Shelter wear and repair

[SteveP]

If the wind is strong enough to wear out our clothing, it's probably going to play havoc on the buildings and cottages. Perhaps a long term challenge might be to effect repairs on the shelters or build new ones before the old ones become unusable. I'd like to salvage the pot belly stove and some lockers for my new digs.

[Axtos]

Over 100 Blizzards for now, but my Trailer looks brand new. All buildings should war out. Wood buildings more than stone.

[Wastelander]

I'm fine with either, although if shelter maintenance IS added, it should come after seasons, because otherwise the logistics required will probably make the game close to unplayable.

[Resethel]

Or it can be artificially limited ( before seasons ). And that would in every case add new objectives and some poetic dimension (imagine a snowbound interior!!)!  As when transitioning from mid to late-game, finding an intact shelter or gathering enough of the little ressources left, would make another objective. But that should be added along with the ability of making hand-crafted shelter, or it wouldn't make a lot of sense

[Patrick Carlson]

16 hours ago, SteveP said:

If the wind is strong enough to wear out our clothing, it's probably going to play havoc on the buildings and cottages. Perhaps a long term challenge might be to effect repairs on the shelters or build new ones before the old ones become unusable. I'd like to salvage the pot belly stove and some lockers for my new digs.

Interesting idea. How would you see the "decay" process play out for each structure? And how would this affect the player-character?

[Frozen guy]

Hello, for example for the "traditional" cabin (as in ML) the roof and the walls could lost part after 1 week or after every storm. The player had to use reclaimed wood or scavenged wood plank to repair it. if he doesn't make it, the temperature in the room will discrease very quickly.

We have all the things that we needs: an hammer, a hacksaw, scrap metal (for the nail), wood plank...

 It could be is the possibility to close this damned hole of the roof of the mountainer's hut.

ps: Sorry for potential mistake, I'm french.

[cekivi]

Bienvenue sur les forums @Frozen guy

Sadly I don't speak French but that's what a French-English dictionary is for

For me, I'd like to see very, very minor wear on the structures that start as easy to fix but get progressively worse if you don't address them. I'd also not have any wear in winter just to keep the seasons balanced. E.g. failure to clear your eaves in the fall means ice dams in winter and a leaky roof come spring.

[Ruruwawa]

Maybe beds (or bedding) should take wear as we use them.  Like bedrolls the +temp would drop gradually but the bed could be repaired with a couple cloth to restore it's warmth. 

[Pillock]

Keep it simple.

Buildings would have a decay %, like any other in-game object, and the lower the % the lower the warmth inside. Smaller buildings like huts and trailers would decay quite fast but need relatively little material to repair, while more substantial ones like the farmhouse would be much slower to decay but require more material. The lighthouse, whale processing and dam could be exempt?

Repairs could be made with reclaimed wood + scrap metal + toolbox?

[Scyzara]

5 minutes ago, Pillock said:

Repairs could be made with reclaimed wood + scrap metal + toolbox?

I very much support this suggestion as it would add a meaningful use for toolboxes!

[cekivi]

The reason I'm hesitant to use resources like scrap wood or tool boxes on repairs is that both will run out so eventually (depending on the decay rate) the only man made structure left in the game world would be the mines and the dam (using @Pillock's logic). If tool boxes didn't decay I'd be fine with that. It'd be even better if you needed multiple tool boxes to assemble a complete set of tools for repairs.

Note: I realise most tool boxes would be wrenches and sockets which are useless for building repairs but if you pretend that they may also contain carpentry tools it makes sense.

Again, I'd rather see the maintenance investment start as a time/calories trade off to reward players who plan ahead before requiring actual construction to fix things. Also, you'd be surprised how long buildings last. There's an abandoned house near where I grew up and it's still standing over a decade later. Sure, it's all mold, mildew and broken windows but it still has a roof (of sorts) and walls. Structures last a long time if there's even a little work done to fix small problems (e.g. clean gutters) before they become big.

Lastly, your most likely failure points are roofs and windows neither of which players would be able to replace with what's in the game presently. If people seriously want this mechanic, ladders and building supplies (rolls of plastic) would be necessary additions.

[Pillock]

2 minutes ago, cekivi said:

The reason I'm hesitant to use resources like scrap wood or tool boxes on repairs is that both will run out so eventually (depending on the decay rate) the only man made structure left in the game world would be the mines and the dam (using @Pillock's logic).

That's fine - over the course of a (very) long game, all the man-made structures would fall into disrepair and you have to move into a cave! Adds extra challenge to the late-game, no?

The only reason derelict buildings tend to have broken windows is that people (kids) come along and lob rocks at them. We don't need window repair in the game. And you wouldn't be repairing roofs to as-new level - you'd just be nailing patches over the holes, hence using scrap wood.

I think the necessaries are there already for a basic implementation, but given that primitive shelter building is in the development plan, those mechanics might well get expanding upon down the line anyway.

The only issue that bugs me about this idea is how this system would deal with prepper caches.

[Wastelander]

Quote

Structures last a long time if there's even a little work done to fix small problems (e.g. clean gutters) before they become big.

This is the kind of shelter repair I could live with! My parents were homeowners before they sold their property, so I'm fairly certain on what kind of tasks that could involve. Although I do not know much about maintaining wooden structures - maybe add some kind of paint to shield the wood from its environment?

Quote

Lastly, your most likely failure points are roofs and windows neither of which players would be able to replace with what's in the game presently. If people seriously want this mechanic, ladders and building supplies (rolls of plastic) would be necessary additions.

Oh yes. Windows are what usually fails first during strong winds, followed by the roof, depending on how it's built.

I'd like to keep it simple - maybe adding a layer of paint or something adds some condition to the shelter, maybe add some nails to bar up larger holes and be done with it.

[cekivi]

Prepper Caches wouldn't really be inhabitable for most of the year. The ceilings are cracked (most have roots showing through) so they'd flood in the spring melt and heavy rains. Mildew, stagnant water and rot should be prevalent in them.

And as @Wastelander said, windows can get blown out in high winds and the thermal insulating layer usually fails overtime requiring window replacement as well. Unless you cover them with plastic of course.

[Wastelander]

Quote

And as @Wastelander said, windows can get blown out in high winds and the thermal insulating layer usually fails overtime requiring window replacement as well. Unless you cover them with plastic of course.

Something that happened to me personally is the clasp (is that the right word? I mean the mechanism used to close a window) failing during a particularly strong storm. Took quite a while to repair, wasn't pretty to be unable to close my window for two weeks during the mid of winter

[cekivi]

Sounds right. A lot of the windows in my family house had cracked over time. The vacuum between the window panes leaked and they iced over. My mom tried to melt the ice with a hair dryer and the temperature difference caused the window to crack. There's also the risk of trees falling (had that a few times) but most shelters in the Long Dark are in fields so that's less of a problem.

[Boston123]

Or, if a larger axe is implemented, we could technically build our own shelters.

To build a log cabin, all one technically needs is an axe. Tools like saws and adze's make the process faster and easier, but a saddle-notch can be cut with an axe and some care.

1) Take conifer logs, remove the bark, notch the ends, then stack them up, "thick end to thin end". Cut a door out on the leeward side.

2) Stack up one side of the structure higher than the other, so the "roof" falls away at an angle.  Put the fireplace/firebarrel pipe on this side.

3) Following the angle of the roof, lay saplings across it, then layer sheets of birchbark, "white side up", on top of that. Layer some moss on top of that, then some more saplings. Weigh everything down with rocks.

4) Stuff (REALLY get it in there) moss, dirt, whatever, in between the logs of the walls. The tighter you make the logs fit when building the walls, the less chinking will be needed. The straighter and flatter the logs, the more surface area will be tight, and less chinking will be needed.

I personally built a 10ftx10ft "log cabin" in about 3 days by myself. Granted, I was surrounded by pine trees, and I wasn't freezing or starving, but it is possible. I was able to fit myself, a cot to sleep on, some crummy shelves, and a 55gal drum with a smoke pipe in there. After chinking and layering birchbark on the roof, it was comfortable even in the middle of a summer thunderstorm.

 

Or, build something like a conifer-branch A-frame shelter. You can fit a fire easily inside one of those, and they take much less effort than a cabin of similar size. I built an A-frame in the middle of a New England winter, where it can get down to 15-20 below (Fahrenheit, of course), and with a small fire, I was plenty warm and dry, even when it started snowing and blustering in the middle of the night.

 

 

[cekivi]

Great examples @Boston123. Did you cure the logs first though or were they green? The problem of building a cabin with green logs is they'll shrink over time as they dry out.

[Boston123]

Green. I was building the thing more for S&G (shits n' giggles) than for any real purpose, but if I had to, I could've comfortably lived in it for a year or so before I would worry about shrinking.

The logs shrink primarily "widthwise", meaning there will eventually be a gap between the roof and the walls, in the corners and in between the logs. Because the roof is so simple (no gables, for example, just saplings following the roof-angle), there will be much less of a gap between the walls and the roof, and heavy chinking will lessen the impact of the last two examples.

"Squaring off" the logs prior to building also limits the amount the log can shrink.

[Salty Crackers]

I just want to fix the hole in the Mountaineer's Hut roof so it can actually be a building.

[cekivi]

3 hours ago, Salty Crackers said:

I just want to fix the hole in the Mountaineer's Hut roof so it can actually be a building.

That is something many players would like to be able to do. And also shut the window for Pete's sake!

[Claysmiff1702]

I've built a few log homes (60-90 year old cedars from BC, not doug fir) and they will always shrink and crack, creating drafts. Call the chinkers! Agree with shelter wear and repair (ESPECIALLY freeze/thaw cycles in early spring and late autumn when seasons are a thing) and simple shelter building, would be really cool to see. Obviously the logistics could become a nightmare if too much stuff is required for sufficient repairs, and the map is sucked dry. As has been said, I would like to see a sloooow decay during the winter and summer months, easily kept up with. However if you let it get away from you, becomes much more difficult.

[Salty Crackers]

I feel that a better system would be for indoor locations to have a random chance to be broken in some way, such as a broken window. Having a break in your house would reduce the indoor temperature. You could solve this by boarding up holes, which would restore the indoor temperature to normal. After it is fixed, it won't break again.

[Wastelander]

34 minutes ago, Salty Crackers said:

I feel that a better system would be for indoor locations to have a random chance to be broken in some way, such as a broken window. Having a break in your house would reduce the indoor temperature. You could solve this by boarding up holes, which would restore the indoor temperature to normal. After it is fixed, it won't break again.

That's actually a good idea. Another thing that might happen is the lock of a door being broken by previous looters, letting cold air in and requiring a makeshift locking system crafted with scrap metal and simple tools.

[SteveP]

What tools would you need to construct a log shelter?

On 2016-06-01 at 10:47 AM, Patrick Carlson said:

How would you see the "decay" process play out for each structure? And how would this affect the player-character?

Pretty much as it does in real life; roof shingles get torn loose; if ignored, the problem is compounded. Upon breach, you have an immediate loss of heat inside the structure and eventually the structure continues to decay and become unusable. Typically the roof collapses and rats and vermin take over the inside making it unusable.

Stairways can become rotten resulting in collapse. Bedding becomes rotten especially when exposed to moisture and the elements. Eventually these buildings become unusable. Fires are another possibility for reducing a structure to nothing.

Forging nails would be a thing; you'd need several hundred I imagine, depending upon the size of the structure you'd want to build.

Broken windows can be temporarily patched with cardboard to restore thermal insulation and boarded over for a permanent fix. Alternatively, one could scavenge window panes from other structures.