Volume:Volume is there to basically simulate your ability to carry things. Think of walking down the street. You may be able to lift quite a bit of weight in a single object, but you won't be able to do that with many small objects. What volume does is simulate your ability to carry things without your hands. You put a little bit of money or your wallet in your pocket, and suddenly you are carrying your wallet but your hands are still free. That is exactly what volume in this game is supposed to simulate.
You start with a little bit of volume, mostly from your pants (pockets!). And you can find clothing with much higher volume values. A player will commonly upgrade their starting pants to cargo pants, or army pants for example. Because those pants have many more pockets, and thus, more volume. Another thing players often hunt for is a backpack, which gives absolutely massive amounts of volume.
You are completely incapable of carrying much more than your total volume. Usually only 3 or 4 points over maximum, and if you do exceed your volume you get huge encumbrance penalties to all your bodyparts. Anything being wielded(no matter how large) is not counted towards your volume total, such items are in your hands, not your pockets.
Encumbrance:Some clothing is heavy. And wearing most things will actually increase your encumbrance on the part it's worn on. Don't worry if you have some, you will very likely get some just from wearing any clothing. an encumbrance of 1 or 2 is reasonable, 3 is a little heavy but not too severe, and 4 and up is giving you severe penalties with the affected part.
Depending on the part these can have different effects. Encumbrance to your eyes reduces your perception a bit, making you worse with ranged weapons, Encumbrance on your torso and arms reduces your speed and skill with melee attacks, encumbrance on your feet and legs makes you run slower, as does encumbrance on your mouth(it's harder to breath properly with a gas mask on). The only encumbrance that does not do anything is encumbrance on your head.
You can look in your inventory at clothing to see what bodypart they cover and how much encumbrance they apply to those bodyparts. It is possible for clothing items to have 0 encumbrance. But layering more than 1 0 encumbrance object on a bodypart will still increment your encumbrance by 1.
For example utility vests are great bits of volume clothing that cover the torso, but they apply 0 encumbrance. Wearing 2 utility vests though will still increment your encumbrance by 1.
It is also possible for clothing to not cover a body part. Some of these, like fanny packs, are great (and rare) items that basically increase your volume for free. You however are limited to wearing only one of those of each type.
Morale and XP:You see that little
or :| or
or D: down near your stats? That is your morale. As long as your morale is
your character will gain xp or experience (to a maximum of 800) As you perform actions your xp will go down, as the experience is applied to the relevant skill for that action, moving the skill closer and closer to gaining a level.
Doing things that would make your character happy (eating tasty food, listening to an MP3 player, most drugs) will increase your morale, while doing unhappy things (walking unprotected in the rain, eating bad tasting food, killing your mom) lowers it. Morale will slowly return to a baseline state over time (":|" for most characters, a low "
" for optimist trait carriers).
Books:Books are vital to any long lasting character that isn't illiterate. Especially the skill books. Skill books can be read to gain skill levels in the book's subject. Skill books will require you to already have a level or two in the books subject, and be able to increase your skill level to a set point. The lower level skill books can usually be understood by beginners (which means you don't need the skill at all to learn it from the book) but they usually don't get you very far.
High level books also have an intelligence requirement as well as a skill requirement, and reading them actually reduces your morale. (Ok technically all books have an intelligence requirement, but the lower level books have very low requirements) A lower intelligence character can use stimulants to temporarily increase their intelligence to be able to read the book, but some of these books have intelligence requirements that are quite high, putting them out of reach of even the most caffeinated java junkie.
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Topic: Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead - A roaming horde appears on the horizon! (Read 1861530 times)