Making a post to display general hints and tips, feel free to add
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Disassembling ovens and its components is a great way to get some useful material like heating elements and fiber insulation batts
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Subway maintenence rooms, usually past the subway entrance gateways, usually have maintenence maps which you easily find labs by the "subway station?" pin on the map
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Extension cords + Outdoor extensiom cords are useful to wire a building with power without having to worry about building wiring in case you wish to place a electronic device away from a wall or have a building without wiring
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Playing or listening to any musical instrument makes your character happy ( flutes, pianos, mp3 players, stereos, harmonicas, etc)
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If infected by fungus, fungicide can be used as a treatment, just beware of your health
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Wasps can't dodge sprayable insecticide ( goes for dermatiks too)
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Reading memory cards can provide mood boosting items such as pictures to look at, music to listen to or recipes
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Mounted workshops and Kitchens are a great place to store a lot of useful electronics and when connected to an electrical grid removes the need to replace batteries
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NPC camps with a functioning blacksmith can make weapons and armour that you don't have the recipe for such as halberds, broadswords, rapiers, zweihander, cuirass, fire axe, war hammer, Awl Pike etc.
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Npcs can be fed anything as long as it has enjoyability greater than or equal to -6
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Npcs can meet all your food requirements when you've got a good food ration storage system in place
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Npc faction camps can help with streamlining a lot of game functions and depending on type of camp can provide a lot of associated utility ( military outpost and fire house are structurally sound and have limited entry, firewatch towers main section is elevated, pottery cottage last I have seen usually have a below ground basement section)
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Ctrl+ y and Ctrl + o can save you a lot of time in micromanaging tedious tasks and with a camp system have camp npcs do tasks for you
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Shift + 8 has a lot of convience tools and actions such a placing appliances, things such as Stationary Scutcher (which cuts down crafting time on plant fiber work considerably), parkour bars, wall, door and window construction and modification and pit construction to name the more commonly used stuff I use
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Aphids will eat your crops, but produce a useful sugar substitute
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You can ride tame cows, if you are a small mutant such as a mouse you can ride dogs
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Manuals can be saved and stored on a device such as a smart phone and that information can have a back up made with a memory card
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Your character leaves a scent trail and zombies and other creatures can use that to track you, so you can be attacked if you decide to sleep in a city/town basement
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Taking photos of any entity you see can provide you with knowledge of estimated danger, what senses that entity has , their weighted size, what type of creature is it and any notable abilities when viewed through the Shift + 3, Creatures tab. I think the closer the creature is the more information is provide however cannot confirm
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Armour layering is important and sometimes you can reduce encumbrance by changing layering priority, Shift + =
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I always take wallets, they sometimes hold stuff such as scientist cards or visitor passes and you can use an ATM to be the deposit all money into your account and make a really fancy all-you-can-buy cashcard, especially useful for the fancier not-vandalised gunshops which have ammo dispencers where you can buy ammo without making a scene.
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A Grappling hook can be a great tool for escape and exploration, have escaped many a zombie gank by activating it near a building and climbing to safety just beware of climbing/flying creatures and possibility of the roof also being dangerous too... and also of the larger creatures demolishing the building too
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Shift + x to peek and peeking allows you to throw things from relative safety
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Shift + X and Shift + . Or Shift + , allows you to peek up and down stairs respectively
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% armour coverage can be just as or more important that big armour numbers as attacks have a chance to hit areas of armour that isn't well protected and certain enemies seem to have a higher changer to hit generally less armoured parts I have noticed
There is probably so much more but it is not coming to me or I don't know and please note this information is more from experience and reading here and there so if there is any mistakes or inconsistencies or even changes feel free to correct them or contribute to the knowledge
Hope the great wall text is helpful
It's helpful! I'm going to add some bricks to your wall.
This is all from experimental, I don't play stable.
Can confirm on large water purifier, use it in my base, placed it and plugged it in and have instant ( no sure if intentional) water purification. Have all the tools on an electric grid is incredibly convienent.
Thanks for the confirmation.
Re: Wind turbines...do you know if it's possible to hook into the big ones that are auto-generated on the map? Or are they basically decorative? And is the only way to get base turbines by constructing them yourself, or do they exist somewhere to grab?
Update: Been to a Wind Turbine building, no power that I can see, but a boatload of broken generators so a good disassembly for parts if nothing else
Not sure on the big ones I doubt it or I haven't tried it out to confirm - I think they are decorative though,
I usually build most of my stuff, I haven't found or recall finding any wind generators. If you are looking for already built electric generation if you go to open sewer work sites or construction sites you can sometimes find portable generators that require gasoline
Good electric generation if you can keep it topped up
I mostly go with solar power these days, but in the past built wind turbines.
It's too bad we can't build a base or something around the big ones. The allure of "easy power" would be offset by the work of carting all your other base-parts over to it to build walls and such with.
Can only imagine the nightmare of a wandering horde and a hulk "hulk smash" a structural wall
I know if you can safely detach and not irradiate yourself to death you could hook up a sterling nuclear generator for near limitless power, not sure on the power flow though
The reactor that horribly irradiated my last character had 8 of them.
I think they removed them from military outposts, but I once built in one before and it had a reactor that needed a very skilled npc with the right gear and equipment to restart the it and provide all the electrical power I needed
Once, a few years ago, I managed to find something nuclear deep in a lab. I think some sort of ammo or shell? So I put it in my inventory and carried it upstairs.
What I didn't know was that it was very much leaking radiation the whole time, and even when I finally realized the thing that was making me sick was the "nuclear ammo" I was carrying, it was too late. I'd already been too irradiated, and no matter how I save-scummed I died.
I'm super-paranoid now about things like the atomic coffeemaker and atomic lamp. I make extra-sure they're not cracked or damaged somehow.
So in defiance of the fate of my last character, I found another nuclear reactor and in a show of dominance took down the 8 reactors and now building a vehicle with 6 of them and the other 2 for base generation.
Not sure of the rads as I made doubly sure not to horribly irradiate myself - anti-radiation gear and constant rad checks to make sure.
Power is good, 130 W constant per generator which is better than Advanced Solar Panels which is 100W and it is constant and would probably last until the cataclysm engulfs the world or if I run into some reactor damage.
So it is a great energy source but it is an energy source you need to constantly have in the back of your mind to use in case something damages it.