Vitamins, Cross-Country Skis and Heavy-Duty Clothing and more...


Kyonshi

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Here's some ideas i had regarding specific elements of game design and mechanic.Those would actually improve the flow of experience and immersion process.

Multi-Vitamins
Rarity: Common (   ) - Uncommon ( X ) - Rare (   )
Description: Multi-Vitamins help maintain a good health and metabolism. They help keeping immunitary system in good shape. With those, the body can create heat quicker and longer. Fatigue, Hunger and Thirst progress slower. Come in a bottle of 25 units or less. A full bottle of 25 units weights 0.25kg.
Mechanics/Effects: Cold, Fatigue, Hunger and Thirst meters fill up half the normal rate. Infections requires half of the resources normally needed to cure. Duration of effects from a single unit: 12 hours in-game time. Multi-Vitamins last long; the quality/effectiveness is reduced by 1% every 5 days in game-time.

Heavy-Duty Winter Clothing
Rarity: Common (   ) - Uncommon (   ) - Rare ( X )
Description: Winter clothing made up to endure the most extreme temperature conditions. The kind of stuff people use in Antarctica. The player can find one of those piece of clothing at a time: Coat (5.00kg), Pants (3.00kg), Boots (2.00kg), Mittens (0.50kg) and Hat (0.50kg).
Mechanics/Effects:
- Coat: Warmth Bonus +10.0°C (at 100% condition), Windproof Bonus: Windchill nullified.
- Pants: Warmth Bonus +7.0°C (at 100% condition), Windproof Bonus: Windchill nullified.
- Boots: Warmth Bonus +5.0°C (at 100% condition), Windproof Bonus: Windchill nullified.
- Mittens: Warmth Bonus +3.0°C (at 100% condition), Windproof Bonus: Windchill nullified.
- Hat: Warmth Bonus +3.0°C (at 100% condition), Windproof Bonus: Windchill nullified.
Repairs:
- Coat: Sewing Kit, 4 Cloth. Time required: 2 hours, for a 30% quality/effectiveness improvement with Sewing Kit.
- Pants: Sewing Kit, 3 Cloth. Time required: 1 hour 30 min., for a 30% quality/effectiveness improvement with Sewing Kit.
- Boots: Sewing Kit, 1 Cloth, 2 Leather. Time required: 1 hour 30 min., for a 30% quality/effectiveness improvement with Sewing Kit.
- Mittens: Sewing Kit, 2 Cloth. Time required: 1 hour, for a 30% quality/effectiveness improvement with Sewing Kit.
- Hat: Sewing Kit, 1 Cloth. Time required: 45 min., for a 30% quality/effectiveness improvement with Sewing Kit.

Heavy-Duty Winter Clothing is tough made and last long; the quality/effectiveness is reduced by 1% every week in game-time.

Cross-Country Skiing Set
Rarity: Common (   ) - Uncommon (   ) - Rare ( X )
Description: Standard quality Cross-Country skis, made of carbon fiber. Poles and adapted footwear can be found with the skis. The set weight is 7.00kg in total. While wearing adapted footwear, the player loses the warmth and windproof bonuses from previous footwear worn. The warmth bonus of adapted footwear is +2.0°C (at 100% condition) and windproof bonus is +0.5°C (at 100% condition).
Mechanics/Effects: Equipping and removing the set take 2 minutes in game-time. Wearing the skis allows players to move as fast as when they're running in snow, while spending the same amount of energy as if they were walking. Sprinting with skis allows players to move twice the speed of running in snow, but the energy consummed is now the same amount as if they were running on foot, in snow. Players can't efficiently use skis on any other surface than snow. They can't slide across rocky and stone sections, as well as street pavement. If they attempt to, they will stop sliding and will have to cross the section "walking" with their skis, which makes them move half the speed of walking on foot, until they reach another snowy section. They can also remove the set and put it back on a snowy section. The players can't slide uphill on a slope with an angle higher than 20°. Beyond this angle, they are stalled and can't move further forward. They must either remove the set and walk up on foot, or move up with skis on in a side-step motion, which is half the speed of walking on foot. As for downhill slopes, players can manage to proceed on any slope lower than 45°. Beyond this angle, there's an accentuated risk of falling/tripping, as cross-country skis are not conceived for severe angle slopes and it is considered that the character players personify have no knowledge or skills to properly maneuver themselves on such angles. Related injury are sprained ankle and/or broken ankle. Worse injuries can occur if players fall from higher position, down a cliff, etc. The set can't be repaired and become totally unusable at 0% durability. The quality/effectiveness is reduced by 1% every week in game-time. In the eventuality that players want to use any kind of object, including the Hunting Rifle, they will only be able to use them on full stop.

Heavy-Duty Camping Back Pack
Rarity: Common (   ) - Uncommon (   ) - Rare ( X )
Description: High quality Camping Back Pack, made of light but tough fabrics. This item allows the player to carry an additional 10.00kg of objects, making the maximum weight capacity players have pass from 30.00kg to 40.00kg.
Mechanics/Effects: Upon acquiring the Back Pack, it is instantly and permanently equipped. The Back Pack doesn't add any additional weight in itself. On certain random occasions, the Back Pack can be found empty or including one or more of the following objects, in a single unit, that are closely related to camping activites; Storm Lantern (1), Firestriker (1), Flare (1), Cardboard/Wood Matches (1), Bedroll (1), Lantern Fuel (1), Pork and Beans (1), Granola Bar (1), Water Bottle (1).

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There is really no point to having a generator in this scenario as the electrical components have all been destroyed. So even if one could find a generator, it would be useless because there is nothing for it to power. Radios are doubly useless because there are no active radio transmissions to pick up, even if one could repair a radio. Repairing a radio tower (such as the one in PV) would be considerably more costly in terms of time and calories expended (as well as the resources needed), the benefits wouldn't offset the costs. 

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Multi-Vitamins sound more like some kind of wonder drug, judging by completely crazy effects.\

Why would any1 bring Arctic-level winter clothing in the area ?

Skis wouldnt work like that, most areas are nowhere near of being even. Even walking would probably be faster and less energy-consuming compared to skis in that cross-country.

And generator idea has been pretty much destroyed in the past. Only way generator may had a chance to survive is if it was in faraday cage. That idea has it merits, since we have a survivor bunker in the area, so there was at least one person who was preparing for the worse.

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Multi-Vitamins sound more like some kind of wonder drug, judging by completely crazy effects.
Its an "adapation" for the settings of the game because it often go around real-life facts and effects of the objects depicted in the game. For instance, i can hardly conceived that i eat 1 full part of deer meat, which is a rich and heavy meat (bear meat is surely heavier), and that 1 hour later in game-time i'm already hungry. I mean, eat that kind of meat in real life and you're almost stuffed for the rest of the day, if we take that for a person with average weight and metabolism. Same thing with the Soft Drinks in the game; drinking that only makes you thirsty quicker afterwards, when Water itself slows down the thirst effect way much longer. We dont see that... Also, drinking Sodas in the quantities we do in the game would normally bring a sugar rush to the body, making us more energetic for a short while but then we would crash and be depressed soon after. We would have headaches too. The game mechanics dont take account of any of this. So, following that kind of design, i imagined the Multi-Vitamins being simplified, just like anything else in the game. The reason to have those is to boost the all of the metabolism of the character for a while. Of course, vitamins dont really create this effect in real life, but at least they do help to maintain a good working metabolism.

Why would any1 bring Arctic-level winter clothing in the area?
Canada Goose and North Face sells clothing that are directly inspired from what the people working at Amundsen-Scott station wear. What, if people aren't in Antarctica, there's no reason to wear this kind of clothing? I think that being in the high mountain range of the Canadian Rockies or in Antarctica, it's still f***ing cold and it just crushes you (weather in-game goes as low as -45°C with windchill) . Those pieces of clothing are completely windproof and protect you from devastating temperatures. Nothing in the game does that, not even the Insulated Coat. People buy and wear those in real life. My own winter coat cost me near 500$ and can withstand cold up to -40°C. I don't see why people wouldn't have that kind of clothing in the Rockies.

Skis wouldnt work like that, most areas are nowhere near of being even. Even walking would probably be faster and less energy-consuming compared to skis in that cross-country.
Again, i'm aware of that, but i thought of those in regard to the reality-bending design of the game. I just wanted to imagine a way to move faster, whithin some limits, of course. Hence why you couldn't use them on extreme angle slopes.

As for the Generator idea, yeah, i guess i totally misunderstood the effect of a geo-magnetic storm. It is in fact frying electric components and circuitry. Since it didnt explicitly showed this in the game, i didnt concluded the appliances were totally wrecked. I'm gonna delete this from my initial post.

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I think your idea on the skis is probably one of the most well thoughtout ski suggestions I've seen. I think it's a great starting place. I have requested a dog sled in the past, I'm sure it could have a complementary effect to the skis in terms of picking up where they leave off like roads, inclines, etc. 

I always thought there should be a better backpack so I agree with you on that but I don't think it should be permanent once equipped. Players should still have a choice. 

I think the clothes idea is good. Hopefully they add a better animal skin hat, too. Never understood why they left that out.

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2 hours ago, Schneidox said:

I think your idea on the skis is probably one of the most well thoughtout ski suggestions I've seen. I think it's a great starting place. I have requested a dog sled in the past, I'm sure it could have a complementary effect to the skis in terms of picking up where they leave off like roads, inclines, etc. 

I always thought there should be a better backpack so I agree with you on that but I don't think it should be permanent once equipped. Players should still have a choice. 

I think the clothes idea is good. Hopefully they add a better animal skin hat, too. Never understood why they left that out.

Thanks for your input!

A dog sled would be quite awesome but would also require a lot of programming and for the players, a lot of maintenance. An efficient dog sled has at least 6 hitched dogs minimum, to have a decent speed and "dogpower", as in horsepower. In terms of the mechanics and game design, we would have to feed 6 dogs. We would have to treat any wounds, injuries and/or illnesses the dogs could suffer. And how exactly the dogs would had survived before we'd find them? As a pack? They certainly couldn't have remained hitched all this time, as they would be surely dead with such an inconvenience and no master to lead them. Maybe they could initially be in a dog pen or some kinda kennel? If so, who would have fed them during an unknown amont of time, in the extreme weather conditions? In case the player finds a shelter to live in, how do you house the dogs? Build a pen for them outside? Keep them inside? There's a lot of questions regarding this, which inevitably leads to a huge amount of programming and character concepts to elaborate. One thing sure and positive; storage capacity would be great and being able to carry a lot of stuff around the maps, at high speeds, would be fantastic.

I understand players should always have a choice to remove the Backpack if decided. But i saw it like an automatic and permanent upgrade that people wouldn't really think to remove and handicap themselves unnecessarily. Just like you can't really remove the initial backpack.

You're right about custom head clothing! I have an idea about this, actually; just wear a wolf or bear head. Not only you'd benefit from the extra protection, but im also pretty sure no other hostile animal would try to f*** with you anymore =P

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Cross country skis tend to be rare in rural areas of Canada although they were more common in the period 1900-1960. You would be more likely to find snow shoes. Slalom skis are fairly common but relatively useless for uphill slopes and are exhausting. Any kind of skis that the player found in the back of a closet should be put to good use for making an improvised sleigh, an extremely useful aid for moving heavy loads!

I think the existing clothing in TLD is fairly representative but I do think the player should start out with better clothing. After all, it will degrade with wind anyway. You can't have a single clothing item confer immunity from wind chill. The game is a compromise of the effects of very cold temperatures; in real life, your head, your hands, your feet and your legs would loose the most heat and each one can be subject to frost bite in very short order if you have no protection for that appendage!

The very best clothing you can have is fur: fur pants, parka, boots and mittens. If we are going to be subjected to -40 to -60C temperatures then we should be able to have clothing that can deal with that extreme and actually pretty much avoid windchill effects. I would suggest that as the game evolves and progresses to longer and colder weather, that we should have caribou for the best winter parkas. With heavy wool underwear and a heavy wool sweater, a tough hide coat should make you fairly weather proof right down to -40. If you have wind at that temperature, you need a special hooded parka with wolf, wolverine, ermine or fox fur to keep out the wind or you can get frost bite on exposed skin on the face. You might wear two parkas one with the fur on the inside next to the skin and the other outer parka with the fur facing out. These parkas typically go down to the knees. Sealskin is preferred for boots and mitts because it is almost water proof. The weight of your suggested clothing sounds a bit high especially if this is commercial winter survival gear. I've had various mukluk boots and they are not THAT heavy!

parka_sealskin.jpg

kamik.jpg

Are you suggesting that the backpack should have a capacity that cannot be exceeded? interesting idea but probably not very popular! I like the idea of being able to transport more stuff but typically that would be done using a toboggan or sledge or sleigh. Even a car hood makes a great improvised sled!

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I think a good mechanic to implement is quality of backpacks, and adding a chance for the bag to rip when carrying above weight limit. As well as sharp objects like the hacksaw and hatchet ripping through, or possibly while running increasing the chance of those sharp objects ripping through. And what about arrows? kind of hard to keep those in a bag without ripping through the fabric. If I recall I remember two important things people didn't notice about the trailer for story mode in regards to the female character. She had a poncho, and a quiver. Being able to craft a quiver with deerskin, making ponchos or hoods as a hat item, and would also fit into the scarf category. Need more variety for them scarves eh? When your out and aboot in the snowstorm bud. ;)File:Astrid Greenwood - concept art - close.jpg

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I thought that there could be maybe 8 dogs in total spread throughout the maps. 4 would be the minimum to use the sled, but a player could catch and train 6 or even 8 if hes ready to make food and water a top priority. Additionally, there could be kennels in each map where you could leave extra dogs you're not using or you have an option to just set them free.

Their calorie intake is really the big question. Normally, I'm guessing a sled dog would probably require some where around 2000-4000 calories per day depending on how big and how active they are, but perhaps it can be reduced to make it a little more feasible. Maybe around 1000 calories per day when active; 500 if inactive. They wouldn't require cooked meat so that would help. The kennels could also come stocked with bags of dog food and water as would probably be the case. That could hold players off for a while before they really have to start stocking up for the dogs.

Their movement would be restricted to road, trails, and paths. Going downhill would risk a crash which could break the sled, hurt the player, and potentially result in dogs running away. Inclines would just get harder and harder until the dogs stop. They would fly on the frozen lakes. Also the sled could carry an extra 30kg of supplies. Weapons could be equipped while driving but are harder to aim. The sled would not be able to outrun wolves and bears. Most wolves would be scared of it but bears would not.

The dogs would tire completely after a four continuous hours and require rest, food and water. Finally, you could catch a dog by luring them with food. Perhaps some would be more skiddish than others and run off after taking the food. Maybe three such trust feedings could develop an initial bond where they allow themselves to be harnessed. But with each feeding afterwards, more and more trust develops until they actually try to fight off wolves and bears protecting you in case you get attacked while riding. Trying to harness a dog that doesn't trust you would result in an attack.

Another important consideration is where they sleep. If you're at one of the kennel locations then its not an issue, but if you're somewhere else or sleeping outdoors, there would have to be some kind of an enclosure you can put together so they stay out of the wind. I think this is one of the most unfinished parts to the idea and needs refining.

Finally, how they interact with other animals (especially predators) is pivotal. Maybe the dogs could sense predators from far, bark from outside when you're indoors and a predator is out there, and I'm still unclear on what should happen to the party when attacked by a wolf or bear--should one dog get targeted? or do more get hurt? does everyone get hurt? or a combination/variation of these events depending on fatigue, trust, etc. Aside from where they sleep, this would be the last tough issue to tackle. The forum is never short of good ideas so I'm sure everyone can figure it out in a way that makes sense.  

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I didn't mean dog sled; I meant human sled! :D A sled makes it much easier to pull a heavy load due to it's low coefficient of friction on snow and ice. A sleigh with narrow steel runners is almost effortless to pull on ice but sinks in snow. A toboggan or wide sleigh runners copes better on snow.

Feeding dogs would be very difficult! I suppose they could help with hunting to earn their keep. Maybe you could let them run free until you needed them but that seems artificial.

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A couple of things about sled dogs - just FYI to help inform any further discussion. Of course, if the devs want to include dogs in the game, it's entirely up to them how to do so.

Sled dogs are typically Huskies, Malamutes and other similar spitz-type breeds, though they can be and often are mixed breeds with similar traits (lean body structure, medium-sized - 40-50 lbs, thick double coat, hard callused footpads, light bone for speed vs. heavy bone for weight pulling, high metabolic rates and high energy levels, etc). 

On the trail and at home, they are typically tethered outside (not kenneled indoors - too warm). So if you are going to keep a team of dogs by you, you'll want to have stakes that the dogs are tethered to, somewhere out of the wind, preferably where snow tends to drift high (they use the snow as insulation). That would be better than a pen, and easier to set up. Penning is only done for pups and for females in heat. Sick dogs are typically kept in boxes. http://turningheadskennel.com/sled-dog-care-part-1/

Feeding is another challenge. This paper was written in 1998, and I'm sure more research has been done since then, but I haven't been keeping up with sled dog medicine lately. Still, I'm going to quote a short passage from this: 

Quote

 Similar feeding experiments with racing sled dogs found that dogs consumed an average of 4200W0.75 kJ/d during a 3-d race in which dogs raced at an average of 7 km/h in ambient temperatures of −10 to −35°C

Nutritional Requirements of Exercising Dogs

That's more than my character's average calorie consumption! Feeding six or eight of these dogs would be a huge challenge! According to Turning Heads Kennel that I linked to above, as well as another sledding kennel, Dew Claw Kennel, fish is a big part of the dogs' diet. In the autumn, the owners work to collect fish, especially salmon, for the FAT CONTENT!! It is an excellent way to get essential fatty acids into the dogs without leading to bloat and other digestive problems. 

Another point I noticed in the paper is the water requirements. From the same paper:

Quote

In sled dogs, water turnover increases dramatically from 1 L/d in kennels to 5 L/d during a 490-km race.

So for every liter of water you melt and boil for yourself, you need to produce five liters per dog

So while I would love to have sled dogs in the game because of how much weight we could haul from point A to point B, I'm not sure that I'd want to get into that much work just to keep them not only alive, but productive. I'd rather make more trips to cart the stuff around than to spend all my time fishing, cooking and feeding these guys. 

And I love dogs!

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I think that human pulled sledge is more usefull than dog one.

Not only that it is more maneuverable ,it is also easier to implement.

It wouldt be very practival to feed dogs even if they help you carry stuff and mabye even fight for you.They eat more than if you should do all hunting and carying manualy.

Sory for my bad english it is not my native language.

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I also read up on sled dogs and noticed that the real life diet of a sled dog is very demanding. However, most of the research I did was on a typical sled dog's diet during a raceI couldn't find anything on "casual" use. Since we would not be running a 500 km race with them, perhaps it would make sense that the food/water requirements could be lower. Finally, considering a normal person would probably require a lot more than 2500 calories per day hunting, fishing, harvesting, cutting logs, etc. I thought the dogs' requirements could be less as well. Just food for thought.

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@Schneidox The same paper I linked to in my previous post states that the 

Quote

The average maintenance energy requirement of sled dogs (500–550W0.75 kJ/d) appears to be similar to that of other young adult (2- to 5-y-old) dogs kept in kennels in a thermoneutral environment

So that would be what you would be feeding times four to eight per day, in addition to your own requirements, when not hauling stuff around the map. 

And this:

Quote

In garrison, the typical male soldier burns 3,200 calories a day and the typical female soldier burns 2,400. When participating in cold weather field training, requirements increase to 4,500 calories a day for males and 3,500 for females.

from The Grand Forks Human Nutrition Research Center

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I think the issue with the amount of stuff you can carry isn't the backpack capacity, but the weight of the items themselves. Sloughing knee-deep through snow whilst carrying a backpack weighing in at anything greater than 40kgs, especially whilst the player is in a colder environment, and may be suffering from a whole number of afflictions due to the situation they are in, is next to, if not, is impossible for the average human. The "Heavy Hammer" ingame weighs in at about 2kgs, and if you've ever wielded a metalworking hammer before, you'll know that it is not a light piece of gear. Imagine lugging 15 of those bad boys through snow, let alone the 20 that you are suggesting with this 40kg upgrade.

I don't want to seem rude, but I'm surprised the character can carry 30kgs ingame at the moment. Adding anymore bends the realistic level just a little too far over the boundary.

Also, the skis seem like a good idea, but are a little odd considering the circumstances and how effective they would be, as other commenters have mentioned. Something like snowshoes could do a similar, albeit slightly nerfed version of what you are suggesting.

Dogsleds, no matter how cool the idea is, probably won't happen, for the reasons stated above.

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