POLL: Dynamic Interior Temperatures or As Is

[stray_cur]

It's been brought up before, but why not a poll, eh?

Consider:

Stumbling into a new place and breaking down some of the (often abundant) wood in there to warm up.  
Eventually, if planning to stay a while, see about getting a little wood pile going.
The sense of 'shelter from the storm' becoming deeper and more meaningful rather than given.
Reading by the fire, falling asleep to the crackle.  
For a game which is all about the beauty of basic necessity and earned survival, I think this fits, and is consistent with current gameplay.
(And scenes like below can be more than a waste of wood for a pretty screenshot)

[Gaboris]

I'd love to see this implemented. It would make survival much harder I guess since most of us goes to shelters to warm up so maybe leave it out in Pilgrim.

Also while we're at the subject what about shelters without a fireplace? The lumberjack trailers in Mystery lake or the lake cabins? If this gets implemented we'll need some alternative heat source to use in those places or exploring them would be almost impossible in the early game.

[Joelle Emmily]

I also like this idea, but, a building is affect by more than just the outside temperature. For instance, sunlight hitting a trailer off will warm it significantly. One would naturally expect interior temperatures to be higher than ambient, and zero degrees is not far off, depending on insulation. But this also adds another dynamic, after nightfall, a trailer would be freezing.

[stray_cur]

Places without internal heat sources (assumedly intended for summer use only) could stay without -- just do outside fires.  
Maybe opens possibility for a new item, along the lines of lantern; a portable kerosene heater.
I think Pilgrimers would appreciate this dynamic.  Giving them a little something more to do (natural and predictable, rather than agro wildlife).  Aesthetically pleasant.

Heat trapping / loss from the sun -- generally these structures don't seem hyper insulated, and there are enough cloudy days and cold nights that just a little higher than outside temp would reflect realism well enough.  Wouldn't wanna overwhelm the devs / players with too many details.  Simplified abstraction.
 

[vancopower]

Although I love the idea of dynamic temp. I have to go with the other, because you already have to conserve resources for many things like cooking, water, and so on having to take care for the temp too it is tedious work. I would suggest something more like this: the temp inside is low however you can upgrade your shelter permanently increasing the temp by setting up isolation with pelts which will raise the temp by 5 degrees or 10 if you do the final upgrade, and thus forget about it and concentrate on more important things like hunting and fishing and water melting...

[stray_cur]

1 hour ago, vancopower said:

 I would suggest something more like this: the temp inside is low however you can upgrade your shelter permanently

Seems to me this would go best in conjunction with the dynamic interior temp, rather than replace it.  

[Scyzara]

Sounds like an awesome Interloper feature to me.

As it would drastically increase the difficulty, I would suggest to make it an Interloper (or possibly maybe also Stalker)-only feature.

And there should be a grace period for the first 1-2 days of a new game to give everyone the chance to find some matches.

[ChillPlayer]

I see some faults with this idea if you don't want to redo alot of the mechanics currently in place. For starters the inhouse "feels like" would need to be -8 to -10C, later in the game -25 to -30 or otherwhise your cloths and beds/roll would nullify the effect. Then you need to trash some furniture for reclaimed wood during which you'd most likely freeze to death or come close to a near death experience. Fastest you can forage is one piece in 15 minutes if there are crates (barehanded), which equals to 3C heat output. You'd need 4 to just have a feels like of "1C" to be on the safe side in the beginning - and your fire goes out after two hours, so more furniture trashing. You end up with an empty house, completely exhausted and starved without or only little water (because you were trashing furniture) and would have to ask yourself if this was all worth it. Do the math yourself how much you'd need later in the game, most houses would not have enough furniture for one night.

2nd there is only so much furniture to trash in one house and sooner than you'd like you have to use that precious wood to go forage limbs outside (or again, freeze to death). Rinse & repeat until you have the house warm enough so you can sleep safely for 8 hours. After a week of emptying all wood ressources you can get your hands on nearby you get a warning that you have a 94% chance for getting Cabin Fever and have to do what would have made much more sense in the beginning, build a snowshelter and have a fire going right by it. You'd need less amount of wood (45 mins of warm fire to build the shelter as opposed to hours for furniture trashing) and would not risk Cabin Fever.

It would also erradicated the idea of "shelter", now we can live close to the edge and take a hike from PV-CH Cave to Jackrabbit Island, knowing that we will warm up there. This would no longer be possible. Yes you can make 5 fires along the way but what if wind starts blowing? I see new game after new game and success being hugely based on weather and spawn luck.

Bottom line, it would be a balancing nightmare to implement this. I think Cabin Fever is already enough motivation to not camp forever in a cozy home. Just try to survive right from the start in Forestry Lookout for 2-3 weeks where indoor temperatures are affected by outside weather (the last I checked at least) and then revisit this idea. I'm not saying it's impossible but would it be fun? I highly doubt it.

 

[stray_cur]

10 hours ago, ChillPlayer said:

You'd need 4 to just have a feels like of "1C" to be on the safe side in the beginning - and your fire goes out after two hours, so more furniture trashing

Only interior heating/cooling mechanics need be adjusted - whether that means the +1 accumulates indoors or indoor fires burn hotter (less heat loss) or both.  It would be part of the 'dynamism' of interior heating/cooling, which needn't touch/change anything to do with outdoor fires or anything else, and shouldn't be overly burdensome (and can't be tried out by living in forestry lookout or anywhere for lack of the sustained / efficient indoor heating mechanic).

[ChillPlayer]

Not sure if you understand me right or if I misunderstand you

What I meant is, if the indoor temperature is not significantly lower than outdoor you can easily combat it with clothing/bed/bedroll (as it is right now in Forestry Lookout for example). Thus it would need to be like -10 indoors to have any effect and then everything I wrote follows. And when people get better clothing indoor temperature would have to be dynamically lowered further, which is hard to to balance.

[Rifleman]

On 25/09/2016 at 6:37 AM, stray_cur said:

It's been brought up before, but why not a poll, eh?

Consider:

Stumbling into a new place and breaking down some of the (often abundant) wood in there to warm up.  
Eventually, if planning to stay a while, see about getting a little wood pile going.
The sense of 'shelter from the storm' becoming deeper and more meaningful rather than given.
Reading by the fire, falling asleep to the crackle.  
For a game which is all about the beauty of basic necessity and earned survival, I think this fits, and is consistent with current gameplay.
(And scenes like below can be more than a waste of wood for a pretty screenshot)

+1 for this. Stalker is way too easy. Hopefully this makes stalker a bit harder.

[EternityTide]

1 hour ago, Rifleman said:

+1 for this. Stalker is way too easy. Hopefully this makes stalker a bit harder.

If Stalker is too easy, why don't you just play Interloper?

[Rifleman]

1 hour ago, EternityTide said:

If Stalker is too easy, why don't you just play Interloper?

Because 20+ items are removed from interloper, including the famous rifle.

 

[EternityTide]

Just now, Rifleman said:

Because 20+ items are removed from interloper, including the famous rifle.

Well then I'm afraid you are going to have to deal with it then. The bow is more than sufficient anyway. I've survived 60 days and counting without firing a single shot, relying on the bow alone. If it's too difficult for you, then admit it, rather than trying to bluster your way out of it.

[Rifleman]

9 minutes ago, EternityTide said:

Well then I'm afraid you are going to have to deal with it then. The bow is more than sufficient anyway. I've survived 60 days and counting without firing a single shot, relying on the bow alone. If it's too difficult for you, then admit it, rather than trying to bluster your way out of it.

I didn't say interloper is too hard. I said stalker is too easy.

[stray_cur]

9 hours ago, ChillPlayer said:

Not sure if you understand me right or if I misunderstand you

"All communication is miscommunication without communication of the mis-"

Implementation and mechanics.  

For Indoor conditions colder than clothing+bedroll can handle, the fire needn't immediately bring the 'feels like' temp. to positive, but rather have an accumulative effect, gradually warming the place up until things do start to read in the pluses, and holding it there long after the fire is out. I think there's satisfaction in that.

Does that 'model' apply/help @ChillPlayer?

(our 'summer' place - for mood)

[cekivi]

Personally I really like dynamic temperatures (for the reasons outlined above) and feel that they would add to the immersion of all difficulty levels (even Pilgrim) without being too harsh/unpredictable. Better shelters staying warmer longer is intuitive enough that it would be a quick adjustment.

I would offer two caveats:

• Interior temperatures should be capped at -15C (or -10C). There's nothing wrong with not needing a fire if you have enough clothing and a good bedroll. This would also help model shelters warming up during the daytime sun (obviously wouldn't apply to the mountaineer's hut as it has no roof)
• Coals would need to be added to the game. Burning fir firewood would leave you with a nice bed of coals which should last many hours and keep your house warm all night/day.

 

[Rifleman]

1 hour ago, cekivi said:

Personally I really like dynamic temperatures (for the reasons outlined above) and feel that they would add to the immersion of all difficulty levels (even Pilgrim) without being too harsh/unpredictable. Better shelters staying warmer longer is intuitive enough that it would be a quick adjustment.

I would offer two caveats:

• Interior temperatures should be capped at -15C (or -10C). There's nothing wrong with not needing a fire if you have enough clothing and a good bedroll. This would also help model shelters warming up during the daytime sun (obviously wouldn't apply to the mountaineer's hut as it has no roof)
• Coals would need to be added to the game. Burning fir firewood would leave you with a nice bed of coals which should last many hours and keep your house warm all night/day.

 

You can find coals in the caves.

[ChillPlayer]

2 hours ago, stray_cur said:

(our 'summer' place - for mood)

this is summer? wow I see where you're comming from

I do get your idea but as I said, think about balancing and don't forget Cabin Fever. Mind you though that my concerns are mainly for Interloper, where wasting a match just to have it warm feels like a waste to me. And CF prevents you from staying for too long in one house, so this would need to be adjusted too and thus take alot of stress out from Interloper (and probably Stalker). Otherwise if you need to wait for the house to warm you better don't do it inside - but outside you'd need another fire going to survive in the early days and you need several pieces of wood and another match for that. Later you might have good enough cloths to stay in a cave. But why not stay in a cave then at all? It's what most Interloper player do anyway.

It would be a different story if we could forage from inside a building as it was some 100 versions ago, but again this would make many things too easy.

Plus a mild form of what you are suggesting is already in place, there are buildings which have you at -3 constantly with starting cloths unless you make a fire - which is why I omit this places to stay.

I see that from an immersion point of view your suggestion would add some but honestly, I just made it to day 30 again in Interloper and boy was I immersed all the time

@cekivi: I like the coal idea in general, not only for indoors but in general for fire. Everyone who has ever made a campfire can tell that it would still glimmer the next morning. But it would make things easier and that's not something I personally would wish for at the moment.

 

[cekivi]

@Rifleman Not coal as in the black stuff. Coals as in the ones you find in a fireplace after burning wood (see below):

[ChillPlayer]

Yes I understand what you mean, the stuff that's left over after the fire burned while it's still hot glowing. But you see that this would allow to have a fire going forever with a single match? If the fire still produces heat it would follow that you can rekindle it for cooking and so on without a match. I don't think you can have one without the other if it should make any sense.

[cekivi]

8 minutes ago, ChillPlayer said:

Yes I understand what you mean, the stuff that's left over after the fire burned while it's still hot glowing. But you see that this would allow to have a fire going forever with a single match? If the fire still produces heat it would follow that you can rekindle it for cooking and so on without a match. I don't think you can have one without the other if it should make any sense.

I'm actually fine with this. When I'm out in the woods I generally try to keep my fire going as long as possible using only one match. Since more fire starting methods are on the roadmap as well I think this will be less of an issue as the game progresses. Matches will still be super valuable (especially if you're traveling or need an emergency fire) but if you're in a base and tend your fire throughout the day (that's the catch - you need lots of wood and to keep coming back) the fire from one match should last a very long time.

As for dynamic heating itself - it should also reflect the size of the building and how well insulated it is. The hydro dam and the barn would both warm up from the fire barrel but it would never get as hot as the insulated camp office or farmstead.

[ChillPlayer]

I believe this would pretty much break Interloper and turn it into Stalker v2. Fire Drillbows an such can be tuned, eg you need guts and wood and after one or two usage the line breaks. But unlimited fire with one match? I would not have taken the risk of going to Abandoned Lookout and then to ML with only half proper clothing in my run yesterday if I could keep a fire going forever. But I was down to 4 matches and desperately needed the Mag Glass or Firestriker (or for now, more matches, yey 13 in total left ) and on day 30 this was one of the most stressfull undertakings I've done so far, good fun

[KD7BCH]

I am for variable temperatures inside structures. 

As for the discussion on eternal fires. I am of the mind that long term fires make sense but probably not longer than 24 hours. As this would reduce the overall difficulty of the mode, another variable temperature idea would be that of liquids. If the developer decides to model indoor temperature variations and also wet clothing it might also be possible to model temperatures of liquids such as water. You can consume ice but you cannot drink ice and water in a container exposed to temperatures below zero quickly lose the heat contained and within a few hours regardless of how well insulated will freeze. Of course some containers insulate better than others, a thermos for example is another item that could be modeled that would keep liquids warmer and or prevented form freezing for a gameplay beneficial amount of time. On the whole the ability to melt any amount of water once and for it to always remain liquid without having to re-heat it is extremely unrealistic and would make for an additional challenge as well as add to the necessity for keeping a fire going for extended periods of time. I like all of the ideas that increase realism and add to gameplay and I think these two features would add both to the challenge and also gameplay. 

[cekivi]

@KD7BCH: good points. If keeping a fire going becomes easier than there should be some trade off.

@ChillPlayer: Coals wouldn't necessarily mean a perpetual fire. Coals will go out eventually (you could even set the burn time unrealistically low), cabin fever discourages staying inside all the time, you'd need to constantly forage for wood, quality and duration of coals would depend on the wood burned (i.e. none for scrap wood), and, lastly, just because you can start a fire from coals doesn't mean you will. An inexperienced person could just as easily put the fire out. On the whole, I think having dynamic temperatures and coals would add more than to the game than it detracts and the difficulty (and energy) of keeping your fire going will still keep the difficulty levels competitive.