Melting Mechanic

[EternityTide]

I have been thinking about the water production mechanic, and after leaving my thoughts on the dilemma of liquid storage, I reckoned that I ought to make a fresh topic on the subject. (Yes I know that there are existing threads, but necromancy sometimes digs up threads which aren't appropriate as a result of changes)

Now, despite the UI overhaul, the water melting mechanic is largely unchanged from its first iteration. It is positively archaic, harking back to the days when, to collect firewood, you needed to do it through a menu, and pray to the Random Number Generator Gods that you wouldn't get the dreaded "you were unable to forage any usable firewood" an hour before a monster blizzard rolls in.

The melting mechanic should be altered, requiring the use of a thawing vessel, initially a small, 100g aluminium pan, that the character starts with, in which you can melt 0.5 litres per turn. Later you might find a metal flask which allows you to melt 0.75 litres per turn. Stoves inside which have pans can melt 2-5 litres in one go.

Snow needs to be physically harvested, rather than magically appear in your hands indoors, and the weight is carried as "X kg Snow" in your backpack. You are required to collect snow in order to melt it. Again, you can only fill your pan to its capacity (whatever that might be) and melt that. While this is occurring, remember the snow still in your backpack. In a warm interior, snow melts and will make your clothes wet, increasing heat loss, so dedicated snow carrying bags should be a thing later on.

Overall, I reckon my suggestion is to do to the melting mechanic what in-world stick/branch/limb spawning and harvesting did to the firewood gathering mechanic.

[Dirmagnos]

Or, instead of adding another game worth of items and actions(combined with water storage idea), with no added value to gameplay, we could stick to current, working one.

Current ideas are so detailed and would be so time consuming, that player would spend his days digging for snow or melt it into water, 0.5 liter at the time. With added "value" of needing to repeat that process 2-3 times a day player would be burning(lol) thru matches faster than he will obtain them. And all that headache for what ?!?!?

[EternityTide]

Mmm, but of course, by introducing a requirement for a melting vessel, you can now leave the water to melt/boil by itself, so the player is free to go out and collect firewood, read a book or cook something on the fire whilst the water is melting/boiling. Plus if you keep a fire going, you don't need to keep relighting it. 

You see, disregarding suggestions and saying "the current system is sufficient" (which, whilst true, is like saying "we don't need other forms of transport, walking is sufficient") doesn't actually help with anything. New things are being added all the time. Deer are sufficient. Yet Hinterland intend to add Moose. Why? Because it adds to the game.

Also, this is a suggestions forum, for Hinterland to peruse and select the best ideas. You seem to be under the impression that your opinion "that the current water system is sufficient" is the only one that matters. My opinion is the opposite. 

[Fuarian]

Why not just have empty water bottles?! You start with 1L worth and you can find more around the world. As many as you want. You can collect snow directly outdoors and lay the bottle down to melt with time or you can simply do it in the fire. I don't see how it can be a problem. Then you can also find larger jugs of water to carry around and it will allow for a higher carrying capacity.

[EternityTide]

This is about water production, not storage. For that, you want this thread.

[Gonzalo]

While I do agree with the water storage thread, I don't think that this melting system is a good idea because it would be really tedious, it would be like adding more steps to the system that we have and works quite well. I mean imagine that I am at the farmstead and wanted some water, I would have to go outside which means loading the map, collect maybe 4Kg of snow, going back in, loading time again, start a 2 hours fire (time required to melt and boil 4L in-game right now) and start melting in 8 turns if I have the small aluminium pan, and that's exactly what cooking is right now. Second, the snow carrying mechanic makes no sense since no one would want to carry snow, it would be pointless because you can just get out of your house or your cave for a sec, grab snow and start smelting it back inside.

I think that adding the water storage mechanic it's a good idea but I can see people thinking it would be tedious as well. If anything, we can rejoice once modding support is added later on in the game since these kind of things may be added by talented modders, the Unity engine is flexible if I recall and I can see people doing this with ease.

[Ohbal]

While I'm all for a revised way to store water, I have to agree with those that say the manually recollection of it would make it a bit tedious. 

I'd like to see the revised cooking mechanic first though, as they will happen in real time  and there may be ways to get a better melting mechanic.