In Progress Let's Play Cataclysm DDA - Absalom's Great Adventure

[dextermorgan]

Needful things

Spoiler

Absalom heads up the street to visit the two remaining houses in this stretch of the road. Couple of zeds are visible but they're too far to spot him yet.

The first house is of the fancy variety. What's more, the front door was open. Inside he finds a well-stocked pantry...

...and a well-stocked kitchen. Aluminum tongs are an important item in metal fabrication so that's a good find.

Many yummy foods are found. Absalom won't have to worry about that for a while.

While checking the rooms at the north end he gets spotted by several zeds. More zombie brains get bashed in.

Fucking boomer slimes him. No matter, no damage was taken and the blindness is temporary.

Another wave of zeds. Nothing of particular note, Absalom bashes their brains in and suffers only minor damage to his duster and long underwear.

Moving on to the house across the street. The door is locked but Absalom now sports a crowbar and the lock crunches open on the first try.

Aha! Another basement is found, and since the house belonged to an electronics / chemistry enthusiast the loot is pretty nice.

Absalom returns to the base. He drove back in the hippie van, currently parked outside. These are loot highlights: hotplate - very useful in crafting and cooking, can also be used to make a chemistry set and (I think) a messkit of some kind.

A toolbox! Looks like our tool woes are over for the time being. With this we can take apart and put together pretty much everything that doesn't require soldering or welding. It was also bugged in the last build and caused him to get overweighted and suffer pain. Well worth it.

Eye protection, something I tend to forget about until it's too late. These can also be crafted from plastic bottles and string.

Nice book about driving.

Nicer book about mechanics. After reading this Absalom will be able to tear apart a couple of ovens and slap together a makeshift welder, which is essential for reasons that will be revealed soon enough.

Another book, this time about electronics. This shit is indispensable since it will allow Absalom to craft batteries, lightstrips, messkit(!) and a ton of other useful stuff.

He also found some calcium carbide. This is new to me, I have no idea what it's used for yet.

And finally, some rare plutonium cells!

Ok, Absalom will now settle down to do some eating, drinking, bookreading and crafting. I think we'll try to assemble some kind of shopping cart equivalent to help with loot haulage. To make full use of ninjutsu Absalom should also get some kind of a cutting weapon (200% cutting damage criticals ftw). Farther to the north is a Garage which he might visit tonight.

Also, I'll reduce screenshotting to important events only from now on, or largeish battles.

 

[Absalom]

Under the hood AND a toolbox? Damn son.

You gonna make a vehicle welding rig?

 

[dextermorgan]

Under the hood AND a toolbox? Damn son.

You gonna make a vehicle welding rig?

Yep, eventually. You had your first close call by the way.

Spoiler

 

[dextermorgan]

Too close for comfort.

Spoiler

Using strips of leather collected previously, Absalom upgrades his gear slightly. Dress shoes are discarded and cut up and the pair of boots picked up earlier repaired and reinforced.

Absalom does some reading but it's suddenly too dark to see. A thunderstorm started.

With nothing better to do he grabs the toolkit and heads for the kitchen, where he proceeds to disassemble a bunch of furniture for nails and 2-by-4s, heating elements and scrap metal.

The weather shifts to rain and he can see well enough to rain again. Let's see what's under the hood.

Having completed that, Absalom decides he wants to try out some cutting weapons. With available tools and materials the best he can do is a crude sword. Crafting that requires a 2-by-sword be made first.

And then a crude sword. He botched this btw and had to go to a house next door to disassemble an oven for more scrap metal.

Melee weapon upgraded, Absalom read through the electronics manual and can now craft some electronics. Crafting a soldering iron required he go to fetch a TV from the fancy house and scrap it for parts. Soldering irons are very useful since the're required for disassembly of some items, can be used to reinforce and repair armor and metal weapons, and can cauterize wounds.

He wanted to craft a makeshift welder and put together a small cart for loot hauling but trying to remove a wheel from the beetle parked in the street revealed a missing part of kit - car jack. Crafting a wooden wheel requires fabrication of 4 and he can't be arsed to grind the skill that high. Instead, he glances at the map to try and decide what to do.

These are his stats after all that crafting and reading.

And his inventory.

He decides to go up the street to the east and loot the two houses there. Along the way there's a car with no gas but a nice stereo system. Absalom makes a mental note of this and keeps going.

A child zombie spots him as he approaches a really fancy house. He waits for the child to get itself entangled in the bush before slicing it with the crude sword. The sword gets stuck in the rotten flesh in the process. I guess he should stick to clubs until his skill rises a bit more.

Exploring the fancy house, Absalom glances out the windows and is greeted by a scene of carnage: a pile of corpses lies in the field, mauled by a gracken...

and the creature nightmares are made of - a Mi-go.

Thinking he hasn't been spotted, Absalom quickly draws the curtains and goes to the next room. Another look through the window makes the hair at the nape of his neck rise. The Mi-go is swiftly advancing towards the house.

Absalom briefly considers setting the house on fire but decides against it. Too much good loot may be lost. Instead, he tries to lose the Mi-go by running back out into the street and breaking the line of sight.

He pauses briefly in the house across the road. If the Mi-go is following he'll torch this one and let the beast die in flames.

The Mi-go doesn't follow. Absalom returns to the base and decides to wait for nighttime. Getting to that garage to the north shouldn't be so risky then. He hopes the Mi-go doesn't follow his scent back.

 

[Kashmir Slippers]

So where are you keeping all the loot?

 

[dextermorgan]

So where are you keeping all the loot?

For now I'm just dumping everything in a pile next to the basement stairs in our first house.I haven't boarded up the window there yet because I like being able to build a fire and boil water straight from the toilet there (won't last much longer).

In other news, we had a disappointing loot run to the garage, which only had an acetylene torch and some engines in it. It was basically empty. Raiding the nearby park failed to produce a hot-dog stand or an ice-cream cart. We were rudely interrupted by a crash, however, so we'll be making the same run hoping these structures haven't been generated yet in the current save and will spawn better stuff next time.

 

[Sranchammer]

I loathe vehicles

 

[dextermorgan]

Absalom goes for a (short) drive

Spoiler

Underwhelmed by his performance using a crude sword, Absalom decides to upgrade his weapon. Quarterstaff has better damage and with +3 to-hit he'll virtually never miss with it.

To kill some time until dark Absalom decides to bump his driving skill a bit.

After a tedious process of relighting a fire that was being put out about a dozen times by rain in thunder and lightning storm, it's finally dark and he proceed north towards the garage. Along the way he finds yet another working vehicle.

He also encounters a pile of wreckage. These can be a valuable source of raw materials and even parts, depending on how badly shit got wrecked.

The garage unfortunately holds the same disappointing loot. Absalom picks up the acetylene torch and a steel jerrycan and decides to loot nearby houses without bothering with the park. Inside one there's a touring suit. It's pretty nice with warmth and coverage scores, but has fairly low armor rating and no almost no storage. It will probably end up being cut up for leather and nomex.

The torch. It can be used as a non-rechargeable welder but I find it more useful for breaking through metal doors.

This should come in handy should Absalom ever get too depressed to craft.

Another entry-level book is found. Computer skill will come in handy later on.

Now we're talking! Perhaps using that sword until cutting weapons is up to 1 is now worth the bother of having to rip it from rotting corpses after every strike.

Found a bunch of cell phones. We don't really need to know the time and the alarm function isn't really important so these will be disassembled for parts.

One of the zeds Absalom encountered while raiding the garage and nearby houses had this on him. I don't know if we'll use it, torso encumbrance of 2 is kind of annoying.

Nothing else of note happens during the night. Absalom drove two cars back to base and went to sleep. This is how his car park looks in the morning. The hippie van, two police cars and a normal car are all in working condition.

Pondering what to do next, Absalom decides he's had enough of the mi-go blocking him from exploring houses to the east. He uses a rubber hose he got from disassembling a fridge with a steel jerrycan and refuels the least damaged police car. Time to go for a ride.

He always wanted to do that. Isn't apocalypse fun?

He drives east and stops at the street where he first saw the mi-go. He honks the horn and waits but the monster is nowhere to be found.

Creeping up the street he hears the monster over the purring of the V8 engine. Still can't see him.

Not wanting to get stuck passing between houses, he backs up and drives through the field to the back of the house. Mi-go is spotted to the north, as well as some battered zeds. Seems the monster doesn't like anything resembling a human.

He sits and watches a fat zombie trying to down the monster. The mi-go just sits there. What the hell is going on here?

He creeps further north but the beast doesn't come. In fact, it seems to have run away! The noise of the car attracts a bunch of zombies however. They get run over at low speed.

With the police car parked and mauled zombies butchered, Absalom goes to check the kills mi-go left. Policeman zombie had some decent loot. Alas, no ammo for this thing.

Absalom has been hearing noises from the house to the NE. He opens a door only to find a bolt of electricity arcing towards him!

Absalom slams the door and retreats south, but then decides he's had enough of running. The mi-go may have gotten away (or was melted by a spitter zed we spotted earlier) but this asshole his going down!

The beast is breaking down the door to get to him. Absalom lures it towards the window instead.

A whole lot of whacking follows. Absalom gets electrocuted twice and the brute bags him up a few times but falling on the grass doesn't hurt all that much and the beast eventually goes down.

Butchering it nets a very valuable CBM!

Moving through the house Absalom whacks half a dozen normal, fat and feral zombies but then comes across a spitter. These cunts are nasty since their acid is bound to fuck your equipment up real bad. Absalom hides around the corner hoping he'll be protected from the spitter's acid splash. It works.

This may be all that's left of the Mi-go. I seem to remember them sometimes leaving silly items like this on death. At this point Absalom slaughtered around 20 zombies but their corpses are piled a few tiles due to chokepoint tactics so the carnage isn't obvious.

INCOMING

Actually, this brute was easier to handle than the shocker, not only because he has no zapping attack, but also because it was easier to get him in a stunlock (shocker brute kept falling back into the house and Absalom didn't risk following, which lost him stunlocks).

The beast completely destroyed our duster however. No matter, Absalom cuts up a bunch of clothes from dead zeds and crafts himself a new one.

And that's about it for now. Now I'm trying to decide if I should move all the shit from the first house into the police car and start going mobile, or use the car to haul loot back to the base until a better (bigger) vehicle is found and converted into a mobile base.

Absalom is still missing a key piece of kit - binoculars. Exploration without those is tedious and risky. The corpses the Mi-go and the gracken were guarding were not military, unfortunately, so no kevlar or other good stuff.

Some more.

Spoiler

Absalom goes back to fetch the car and works his way up the street, looting houses and dumping items in the trunk. One of the houses has a pot growing operation in the basement but the bloated zombie interrupts Absalom's harvest.

Absalom makes his way out into the street and puts some distance between him and the zed. It's easy since this zombie is very slow. Something tells him he should avoid hitting the thing with a melee weapon so he picks up some glass shards and tries to pincushion it.

They don't do much damage. The zed still lumbers towards Absalom.

After being whacked with a motorcycle helmet and some tainted meat the beast is unfazed.

Absalom positions himself behind a bush and sets it on fire. The beast walks straight into it and BOOM. Absalom was standing too close and gets poisoned.

Finally, he goes back into the basement but discovers it's positively infested with bloaters. Remembering he has a stash of dope and heroin in the trunk already, Absalom beats a hasty retreat to his car and drives to the intersection ahead. This is his map. Yellow L's are map notes indicating a location has been looted. There's a power substation (blue H), fast-food joint and a pizza parlor (purple ^) and an office (grey <) in sight.

What should we do next bros? We found some nice books, a ton of food and some items, so we could head back to base and get reading and maybe do some crafting. Alternatively, we can explore towards east (perhaps the station has some tools) or north.

 

[Absalom]

East towards the station.

 

[Kashmir Slippers]

Head back to base.

 

[Sranchammer]

Set off fireworks in the middle of town and firebomb them to hell

 

[dextermorgan]

A lucky break.

Spoiler

As requested, Absalom moves east towards the power substation. As he inspects a solar car (both batteries shot) a smoker moves into sight.

His equipment is lacking a gas mask for protection against smoke so he retreats back to the car and decides to run the beast down.

Well hello there.

The zed is no match for a ton of rolling steel.

Absalom weaves his police cruiser through the traffic jam. He forgot to bring the jerrycan so whatever gas is left in those cars remains there.

Absalom spots a flatbed truck with six cargo carriers in the back. Unfortunately, a spitter zombie climbed the bed trying to get to him. Anxious to avoid damage to precious car parts, Absalom rushes forward and whacks the spitter, attracting the attention of a group of zeds in the process. He decides to stand his ground and protect the truck.

With his skills and equipment it turns out to be an easy task. To the south east there's a car with a bunch of spilled gas around it. Absalom would like to set off some fireworks but lacks means to do so at a safe distance. Best leave it alone for now.

The power station yields disappointing loot (just some random electronics parts) but a library is revealed to the north!

Absalom decides to use bolt cutters to cut up the wire fence around the station and collect some wire before returning to the base. It's time to move as this house offers no major advantages, not counting the nice cellar, so he loads all the stuff he had into the police car's trunk. His plan is to drive to the garage and park the wheels there. The car will serve as a place to sleep with a blanket and a pillow dumped in the driver's seat.

Here's the reason he collected the wire. First to make some barbed wire...

Then to craft a barbed wire bat (he found a baseball bat in one of the houses looted previously).

He also crafts a makeshift welder and loads it with all available batteries. Still unable to sleep, Absalom passes time with some reading under the car's dome lights.

The next day he spends installing a stereo system in the police car at exorbitant battery cost, and driving back to the flatbed truck and ripping out all of the cargo carriers, all the seats from the police car besides the driver's, and installing cargo carriers to replace them. The three remaining cargo carriers are dumped in the police car's trunk. He won't be doing any more customization for now since the battery cost is just too high.

Stopped by the solar car to rip out the panels and batteries from it. Also, demonstrating the barbed wire bat in action.

By the time he's finished it's already dark. Absalom parks the car in the garage and proceeds north on foot. Along the way he finds a mobile meth lab in working condition. Absalom instantly changes his plan and decides to customize this instead of the police cruiser. The chemistry station can double as a kitchen unit since it has a hotplate.

Absalom makes it to the library and back without incident. He dumps the books in the police cruiser's trunk and takes a moment to admire his lucky break. This is Cataclysm's equivalent of a jackpot. I haven't seen such loot outside an expansive mansion library in any of my previous games.

This development necessitates a change in plan. Absalom will park both the police cruiser and the mobile meth lab in the garage and proceed to craft a vehicle welding station, read a fuckton of books while listening to music cd's and customize the fuck out of the vehicle. By the time he's done he'll probably be able to craft high level gear and outfit himself for long-term survival and more dangerous exploration missions.

 

[Absalom]

Groovy. Does the stereo system increase morale? It consumes CD's too apparently? And yeah once you got a vehicle welding rig you're set for life

 

[Zdzisiu]

Also, I would like to say that Im mighty annoyed by all of the animals that are non-hostile at first, therefore not under the safemode, and which go berserk when you get too close. I mean those bastards like mooses, bears, wasps and shit. You hold the move button a bit too long, and you find yourself 3 tiles away from them, and boy will they go medieval on your ass.

 

[dextermorgan]

Groovy. Does the stereo system increase morale? It consumes CD's too apparently? And yeah once you got a vehicle welding rig you're set for life

Yeah, and it also increases the rate at which your focus recharges, meaning you learn shit faster. The CD is ejected when you turn it off. In other news, I began encountering crashes at certain points on the map and am now compiling latest unstable, fingers crossed it goes well. Also, to the north I found a grocery store with some dead scientists and a remote hacking CBM. You're one lucky SOB, Absalom.

I'm toying with the idea of letting you design a custom vehicle though it might be a waste of time at this point since we haven't found a semi truck yet or another vehicle made of heavy duty frames, which are definitely recommended if you want to survive an encounter with a tankbot (he he he).

Also, I would like to say that Im mighty annoyed by all of the animals that are non-hostile at first, therefore not under the safemode, and which go berserk when you get too close. I mean those bastards like mooses, bears, wasps and shit. You hold the move button a bit too long, and you find yourself 3 tiles away from them, and boy will they go medieval on your ass.

But at this point it does engage safe mode

In all seriousness though, there was a time you couldn't fart without attracting a zoose or a zombear, they used to slaughter new characters like there's no tomorrow. They've tamed the wildlife significantly.

 

[dextermorgan]

Going mobile

Spoiler

My apologies for what is probably going to be a confusing post, since it covers a rather long period where many tedious things are done which I didn't bother to screenshot.

Absalom heads north towards the grocery store, itching to get his hands on a shopping cart at last. Once near, he spots another Mi-go apparently ignoring a grabber zombie's romantic advances.

This time he doesn't run.

Nearby wreck is robbed of wing mirrors. I always keep a stack of these since they're fragile and are generated as loot (hand mirrors) only rarely.

Inside the grocery store is a dead scientist with a rocking CBM.

Using the previously found entrenching tool, Absalom clears away the rubble and finds another scientist corpse with another awesome book (bunch of chemistry recipes and cooking skill through the roof).

Another piece of gear is pulled from the rubble. The nail is flagged pink because I turned on auto-pickup for them. Absalom collects around 700 in the grocery store.

Heading east to check out an electronics store, Absalom finds another mobile meth lab parked next to an ambulance, This appears to have been a town of tweakers. The vehicle is in better condition than the one he has parked in the garage but he can't be arsed to do a switch now.

The electronics store is swimming in interesting loot. However, his shopping cart is already full so he leaves for now. he'll be back with a vehicle though.

What follows is a fuckton of reading while listening to the car stereo. The police car engine is occasionally turned on to charge the battery.

Absalom bumps his mechanics and fabrication to 8...

Which allows him to craft a vehicle welding rig...

...but not before crafting two more makeshift welders. Thankfully, every house has an oven that can be ripped apart for heating elements.

With the increased power requirements for welding, running the chemistry lab (for cooking) and car lights and stereo, Absalom decides to go back to the grocery store and get himself some casters, to be used to build a portable recharging station. Unfortunately, you can't get those off without using a jack. Which requires a full set of metalworking tools to be crafted.

We ended up making the recharging rig from light frames, a 1l V-twin engine, car alternator, vehicle controls, small gasoline tank and a storage battery casing. I forgot to screenshot it but it charged one of the storage batteries we had fairly well and Absalom could drag it outside even without wheels.

While checking his new recipes, Absalom discovers this. Seems a bit op with all the techniques available. Will probably get nerfed in later builds. Having picked up a sword bayonet mod earlier, Absalom disassembles it into a makeshift machete, which he uses to craft this.

With the Mobile Meth Lab modded, Absalom transfers all his goodies to it and abandons the garage. Next stop: back to electronics store. Here's the current map showing places he already looted.

And another with labels turned off (showing structures). After the electronics store he'll head up to the yellow intersection towards NE. Firearms store, pawn store and another electronics store are bound to yield more awesome loot.

This is one of the iterations of the Mobile Meth Lab he's currently using. I have already made other modifications but functionally it's similar. Windshields and doors in the front have been replaced by hatches for increased protection. Front passenger seat and an isle have been ripped out and cargo carriers installed in their place. In the back, we installed a bed with vehicle controls and a car stereo, a chemistry lab with a water faucet (dump a pot and a frying pan inside and it's functionally identical to an RV kitchen unit and can also make chemicals), a vehicle welding rig, and a shutter door for easy access from outside. Two gasoline tanks have been mounted down the centerline towards the back, a water tank has been added, and the vehicle sports four storage batteries (two on each side at the back) with casings for tool-less swapping.

 

[profreshinal]

This is one of the iterations of the Mobile Meth Lab he's currently using ... a bed with vehicle controls and a car stereo, a chemistry lab.[/spoiler]

 

[dextermorgan]

In other news, playing unstable bites us in the ass. I saved at a certain place and the game crashes every single time I load and Absalom tries to move the truck from there. He could escape the crash area on foot but that would mean leaving the fruits of his raiding and welding efforts behind. I guess this means a couple of days of frantic git pulling and make cleaning and making until the bug goes away.

 

[dextermorgan]

Finalizing our preparations

Spoiler

This is Absalom's current position. He parked his mobile home next to another flatbed truck and pulled it apart for more cargo spaces.

This is the current state of the vehicle. Every inch of the bed is covered with cargo spaces and a vehicle forge has been installed for some advanced metallurgy.

Having to dump a shopping cart and go back to fetch it all the time was wearing on my nerves so I decide to make Absalom finish crafting everything required to make a jack. An anvil requires 40 lumps of steel. He gets those by pulling frames off the flatbed and cutting them apart.

Well shit.

After the anvil is complete and dumped into the welding station storage, he crafts a metalworking chisel.

Then a wage and die set.

Now he has everything a blacksmith needs.

Fucking finally.

Time to yank out those ruined wheels.

And install a new one. Until now we've been riding on two wheels in the back, both on the left side.

Since he's on a crafting roll, may as well complete his mobile crafting set with this useful thing.

He's missing a water purifier...

And a food dehydrator.

Searching for ovens to tear apart leads him to the nearby restaurant. Zombies are dispatched without issue but ovens only yield one heating element each.

At least he found a foon.

His scavenging efforts unsatisfactory, Absalom decides to butcher the stuff he collected earlier for parts.

Now he can craft the purifier.

A hand press and die set is also required for the F00DCO :kwanzania:

Man this thing is awesome.

Installed. Note the shutter doors he installed for easy access from outside. A regular door is installed at the bottom, allowing easy access to three cargo spaces there, and equipped with a curtain.

Absalom installs another water tank, then grabs the steel jerrycan and goes collecting water from toilets in the houses around. Here's why.

7% full, not bad. If he lives long enough to encounter a river he can replenish his reserves in minutes using the handy F00DCO.

His current stats. Gotta up those cutting skills and dodging a bit.

Ok, so should we finish reading the books we have or go back to exploring? Reading books will allow us to attempt to install some CBMs, though without power storage they're kinda useless right now. We're still fucked by having not found any binoculars or actual armor, which means that Absalom is a bit of a glass cannon right now and he can't see very far. Also, he found a flask of mutagen. Down it?

 

[lightbane]

Finish reading. Then drink the mutagen for the glory of chaos the lulz!

 

[dextermorgan]

Alright, one vote in favor of helping Absalom grow mouth tentacles or clawed feet. Other options have been rendered obsolete since I've been having him read and craft stuff while working (not like it requires much attention).

 

[Grimgravy]

Drink the stuff.

 

[dextermorgan]

Two votes in favor out of total of four people actually reading this crap is good enough for me (and I really want to continue playing). Bottoms up!

 

[Absalom]

Yeah I'd say drink it too. How'd you break into the metalworking set? It always seemed to me it was dependent on finding alot of shit.

 

[dextermorgan]

Yeah I'd say drink it too. How'd you break into the metalworking set? It always seemed to me it was dependent on finding alot of shit.

You got super lucky with books bro. I don't recall which of the items for metallurgy was critical but absent from "natural" skill progression (meaning you can get the recipe only from a book), but I think it was at least two tools and not getting those recipes would cripple you no matter how much you grinded fabrication. With recipes, it was smooth sailing.