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:
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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)
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Depending on ammo availability I take 1 secondary and 1 primary
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Secondaries – Glock 19 ( modability, gun and ammo availability) – FN Five-Seven ( good penetration) – Sig P226 (personal preference)
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Primaries – M4A1 (ammo and gun availability, good mod profile) – M14 EBR ( Decent all-purpose Marksman Rifle)
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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.
Slings are really good early game and, probably more if one commits to making the fancier ammo I am guessing?
It doesn’t fatigue oneself too much either. I assume once you settle you make some pebble pouches for ammo and refill on the fly?
I use slings more for throwing practice, placing a target on the ground, drop a sling nearby and some pebbles on the ground.
I suppose the sling staff is there if you want to take out more heavily armoured targets with the grenade attachment.
Also silent if I recall too
That is also true, the M4A1 is a solid baseline rifle in regards to ammo and availability.
Thank you for the perspective, I enjoy reading how other people approach the game. I can only assume having less stuff bogging you down with a sling gives you a lot more options in regards to kiting and equipment options?
Well for one in comparison to most people I rarely play to the end game, so my play style is probably vastly underpowered for the kind of fights you are thinking about. I most play sky islands at this point and I enjoy the beginning part of CDDA far more because the gameplay loop feels tense. Once I have a clear reality bubble, my motivation just fall through the floor which is pretty frustrating but that is the way my brain works. It’s like in Minecraft I rarely ever make fancy armor since I enjoy the fun of having to stay on my toes from basic enemies being able to kill me, taking that away that with nice armor just kills the fun for me.
In Sky Islands I usually end up carrying an m4, handgun, holstered knife or police baton and a sling.
The thing about a sling is yeah I don’t need to plan on going out and doing low intensity battle with zombies. I can bring all my “oh shit” stuff and when I am in a situation where I can comfortably pick off zombies with the sling I just pull it out and get some rocks. Thus all my weight carrying can be directed at carrying extremely lethal things.
That is fair, play the game the way that brings you the most enjoyment and I can respect that
I think because I have run into deaths caused by not having the right tool for the job I have gotten an OCD habit to insure I have something to overcome the things that has killed me before. I suppose it is a mindset of the thing killed me, so how can I prevent that from happening.
Where, I can assume, you find more enjoyment with the moment to moment gameplay at the point where the game is not too hard or too easy. I guess engaging with the systems actively and that thrill of still dying at any point
I think I understand, the world feels a lot more exciting in that sweet spot where you are not too strong but still need to explore the “unknown” to get to a point of relative comfort
Yeah exactly, I have ADHD and I am constantly having to chase after my attention/focus.
Honestly I hate it, it makes my life miserable and chaotic, but in video game terms the way it impacts me is I need that constant stimulation from the game being in a sweet spot to keep me engaged. Games that lose sight of that core gameplay loop in favor of motivating players mostly with larger goals, completionism or quests just immediately lose me, I am like a heavy muscle car on ice I just spin around uselessly lol.
The weird thing is I will play anything from adrenaline pumping competitive shooters and action games to complex strategy games that require a bunch of learning, it more has to do with the core gameplay loop continuously offering me interesting choices and not dragging me through deserts of lots of little executive function tasks that don’t really matter than it does the game being packed with lots of what you might stereotypically think of as stimulation (action, explosions).
…which is why I like to give Sky Islands a shout out whenever I can because it “fixes” the game for me (not that the game needed fixing).
Understandable, that core gameplay loop needs to hook its claws with something that provides a kind of stimulation - like how I would try make a narrative that I need to do something, and until I get that thing done I can remain engaged, but without that narrative I sort of just sit and wonder what to do and lose interest.
Had a quick look at the sky islands, seems to condense that narrative idea into having a base, and then the game will drop one onto some place in the game world with a timer and they need to loot and kill and carry back what ever they have on them.
I can see where the appeal is where there is a need to balance gear with encumberance, while at the same time the game is giving you random locations to engage and test one’s ability within a set timeframe
So it condenses the CCDA experience from looking for interesting stuff once you are set up, to giving scenarios to engage with limited scope and cuts out all the busy work of traveling for hours being murderhobo/truck driving goods relocation specialist
It also makes it so dying is part of the gameplay loop instead of the end of a run, you can still absolutely get shut down by dying too much and losing too much essential gear to field successful runs or stick it out on the island long enough to heal enough (especially once you get past the first couple of runs). It gives incentive to loot duplicates of gear (and I love hoarding) and there is also the need to throw your cards on the table and commit to risky choices reach the portal back home in time where it is too easy in the normal game for me to just slink around aimlessly avoiding conflict and picking up loot from easy locations.
Additionally it makes you realize how evil rivers are.
Seems like a tighter condensed package that cuts back some of the fat and is more focused the gameplay loops and less on survival.
Sounds interesting, like minecraft with an extraction shooter-type twist
You’d probably hate the big labs, ( it forced me to consider making a foldable electric scooter carrier to transport from one entrance to the next in my quest to grab what I find interesting and not spend game days dragging things to be partioned into random piles to be deposited back to home base)
All I recall from my water rides in ampibious vehicle is that it is teaming with frogs, dragonflies and sharks
It isn’t the creatures in the river that kill you necessarily though they certainly will. It is the geography of rivers that kills you since each run you spawn somewhere different and have another random place you have to get to in order to take the portal home. Finding lots of road maps and expanding the road network of your map can definitely get you lucky break if you happen to have to cross those areas to reach the portal but otherwise you are charging across unknown landscapes.
When there are no easy crossings in sight rivers are wonderful questions. Do you commit to crossing now, dump a bunch of gear so you can stay afloat and potentially destroy useful gear in the process or worse get murdered in the water? Do you keep wandering along the riverbank trying to find an easier crossing while the clock ticks down? Do you try to brute force your way through the town and cross the bridge through the inevitable horde?
Yeah I don’t think I will really ever get to the labs and do a full run, best case scenario it would leave me with a bunch of cleanup and I definitely would end up just getting totally stuck in the mud of all the little decisions about what gear to hoard and how to methodically move it out. I’m not hating on that stuff as gameplay it’s just I literally can’t concentrate on it for very long before I lose my desire to play and then my hyperfocus runs off like an annoying little child to something else hahaha
Aah, okay, died to rivers so long ago I forgot. I ended up believing swimming naked is the best although I guess there is the bouyancy problem if you need to return quickly but then you need to dump stuff, but read that your character never returns to the same spot, so risk/reward of deciding whether dropping loot to get to portal quickly or taking a chance there might be an alternative path that risks losing everything anyway when you get overwhelmed because your character is still on a timer.
So ultimately there is always that constant calculation deciding if you really need this loot or if what you have is worth the risk that you can take everything you have but can lose it all on a bad decision.
Most labs are samely, but there are a few labs that are -at least I find- interesting by the enviromental story-telling and it is probably the most combat dense areas in regards to the danger to reward.
I at least have to be vigilant I don’t walk into a “portal room”, a zombie army ( which are usually higher tiered) of what ever weird stuff the lab was used for
Yeah, there is just too much stuff in them, I have to really up my loot hoarding tendencies and have to force myself to take note of interesting stuff, only take low weight items or items I would need for crafting. Still doesn’t stop me from dragging 1000 unit loot piles outside to the entrance of a lab for later loot runs.
Essentially sky islands seems to me the equavalent to me running labs, but you are restricted a lot more to one loot run and have to consider taking stuff and resolving yourself to returning with even less if condition calls for it because if the decision is not made you can end up returning with nothing and not being able to return to collect it as that location will not be visited again.