed the game with quick and that other move perk(light step?), i don’t do that anymore.
[quote=“X-PLODE, post:12043, topic:47”]I pick these traits all the time.
GREEN
Less Sleep
Night Vision
Pack Mule
Parkour Expert
Robust Genetics
Tough
RED
Addictive Personality
Animal Discord
Heavy Sleeper
Insomniac
Poor Hearing
Strong Scent
Thin-Skinned (maybe)
Trigger Happy
Truth Teller
Ugly
I debug Psycopath at start, cos nobody got time to feel bad killing NPC’s and eating their delicious flesh.
I don’t start with any skills, all 0 unless i’m playing a scenario/character with basic skills.
I pump my stats instead, 12/12/13/12, most of the times INT is at 13 and i can lower the other stats based on scenario/character points.
In my early days of playing i cheesed the game with quick and that other move perk(light step?), i don’t do that anymore.[/quote]
Night Vision is really the only one I think is just brokenly OP, to the point that playing without it is annoying and practically painful.
Robust is nice, but unless you’re going to go the mutations route, it’s not that big a deal - be careful not to get mutated accidentally if you can help it, grab any purifier you can get ahold of, and use it when you get bad mutations, problem solved. Now, if you’re planning on hitting a threshhold or something, yeah, it’s just crazy awesome good.
As to the red list, I REALLY like Heavy Sleeper and Poor Hearing - when I want to sleep, I want to SLEEP, dangit, and I don’t want to be woken up unless there’s something actively hitting me. Also, as soon as I find earplugs, I often leave them in for days at a time, anyway (generally, I only take them off to speak to an NPC or check briefly for noise, then put them back in). Not sure I’d PAY to take them, but I’d definitely use them even if they gave no points.
The NPC ones are basically freebies, so I don’t use them.
I’ve played many builds that are “specced to win”.
I would select the perks that would give me some of the more useful or badass traits such as extra mobility, wider perception, additional health or physical benefits and just use the dumpier flaws to min-max my character towards getting what I needed to get through to the later stage.
Though once I started creating everyman characters, it became much more entertaining.
I made a physically weak and inept computer/electronics nerd who spawned in a House next to a Triffid Queen and had scant seconds to grab a change of clothes, some food from the kitchen and a frying pan as a weapon and flee the town. Smashing windows and trying to lose the leafy horrors as the buildings started collapsing as he ran.
I built up a manic depressive schizophrenic who’s only escape was reading (being a quick reader.) and had her live in a bookstore until a Shocker Brute evicted her one night as she was sleeping on a pile of flithy clothes.
I’ve made cannibal savages or outdoor survivalists and tried to work with nature instead of technology.
I’ve made albino CHUDS that live underground in subway tunnels only to venture forth at night to scavenge and murder whatever they can get their hands on.
These days, at least for me. Playing to win, just isn’t fun anymore in Cataclysm. Because once you’ve “won”, you’re at a stage where you have all the food, the best armour, the best weapons and the best mutations and bionics, and it just gets dull after that. You become a glorified collector, trying to attain everything in the game from a comfortable fortress base to an inconceivable deathmobile.
Cataclysm becomes more fun when you play to tell a story.
The story of the beginning and inevitable end of a person and the odds they’ve faced in their travels.
Lab start (lab technician), herbivore
I managed to grind/read up from 3 cooking to 7 cooking, crafted a dynamite, exploded a concrete wall with it and escaped
Hardest of my lab start “wins” so far.
Ate tons of blob globs to stave off starvation. Went deep into “near starving”. After I escaped I ate 20 cooked oatmeals and that still wasn’t enough to get not-hungry.
[quote=“Coolthulhu, post:12046, topic:47”]Lab start (lab technician), herbivore
I managed to grind/read up from 3 cooking to 7 cooking, crafted a dynamite, exploded a concrete wall with it and escaped
Hardest of my lab start “wins” so far.
Ate tons of blob globs to stave off starvation. Went deep into “near starving”. After I escaped I ate 20 cooked oatmeals and that still wasn’t enough to get not-hungry.[/quote]
I thought you added guaranteed science IDs to the “resonance cascade” room not too long ago. Why didn’t you go for that? Room full of zombie bio operators in the way?
[quote=“Coolthulhu, post:12046, topic:47”]Lab start (lab technician), herbivore
I managed to grind/read up from 3 cooking to 7 cooking, crafted a dynamite, exploded a concrete wall with it and escaped
Hardest of my lab start “wins” so far.
Ate tons of blob globs to stave off starvation. Went deep into “near starving”. After I escaped I ate 20 cooked oatmeals and that still wasn’t enough to get not-hungry.[/quote]
I salute you for enduring that. I generally don’t mess with finishing one of those, just for tedium reasons, forget actual survivability.
But actually surviving getting that far into starvation is impressive, if for no other reason than managing to find food while in that condition without getting killed by something you had no chance of running away from (which would be just about everything at that point).
I fried the scanner with an electrohack early on.
And even if I didn’t, I got a non-navigable lab - one where the finale was separated from the rest of the lab by a pair of computer-locked doors.
[quote=“deoxy, post:12048, topic:47”]I salute you for enduring that. I generally don’t mess with finishing one of those, just for tedium reasons, forget actual survivability.
But actually surviving getting that far into starvation is impressive, if for no other reason than managing to find food while in that condition without getting killed by something you had no chance of running away from (which would be just about everything at that point).[/quote]
It wasn’t that tedious, except for hauling crap to the surface. Mostly because it was actually dangerous compared to regular survival. And multipool point system helps a lot with de-tediumizing starts and keeping the game challenging later on.
Starvation speed penalty has been nerfed since stable version (by me). It is still painful, but doesn’t drop speed to 25 unless you also have other penalties.
The scariest part was when I managed to escape, was on my way to LMOE and a NPC was all “hol up yo” while waving a TEC-9 at me. But he only wanted me to re-kill his mom.
Finally got around to running a game with NPCs. One of the NPCs had a match bomb that they were willing to trade (for free oddly enough).
Got myself killed due to the fact that the match bomb apparently has a ludicrous area of effect. The description certainly didn’t sound powerful… in fact it sounds downright wimpy. I so didn’t expect it to fill up most of the house in flames after I threw it out the front door at the approaching zombies.
After the explosion I was in too much pain to escape, and the zombies overtook me.
[quote=“Fox, post:12050, topic:47”]Finally got around to running a game with NPCs. One of the NPCs had a match bomb that they were willing to trade (for free oddly enough).
Got myself killed due to the fact that the match bomb apparently has a ludicrous area of effect. The description certainly didn’t sound powerful… in fact it sounds downright wimpy. I so didn’t expect it to fill up most of the house in flames after I threw it out the front door at the approaching zombies.
After the explosion I was in too much pain to escape, and the zombies overtook me.[/quote]
I remember I used to use match bombs to blow open the concrete walls in labs to escape. I’m pretty sure they nerfed it but still, blowing open concrete walls in previous versions itself is a testament to their power
match bombs were light monster damage but heavy on enviornmental, pain, iirc
nail bombs are good for killing turrets amd secubots. I have given secubots NV, so indirect damage like nail bombs work great.
i dont waste the glass on match head bombs. should i?
lol, snotgobblers. I’m assuming that’s PK’s doing.
Now THAT was creepy…
Spring Day 03
I spent the first day inside a evac shelter close to my starting point, crafting cloth into basic armor.
Day 02 I found an ambulance, and took that. Without a muffler, the smoke from the engine block was obscuring half my vison at night.
Day 03. I smashed some turrets while reversing ino order to secure a police car. I found a shelter, and read up on my mechanics via UTH.
Day 04. I found 3 FN Scars and took them, selling one to the merchant and keeping the mags and the other as a spare. Ive popped a bayonet onto one and its now my primary weapon, though I have no ammo.
I think it was rivet, though Im not 100%
Day 04:
hahahahahaha. We really need a morale modifier for ‘saw shit go boom’ or ‘made shit go boom’
Day 14;
So Ive decided to detox. Why?
… No reason, really. I wasnt because I pulled up to a fema camp and forgot that I cant stab soldiers.
Nope. And it wasnt because my sleeping npc woke up as I ran back to my humvee and started doing the hokey pokey with it.
Not at all. And it certainly wasnt because he put his dumbass body in the way of a 4 ton truck that menaced with spikes of jagged steel. Noooope.
So yea. Im now detoxing. I was hoping to get some prozac before this, but … I got sidetracked just doing basic living.
I found a map in a motel, and followed its directions south. There are two city clusters, the smaller one Im at now, and a larger one eastward. I found a humvee with a bad seat, and made a daring nightraid to retrieve it, leaving NPC to giard my car. I swapped out the police car when a kreck decided to jump into the passanger side seat and smash my windshield his face. Asshole.
Ive got a steel spear, some basic firefighter clothing, some swimming booties, and all the basics of a pisskop survivor. We looted a public works for 2 welders, an electric forge, a jackhammer, several cordless drills, and a welder rig. Jack-pot!
Anywho. Ive been lightly testing out the spawns and whatwhos. Im thinking some minor nerfs in quantity of zombies? why not, after all.
I died when I took a singleshot grenade launcher and 8 shells to smite a fungal spire.
The improved outut of spores blocks bullets and results in many more defenders. I didnt clear the area and the noise attracted all sorts. I was smitten.
This is another world. Holy shit, do you see that hole? I guess its ramming speed or bust.
My current character, Francisco Ellis, is the first who’s survived beyond day 10. He’s a samurai. He’s not the social type, given that he speaks English with the heaviest Japanese accent possible, but he loves animals instead.
He started in the middle of a small town with a jewelry store, around a half-dozen houses, two fire stations, two electronics stores, two gas stations, and a liquor store. A Cathedral was close by. One town was ~15 tiles southeast.
By sheer dumb luck, the town southeast contained a fully-function, brand-new electric car in a house garage. This propelled Francisco beyond medieval Japan.
Francisco decided to settle into the fire station. He reasoned that the two garage doors could serve for lighting, the brick buildings would prevent horrible fires, and the metal witch-operated doors would keep him safe at night.
Francisco’s used tents from field camps to build a fence for his farming. He’s never hunted animals. He’s not building loads of non-perishable food with no idea what to do with it, given that he has more food than he knows what to do with.
Now he’s in the first days of Autumn of his first year, and he needs to succeed. He has no idea what to do with himself, though - his electric car’s out of battery, he can’t figure out how to move the solar panels onto a security van, he has no idea how to sustain his power supplies, and he’s at a loss.
He broke his right arm and right leg in an encounter with some basement spiders, but he’s still alive. A leg splint healed the leg.
[spoiler][quote=“MarkJerue, post:12058, topic:47”]My current character, Francisco Ellis, is the first who’s survived beyond day 10. He’s a samurai. He’s not the social type, given that he speaks English with the heaviest Japanese accent possible, but he loves animals instead.
He started in the middle of a small town with a jewelry store, around a half-dozen houses, two fire stations, two electronics stores, two gas stations, and a liquor store. A Cathedral was close by. One town was ~15 tiles southeast.
By sheer dumb luck, the town southeast contained a fully-function, brand-new electric car in a house garage. This propelled Francisco beyond medieval Japan.
Francisco decided to settle into the fire station. He reasoned that the two garage doors could serve for lighting, the brick buildings would prevent horrible fires, and the metal witch-operated doors would keep him safe at night.
Francisco’s used tents from field camps to build a fence for his farming. He’s never hunted animals. He’s not building loads of non-perishable food with no idea what to do with it, given that he has more food than he knows what to do with.
Now he’s in the first days of Autumn of his first year, and he needs to succeed. He has no idea what to do with himself, though - his electric car’s out of battery, he can’t figure out how to move the solar panels onto a security van, he has no idea how to sustain his power supplies, and he’s at a loss.
He broke his right arm and right leg in an encounter with some basement spiders, but he’s still alive. A leg splint healed the leg.[/quote][/spoiler]
I’ve done the same thing, but I instead made a house in the wilderness and only used flintlock weapons and swords. Basically made a person who was stuck out of time and didn’t know anything about cars, weapons, etc. And basically made it stay that way, choosing seclusion in fear of this new world.
Well, my survivor just discovered that at some point since I last played, someone addedDOOM to the game, complete with armies of imps, cacodemons apparently spitting plasma, and “hell castles”. Yeah, I’m gonna leave that one until I am a little bit… less of a brand new character with scavenged gear.
That being said, other than that, my survivor has been on a huge migration trying to find somewhere with a reliable water source that isnt swarming with zombies. So far, no luck with that, but I did find a broadsword in a mansion (no pools, sadly) and have managed to craft partial bone armour, so things are looking good. I’m gonna take a wild guess that demons would rip straight through me though…