Whiskey

[Guest]

I think they should add whiskey. It could be implemented to temporarily warm your body, then decrease it after the alcohol thins your blood. It could be used in a last ditch effort if your caught in bad weather such as blizzards to keep yourself warm until you find shelter. Once in shelter and your blood thins (Resulting in the of loss body warmth), you could start a fire to warm up. It could also be used to self medicate the effects of cabin fever. But, it could hinder your survival if consumed during dangerous areas known for animal attacks.

[hauteecolerider]

58 minutes ago, The Timberwolf Revenant said:

then decrease it after the alcohol thins your blood.

Alcohol thins the blood? How so? I'm trying to understand what you mean by this.

As for finding whiskey or anything alcoholic, I doubt this is something people would leave behind . . . or die without drinking it all first. You bet I'm not leaving my whiskey laying around for someone else to find! 

[Boston123]

You do realize that alcohol doesn't actually keep you warm, right?

It makes you "feel" warm, because the blood vessels close to the skin dilate, filling up with warm blood. However, that will make you cold, very fast, as the heat can then leave your body.

Although whiskey/whisky is definitely worthy of being included. Sterilize wounds with it, sterilize water with it, drink it to alleviate pain (so long as you have enough water, to alleviate the dehydration)

[hauteecolerider]

13 minutes ago, Boston123 said:

Sterilize wounds with it, sterilize water with it,

No, it will not sterilize water. It can reduce the amount of bacteria in it, but sterilization? No, no, no. Bacterial spores (think TB) can survive in alcohol.

It was determined a very long time ago that alcohol less than 140 proof (i.e. a water solution that is 70% alcohol is 140 proof) is not effective at making water safe to drink. Add 190 proof alcohol and you might be able to reduce some pathogens, but it will definitely not sterilize water. 

There is a difference between disinfecting (which alcohol does do) and sterilization. The former reduces the pathogen load, the latter totally removes all pathogens. 

You are absolutely right that alcohol is dehydrating. Not to mention harmful to your liver. Combine that with painkillers, and you are heading for yellow eye territory. And you are also right about alcohol's chilling effect. Onset of hypothermia is much quicker with it. And yes, it can numb the pain from injuries. Just don't take painkillers at the same time. Especially if the painkiller is Tylenol (acetaminophen/paracetamol)!

 

[grimreefer24601]

It would be nice to have an Irish Coffee by the fire though.

[hauteecolerider]

1 hour ago, grimreefer24601 said:

It would be nice to have an Irish Coffee by the fire though.

Why ruin a perfectly good whiskey with coffee? 

[Guest]

2 hours ago, hauteecolerider said:

Alcohol thins the blood? How so? I'm trying to understand what you mean by this.

As for finding whiskey or anything alcoholic, I doubt this is something people would leave behind . . . or die without drinking it all first. You bet I'm not leaving my whiskey laying around for someone else to find! 

Maybe I just didn't properly explain.

Once you have a couple drinks of any spirit, it makes you warmer by increasing blood vessels to open, therefore, letting more blood through. This causes the feeling of being warm and temporarily increases body temperature. This can also cause sweating.

That's why a lot of individuals who drink heavy have reddish/pinkish faces. Especially if they are fair skinned or are prone to blushing.

Over a lifetime of drinking, their blood vessels are stuck wide open causing something similar to vasomotor flushing. 

I always sweat a little after a few swigs of Bulleit Frontier Whiskey and I bet you do too after consuming your libation of choice. This is normal.

(I love that brand of Bourbon I mentioned and encourage everyone that enjoys Bourbon Whiskey to try it.)

Most people have perspiration while drinking. That's why bars are full of sweaty people. This perspiration will contribute to the dehydration you will endure after too much alcohol has been consumed as it is a diuretic, which means that alcohol consumption causes your body to rid itself of fluids.

Add sweating into a subzero temperature from walking in deep snow/snowstorms/snowdrifts as well as over rugged and difficult terrain while intoxicated, and you're going to have problems if you don't get somewhere warm quick.

It's double trouble. You will burn calories from exertion caused by hiking in deep snow (which causes sweating) and dehydration due to heavy intoxication.

The sweating mixed with a cold climate will cause hypothermia extremely fast.

If you become physically exhausted, dehydrated, and simply collapse, the sweat on your body will essentially be akin to running around in the dead of a Northern Canadian Winter while completely naked after having jumped in a pool of water.

This will cause instant frozen man berries.

So, back on point. After the initial widening of blood vessels, and while sobering up over time, your blood vessels constrict. This causes blood to flow slower through your body, while causing you to lose lots of body heat.

I hope that helped.

P.S. I wouldn't leave a drop of Whiskey behind either. If I was going out for good, I would go out happy!

[Scyzara]

As I have a soft spot for two-edges swords, I generally support the addition of alcohol to TLD. 

If used to light a fire or for the disinfection of wounds only (smart choices^^), it shouldn't have any particularly harmful sideeffects. But if drunk just for the fun of it (less smart choice^^), it should make you freeze faster, blur your vision and decrease your movement speed a bit. You should also get a certain malus while aiming the rifle/bow or handfighting wolves of course. In other words: You should better think twice when to have your drink and when to stay sober.^^

I could also imagine alcohol to be pretty useful for the recently announced NPC bartering system, btw.

[hauteecolerider]

@The Timberwolf Revenant Thanks. Your choice of words threw me there. When us medical folks talk about thin blood, we mean one of two things: over hydration as in receiving too much IV fluids, or prolonged clotting times due to decreased clotting factors in the blood stream. But you were referring to the changes in the diameter of blood vessels, which is consistent with the effects of alcohol. Your explanation is spot on. 

There is so much misinformation circulating the Internet that I tend to jump on statements that aren't exactly precise because all too often I have seen people being misled or confused, which has led to some rather poor choices in patient care. But your answer to my question proves that you, good friend, are not misinformed.

@Scyzara I agree that having alcohol in the game should be a two-edged sword. As you have refined the Revenant's proposal, it would fit in well with the gameplay as we have seen it so far. Not only would it be a valuable enhancement to the potential barter system, but I see it as being valuable for the well being system as well.

[Guest]

9 minutes ago, hauteecolerider said:

@The Timberwolf Revenant Thanks. Your choice of words threw me there. When us medical folks talk about thin blood, we mean one of two things: over hydration as in receiving too much IV fluids, or prolonged clotting times due to decreased clotting factors in the blood stream. But you were referring to the changes in the diameter of blood vessels, which is consistent with the effects of alcohol. Your explanation is spot on. 

There is so much misinformation circulating the Internet that I tend to jump on statements that aren't exactly precise because all too often I have seen people being misled or confused, which has led to some rather poor choices in patient care. But your answer to my question proves that you, good friend, are not misinformed.

@Scyzara I agree that having alcohol in the game should be a two-edged sword. As you have refined the Revenant's proposal, it would fit in well with the gameplay as we have seen it so far. Not only would it be a valuable enhancement to the potential barter system, but I see it as being valuable for the well being system as well.

Thanks for the compliment!

I know all about the effects of alcohol consumption as I grew up in Kentucky which is Bourbon Country.

I also know a thing or two about having reddish skin as I'm a Cherokee Native.

I know that's stereotypical when it comes to Native Americans or First Nations People but I find it tends to be true.

The cold winter air turns my skin crimson. I also have to use organic soap or my skin looks like a tomato! Haha.

But thanks again for the compliment.

[Pillock]

15 hours ago, The Timberwolf Revenant said:

I think they should add whiskey. It could be implemented to temporarily warm your body, then decrease it after the alcohol thins your blood. It could be used in a last ditch effort if your caught in bad weather such as blizzards to keep yourself warm until you find shelter. Once in shelter and your blood thins (Resulting in the of loss body warmth), you could start a fire to warm up. It could also be used to self medicate the effects of cabin fever. But, it could hinder your survival if consumed during dangerous areas known for animal attacks.

It sounds like your suggestion (the drinking part, at least) could work in a very similar way to how emergency stims currently affect your fatigue, but with cold instead.

With stims, you get a temporary boost in your fatigue bar, you can sprint without losing much energy, you can't sleep while the effects are active, and your vision is affected. When the stim wears off, you are instantly exhausted and losing condition.

The way the game simulates cold is to give you a 'feels like' temperature, rather than an 'actual' body temperature reading. This means that having alcohol making you 'feel' warmer without literally warming you up is perfectly possible within the current game parameters, as long as it were to instantly cause you to feel freezing as soon as it wears off.

However, there is not a separation of 'actual' and 'feels like' temperature in the game mechanics, so it wouldn't be possible for the game to give you hypothermia and/or damage your condition due to cold while you are 'feeling' warm due to alcohol, but your body is actually still freezing - unless you were to get a gradual depletion of overall condition during the intoxication period as part of those effects. Not without changing the overall health mechanics, anyway.

[Pillock]

^^Actually, come to think about it, if alcohol intoxication did allow you to suffer hypothermia and/or condition loss during its effect period (as it would in reality), there wouldn't be any point in doing it, from a gameplay perspective. The only reason to keep your 'feels like' temperature bar above freezing under current game conditions is in order to prevent condition loss and hypothermia. Therefore, if you could get these anyway while drunk, drinking would be utterly pointless.

There is currently no status bar for pain or comfort level, which would make a big impact to this - and on other parts of the game.

We have a freezing-warm temperature bar; an exhausted-rested fatigue bar; a starving-full calorie bar; and a dehydrated-slaked thirst bar. I'm not sure that your temperature level affects your fatigue-drop rate, for example, or if being hungry makes you feel colder, and so on. There is some interplay between them, I think, but I'm not sure it's very highly developed in that way. More detail here might be needed to make alcohol fit into the game. But I'd like the game to go down this route, definitely.

[Kornél]

As it makes you more vulnerable to cold and dehydration, drinking alcohol 'to boost your stats up' wouldn't make much sense. But I agree that it could help you to come over cabin fever at least temporarily. With the cold/dehydration disadvantage it would be actually balanced as well. It could let you sleep even when fully rested. Long term usage could cause several disadvatages preventing one to exploit hybernation with constantly being drunk and sleeping 

[Dirmagnos]

Alcohol would fit nicely in to the picture. Most people tend to go into extremes when discussing it.

Sure, if you gulp down 500ml of vodka it wont go unnoticed(altho it will be later, and when youre on deaths door it may actually save your life, since alcohol works a bit differently when its cold, especially when its extremely cold), but 50ml would be fairly ok and give a short-term nice boost.

As with any mind- and physiology- altering substance it all comes down to moderation and way of usage(and goal).

[lupineways]

I support the inclusion of alcohol but not sure I think it should buff your warmth.

Maybe incorporate it into the well being system and allow it to have an impact on things like cabin fever in some forms. 

Also, as previously suggested, fire starting, and disinfectant.