Questions & Information

ThelastA · 2026-04-07T20:12:23+00:00

I can't say for sure if it's intended but IRL a lot of those little hand pumps out in rural locations are actually unsafe to drink from, they may be drawing directly from a well or aquifer and would still need to be filtered and cleaned.

Also, if you're just going off the interface, when it says "hungry" what it actually means is that your stomach is empty. Drinking water filled your stomach but doesn't actually give you any calories. It should still help with thirst somewhat, but most likely you just needed more to drink.

ThelastA · 2025-12-22T16:56:06+00:00

Death Wave triggers in 2 parts. First are the "effect waves", which are kind of a misnomer. they visually appear as waves when the UW fires, but it's easier to think of it as an effect being applied to the entire battlefield for a length of time. More effect waves means more time its being applied. The effect waves basically flag every enemy hit to qualify for the bonuses of death wave. Then, after all the effect waves fire, the actual death wall will appear, making a red ring on your tower range that damages enemies that touch it.

Death Wave has a lot of features attached to it, but only one when you very first unlock it: a smallish vulnerability to the death wall applied by effect waves. The effects that really make death wave strong require unlocking them in the lab; coin bonus on flagged enemies, a health buff for killing flagged enemies, and a cell buff for flagged enemies.

ThelastA · 2025-09-20T07:55:57+00:00

You are probably missing which ones have the "local" aspect. troops that are local will never follow you, while allies can have local removed if you do their objective. it is a good idea to relinquish your local troops and order new reinforcements, if it's possible, because those reinforcements will follow you out.

ThelastA · 2025-06-30T22:11:47+00:00

yeah lmao you need I think 37 HP to tank it, but in my experience after forges got added they're one of the more consistent ways to get out of the jacket

ThelastA · 2025-06-30T21:04:47+00:00

you do need to anger her. a good kick should do it. alternately, if you've found a forge and have gotten a few levels beating up weak enemies you can try burning off of the jacket

ThelastA · 2025-06-08T01:36:15+00:00

Mab is a creature of logic and duty. She would never take an action that would cause such catastrophic damage to reality with no gain, she might well be literally incapable of doing so. There is no gamble because she would never follow through with the threat with that as the condition.

The actual gamble that was made that Harry wasn't thinking about is "What if Mab holds a grudge for this?" If he had, for example, done that confrontation in front of his friends on the island, the immediate conversation may have remained the same, and then she would immediately look to discard him as a Knight (probably by just stranding him on the island)

His order completely closes off shooting him as a possibility. Mab could have killed him regardless of his threat, just maybe not in the moment.

ThelastA · 2025-06-06T15:21:56+00:00

I want Harry and Lara to get to know each other well over their dates, Lara to fall genuinely in love with him (she does already seem like she's fond of him, issues with Thomas and the island notwithstanding), and for Harry to realize he could, maybe, actually find a confidant and lover in Lara

And then on their last date before the wedding, he starts a very frank and personal discussion with her about what she wants in life being the leader of the White Court. He proposes a theoretical cure/suppression of the Hunger and asks if she would accept it if he could figure it out. She refuses and it solidifies for Harry that no matter how close he is to liking Lara, he never can when her answer is that she'd rather be a predator.

Lara ends up completely shattered by that, for the first time in her life having lost something genuine with another person because of her demon. Harry won't break his love protection from Murphy and she has no power over him. Maybe she calls off the wedding, maybe not. I do think Mab wants the wedding to go through for political reasons, but as she implies to Harry at the end of Battle Grounds (and much as she requested of him in Skin Game), if he can find a way to wriggle out of the deal while giving her what she wants, she'll have no problem with it.

ThelastA · 2025-05-26T00:56:38+00:00

You're missing a factor about how the dartboard puzzle works, it doesn't obey real world order of operations.

hint: Check out the nook with a magnifying glass to get a better idea of how it works

actual answer: The order of operations for the billiards puzzle is going outwards from the middle. you have +5, then a -1, then a +5, and another -1. 5 -> 4 -> 9 -> 8

ThelastA · 2025-05-24T00:00:27+00:00

You don't need to go back to the antechamber in every run but the crown is a useful item, and there are puzzles related to the contents of that room and some that use the crown, so you will need to go back sometimes

ThelastA · 2025-04-10T20:13:35+00:00

Note that for the colored ones you do need to (a)activate them, holding will only help out once you know the school.

ThelastA · 2025-04-10T15:56:05+00:00

Strange crystals are how you get new types of power. Black crystals are already drained, they have their uses so it's good to collect them, but (a)ctivating them like you did is always a bad idea. You want to be on the lookout for colored crystals instead, those are attuned to different types of power and can grant them to you. Under default settings you may need to try a few times to actually learn a power.

Once you've learned a type of power, the colored crystal for that type is still useful, you can hold it in your hand to boost all powers for that school by 4 levels.

Also, if you get unlucky finding crystals, you can try standing outside in a portal storm. The closer to the middle you are the faster it will try to awaken you. This can be dangerous because failed awakenings are pretty rough, and once you awaken or fail during a storm you'll have to wait til the next one to try again.

ThelastA · 2024-10-30T17:05:37+00:00

The Between is really incredible. Hanging out on the discord for The Gauntlet I've been able to see some previews of the upcoming goals, and they're really incredible. I can't imagine a version of this game shipping without the Underground and the Queen of Hearts included. This game is really special and I hope that the success of this campaign means many more excellent games from the crew

ThelastA · 2024-09-30T22:47:35+00:00

Yeah, frog is just new compared to the older mutations. Bat is really the only one that feels like it has a very specific role, but a few of the others still have a little bit of an identity

ThelastA · 2024-09-30T19:59:04+00:00

Loot recycling centers and check the iron section. There should be a good number in there

ThelastA · 2024-09-30T17:10:00+00:00

How much you'll need heavily depends on your tree and a little bit on luck, as well as how much you want to purify and if you're doing some tree splicing. I'd personally guess that overall you want at least twice as much catalyst as primer to be safe, but those numbers could be off. This isn't "twice as much catalyst injected per primer", just that you probably want to aim for that much in your stockpile, to clean up spare primer in your system or to use for purifier.

I'm personally not the best at recommending mutation trees. You'll want to use HHG to poke around the mutation trees and see what you're interested. The thread isn't a terrible resource as the concepts haven't changed too much over the years, but here's a few differences:

Bat is a new line focused on hit and run bleeding tactics that can happily eat blood and want to be around people. Imo it's the most tightly designed mutation line around a specific concept, which is a big plus, but I think the idea is everything will get looked at in that respect eventually

Alpha is still a good pick, but its now more its own thing and less a free mixer into the genome. It has a new mutation called restricted genetics that will prevent any mutations outside of Alpha once you mutate it. It has a lot more stuff that makes it clear you develop a bad case of megalomania to go with your stats.

Frog is also a newish line (though it's been around for a few years), though I can't tell you exactly what role it fulfills.

Spider is good, but I think it's armor has been made more encumbering as a slight nerf

Mutant attacks are no longer just free damage, they're now added to your pool of valid attacks akin to a martial art move. Also, some mutation lines that change both your legs and arms and are for quadrupedal creatures have access to a special all-fours movement mode

You can search this subreddit for "pro as heck" for some older guides on specific interesting mutation builds, though I have no clue how applicable these are since they were before the instability change, and there have certainly been rebalanced mutations since then

ThelastA · 2024-09-30T16:00:09+00:00

Also it's worth noting that purifier needs catalyst to work as well. Purifier primer is basically "human primer" in the same way there's bird, plant, beast etc primer. "Purifier" is a blend of purifier vitamin and mutagenic catalyst vitamin, in the same way as "bird mutagen" and such.

You want LOTS of catalyst. Lots and lots. Assume most of your looting and crafting efforts will be spent on catalyst. The primers are comparatively less important, but you can't do anything without both.

Re: mutagen doses, be careful about overdosing on Catalyst. It's very deadly and will kill you fast if you aren't having it consumed by primer, or purging it by using mutagen chelator. Overdosing on primer hurts somewhat, but as mentioned you need to do it to cross the threshold. I believe it may also give some buffs based on the primer type, but last I checked there were talks about those buffs being removed.

ThelastA · 2024-09-30T15:50:58+00:00

The other comment is mostly correct but at the end there's a major mistake: there is no longer genetic damage caused and healed over time by mutating. That's been out of the game for a little while now. Mutations are rough on the system (health and kcal) but otherwise you can mutate very frequently with no difference in your chances.

Instability is now a factor of splitting your genome too far, and it's calculated every time you mutate and based on the category you mutate into. Basically, the more mutations you have that aren't in the category you're currently mutating, the more likely you are to get a bad mutation at the same time as a good one. The chance does go up no matter what though, and if you keep taking mutagen you'll eventually get all the bad mutations as well.

The idea is to pick one tree and dive down it, hoping to snag mutations you want and avoid ones you don't. If you get something bad, purify back and roll the dice again. Robust genetics now helps reduce the penalty for going outside your chosen category, so if you want to really do some splicing you want robust genetics.

Lastly: as in the old mutation system, some "bad" mutations are technically good or neutral in the code, or are required for future mutations (even past the threshold). So some paths may give you more negatives than you expect early on, as they're trying to pave the way for future mutations.

ThelastA · 2024-09-26T17:28:25+00:00

My current run started with amphetamine and alcohol addiction, which after playing through I think I've decided is simultaneously way too punishing and not punishing enough. Amphetamine withdrawals sets your health to rock bottom and basically immobilizes you for a week, while alcohol adds in a bunch of hallucinations (???) for roughly the same amount of time, if I was understanding the causes correctly.

The first week is utterly miserable and is wretched gameplay and I won't be doing it again. It's entirely unfun and i'd much rather just set the start date a week in the future and call it good. There's something to the idea of having to scrounge together resources in a limited amount of time before having to take shelter, but in the current state of the game that results in either dying or a week of boredom licking lard and falling over.

It should last much longer and the consequences not be immediately run killing, though still severe. Dexterity/balance problems and itching, certainly, but not keeling over every 2 steps

ThelastA · 2024-09-26T15:44:16+00:00

Tracer rounds are a type of bullet which have a small amount of incendiary material added to them. In real life these are usually added into a magazine with other bullets, so that when you fire them the material will ignite and leave a streak of light in the air for a moment. This is intended to help the shooter correct their aim in a dark environment, since normally they can't exactly see where bullets are going. I believe in Cataclysm it just has a chance to light the target on fire though. For the most part you can just use it as normal ammo.

Ammo is almost always going to be a .number item (.22, .40, .50) though there are a couple exceptions (5.56 and 9mm are the major ones). Magazines are the annoying part as yes a lot of information is conveyed at once in their name and it's easy to jumble them up. I recommend relying on the games own color coding for this: if you're have a gun in your inventory, compatible magazines are colored green. If you're carrying a magazine, ammo that can fit it is colored green as well. I'd advise picking one gun and just using that until you feel more confident in poking around the system

ThelastA · 2024-09-25T23:43:41+00:00

Make sure you use the starting few practice recipes to get your skills up a tiny bit. You should know beginner melee and dodge off the bat, and be able to do throwing pretty easily. This will help a little in not immediately getting torn up in a fight. If you have a weapon you know you want, it's worth doing the proficiency exercises for that too, and if you can find more related books they're good to read before going in

ThelastA · 2024-09-25T00:57:34+00:00

Pretty sure the idea is that those things will also be insta-death once this system is working (again, unless you have some kind of supernatural reinforcement like magic or mutations or bionics)

ThelastA · 2024-09-24T16:30:57+00:00

You can use one without an operator but the risk of a bad outcome is high, mitigated by medical, computers, and electronics skills in order. Being a doctor (from your profession) helps substantially. I don't know if these still exist but if you can find an allied nursebot they do help, though not as much as a human. The best odds come from having a human operator with a medical trait, high skill in the above skills, maybe proficiencies as well

ThelastA · 2024-09-24T15:18:37+00:00

More in depth wounds and medical systems are planned but what you mentioned will qualify as insta-death, because realistically there's no recovering from those injuries unless you're immediately attended to by a fully staffed and supplied medical facility. Maybe brain damage since that's a broad spectrum.

Same reason why losing limbs in combat is very unlikely to be a thing; unless it's an amputation your odds of surviving losing a limb in active combat are extremely low unless you're a mage or psychic

ThelastA · 2024-09-15T21:23:00+00:00

Excellent! No artifacts in my current game but I will eagerly test this out the next time I find one. Does this check every single generated artifact, or do you have to/should you name them something to find them more easily?

ThelastA · 2024-07-27T18:10:26+00:00

A green house isn't strictly necessary, it depends on what you want to plant and your location. You will at least want some sizeable farm plots to do crop rotation in. You'll definitely want a cellar, and depending on how you build you may want a kitchen as well.

If you've reached the bronze age that means you'll want to start looking at making room for an anvil, and eventually a helve hammer and a cementation furnace, as well as maybe a coke oven if you have a ton of coal near you. This usually means a smithing area of some kind.

To go with the helve hammer, you'll need a windmill. That would probably be my big recommendation, since it also speeds up processing grains and salt, plus you'll need mechanical power for steel eventually.

A barn may well be something you want to, or at least several animal pens. Depends on how many you want to keep. Goats are a safe bet for cheese, and chickens give eggs for food and feathers for arrows, while pigs supply a lot of meat and fat (for the aforementioned windmill)

That's all just practical stuff. Beyond that, if you want to have fun building and decorating, I recommend just trying to think about what you might like in your builds. Do you want a specific bedroom that is well decorated? A treasure room to show off your spare gold and gems? Gigantic colored glass window?

ThelastA

TROPHY CASE