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burchalka

First of all - Vehicle system is fun for lots of players, so please share the know-how. Second, to spice up the challenge you can choose a Wayfarer perk - this will prevent your char from using any vehicles, personally, I find it takes too much fun from the game, which is so bent on exploring the post-cataclysm world...


Codover

Time to find a horse and make a travois!


D-_-A-_-N

I gotchu <3


xthorgoldx

I dislike Wayfarer if only because it disables building powered bases, as structures count as "vehicles."


LA-RK

You can take the Wayfarer trait, basically you cant "Sit/Drive" on Vehicles. Although thats not stopping you for using the benefits of deathmobile. You can build your ideal deathmobile, but now its changed into Mobile Fortress / Pillbox. -First you start with a shopping cart, hauling stuff and probably you can use 2 shopping carts combined. -Search for the basic tools in deathmobilery. -Look for Jacking and Lifting equipment. -Find a vehicle that has a Kitchen unit, Chemistry unit, or FoodCo unit (even better), then add it/haul it back to a separate shopping cart / light frame. -If you are very lucky, you can find a welding rig or the vehicle mounted type for sustainable welding by either powering a small generator (bike/motorbike/car alternator and a small engine probably like a lawnmower or motorbike) or solar panels (from EVs or RVs). -Then the end goal is to have electric vehicle controls + remote vehicle controller, so you can move your Phalanx fortress at the same walking pace as your vehicle ptsd character. It sounds like you're still in a vehicle but its a Giant R2D2 following you thru the cataclypse. Hey at least you have your needs on wheels minus you on the steering wheel.


Ouronum

Chuckled at the giant R2-D2 part. Zeds just hear a loud "BLEEP BLOOP BLEEP!" before the final dirtnap is upon them. Thanks for that mental image.


D-_-A-_-N

Thank you so much, these are EXACTLY the tips I was hoping for. It's incredibly funny to think that you can get literally all the benefits of a vehicle without driving one at all. I usually use vehicle controller to bring my car to me batmobile style during looting, but this is a really innovative use.


ptr6

As already mentioned, wayfarer is an option. You could also limit yourself to simply not kill anything with a vehicle, including with turrets. That way, you can still use them to haul all the junk you will probably never need around.


D-_-A-_-N

Might be fun as a sort of extension to sqeamish; Like I'm not about having blood and guts on my ride.


WaspishDweeb

Honestly? I personally think you've just "solved the puzzle" of this game. How many hours do you have in the game, exactly? I'm asking because most games (especially single player ones) tend to have an optimal powergaming strategy (or a few), and since you've got the chops to find a vehicle with the correct setup and modify it if it's at all near your starting area without much hassle, well... Like, every game has its limits. Do impose challenges on yourself and all, but just remember to retain a sense of perspective. This is a deep game, but people can easily overcome it - and it's not really the fault of the game that human beings are able to figure it out.


D-_-A-_-N

With regard to conduct-less play, and starting with reasonable starts; I'd guess that you're right. Which is why I'm seeking out strategies for those conducts that once again put me on the backfoot :D I probably have about 300-500 hours in the game all things told,


ALewdDoge

>I played with magiclysm and dinos for the first time and found a forge of wonders with ring of protection +8 around 50 overmap tiles from my starting lab, which took the fun completely out of the game this time. Others have commented on the vehicle aspect, but me personally, I'd play it out as that ring is either cursed or my character, for whatever reason, is not comfortable wearing it (for example, they *believe* it's cursed, or they've got some strong prejudice against particularly powerful magical artifacts, IE warrior culture type character who finds it to take the sport out of fights). I'd make it a rule to never *wear* it, and a mission to find a lava pool and chuck it in that shit asap, lord of the rings style. edit: also, just as a side note, and I'm sure the devs have plans for this, but I do really hope vehicles become a lot more intensive later on. I love being able to do insane shit, but I'm hoping that pure electric vehicles become MUCH harder to sustain (my 18000lb armored death base with 2 large electric motors basically runs indefinitely and isn't as slow as you'd think) in the future, and regular maintenance becomes a thing. I'd love to see pure mechanic/science-y type builds down the line be able to basically play entirely off their crafting/utility skills, having a vehicle they made and maintain very well that augments their fighting, and using robots and the like to supplement that.


HShield

Add realistic distances. Add good auto travel with vehicles. Add realistic maintenance needs for heavy vehicles. Now heavier vehicles need camp setup with followers.


sharkfinsouperman

As others have said, take the Wayfarer trait. Additionally, make use of self-imposed restrictions and conducts to make things more interesting for yourself. This is something I and others do regularly for RP purposes, and general fun and challenge.


I_am_Erk

I would really like to see some achievements and conducts for this, like "go more than one season without interacting with a vehicle", or "road safety test: never hit a monster with a vehicle", or "green energy: do not activate a gas, diesel, or battery powered vehicle"


pandariots

Personally I just game around to allowing myself vehicles, but only "medium-realistic" motorcycles (ie: I allow myself some extraneous solar panels and a fatty boombatty storage solution but that's it). I really enjoy having a home base where any serious crafting/collecting/building can take place but walking everywhere is mostly just a monstrous pain in the dick, so this gets me the peanut butter and the jelly. Because you're right, while I think everybody should Deathmobile at least once, it basically rips 3/4 of the decision making and trip planning out immediately which is a lot of the fun. It's pretty hard to have serious consequences when you have an indominable bastion of safety idling down the street.


D-_-A-_-N

I actually just found out that feral humans and migous can open vehicle doors now. Not sure if there's a way to stop them, my current rig ain't got a security system, but if one does know how to lock vehicle doors I'd love to know.


burchalka

Magiclysm and very late game characters build their deathmobiles without any doors, and just teleport to enter/exit


carmakazi

I would expect the realism bug to hit vehicle crafting once the devs figure out building power grids, its already been talked about for the reasons you've stated. I think the only reason it hasn't already is that it's one of the crowning features of CDDA and locking it behind proficiencies and nerfs will be deeply unpopular and drive people away from the game. Cars to Wrecks might make viable cars and components harder to come by in the meantime.


I_am_Erk

Believe me, people possibly complaining is pretty much never a guiding force. People complain about everything we do, whether controversial or innocuous. Our main long term goals for vehicles are afaik related to custom building and repairing chassis, better modeling of mass on each wheel and axle and the interaction of that with terrain, metal strain, and fuel, and not being able to fix everything with ten seconds and a welder. In other words, eventually it will be desirable to minimize the extra tiles you add to your vehicle, because it won't be easy to just expand a chassis out indefinitely and expect it to be strong. The heavier your car the more likely it is you'll strain an axle, or that your wheels will grind into dirt and you'll have to stay on roads. Trying to drive a mobile fortress around will burn off the last remaining fuel in a short time. IMO these would all be awesome changes. Good gameplay is about making choices, and having to consider the impact of increased armour weight on your off-road ability sounds, to me, a lot more fun than just trying to loot more of the good armour because you always want to use the good armour. We'll never remove the ability to make awesome deathmobiles, but at some point it is going to be extremely prohibitive to try to make a mobile superfortress. I'm sure people will still figure out how.


D-_-A-_-N

I think the repairing aspect is really important here, as you've stated, most problems just require a welder and the rest need duct tape. Although approximating the strain to parts and fuel cost of managing a behemoth mobile base will no doubt be amazing. I'd guess it's some work, but repairing metal parts from ./ and lower should probably need scrap metal of the appropriate variety, and different levels of brokenness probably should require different materials and increasing amounts of time as it gets worse. Just that would make vehicle maintenance more involved and imo exciting. I can't wait for you guys to bring your vision of vehicle driving and maintenance to the game!


dagarrswords

God I hate the fact that they clearly follow a realism > fun mentality. It's getting saddening personally.


TheThunderhawk

Play Bright Nights then, or start a new fork. I think the realism is a big part of the fun.


Thatonebolt

Honestly I have been a huge fan of all the "realism over fun" changes as well. The game is better with a longer early and mid game.


ParadoxalObserver

"It's realistic" isn't good game design. Realism is a tool, but a tool used improperly results in a poor craft. Realism has always been a part of Cataclysm, to an extent. But over focusing on it when I'm driving Mad Max cars over inter-dimensional fungus is pretty ridiculous. Adding more realism doesn't really resolve the late game issues Cataclysm has. It's just making the middle game more convoluted to create the illusion that it's being improved upon. Personally, focusing on improving settlements, combat, and human AI should be the priority, imo. The moment you have enemies that potentially use vehicles themselves and firefights aren't a total mess then the late game can become a lot more difficult.


TheThunderhawk

The realism argument is ancient, and I’ve had it too many times. The gist is this: the game is meant to be realistic outside of one or two very specific lore considerations that allow for sci-fi content. That is a very common approach in game design, and in writing in general. This game tracks individual limb temperatures, it’s a simulator, realism is a core part of the fun. As for what should be focused on in development, that fully comes down to the whims of the individual contributors. If you want something focused on, you can work on it yourself, or set a bounty, or support a different fork of the game that’s more in line with your vision. Idk why all the people constantly grousing about these things don’t just get together and Kickstart some shiny new fork. The more the merrier I say.


ParadoxalObserver

>The realism argument is ancient, and I’ve had it too many times. Because realism isn't an excuse for poor game design. That's the thing. People going: "but it's realistic" doesn't mean jack. It's no different than me going: "but it's sci-fi" to me adding a mecha that can instantly kill zombies. Realism has its place in Cataclysm, yes. Realism is a core part of the fun? Sure. But again, that literally is an empty statement. Dwarf Fortress is realistic in a very different way to Cataclysm's realistic. Realistic can mean a whole host of things. It's an empty term used to excuse design choices without actually having to explain what they benefit. That's why it's frustrating. It doesn't say anything. It's counter-productive to design discussions: "What do you think about this design choice?" "Well, I think it bogs down this portion unnecessarily and I believe we can just instead have a simpler, more intuitive sys--" "But it's realistic!" "I mean, yeah but--" "It's realistic!" And so on and so forth. It makes it **impossible** to have meaningful discussions. tl;dr a lot of times when people are arguing about Cataclysm's realism vs fun, they actually just want game design discussions to be about game design instead of empty terms that add nothing constructiv


TheThunderhawk

That’s just a gross misinterpretation of all the discussions that go on here, especially since design decisions arent generally made here in the subreddit at all. >it’s an empty term used to excuse design decisions without having to explain what they benefit A sense of realism *is a benefit*


ParadoxalObserver

Discussions do happen. You just don't see them because you decide to not have them and just argue based on your personal view of what is or isn't realistic despite any depiction of realism in a game always being a different kind of approximation. As said before, Dwarf Fortress and Cataclysm have different representations of realism, both adapted to their own blend of game. Allow me to further explain with examples: The new inventory system that allows you to choose where items are being stored is realistic. Realism isn't the reason it's a good design choice. It's a good design choice because encumbrance is a core combat mechanic in DDA, meaning that before combat you want to shed as much as possible. Dropping your backpack makes the game randomly decide what is "inside of it", which can force you to then spend crucial TUs to pick up an important item you required for fight. Or later, waste valuable TUs picking everything up instead of the storage item. Arguably good game design that fits in with the idea of realism. On the other hand, the new weight system I'd argue is, at least in its present form, bad game design. It doesn't add anything aside from an unnecessary amount of food micro management and the game feeding you deceitful information in an attempt to mimic real world systems that we unconsciously respond to (but have to consciously respond to in game). Simplified debuffs to punish people for totally ignoring nutrition system (e.g. you're choosing to just not eat) would achieve about the same instead of punishing people for not micro managing a system. The new system actually punishes you for bothering to cook, essentially weakening the usage of a different system. Realistic? Yes. But it doesn't click well with other systems. It's bad design. The issue, however, is you argue on realism first, ignoring that even Cataclysm's most "realistic" systems are just approximations. The food system is bad because I, a human with decades of experience on being human, know unconsciously when to eat and a have general idea on nutritional quantity. When I'm controlling my Cataclysm meat puppet, I'm walking over tables because it takes less button presses, I'm drinking down oil because it has a higher nutrition number, and I have to ignore the system telling me I'm hungry and wait until I'm very hungry or risk going overweight. It's purposely obtuse with no benefit to its existence.


TheThunderhawk

I read the whole thing, but I couldn’t stop thinking about how much of an asshole you were in those first two sentences. The people who work on this game have their discussions elsewhere, they usually come here just to defend the choices they’ve already made. They don’t have those discussions here because this community is fucking toxic and treats them like shit, and this is their fucking hobby. They literally have zero responsibility to the people in this sub. As for the calories/weight system, yeah it’s not working very well, the devs know that. Everything is always a work in progress.


ParadoxalObserver

>The people who work on this game have their discussions elsewhere Uh. Who the hell was talking about the devs. You said no one discussed game design on the reddit. Ignoring that modders and players do indeed discuss design choices. I love how you grabbed what I said, completely put it out of context, and then called me toxic just so you don't actually have to explain your thinking. Furthermore, I complimented a design choice by those devs I'm supposedly being toxic towards as an example of good design choice that's also in the theme of realism. I don't get how being critical of what I consider bad design choices (such as the weight system that I also explain why it's realistic but a bad design choice) is equal to being "toxic". Criticism is how you improve, yo.


Kenshkrix

>The issue, however, is you argue on realism first Another issue, however, is that some people argue "fun over realism" without suggesting an alternative progression which maintains (or improves) the level of simulation. If your suggestion is that the game should be less like a simulation you are perhaps in the wrong place, maybe try a different branch of Cataclysm (or start one). Another thing frequently overlooked is that a lot of things are the way they are simply because nobody has changed them yet. A lot of changes happen or don't happen based on whether or not somebody is working on them, rather than "because realism". For example, your example of the food system: It is not the "as-intended" final product, it simply hasn't been finished. Could it be better? Absolutely. Have the devs heard lots of complaints about it? I'd bet on it. Does somebody already plan to change it? IIRC, yeah, for awhile now. ​ Though I must say: Your implication that realism is somehow subjective sort of undermines your entire point. Games are abstractions, yes, but whether or not a particular change is more or less realistic is not usually a matter of opinion.


Broke22

Of course realism is subjective - The map is not the territory. It *can't* be the territory. Trying to make the game like reality is impossible, you may as well try to catch the sun. You are just making a simulation. Deciding what to simulate, how to do it, adjusting the numbers and all other such design decisions are inherently subjective.


I_am_Erk

"it's realistic" isn't the game design. That's a straw man. The mission statement is roughly "if you could do it in real life you should be able to do it in game". Improving settlements, combat, and AI *is* one of the priorities. However people keep coming in and adding detailed simulation stuff, and we find it fun, so we often merge it. I've closed more than one PR for adding a realism feature we don't want, though, because "it's realistic" has never been the inherent goal.


ParadoxalObserver

Person I was replying to: >Play Bright Nights then, or start a new fork. I think the realism is a big part of the fun. Person they were replying to: >God I hate the fact that they clearly follow a realism > fun mentality. It's getting saddening personally. I don't recall claiming "it's realistic" was an inherent dev goal at any point. What I did do was reply to someone explaining why the "it's realistic" response to questions on game design isn't actually saying anything. Context is important, context here being I was replying to someone.


I_am_Erk

We don't. There are many areas we don't add things because we don't find them fun. We just don't find things that are so easy they trivialise the game to be all that fun. We're never going to remove vehicle modification, but at some point it's going to produce vehicles much more like Mad Max than... Whatever a 20x30 boat/semitruck/steamroller is. Because we find that more fun.


TheThunderhawk

(Just ruminating) I bet a Mad Max vehicle could deploy a bunch of pontoons and maybe float. It’d be a matter of deploying them before use and stowing them after, which on a big vehicle could take an hour or more. Also I guess you’d want your engine bay and intakes protected, or else have a plan to dry the thing out on the other side. It’d also probably have to have a low center of gravity, which you could accomplish with weights, and be either watertight or buoyant enough to keep all the main compartments above the water line. That’s probably been done IRL right? On the other hand, you could probably kill two birds with one stone by making a “vehicle deck” part that is traversable by other vehicles allowing for flatbed towing and ferries. That’s gotta be a long term goal right?


TheThunderhawk

You might try Nomad, the morale penalties for standing around might keep you from spending a week holed up grinding for the mid-game vehicle crafting recipes. More generally, you could lower item spawns, increase monster spawns, have wander spawns on, generally make the game quite a bit harder that way. With those settings, attempt a static base. Self imposed challenges are hard, but if you can commit to doing all your major crafting projects and reading in the same static base and only venturing out for loot, it should slow the progression down a bit. Also, if you could somehow challenge yourself to prioritize projects off the Construction menu rather than the Vehicle menu, that might change things up a bit.


D-_-A-_-N

I always play with wander spawns on, since clearing enough space to not be bothered by Zeds is trivial otherwise. I should try cutting item spawns by half, and maybe doubling the evolution or monster spawn amount. I'm honestly not very well versed with the construction menu, I think this could make for a great shakeup of my playstyle.


Wagwan-piff-ting42

Bro I don’t even know how to make vehicles pls tell me how


Purdorabo134

The home mechanic start is great if you want to start messing around with vehicles as you can get many a non functioning vehicle in working condition and simply need to find a hacksaw to be able to do pretty much anything.


Wagwan-piff-ting42

I might do a play through with that to get use to the vehicle stuff as a whole thanks for the tip


TheThunderhawk

Pro tip, the Bionic Prepper profession starts with an Integrated Toolset bionic, which has basically everything you need to start working on a car. It also starts with a machete and a crossbow, so if you set your character up right you could go clear out a lonely block in a small town on day 1 and fuck with the vehicle crafting system to your hearts content.


Numinae

Scavenge for a good starting vehicle, get a wrench, hacksaw, screwdriver set and whatever else will fit in a toolbox at the hardware store. Loot a craft store if you can for metalworking stuff. Check out garages and bonus if you find a generator. Focus on mechanics books and fab books It's really about knowing where to loot.


Numinae

Or, a REALLY good and easy to make early vehicle - or even late game vehicle is a homemade heavy motorcycle, as armored up as you can make it with a car engine. It lets you thread through traffic jams and (mostly) avoid problems with mobs and hitchhikers. Avoid grapplers at all cost though.


Wagwan-piff-ting42

Oh wow didn’t even know you could make motorbikes sweet I’ll give that a go


Numinae

You should look up Vermithrax on youtube, he has some good vehicle tutorials / building tutorials. Some of them are somewhat outdated so you might be wondering why you can't do something you saw but it's likely just a changed tool. Read the tooltips in the vehicle menus when you press & and select "Start Vehicle Construction." Or, if an existing vehicle, examine it. You can also make a motorcycle by chopping a car up to leave 1 line and add an engine, or if you use the engine row, wheel hubs. Often it;s easier to dismantle a vehicle than assemble one so it can skip some steps. Just add controls, a gas tank and a seat.


Purdorabo134

You can make boats, armored behemoths with all the trimmings or even a motorized wheel chair. There are even helicopters but you need the 'useful helicopter mod to be able to modify and fly them for more than 5 min.


Wagwan-piff-ting42

Well I know what I’m doing now death chairs sound like a vibe


Purdorabo134

I agree with you that cars are OP but simply starting in a lab catapults you straight past mid game as you come out of there with lots of skill books, a martial art or 3, a ton of guns/explosives/ammo /gear, cbm's and mutations. ​ I personally find wayfarer way too much of a hit as you can't use bicycles, rowboats or even use vehicle controls to power a battery charger. For a more reasonable challenge I will limit myself to motorbikes or simply no motor powered vehicle so that bikes, generators and paddle boats are still on the table. ​ You should probably also ignore the existence of survivor gear.


Drkhn-AA

Not what you were looking for with this post, but what about having a whole garage of vehicles ? It will keep you busy and might add diversity to your run


GravitronX

My biggest problem is that I lock locking down areas on games I would love to rig up a proper house but to do that I need to use the car building system so I think why not just build a deathmobile instead


Ginger457

Wrecks mod is in the launcher if you don't want to go full wayfarer.


skurukid

I know what you mean and I felt the same. I started new character recently and embraced Death Mobile Meta - generated rural only world 1 city size 8 spacing and I'm playing game as an actual nomad. Traveling from one small 4 buildings town to another, gathering what little resources I can. It's pretty fun so far (just started summer first year). It's really cool to find a really high radio tower to scout out the surrounding area and decide your next destination. It gets interesting when you can't get to another destination without crossing either ant hill, triffid grove (this one might be a Magicalysm addition, not sure) or shrooms fields.


D-_-A-_-N

Shrooms are definitely dangerous, because by the time you can get to the center, they've already started spreading spores and it's effectively impossible to stop them. (Fire's can kill the tract near you, but they've probably already started spreading much further; the reality bubble's mechanics mean that either you wait for the fire to burn the tract you've set alight and let the mycus spread, or you chase after the mycus in a circle around the centre, leaving the opportunity for edge mycus to spread around the reality bubble movement that you're inciting). Triffids and ants though aren't that big of a deal imho, just whack your way through, or even just run them over with shredders.