Ben Leskey's Blog: cdda

Arcana Technoclysm ported to Cataclysm: Bright Nights

Wed, 05 Aug 2026 12:00:00 +0000

I have ported my Arcana Technoclysm mod from Cataclysm: DDA to Cataclysm: Bright Nights. The port is now available as Arcana Technoclysm for Cataclysm: Bright Nights.

Arcana Technoclysm is a mod building on top of the base Arcana mod. Arcana Technoclysm adds some new magical-technical locations and items to the game, including summonable vehicles and electrical power sources.

The parent Arcana mod is no longer developed for DDA, so I ported my mod to Bright Nights where Arcana is included in the repository.

Arcana Technoclysm update: Magical UPS, whistle crafting, and bionic installation

Fri, 17 May 2024 12:00:00 +0000

I've updated my mod Arcana Technoclysm for Cataclysm: DDA with some more new features.

First the changes. The vehicle whistles can now be crafted from each other, so if you find the boat whistle and really wanted the motorcycle whistle you can still craft it. The recipes are written in the Cleansing Flame book and the arcana lab journal. Also, there are some more Technoclysm item spawns in the strange warehouse, so poke around! Technoclysm items can also spawn rarely with other Arcana items in labs or magic locations.

The first new feature is an eternal UPS (power supply) which uses magical energy to constantly provide power to UPS-enabled tools. It has a recharge rate of about 2 kJ per minute and is fairly small, and can be either crafted or found.

The second, and more important, new feature is a magical means of installing bionics. Bionic talismans can be crafted from any power storage or power generation CBM. Using the bionic talisman will temporarily summon a magical avatar of the bionic, who will install any bionic for you before disappearing. This provides a means of installing bionics outside of the Exodii using another otherworldly force who may be more or less friendly.

Recent great improvements in Cataclysm: DDA

Thu, 02 Nov 2023 12:00:00 +0000

Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead has recieved some really nice updates to the experimental branch in recent months. My top three are:

Default sort zone

This one is huge! Now you can define a loot sorting zone as a catchall, where items will be sorted unless there's a more specific zone for them to go into. Previously, every time I settled down in a location or mobile base, I would have to set every zone for every filter as many times as there were tiles. It was so tedious that I wrote a Bash script to do it for me using xdotool, a script that is entirely useless now!

mobile-base-zones script


#!/bin/bash

. `which qterminal-helper`

# Custom zone letter
CUSTOM=j

# Delay between keys (msec)
DELAY=200

set -x

W="$(wmctrl -l | grep Cataclysm | cut -d" " -f1)"
xdotool windowactivate "$W"
sleep 1

type() {
	xdotool type --delay $DELAY "$(echo -e "$1")"
}

key() {
	sleep $(echo "$DELAY / 1000" | bc -l)
	xdotool key "$@"
}

zone() {
	pos="$1"
	zone="$2"
	type "YA$zone\r$pos\r\r$CONFIRM"
	key Escape
	type "Y"
}

customzone() {
	pos="$1"
	filter="$2"
	type "YA$CUSTOM$filter\r\r$pos\r\r$CONFIRM"
	key Escape
	type "Y"
}

. `which mobile-base-zones-config`

for pos in $GENERIC_P; do
	for zone in $GENERIC_Z; do
			zone "$pos" "$zone"
	done
done

for pos in $DUMP_P; do
	for zone in $DUMP_Z; do
			zone "$pos" "$zone"
	done
done

mobile-base-zones-config


#!/bin/bash

# Y if vehicle, otherwise empty
CONFIRM=

# Collect positions from origin
GENERIC_P=""
# Collect zones
GENERIC_Z=""

# Dump positions from origin
DUMP_P="."
# Dump zones
DUMP_Z="0 a b c d e f g h i k l m n o p q t u v w x y z C D E F G J I K"

Plugging in tools

This one is just great quality of life. Now players can plug tools like welders, soldering irons, and especially smartphones (with their unswappable batteries) directly into appliances or vehicle dashboards. This saves all the tedium of continually swapping out batteries, and makes using electric tools just that much easier.

Brawling buff

Finally there's been a small buff to the Brawling style where waiting for a turn or two will grant a bonus to accuracy. This makes melee combat using the Brawling style feel more engaging, and gives more edge to early-to-mid-game melee combat.

Arcana Technoclysm: A small mod for Cataclysm: DDA

Sun, 09 Aug 2026 12:00:00 +0000

Update 2026-08-09: The DDA version of this mod is discontinued, as Arcana is no longer developed for DDA. Instead, this mod is now developed for the Cataclysm: Bright Nights fork in a new repository.

Cataclysm: DDA's premier magic mod is Magiclysm, which not only adds an entire magic system and slew of useful spells, items, and locations but also alters the lore of the game to imply that magic has existed throughout history. This lore breaks significantly from real world history, so I prefer mods that keep magic as something esoteric and hidden, such as the newly added mod Mind Over Matter or the mature Arcana mod.

However, there is one particular spell from Magiclysm that I love that is not available in any other mod: the Summon Motorcycle spell. This is amazingly useful and fun to play with, so I decided to port the idea over to Magiclysm in my own mod. This new mod, Arcana Technoclysm, currently adds three temporary summonable vehicles and a new location to find the magic whistles needed to summon these vehicles. It's a simple mod but fills in the summonable vehicle gap in the more lore-friendly magic mods. The vehicles currently available are an amphibious boat with wheels, a motorcycle, and a horseless carriage with plenty of cargo space. Each of the vehicles is a tradeoff between maneuverability, compatible terrain, and cargo space, so hopefully players will have incentive to find strange warehouses and collect all the magic whistles.

Make horses milkable

Mon, 03 Jul 2023 12:00:00 +0000

See https://github.com/CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA/pull/66639

CDDA big world showcase: Ernie's great road trip

Tue, 11 Apr 2023 12:00:00 +0000

If you like road trips through the post apocalyptic rural wasteland, I've got the right Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead world generation settings for you!

City size of 16 makes absolutely huge metropolises, and city spacing 8 places these massive cities far apart, producing some amazing travel experiences. Normal generation is reather unrealistic with plenty of tiny towns close together, but with these settings getting between cities basically requires a car, and simulates the long abandoned highways you'd expect in a New England apocalypse.

In my latest playthrough, my character Ernie drives in his sports car across the New England countryside for an entire day on his way to the refugee center, with not a single city in the way.

There were plenty of interesting landmarks and happenings along the way, and lots of little rural gas stations for topping off the tanks and grabbing preserved food. This kind of travel was actually relaxing: 100 mph down straight stretches of highway. Just need to avoid all the abandoned and wrecked cars!

Eventually Ernie settled down in the hunting lodge north of the refugee center, but there'll be a lot more road trips in the future as Ernie builds a new life in this huge apocalyptic world.

Erik Otto #5: Gaining allies

Tue, 14 Feb 2023 12:00:00 +0000

Exploration

Before any high-level raiding, Erik wants more allies and resources. There is no more postal service or Amazon, so he goes exploring with Alejandro Quick.

Up around the big city should be rich pickings.

There's an armored car along the side of the road with two turrets mounted on top. Erik and Alejandro pull over beside it and strip out the turrets for later.

These turret mounts are the first step in a fully-automated laser defense system mounted on top of a vehicle. Such defenses would make raiding cities almost a breeze.

Erik and Alejandro tear through a horde of zombies with 5.56 NATO rounds as they raid another evacuation shelter.

Reading a map they found on one of the zombie's body, Erik learns about another city to the north-east. This's one's smaller, but no less dense.

Erik climbs a radio tower to survey the surrounding area. There's plenty of useful stores in the city, and some interesting features in the countryside.

He and Alejandro come across a survivor's bunker surrounded by spiked pits. They don't have any way to get across, so they leave it, but maybe there was something good in there, or even a survivor!

Gertha

As they drive across a field, they come across a survivor: a scavenger. She's tough-looking, and Erik decides to recruit her into the cult.

She accepts! Gertha Solano joins the team!

Gertha is a solid combat character. She has good melee skills, and amazing ranged skills, plus the excellent Fast Learner trait which will help greatly in improving combat and non-combat skills.

Gertha packs up her makeshift camp and joins them in the back of the truck as they head to base to get Gertha geared up and settled in.

Gertha inheirits Erik's position of primary explorer, and gets decked out with gear and weapons. Unlike Erik, she doesn't care about fashion, so she sticks on a sturdy duster and Kevlar vest to be ready for any combat.

With three people in the cult now, Erik decides to set up a camp outside the bunker.

The faction camp system lets NPCs embark on longer tasks, fetch resources, and craft items. It takes a lot of resources to get faction camps up and running, so for now there's just a tent for some shelter. Alejandro Quick can chop logs from the forest, for example, while the others are out exploring.

On an exploration trip in one of the Southwick houses, Gertha finds a gun basement with plenty of guns and ammunition. She uses a heavy crowbar to smash apart the ammunition safes.

Later, Erik drives them to the refugee center, where they learn about some kind of scientific hub left after the apocalypse.

It's very far to the south, but the refugee leader wants them to deliver a packet of data.

Before that, Gertha takes their sniper rifle between the pickup seats and takes out a camp of bandits from range.

Those bandits weren't even dangerous. Not since Gertha had a rifle that powerful.

Kathy

While driving down toward the scientific hub, they spot signs of life in a little swamp shack.

It's another person! Kathy Burroughs, another survivor, agrees to join the gang. She's in excellent physical condition, even stronger than Gertha, so she'll be a valuable asset on the exploration team.

While raiding a bandit cabin, Gertha engages in close quarters rifle combat. She hides out of sign, training her aim on doorways, and when a hapless bandit charges out she guns him down with no more than a squeeze of her trigger.

Finally they reach the scientific hub, Hub 01.

There's an intercom in the main building, but nobody alive upstairs. After some back-and-forth with the person on the other side of the intercom, Erik gets enough favor to begin accepting mercenary missions and traiding.

Hub 01 trades good books, armor, weapons, and scientific items.

Domenic

Hearing cries of help from a cabin on an exploration trip, Gertha and Kathy fight through a horde of zombies to rescue Domenic Driver. He agrees to join their group without Erik even present. The cult is growing.

Domenic is not very strong, but he's an unarmed combat master. In the future, perhaps, he can teach the rest of them. For now he'll be stuck on camp duty after getting geared up.

Laser turret

One of the Hub 01 missions left the group with an hm12 dazzle rifle, a weak but cheap laser weapon that damages even robots. Erik wants to mount it on the pickup truck with automatic targetting, so he reads plenty of books to design a turret and turret controller system.

They also retrive some broken riot control turrets that Erik shot up earlier, to strip them for parts and AI cores.

Finally Erik installs the automated laser turret on the pickup truck. This will target and destroy anything hostile it sees, and greatly improves the teams offensive and defensive power.

Next stop: a top-secret scientific lab sitting in the middle of a giant ant nest to the north-west.

Erik Otto #4: Arsenal

Wed, 08 Feb 2023 12:00:00 +0000

With lockpicks in hand, Erik drives out to the wind turbines to pick their locks and survey the area.

It takes him nearly the whole day to pick one of the locks, stopping to eat cake and drink water for lunch.

Finally! He picks the lock, and at the same time gains proficiency in picking locks, which will make the other wind turbines much faster.

After climbing to the top, he gains a wide view of the surrounding area.

Before heading to the next wind turbine, Erik decides to complete the mission given by Smokes the refugee center merchant and clear out their back bay.

Sure enough, he pulls back a locker, opens the solid door, and a flood of zombies comes stumbling at him with outstretched arms. Erik pulls back and lets the strong guards with sturdy stone spears take care of them.

The battle was bloody, but only zombies died. Erik collected his reward from Smokes: a bunch of refugee center money known as "merch" by the Free Merchants faction who ran the center.

He also received a new mission: to find and eliminate a gang of bandits preying on Free Merchants caravans. This would be extremely dangerous, if these bandits had guns.

Before that, Erik picked his way into two more wind turbines and found even more of the map.

There was a big mansion to the north of the last turbine, so Erik and Alejandro went to investigate.

While Alejandro guarded the pickup, Erik lit some fires and taunted zombies into the flames, stabbing at them with his combat knife. He didn't make it far into the mansion, but there was still some good loot.

Two hiking backpacks, some of the best packs ever sold. Erik quickly made these his and Alejandro's standard kit pack.

He converted his old rucksack into another standard kit for the next member of his team, whenever he found them.

Back at base, Erik decided he needed a fence for his cows. He had Alejandro chop down trees and cut them into planks, while he went on the hunt for nails.

Erik burned down a moonshine still through the night, and tool the nails out of the dust and rubble left afterward. He needed lots of nails for this fence.

By the end of the next day, Erik and Alejandro had built a fence for their four cows!

Erik's next move was to raid some libraries, to get enough books to craft advanced items and build better cars. The problem was combat in a city: Erik didn't want to resort to melee combat for fear of injury, and guns were too loud. However, a suppressed .22 caliber rifle was as quiet as footsteps, and powerful enough to take down even tough zombies. Erik grabbed a pocket full of ammunition and his suppressed Marlin 39A and went off library raiding.

The first library, down to the southwest of his base, yielded some useful books, though it was severely torn up. His silenced .22 rifle tore through zombies without them even noticing him.

The second library, up in the huge city, proved to be just as easy a raid, though it too had been vandalized and many of the books rendered unreadable.

Erik brought the books back to base with a good feeling in his heart. They would be very useful in the future.

He also retrieved another freezer and a refrigerator from a bunker he and Alejandro had raided on the way. He didn't turn the freezer on yet, but the fridge would be very useful for storing cow milk for him and Alejandro to drink for the calories.

During his exploration, Erik had noticed a small military outpost. It didn't look too occupied, and would have valuable ammunition, so he and Alejandro went on a raid.

They shot down a cloud of huge ovipositing wasps, then broke into the outpost with little resistance. One C-4 explosion later, and they carted home more than 2000 rounds of 5.56 NATO ammunition.

With this arsenal, Erik and Alejandro were ready to begin focusing on further goals: electric hybrid cars, automated laser turrets, and raiding top-secret science laboratories.

Autodrive into a crater fix

Wed, 08 Feb 2023 12:00:00 +0000

In my current Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead playthrough, I ran into a problem with the autodrive feature: it'd drive me straight into a crater and crash the vehicle.

This seemed like a straightforward fix, so I checked out the master branch and set about debugging. Autodrive definitely has the capability to avoid certain terrain, so I guessed it was just a mistake in how it was calculating ledge traps or open air terrain.

Sure enough, it was just an error in how the vehicle was being considered as "able to drive over air". With the existing logic, autodrive thought every vehicle could fly. The fix was simple: only consider helicopters (the only flying vehicle) that have enough rotor power as flyable.

I have a pull request fixing this issue ready to be merged.

Erik Otto #3: Preparing for battle

Mon, 06 Feb 2023 12:00:00 +0000

Now that the base is set up, Erik can start more organized exploration and raids. To manage having a large number of followers—when he gets them—he needs to set up stations for people to suit up and suit down.

Organizing gear

First, Erik crafts a washing kit and washes up some holsters and sheaths he took off zombie corpses while raiding light industry compounds.

Full outfits go into the clothes room. Currently there isn't much difference, but in the future there may be full hazmat outfits, melee raiding outfits, summer outfits, etc.

Weapons—including slings, holsters, sheaths, and the like—go into the weapons side of this room. Weapons racks should include a gun and a backup melee weapon. In the future there'll be sidearms and rifles in every rack.

Finally, the racks in this half of the room hold backpacks filled with supplies. The backpacks all contain vital tools, like flashlights, multitools, lighters, and prying tools. Eventually the tools will become standardized, but for now there is a little variance between the tools, though they all provide mostly the same capabilities.

Finally, the counters in the workshop are for mission packs, sets of items needed for various missions. Anyone can grab one of these and go.

Exploration

Erik takes the pickup truck out for an exploration spin to scout more of the area and collect useful loot.

Up near the huge city, Erik finds a ranch with a gas station nearby. The city filled with zombies is uncomfortably close, but he makes sure to stay out of dead earshot.

There's a steam-powered tractor in the barn. Not really useful, but perhaps a time will come when coal is more plentiful than gas?

Not yet, however. Erik fills up his pickup truck with gasoline from the pump. It's still working.

The van he and Alejandro found back when the first left the evac shelter still has gas in it. Erik takes the gas.

Back home, Erik installs a new standing lamp to light up the rest of the storage areas, then heads out for more exploration.

A zapper zombie guards a fire lookout tower. Erik guns it down with a single bullet, then goes up into the tower to survey the land.

Nothing much that's interesting.

Weaponry

With the guns and ammunition that he has, Erik decides it's time to take on the military helipad to the east, looking for more fuel, ammunition, and explosives.

The helipad itself is a small military base, very accessible.

It's also got plenty of fuel, for when Erik converts some of his vehicles to be diesel/electric hybrids.

A zombie dog attacks Erik from within an abandoned cabin. It bites his leg deeply before he shoots it to pieces.

Not a problem; Erik uses some alcohol wipes to disinfect his wound and keeps going. He can't wait to gather more followers so he doesn't have to do this himself.

The military roadblocks with automated turrets are goldmines for ammunition and magazines, but the problem is the turrets. Erik devises a method shooting the turrets before they can even see him. He crouches in his truck to avoid line of sight and drives right next to the turret...

...then he pops up to check where it is, ducks down again, pokes his rifle out the window...

...and BLAM, there's a dead turret. Rinse and repeat for the other turret, and for the other roadblocks in the area. Erik picks up 9mm pistol rounds as well as 5.56 NATO rifle rounds.

Erik scouts still more of the area. He spots another Last Man On Earth bunker to the north, and investigates.

This one had a hidden passage behind a bookcase. Erik slides the bookcase out of the way and finds a cache of guns and ammunition.

The full bunker had a decent amount of supplies. Erik throws them all into his truck. Every little bit helps.

The military roadblock near the original evac shelter is the next nut to crack. Erik approaches with a full rifle as the zombie soldiers are distracted by the turrets.

One battle later, and everything but Erik is dead. He might not want to get his hands dirty, but there is no fury like the wrath of a lazy man.

He returns with a haul of guns and ammunition to base, ready to sort it out with Alejandro.

Return to base

The next step in the scouting phase is to break into some of the wind turbines to get an even broader view of the area. For this, Erik could either cut through the metal doors with an acetylene torch, which would be expensive, or he could craft some lockpicks and just spend a little time.

Some sturdy workbenches looted from the helipad will make this easier.

Erik crafts a set of lockpicks with Alejandro's help. It's time for phase two of the scouting plan: wind turbine breaking and entering.

Erik Otto #2: Base building and car collecting

Mon, 06 Feb 2023 12:00:00 +0000

Erik and Alejandro have established a base, but now they need supplies, food, weapons, and vehicles. It's time to go exploring and looting. They purchase ammunition from the refugee center by trading novels—apparently the refugees love reading—and hit the road in their RV. Tools are the first priority, so they can get vehicles working and build up their base.

The light industry scattered around the map are too valuable a target, with all the tools that can be found there. Erik and Alejandro move in guns blazing, Erik with his Uzi and Alejandro with his Glock 19. The battle is bloody and brutal, but they conquer the zombies and pack tools and resources into the RV to take back to the base.

One of the zombies was carrying a map, revealing a huge city just to the north. This interior of this huge city won't be raidable for a while, but the outskirts could provide valuable loot if Erik finds suitable peons to do the dirty work for him. Raiding is just too risky for the king himself, and Alejandro is really flimsy.

This world is using bigger cities with larger city spacing, so exploring one city could take a very long time, but there's more stuff between cities.

At a dairy farm, Erik finds a working ATV and a working cube van. He and Alejandro shuffle the vehicles back home. They also take four cows, and tie them up just outside the base for milk and, perhaps, meat.

Having the debug ability to swap between characters makes getting new vehicles much easier. Before, the only way would be to use a folding vehicle to go back and forth, or just walk. I really like this multi-character playstyle, and I think it should become an officially supported mode.

The collection of vehicles outside the bunker is steadily growing. Erik is pleased with his options.

He and Alejandro go out on a wild ATV exploration trip.

They get chased by a huge underground worm, churning up the dirt, but they survive.

At an incomplete cabin, abandoned during construction, they find a cordless drill. This is the missing piece they needed to replace vehicle fuel tanks, letting them collect a pickup truck that Erik had been wanting for a couple days.

The number of vehicles grows still more. Eventually they'll probably build custom vehicles, but for now whatever they can salvage will have to do.

With all these tools, Erik reads an electronics book to research how to hook up his solar panels to his appliances and get electricity off the grid.

He takes apart an electric jackhammer for the high-capacity battery and mounts it in his utility room.

Then Erik takes all of his solar panels that he salvaged from that solar car and places them up on top of the bunker hill. This will provide a lot of power during the day, even though many of the the panels are somewhat damaged. He hooks the solar panels with a long extension cord down to the battery in the bunker, to collect the power and then provide it for his appliances.

He drags all the appliances into the workshop room for now. He'd crafted a standing lamp from flashlight parts, and built a battery recharging locker that he put by the workshop chair. He hooked up the oven, freezer, and water purifier too: food storage, cooking, and water access were no longer issues.

The battery fills up. The core of the base is now complete. It's time for Erik to look toward the future of his cult, and to build his kingdom's organization, defensive weapons, and offensive power.

Erik Otto #1: Used car cult salesman

Sun, 05 Feb 2023 12:00:00 +0000

Intro

It's time for a new Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead let's play!

Erik Otto is a former used car salesman shunted away to one of the many FEMA evacuation shelters during the end of the world. He's extremely intelligent, very sociable, and attractive. If he hadn't been a used car salesman, he always thought that he'd make a good cult leader. Well, now that the apocalypse has arrived, now is the chance for the Cult of Erik to arise.

This character is designed to attract NPCs and become a sort of hub for an NPC enclave. Using a "debug" menu feature, I can take control of any NPC follower that Erik Otto gains and pilot that NPC just like a player. Ideally, Erik will have to adventure less and less and will become a crafting king and source of knowledge for the NPC peons that follow him. The starting scenario, Evacuee, gives us one NPC right away, which Erik will easily be able to win over. Random NPC spawning is also increased, so there will be more friends out there as Erik explores the world.

Another key advantage to having NPC followers is that, in the event the player character dies, the game continues with any of the NPC followers. This is—essentially—extra lives, although training up a character is a time and resource intense process, and NPCs are decently rare. We start out with one extra life in the form of our first NPC ally, but ideally Erik Otto will survive to stop adventuring simply because his proteges are capable of doing the dirty work.

The game starts with a view of the overmap. Only a small radius is viewable at the start of the game. In the top left corner we can see that there is an NPC here too, Alejandro Quick. There's a regional dump south of us, far too dangerous to be approached during the day early on, and there's a research facility to the southeast, which is an end-game location. The mound of dirt a little ways to the east is a more immediate threat—it's a dermatik nest.

It's just Erik Otto and Alejandro Quick in this evacuation shelter. Erik is dressed fine in his suit and dress shoes, sporting a gold watch. Alejandro, on the other hand, is wielding an SKS rifle and wearing explorer's gear. He was a little more prepared when they got shunted off to the FEMA evacuation shelters. After a night of regaining their senses, they came upstairs. The shelter is no place to stay; clearly no help is coming. Erik decides to persuade Alejandro to come with him. It might be good to have someone like Alejandro escorting him to safer territory.

Erik is a smooth talker, and his looks don't hurt his chances. He easily convinces Alejandro to keep him safe. Now Alejandro is his loyal follower until one of them dies. Hopefully not Erik.

Our friend has a range of stats. He's rather fragile, but he's got Robust Genetics. He's also amazing at health care, good at mechanics, and a smooth talker. For combat, he's got high rifles and submachine guns skills, and he's wielding a 10 round rifle to boot. He's got a leather backpack, but Erik takes for himself right away.

Leaving shelter

Erik uses the evac shelter console to figure out the route to the regional refugee center. That place should have a lot more people, survivors of the end of the world. It's not even that far by road.

We set Alejandro's NPC rules to make him a little less likely to run off into a crowd of zombies. We have him stick close to us and not smash zombie corpses to prevent them from rising again.

Erik and Alejandro hit the road. They plan to walk all the way to the refugee center, avoiding any trouble along the way. If they do have difficulty, Alejandro can just shoot it.

Erik grabbed up a bunch of useful food, supplies, and medicine from the evac shelter. He's got a lacking inventory heading into this hike: no weapon, but at least he has an emergency blanket!

There's a military roadblock set up on the road outside the evac shelter. Zombie soldiers are attacking a riot controll turret. It's shooting them, and they can't bash through its military-grade steel armor, so they're keeping themselves busy.

Erik and Alejandro sneak to the south of the roadblock. Neither the zombies nor the turrets notice them. Erik does plan to return here eventually, when he can kill those zombies and evade the turret, because the soldiers dropped a bunch of guns and ammo on the ground when they were... turned.

There's a little cabin in the woods by the road, the first signs of residence they've found so far. Erik decides to check it out.

The cabin is completely abandoned, nothing useful here.

A little further down the road the two travelers come across a van stalled in the middle of the road. Erik checks it out, but its interior is trashed. There's some gas in there, which they can siphon off when they get a working vehicle.

In a crashed police SUV, Erik collects a claw bar. This is a useful tool that he can use to pry open doors and break into windows, as well as just swing to defend himself if necessary. He doesn't want to get that messy though. A spear would be the nicest thing to have on his back.

There's a huge wasp hovering by a ruined shed. The two travelers go around; that thing looks really dangerous.

A light industrial compound connected to the road above them but they didn't stop there. Maybe later, once they've stocked up on supplies and weapons, but for now they just want to get to safety.

Some kind of deal went down here, and there's a bunch of bodies. Erik spots a gun on the ground.

This Uzi submachine gun is decent, and uses the common 9x19mm ammunition. Erik takes this gun as his own.

There's more corpses in a field by the road. When the end of the world hit, too many people were caught out in the open.

Erik takes a pair of binoculars from a dead man's pack. These will be useful for surveying the land as they travel.

There's a lonely grave in the field. They stop and look at it for a moment.

A high-tech solar car is parked on the road. It's motor is completely shot, but the panels are still operational and so is the internal recharging station. Erik notes where it is on his scrawled map.

They come down to a little hump in the land, a Last Man On Earth shelter bunker. It doesn't look like anyone lives here, and its really close to the refugee center.

Erik and Alejandro head down inside. The cool underground air and earth scent wafts up to meet them.

This is a lovely place! There were some survival supplies and tools, plus random clothing. Erik likes it so much he decides that this will be their permanent base. With some solar panels and batteries it could be a pretty good house for his future plans!

Refugee center

It's now time to visit the refugee center. Erik sets out on foot and the journey is uneventful.

The forest and fields give way to a fenced-in overgrown road leading to a huge brick building.

Here at the entrance to the refugee center, Erik approaches the reinforced wood doors. Vehicles scatter the parking area surrounding the refugee center, and the place is lit up with electric lights.

Erik steps into the refugee center lobby, the center of trading and life in the post-apocalyptic world.

The refugee center is one of the primary mission hubs in the world of Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead. Here we find Smokes, the tough leader figure who trades useful tools and raw materials. We also can find the doctor. There are plenty of other NPCs here too, some who can be persuaded to join us, and some with missions of their own.

Smokes offers Erik a wide array of bartering options.

Smokes and the doctor both offer Erik some missions. Smokes wants Erik's group to help clear out the back bay of zombies. The doctor wants Erik to analyze some zombie blood.

The nearest hospital is a ways to the south, according to the doctor, but now at least Erik knows where a city is.

After returning from the refugee center, Erik and Alejandro strip the solar car of panels. They'll set up a solar-powerered base soon.

A cabin visible in the forest nearby draws Erik's attention, so he and Alejandro go check it out.

There's a strange man with hooves and fur keeping rabbits living there. He'd like them to bring him logs, so maybe Erik will curry favor with the rabbit man that way.

He also wants Erik's crew to contact a farm family a long way to the south east.

After that, Erik decides to check out some campgrounds nearby, looking for vehicles and supplies.

At one of them Erik hotwires a diesel hatchback and drives it home.

There's a motel to the west. Erik and Alejandro checks it out.

Erik sneaks past zombies to steal an RV parked in the motel lot.

It makes a nice view, parked in front of his bunker.

He just installs a makeshift drive belt for the alternator, and it's a solid vehicle, if very fuel inefficient due to the damaged engine.

Part of every serious base is setting up sort zones. These zones let loot be automatically sorted all over the base. Here we have most loot in the workshop room, but food goes into the kitchen.

Now that Erik and Alejandro have moved in to their new base and made contact with their neighbors, it's time for them to build an electrical grid and get started collecting supplies, weapons, and friends.

CDDA let's play: Post-mortem

Thu, 02 Feb 2023 12:00:00 +0000

I tried my hand at a Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead screenshot and text let's play, featuring Raymon Ortega: Would-be Wizard. It was really fun to write, but there's a few points I'll remember for next time:

Choose a more active start. Most of this let's play wasn't very exciting, just trying to get to the refugee center. There wasn't much action. Maybe a megacity playthrough?
Build more story. Getting missions and/or goals sooner will give drive to the character and make the story interesting.
Play patiently. The LP can be built slowly; no need to rush objectives. Raymon probably didn't have to 100% get to the refugee center, I could have built up gear and spells where I was before I reached the refugee center.

I do want to try another. C:DDA is a great game for text-based let's plays, and if I keep in my what I learned here, I'll be able to have even more fun and put out an even better let's play.

Raymon Ortega #4: The End

Thu, 02 Feb 2023 12:00:00 +0000

In the previous episode: Raymon camped out for a couple nights below a city, looting and fighting. After looting and fighting for a while, and discovering there was no way around the city from where he was, he hopped into his SUV and backtracked to try and find an off-road path back to a route toward the refugee center.

First leg

Sure enough, Raymon finds road just ahead, and it's leading east-west! This could be his ticket to the refugee center.

There's a light industrial compound built right next to the road, and it doesn't look very infested with the dead. A few zombies here and there, but what with Raymon's practice back at the city (which he still doesn't know the name of) Raymon feels up to the challenge of clearing this area in search of valuable tools and books.

This recently-risen body moves quickly, darting its head back and forth and gnawing at its hands.

Zombie runners are fast, but not as fast as Raymon when he runs. He kites them around, stabbing with his spear, and they only catch up once or twice to land a glancing scratch or two. Raymon's spear is more than a match for them.

There's vending machines in the lobby of the industrial complex, but Raymon doesn't have a cash card on him.

One of the most effective things Raymon can do to prepare for combat is drop his backpack. With that weight off his shoulders, his spear almost sings through the air as he impales zombies limb from limb.

This flyer Raymon remembers. It was one of many that made him aware of the new evacuation shelters, and probably saved his life when the world fell apart. He couldn't quite remember how he got there though...

One zombie had managed to get itself stuck in a fenced-off machinery area. Raymon pokes at it through the holes until it dies.

Another tactic Raymon uses is lighting a small brush fire and letting the zombies step into it and burn to death as he holds them back with his spear. He manages to kill half a dozen zombies this way, all in the same place.

One of the zombies is carrying a strange coin that Raymon's never seen before. Something seems magical about it—the metal feels too smooth, too strong.

A cube van parked by the other half of the compound holds nearly six liters of gasoline. It's a little too bulky to be his main vehicle though. Raymon siphons the gas and fills up his own SUV.

It was only a child, and little is different about it now aside from the hungry look in its eyes. You'd be hard-pressed to not feel like you were killing an actual child by putting it down.

Killing that little zombie brings Rayon's mood down a ton. He can hardly think of anything else.

There's no time to mope, however. Juking a tough zombie with the cube van, Raymon blasts at it with magic missile until it dies. He's slowly improving, maybe in the future magic missile can become a primary weapon.

There's a ton of useful tools in the boxes and crates stored around the industrial compound. Raymon takes whatever he thinks he can use later; there'll be time to sort it out when he gets to safety.

One downside to using tactical fire is that it spreads. It's getting hot around there.

Hidden in a dark corner was a zombie in police gear. It's tough to kill, but Raymon brings it down with a final spear thrust through the chest. It's got some decent gear that Raymon can use. That holster could be useful if Raymon ever finds a gun big enough to fit it.

Having cleared this entire industrial compound, Raymon dumps his loot into the trunk of his SUV and hits the road again, heading west.

There's a huge irradiation plant tucked into the forest, but Raymon doesn't stay long. He does notice a van in really good condition parked just in front, so that he investigates.

Sure enough, it's in pristine condition. But, as before, it's a little too bulky to be his primary vehicle. Maybe in the future he'll want more space, so he makes a note of where it is on his map. He does, however, take the gasoline.

A little futher down the road is another evacuation shelter. This one is empty too, it seems nobody found shelter here.

In one of the bathrooms in the basement Raymon finds a smudged magic scroll. Well, that might be useful later.

Raymon switches on his SUV's stereo and finds that it's loaded with all kinds of music. His mood improves dramatically as he drives 45 mph down the road blasting some songs with open windows.

There's a fork in the road just past the evacuation shelter. Raymon decides to head north first, to try and get closer to the refugee center. He wishes he had binoculars: it'd make scouting much easier.

Raymon takes a breath at a public pond. Just him and the water. And, of course, the corpses of the mutant bullfrogs and zombies he had to kill to get here.

Further north, there's a roadside gas station, with plenty of gas in the pumps. Raymon tops off his SUV. If only his second gas tank wasn't cracked, he could fill all the way.

Some crates were airdropped nearby, but there wasn't anything spectacular inside, just a MRE and a first aid kit.

A small town comes into view. Raymon decides to go in and loot, he's feeling confident.

Fitting that he'd kill a firefighter zombie with fire. Fire is just so powerful.

In one of the houses Raymon finds a mp3 player. This will be a huge morale boost; he can listen to his favorite music while killing zombies.

There's a beautiful sports car in one of the garages. Raymon siphons out the gas.

A formless slime mold the size of a cow. Crusty bits of cytoplasm fall away as it oozes across the ground.

Van life

After looting the light industry compound and now this town, Raymon's SUV is full to bursting. The damage quarter of the trunk doesn't help either. Raymon decides to drive back to the irradiation plant and steal the pristine van instead. It might be bulky, but in the future it could become a decent mobile home or be useful to carry people or property back and forth.

Raymon smashes down the chain link fence and drives the van out, then transferrs all the fuel, supplies, and spare car batteries from his SUV.

It's beautiful, and in such good condition it can take a lot of abuse before he'll need a new vehicle.

To complete his new van, Raymon reads a new manual he found, Under the Hood, and uses it to install a recharging station in the cab. This will charge his batteries far faster than the little charger he put in the SUV. Then he waves goodbye to his SUV and drives his new van up to the gas station, topping off both tanks. Beautiful.

While looting the little town of Henniker more, one of the wild-eyed feral humans charges him, throwing rocks. They hurt! Some magic missiles and a coup-de-grâce with his tough spear take down the crazed man.

That survivor's note is almost funny. Raymon remembers the rise in cult behavior before the end. Powerful cults, with thousands, even millions of members. There might have been something to them.

There's a SWAT truck stalled in the middle of the street. Zombies swarm it but can't get inside. Raymon looks for guns or tools inside, but doesn't find anything notable.

Returning to his van, Raymon finds two dogs chasing a groundhog. That's the most normal thing he's seen these past days.

There's a river blocking the way west toward the refugee center, so Raymon plans to head north and around instead.

The end

Raymon passes a pack of migos on the road. They try to pursue him, but his van is too fast.

In a little corner of swamp there's a shack. It's empty, but Raymon takes a stepladder and stows it in his van. Never know when that might be useful.

There's a massive farm across the river. Raymon drives slowly along the dirt roads looking for an outlet to get to the refugee center, but there isn't one. He's surrounded on all sides by forest.

This is definitely not true. Knowledge is power!

Raymon drives all around the area, looking for a way to get to the refugee center by van, but there just isn't any. Finally he parks at the edge of the farm and starts looking for a clear path through the forest; maybe he can chop down some trees?

The horrible owlbear is probably the result of genetic experimentation by some insane wizard. These creatures inhabit the tangled forest regions of every temperate clime, as well as subterranean labyrinths. They are ravenous eaters, aggressive hunters, and evil tempered at all times. They attack prey on sight and will fight to the death.

A huge owlbear comes barreling out of the forest. Raymon saw it earlier, but he didn't look long enough to see if it was chasing him, and now it's here. He's already beat up. This will be a fight for his life. He readies his spear and his hands glow with magic missile.

It's not enough. Raymon dies as the owlbear tears through him. He survived only a few days after the end of the world, and never made it to the refugee center. Perhaps someone else will find his van packed with gear, or perhaps it will rot away, unused. Who knows?

Analysis

Owlbears are deadly, but that death was avoidable. I shouldn't have gone away from the van with my torso health that low, but I was getting impatient at not being able to reach the refugee center. Once again, one mistake is deadly in Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead. See you next time!

Raymon Ortega #3: Camping out of town

Wed, 01 Feb 2023 12:00:00 +0000

First Night

Raymon needs more supplies. He'd like a map of the area; extra food is good; tools would be useful. It's almost nightfall; he's spent the whole day traveling toward the refugee center, but now he's stuck just outside a city of unknown dimensions. The zombies can't see very far at night, so Raymon plans to raid some of the houses for supplies as soon as nightfall comes. It's time to set up camp.

His camp is barebones, just a tent and a car, but it's better than nothing. The tent ensures no zombies (or aliens, for that matter) can see him.

Raymon learns a new spell, Magical Light. It's not very bright—even reading by it is slower—but there's no downside to learning it and it might come in handy later.

He makes some black coffee with boiled puddle water and his atomic coffee maker.

Then Raymon spends the rest of the day reading, improving his mechanics and tailoring knowledge. Now that he has an SUV, he needs to know how to repair it. Making his own gear will be very handy too. He wants a strap to carry his spear, but he doesn't quite understand how to sew one together, nor does he have the tools. He reads until nightfall. When there's nothing else to do, reading is always a good way to spend time: knowledge is power.

Finally, night falls. Raymon creeps up toward the houses. He can barely see in the dark, but that means that the zombies can't either.

A feral human breaks wielding a pipe breaks out of the house, mumbling something about intruders. Raymon avoids that house.

While sneaking into a garage in another house, something trips the alarm system. A beeping noise pierces the night from somewhere, and Raymon knows that zombies will be stumbling toward his location even now.

Sure enough, here they are. Raymon leaves by the window, letting the zombies break into an empty house.

A zombie like any other, except that its facial features and skull have been devastated. It's unclear what caused the damage, but between the scraps of flesh you can see that its face and brain are gone, though its ears remain intact.

In another house, Raymon spots a brainless zombie with no eyes. It can't see him, but it seems to react to sound, so he stays quiet. He sneaks through the house, looting useful items.

One of the most useful items he finds is an ice axe. This tool is a decent weapon, in case he drops his spear, and it can be used to pry open doors, windows, and act as a hammer too. It will be handy for the rest of his adventures. He clips it onto his belt for easy access.

Down in the basement of the house he hits another jackpot. Whoever lived here was a tailor, or a dressmaker, and they had all kinds of fabric and threads and tailor's kits and buttons and fasteners. There's enough material here to last him for a long time in his own makeshift tailoring. He loots as much as he can carry.

He replaces his flashlight with a headlamp he finds in one of the dressers. Every bit of space saved in his sling is space for more loot. The headlamp comes with a high-capacity rechargable battery, but he doesn't have a way to charge batteries yet.

This was the video that Raymon remembered. That was the moment that he knew the end of the world was here, now. That was when he knew that everyone was going to die. And now he was killing them again.

As Raymon leaves the houses, he's jumped by a huge musclar zombie that comes sprinting out of the gloom. Raymon swings his ice axe, chops into the festering bulk, but the zombie lands a few powerful hits on Raymon's body. He is bleeding and bruised by the time he finally chops through the zombie's head, and his rain coat is torn up.

Making his way painfully back to camp, Raymon patches himself up with bandages and antiseptic from the first aid kit. He needs to get more bandages, he's nearly out from that fight.

But for now, to ignore the pain, Raymon reads more about tailoring and starts to form a plan for making a spear strap. He doesn't want to be caught out in the open without a spear again, but he also doesn't want to have to carry a spear in his hand all the time.

After a couple hours of study and sewing, Raymon comes up with something good. He ties it onto his back and straps his battered spear in. This will serve.

He falls asleep, and there is morning, the second day.

Second Day

Raymon feels much better after that sleep. He still needs supplies, especially a map, so he decides to hang around this camp a little longer. The first order of business is to craft a new fire-hardened spear to replace his current battered weapon. He shouldn't have tried prying apart a fridge with it. He also needs a better backpack. More bandages would be good too.

An hour and half of work and Raymon sharpens and hardens himself a new spear. It goes straight into his spear strap; it feels solid against his back.

After reading a bit about mechanics, Raymon jury rigs a household battery charger into his SUV's electrical system. It's not very fast, certainly not as efficient as the recharging station he has in the trunk, but it's a lot easier to set up and can keep his headlamp juiced up.

To spend the rest of the day, Raymon decides to learn some more magic. The next spell he learns is Phase Door, which teleports him a short distance. This could be very useful as an escape, or even to break in to places.

Raymon starts inside the tent. The world seems to waver around him, and suddenly...

...He's outside the tent! This will take a little time for him to get used to it, but there's no doubt that it will save his life at some point.

The final spell is Sound Bomb, which creates a loud noise at a location of his choosing. He can't choose a location very far, for now, but later, after much practice, when he can make a noise several dozen meters away, it will become a very useful distraction.

Second Night

As night falls, Raymon sneaks up toward the town and starts hitting the houses for loot again.

Zombies flood these houses on the edge of town, smashing through windows at Raymon's approach. He kites one back to the sand pit.

Running to gain distance, then thrusting with his new sturdy spear deals with that zombie; its blood soaks into the sand.

Raymon replaces his tattered raincoat with a sturdy trenchcoat. Not only does it provide good protection, it also has huge pockets. Pockets mean everything in the apocalypse.

In what will become a common scene, Raymon pops a few aspirin pills to deal with the aching pain of being gnawed on by zombies.

He spots a backpack leaning against a wall in one basement, but the place is filled with strange meat cocoons and zombies. He quickly retreats up the stairs and leaves.

Despite it being the size of a small dog, you can tell this is a very young spider. Its red color is why you gave it this name; you have never seen this creature before the Cataclysm. It is quick, and its large fangs drip with venom.

Raymon stumbles across this horrifying thing in the dark, and just as quickly flees into one of the nearby houses, shutting the window after him.

In a bedroom of the house he fled into, Raymon finds one of the best possible backpacks. This monster backpack can hold nearly 80 liters, and is fairly comfortable too. This will serve as his main pack for the forseeable future.

Some papers in a mailbox deliver more record of the cataclysm that's destroyed the world. Raymon glances over them in the thin darkness. They're just depressing, but he can't turn away.

Inside one of the houses Raymon gets cornered by two zombies. He didn't play this right, and didn't run when he should have. Now there's nowhere to run. He takes several hits as he runs out of the house, and gets nearly run down before he can reach a drain pipe hanging down from the roof.

Bruised and bleeding, Raymon climbs up to the roof of the house as the zombies stumble and slam into the walls below. He stays there for a while, catching his breath, thinking about how close he came to dying.

Finally Raymon climbs down, managing not to hurt himself more in the process. He keeps on looting, despite the brush with death. Something's made him braver recently, but he doesn't know what.

In one basement there's a pile of human bodies and huge cockroach carcasses. They seem to have fought to the death down here. Raymon picks his way through the refuse to claim his prize.

Raymon finds a gun! It's not a very powerful pistol, but it's lightweight and fits in his pocket, and he found plenty of extra ammunation with it too, in the backpack of the dead woman he pulled the gun from. She must have been zombified before fighting the cockroaches, or he would have heard shots. Either way, this is another tool in his arsenal to increase his chances of survival.

In a basement office, Raymon finds a stack of newspaper articles recounting events just before the end of the world. Raymon remembers the China-blaming fever, but that all seems trite now. The canning article seems the most relevant to his situation. Maybe he'll get to the point where canning food makes sense again instead of scavenging whatever is left in people's abandoned homes.

Raymon jumps a fence to escape a huge muscular zombie, but he knows he can't outrun it; he can feel his breath giving and his heart pounds in his chest.

He kites the tough zombie a little way and takes stabs with his spear until it collapses, bleeding out. Another victory.

Back at camp, makeshift bandages staunch his own bleeding. Then it's off to the city again, for another round of night raiding.

As Raymon pries open the back door in another house, it triggers their security system. He knows that dozens of zombies are now stumbling toward him in the darkness, and runs.

He's almost out of breath when a zombie dog catches up to him. He kills it with his ice axe, but it landed several bites. Raymon doesn't think he can raid any more tonight.

Yeah, he's too injured to keep going. He settles down in his camp and patches up, cleaning and bandaging his wounds.

To spend the time, Raymon reads two books on throwing technique and handgun basics. He figures both'll be good investments, especially now that he has a pistol in his pocket. He churns through headlamp batteries, but his battery charger in the SUV keeps the lights on.

Finally, with the help of some melatonin tablets he looted in the night, he falls asleep snuggling his blanket.

Third Day

When he wakes up, Ramon decides it's time to move on. He's got some good loot here, but the hunting grounds are stretching thin. He needs to find either a way north past the city, or go around and find another way to the refugee center.

A strange fungus-like tower emerges from the ground near some of the houses; he hadn't seen it before because it was so dark.

Raymon's way around the city is blocked by forest and more residential areas. He can't get through here with his SUV; it's time to backtrack again.

He consults his hastily drawn maps and decides the best place to drive cross-country is there, just above the hunting lodge. If there's an opening in the forest, he can drive up toward the refugee center until he hits roads again.

As he drives, he finds a run-down house with some makeshift beds and graffiti littering the walls. There is nothing of value there.

As Raymon comes round a bend in the forest, he finds his path clear in front of him. The couple of nights spent camping by the city are over. The journey to the refugee center begins again.