Transportation?


mulderfox

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It would be awesome to have a vehicle in the game. Sure, you can make it vulnerable to the freezing conditions, or only partially useful against the cold/wolves, but it would make things more interesting for sure. If not a vehicle, some domesticated animal - horse, dogs (sled) or something similar.

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It would be awesome to have a vehicle in the game. Sure, you can make it vulnerable to the freezing conditions, or only partially useful against the cold/wolves, but it would make things more interesting for sure.

Snowshoes. Accept no substitutes.

I could see a vintage snowmobile (one without electronics) as being realistic and situationally/thematically appropriate.

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It would be awesome to have a vehicle in the game... it would make things more interesting for sure.

I could see a vintage snowmobile (one without electronics) as being realistic and situationally/thematically appropriate.

Like a Canadian Harley! A hodgepodge vehicle that looks like a motorcycle had questionable and drunken relations with a dogsled. I would love for something like that to be in the game.

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The whole premise of the game is that a massive solar flare has knocked out all the electronics on earth.

So i doubt there would be that many cars around. Even the old ones have some electric parts that would be really hard to replace using improvised materials.

Some older mechanically injected diesel cars could still work, but gasoline cars would not work, since they use a spark plug to ignite. Of course depending how massive the solar flare was. Usually spark plugs etc are very sturdy against EMPs, but if we got hit by some balls to the wall massive solar flare never seen before, then who knows.

Maybe it could be some end game goal to fix a snowmobile or something using the crafting system to improvise new electronic parts. But that's still far far away into the development before we should worry about the end game goals.

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I changed the heading and added to the content - finding dog/s and using them for safety (guard dogs) or as sled pullers would add an awesome layer of interest to the game.

I think things like this should be handled by NPCs, to be honest. The amount of resources, attention, specialization, and programming that would go into owning, maintaining, and operating a vehicle (especially one pulled by living creatures) would be a LOT to ask of the development team.

That being said, I see this as a perfectly reasonable mechanic for long-distance transportation, say between different communities of survivors and the edge of the wilderness. For example, say you have Marvin who is a professional transporter, using his dogsled to move supplies and, occasionally, people through the frozen wilderness. He might hang out at the Bear & Bison trading post at the edge of the wilds during the winter. Normally, he transports goods to and from the trading post to several survivor communities in the region. For a price (trade goods, fulfilling certain tasks to earn his favor/respect) he will transport you to one of the settlements and wait there to bring you back to the wilderness.

Programming-wise, this means creating an identical NPC named Marvin at every major civilization hub that can be interacted with by the protagonist and transport them to any other major civilization hub in the region. Each hub could be its own "outdoor" instance which would cut down on load times for the game. Think "guy in the cart" from Skyrim, only Marvin is the only way to get to those specialized areas. Otherwise, the trek would take too long and you would freeze or starve to death before you made it there. Perhaps the area has a difficult mountain pass to get in and out of areas and the dogsled is one of the few ways to transport individuals (during the winter) from one hub to another.

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That's definitely an option, but I was thinking something more personal and smaller scale. Also, if you introduce communities, it takes away the sense of alone and harshness of the game - which some people would not like. I thought about 2-4 dog sled - you'll have to find the dogs, keep them warm and fed (or at least fed), build the sled from foraged wood, and see it degrade over time, your dogs fighting off wolves (which might gather in packs as a response to your dog pack) and getting weaker with time and so on and so forth

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That's definitely an option, but I was thinking something more personal and smaller scale. Also, if you introduce communities, it takes away the sense of alone and harshness of the game - which some people would not like. I thought about 2-4 dog sled - you'll have to find the dogs, keep them warm and fed (or at least fed), build the sled from foraged wood, and see it degrade over time, your dogs fighting off wolves (which might gather in packs as a response to your dog pack) and getting weaker with time and so on and so forth

I think scattered communities of survivors would actually add to the sense of being alone when you are actually in the wilderness and add an additional level of harshness to the game. Perhaps communities require individuals skilled in the art of survival (such as yourself) to provide them with raw materials from the wild (meat, leather, timber) in order to eek out a meager existence. Perhaps the character remains the perpetual outsider, a savior of many yet never feeling like he belongs.

Regardless, while I think it would be cool to be able to do all that, I just want you to think about how much free time you have in the game right now and how you would use it to locate, befriend, train, care for even a single dog, let alone 2 or more with a sled in tow. As the time scale is right now and the constant need for food and water, it just doesn't seem plausible. If they reduced the time to real time and did something about the unfathomable clothing decay rates, maybe you could do something like that. But right now, I just can't see it.

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Of course the needs scale will have to be adjusted to allow for it. The game already feels a bit like the sims series with the meters for food, thirst, sleep and so on. I would think that either the dogs can get some autonomy as to being able to hunt for food, or lick snow for water, or your own needs will degrade slower in order to allow for you to take care of your dogs.

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