The Big Ol' List of tips, tricks and strategies

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WORK IN PROGRESS

"blah" means "WIP, rewrite this". (there's a lot of blahs)

"confirm" means "need to test this".

What not to include:

  • Explicit spoilers, i.e. info on late-game locations, or how to defeat specific kinds of enemies
  • Character building (maybe in a separate guide?)
  • Telling people the "right" way to play


Useful tools & links


General

  • CDDA can be whatever you want it to be. You can change lots of settings during world generation and in the options menu to fit your vision of an interesting, challenging, and/or chill Cataclysm.
  • Time doesn't pass unless you do things! Which means that if a giant zombie hulk suddenly shows up next to you and threatens to tear you a new one, the best thing to do is to do nothing at all. Relax. Take a deep breath. You have all the time in the world to think about your next move. It's like chess, except you don't even have a human opponent who could get impatient with you. Most deaths happen because of panic. There's no need to panic.
    • Checking your inventory [i], your map [m], your character status [@], your bionics [p], or your immediate surroundings [x] takes no in-game time. In the heat of combat, it's easy to miss the safer escape route, or to forget about the shotgun you totally had in your duffel bag.
    • You can save and quit the game at any time. If you're in a seemingly hopeless situation, take a break. The solution might come to you later. Or you can ask on the forums, the subreddit, or the Discord for advice.
  • Just because the game nudges you in a certain direction, it doesn't mean you have to follow it. If your character starts with a gun, you don't have to use it for every single enemy. Maybe most importantly, you blah don't have to kill everything
  • blah zombie evolution, happens slowly, just don't forget and neglect your combat strength, alternatively slow it down in settings


Troubleshooting

  • Does your character somehow seem weaker or less effective than usual? Check your character screen [@]. The important sections are:
    • Encumbrance and Warmth shows you how much your armor is restricting you. (blah link to "Encumbrance & Armor" section)
    • Speed shows you if there are any effects slowing you down. (blah link to "Movement points" section)
    • Effects can list all kinds of effects and diseases that lower your stats or otherwise make you weaker. (blah link to "Healing" section)


Encumbrance & Armor

Armor will keep you alive. Encumbrance is a number that shows you how much your armor is restricting your movement. The lower the encumbrance, the better. Check your encumbrance values on your character screen [@] or the layering menu [+]. blah this is very very very very important but also unintuitive, some professions need to drop some gear before they're ready for action

Roughly in order of importance:

Mouth encumbrance
Lowers your stamina regeneration by a lot. Do not encumber your mouth unless absolutely necessary.
In the cold season, a balaclava (craftable at tailoring 2, survival 1) will be enough to keep your mouth from freezing. If your skills are lower, you can make a keffiyeh or a patchwork scarf.
blah bloated zombies take off gas mask
blah light survivor mask
Torso encumbrance
Lowers hit and crit chance in melee combat, dodge chance, and blah something about throwing, overall very important for melee characters and less so for ranged
blah something about backpacks, makeshift sling, makeshift knapsack, duffel bag, drop before every fight
blah ranged combat, good for hoarders
blah tier(0-9)
blah tier(10-19)
blah it's likely that your starting profession is overloaded here, e.g. binoculars+crossbow+backpack on bioprepper, keep in mind when you want to melee
blah in rare cases higher encumbrance is worth it, like firefighter profession who has good armor
Arm encumbrance
blah
blah something about bindles, drop before fight
Hand encumbrance
Eye encumbrance
blah
blah night vision range, some professions will want to drop their safety glasses or headgear at night because of that
Leg encumbrance
Foot encumbrance
Slows down your movement speed. The effect is negligible.
Aside from shoes, you can wear ankle sheaths and ankle holsters on this slot.
Since zombies are unlikely to punch your feet, the best thing to put here is acid protection. Rubber boots are the best for this.
Head encumbrance
Head encumbrance doesn't actually do anything. Wear as much as you want! As long as you don't overheat, that is.
blah figure out what the game counts as "headgear"
blah something about rain hoods and waterproof headgear maybe?
  • blah something about fitting clothes, refitting
  • blah layering [+], flimsy items at the bottom (will get changed soon, check PRs)
  • blah something about coverage, percentage means hit percentage
    • blah maybe ask devs or look on github how likely each bodypart is to get hit


Movement points

  • blah it's important
  • blah most of the time you can't do anything to increase, but be wary of things that decrease them
  • blah negatives: pain, being grabbed, depressants, hunger/thirst, hot/cold, bad morale
  • blah positives: quick trait, good morale, stims
  • blah talk about slow weapons and skipping turns
    • blah example 1: Spd 110 45 (confirm values): quick, unencumbered character with martial art or rapid strike, can attack twice for every zombie attack (confirm zombie attack speed?). if there are other zombies around, it'll look like they're moving at half speed.
    • blah example 2: Spd 71 159: encumbered character with a slowish weapon who is in pain: skips every other turn, zombies attack twice for each of her attacks (confirm zombie attack speed). if there are other zombies around, it'll look like they're moving twice as fast as usual.
    • blah also be mindful of actions that take a lot of turns (confirm which ones?)
  • blah you get to move first, so fast weapons can kite before you get hit (depends on zombie speed, harder with brutes)
  • blah movement points on rough terrain and vehicles, don't take the slow route, but let zombies take it
  • blah something about low stamina effects? check github or ask devs


Combat

There are 4 ways to deal with threats in CDDA:

#1: Don't fight

  • blah this isn't a wiseass answer, you don't have to fight anything, level designers didn't put monsters as a handcrafted challenge
  • blah talk about the joys of running away like a bitch
    • blah did you know you can sprint? ["]
    • blah elaborate on running, you can outrun almost anything, conserving stamina, stopping pursuers with doors/cars, catching breath in dark places
  • blah rollerblades
  • blah night raids
    • blah shady zombies (you're exposed to damage, see #4)
    • blah the wait menu [|] shows you how much time you have left in the day (maybe move this to another category?)
  • blah loud noises, small fires for scaring animals, always carry some paper, underwear works in an emergency (blah do tests on fire lighting speed)

#2: Indirect combat

  • blah talk about trump cards, for certain situations or difficult opponents
    • blah setting a house on fire
    • blah cars
    • blah different factions, fungus, ants, mi-gos, robots
    • blah something about deep pits, sharp metal wreckage, nailboard traps
    • blah zombie pheromones, link to bottom of page (entry in "useful items")

#3: Combat (avoiding damage)

  • There are many reasons why getting into melees with zombies is bad. Ideally, you don't want them to hit you at all.
  • blah drop backpacks before fights
  • blah spears
    • blah types of spears, how to craft, makeshift glaive
    • blah talk about movement, kiting over windows/tables/bushes, deep pits, wreckage (keep in mind wreckage buries corpses, making them unpulpable unless you shovel them out)
  • blah hit and run cudgel stuff
    • blah if you're using the recommended build for new players (link to bioprepper), works with machete
  • blah archery
    • blah if you're using the recommended build for new players (link to bioprepper), works with crossbow
  • blah traps
    • blah nailboard traps
    • blah maybe talk about bear traps
  • blah guns
    • blah everyone should have a shotgun, works for unskilled survivors, scares moose
  • blah vehicle turrets
    • blah test them in your own game first (maybe don't mention them because that's not earlygame anymore)

#4: Combat (exposed to damage)

  • blah in other words, straight up melee combat where the enemy can hit back. earlygame only in emergencies, or when you find good armor
  • blah You should know what you're getting yourself into, all the bad effects pile up and only get worse. It's like compound interest, but instead of becoming rich, it's infinite suffering and then you die
    • blah pain. remember movement points? pain very bad. pain also lowers stats, dex lowers dodge chance so there'll be even more pain in your immediate future
      • blah painkillers, aspirin doesn't stack
    • blah grabs, infections, don't get grabbed
      • blah how to deal with infections (link to "Healing" section?)
    • blah repairing armor, if armor gets penetrated it can get damaged, which lessens its armor and makes it more likely to take more damage, etc
  • blah once again, movement points are very important, check character screen [@]
    • blah once again talk about using movement, tables, windows, bushes, deep pits, wreckage
  • blah at low skills it's hard to hit things like zombie children, prioritize weapons with a high to-hit value
  • blah (rewrite this) if you're able to take hits: Keep an eye out for items that look like they'd be effective melee weapons. Things like bats, axes, crowbars.
    • blah you might even find medieval weapons, but check for aluminum, budget steel
  • blah don't let all this deter you from becoming a melee fighter, it gets quite good once you have good armor

General tips for combat

  • blah character building, high dex
  • blah talk about focus
    • Turn off driving skill to reduce its drain on focus (See Skills#Disabling_skills).
    • blah morale items (link to crafting section)
  • blah dps increase from to-hit bonus and rapid strike
  • blah quick word on martial arts for beginners/earlygame, synergies with professions (bioprepper+eskrima, etc)
    • blah link to character building guide once that one's finished

Revivification (what to do after the fight)

  • blah pulping, quickbutchering, burning


Healing

  • blah sleep healing, hidden health stat
    • blah something about health messages when waking up, self-aware trait
    • blah healthy food, unhealthy drugs, check github for negative health affects (wetness?)
    • blah if you have multivitamins, put them next to your bed and eat one whenever you get up (clarify if they contain calcium?)
    • blah something about non-simplified nutrition (ask devs about clarification on how it works)
  • blah healing items, bandage+disinfectant
  • blah something about broken limbs and splints, how to get first aid to 1
  • blah how to heal infections, blue limbs means danger danger, deal with it ASAP
    • blah something about antibiotics and atreyupan
  • blah something about ambient diseases, royal jelly
  • blah something about fungus (spoiler tags?)
  • blah something about parasites, dirty water, raw meat
  • blah something about radiation (spoiler tags?)


Inventory & Interface

  • Learn to use Advanced Inventory management / to make looting and organizing easier and quicker.
    • blah basic usage, moving items
    • If you want to quickly see which items take up the most space in your inventory, open the Advanced Inventory (/), press 0/i/I to select your own inventory, s/S to sort, and then v to sort by volume. Now whenever you open the Advanced Inventory, the items with the highest volume will be at the top.
    • Don't forget to reset your filters when you're done with them.
  • blah how to set up your loot pile
    • blah option 1, use one pile, handy for crafting, use advanced inventory to get individual items
    • blah option 2, use zone manager
  • If you find that you use certain items a lot, you can rebind their hotkeys to make them easier to access. Open the inventory, select the item with RETURN, then reassign the key with =.
  • blah V
    • blah priorities + or -
  • If you have a crowbar, you can press e next to a locked door, window, or crate to quickly pry it. blah doesn't work on all items? (confirm)
  • The action menu % lists all the items in your inventory that you can activate. If you have a crowbar clipped to a firefighter belt, you can use that menu to quickly pry things without taking out and wielding the crowbar first.
  • Press Tab to select whole categories of items in the inventory and multi-drop screens.
  • blah how to scroll item descriptions? pgdn/pgup

Looting & Exploration

  • Don't cross open fields at night unless you know for sure it's safe! Dying by stepping on a landmine because you didn't see the minefield is the most disappointing feeling ever.
  • Looking for specific items? Buildings, or drops from dead enemies, aren't the only places where you can find good stuff:
    • blah cars, ambulances, security vans, turret ammo
    • blah disassembly, smash beds, cut leather clothes, arcade machines
    • blah crafting, book-learned recipes
    • blah unmarked locations, corpse piles, heli crashes
    • blah zombie guts, dissecting for cbms
  • blah zombie clothes aren't worth it, too damaged, except for uncraftable items (rollerblades, kevlar vest, rubber boots)
  • Unloading [U] things can be useful:
    • Unload electronic devices to get their batteries, even if you don't need the device itself. Some of them, like electronic lanterns, come with quite a lot of battery power.
    • Unload things from cardboard boxes. Those boxes are big. Usually the items will take up less space in your inventory after take them out of the box.
    • Unload things from plastic bags, if you need plastic bags. They can be used as fletching for arrows, or to make rain coats and rain hoods. At least one rain coat is necessary to make survivor armor later in the game.
    • blah unload guns for ammo
    • blah basic repair kits for duct tape, sewing kits for thread, maybe other unique types of "ammo"
  • blah sometimes you have to stand next to a piece of furniture to see what's inside, fridges, closets, especially confusing with desks in dojos (confirm: check which ones and what they're called exactly, or check the JSONs for the flag)
  • blah check github where to get maps (gas stations)
  • Looking for books? blah schools > mansions > libraries/bookstores
  • Pawn shops are the Kinder egg of the city. Who knows what you could find in there.


Food & Drink

  • blah vending machines are great (link to cheat sheet)
  • Where to find things to drink:
    • The aforementioned vending machines.
    • Infinite water sources, such as rivers (unclean water, you'll need to boil it to clean it) or water pumps found in farms. See Water;
    • Funnels, to collect rain water;
    • blah toilets
  • How to deal with frozen food:
    • blah
  • blah shelf life is at room temperature, food lasts longer in the cold season
  • blah check the items, "tastes better while hot" -> heat with pot et al, "better when cold" -> cold season or minifridge or basement (?)
  • Can't get the toilet water because it's frozen? Grab [G] an oven and move it next to the toilet, then fill the oven with wood and light it on fire. (confirm str requirements for moving oven)
  • blah talk about butchering mechanics
  • blah talk about preserving food
  • blah need to eat awful food? eat before bedtime and the morale malus will be gone by the time you wake up (confirm?)

Crafting & Skills

  • blah raising crafting skills 0->3
    • blah link to crafting guide once that's finished
  • blah something about the crafting menu search function
  • You have a chance to fail at crafting, based on your character's INT. If you have a low INT character, or if you definitely want to succeed at crafting something that needs rare materials, it might be better to raise your skills first. (e.g. raise tailoring to 3 before attempting to craft something with difficulty 2)
  • blah something about light sources for nights/basements: brazier, oven, oil/electric/gasoline lamp, lightstrip (confirm crafting skill necessary), flashlight
  • Cutting off the sleeves of your jackets completely repairs and refits them, somehow. Works with leather jackets (-> leather vest), trenchcoats (-> sleeveless trenchcoat), and dusters (-> sleeveless duster).
  • Need thread? Take down curtains and disassemble [(] the long string and the resulting small strings. It's about 8 times faster than disassembling rags.
    • blah dojos have tons of long string if you need it in bulk, just smash [s] the mat
  • blah need rocks, burn a house
  • blah need plastic chunks, remove broken tires (confirm? which tools are necessary for this?)
  • Need welding goggles? Firefighter PBA masks have 2 glare protection. Even filthy ones will do.
  • blah morale items, talk about focus regeneration
    • blah morale doesn't affect books, unless it's super low (confirm?)
  • blah metallurgy
    • crucible/clay crucible


NPCs

  • blah something about default NPC spawn rates
  • After you complete an NPC's first quest, tell them you need no payment. blah guaranteed training
  • Reason #8235875 why cars are great: they make it harder for random NPCs to steal your stuff from under your nose, and you can easily run over aggressive NPCs.
  • blah how to kill without mood penalty (make aggressive first)
  • blah if they're lagging behind, enter a vehicle so they try to catch up with you


Useful Items

Things you should always carry with you (if you have them)

Disinfectant
blah infections
Painkillers
blah pain is bad
Lighter
blah test lighter speeds, killing stuff
Paper
blah fire
A shotgun
blah talk about shotguns
Stimulants
blah talk about different kinds of stimulants
Saline eye drops
blah boomer juice (blah test speed vs towel), takes up virtually no space
A watch
blah good for planning, use wait menu [|] to show time left in the day/night
blah also works as alarm clock, be mindful of Heavy Sleeper/Poor Hearing
Royal jelly
It's rare, but if you have some, never let it go. It instantly heals any disease or affliction in the game, and it's the only thing that cures the common cold.
blah where to get (chemistry textbook)

Other useful items

Shopping cart
Can be found in any grocery store. Not actually an item. It holds 150L of items and doesn't encumber your body at all, which makes this better than any backpack.
Towel
Gets rid of the morale penalty from being wet. No more being depressed from standing in the rain! Can also wash boomer juice from your face.
Rollerblades
blah they good
blah something about dodge penalties, possibly other penalties, Skater profession, dodging is literally harder than when having foot caught in bear trap
Rubber hose
blah siphoning, get from fridges
Prying implements
blah for opening doors and crates in storage rooms or supply drops
blah earlygame makeshift crowbar, crowbar or Halligan bar will fit in firefighter belt but might be heavy, dive knife is super light and small
Firefighter belt
blah storage for no encumbrance, holds crowbar or other tools
Poppy painkiller
blah
Bear trap
blah not strictly earlygame anymore idk, good for kiting
Mop
blah


Goals

CDDA is very open-ended. The game doesn't really give you any directions or explicit goals. This might be very appealing to some players, but others might appreciate some pointers on where you can go.

  • If you find or spawn in an evac shelter, use the computer console in the northeast corner and select the option for contacting. A location will be marked on your map.
  • If you have an NPC following you, ask them if there's anything you can do for them. Some of those quest chains will lead you all over the place.
  • If you like base-building, get an NPC to follow you and ask them about faction camps.
  • Follow the roads. If you have marked roads on your map with a tourist map or somesuch, you'll see that some of them lead to "dead ends". There's often interesting stuff there.

Roleplaying

  • blah something general about RP
  • blah if putting yourself in another character's shoes seems strange, try playing yourself, do what you'd do in each situation
  • You can rename items by using a permanent marker on them. So, your shotgun saved your life? Why not name it "Hope" or something like that? Depending on the material of the item, knives also work.
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