JayEchoRay

A story I love sharing from an older version of the game and unfortunately the only one that I kept track of as I was left stunned at the result.

A forgotten beast Cyclops decided to pay my dwarven city a visit, so I sound the call to seal the city as I let the hunters act as a vanguard to get my dwarves inside. Unfortunately, the cyclops makes quick work of them and I only just started getting my military in order after getting my iron production started.

So here I quickly assign one of the early recruits to the role of Captain of the Guard, in the role of delaying the foul beast while I scramble to get a militia going to drive it off.

Little did I expect for this single dwarf to not only stand up to the cyclops in single combat but brutally kill it too.

I know cylcops are fairly low on the danger scale, but still to watch and read the logs as this greenbeard dwarf digs into a forgotten beast like I am reading a God of War fanfic was glorious.

Just finished uploading the last of my reviews on Firaxis' take on XCOM. In the link, is the page of the 5 games reviewed.

Hope whoever reads it - enjoys

Last review for the month. Seeing as Adventure Mode for the KitFox Version is coming out next month, decided to do a write up for it

I just wanted to express gratitude to those that helped give that little push to just blog what I feel and go with it. I have gotten to the point where I have published my 20th post today.

Although I do feel my blog site needs work, It has at least made me more confident to try and push my work into social networks by uploading posts of it on Mastodon and using my old Facebook as well. It is giving me more confidence to try "market" it I guess.

Still trying to figure out my schedule and most likely going to look at my least viewed posts and bring them up to the standard of the ones that got more views but overall I do feel better about myself while doing this expression of self

So with that I give a Thank You to the community 🫡

What is everyone's preferred general weapon loadout before getting the high end tech stuff ( i.e. Laser Weaponary, Bionic weapon, etc..)

Summarised I enjoy using:

• Melee -- Loaded Stick ( bludgeon weapon and works nicely with specific weapon martial art) -- Kukri ( Cut weapon, nice with a good martial art and decent accuary for "knife" weapon)

• Depending on ammo availability I take 1 secondary and 1 primary

• Secondaries -- Glock 19 ( modability, gun and ammo availability) -- FN Five-Seven ( good penetration) -- Sig P226 (personal preference)

• Primaries -- M4A1 (ammo and gun availability, good mod profile) -- M14 EBR ( Decent all-purpose Marksman Rifle)

• Throwables -- Throwing Knives : 3 to 12 ( depends on loadout, silent, reusable and can cause bleeding) -- 2 Molotovs ( Emergency crowd control, building demo) -- 1 Grenade ( homemade or military grade, emergency use)

I do use other weapons and switch it up when situation demands, but for general purpose exploration and loot runs I can rely on the above loadout to handle most situations to my personal preferences.

So recently I have come off experimenting with mutagens and took the boring, but resource intensive alpha mutation line to post-threshold with bionic character as a means to test how mutagens work.

Seems mutagen effects can be guided to better outcome by responsible dosing and letting the body heal after mutating.

Mutated:

• Good hearing
• Prime Stat-boosts
• Robust Genetics
• Very Beautiful
• Very Little Sleep ( from Less Sleep from video gaming background)
• Weak Scent

From my understanding when undergoing mutations via mutagen the most effective way is to prime the mutation via primers which act like a storage for the mutagen and for quicker results use a mutagen catalyst to allow the game to draw mutations from the storage of mutagen primer.

I was fiddling with mutagen dosing via normal mutagen and then primer, primer then mutagen and took things very slowly to see the effects.

Everytime you mutate you incur mutation damage, the more you mutate in quick succession the higher the mutation damage value rises. Higher mutation damage increases the chance for bad mutations.

It seems one primer is good for about 2 mutations with a mutagen catalyst and any further mutations fail as there isn't enough "mutation vitamin" to mutate more.

Post-threshold can be risky as you have to macro-dose primer to "overdose" on the "mutation vitamin" to force mutation but seems that the post-threshold advancement uses a lot of said vitamin

Overall, either my experiment was either super lucky or just being very methodical produced my character with all the positive mutations and no negatives, robust genetics help and fortunately alpha evolves that pre-threshold as that quickens the heal rate of mutation damage it seem.

So after many failed attempts, and just outright going to last save automatically done - I present after 20 days the "Chimera" mutant idea that is illiterate... raised intelligence to 5 and used bombastic perks to raise it to 6 because low intellegence is painful to level stuff. No mutagens yet and looked up chimera traits and added

Strength 11, dexterity 10, intelligence 5, Perception 10

Self-defence : Krav maga

Traits: fast learner, fangs, long fingernails, quick, robust genetics,terrifying, fast healer, night vision,substance tolerance, tough, bad temper, ugly, chemical imbalance, genetic chaos, illiterate, weak stomach, strong scent, high thirst, sleepy, fast metabolism

The character has already killed 1551 and wiped out an orc camp with fang and claw no problem.

Once saprovore mutated then food problems dissappear as I just eat whatever I come across in houses regardless of what it is, water can be annoying but I am sure that if I lab raided enough and push for post threshold chimera I could get "eater of the dead" then I can drink water from anywhere and eat any kill for food

Using magiclysm, mind over matter and xedra evolved

I found a place in a research lab, traversing it really hits home how FUBAR Earth is once things start to fall apart.

Makes me think that Exodii have the right way of thinking to do what they do

::: spoiler spoiler

Science physics lab, and if I didn't read the warnings - put on 5-point anchor before going forward - would have died to whatever the hell went wrong there

Place is full of black empty space, there is stupid amounts of shade ghosts that seem to be spawned by a bigger shade ghost, minotaurs, and owing to the broken nature of the place you bet the shoggoths are there.

I swear the shoggoths were teleporting or something.... place is crazy, a lot of artifacts and there was a elevator to -10 floor that was just foreboding emptiness

There was a locked chamber with a very specific card requirement, but now that I have Probablity Travel, will probably take a peek what is behind that sealed door once I have completed my current projects ::

Making a post to display general hints and tips, feel free to add

• Disassembling ovens and its components is a great way to get some useful material like heating elements and fiber insulation batts

• Subway maintenence rooms, usually past the subway entrance gateways, usually have maintenence maps which you easily find labs by the "subway station?" pin on the map

• Extension cords + Outdoor extensiom cords are useful to wire a building with power without having to worry about building wiring in case you wish to place a electronic device away from a wall or have a building without wiring

• Playing or listening to any musical instrument makes your character happy ( flutes, pianos, mp3 players, stereos, harmonicas, etc)

• If infected by fungus, fungicide can be used as a treatment, just beware of your health

• Wasps can't dodge sprayable insecticide ( goes for dermatiks too)

• Reading memory cards can provide mood boosting items such as pictures to look at, music to listen to or recipes

• Mounted workshops and Kitchens are a great place to store a lot of useful electronics and when connected to an electrical grid removes the need to replace batteries

• NPC camps with a functioning blacksmith can make weapons and armour that you don't have the recipe for such as halberds, broadswords, rapiers, zweihander, cuirass, fire axe, war hammer, Awl Pike etc.

• Npcs can be fed anything as long as it has enjoyability greater than or equal to -6

• Npcs can meet all your food requirements when you've got a good food ration storage system in place

• Npc faction camps can help with streamlining a lot of game functions and depending on type of camp can provide a lot of associated utility ( military outpost and fire house are structurally sound and have limited entry, firewatch towers main section is elevated, pottery cottage last I have seen usually have a below ground basement section)

• Ctrl+ y and Ctrl + o can save you a lot of time in micromanaging tedious tasks and with a camp system have camp npcs do tasks for you

• Shift + 8 has a lot of convience tools and actions such a placing appliances, things such as Stationary Scutcher (which cuts down crafting time on plant fiber work considerably), parkour bars, wall, door and window construction and modification and pit construction to name the more commonly used stuff I use

• Aphids will eat your crops, but produce a useful sugar substitute

• You can ride tame cows, if you are a small mutant such as a mouse you can ride dogs

• Manuals can be saved and stored on a device such as a smart phone and that information can have a back up made with a memory card

• Your character leaves a scent trail and zombies and other creatures can use that to track you, so you can be attacked if you decide to sleep in a city/town basement

• Taking photos of any entity you see can provide you with knowledge of estimated danger, what senses that entity has , their weighted size, what type of creature is it and any notable abilities when viewed through the Shift + 3, Creatures tab. I think the closer the creature is the more information is provide however cannot confirm

• Armour layering is important and sometimes you can reduce encumbrance by changing layering priority, Shift + =

• I always take wallets, they sometimes hold stuff such as scientist cards or visitor passes and you can use an ATM to be the deposit all money into your account and make a really fancy all-you-can-buy cashcard, especially useful for the fancier not-vandalised gunshops which have ammo dispencers where you can buy ammo without making a scene.

• A Grappling hook can be a great tool for escape and exploration, have escaped many a zombie gank by activating it near a building and climbing to safety just beware of climbing/flying creatures and possibility of the roof also being dangerous too... and also of the larger creatures demolishing the building too

• Shift + x to peek and peeking allows you to throw things from relative safety

• Shift + X and Shift + . Or Shift + , allows you to peek up and down stairs respectively

• % armour coverage can be just as or more important that big armour numbers as attacks have a chance to hit areas of armour that isn't well protected and certain enemies seem to have a higher changer to hit generally less armoured parts I have noticed

There is probably so much more but it is not coming to me or I don't know and please note this information is more from experience and reading here and there so if there is any mistakes or inconsistencies or even changes feel free to correct them or contribute to the knowledge

Hope the great wall text is helpful

I like the vehicle construction In CDDA, however I am somewhat poor at vehicle conceptualization.

So if you have a build you like and willing to share, especially on the smaller scale construction although any is welcome, feel free to add

So I’ll start:

Recently after reading a Wormgirl lp, I got inspired to build an APC vehicle smaller than I usually build

Built it from scratch

Features:

• Fully amphibious - Tested at about 5 tonnes over deep water and no issues
• Lifestock carrier built for large animal transport, cow or horse
• Seats driver + minimum 3 npcs comfortably
• Uses vehicle shelving from Blaze mod
• Carries a foldable solar array for emergencies and base charging
• Motorised curtains and doors with 360 camera viewing with limited frontal lighting for covert operations

Still plans/ potential additions

• Add a Smart Engine Controller for more effecient hybrid control
• Aisle lighting, either atomic or regular
• Complete 360 light coverage for night operations
• Turret configuration, not sure what gun to setup on the mount
• Potentially adding light weight plating and frontal rams or blades with shock absorbers ( but I try to avoid
  vehicle damage whenever possible)

It is a little barebones on features than I would like, but wanted something relatively light weight and more fuel effecient than the usual fixer upper Security Van 5x7 mobile bases I do.

Of course the vehicle could be cut back by at least another 2 rows for a more compact design and a single lighter and more effecient engine chosen. But I mostly frankenstein’d it together from the cars collected and built it with long term travel in mind

Aisle usage is more an aesthethic choice as the engines are build under them and to cut back on my looting impulses.

So here I was doing a short sewer sweep near my base, killed some amalgamations, climb out to the suface to safetly dissect the spoils and something catches my eye while dissecting:

I feel really proud of myself for getting a internal staircase built in my firestation base

Steps that I took:

• Built a half-staircase on the ground floor

• Used a grappling hook and dragged equipment for another half-staircase directly above onto the roof

• Used a sledge hammer to destroy the half stair on the roof, which left a wooden floor tile

• Used sledge hammer to destroy wooden floor tile on the roof

• This leaves a dirt tile , which I brought the tools to dig down with

• When finished, left with a staircase on top, and a ladder on the ground floor

I am sure you can use any object that overwrites the roof tile to achieve the dirt tile, hope anyone that plans to build on more than one z-level finds it helpful