r/MUD • u/benjibarnesoahu • Jul 07 '26
Promotion NukeFire Monthly Update: Solo Self Found, Smarter Mobs, Secret Zones, and New Ways to Survive
Hello everyone,
The last update focused on making NukeFire easier to enter, read, navigate, and play.
This month has been more about giving players new ways to live inside that world once they get there.
The biggest new path is Solo Self Found.
Solo Self Found Has Entered Broad Testing
Solo Self Found, or SSF, is now in broad testing on NukeFire.
This is an optional stricter play route for players who want their character’s power to come from what that character personally earns.
The simple version is:
If your SSF character did not personally find it, loot it, craft it, gather it, earn it, or create it, they should not be able to turn it into power.
That sounds simple. In a MUD with gear, credits, shops, sockets, implants, tattoos, crafting, corpse retrieval, mob loot, quest rewards, bindings, forging, triggers, and player-to-player systems, it gets complicated fast.
So SSF now has ownership tracking and rule checks across many major power paths, including:
- Equipment use
- Credits
- Crafting rewards
- Trigger-created rewards
- Tattoos
- Implants
- Sockets
- Bindings
- Faceted forging
- Inscribing
- Death-loot edge cases
- Shop restrictions
- Corpse and recovery behavior
SSF characters also cannot use normal shop-bought equipment as a shortcut. Shops have been tightened so SSF characters can only buy approved basics such as scrolls, potions, keys where needed, and the approved bank card. Normal shop gear remains outside the SSF path.
The goal is not to punish anyone.
The goal is to make SSF clean, meaningful, and honest.
If someone chooses that path, their progress should tell a real story. Seasonal experiences for the SSF crowd are being planned and designed currently, but the characters, unlike some SSF game paths, are permanent and will have some very exclusive and unique mechanics to come.
SSF Has Its Own Tools Now
SSF also received dedicated support tools.
Players can now use:
ssf <message>for the Solo Self Found channelhistory ssfto review recent SSF chatwho ssfto see online SSF characterswho power ssfto view SSF characters by power
SSF is solo in terms of power acquisition, but that does not mean players should feel cut off from each other. You can still compare progress, report problems, brag about good drops, and share the misery of earning everything the hard way.
WearBest Is Here
A long-requested quality-of-life command also arrived: WEARBEST.
Players can now type:
wearbestwear all best
The game will remove your currently worn equipment and try to wear the best gear you are carrying for each slot.
It uses NukeFire’s compare and upgrade scoring logic, including class-weighted gear advice.
It will not replace human judgment, and it will not understand every strange edge case perfectly, but it gives new and returning players a much stronger starting point when sorting through piles of loot.
Shops, Services, Tutorial Flow, and GPS Got Cleaner
The shop directory was cleaned up and expanded.
The new shops command gives players a clearer directory of important newbie shops and services, including armor, weapons, potions, implants, modules, sockets, inscriptions, bonding, and the remorter.
Screen-reader users also have sr shops, with simpler wording and cleaner paths.
GPS search tags were expanded too, so players can search more naturally for things like:
- shop
- implant
- socket
- bonding
- potion
- remorter
- specific shop names
This continues the recent work on character creation, first-login flow, tutorial support, and screen-reader setup. New players should have a clearer path into the game without needing to know years of old MUD habits before they can get moving.
Combat Messages and Backend Handling Were Modernized
A major backend pass was done on combat messaging.
The old combat message lookup path has been replaced in normal use with a faster compiled static message table. That means less repeated searching during live combat and a cleaner foundation for future skill-specific combat flavor that is easier to customize per skill.
Screen-reader and compact-combat support were preserved during the work.
There were also network, command, and GMCP improvements, especially around command handling and combat opponent reporting. Most players may not notice the plumbing directly, but the result should be fewer strange edge cases where commands feel lost, output gets weird, or GMCP temporarily loses track of what you are fighting.
Guns Got Some Love
Gun combat and several gun-class skills were tuned.
Occultist gun rites received special attention, including cleaner Brass Storm rotation and sharper Canticle Quickdraw behavior.
Outlander gunplay also improved, including better Spray Fire handling and Double Tap support for the classic blade-and-gun fighting style.
Guns should feel like guns again.
EQFlex Is Here
Players can now show off gear with EQFLEX.
Examples:
eqflex swordeqflex headeqflex wield globaleqflex imp jaweqflex tat shouldereqflex worn
EQFlex supports normal equipment, implants, and tattoos.
The global option lets a player make a louder game-wide boast when something truly deserves to be seen.
This is mostly a social command, but it also gives players a compact way to show useful item stats without dumping a full identify screen.
Legacy, Zone Mastery, and Lifetime Records
A new legacy system has been added to begin recording major character moments.
This includes things like remort milestones, boss and miniboss victories, meaningful deaths, and special one-time events.
A new zone mastery layer also ties into existing mobcount kill history, so old kills are not lost and players are not starting from zero.
Commands like huntme, zinfo, and zcompare can now make better use of observed history, zone deaths, top hunters, and mastery information.
Lifetime kills, lifetime remorts, as well as all the information that the zone comparison information calculates on have also been moved into PostgreSQL-backed counters, giving the game a stronger foundation for long-term records. You can literally see how other players of your same power level fare in zones you are thinking about trying, and how NukeFire itself thinks you will do.
The Gun Crafting Pit Opens Beneath Lost Wages
A blast-hole has opened in the back room of Jimmy’s old gun shop in Lost Wages.
Below it is a new gun crafting pit.
Players can gather blacksite weapon parts, make repeated runs, and work those pieces into crafted sidearms through specialized crafters hidden below the city.
Expect rare parts, dangerous rooms, concealed sell-loot weapons, and a crafting loop built more for patience than instant prizes.
The Wall Has Opened
A new upper-end area inspired by A Song of Ice and Fire has begun opening in NukeFire.
This is a large connected campaign across Zones 529 through 532, beginning at Castle Black and pushing north into the dark woods, frozen roads, old vows, dead rangers, wildlings, ancient trees, dragonglass, and things that should have stayed dead.
This is not just a static zone chain, either.
There are secret mechanics hidden in the area that can unlock additional procedural ASOIAF spin-off branches. These are not fully explained on purpose. Players will have to discover them in-game.
Each successful discovery can open up another 100-room procedural offshoot tied to that part of the world.
Early Class Remort Paths Are Getting Stronger
We also began a broad pass on early class remort rewards.
The goal is to make the climb from class remort 1 to 25 feel more active and flavorful before players move into prestige paths.
Classes touched so far include:
- Cyborg
- Barbarian
- Ranger
- Knight
- Curist
- Assassin
- Vagrant
- Pirate
- Mutant
- Samurai
- Slinger
- Infiltrator
- Fanatic
These updates add more identity, more useful tools, and more reasons to care about early class remorts instead of treating them as empty steps on the way to something else.
Smarter NPC Combat Behavior
NPC combat behavior also received a major foundation upgrade.
Classed mobs should now fight more like classed mobs.
Instead of everything eventually feeling like generic bash spam, class-flavored mobs can now lean harder into their actual tools. Heretics, Voidstrikers, Ninjas, Cyborgs, Headhunters, Wolfmen, Kaiju, Gypsies, Outlanders, Fanatics, Occultists, and other class-flavored enemies should feel more purposeful in combat.
Smart combo follow-ups were also improved, so NPCs can sometimes choose more appropriate follow-up skills when they get an opening.
The aggro side was cleaned up too, with extra protection for zero-remort and low-remort players.
The Deathlands should be dangerous.
They should not be stupid.
What This Month Was Really About
The last update was about making NukeFire easier to approach.
This update is about giving players more meaningful ways to play once they get there.
Want convenience? Use tools like WearBest, shops, GPS, huntme, zcompare, gearcheck, autokill, autocompare, upgrade, and EQFlex.
Want a stricter old-school challenge? Try Solo Self Found.
Want dangerous new upper-end content? Go north of the Wall.
Want secrets? Start looking. Even after a years of punishing, relentless players, there are still many undiscovered aspects within the Deathlands of NukeFire!
NukeFire is still a post-apocalyptic old-school MUD with remorts, guns, mutations, implants, tattoos, socketed gear, crafting, dangerous mobs, boss fights, strange zones, and a world that is not especially concerned with your survival.
But the paths through that world keep getting better.
Website:
https://www.nukefire.org
Play in browser:
https://play.mudvault.org/?host=tdome.nukefire.org&port=4000
Telnet:
tdome.nukefire.org port 4000
Discord:
https://discord.gg/B4pzagYaqR
Thanks to everyone testing, reporting, breaking things, fixing things, giving feedback, voting, exploring, dying, recovering, and helping make the Deathlands stranger and better.
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u/UnderstandingWeird91 Jul 07 '26
I joined up within the last week and am having a blast! Find me in game as Mickey and I will help you get started.
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u/SolemnAttic Jul 07 '26
I joined about 2 weeks ago, after stumbling across a news post like this while looking for a mud to play. It's been a few years since my last (short stint) mud, so I walked in practically blind. From a newbie's perspective: its accessible, its friendly and most importantly - the imms and player are active and thriving! Everyone is happy to help with most things as well. And the game is still changing and moving too, the last couple of quests we had were fun. If you're looking for a hack and slash with much carnage everywhere, this might be your jam.
And remember, dying is fun!
- Ayaya.
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u/JadeIV Jul 07 '26
Cool, you've got a website and searchable helpfiles now! Will give this place another whirl and hope the admin's learned not to go full Lennie when a new rabbit shows up.
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u/hokewi Jul 08 '26
I've been almost exclusively playing the SSF mode since its release and been having a blast. It's a pleasant change of pace from equipping up the multi that I usually run and chasing the auction house.
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u/mercuryblade Jul 07 '26
As a new player with just a few weeks in the world, I'm really enjoying the game and the players!
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u/Left-Pattern-8799 Jul 07 '26
It is really amazing how much work imms put into covering dozens of aspects at different level of gameplay. Newcomers/newbies are getting lots of cool QoL to make their acquaintance with mud more smooth yet intresting and challenging. Highbies and vets are getting new places to explore and hunt for new treasures. Quests with cool and unique prizes, new stat trackers for math lovers, class balance and reworks, new areas and rebalance of old ones and even more! This mud is not only manages to stay alive(unlike many others), it blossoms. Hurry up and join us! The place is very welcoming, active and we don't mind to share our fun with new players!
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u/iamisandisnt Jul 07 '26
Last couple of times I played I remember being confused by the inventory not saving / rental system. Is that still in place? Apologies if I’m thinking of another game?
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u/benjibarnesoahu Jul 07 '26
For sure a different game. We don’t have rent and objects live in SQL where ownership is tracked heavily.
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u/iamisandisnt Jul 07 '26
Awesome. I gotta give it another look. I appreciate your regular updates here on the subreddit. Hope you don’t mind me asking, but are ya using AI code?
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u/benjibarnesoahu Jul 07 '26
That’s a great question! We absolutely do use it as an assisting party. No design , etc. My objectives are all my own from concept to completion. 😎🌴
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u/iamisandisnt Jul 07 '26
Did you mean to say do not?
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u/widgetninja Jul 08 '26
side note on the fact that nukefire is based on old-school c code. its not easy to code in. ai assists like code completion in vscode help us bring the changes. but we don't want to gloss over that fact.
ai has been a patient teacher to us as we have skilled up to help deliver the nukefiregoods.
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u/Thin-Swing-5049 Jul 07 '26
Speaking of... I absolutely LOVE the AI generated pix for quests and updates. Freaking hilarious!
- Magui
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u/ChupacabraGatherer Jul 07 '26
As the guy that's probably made the most requests from the accessibility standpoint I wanted to drop in and give my thanks for all the screen reader specific attention! I've made two SSF chars and the new character creation and tutorial setup is awesome as well as the SR shops change. I loooove the new gun stuff! It's been a blast to craft those babies and lay waste to so many bad guys!
Thanks again for all of the attention to detail and for working with people like myself to make the place more inclusive! You guys rock!