The Desolate OOC [Always Open]

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It's not so bad, some of them update daily, others every two weeks or so.
 
So... What's the situation here?
 
Was more or less waiting to see if anyone else would follow up.
*Jigs.*
 
So, this is a zombie apocolypse roleplay set in modern times? I did a zombie roleplay once, but it was a medieval setting.
 
Mmmore or less. I'd be cautious with the "Z" word. ;3
The basic concept is some sort of hyper-evolved viral disease. But modern period, for sure.

Medieval zombies sound... quite wonderful. xD
 
sorry, sorry sorry! I'm HERE~♫

Mishka's still alive! Very much Alive! :OOOOO (this surprisingly got buried everything and didn't notice)
 
Ok, may I say something? If you don't like constructive criticism, or the chance that your character won't receive praise, don't read the following.
I've looked at several of the characters here, and I'm very... skeptical about a few. Now, I know the need to have all your supplies and everything, but most all of these inventories are... insane. The need for weapons? Sure! Take some good weapons. But the amount of weapons would make you tire very quickly. All those guns and swords and stuff? Sure, they may not weigh much, but you're adding up half a dozen or more.

Now, no offense, but take Mishka's inventory as an example. A shotgun. Alright, cool, I thought. Then, I saw a sniper rifle. Um, a bit heavy.. I continued thinking. Then 2 pistols (Glock & 'Pistol'). Getting a bit overweight on the weapons department. Horde of ammunition. Already quite a bit over the weight department. Then on to... everything else. I'll have to say, your character must be a hulking 6' tall athlete who can benchpress 300 lbs., and squat 500, if you can go running around with all that weight on your back and body. Probably run a mile in half a minute, too.

Now I mean no offense: by no means am I just coming here to beat everyone done. I'm just picking on this Mishka character (Sorry) because of the amount of stuff she had at first sight.

And now let's take Silver's app. I looked through it, kinda thought 'alright, cool character.'

Then I looked at the Inventory, under the spoilers. I have to say the same thing about you as Mishka. Must be a giant, to have all that.


Yes, I know that this is supposed to be an rp, for all fun and stuff, but as I'm trying to change, and as people have told me, having everything isn't fun. My characters have a tendency to be overpowered in the combat department: If you fight my 'Stryker' character, who is a 11' tall Draconian with an unknown name and with a rank as 'Fleet Admiral' in the most powerful space empire around, then yes, you will die.

But all my characters are geared for the short-term. They do not have hordes of supplies. They do not have a giant stockpile of ammunition, in addition to their pistols, rifles, shotguns, swords, and knives. They don't have medicine, or food. They have some water, and they have clothing and packs. But my 'overpowered' characters can simply be starved.

Now you're coming at this as a zombie roleplay, right? I only skimmed through to see if this is something I would be interested in.

There is no point to bind together, and be a group, if you already have 2 people's supplies on one character, with everything that he or she needs. The car is understandable, except 2 months into apocalypse, gasoline will practically disappear from the face of the Earth. So a car wouldn't be efficient, unless you had a BOO [Base of Operations] with your own special biofuel brew.

The fun isn't to have everything and get other people who have everything: it is to have some stuff, and use another character's items to enhance yours. If you have a person who used to be a doctor, loaded down with a good deal of water and medicine, that's a person you'd take in to compliment, say, a warrior, with a shotgun & a service rifle, say, an AR-15. He'd have ammunition and weapons. It'd also compliment a 'carrier' type, with plenty of food, tools, and such.

See what I mean?
 
@The Oddsman Alright, I can see the point you're making. But here's the rebuttal to it (at lease in concern to my character.)

My character is carrying the supplies of two people, she was with someone who was well prepared for this and she took over his gear after he died. (the afore mentioned Adam)

Second: She doesn't carry all of it. She's not strong enough, that's why the majority of it stays in the car. And in this kind of situation, if you pass by a can of food, are you going to leave it on the ground because you already have four cans in the car? No, you're gonna pick it up and add it to the pile. The water is a bit harder to justify, I'll admit, it evaporates or freezes if left in the elements. Unless she comes across something like a river, or water caught in an upended umbrella.

Third: less people, less use of gas, more gas to go around. (or that's how I saw it at the least) Perhaps not all in the same area, but it's around. And she moves around a lot (Or she did). It doesn't mean she'll always find gas, but that's why she keeps a spare five gallons. Cars wouldn't be too hard to steal, (especially from a dealership.) Break into the office grab the keys and play find the one that fits.

Furthermore: In the posts I've made thus far she has three weapons on her: her hammer staff thing, she uses because she can add momentum and gravity to her swings, and the two hatchets. (I used "axe" in the post, but I meant hatchet. anyways) Her bag is empty, because she was going to get a tool kit. (it says in the first post that she didn't have as much as she usually did.) And her hat, which, well, doesn't weigh much.
 
Ah, you may think fuel would be easy to come by. Do you realize how little fuel is actually held outside of gas tanks and the underground tanks that gas stations use? Yes, there would be a good deal of fuel still in those tanks, except you'd have to remove the gas pump [for the lack of electricity], find the pipe that leads down, take out anything blocking it, feed a tube down, and then pump it back up.

Getting fuel from other cars is a bit more plausible, though it would still be unlucky. Local bandit groups [And there will be bandits, no matter what, they're going to be around, vicious, uncaring and doing whatever they have to do to survive] would find the fuel in such tanks easily, and would probably empty out every obvious, half-obvious or hidden stash within a couple months. And 5 fuels won't get you much of anywhere, except maybe to the next town or 2. My pickup runs on 30 or so gallons, and it could probably run 2 weeks without running out of fuel, but I'm running 50 miles every weekday, to and from school.

Water wouldn't be too hard to come by in states where there are many springs. Really, I see no reason to keep traveling around. Where I am, I could load up my pickup with maybe 10 gallons of extra fuel, and run to Houston and back, getting any supplies, fuel, or items needed. Nearby, I know of a pool that's fed by a natural spring: I've watched the water come up like a water hose underwater.


Water wouldn't be much of a problem, except in places like Texas and the drier, more desert-y areas.
Fuel wouldn't be too much of a problem, if in the early stages, but it'd be gone within half a month, I'd say, unless you had stocked up beforehand, and you came across many towns without bandits.
Carrying a large amount of items in a vehicle increases weight: more weight, less gas mileage, and a higher amount of gas use. There's also the problem with roadblocks and traps, so really, a car is just calling for attention. Plus, in a land of the desolate, it'll be breaking down. Anything with high gas mileage is going to be a more fragile car, and would surely break down without a proper mechanic's hand. Anything with lower gas mileage would run for a tank for 3 months or so, and then would slowly decrease, unless a major problem occurred.

Sorry, but I see many flaws.
 
See, the big thing I'm seeing here, is that we have two very different outlooks on what's going on. (No, I'm not going to put this in spoilers)

Big thing number one being ideological beliefs on the value of materials. The Hoarder and The Scavenger. The scavenger prefers to be light, ready to take off in a hurry, chancing starvation for the ability to pick up and leave without having too much to stop them. The Hoarder prefers to have everything around and ready when needed, at the loss of immediate mobility. Both are honestly acceptable choices on how to behave in the situation. Scavengers would likely be better off early on before towns and shops had been cleaned out of supplies, but in the long run they would suffer from fewer resources and higher chances of starvation, whereas Hoarders suffer early on from trying to collect more than they can keep accounted for, but being prepared later on.

Second thing, Oddsman, something you should keep in mind is that this is the first year. That means that while there are some bandit groups, most people are still trying to hold onto their old civilization. They do what they can to survive, but most people would still be wanting to go back to the way things used to be.

Third off, small towns are less effected by outbreaks, and even at a worst case scenario, it would take approximately two to three months for an infection to take over the entire country, probably more than that, quite simply because America loves guns. In my own house, we have three rifles and a shotgun. This means that major points of civilisation would be high priority. Power plants for example would be major points of concern. Gasoline would be rare, but not impossible to find by any means, and maintenance wouldn't be that bad yet.

Finally, regarding carrying capacity and needs, medicine, food, and water are things that are incredibly important. Keep in mind that at the start, aside from my group, everybody was travelling on their own. This means that they have to be self sufficient. If they aren't, then they would die, there is no question about it.

Now, onto weight, averaging out the weapons for say, Mishka. Shotgun's range from 6-8 pounds. A sniper rifle would be a bit heavier at probably 12-15 pounds. Handguns are light, one to two pounds a piece. This is being realistic. Now, ammo would weight you down, it's true, but if you're carrying ten pounds of ammo, you're doing pretty good on ammo. So, max weight, 33 pounds in weapons and ammo. That's not much at all, you don't have to be any heavyweight champion to carry this stuff around, especially if you've been trying to survive for a year, carrying the stuff around. You'd get used to it pretty quickly. Dried meat for food is pretty light, and an average can of food weighs less than a pound a can. So, ten pounds of food. 43 pounds. I carried that much in school supplies when I was in highschool. Water is heavy, but you don't want to carry more than a quart of the stuff on you, so add two more pounds. Then Medicine. If you're carrying five pounds of medical supplies, that's a lot of medical supplies. Fifty pounds. That's a full supply of stuff. You might start out having a hard time training your body to take it at first, but you'd get used to it, especially given the reasons.
 
Woahwoahwoahwoah.

The Hoarder and the Scavenger?
You've got me mistaken.

I'm both.

"Work not from a backpack, but from a base."
-me

Basically speaking, I'd keep a base somewhere, where you have everything you need, and a pack with the bare essentials on your back, and over there, in case you need to run.
 
But your idea of the world would make it so bases are impractical, lack of electricity would make waste buildup a serious hazard, not to mention risk of swarm buildup around the place. Once swarmed, you'd generally be boxed in, and eventually, even with supplies stocked up, you'd run out, or go stir crazy, or just plain crazy. Paranoia builds quickly in such a situation after all. If disease or the undead didn't kill you, eventual madness would.
 
Update: I've been informed that my estimate on a military sniper rifle was way too high. A standard military sniper rifle should weigh approximately five pounds as they're designed to be lightweight for quick carrying.
 
Except military sniper rifles, especially that of a anti-material grade, would be very hard to come by. And, if you had little experience with guns, it would fall in disrepair, like a pistol or a shotgun. Though a shotgun is quite hardy.
 
And sure, there's a good chance you could be surrounded and all that. Except I'm not going to be stupid with where I'd put a base...

You're thinking that I'd have it in a city or somewhere. Hell no. Cities are the worst places to be in an apocalypse, especially that which turns most of the population into walkers, and the other tiny portion into eaten corpses.

Walking through a city will not be by any means peaceful, risky, or dangerous. It'll be suicide.

As it is, like I said, I'd pick somewhere smart. There is a spring near where I live where I'd hole up: it has constant fresh water, and the stream [that is directed into a pool and out] can be used for hydroelectricity. The local wildlife can be used as a food source, as well as nearby towns and farms. The many, many ranches nearby will also provide cattle, which in turn would bring up solar panels for more modern water pumps, windmills pumping out water, and there are plenty of trees nearby for fencing and such. Vines, scavenged, items, and other rope-like materials can be used to make a pulley system for a more orderly shelf-oriented storage system along the side of a cut-into hill. There is also a little building which I could either inhabit, or break up for materials.

There are many things I could do with the land I am at.
 
Nowhere does the character sheet even hint at it being an anti-material rifle however. Mine does, but I'm also the head of an organised crime family. I pretty much had free rein with my starting supplies, and I'm not going to tote around a rifle for every excursion above ground.

A sniper rifle is in all reality, simply a rifle that has been fitted for accuracy at long ranges, and is used for that purpose, and as her character sheet was vague, it is easy to assume that she's using a hunting rifle with a scope. Regarding care, I have an old gunsmithing book somewhere around my room that indicates that firearm care for weapons is typically not that difficult, depending on how frequently they're used, and for what purpose. In the zombie apocalypse where silence is best, firearms aren't quite the highly valued tools that they're treated as in video games and movies. This means that the likelihood of using them frequently enough to do any heavy wear on it is quite low.

Even out in the rural areas though, bunkering down is risky. The undead aren't regarded as staying in places where there isn't a ready food supply. This means that eventually, the horde would leave the city. Also, keep in mind that if it's a spring, that means other people are going to have the same idea. Then you'll end up with a conflict of resources. That's facing off against other people who may or may not be more skilled than you are. Springs also dry out from time to time, and when they do then you're pretty screwed, and even if you're lucky and it doesn't dry up, there is always risk of contamination. You'd have to find a way to filter the water, just in case.

Animal hunting is viable, potentially, but animals don't stick around in an area where they know their numbers are dropping, which means you'd have to go out further and further over time to acquire your prey, unless you began breeding, then you have to keep your animals safe and fed, and that's not even considering whether or not animals can contract or carry the disease.

Back to the pool, do you have the knowledge offhand on how to build a hydroelectric power supply? You wouldn't have access to the internet to look it up anymore after all. You'd also, assuming you knew how, need the materials to build such a thing, just the scrap parts you have around might not be enough. It's a complex process using water to make electricity after all. Solar Panels, and wind turbines aren't exactly the easiest things to work with either.

What you're talking about working with would require months if not years of work to prepare, which you wouldn't have to start with. Those ranchers for instance, given the rural area you are referring to, wouldn't be to keen on you just taking their cattle. You can't forget that you're not the only survivor in your area. You either have to work together, or get rid of them. Working together will still have the resource strain and eventual conflict, and getting rid of them will have more direct conflict. Otherwise, you can pull up stakes and try to move on, but that doesn't seem to be what you have in mind.
 
Out here, everybody would be more or less alive. The towns? Eh, probably would fall, but the ranchers and everything would still be around. And there are already solar panels hooked up: I've gone out and studied it, and it isn't that complicated.

As for the wind turbines, I know where an aging couple lives that make ammunition [taking spent casings and refilling them with an ungodly supply of gunpowder, slugs, and a special glue] out on a ranch similar to mine, where there are wind turbines nearby.

And when I said wind mills, I did not mean the giant electric ones. Just because it's modern day doesn't mean everything I refer to isn't old and outdated, which really bugs me. There is a large difference between 'turbine' and 'mill.'

As for the cattle, my parents know most of the ranchers around here, or my mom does, and my dad makes high-quality carbon-fiber parts. He has many, many tools, and a great deal of knowledge in all that stuff. He puts a car together from nothing but a rusted frame, a few rusty engine pieces, and makes it work again. Reusing a solar panel or tapping into the giant power lines that crisscross the nearby highway would be no problem.

And animal hunting is viable. I'm not stupid, and so are all the hunters. There are plenty of deer and hog in our area, and we have many fields of winterwheat that are planted that deer can be found in great big groups in.

As for hydroelectricity, we have many little motors and things like that, parts that can be used. And while you're thinking converting hydropower into raw energy, you're wrong. By 'hydroelectricity', I mean energy. Sorry. One can use the power generated by pulley systems.

There are plenty of animals to hunt or slaughter for food, there is a very large pool which has a very large amount of clean spring-fed water, so water isn't a problem. There are many trees nearby, as well as raw materials, which would make simply construction easy, so shelter is not a problem. Many people out here are ranchers or hunters, and know how to work and things. There are many weapons that are used out here, and I've laid eyes over half a dozen service rifles, so a wandering group of bandits will not be a problem. We have farmers, so other food sources will not be a problem. Medicine? Plenty of plants, plenty of basic stuff around.

Should I go on?
 
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Eh, I was just debating for the sake of boredom, the initial purpose of the conversation was regarding the weight carrying capacity, not your survival odds. I'll concede to your survival capacity, but stand by what I said regarding weapon and supply weights. Also, I said turbines mostly because saying wind mills repeatedly felt uncreative and that didn't work with the boredom, but I couldn't think of another term but turbine, so yeah... Sorry for the imprecise term. Anyway, It's been fun, but I'm going to watch a movie now, welcome to shoot me a message though if you'd like, I'll try to reply when I finish, or while I'm watching it I suppose if I get bored again.
 
Im interested in this rp but I think everyones too far ahead of me for me to just jump in... Right?
 
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