A raid-based gameplay overhaul mod for CDDA, inspired by games like Escape from Tarkov and Dark & Darker.

• "Play Now!" will not work. You MUST make a custom character for this.
• You will get a "could not find a good place for this character" warning when you start. This is normal, not a problem.
• The game will take a minute to load when you first set out from the portal. After you reach the ground, expect another shorter pause. This is due to combing large amounts of map data and will be less severe each time.
• Save often because there WILL be bugs and even occasionally crashes at this stage.

This mod attempts to completely change how you play CDDA.

You start off high in the sky on a floating island, and using a warp statue located there, will be teleported to a random location on the earth below to commence a "raid". There, you are on a limited timer of ~24 hours and must fight, loot, and journey your way to the nearby return portal. Use it, and you will bring all the items you were carrying back to the safety of your floating sanctuary, but you will not be able to return to the world you left behind.

Once you warp home, there will be no way to return to the area on the ground you just left. Every trip to the surface is fleeting. As a result you will have no way to keep most vehicles, no need to thoroughly clear most areas, and no reason to preserve anything. This will drastically change how most players approach normally routine scenarios. Remember that only carried items can be brought home -- if something cannot be taken with you or used during the raid, it's junk!

Should you die, your character's story is not over! They will simply return to the island at low health, but everything you had on you will be lost. Recover your strength, gear up from your stash, and head back out.

The better equipped you are, the more likely you will survive, but remember that bringing out too much gear will make it hard to carry much new loot home -- and dying with all that high quality gear means it's gone forever. Balancing what gear you are willing to risk on any excursion is an important consideration.

The eponymous sky island is your sanctuary and home base. You're given a large, magically isolated area you can customize however you want. Stash your items, grow crops, set up solar power, build a base. Anything you like. While here no threats will reach you (except portal storms, but I intend to write protection for those on the island). The only way to get here is by teleporting home from a return portal. The only way to get out is to leave by the warp statue.

As it is exposed to the sky, solar power works here. As it is very high up, expect windy days.

When you're ready to set out, gear up and examine the warp statue. This will send you to a random unexplored area of the map. Nearby, at random, you will also find a location marked in your mission journal: a return portal, your only exit. You must fight your way to the return portal before warp sickness overtakes you, and examine the statue in the mysterious Red Room you find marked on your map (it always spawns in a field). Do this and you complete that excursion -- you will be returned home safely with everything you were carrying. Take this time to organize, rest, and recover, before planning your next mission.

In addition to the return portal, you will also have a location marked for a bonus objective, a warp shard. Warp shards will always be located in a house. Completing this is optional, but you will find a random artifact at the marked house. In later versions of this mod, the rewards will be changed to something more substantial.

In the event an exit did not generate or you otherwise need to get home you have been provided with a personal spell to warp home directly after you have survived for a few hours. This is an alternative, easier way to get home and is mostly to test balance and ensure debugging. It will likely be taken out in later versions.

You have roughly 24 hours to complete your mission and return home. If you overstay your welcome, you will slowly begin to succumb to warp sickness. This progresses in stages, but will quickly sap your stats to the point of helplessness. In its final stages, you will start disintegrating, and must return home or die.

For the first 60 seconds of every raid, you will be under the effect of "warpcloak". This leaves you invisible and immune to fall damage, which should give you just enough time to run for cover in case you were dropped into extreme danger. Don't waste it - act fast!

• You will get a warning when you are 80% of the way towards suffering warp sickness, so this is usually a ~5 hour warning. A good time to get a move on! But even so, remember that you can keep going and try to reach the portal even after getting sick - it will just be harder to do so with lower stats.
• Remember that anything carried or worn is brought home. Since you can wield very bulky items, it might be worth grabbing the biggest thing you can find before coming home. A corpse to butcher, a bundle of planks to build with, an entire engine block. You may not be able to stand up, but if you can hold it, it's coming with you!
• You're expected to die. A lot. Each raid will see you dropped into potential danger, racing the clock to push through hostile and unfamiliar terrain, cut off from home base, and with only the gear on your back. Many factors combine to make this experience harder than normal CDDA, so you will probably die more often. Don't feel bad, just pick yourself up and try again!
• Stockpile multiples! Were you a compulsive hoarder in DDA, always stashing dozens of guns even though you only used one? Well now there's a reason to! Many items you might not have ever needed more than one of can now be in high demand. Most can be left at home, since you can set up a crafting area at base, but backpacks, weapons, clothing, meds, etc. will need to be replaced when lost! Nothing will slow you down like dying once and realizing you don't have any extra shoes in your stash.
• You can spend as long as you want in the safety of your home. Sooner or later you'll need to restock on something, but if you need to take a few days off, no one will bother you.
• You start with a free tent and ten pills which will take you immediately to full health. These pills can ONLY be eaten while on the island (not currently enforced, so hey, you're on the honor system) and will eventually expire. Probably going to be removed in a future version once I figure out balance a little better, but for now, they'll help you out when you fail a raid and don't have the means or the time to recover. Use this grace period to get a decent stockpile of basic supplies going!
• Grab everything you can carry! Any empty space in your pack is wasted. Lots of items you could easily take 20 seconds to step out for in a normal game are now much more inaccessible. Getting things like a pot to cook with, a basic cutting implement, and a warm blanket to sleep with are all invaluable early on.
• Leave in a hurry! Even if a horde is bearing down on you, or you're literally being eaten alive by dogs, touching the return portal will instantly bring you home. No need to make a last stand, sometimes even with hell on your heels it's best to just run for the exit!

Here are some roughly planned features that may or may not be coming!

• Some way to buy or trade for items while in your base. This will especially focus on bulky items that would be hard to bring up otherwise, like boards, steel frames, and so on
• Complete missions to earn "deployable structures" which make base building quicker and easier on your island! This could include small rooms you can instantly create anywhere, all the way up to entire stocked workshops springing up pre-made.
• More varied mission types
• Collectible and unique rewards for completing missions and even just surviving raids
• idk maybe more stuff, i'm open to suggestions

A mod I wanted to play so bad I just made it myself

-TGWeaver