Cataclysm: Boating Days Ahead

In the previous faction camp posts I talked about wanting to figure out boat construction and explore west of Kazdel.

Good news, I managed to do it! And it wasn't as difficult as I expected.

All I need is to add some hulls, a means of engine power (in this case, hand paddles), and a seat. Adding hulls increases the maximum weight allowed for a floating vehicle, so the float mechanic is not as complicated as I thought.

I haven't figured out how the draft/clearance numbers work yet. The float status is also misleading. I get the impression those stats are only based on the construction of the vehicle itself, ignoring added weight from cargo (and the fat human pilot). A vehicle with floats status can still sink after adding too much cargo ~~and induce a rage savescum~~.

Vehicle speed on water is much much slower than on land. That water drag is nothing to sneeze at. These are for hand-powered boats. Even after adding a fairly good electric engine, max safe speeds and meh and guzzle power if trying to push the boat beyond that.

The west frontier has yet to be explored

First stop, the riverside dwelling in the middle of the river (the yellow icon below the pink anchors). I planned to upward, make a counterclockwise loop, and get back to Kazdel.

Not much here, riverside dwellings are meant to be barebones areas safe for a pit stop. It does come with a nicer 2-seat canoe which I shamelessly took for personal use.

Continuing northwest, I decided exploring this coast area could wait for another time. No time to deal with mutated coyotes.

In-game description for slavering coyotes: "Unnatural bulges line the neck of this obviously-mutated coyote; green-tinted foam flecks from its lips, and there's a crazed look in its eyes." They're now extremely venomous like rattlesnakes.

Going down the coastline, I find a boat rental. Lots of nice boats, although none of them are improvements. These are all hand powered, and what I really need is an engine powered one. Can't waste stamina on boating when there are monsters to fight.

At this point I'm looping back in the direction to Kazdel to see what's on the southern end of the river and I trigger myself.

You're telling me I had a convenient lumbermill right here, separated by only a few tiles of water juuuuuuust out of sight, when I was making long roadtrips across the overmap to a remote lumberyard???? One of the saltiest moments that made me wish I figured out boating earlier.

The white house icon on the river is the boat rental, and the >-< connectors are overpass bridges you can sail under.

Needless to say, that lumberyard has me malding. (But this also means, making a second faction camp across the river near Eustis would be trivial.)

This minor scout mission has showed that the frontier across the river is very worth further exploration, so I head back to Kazdel to make a fuel-powered boat. On the way, we encounter some interesting coastal wildlife.

A bunch of beavers ambush me on the way back. Also, stay away from geese. They're also evil in game.

Seats have enough storage space to store beaver corpses, so we load them up.

We go under the bridge. I think it's really cool how the map generator can support multi-level terrain (called z-levels in game).

If I squint really really hard, I can pretend I'm boating under the Golden Gate Bridge like that one time for the company activity.

A giant carp attacks me on the way back, and I was eager to get my first fish butchered. The seat storage is already full from beavers so I put away my weapon and hold the carp corpse instead. Not a good idea, as I'm ambushed by beavers again.

Clearly I'm just a noob, what kind of loser can't kill beavers by pelting them with large fish corpses?

I throw off the beaver and continue my way... and I run away really really fast from this 3-way battle I really don't want to be a part of.

Zombies vs mi-go vs giant mutated centipedes. BYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

I just noticed from the screenshot that there's a blue looking chest piece. That might be a super super rare end game power armor. I should go back sometime and retrieve it... after the hostiles destroy each other.

I pass by the shipwreck (pink anchors) before getting back to Kazdel. Razorclaws are the only things you find infesting shipwrecks, and they are a pain. They can screech and inflict a debilitating stat debuff and stun unless you deafen yourself and can swarm you. Avoid for now. (Easy source of chitin, will eventually harvest a few.)

I wonder if these things can breed. Tons of chitin yes please.

Too bad most mutated creatures that are not zombies yield mutant meat. The player can't use mutant meat as a long-term food source, since enough toxin buildup can cause seizures and self stun. But now I wonder... faction camp calories storage doesn't care about toxins, so if I donate the mutant meat to camp food supply... 🤔🤔🤔

I return to Kazdel and set about changing my nice scout vehicle into a floatie.

The brown Os on the right of the red components are the hulls.

With a juiced up electric motor and solar panels, I can now run around exploring with nary a care.

First stop, scout the lumbermill, clear out any zombies, then check the mainland for any spicy loot locations.

A spicy start to the lumbermill reconnaisance.

A gasoline zombie. Guess what happens when it dies. Kill it from afar.

SO MANY DOWNED TREES, IT'S AMAZING. It's ridiculous how excited deforestation in Cataclysm makes me.

But you know what's even better? ALL THE WOODEN RAW MATERIAL THAT I DON'T HAVE TO CHOP BY HAND.

*HEAVY BREATHING*. Note, this screen only shows all the loot within visible range. This does not include the tons of supplies stashed in all the crates.

I loot what I can, and then turns out my "amphibious" vehicle sinks under all the new weight, despite the vehicle page still saying float. So with the convenient access to wood, I add in a couple more boat hulls and go on my way.

The mainland town center looks huge. The pink house icons are pharmacies/doctor's offices. I plan to raid doctor's offices soon. Would be a huge boon to find a functional autodoc for installing bionics, since those are one of the few things that can't be transported in any way to another location. I currently have to make a day trip to a town across the overmap for my bionic needs.

The red house icons are gun stores. Extremely juicy.

When it comes to raiding huge cities like these, especially most zombies have evolved into their advanced forms, the fastest way is to sneak around at night. Gravy if Infrared Vision bionic is installed.

The bright ring around me is the extent of my night vision. The orange light ups are zombies my Infrared Vision picked up. Walk around them.

I manage to raid one doctor's office (no autodoc, sadly) and a gun store. I escape with injuries so it's time to hightail it out.

I take the road leading west of Long Island to go further inland.

And then what do I see?

RANCHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! APPLE ORCHARD RIGHT NEXT TO IT!!

Gotta check out the ranch. I haven't done the quest line leading to the NPC spawn for the ranch (haven't even found the corresponding refugee center) so NPCs aren't there. But what about animals?

YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH. Tame everything and slowly pen them in the barn. They'll probably stay here a while, since Kazdel already has enough livestock.

I find a radio tower south of the ranch and I immediately go. Radio towers have multiple floors and the higher I go, the larger my map sight radius. Gotta find the juicy locations.

WHERE WAS THIS LUCK AT THE START OF MY RUN?? TWOOOOOOO DAIRY FARMS AND A HORSE FARM ALL CLOSE TO EACH OTHER.

We have to take a look at all of them. But first, the lab. That's the blue building icon in the western forest area.

This is a lab all right, all these chemicals.

And I find some really really interesting experimental creatures, first time I've ever seen these.

Bruh these things teleport randomly. If they teleport right onto your square, rip eksdee

The lab is extremely dangerous, tight corridors with lots of military zombies. I'm also out of cargo space so it's time to rest up, check the dairy farms, and get back to Kazdel to plan my next excursion.

I accidentally find myself in a pickle with a power armor zombie coming after me, even following me up the lab elevator. In my severely injured state I couldn't do anything to it – I doubt I could even when in peak form – so I was planning to ditch it in the wilderness somewhere.

I found something debatably better.

Let the army of ants deal with it. Very convenient that an anthill was nearby.

I want to see this zombie singlehandedly ripping through the ant army.

Just casually do Grand Prix maneuvers through ant country.

See all the red and green dots on the tiny minimap on the right? ANTS.

First dairy farm.

I brought some cattle fodder with me so I tame them all and pen them in one of the buildings.

Second dairy farm.

Rip these cows, sorry, you're on your own. It hurts a little to see all these cow corpses go to waste.

Zombies aggro onto the closest enemy, so these went straight for the normal cows. Even if I could deal with a swarm of zombie cows (I can't), there's no way I could get within aggro range before the cows get slaughtered.

This RNG is to be expected, we take this loss and move on.

Final stop, horse farm. Very lucky, it had horses, unlike the first horse farm I found.

These little shits were a pain to corner and tame. I'm glad that suffering is over.

I still wanted to explore a tiiiiiny bit more before returning to Kazdel so I follow the road south of the dairy farms.

Haha one of the special RNG locations that can spawn. These used to not be not labelled so well so some poor survivors randomly ripped out of nowhere.

Clearly whatever not even mines could stop whatever these two humans were dealing with ~~(the geese amirite)~~

Walk around the paved road, and now the mines should be easier to see.

Annnnd look what I found now.

Another refugee center! This one is for the ranch we just found, so nice. We can deal with the quests later.

I see a little farm across the bridge on the west so I take a look.

I'm rooting for the dogs. Meanwhile the chickens are like "aight imma peace out"

The dogs did not make it, btw. They lost before I could get over.

I get rid of the zombies on the outside. I take a look inside the stable.

Thanks incandescent husk, you did everything for me.

I came into the storage area with the scene already looking like that. Incandescent husks generate EMP shockwaves around them, so it's quite easy for them to clear entire hordes inside enclosed spaces. The husk already got one juggernaut before the other one accidentally killed it. One juggernaut is easy enough though. Easy pulping.

While on the road back Kazdel, I examine the minimap. I didn't think much of the farm area north of the lab at first, but then I notice the field icon looked different from the normal icon. These field icons have double tufts instead of single tufts. Double tufts only show up on human farms, so something is very sus.

And what's this? NPCs?

We did it! We finally found the unique overmap Isherwood family farm!

This is the first Isherwood location spawn I've found, so I'm quite excited to visit before going back.

A quest! To find him jars for canning. Ok.

Juicy farmland. I doubt NPCs actually do anything to their own land. I wonder if I can use their farmland for personal use. I doubt the AI minds in any way HA.

I run around with a US marshal badge but never wear it because I usually forget. I use this opportunity to see how much of a difference it makes. Time to chat with Claire.