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[jocan2003]

I know some small village where everyone has a backup power source, either gas generator, solar panel, hell i even know a guy who made a small watermill-generator. One day we will

[miauw62]

This does sound interesting, but we'd have to make it so one house won't try to power all of the town.

[Shades]

This does sound interesting, but we'd have to make it so one house won't try to power all of the town.

No, the player would have to do that, if they leave it connected to the grid that is their problem

[alway]

Anything on the power grid would need to be isolated before it would be even remotely usable/repairable. Otherwise any power would just fly off into nothingness. Even booting up a full size power plant would be worthless if you were hooked up to the national grid and thereby attempting to use it to power the entire continental US. And considering power lines run underground as well, I would say that is entirely out of the question.

Generators and such would likewise need to be disconnected from the grid, both for that reason and because who the hell knows what's flowing through those wires. For all we know, the massive solar flares going on (because, with Cataclysm's lore the way it is, any disaster than can happen probably is; so let's face it, there's probably massive solar flares) could send a giant jolt of electricity down the line, making everything explode.

What I think would be best is something akin to a more dangerous version of Minecraft's Industrialcraft mod. A variety of machines of varying usefulness which draw power from a generator system through some sort of cable setup. You know how you're told not to daisy-chain extension cords and power strips? Yeah. That could be your method of setting up wiring. Draw too much current, and suddenly you've got a fire on your hands, right in the middle of your base. This power system could be entirely separate from the mobile battery-drive system, though possibly interconnected through some form of rechargable batteries (less uses per volume & weight). Overall, we would want much less emphasis on stored power (the MFSUs and such from IC are just silly), with no more than a temporary buffer for avoiding instantaneous fluctuations (or not, if you don't have the skills to put one together) and regulating a constant current.

some possible machines:
Fume hood: removes any smoke or other gaseous substance from its tile when turned on (useful for any sort of advanced crafting generating toxic gasses with other machines, or just putting near a fire pit)
CNC machine: metal tools & parts; possibly including some which are unattainable through normal crafting (it would actually make sense to have a lot of vehicle parts craftable only with this) [computer skill, mechanic skill]
Computer: craft software components for advanced robotic equipment [computer skill]; stored on USB drives... play a video game about the pre-apocolypse world for happiness (like reading a non-skill book)
Stove: (already sorta exists in a defunct state); power it for most of the things you can do with an open fire; smokeless

The general idea being to add in more high end crafting items, particularly pulling in the holy skill trinity which is electronics, mechanics, and computers. They're just begging for more high-end robotics stuff; especially since we already see many robots in game. Skitterbots, ect, are found in labs; making a craftable friendly one like the manhacks and turrets would add more endgame stuff (robot diplomancer gooo!) without much actual work. So yeah, there's a lot that can be done in that general direction.

[Mookzen]

Implementing advanced crafting might be an opportunity to finally make primitive self-made replicas of items (MacGyvered from household shit) not identical to the real thing. At the moment Cataclysm is full of these craftable items that, judging by the required materials, can't even come near to the real thing and yet they are treated as the same item. One of my main pet peeves about the game. I'm not even giving examples because at least half of everything craftable falls into this category.

[miauw62]

It would be nice if the electricity came after the Z-levels, so we could for example have the wires on the floor below, and the main breaker too, probably.

[Aseaheru]

-snip-

[The Darkling Wolf]

There's no problem with using this thread, I read all of the discussion of DDA that goes on around the internet, not just our own forum.

[Aseaheru]

Its just that i get confused sometimes. im going to remove that post now.

[Mookzen]

By the way matches can't be used to light cigarettes, and, presumably, cigars as well in this version.

[Nighthawk]

All these complicated electronics... I think we should focus on basics first...

I've gotten a bit better at the static spawn thing now, but I still like the idea of regular zombies static-spawning at first, then mutating into special zombies over a few days. That way, game isn't too easy right off the bat, but the longer you survive, the more special zombies mutate, and the harder it gets when you have to raid new towns.

The static spawning right now is simply too hard too quick, while the classic spawn mode gets ridiculous when suddenly there are hordes of enemies where there were previously none.

[Akhier the Dragon hearted]

   I think the static spawn would be better if zombies where spawned by placing special zombies which are spaced out then spawning a random number of normal zombies around them. This will make for clumps of zombies composed of some normal ones and a special one. The spacing of specials would be greater the farther from the town center so in the middle it will be a group of a good number of specials and on the outskirts you will is you play it smart only have to deal with a single special at a time. Also the type of specials can be affected by distance from town center.

[Eagle]

Earlygame is a bit tough, but if you can survive a day or two and acquire a longbow, after that its almost entirely steamroll. I dont even worry about about being surrounded by 50+ zombies at this point. Only thing thats dangerous at this point is secubots and maybe some of the things I've yet to meet (nether creatures, graboids).

[GlyphGryph]

I've gotten a bit better at the static spawn thing now, but I still like the idea of regular zombies static-spawning at first, then mutating into special zombies over a few days.

Afaik, this is very much planned in the relatively near-future. Valve time.

[Greiger]

Make the presence of a master zombie in a few map tiles double or triple the mutation rate as well and I will be a very happy camper.  Those guys don't feel important enough, and that's what they do anyway.