Carabiners, harness, belay devices

[TWM]

I mean, if you'd go rope climbing, wouldn't you want to hook yourself onto the rope for some semblance of safety?

Game mechanics wise, having a harness and belay device might offer an advantage to fatigue. As the game works now, climbing a rope really takes a hit on your ability to move forward; which is rather unrealistic, I might add.

Heck, I climbed from the draft dodger's cabin to skeeter's ridge recently, and I ended up completely exhausted, which meant that I had to sleep for eight hours to get to the point where I would have been fully rested again. Not ideal and not very realistic. Climbing equipment could mitigate this issue and thus offer an incentive to use it.

It would also offer more stuff to repair. As it stands now, there's not a whole lot of reason to use the toolboxes in the game (well, unless you play on Interloper a lot), which is kind of a shame.

[Ice Hole]

Welcome to Hinterland where safety is our number one priority!

[mystifeid]

Since pulling yourself up a climbing rope, even without carrying any weight, is one of the most unrealistic things in the game, I already imagine that my character has a pair of ascenders or even just a couple of prusik loops as well as a makeshift harness and etriers but that my character is hopeless at using them - hence the fatigue.

[cekivi]

7 hours ago, mystifeid said:

Since pulling yourself up a climbing rope, even without carrying any weight, is one of the most unrealistic things in the game, I already imagine that my character has a pair of ascenders or even just a couple of prussik loops as well as a makeshift harness and etriers but that my character is hopeless at using them - hence the fatigue.

Definitely make for a neat additional skill and giving some use to the poor neglected tool boxes is always good

 

[Xandion]

This would help a bit with the whole falling thing. Tried climbing for the first time, ran out of energy, stumbled at the top, and was greeted with sound and visuals that scared the crap out of me. +5

[Mikhail_Reign]

Climbing a rope isn't that hard if you do it right. Just put a locking loop around your foot and it's not much more strenuous then climbing stairs. It's basically squatting and standing. A small length of cord (something any pilot would carry) could be made into a Pruisk knot and make it even easier still. 

[mystifeid]

Some of the cliffs have the appearance of being more than 25m high. If you have ever footlocked your way up a single dynamic (stretchy) climbing rope that is hanging against a vertical cliff to this height without a harness and prusik loop I take my hat off to you. At a height that is enough to kill you in the event of a fall, it takes a very cool customer not to burn a lot of extra nervous energy in this sort of situation out of simple fear. On the odd occasion when I would solo climbs, usually when very depressed, this fear would kick in - in a big way - about 10m to 15m up and it is a very good cure for depression.

Maybe the fearless type could do this on an 11mm rope but on a 8.5mm or 9mm half-rope it is hard to imagine. What is not hard to imagine is the nervous type running out of arm strength before the top.

Holding your own body weight or pulling yourself up anything after you have lost feeling in your fingers due to intense cold is also a major problem.

Given a knife or fire and a rope (or end of a rope) I would be cutting off 7m to 8m and making a harness and an etrier then dissecting and braiding enough of the kern to make two prusik loops. That way it would be possible to climb the rope with relative ease, safety and without too much fear. Also it would be more likely I could climb the rope without removing gloves/mittens.

You might think that rock climbing literature would be littered with stories of people climbing up ropes without any equipment but I can assure you that at least when it was possible for me to read this sort of material without starting to vibrate, this was not the case.

[Mikhail_Reign]

I use to footlock my way to the top of the gym in my highschool on what was basically a hardware store rope all the time to retrieve balls stuck in the roof - it was at least 2 stories (so 20m+). Obviously that not a direct comparison to a survival situation - my point is is that with the technique you can rest on the rope. When you lock your foot your can take the weight off your upper body, and basically just stand there and regain your breath. Its not an all or bust situation.

[mystifeid]

17 hours ago, Mikhail_Reign said:

I use to footlock my way to the top of the gym in my highschool on what was basically a hardware store rope all the time to retrieve balls stuck in the roof - it was at least 2 stories (so 20m+).

Typical building storey height is 3m so 20m is nearly seven stories. That is a very big gym.

[Mikhail_Reign]

Doh- you are completely right - I'd been dealing with a lotta yanks and was thinking feet not metres. That said, re-reading yours, there aren't any 20m cliffs in the game. All the climbs are about 10m max.

[mystifeid]

Yeah, it's pretty subjective but the two I was thinking about were the Summit and the Ravine. The Ravine at least has the railway cars at the bottom which may serve to provide a basis for the estimation of the height of the cliff.

[mystifeid]

I remembered that the F8 screenshot gives three coordinates. I always assumed the units were metres and that the middle coordinate was the height but I could be wrong. Anyway I climbed down from TWM to PV and if these assumptions are right, the height is 48m.

[Mikhail_Reign]

I don't think any of the cliffs in the game are that big! 50m is massive! Everything is in that 15-25m range - and I don't even think that big in most cases.

[mystifeid]

I agree and I was a bit shocked but check one out yourself -  hit F8 at the bottom and again at the top of a rope.

I just had a look at the one near Crystal Lake - 46m !

Who knows, maybe the x-y coords are metres but the z coordinate is feet - it would make more sense to my senses.

Then again, tried this: walked up to mountaineers hut until next flat area was at eye level (F8) then walked up onto flat area (F8). Height was 2m.

(So, as well as having the fitness level of an Olympic gymnast, Astrid is quite tall)

[Mikhail_Reign]

Are you sure those numbers actually translate to a standard measurement scale? 1unit doesn't have to equal 1meter/foot.

 

For example, just working off that ratio, and the average height of a female (2:1.61) those 46unit cliffs could actually be 37m high....

[mystifeid]

Could be. Apart from assertions made by forum members, I can't find anything definitive on the units used in the coordinate system. Perhaps @Patrick Carlson could shed some light on this.