Death Road to Brontoforumus
- zaratustra
- Posts: 1665
- Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2014 6:45 pm
Re: Death Road to Brontoforumus
On foot, we're prey to bad events again. Damn it Esper, why couldn't you have "Friend of Cat" perk?
Great. We lose some rifle and shotgun ammo too. It may not look like much, but every bit counts and losing this stuff could be a big deal. I've had games come down to the wire.
After this event, we find a new muscle car with 100 gas for free. Everyone is happy and gains morale.
Then we run into a trader camp.
Inside the building is a few food and some paltry traders with nothing I want. The guy outside there offers to trade you food for 25 gas. Both are important resources, but 25 is really steep.
We take off without doing any trading with our free 3 food.
Uh oh. We're more than halfway to Canada, so the game is starting to ramp up the difficulty.
I make sure to give Grath his shotgun and Esper a pistol. His Surgeon perk gives him a small bonus to shooting. R^2 and Mongrel are bad fighters, so they'll stick with what melee weapons they have.
Re: Death Road to Brontoforumus
It goes surprisingly well. We expend a good amount of ammo, but I manage to siphon off a little over 100 gas from the wrecked cars. Nobody is bit, though Mongrel runs out of medkits shortly after healing Grath of his cat bite wounds.
We get the level up screen and I pick fitness. You don't expend energy shooting guns, but guns run out of ammo and I know what's coming at the end of this run. We'll need as much fitness and strength as possible to avoid using too many bullets both before then and during.
The next camp event is a (usually) negative one, but with R^2's mechanical so high he can save us.
Shooting golf balls relies on your fitness, and as we saw, our groups fitness is terrible. It's not an option.
Nice. R^2 raises his mechanical skill to near cap.
The next ABL has a "fancy" destination, which I know from experience will have a large map, a locked safe, and a key to that safe hidden somewhere. The safe is like a treasure chest, if you can find the keys, you get a big reward.
Esper's 50% chance of rare events STILL hasn't happened.
Re: Death Road to Brontoforumus
Damn. I was hoping it would have a high tier weapon in it, like a Knight Sword or Claymore. We don't need the Cowboy Rifle (Grath started with one), so that's out.
Generally speaking, food is the most valuable resource, since extra can be traded away. And eating 9 a day does put a dent into our stockpile. The 80 gas is tempting, but we take the 15 food.
The entire office literally only had 2 food in it other than the safe. Really lame.
Whoa, never seen this option for this event before. Usually I just have "fight!" to take some damage but keep my weapons.
Fuckin' nice. Grath raises his shooting skill to S-tier. That's going to come in handy later on.
Re: Death Road to Brontoforumus
Hey there, Francois.
The trouble with recruiting people later on is they don't come with "experience" like the rest of your party likely has. Their stats are always at base level. And Francois' perks aren't useful enough at this stage of the game, so we leave him to his endless dream.
After a normal camp event, we find Canada's strongest fighter: The Moose.
Grath, you know what to do.
NO DON'T WRESTLE IT
(I've wrestled it as Megabuff Friday before. If you have really high str you can win, which gains you some morale.)
Sportsmanlike, sprortsmanlike. We need food out here in the zombie wilds.
We've got enough food that I might consider another option than the Big Grocery, but I don't need a new car and the one time I went to a farm it didn't impress me. And like I said earlier, more food is always good because it's also cash money. We COULD drive around more to get more options, but that drains your gas really fast.
Man, Esper still hasn't done his thing. Is the trait bugged or something?
Re: Death Road to Brontoforumus
Predictably, we get a lot of food but not much else.
These guys actually turn out to be super friendly if you can out-pose them, but R^2 does not have nearly the strength to do that. I decide to pay the toll because we're out of medical supplies to patch us up after we fight.
The group takes a morale hit.
Okay... R^2... THIS time use your superpower!
R^2: Pfft, this shit? Man, I rigged a golf machine into a zombie murder car. This is nothing.
At the next Trader camp, we run into Newbie. He charges up to me holding a knife in his Juni cosplay. It's a little terrifying.
Again, his perks are simply not useful enough to justify taking a new character this late into the game. If we run into any more fight-centric of the Bronto Crew, I'll probably swap Esper out as we don't need his medical skill with Mongrel around and his City Seeker Perk is bugged or some shit.
Too bad Romo's not with us. Friend of Dogs get free shit from any dog vendors.
Aww, man. An actual minigun for sale. 75 food is nearly everything I've got, but I'm still really tempted. The Minigun is absurdly powerful and having Grath use it would turn it into a fucking death laser. But we've still got 7 driving days left. If this was closer to the end, I'd def pick it up.
As for the flamethrower, no thanks. The one time I tried to use that I managed to kill my entire team by setting all the zombies on fire which then set me on fire. I'm sure if properly used it could be good, but I'd rather play it safe.
The grenades will be useful later on, but I don't need 12 of them and it's not worth 40 food. I leave the camp without buying anything.
Re: Death Road to Brontoforumus
Friday wrote:Fuckin' nice. Grath raises his shooting skill to S-tier. That's going to come in handy later on.
I think you did something wrong if you made my character actually useful.
Re: Death Road to Brontoforumus
Mostly-unconscious beardo slumped in a folding chair by the side of the road, failing to chew through a wrapped candy bar... Yeah, I'd probably have left me behind too.
Re: Death Road to Brontoforumus
Get some food and be tired the next day, or not. We pick the berries and gain 12 food, eating 9 of it for the night. R^2 made cobbler.
Damn, if I knew the next two events would have been a grocery store and berry picking, I'd have bought that minigun.
The bullet ridden house has a lot of ammo inside. I'm tempted, but I want to find out who's we're rescuing.
All right, which one of you assholes got cornered in a grocery store!?
After dashing through the infested parking lot, we spend some time kiting the horde around the main area, using the shelves to keep from being cornered. It takes forever because we're all tired from picking berries and more zombies from outside keep coming in. But eventually we melee the entire swarm down, and head into the back rooms. It's important to play it safe in this game when you can. I could have ran past all the zombies and straight into the back rooms, but then I'd risk being trapped back there with nowhere to run to. The event started in the morning, so we've got the time to kite and kill everything, even with our melee stats in the gutter from being tired.
And the asshole that got cornered was... an alternate dimension brunette version of me. K.
+20 food.
Damn. I was hoping for strength or fitness tips. We don't need her on the team, we're not hurt, and we don't need the morale, so 15 more food it is.
Christ. I'm really regretting not picking up that minigun now.
Re: Death Road to Brontoforumus
Typical Silver.
Being the monster that I am (And Mongrel being our medic with experience under his belt) I leave Silver behind to try to teach the zombies some fashion sense.
I'd rather not risk a seige by taking shelter since we're still tired. We're low on gas, so we're probably going to abandon this car soon anyway, so I just plow through. The car takes some damage.
Negative camp event. Everyone takes a morale hit... but R^2's goes right back up to max after eating.
Friday's response to this is always TOO SWOLE TO CONTROL, BABY! followed by a morale boost. R^2 doesn't complete the meme and that makes Esper sad.
Uh oh. This is a big deal. Losing a sneeze is something I hate more than almost anything. I've got food to spare, so lets try that.
I imagine this might have been a boost to R^2's morale if it wasn't already at max.
Re: Death Road to Brontoforumus
The next event has the car breaking down (R^2 repairs it easily again) and then immediately running out of gas. This is by far the most I've ever run out of gas and had to find new cars in a run.
That night, we are attacked by a bear. Grath doesn't seem to give a shit.
Terminator Grath on the job.
The next day of walking is unremarkable. We find a boot. (No, really.) Eventually we see a cabin with a car parked outside.
Hardly any zombies later, we find the keys.
Our new ride. It's a bug, which I think means has absolutely terrible stats but good gas mileage. We get underway again.
The next Trader camp has a guy selling polearms. I pick up the Bardiche, which is basically a better Log that doesn't drain as much fatigue per swing. We still don't have a buff person to use it, but I figure Grath can swing it a few times, switch to guns for a bit, then swap back. We need cleaving melee for whats the come.
After feed him 1 and then 2 food, this is what I get. Hmm. Let's do it.
Whoa. Now Grath will never get tired! Nice. Francois may be left behind, but he's with us in spirit.
The next event is a siege. We gear up.
Re: Death Road to Brontoforumus
Small map with no cover + loads of zombies + nobody that can melee well = tons of ammo expended.
Swinging a few times with the Bardiche and then shooting doesn't work as well as I'd hoped it would. We can only swing thrice before Grath starts sweating and hitting like a noodle, and you can't swap away until after the exceptionally long refresh animation is over.
We manage to survive, though Mongrel gets bitten.
Well, at least we can heal him with the level up.
We have Grath take watch, using his new power to never be tired. Yay!
Plowing through the water damages the car. But I'm confident R^2 can fix it if it breaks down, so whatevs.
Mongrel's advice to jump it is insane.
Really? A Furniture Store and a Hardware Store? God damn it Esper WHY WON'T YOUR ABILITY WORK
I pick the Furniture Store because I've never been to one before. Maybe it'll have some sort of special thing?
(It didn't. It had 2 food in it and that's it.)
We find one of the rare, overpowered characters tucked away in a ruined building. Gordo doesn't have special abilities but his fighting, medical and mechanical stats are all very high, and he has two bonus HP from his suit.
But we're honorbound to try to win with Brontos, so we leave him behind. Everyone gets a morale boost just from seeing him for some reason. Maybe they thought he was Half-Life 3 for a second.
Even after looting every side building, the Furniture stop had jack-all.
I'm starting to get worried. There's only 3 days left of drive time, our supply of ammo is dwindling, we don't have the fighting stats to use the Bardiche well, and we have no explosives. I really really should have bought that minigun, or at least the flamethrower.
Our only hope is to find something really powerful in these last three days, or we're going to be in for one hell of a rough finale.
- Mongrel
- Posts: 21336
- Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2014 6:28 pm
- Location: There's winners and there's losers // And I'm south of that line
Re: Death Road to Brontoforumus
"What do you mean 'insane'? Man, you guys have no sense of adventure, I ever tell you that? Geeeeez!"
(Have you ever actually jumped it? What happens?)
(Have you ever actually jumped it? What happens?)
Re: Death Road to Brontoforumus
It's based on the car's stats, a muscle car for example could probably make it. Nothing is ever 100% guaranteed though, to my knowledge. I've failed checks with a maxed relevant stat before.
We're in a bug with bare minimum speed/chassis, so we probably only had a 10% chance or so of making the jump. Failure usually results in the complete destruction of your car.
We're in a bug with bare minimum speed/chassis, so we probably only had a 10% chance or so of making the jump. Failure usually results in the complete destruction of your car.
Re: Death Road to Brontoforumus
Next camp event is a positive one: Esper gets a free fitness increase.
We could probably have Grath shoot it open easily with his S-tier shooting skill, but I have R^2 (with his S-tier mechanical) jimmy open the lock.
More food. We have way more than we could possibly eat now, but there's a guaranteed final Trader Camp before the last gasp coming up, so it's not useless to us.
I've been in Arcades before, and you can train up certain skills or drain the working ones of their gas (which is powering them) if you have a high enough mechanic. We do, but my hope now is to get enough food and bullets so we can buy powerful weapons before the end with enough ammo to make use of them.
So we head to the Yall-Mart.
Re: Death Road to Brontoforumus
We find little ammo, but a good amount of food and gas. The gas is nice as we were almost out. This should be enough to see us the rest of the way.
Another positive camp event. Free food, or free morale. I take the food.
11 food since we ate for that night as well. Smores all around!
Mongrel's 'Frantic Whiner' finally procs, lowering the morale of the whole team. But overall he's mostly kept his mouth shut and healed us for a ton, so I'm okay with it.
Let's see... a str check from R^2, a fitness check from Esper, abandoning the car entirely, or a shooting check from Grath?
BLAM.
We recover the keys.
The Deadly Yall Mart is tempting, but it'll most likely just have a few bullets, some gas maybe, and a ton of food.
We don't need a car, so...
Though I hardly ever do this, I spend the 20 gas to reroll my choices.
Re: Death Road to Brontoforumus
Burning House? There's got to be something good in there, right?
Fuck it. We're almost to the border and I need to find SOMETHING powerful. Maybe I'll get a flamethrower or something.
The inside is an inferno. Zombies periodically falls from the crumbling roof into the rooms.
We find a cute witch girl!
She IMMEDIATELY runs into the fire and dies in the next room.
Jack all was in the house otherwise.
She wasn't eaten, she fucking committed suicide. Though I guess seeing a cute witch girl burned to death would lower anyone's morale.
Re: Death Road to Brontoforumus
Hey, it's Mothra to save the day!
He's only got 1 HP, but if I take control of him he's the perfect person to use that Bardiche.
Sorry, Esper. You've been helpful but I really need a big bruiser.
More free food.
Grath never misses.
This is the last stop. We've got tons of food to spare. Time to load up. The shops are RNG, though, so I just hope they've got big stuff. Though the final trader camp tends to have better and more vendors.
Sharkey's in the camp. But he's not really any better than anyone we have, so we tell him to COOL IT.
wooooo Chainsaw!
It's gas powered, but we have enough to use it. We pick it up along with some Molotovs that the vendor was selling in it's place after we bought the saw.
Mothra is a jerk because of his BERSERK! trait, which bottoms out all his stats. He's basically both Irritating AND a Bandit, so he gets the option to rob several people in the camp too.
Huh, I didn't get a screencap, but we also found a shotgun guy selling powerful shotguns. We bought a BIG DAWG for 40 food, and gave it to Grath.
Hopefully between the super shotgun, the chainsaw, and the molotovs, it'll be enough.
Re: Death Road to Brontoforumus
The first of three final challenges. This one isn't so bad, compared to the other two. You have to defend a single room cabin.
Zombies constantly falls from the ceiling in clumps of 5-7. Endless undead pour through the door. With little room to kite, the best bet is to try to meatgrind them. I want to conserve as much of my ammo and molotovs for whats to come.
We end up using some ammo, but with Mothra on Bardiche duty, not too much. There's a close moment when a zombie nearly bites Mothra (which would have killed him) but Grath headshot just in time.
Mothra's thirst for destruction is 100% in keeping with his real life counterpart. As is his hair.
The final camp event is always the same: It lets you eat a second meal if you have enough food, and gives you a party morale bonus for doing so.
Then, if your morale is high enough, you'll get a dexterity bonus. Dex is your movement speed and also how long it takes a zombie to "latch on" and bite you. Higher the dex, the more time you have. Zombies don't damage you on touch, instead they grab at you (you'll see ??? above the character's head for a bit, then !!!) and slow you. (The more zombies grabbing at you, the more they slow you.) If you don't break away or hit the zombie, then they bite.
Dex is extremely useful and almost impossible to raise (there are a few very rare events, and Mongrel's Frantic Whiner trait actually gives him +1 dex) so it's a really good bonus to get, especially right before the final battle.
Re: Death Road to Brontoforumus
This is it.
Notice the time. The previous siege was the longest we'd had up till now at 1.5 hours.
This is a four hour siege.
I gear everyone out to maximum lethality.
R^2: Tire iron, Shotgun, and 4 molotovs.
Grath: Spiked Bat (it never broke!), Cowboy Rifle, BIG DAWG.
Mothra: Bardiche, Chainsaw, Shotgun with the rest of my shotgun ammo.
Mongrel: Hatchet, Cowboy Rifle, 5 molotovs.
There's a very serious chance I will die here. Like the prompt said, this isn't the final battle, but it is by far the toughest. The final battle isn't easy either, but this one is downright insane. I've had multiple runs, better statted and geared than this, with overpowered recruits, end right here.
It's all about movement. The random layout of the final city plays a big role. If you can find a good circle to run, that helps. Anytime you have to backtrack into the horde is almost certain to kill at least one person. I've got the chainsaw if I have to do that, but once it runs out of gas...
There are rooms you can go into that have more supplies, but they're deathtraps. If you do go in, only go in to pick up what you can and then leave.
Ammo is laying around everywhere for reloads. And we'll need it. In addition to the zombies coming in from all sides of the map at ridiculous rates, every 5-10 seconds or so a group of 8-12 zombies will literally burrow up from underground all around you.
Here we go.
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