I like this world so far. Started a charisma/faction leader based character. Caitlyn ‘Cat’ Reacher has graduated from teaching schoolchildren to being in charge of the education and survival of anyone she comes across.
Warning: Very long summary of my first week.
[spoiler]
My first order of business was to get some minions. The scripted NPC in the shelter, Margie, was generous enough to spawn with a welder. Very fortunate, as those are usually a real problem for me. She also gave me a quest to kill a jabberwock, which I ignored for the time being.
First order of business was to scout and scavenge the two tiny towns to the north and south of the shelter. The only other notable landmarks nearby are a lab to the Northwest and a prison just a short walk down the road west from the shelter.
During my scouting I met and recruited another NPC by the name of Andrew. I traded him his Glock for a nail bat and he seemed perfectly happy with the arrangement. He also gave me a USB quest, which was easy to accomplish during my clearing of the towns.
I found a loaded double-barrel shotgun, a cop dropped a loaded but damaged L12 Defender, and a house contained decent amount of 9mm ammo and a spare Glock magazine, but I still felt my arsenal to be lacking.
However, by giving Margie the double barrel and backing her up with my L12, we were able to put down the jabberwock without too much trouble. This used up all of the shotgun shells, but I figured it was a worthy cost to help a friend. She then gave me a couple of quests to put down 100 regular zombies, kill a ringleader zombie, and recruit a special NPC. Both of the latter objectives are quite far away, so i don’t think I’ll be getting to them for a while. There’s also the evacuation center, which spawned closer than usual but still not within comfortable travel distance until I get a vehicle.
After handily taking down a brute and a shocker brute with my Glock and my trusty companions, all of the major threats in the towns were eradicated. I was able scavenge the rest of the buildings in peace, though unfortunately not many interesting shops spawned. In fact, they ended up being pretty low on supplies in general. Notably there was a lack of food, which isn’t concerning thanks to the abundance of wolves, and no hacksaw anywhere which is concerning. Vehicle work is an aspect of DDA I’ve never quite gotten good at, but I’m determined to end that here.
I was able to supplement the town’s meager bounty with several corpse locations (including one with nice military loot) and a military crash site that provided a nice army helmet and ceramic plate MBR vest, but ultimately I needed to turn my eye to the prison as the last nearby loot source.
The first day of the prison raid started off well. I tried to shoot down the eyebot by the entrance without getting my picture taken, but it got me. The sole riot bot that answered the call was easy to take down by kiting him behind a fence and popping him with my Beretta enough times. The security bot inside was just as simple, and didn’t even get a chance to try and shoot me. Once I was inside the prison, I realized I had underestimated how many Brutes spawn in these. I had only a couple of shells for my L12, so I conserved them by using only my sharpened rebar on the regular and police zeds and using the bars to separate myself from the brutes and shoot them dead with my pistol. One of them even dropped 20 more buckshot shells, which I was very thankful for.
The ground floor of the prison was simple and safe with enough strategy. The basement proved more problematic, as none of the brutes were held behind bars. I took to kiting them back upstairs so I could continue my shoot-through bars strategy. I ran out of 9mm and needed to start using my shotgun exclusively. Once that started running dry, I re-thought my options. Would I need to simply come back later to handle the remaining brutes?
Margie ended up deciding for me. While I had told her and Andrew to wait at the front door of the prison so I could work my baiting strategies safely, she abandoned her post to pulp a corpse and I got the crazy idea that with her help, I might be able to clear the basement.
It almost worked. With the last of my shotgun shells, we killed everything downstairs except for one last brute. We fled back upstairs, and in desperation I loaded the L12 with beanbag shells that I had found, only to realize that they don’t do anything to brutes. I got myself thrown into a wall and my arms badly injured for my trouble, and I realized with sadness that I wasn’t going to be able to kill this monster. I ran away, leaving Margie to her fate. Andrew and I returned home with heavy hearts, but along the way we actually ran into a new NPC. I don’t like to think of him as a replacement, but the guy literally spawned right outside of the prison after I noticed Margie’s over map symbol disappear. Nevertheless, I welcomed ‘G’ (can’t remember his real name now) to the family.
I wouldn’t have gone back to the prison the next day except for a mistake I made. You see, one of the brutes I killed on the first day had dropped a hacksaw. I was sure I had picked it up, but it wasn’t in my inventory when I unloaded back at base that afternoon. I figured I must have accidentally dropped it in the prison, or else given it to Margie before her death. So I went back the following morning with my L12 loaded with signal flares (which apparently count as shotgun ammo now) , leaving Andrew and G to guard the home front.
The brute was waiting for me right in the front entrance, and after a short chase around the front of the prison and back in, I was starting to think that I wasn’t going to be able to kill it. I almost got cornered or trapped behind locked doors, but ultimately I put myself in a position where I could plink him with all my flares. This, combined with the wounds that Margie had given him before her death, put him at low enough health that a single reach attack from my rebar killed the beast at last.
I found Margie’s corpse and said goodbye, and grabbed the last of the minor food and material loot from the basement, which was almost entirely torn to shreds. I didn’t find the hacksaw anywhere though, and only realized after I went back to the shelter that I had given it to Andrew this whole time.
And that’s how far i’ve gotten. Next order of business is to use my new hacksaw to get a car working so I can explore further. Once I recruit a bigger army of NPCs, I think it’ll be worth it to clean up the prison and repurpose it into a barracks for them. The evac shelter can be my private home, and the fields between the two can be farming fields and a motor pool for vehicles of various size and purpose. But all in good time. [/spoiler]
Also this run has made me realize that with a high enough persuasive ability and some knowledgeable followers, you can get some downright excellent skills with minimal effort and no cost by convincing them to teach you. They put skill books to shame.
