Building, Weather & longevity survival

[mickeyblue]

Hi all,

Crafting & skill tree

I feel the idea of skill based system is an excellent idea and realistic. I would like to explore the idea of gaining skills based on discovery. For example, crafting a bow or arrows, the time taken to craft or create would exponentially reduce based on the experience, trial and error you had made in the past. Similar with Fire starting and animal butchery. 

 

For example,  I would not have a clue how to correctly butcher an animal should you ask me to do so right now, but after having had several fresh attempts I would certainly gather more meat, tear less hides or have a higher percentage or successfully recovering the hide in a much faster time window.

Similar for arrow crafting, it would take me a long time to craft an arrow at first, but as time passed I would be able to craft arrows a lot faster. therefore giving me more time to concentrate on higher skill tree items.

So what do I mean, well making arrows and bows and basic gathering techniques are what I would describe at short term game goals. things you need to do to survive. So by improving your butchery techniques and improving cooking, hunting and gathering, will give you more time to plan further stages of your journey.

 

Tech tree

Much like other games with tech trees, I think that some items for crafting should only be available after you learn them, this may result in some instances where you are looking around for a book or someway to achieve this enlightenment, but much like real life, I would have no idea how to produce a certain item unless taught, no matter my proficiency with a device. 

Im suggesting that there should be a natural tech tree that could continue to be upgraded as the game progresses in sandbox mode. There would be no reason that on day 1 you would be able to craft a solar still, green house, wood store, drying rack, smoker or otherwise. Im suggesting that some devices be unlocked by certain skill books or by research. 

For example, I know that I can cure meat by smoking or salting, but would I know how to do it, I'm suggesting that either by book or by unlocking items via spending time researching which will only be a viable option once you have mastered the basics of survival. So you would not be able to start on the more sustainable means of survival until you had sufficient resources freely available.

it makes sense that I would not have time to try and craft a solar still or smoker while dangerously starved, why waste hours researching and making this, when I could be out scavenging.

This brings me to end game or larger research items. For example, larger buildings/cabins and or traps. 

I would think it would be great to be able to produce deadfalls, pit traps or trip wires for game or predators. However they would need research and resources. For example a tripwire or deadfall may require large logs and a lot of gut, sinew. 

Similarly, cabins would be something that you would need to research, maybe find blueprints for and take substantial resources. Something that you couldn't do easily. You would need 10's of large logs, you would need to research woodworking techniques, you may even need to allow the wood to stand ( leave alone ) for some time. From my research I know that traditional log cabin logs are usually cut and placed at the site one season and then used to build the cabin the following summer season. I would imagine that once I had sufficient resources and experience or skills that I would then need to invest a substantial amount of time to construct. Like 300+ hours.

This investment could take place over an entire season, where you would spend 3-4 hours of work, then take a day or two off to hunt, stockpile and then return to build. 

I dont want to see, the stranded deep approach where you create walls and place them, i would imagine that your new cabin would be a flat are that you mark out as the base of your cabin and then the resources would be stockpiled next to it, and that the cabin would be "built" in the same way as research or lighting a fire works now. overtime the cabin progress may change its physical appearance, from a simple knee high box like structure to something looking like a cabin offering some form of cover like those burned down/ruined huts. 

Weather

As yet we dont fully know the outcome of the weather almanac, but it would be great to see more devastating weather anomalies. Like the white out challenge, I welcome the idea of a random extreme cold front approaching meaning that I have only a few days to stockpile enough to get me through or risk extreme cold and death to go hunting or fishing in a serious blizzard.

Perhaps, certain aurora conditions that make all animals more skittish or hostile, including deer. Im not saying seeking you out, but certainly more aggressive.

NPCs

While I think this needs a lot of thought,  I have 3 scenarios that I would like to offer.

Transient good - An NPC that is rare, but can be found or track that can be followed that will result in a meeting between yourself and an NPC, they may explain they are on their way to X and may offer items or knowledge for trade. You could also choose to respond in many ways and each action could trigger other events in the future. 

Transient bad - As above, but the NPC may be hostile and make demands for food or resources, they may be in a larger group(3-4) where fighting may not be a good idea. Again, you can track the NPC but be aware that they can also track you or set traps, especially if they are hostile.

Transient Dead - I see this as a way to allow random loot to make it into the game on a rare but longtime basis, for example after a blizzard there could be a random NPC who happens to have been unlucky enough to get caught and dies this would leave a fresh body to loot on the map. These bodies could also be targets for animals which can help with their being a way to remove them from the game. i could also envisage a few rare examples of where an NPC may have suffered a bear or wolf attack outside our games region and have died while in a cabin we have already looted. Its not hard to believe that in real life there might not be other people who would stumble upon the same cabins we ourselves had already looted !

This allows fresh loot to come into the game, and would promote the re-exploration of previously visited areas.

Epic over..

 

thanks for reading

 

 

[Shyassasain]

Ok firstly, that's a hell of a bunch of ideas so I'll try addressing them 1 by 1....
Trial and error based skills? I don't know what to call it, but I really like the idea of starting out in sandbox as a survival n00b, your first few arrows are going to be massively crude and may not even work and waste the items you put into it, your skinning and field dressing of kills will be absolutely abysmal, not to mention your aim with weapons, crafting ability, repair skills and fire making skills. If all these skills had visible failures and lower quality at lower levels of skill, and higher levels of quality at higher levels of skill it'd really add to the sense your character is growing as a person and getting better at things, rather than right now being able to do all these things pretty much perfectly (apart from firestarting)

Tech tree's as long as it isn't a tech tree with research points and all that, and more of a knowledge system like they're planning on implementing in future, where you can't just craft a lovely pair of deerskin boots without knowing the first thing about shoe or cloth making, you'll need a book to teach you, or an NPC perhaps. If it were me I wouldn't know at all how to make a pair of boots or rabbit-skin mittens... that said there's nothing stopping me from trying. So maybe we should be able to craft everything, but they'd be nowhere near the quality of ones that you've been taught how to by reading a book. 
Give me some guts, and a rabbit hide and I'll try to slap together something resembling mittens, might not be good and might be a waste of a rabbit hide, but I can do it if I have the idea and resources. So I don't think blocking players from crafting certain items is a good idea. it kind of ties in the the skill based quality thing I said about in the above paragraph rather than unlockable skills if you get what I mean.

Weather I like the idea of there being longer periods of time where the weather is absolutely deadly, blizzards as they are now are more an inconvenience than a danger. I have no need to stockpile firewood, food or water in case of getting trapped inside my house by a week long blizzard or extremely cold windy weather, which would make gathering fresh firewood dangerous, and hunting impossible. I'd also expect you'd need an ample supply of firewood lest you freeze in your sleep because it's so cold. 

Npc's I made a post about them in another topic, they need to be very human like, have needs like the player, be very rare, and of course have choices to make like the player, I want to see them walking about collecting firewood and scavenging for food like a player would, and if they don't get food or shelter they'll die. This might take a bit of programming though. But if they're just going to be another thing to shoot at I'd rather not have them at all. 

All done... I'd like to add better storage system in there just for kicks, the ability to move liquids or other items from one container to another. Like I have about 17 boxes of matches, at varying conditions, why can I not just put all my matches into one or 2 box rather than have them in different boxes because some are a bit more rotten? Same for kerosene, they should act more like water or have the ability to be transferred to different containers.