Using Cloth as a Bandage

[Pharose]

So obviously cloth can be be turned into bandages, so this suggestion may seem very minor but I just learned that isn't always the case as my stalker sandbox came to a disappointing end. 

I was checking out my Pleasant Valley farmhouse when a bear came wandering through, just a few meters from my front door, and I decided this was an excellent opportunity to harvest fresh bear meat close to home. I positioned myself in the porch behind the open screen door and lined up my rifle for a shot, but I wanted to get a head shot for a quicker kill and my novice firearm skill became apparent as my gun sights swayed from side-to-side. The bear came closer and soon he was up on two legs roaring at me before he started running in my direction. I hesitated another second and took my shot but it was too late, and the bear was on top of me before I could close the screen door and I endured a terrible mauling. The bear walked away bleeding but I only had 6% health so I ran back inside to mend my wounds, but what's this? No bandages in my inventory? Did I leave them in the first aid kit in the bathroom? Nope. Did I leave them in the upstairs cabinet or in the upstairs bathroom? No time to check so I will have to make more bandages with my ample supply of cloth. Shit 10 minutes to make bandages?! Better start now... before.... I.... bleed.... to death................

DEAD.

So I was caught unprepared without any bandages in my inventory but is this really an appropriate way to die? In real life I wouldn't need to cut a piece of cloth in half before I could use it as a bandage and I certainly wouldn't in an emergency scenario. More importantly this is already a feature for tinder sources such as newspaper, so when I'm in an emergency and freezing to death I will just use the whole damn roll of newspaper instead of taking to time to separate the pages. You would never think that such a minor feature could be important until it becomes life or death. 

[mystifeid]

Forget about real life, this is fantasy. In real life you are not going to see a "mysterious geo-magnetic storm" either.

It is quite probable that you will die several more times in this fashion until you finally remember to always carry bandages. Inventory management is an important part of the game and I suspect that death by blood loss is meant to clue you in on that.

And if you have not taken a shot at a bear by the time it rears up then that is a good cue that it is time to leave.

Also I do not worry about harvesting meat from bears or wolves until I have level 5 cooking skill which usually occurs sometime after day 100.

[cekivi]

If it's any consolation @Pharose Interloper is even worse. You start with so little equipment that you're probably harvesting your socks to make bandages if you get jumped by something.

[ponyhidden]

Forget how you died, I think using cloth as a bandage (wasting some of it's uses, but not needing to take time to harvest) is just like the newspaper-tinderplug system, as you mentioned. I see no reason for cloth not to work like a bandage, bandages are just created by ripping cloth in half so you can use it twice.

[mystifeid]

Why stop at cloth? Why can't we use clothing like a sweater or a scarf as a bandage?

Let's make it really easy.

[Dirmagnos]

Sweater or scarf would make extremely poor bandages, but i guess it would be better than nothing.

[togg]

15 hours ago, Pharose said:

 In real life I wouldn't need to cut a piece of cloth in half before

You basically answered yourself the games is already pretty forgiving in a lot of things, if a bear attacks you this bad in the snow in real life you're probably not able to walk and will die on the spot.

Don't think about real life, think about the rythmt than a game need.

[Hotzn]

19 hours ago, Pharose said:

I was checking out my Pleasant Valley farmhouse when a bear came wandering through, just a few meters from my front door, and I decided this was an excellent opportunity to harvest fresh bear meat close to home. I positioned myself in the porch behind the open screen door and lined up my rifle for a shot, but I wanted to get a head shot for a quicker kill and my novice firearm skill became apparent as my gun sights swayed from side-to-side. The bear came closer and soon he was up on two legs roaring at me before he started running in my direction. I hesitated another second and took my shot but it was too late, and the bear was on top of me before I could close the screen door and I endured a terrible mauling. The bear walked away bleeding but I only had 6% health so I ran back inside to mend my wounds, but what's this? No bandages in my inventory? Did I leave them in the first aid kit in the bathroom? Nope. Did I leave them in the upstairs cabinet or in the upstairs bathroom? No time to check so I will have to make more bandages with my ample supply of cloth. Shit 10 minutes to make bandages?! Better start now... before.... I.... bleed.... to death................

DEAD.

Very lively written, and very funny. Who has not experienced something at least similar while playing TLD?

Concerning your question - I would think that inventory management and the preparation of tools/equipment is a crucial part of survival. We should take things like breaking down cloth into bandages or breaking down a newspaper roll into tinder plugs (I'm currently not even sure that you cannot use the newpaper roll directly as tinder) as a game icon for inventory management/survival preparation. When some players claim that they could use a piece of cloth for a bandage, they must be thinking of a specific piece of cloth in terms of size and material. But what if it was a different piece? If we really wanted to be realisitic to the last degree, then every piece of cloth would have to be different - the first one only 10 x 14 cm and made of wool (obviously unsuited as bandage), the second one accidentally 15 x 150 cm and made of cotton (and therefore strangely similar to a bandage already), the third on (ripped from a lady's ultra-modern sports underwear) completely irregular-shaped and made of plastoid-vinyl-elastocene or some other weird stuff, and nobody would adivinate what happens if you try to make a bandage out of that (it might snap into your eye and make you blind).

Would we want that? And even if we got it, there would still be people shouting about, "hey, I would make an out-of-this world, super-effective bandage out of plastoid-vinyl-elastocene sports underwear - it's poor game design that this material just provides a bandage of average quality!!" So my personal opinion is, the game design is good as it is. It teaches us that we need to make some basic preparations before we set out to do certain tasks or embark on a trip into the cold wilderness. Have your bandages ready in case you get hurt, and have your tinder plugs ready in case you need to make a fire quick. There are other areas of the game which need more attention.