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Bork Goes Spelunking in Qud: Let's Play Caves of Qud
- Thread starter Bork Lazer
- Start date
- Let's Play
-
- Tags
- sci-fi/fantasy blend
- Location
- Malaysia
Nothing really. Joppa is presumably there because it's the most influential village in the salt marshes and Uularig represents Joppa as it's warden.The ballpark for a major settlement in Qud appears to be if it's protected by a warden of sorts.
Biodynamic cells are great, being very easily rechargeable (you can actually set them to autocollect blood even when they're socketed into artifacts) and carrying a significant amount of charge. Their only disadvantage is that all that blood can get heavy, meaning they weigh up to three times as much as cells that don't run on liquids.
... I've seen strange furniture around that claims to recharge cells deposited in it over time, but I don't think that effect has actually been implemented yet.
I think it's not so much "a settlement is major if it has a Warden" as "once a peaceful settlement grows enough, the Fellowship of Wardens will assign a Warden to protect it," but I don't think we actually know that much about how the organization was founded.
We do know the Fellowship is democratically organized and that there's an unpopular (but not that unpopular) subfaction of the Wardens called the Quetzal Caucus who want to stop providing wardens to insufficiently democratic or anarchistic settlements. Given the nature of Qud, that would probably result in at least one of the settlements in question being wiped out - by goatfolk or a wandering flight of dawngliders, say.
(that said, some of the wardens that I've seen in random villages are less than impressive. The giant honey weep, for instance, isn't going to win many fights. The honey was very welcome, though.)
... I've seen strange furniture around that claims to recharge cells deposited in it over time, but I don't think that effect has actually been implemented yet.
Uularig is an exceptionally dangerous Warden, at that - sharing a level with Une, the Warden that guards Yd Freehold, and with high-level mutations.
I think it's not so much "a settlement is major if it has a Warden" as "once a peaceful settlement grows enough, the Fellowship of Wardens will assign a Warden to protect it," but I don't think we actually know that much about how the organization was founded.
We do know the Fellowship is democratically organized and that there's an unpopular (but not that unpopular) subfaction of the Wardens called the Quetzal Caucus who want to stop providing wardens to insufficiently democratic or anarchistic settlements. Given the nature of Qud, that would probably result in at least one of the settlements in question being wiped out - by goatfolk or a wandering flight of dawngliders, say.
(that said, some of the wardens that I've seen in random villages are less than impressive. The giant honey weep, for instance, isn't going to win many fights. The honey was very welcome, though.)
- Location
- Malaysia
There are already abandoned or wiped out settlements that can spawn in Qud, although, given the nature of Markov generation, there's no running theme about why they suddenly collasped out of nowhere.
Yeah, it's pretty common; the settlement generation algorithm creates them that way one time in twenty, and there're more than 20 procedural villages every game. The book about the Fellowship of Wardens' internal politics mentions two settlements being wiped out in a month, and their comments on the caravans traveling into the Asphalt Mines aren't exactly optimistic, either.
The game doesn't model it, but I'm pretty sure we're to take it that settlements getting razed is something that just happens in Qud.
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Assault on Grit Gate
- Location
- Malaysia
(It's been a while, eh? Might as well get this finished before FreeHold does the endings update for late-game)
We choose to share the burden between all factions at the council. It gives us -50 reputation with all factions present without the reward of any heirloom artifacts but it's a small price to pay. With this, Asphodel lends the Barathrumites control of the Spindle. With our business at Ezra complete, we recoil back to Grit Gate to report our success to Otho.
uh oh
We check Ershigikal, the supercomputer A.I installed in Grit Gate, and discover that there is a potential assault, courtesy of our friendly race-puritan inbred true-kin fascists, the Putus Templar.
Otho tells us to prepare accordingly. We can rewire power in Grit Gate to activate several subsystems. However, we only have a limited amount of power and using too much will result in amperage blowouts across Grit Gate.
[X] - Choose which subsystems to activate. We have approximately 214 amps of power that we can use.
[X] - Overclock Chromelings (-22.5 Amps)
[X] - Activate Rodanis Y (-100 Amp)
[X] - Activate Chain Laser Emplacements (-50 Amps)
[X] - Activate a Force Projector (-9 Amp)
I'm generally in favor of activating Rodanis Y. His weapons are bodyparts, and so can't be disarmed, and that Serrated mod on his axe is deceptive - it's not the mod you can put on your own axes, it's the identical-looking mod that shows up on astral tabbies. Those of you who have ever found yourselves in the same phase as a hostile astral tabby should understand why this is terrifying.
+10 quickness only lets chromelings act 10% more often - can it be stacked? I've never checked - and chromelings just aren't that interesting, this fight. The chain lasers, meanwhile, can be disarmed, and there's some risk they'll shoot friendlies by accident. (There's a One Stupid Trick based around disarming Mafeo's turret in the early game in order to steal its chain laser.) The force projectors are just stalling, at best.
That said, the invaders have a nasty habit of showing up with some really mean equipment - like flamethrowers, say - so my general rule is to be carrying stacks of flashbangs, stasis grenades, and portable walls when I set off this fight.
(The stasis grenades are for rescuing Barathrumites who get themselves into serious trouble, though I'll aim them at invaders I don't want to deal with for a bit too.)
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- Location
- Nunya, Arizona
[X] - Turn on Roddy and juice the chromelings as much as possible with what's left.
... I've actually never seen this event in the game, heh. Generally sometime between Beartown and the oozehell I end up wandering off eastwards to hunt chrome pyramids instead of doing anything constructive, and at some point end up either bored and starting a new character or dead to chrome pyramids and starting a new character
... I've actually never seen this event in the game, heh. Generally sometime between Beartown and the oozehell I end up wandering off eastwards to hunt chrome pyramids instead of doing anything constructive, and at some point end up either bored and starting a new character or dead to chrome pyramids and starting a new character
Mission Failed.
- Location
- Malaysia
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2M0H52jB4K0
So, save file unfortunately became corrupted. I tried to do a recover but it looks like it's just not happening, fellas. Which was a hsame given that I was working on a writeup where my character became slogged. Hopefully, this crap shouldn't happen again in the future.
In the end, my computer became the enemy of Cronenberg. I apologise for people who were expecting a write up of the defense of Grit Gate.
Thankfully, there wasn't been any major updates since the Moon Stair and so, I'm thinking of doing another playthrough. A modded playthrough this time which includes several gamechanging mods such as:
- Playable Snapjaws
- Sifrah
- Qud Fu
- Mechanimists
So, we're going back to square one. We're definitely not doing Joppa again this time as much as it would delight me, so, you know the drill. Get to choosing.
[X] - Discard purity. Embrace evolution (Mutants are inhabitants of the world who possess physical or mental mutations from generational exposure to the toxic fallout/radiation that permeates Qud. Mutants begin with a chosen set of mutations (or none if you want to) in character creation and every level, they earn one mutation point which they can use to evolve their mutations or gain a new mutation. Furthermore, mutants can choose to specialize to be one of two genotypes: chimeras or espers. Chimeras are limited to only physical mutations but gain new limbs/body parts every time they buy a new mutation during levelling. Espers are limited to mental mutations only. These mutations can range wildly and can drastically affect gameplay depending on the type you get.)
[X] - Discard evolution. Embrace purity (True Kin are the last humans of Qud who have stayed alive for generations within self-sustaining arcologies. True Kin are unable to gain permanent mutations but they are able to install cybernetic implants, some of which can be more powerful than mutations. True Kin also generally start with higher stats and better equipment than mutants.)
Enhanced Snapjaws and Mechanimists als obring two new genotypes to the table: Mechanimists and Snapjaws.
[X] - discard, what's discard? embrace loot (Snapjaws are a type of hyena humanoid mutant found roaming the wastes of Qud in roving packs. Due to their already advanced mutated state, snapjaws have less access to the wider degree of mutation powers compared to their other mutant kin. However, the benefit of being a snapjaw is that you have access to heightened sensory capabilities, have a nasty nip and are friendly with all snapjaws in Qud. The reputation of a snapjaw however makes several popular factions in Qud hostile to you.)
[X] - Discard chrome. Embrace the Argent Fathers. (The Mechanimists are a religious faction in Qud who worship a pantheon of beings known as the Argent Father. They believe that a cosmic singularity known as the Kasaphacence led to the creation of all technological artifacts and that mortal beings should discard them. Mechanimists do not begin with any mutations but can accumulate mutation points over time alongside being able to install cybernetics. You will also have increased reputation with the Mechanimist faction).
- Location
- Malaysia
-Sifrah adds mini games to mechanics such as tinkering, breaking open doors, esper combat and water rituals, offering unique effects depending on your success in the mini game.
- Qud-Fu adds factions and an associated martial arts skill tree that synergises with natural weapons and unarmed combat.
Hykal94
Orange Estus Kitteh
- Location
- Firelink Shrine
[X] - discard, what's discard? embrace loot (Snapjaws are a type of hyena humanoid mutant found roaming the wastes of Qud in roving packs. Due to their already advanced mutated state, snapjaws have less access to the wider degree of mutation powers compared to their other mutant kin. However, the benefit of being a snapjaw is that you have access to heightened sensory capabilities, have a nasty nip and are friendly with all snapjaws in Qud. The reputation of a snapjaw however makes several popular factions in Qud hostile to you.)
Bring on the Monk Kobold, please.
Bring on the Monk Kobold, please.
Character Creation Part 2
- Location
- Malaysia
Looks like we're picking snapjaws.
There's overall 5 types of snapjaws that we can choose from.
[X] - Scavengers, the grunts of the snapjaw bands around Qud. Scavengers begin with Harvestry, Short Blade, Disassemble and Scavenger.
[X] - Brutes, the backliners of the snapjaws. They've been hitting the gym more than their thin-limbed cousins and consequently have access to the Cudgel skill tree along with the Endurance skill tree.
[X] - Warlords are the leaders of the Snapjaw faction and so, have a host of abilities related to socailizing such as intimidate and proselytize. They also begin with Juke.
[X] - What's more dangerous than a snapjaw? A snapjaw with a shotgun. Shotgunners have the most firepower of the snapjaw faction and represent that in their knowledge of Tinkering as well as firearms.
[X] - Warriors are the fodder of the snapjaw and are the msot physically strongest, having expertise in axes and using shields.
Choose a Build Archetype
Snapajws only have access to 6 mutation points compared to the 12 mutation points mutants get in character creation.
[X] - The Snapjaw with the Iron Fists - [Double Muscled, Triple Jointed, Two Hearted, Irritable Genome]
[X] - Fartjaw - [Corrosive Gas Generation, Sleep Gas Generation, Carapace, Amphibious]
[X] - Omae Wa Mo Shinderu [Time Dilation, Heightened Quickness, Photosynthetic Skin]
[X] - Sneaksy Tricksy [Phasing, Clairvoyance, Force Wall]
[X] - Write In
There's overall 5 types of snapjaws that we can choose from.
[X] - Scavengers, the grunts of the snapjaw bands around Qud. Scavengers begin with Harvestry, Short Blade, Disassemble and Scavenger.
[X] - Brutes, the backliners of the snapjaws. They've been hitting the gym more than their thin-limbed cousins and consequently have access to the Cudgel skill tree along with the Endurance skill tree.
[X] - Warlords are the leaders of the Snapjaw faction and so, have a host of abilities related to socailizing such as intimidate and proselytize. They also begin with Juke.
[X] - What's more dangerous than a snapjaw? A snapjaw with a shotgun. Shotgunners have the most firepower of the snapjaw faction and represent that in their knowledge of Tinkering as well as firearms.
[X] - Warriors are the fodder of the snapjaw and are the msot physically strongest, having expertise in axes and using shields.
Choose a Build Archetype
Snapajws only have access to 6 mutation points compared to the 12 mutation points mutants get in character creation.
[X] - The Snapjaw with the Iron Fists - [Double Muscled, Triple Jointed, Two Hearted, Irritable Genome]
[X] - Fartjaw - [Corrosive Gas Generation, Sleep Gas Generation, Carapace, Amphibious]
[X] - Omae Wa Mo Shinderu [Time Dilation, Heightened Quickness, Photosynthetic Skin]
[X] - Sneaksy Tricksy [Phasing, Clairvoyance, Force Wall]
[X] - Write In
Hykal94
Orange Estus Kitteh
- Location
- Firelink Shrine
[X] - Warriors are the fodder of the snapjaw and are the msot physically strongest, having expertise in axes and using shields.
[X] - The Snapjaw with the Iron Fists - [Double Muscled, Triple Jointed, Two Hearted, Irritable Genome]
It was either Warrior or Warlord. I'm personally wanting all in monks with no weapons or magic. The body itself should be a weapon.
[X] - The Snapjaw with the Iron Fists - [Double Muscled, Triple Jointed, Two Hearted, Irritable Genome]
It was either Warrior or Warlord. I'm personally wanting all in monks with no weapons or magic. The body itself should be a weapon.
[x] - The Snapjaw with the Iron Fists - [Double Muscled, Triple Jointed, Two Hearted, Irritable Genome]
[x] - Warlords are the leaders of the Snapjaw faction and so, have a host of abilities related to socailizing such as intimidate and proselytize. They also begin with Juke.
I've praised Intimidate before in this thread, and it continues to be awesome. Juke, meanwhile, is very useful for closing or running away, both things that will need to be done very often if we're wholly dependent on punching for damage.
Also, Proselytize, because what proper monk doesn't talk people into giving away all of their worldly possessions?
[x] - Warlords are the leaders of the Snapjaw faction and so, have a host of abilities related to socailizing such as intimidate and proselytize. They also begin with Juke.
I've praised Intimidate before in this thread, and it continues to be awesome. Juke, meanwhile, is very useful for closing or running away, both things that will need to be done very often if we're wholly dependent on punching for damage.
Also, Proselytize, because what proper monk doesn't talk people into giving away all of their worldly possessions?
Episode 1: Fist of the North Salt
- Location
- Malaysia
Alright, sicne we have one more point left over in character creation. I put it into telepathy since we're most likely going to be accumulating followers with our high Ego and proselytize. We roll for the Salt Desert and begin in the village of Alaruk. Salt desert villages, IMO, are the most dangerous start in all of Qud for a newbie. For one, the salt desert has an unusually high number of dangerous spawning enemies such as rogue Putus templars, rogue esper hunters and a host of other deadly mobs. Combined with the fact that there's a high indigenous population of flying dragons, most early runs in the Salt Desert end in the player's body being a dessciated skeleton in the middle of these white dunes.
Alaruk's a fairly standard salt desert village with no quirks. Most Salt Desert villages have Isaachari raiders as the main villagers with rarely few variations in demographics between each playthrough. The greatest thing about villages is that they offer unique quests as well as unique recipes which you can access in their communal oven. Salt Desert village recipes tend to use a lot of dawnglider tails and spine fruit which results in the effects of the above recipe. Now, let's have a look at what Qud Fu adds.
Qud Fu bestows upon us the Hand to Hand tree which buffs unarmed combat and combat with natural weapons. When opting into Hand to Hand, players get access to a Combo meter and a Mercy ability. The Mercy ability, when activated, allows you to KO your enemy without killing them if the conditions are met for it. The Combo keeps track of several things required for certain perks to activate in the hand to hand tree. There's four key parts in the Hand to Hand tree:
- Marital Conditioning, a tree that boosts dodge, damage reduction and HP the more we hit our opponent
- Combination Strikes, a tree that boosts penetration, damage and critical chance with every hit
- Martial Forms, a set of stances which offer unique bonuses and drawbacks
- Sure Strikes, an activated ability that allows us to achieve double the penetration value of our weapons.
This is an example of a Sifrah screen. Sifrah adds several minigames to menial tasks in the game such as the water ritual, cybernetic implanatation, tinkering, proselytizing, mental combat and so forth. Succeeding in a Sifrah game offers unique bonuses not seen in vanilla Qud whereas failing leads to unique consequences. In order for a success, players must choose a series of actions across 3 rounds. Each of these actions can contribute to the probability of a success, a partial success or a failure. Sifrah also allows mutants to instal lcybernetics by hacking becoming nooks which I plan to do so. Getting carbide fists is going to be essential for this build given that we are currently standing at a damage die of 1d3.
We go forth into the salt marshes to explore our surroundings and to complete our quests. It's trawling through the numerous lairs of snapjaws that we only realise the benefits of positive snapjaw rep. The huge amount of legendary snapjaws in Qud simply allows us to accumulate reputation like never seen before. We get Bey Lah reputation (important for duel wielding) and equine rep from our interaction with 3 snapjaw legendaries.
The first eater ruin we go to, Ikesh, has two amazing relics on offer as we get both Light Manipulation and Teleportation. Light Manipulation is a mental mutation that is unique due to the fact it ignores DV and has reasonably good damage die and penetration values as you level it up. Teleportation is self-explanatory. It allows us to teleport onto any square within a certain range of our target tile and its accuracy only improves per level. These are really great relics considering this ruin was full of goddamn tumbling pods.
However, we also have personal relics and when combined with Sifrah, it allows us to pretty much create our own relics at will. For instance...
With our build shaping up nicely, we proceed to skip and hop over towards the Six Day Stilt to fufill our quest. This gives us enough levels and mutation points to purchase a new mutation.
[X] - Multiple Legs
[X] - Disintegration
[X] - Teleportation
Alaruk's a fairly standard salt desert village with no quirks. Most Salt Desert villages have Isaachari raiders as the main villagers with rarely few variations in demographics between each playthrough. The greatest thing about villages is that they offer unique quests as well as unique recipes which you can access in their communal oven. Salt Desert village recipes tend to use a lot of dawnglider tails and spine fruit which results in the effects of the above recipe. Now, let's have a look at what Qud Fu adds.
Qud Fu bestows upon us the Hand to Hand tree which buffs unarmed combat and combat with natural weapons. When opting into Hand to Hand, players get access to a Combo meter and a Mercy ability. The Mercy ability, when activated, allows you to KO your enemy without killing them if the conditions are met for it. The Combo keeps track of several things required for certain perks to activate in the hand to hand tree. There's four key parts in the Hand to Hand tree:
- Marital Conditioning, a tree that boosts dodge, damage reduction and HP the more we hit our opponent
- Combination Strikes, a tree that boosts penetration, damage and critical chance with every hit
- Martial Forms, a set of stances which offer unique bonuses and drawbacks
- Sure Strikes, an activated ability that allows us to achieve double the penetration value of our weapons.
This is an example of a Sifrah screen. Sifrah adds several minigames to menial tasks in the game such as the water ritual, cybernetic implanatation, tinkering, proselytizing, mental combat and so forth. Succeeding in a Sifrah game offers unique bonuses not seen in vanilla Qud whereas failing leads to unique consequences. In order for a success, players must choose a series of actions across 3 rounds. Each of these actions can contribute to the probability of a success, a partial success or a failure. Sifrah also allows mutants to instal lcybernetics by hacking becoming nooks which I plan to do so. Getting carbide fists is going to be essential for this build given that we are currently standing at a damage die of 1d3.
We go forth into the salt marshes to explore our surroundings and to complete our quests. It's trawling through the numerous lairs of snapjaws that we only realise the benefits of positive snapjaw rep. The huge amount of legendary snapjaws in Qud simply allows us to accumulate reputation like never seen before. We get Bey Lah reputation (important for duel wielding) and equine rep from our interaction with 3 snapjaw legendaries.
The first eater ruin we go to, Ikesh, has two amazing relics on offer as we get both Light Manipulation and Teleportation. Light Manipulation is a mental mutation that is unique due to the fact it ignores DV and has reasonably good damage die and penetration values as you level it up. Teleportation is self-explanatory. It allows us to teleport onto any square within a certain range of our target tile and its accuracy only improves per level. These are really great relics considering this ruin was full of goddamn tumbling pods.
However, we also have personal relics and when combined with Sifrah, it allows us to pretty much create our own relics at will. For instance...
With our build shaping up nicely, we proceed to skip and hop over towards the Six Day Stilt to fufill our quest. This gives us enough levels and mutation points to purchase a new mutation.
[X] - Multiple Legs
[X] - Disintegration
[X] - Teleportation
... Mmm?
I mean, I don't do it, but "unarmed weapons are technically cudgels with no strength cap" is absolutely a trait that gets (ab)used by builds with sky-high strength. The Carbide (Fullerite, Crysteel) hand bones aren't strictly necessary, either. Same with spiked gauntlets. They're all in base Qud.
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- Location
- Malaysia
It's even advertised as a primary build archetype for True Kin by the devs. Punch-kin builds essentially are a combination of Child of the Hearth (+3 strength) and carbide hand bones. You keep stacking strength to reach extremely high PV.
Hykal94
Orange Estus Kitteh
- Location
- Firelink Shrine
Idk, I'm not good at the game.