Part 1/2 (about game setup) was here.

I will focus on getting you moving and avoiding getting killed. Once you are in the evac shelter, look for first aid kits in the basement and start cautiously exploring far and wide, filling your map. Be patient! Loot and strike when a safe(ish) opportunity presents itself. Things like food, tools etc. can be usually found somewhere. (This is a different approach from focusing on the crafting “tech tree” and developing in your base, which is also a viable strategy.)

As previously, I avoid spoiling specific locations, monsters, lore etc., and trust that commenters wiil do the same. For many aspects of the game I use the rule of thumb: if I think you can figure it out by yourself or have fun not knowing it, I try not to reveal it. The main things I try to spare the reader is being completely lost about the interface and wondering “is this thing from real life reflected in the game and how”, that is, fighting quirks of the simulation. Of course there is a lot of my opinion involved on this.

Stages of the game, approximately

It is fun to have complete freedom and not be badgered to do anything it particular, but not all people like the Cataclysm’s nature of a game with no set “victory state”. So here’s a taste of what your development in game could look like based on my experiences. This assumes you are focusing on getting powerful, though of course you can have more interesting roleplay motivations.

• The wandering stage, before you have a car and possibly even a safe place to sleep. Focus on getting some food, drink (but don’t carry excessive amounts of those), a backpack or a large bag, a serviceable weapon and tools (the useful ones are described by the game as having a (number) (X)-ing quality). This search should also give you an initial idea of what locations are available.
• The breakout stage, when you do have a base with stockpiles and a vehicle to move around faster and more safely. At this point you develop your skills by reading and crafting, move towards more complex projects and conduct city operations to get to things like guns, rare books, armor, possibly specialized machinery.
• The ascended stage (to borrow a NetHack term), when you can take on and explore really dangerous areas, and can get into… modifying yourself in various ways if you want. Though in modern Cataclysm DDA/BN you can also inquire NPCs in non-player faction camps about these things.

Personally I treat fully exploring and looting a laboratory as “winning” the game, which has some grounding in old CDDA lore and player tradition. But as I said, the ascended character can also begin a more interesting career, when you can explore all the scary areas and have some chance of staying alive. It is one of reasons for not getting spoiled about the game too much, though given how poorly everything is documented there are surprises waiting for you regardless.

A slightly different approach to the game is seeing if you can survive to the winter and beyond. There are many considerations there you may not be that worried about in a pure ascension game (consistent dangerous temperatures, pre-Cataclysm food completely spoiled, fully finished monster evolution everywhere if you haven’t changed the world settings). I don’t have experience with this, but I would keep the season length in the world in the 30-60 days range as I said in the part 1, so you do have time but don’t get bored.

Key screens in the UI

Here is a quick rundown with their main uses. These are roughly in the order of how frequently I use them.

• the basic farlook (x or ; - semicolon). Pay some attention to the special information, like movement costs and bright/dark status (compare the section on combat tactics). Here and in the overmap use “f” to toggle fast scrolling, useful when you’re not using mouse. Z/z to control zoom works mostly everywhere.
• V: see all items visible to you, with descriptions; cycle to the list of enemies with Tab (more remarks in the section on movement). This menu is life. But some items (hidden in desks, car trunks, boxes etc.) won’t be visible unless you’re right next to them.
• /: advanced inventory management, used to efficiently pick up things and move them around. Read all about it on the wiki. Will warn you from stealing from NPC factions. The other slash, \, is for entering the hauling mode, when you want to move big stashes through large distances.
• With “e” in inventory (Enter in the “i” menu in Bright Nights) you can look at detailed descriptions of items, their qualities, what they do etc.
• e on the main map: officially to “examine” close tiles, but actually used to climb fences, tear down window curtains when they’re in use, buy from vending machines and many more.
• ": movement mode. The modes (run, walk, crouch) are mostly self-explanatory. Running drains your stamina really fast (and doesn’t make gameplay any faster for you). Compare the combat tactics section.
• | (Shift+\ on US keyboard): wait. “Wait until you catch your breath” is the first thing you should do after decreasing your stamina.
• M: overmap. Use W here for fast travel (can be dangerous but is done in implicit safe mode). This also works when driving.
• U: unload: ammo, magazines, batteries: these things are good to collect (use “r” to reload them into something else). Also used to pour away liquids, and empty containers like backpacks etc.
• +: assess your heat comfort, encumbrance by body part and to some extent armor class (referred to as protection). You can read about effects of encumbrance in the @ menu. With left/right arrows you can cycle through your body parts. A more obscure use is to change the layering: grab and drop items with Enter, move with up/down arrows. The same method is also used for UI sections in the { sidebar config (see below).
• E: eat, drink (when hungry or thirsty); apply bandages and antiseptic to heal quicker (you also benefit from sleeping and staying on comfortable furniture).
• (: disassembly. Many items are decomposable: for example you can get rags from sheets, thread from rags etc. You get a lot of raw material for crafting from this.

Many of the interaction menus let you use all the items in your inventory and the neighboring map tiles. Crafting uses all materials that are available to you within a larger perimeter.

Especially while you are learning the game, it is good to hit “a”, “U”, “(” every now and then, to see what actions are available to you.

More situationally useful menus:

• v: see why you are feeling like garbage as a character and act slower.
• *: construct/deconstruct. You can build whole buildings from there, but it is often useful for building vehicles (like primitive ones to train mechanics) and deconstructing appliances. In newer versions the latter turns them into draggable items, and you have to go through the ( menu afterwards to get the raw materials.
• }: configure the sidebar interface.

The core complex menus: character sheet and crafting

After starting the game take some time to explore your character sheet (the @ menu). Move with Tab between different sections. The game can tell you a lot about its different mechanics here. You don’t have to absorb all this information, just know that these subsystems are there. Check back every now and then to see what changes and to learn something more.

One thing that you can do here is to block progress on some skills to protect your Focus (link to wiki). Select the skill and press Enter to toggle. It is commonly done with Driving or Vehicles (depending on the version) once it reaches 2-3 or so.

Another big rabbit hole screen is Crafting (the & menu). Read the help text at the bottom of the screen carefully, since there are many features to aid you in using this system. The "f"ilter search facility is very powerful. You will often want to search by item quality (to craft things you need for other recipes…), by primary skill (crafting things that require exactly your current skill level will also train it) or proficiency (which is an additional system in DDA parallel to skills), by component (to check what some materials may be good for). These can be combined. For example, p:fabr, c:plank will search for recipes using fabrication skill and planks as a component.

Don’t give up easily. If you don’t have a component, check if you can craft it first. The & screen will “know” about recipes that your character memorized or has books handy that contain them. To get a fuller view of what’s possible, you can use online tools like the older chezzo item explorer, which might be more correct for Bright Nights in some points, or the Hitchhiker Guide that’s supposed to be more up to date for DDA.

A very basic life-or-death recipe is clean water, which is contrary to normal water is safe to drink. In DDA you can also leave a non-melting container with water on fire, and it will boil (clean) without the need of using the crafting menu.

Movement, safe mode, farlook & aggro

The safe mode lets you (with some caveats) to just hold the movement key until something interesting happens, in contrast to some other roguelikes. When an enemy appears you don’t have to turn off the safe mode outright with the “!” command. As the game tells you, you can just acknowledge the fresh batch of monsters, for now, with the ’ (apostrophe) key. You will get warned again when they are about to notice you or dangerously close. I try to use this functionality instead of turning off safe mode, unless it’s too crowded to actually matter.

Safe mode doesn’t apply when you are driving a vehicle. Note that this doesn’t necessarily mean you are “safe”: you can be on a bike and be possibly getting driveby attacks, you can have busted car doors and windshields, monsters jumping inside etc. Sometimes you want to use “let go of the controls” options in these situations: the car will be cruising forward while you fighting or doing something else. This can be a fast ticket to a crash and death by the way.

As I said above, the “V” menu is important for tracking the enemies that are around. You can see here the distance at which they are from you. With time you will learn at which distance you get noticed by zombies and other monsters.

Notice that there’s a difference between Hostile/Tracking/Ignoring status of a creature in the V menu and whether it is “aware of your presence” (often indicated by an exclamation mark in tilesets). Monsters can be “Hostile”, but as long as you can make sure they don’t notice you (or at least don’t get to attack you) it’s often best to leave them alone. On the other hand, things that are Tracking can decide to turn Hostile.

Behavior of wildlife is a little erratic: they can appear to be “Tracking” you and turn “Hostile” when close to you, then give up after landing a hit or if you manage to get farther away from them.

Darkness is useful, though the tilesets can “lie” to you a little about the exact darkness status of specific tiles. What you should trust is what you can see with the farlook command (; and x), which will tell you about bright, dark, very dark etc. status. Of course you are harder to notice when in darkness, at least for regular zombies. I think you will not notice creatures that are in “very dark” places.

You can peek from from beyond corners, windows, doors and such with the “X” command.

Monsters can also smell you, though newest DDA versions are more lenient with how dangerous it is in the early game.

Basic combat tactics

There is no advantage in Cataclysm from fighting anything, except marginally. You won’t advance in anything except fighting skills, and the most valuable loot is usually not carried by enemies. It’s usually preferable not to provoke monsters at all, leave them stuck somewhere or outwalk them (in that order). Pick up easy kills where you are certain you won’t get any damage and no one will interrupt you. Otherwise fight only when it is the tactical necessity.

On the topic of standard roguelike tactics, remember you have all the time in the world for deciding on your next move. Don’t let your emotions guide you here. In Cata there’s generally no one turn (or ever three turns) “escape items”. You have to avoid dangerous situations long before you get into them. Steer clear of danger and hide. Be opportunistic.

Of course a late game Ubermensch can be a little more adventurous. But even then, there are times when your plans break down and you need to shamelessly run away. Lose the enemy on a different elevation level (called z-level), in a building or in a forest (basically so they are farther away and can’t see you). Or maybe you can just drive away in your car.

Of course you need to fight a little bit to advance in relevant skills, but do it when you’re in control of the situation. You can start by engaging in some cheesy “fights” with fish and more helpless kinds of wildlife, though they’re usually able to flee. (This isn’t really needed in most situations.)

Try to remember what tiles have very high (400: car interiors, shrubs), high (200-250: boulders, brushes, furniture), slightly higher (150: high grass) movement cost. Check this with farlook. The idea is to move cheaply yourself (enter the run mode for short bursts when strictly needed) and hopefully make enemies move through expensive tiles. That way you can leave them behind and/or get some “free” hits, though even zombies got a little wiser with their pathing (there’s a random element to it). You can get an idea of speed of a monster by looking at it with V or farlook.

If you have some time but are awaiting zombie company, you can (G)rab one tile furniture and rearrange chairs and such randomly to give monsters more opportunity for stupid pathing.

Let them come to you. Do not advance unless there is some grander plan in it. You can lure zombies by making them see you, or by making noises (smash ground, windows, furniture, yell with “C”). Some actions are louder than others: you can see that on the Sound indicator on the sidebar. Example cautious tactic: (s)mash the locked door once and move to a better position. Maybe there’s someone on the other side to bash it fully down for you.

Firearms can be useful, but be aware that they are very noisy, and changing what you are wielding (like from a pistol to you melee weapon), reloading etc. all takes precious time. The range isn’t often that great. Try to go into (f)iring mode before anything comes to you and see how far you can move the cursor. Yup. I usually prefer to aim tick by tick (with “.” - the period/dot key) and fire when the odds are maxed out to the “precise” level or the enemy is 1-2 tiles away (at which point it’s often time to change tactic). Fire with auto (p)recise aiming etc. only when certain that nothing will surprise you in those seconds consumed by that action.

Especially in early game you can get some mileage from (t)hrowing rocks, knives and other items at enemies. Do the same with explosives, but those you have to (a)ctivate first.

Above all watch your stamina and pain level closely! These are your “real” HP in a way, the health bars are secondary. Before these levels actually become dangerous you should be already retreating in a safe direction. Again, note that you can and should run in short bursts to save stamina, and take breaks whenever possible.

Melee weapons

Cataclysm has a pretty deep melee weapon system for its setting. Most of the considerations below you don’t have to always take into account, but they can be useful to know when you are doing bad and wondering why. I wasn’t able to hunt down completely trustworthy sources on this, so I’m basing this section on item descriptions you can read in-game and partly hearsay and my observations.

• The damage types (cutting, bashing, piercing) are related to skills (raise them to have a better chance of hitting) but also how they treat armor. Anecdotally I see myself switching to a weapon with a bashing element when a cutting weapon has issues with penetrating armor. According to an old wiki article, bashing has limited raw damage potential though.
• The lower moves per attack, the better: the enemies are able to sneak in less of their own actions in between your attacks and moves.
• Stamina cost. Heavy weapons just make you tired fast when you’re using them.
• Critical hits chance and damage. Arrows in archery hit based pretty much based on their critical hits as far as I remember, and their “base” hits are mostly useless. For melee weapons it is less crucial, at least in the early game.
• The “flimsy” or “well-made” remarks in the item description are important (if an item is neither flimsy or well-made, it’s somewhere in between). Some weapons you can (and probably should) craft early game to help you will also break down pretty quickly with use, so keep backups and spares. Well-made stuff is obviously the best.
• “Techniques while wielded” section. These make some weapons better. There are even more techniques when you know martial arts (the “_” menu) and have a weapon compatible with them.

Some higher-level tactics

• For extra-dangerous enemies that can gang up on you and surprise you, look into Molotov cocktails. Explosives in general (under Weapons in the crafting menu) are useful for sticky situations and crowd control. Just be aware that many of them are shrapnel-based, i.e. not really useful for blowing up walls and such. Shrapnels can be deadly to yourself as well, so hide!
• Arson. Mindless creatures are happy to run into fire when they have nothing better to do. Houses in game burn pretty well and with a lot of noise, if given some time. Vehicle fires are rather pitiful, hard to sustain. Forest fires take forever, but can be kinda viable in some situations.
• You can make traps (and think of fire as a kind of a trap) and use the “naturally” occuring ones, like craters, pits, barbed wire, minefields…
• Reality bubble. I think it is ok to be spoiled about this, because it is crucial to your tactics and a completely non-simulationist implementation detail. Only stuff that is around three overmap tiles around you (circa 150 small tiles) is actually simulated for fires burning, monsters moving, fuel leaking and most other happenings. Notably food spoilage and solar panels working are excluded. Plan accordingly.
• Monster infighting. Not everything likes zombies, as you’ll notice. You often want to introduce (i.e. lure) different factions to one another so they can have some fun together.

Sleepy times

Make sure the survivor is getting some sleep. Don’t get into dangerous situations when Tired, or (in DDA) Lightly Weary or worse. To sleep, find a bed, or at least a chair, or a sleepbag (deploy it on the ground), and press $. If you have trouble sleeping (do at least try a couple of times, make sure you are in the dark, ( c )lose doors and curtains etc.), exhausting physical labor might help: digging holes, trying to smash down sturdy walls with heavy tools (be outside of a building, and choose one you don’t care about), felling down trees, some physically taxing crafting recipes. I think that exhaustion helps, but I’m not 100% sure. As in real life, avoid stimulants before trying to sleep. There is also cough syrup to make you Tired, although nowadays you usually find the non-sleepy kind.

For dealing with noises, craft a noise-cancelling headger or find an equivalent item. But prefer finding a less noisy place to sleep, because you might not hear something coming to hurt you.

With more game experience and assessment of your situation and strategy, you may want to decide if you want to have your character awake during the day or night. Manipulate the circadian rythm accordingly.

Assorted other hints and tips

• Among things to get hold of are a rubber hose (from a garden, (s)mashed fridge, or deconstructed large fire extnguisher) to transfer fuel from and to vehicles, and maybe implements useful for (B)utchery: a long rope (craftable from short ropes, like car seatbelts, or threads: though the latter may be too time consuming to be worth it) and a leather tarp or similar.
• Read about driving on the wiki to learn about interacting with vehicles. To start driving, you have to be in the driver’s seat and press ^ (Shift+6 on US keyboard). To perform mechanics or examine, you can stand anywhere next to the car and press “e”. There you can move between the tiles forming the vehicle and perform on them various actions displayed on top. Somewhere here you can find out why the car won’t start: it is moderately rare to find one that is fully driveable with no work on it needed.
• You can assign a key in controls to the journal function. Here you can do your roleplay journaling if you want, and take useful notes on things you left in your base, so you know what to prioritize when looting. These can be books, guns, ammo (so you can match one to another), heavy tools. Completely optional, can be useful for some people.
• Learning about types of guns and ammo can be frustrating, even the in-game help FAQ has a (somewhat useful) section on this. The good news is that it isn’t all that important to worry about firearms while you are figuring out the basics. Guns are color-coded green in inventory when you have more ammunition for them (and, I think, the magazines to put it in if the gun requires it). Read the item descriptions. If you really can’t stand it, there is a built-in mod called “simplified guns” or similar that you can choose when creating a world.
• Carrying a watch (the diver kind is the best?), a smartphone and some other things gives you more information in the interface. This includes calories intake in game versions and settings where this is relevant.
• (s)mash small trees to get long sticks and such when you need them. Planks, nails etc. are obtainable from smashing furniture, though in newest DDA it’s made more complicated. Watch your stamina while being a smashing person.
• Terrain is more visible from up high.
• Recently we had an interesting conversation with another Lemmy user where he shared his procedure for dealing with handsy NPCs. You can try to fall back to this when neeeded: I personally find NPC interaction very game’y (not very solvable with real life common sense) and undependable at the same time. I know some people find real life human interaction to be similar, so maybe this is intended to be accurate in a twisted way?
• Don’t get too hung up on what is “optimal” if it becomes boring. Have fun. Embrace death for a different char build, or cheat it with alt-f4, even if it doesn’t make you a proper hardcore player right away. Don’t speak too loudly about fun strats in official DDA spaces, because someone might notice and patch them out (joking).

Thank you for reading! As previously, questions and suggestions are welcome. If you want to reuse this guide somewhere (part 1 and/or 2 or fragments), I release it as CC-BY tumulus_scrolls.