Cataclysm DDA Spoonfed: The Guide for Morons

Cataclysm DDA Spoonfed: The Guide for Morons
For 0.C-git and beyond

	Get it here: http://en.cataclysmdda.com/
	Download links are to the right: Stable is the latest release( Currently 0.C), experimental builds are handy pre-compiled downloads for windows and linux. Console means no tiles and is generally faster.

	In the options menu: Don't enable NPCs, They're buggy. If you want, enable static NPCs but never, EVER enable random NPCs. Everyone in the thread asks why and don't take "they're bugged" for an answer: They can spawn with flamethrowers and burn your house if you move. Steal items and then shoot you, can start a mexican standoff after they see you that lasts for days since they don't need to eat or sleep and if you move they'll shoot you, move way faster than you for no reason, etc etc etc. Seriously, don't. If you want to, do it, but don't come and cry to us.
	Enable Celsius/Metric/24 hour time if you like that sort of thing. Make sure Circular Distances is disabled, it's useless. and diagonal movement is broken Don't enable wander spawns, it's broken and it will probably be removed sooner or later.
	If you're playing on a Mac, open the Terminal preferences and enable "Use bright colours for bold text". It's required to see some of the greys in Cataclysm, and it's not enabled by default.

>CharGen

	Quick is a good positive trait. So are fast reader and fast healer. Night vision is superb and any character should take it. Robust Genetics is good, but you're not going to get any mileage out of it in the earlygame. Negative traits are trivial and just more points for you, except for illiterate/savant/schizophrenic.
Get 10 perception to help you spot minefields and at least 10 int to read books without too much trouble.

	Quick lets you outrun most zombies, ignore low levels of pain, and makes you generally 10% better at doing things. Fast Healer means all of your health heals overnight no matter how low it is. Fast Reader means you spend a lot less time reading books and can spend more time looting and killing things. Night Vision increases your vision radius in the dark from 1 tile to 2 tiles, which lets you do things in the dark without being surprise-buttraped by surprise zombies, and makes ranged weaponry actually useable at night. Robust Genetics means that mutations are 1/3 good and 2/3 random, rather than 1/3 bad and 2/3 random; this is massively useful once you start playing with mutagen.

	Note that several traits do nothing if NPCs are not enabled. You can load up on these negative traits and gain several points effectively for free, but I don't recommend doing so. It feels too much like cheating to me.

	Grab a survivor, they're the default and are well balanced. Feel free to experiment other character archetypes.

>Actually Playing The Game

	In the Evac Shelter: take down the curtains, make a makeshift sling, disassemble it, remake it until you have 1 survival.
	Go outside and pick up a rock, then take off your socks and craft a rock in a sock. Disassemble it and repeat until you have fabrication 1. If you don't have socks just smash a bench and craft six or so wooden arrow shafts.
	Use the rock to smash two lockers. Use the pipe to make a makeshift crowbar, use the scrap metal to make a spike. Disassemble a long string into small strings, disassemble the short strings into thread. Craft a makeshift knife.If you already have a pocket knife, it's not essential but it's a good weapon anyway.
	Apply your knife and cut two sheets, then craft foot rags. Disassemble the foot rags and repeat until you have tailoring 1.
	Make another spike. Smash a bench, make a knife spear. If you picked scoundrel, you already have a better weapon, so don't bother with the knife spear.
	Make a wooden needle. Make some knitting needles and disassemble your scarf for 600 thread. Reload the needle with the thread. Keep applying the needle to any piece of clothing until it's damaged or you get to tailoring 2. If it's damaged don't bother repairing it, at your skill level you'd just break it further. Keep practicing   on something you won't need, like your socks or briefs.
	Take down another set of curtains. Smash another couple of benches, make two bindles. These won't encumber your melee but will encumber your hands, which is only bad if you want to reload a ranged weapon, which you don't have any of at the moment. They're basically free extra volume without a downside for now.
	Make a balaclava (survival 2, tailoring 2), compression suit top and bottom(tailoring 2). Put them on. Cut the winter coat, shirt and everything else in your starting equipment except for your boots and socks to rags. If you started out as a survivor, wait until you get very thirsty, then drink your water and use the bottle to make a pair of safety glasses.
	Reinforce your equipment. You can do it from level 2 in tailoring. Get up to 3 in tailoring and make a duster, fit and reinforce it.
	Raid a house nearby for food and water or pick some underbrush if you're near a forest to get some food.
	PRESS / TO OPEN THE ADVANCED INVENTORY SCREEN

	Congratulations, now your only cause of death can be boredom or summer's stupid zombie wildlife generation. Or a turret. Be aware of turrets.

>Looting

	Go out at night. Zombies can't see you but they can still hear you. Pry open a window/door and start looting. Your evac shelter is the best place in the game, because it has infinite light. You can sleep on the floor without bad consequences, if you just throw some clothes on that tile. If you're feeling fancy you can grab a blanket from a house instead. Sleep underground (the 4 >s are a staircase), Z levels haven't been -really- implemented, so nothing can go down the stairs to kill you, as of now.

	Basements are often good. check them out. If you see spiderwebs, don't even think about it. Get up as fast as you can and don't open the doors, spider nests are nasty. Zombies won’t wander into basements on their own, so you can sleep there without worrying about getting attacked. Enemies can follow you down stairs, but won’t come down if they’re not actively chasing you.

	Get renewable food by killing animals, butchering them, and cooking the meat. Cooking meat requires a fire, something with at least 1 food cooking quality like a frying pan or a pointy stick, and uncooked meat. Eating uncooked meat can give you parasites and make you sick, so don’t do it. You can find tons of pots and pans inside houses, on top of the ovens. Ovens are the grey # next to refrigerators. Set fires by activating a matchbook or lighter and selecting a square with some kindling on it, like a two-by-four or some splintered wood. You can safely set fires outside of the house, in an oven, or on a rock floor in a basement. It’s preferable to set fires outside, so the smoke will dissipate. Inside fires make smoke, which can damage your torso from smoke inhalation if you’re not wearing a filter mask. You can also build a stone fireplace with a ton of rocks and two construction , which won't let fires spread and won't produce smoke. If you have to set a fire inside, make sure it’s on a fire-safe tile, otherwise you'll burn the house down and kill yourself.

	If you accidentally set a fire in your house that isn't on a fire-safe tile, you'll need to extinguish it quickly or the entire house will go up like a box of tissue paper. If you've found a fire extinguisher, you can apply that to the tile with fire on it, and that will be that. If you don't have a fire extinguisher, you'll need to unload a container of water onto the fire; bigger fires will require more water than smaller fires, so if you've let the fire burn for a while you'll want to put more water on it even if it's still described as a "small fire". If the fire is yellow it can still be put out. If the fire turns red, you're fucked.

	Get water by (e)xamining the toilet, filling up a watertight container like a plastic bottle or gallon jug, boiling the water from the crafting menu, and putting it into a different container. Or, if the toilet is close to a window, you can just set a fire outside the window and boil the water without having to put it into a container first. Boiling, like cooking, requires a fire, something with at least 1 boiling quality like a frying pan or a tin can, and the unboiled water, but also requires water-tight container to put the clean water in. Drinking regular water runs the risk of getting poisoned, food poisoning, and/or parasites, so only drink clean water.

	Your toilet will run out of water eventually, so you'll want to go on occasional scavenging runs with a few gallon jugs to get more water to boil. Get gallon jugs from fridges; they'll be full of rotten milk, vinegar (don't throw away vinegar), or other crap which you can just unload on the ground from the inventory screen. You can also find gallon just full of ammonia and bleach; you can unload those for the jug, but I'd recommend saving the chemicals. There's plenty of gallon jugs that aren't full of valuable crafting components. You can also make sealed stomachs from butchered animals.

>Encumbrance

	Encumbrance is very, very bad. Going over your volume limit causes high amounts of encumbrance. Only go over your volume limit if you're totally sure you're safe, and preferably not even then. Wearing more than one layer of clothing on a body part increases encumbrance, so check to see which parts of the body a given clothing item encumbers and take off clothing that you don't need to be wearing. Torso encumbrance is very bad for your melee effectiveness, so don't melee fight with Torso encumbrance. Ever.

>Clothing

	There are three kinds of clothing in Cataclysm. Clothing you wear for volume (backpacks etc), clothing you wear for warmth (wool winter coats), and clothing you wear for protection (leather vests/survivor gear)
	Trenchcoats/dusters have a lot of volume, are fairly protective and give some warmth, so you want to get a fitted one as soon as possible. Leather vests are very protective but will get you to 1 torso encumbrance if you wear anything over them that isn't an undershirt or an underwear top. If you've got 1 melee already though you can wear one, they're very good and can be made as soon as you find a leather jacket, so be on the lookout for leather jackets. Monsters also drop a shitton of leather-based items you can cut up for leather patches, like dress shoes, dance shoes, heels, purses, leather pants, leather chaps etc etc. it's like madmax over here, everyone had the leather fever before the catacylsm. Leather is good at everything, making waterskins, making good clothing, a cowboy hat, you name it. Mostly it's great for waterskins.
	Wearing more than one item on one "slot" can cause extra encumbrance, so don't. With 3 tailoring, you can craft basically everything you need in the early-game. You can get all the rags and thread you'll need by breaking windows, then cutting up the sheets into rags and disassembling the string into thread.

Specific Clothing of Note

	A filter mask will let you kill smokers easily. You can find one on Firefighter zombies, or make one, but you have to learn the recipe from a skill book before you can make one. Check what recipes books contain by reading them; if you haven't read the book before, this will "skim" the book and let you know what it does.

	A pair of sunglasses or a cowboy/boonie hat (there are some other hats, they jsut say "it keeps the glare out of your eyes") will get rid of the -1 perception Glare effect from bright sunlight. Ballistic Glasses will prevent Glare and prevent Boomer bile from effecting you.

	All of the Survivor gear is really, really "great". Get tailoring and fabrication up to 5 or 6, and you can make a suit of armour that’s low-encumbrance, high-volume, and high-protection; it’s everything you could possibly ask for in clothing. Except being balanced.

>Skills

	Mental Focus is the percentage of exp you gain from doing something that raises your skills. If you played with the exp system before, think of it like always having a full exp pool, but training a skill only gives you (focus)% of the exp you would have gained for doing something. You don't have to keep your focus at 100 all of the time, but you don't want to have it always be at 20, either. Keeping your morale up is actually useful now. High morale will increase focus regeneration, but low morale will actually make your focus degenerate. Being in pain will also decrease focus regeneration, as will reading skill books. Addictions will send your morale very low very fast with constant cravings, so avoid getting addicted.

	You train skills by using them; you train skills faster when you have high focus. Don't go to sleep with high focus; without a constant morale bonus or malus, it'll just regenerate to 100  while you sleep anyway.

>The Crafting System

	Check the "Skills used" indicator at the top of the crafting screen. This is the skill that determines success when crafting the selected recipe, and you need at least the recipe's difficulty in levels of skill to make this recipe. Fabrication is used to make stuff like weapons and ammo, Tailoring is used to make clothing, Electronics is used to make electronics, Cooking is used to make food and chems, etc. You also need to have the skills shown in the "Required skills" indicator, as well as the requisite level of the used skill to know the recipe at all.

>Recipes and Books

	You don’t start out knowing everything you need to know to survive in the apocalypse. You need to learn how to make a whole bunch of necessary things. Books are your best friends; they can give you combat skills without having to actually risk your neck, crafting skills without having to grind out massive amounts of crap, and give you important recipe knowledge. You can find a large amounts and wide varieties of books in libraries and schools, a smaller amount and variety in houses, and specific kinds of books in some stores and other areas. If you haven't read a book before, you won't know what recipes and skill knowledge it contains; find out by reading it!

	One of your first goals should be to find the book “What’s a Transistor?”, commonly found in electronics stores. This book will bring your electronics skill to 3, and most importantly teach you the recipe for a lightstrip. Lightstrips are a very efficient source of a low amount of light, perfect for reading books when there’s no ambient light. You can get the parts to make a lightstrip by simply disassembling a flashlight. Once you get a lightstrip, a bunch of books, and a reliable way to get meat and clean water, consider holing up for a few days and just reading the whole time.

	Another very important recipes you want to find is the Filter Mask. It’s in a variety of books, and it’s a very efficient form of environmental mouth protection. Wearing a filter mask will let you stop worrying about smoke all the time, as well as reducing the chance of getting a cold or flu.

>Killing Zombies

	Kill zombies by leading them into a shrub, pit, or abandoned car and stabbing them, funnelling zombie packs through a window-frame and stabbing them, or taking them on one-on-one and stabbing them. If yo're a shitter you can drop a skewer or a splintered wood under a zombie and light it on fire with your lighter. It's kind of cheating since it should take less than half a turn to light a fire, but don't be afraid of using it if you're in a tight spot. Just don't do it inside a home.

	Moving through shrubs/window-frames/shallow pits/car frames takes 4 times as long as usual, so avoid doing so yourself while leading single zombies through shrubs and funnelling packs through window-frames. If you find a shopping cart, wheelbarrow, luggage cart, or other such single-tile draggable “vehicles”, you can use them as a portable shrub! This is especially powerful when using melee attacks, as dragging a cart only reduces your movement speed, not attack speed. You can constantly force zombies chasing you to move into a 400-movement-point square, allowing you to attack them with near-impunity.

	Don't pull more than you can chew; if you're in doubt, don't engage. All zombies will revive after about 6 hours if you don't butcher them, so after you're done killing everything attacking you just pick over the loot and butcher/smash all the corpses. Butchering usually takes longer, but raises your survival skill; shocker zombies and zombie scientists can also drop CBMs when butchered. Don't butcher these zombies until you have 3 survival; they'll drop super-cool bionics at 3 survival, but not beforehand. Instead, smash their corpses and mark their position on the map. Smashing can be faster or slower than butchering, depending on the damage of your wielded weapon; once a zombie corpse is “pulped”, it won’t revive.

	Zombies can potentially cause a bite wound or bleeding, which will be listed in the effects menu on the character screen (press @). If you're bitten and "the wound feels really deep", retreat. You need to deal with the bite before it gets infected. Ideally you’ll have found some disinfectant or a first-aid kit from a house bathroom, and can just apply it to the bitten area of your body, which is highlighted in blue. If you don’t have either of those, you’ll have to cauterize the wound and hope it works before you take too much pain. Cauterize the bite by applying your switchblade and selecting cauterize; this will cause a lot of pain, which reduces your speed, so do it when you're safe and take painkiller right after. If you don't cauterize a bite wound before it becomes infected, you need to take antibiotics to cure the infection or you'll eventually die. Bleeding is less serious; you’ll just take damage over time to the bleeding body part, and it can be stopped by a rag, bandage, or first-aid kit. A bandage will be used up, but a rag will turn into a "blood soaked rag", which can't be used for anything until you clean it. You may need to use multiple rags or bandages. You can also stop the bleeding with cauterization, but the pain from cauterization is probably worse than the damage from bleeding. Cotton balls are almost like bandages and are plentiful. Disassemble pillows to get them.

	Taking more than 1 aspirin or other painkiller at a time doesn't do anything more than taking only 1; take 1 aspirin every 12 minutes for maximum effect. Stronger painkillers will last longer than aspirin, so be sure not to overdose to avoid wasting valuable drugs.

	Zombie Dogs are fast, jumpy, dodgy assholes, and come in regular, rotten, and skeletal flavours. They move very erratically, so dragging them through shrubs is hard but possible. Preferably you should get inside and lead them through a window frame if possible, but don't go through a window frame yourself to do so. They can also cause bite wounds and bleeding.
	Shocker Zombies are just horrible. They throw electricity, which will paralyze and damage your whole body, and if you hit them in melee you’ll be paralyzed and damaged. You absolutely need to fight these guys one-on-one, because otherwise you’ll be swarmed to death while paralyzed. Drag them away from other zombies, lead them into a bush or window, and kill them. Use a wood weapon, you'll get paralyzed if you if you touch them with anything metal (knives and knife spears are metal, a wooden spear isn't.)
	Brutes are faster and hit Hard.
	Skeletons have a lot of cutting armour. If you like, you can pick up a hammer or another kind of bashing weapon to kill them. Skeletons are also hard to hit with ranged attacks, and won't smash windows.
	Spitter Zombies are about as fast as you are, and can throw acid. The acid effect will hit your tile; move out of it ASAP. Acid will also destroy items on that square, and damage other zombies that stand it it. Don't stand in the hurty stuff, move the Spitter through shrubs/window-frames if you have the chance.
	Shrieker and Boomer zombies are just annoying. If you get bile’d, you can apply saline solution or eye drops to remove the effect. If you don’t have either, retreat. Don't let shriekers shriek too many times; shrieks will attract other zombies to your location.
	Smokers generate heavy amounts of smoke, so ideally you’ll have a filter mask before you have to kill one of these. If you don’t have a filter mask, don’t worry too much, but coughing is very annoying.
	Bloated zombies have low health, but explode into a cloud of poison when you kill them. Ideally you'll just be able to pop them with a few thrown rocks, but if you're forced to melee one, get out of the gas as fast as possible. A filter mask will help somewhat, but it's nowhere near reliable. You need a gas mask to be totally immune to poison gas.
	Tough, Fat, Decayed, and Crawling zombies aren’t very notable. Fat zombies have more health and armour, tough zombies have a bit more armour and do a bit more damage, decayed zombies have less health, crawling zombies are slower. There’s nothing really special about these guys.
	Don't melee hulks. Run from hulks. If you have to kill a hulk, prepare beforehand and do not pull the hulk before you're ready. Kill hulks with fire. Get some hard liquor and make some molotov cocktails, and dig some pits beforehand to drag the hulk into. If you haven't found a shovel to dig non-shallow pits, you can just make a stone shovel out of some rocks, string, and a stick. Activate the molotov to light it on fire, (t)hrow it at the hulk to light it on fire, then drag it into the pits and plink at it with a gun if you've found one. If the hulk stops being on fire before it dies, hit it with another molotov.
	Zombie Scientists are generally pushovers. They can drop acid vials, acting like Spitter spit but in a smaller area, and have a radioactive gaze that doesn’t do anything much. They’ve got weak melee skills and low health and can drop bionics when butchered, so they’re basically just walking loot.
	Firefighter, Soldier, Cop, and Survivor zombies are all better armoured than your average zombie, but drop useful stuff.

>Mods

>Dildon'ts
Some people don't like overpowered armor and weapons, dildos and fursuits in their game because it's annoying. The devs refused to push this mod as mainline, but /rlg/ does not care. The game has them. People don't want them. We take care of them. It's up to you if you want to use it or not. This is a balance mod.
	https://mega.co.nz/#!MZdhwQRI!sk9YDdlhZ7W2xIhEqNJ9gUEH7uTBKQnHQCEzjPhPoKw
	Just unzip it, and drop it into your mods folder.
>Vegan/ No junkfood Mod
	Meat, right? Makes the game too easy. You butcher a couple animals and you're set for days, then you repeat the process. Hunger is never a problem after day 1. Unless you take out meat. This mods takes care of it. At the cost of bacon and hamburgers. This is a challenge mod.
	https://mega.co.nz/#!8UUVCSDB!8WRXGVtmgJCunNm3dgXWclIFs8M71rNiAZe08CPElxs
>No more MadMax/No more useless clothing mod
	Why does everyone pre-cataclysm love leather? It's basically everywhere. This mod takes care of it and makes it much rarer (almost non-existant from zombie drops except for some items, but you can still grab a lot by smashing a gym open for those sweet sweet punching sacks). It also removes most of the useless clothing that nobody uses (dress,cassock,thawb,kariginu,robe,kittel,kimono,kufi,kippah,eboshi,sundress,camisole,lowtop shoes,dress_wedding etc etc etc). This is a hardcore balance mod that is not roleplaying-friendly. If you start with a class that's not survivor and has a blacklisted item (for example a bride) you're going to spawn with it (so the game doesn't crash, thanks crappy code!) but never see it as a drop.
	https://mega.co.nz/#!wJUiSbTR!lnHjwVDYwsAo4dzVRf3umF8auQbdjHj7id4qK7OLwF4

>Mainline mods you should use
	Fast zombies (Makes the game a lot harder and more challenging. Very satisfying and practically puts you on the same level as the zombies)
	More survival tools. (It's great, use it.)
	No survivor armor (Ridiculously OP)
	No rivtech guns (OP. As. Fuck.)
	No flaming weapons (fire is buggy and slows down the game)
	No antique firearms (optional)
	No medieval items (Pretty damn overpowered)
	No powered armor (mostly because it removes rivtech's powered armor which is an insult to the game in terms of OPness, but if you like powered armor keep it. It's rare enough to be good)
	Prevent zombie revivification (if you don't like bashing every corpse and you're playing with over the normal spawns)
	Zombie nightvision (Night time won't save you when you want to loot, boy)

>Long-Term Goals

	Ha!
	No, seriously. It's a sandbox game. You'll eventually get bored. and kill yourself.
Go fight some triffids or something.

P.S.

	Take a look at these images of a character who took all the worst perks and minimum stats and decided to suicide drinking a 150 Kg barrel of liquor because the game was still too easy https://imgur.com/a/NTEqb#0

	Be sure to check out the original Cataclysm too! These versions are modded and bugfixed, so you won't crash every five seconds like with the original cata.
	https://github.com/herbertjones/Cataclysm (original Cataclysm with bugfixes for linux)
	http://www.mediafire.com/cataclysm-roguelike#b4q4bkfcecl4d (original cataclysm with bugfixes for windows)