change the -ve calorie meter

[ThePope]

the current starvation system is a little off imo, not really sure how it can be fixed easily though. in another thread i was thinking if a body weight metric was implemented rather than a -ve calorie metric, where if you run below zero calories you start to lose weight, and if you are above a certain calorie you start to slowly regain weight.

this way there is no bottom -ve calroies. if you want to forage for wood for 4 hours at 400calories/hour in the current system there is no negative if youre already -1500 calories. with this implemented those 1600 calories of expenditure can lose you roughly half a pound of fat (if fat is 3500cal/pound) or 2 or so pounds of muscle (if muscle is 600cal/lb) if your starting weight is a respectable but lean 160lbs, and you are basically dead at 80lbs that could come in to play

[Sioux]

So you're saying to make the player lose bodyweight when he has negative calories. And when you're below a certain weight limit, you'll start dying. I think that's a good suggestion, makes it more realistic and puts a negative effect on having negative calories.

[ThePope]

maybe im going so far as to say get rid of the condition counter completely and have independent condition counters, for starvation it could be body weight, for temperature it could be body temp, dehydration, and illness/bleeding etc. maybe thats too complicated for a game of this type though. on an aside though i hope that the stats of condition represented as a % of 100, and the thirst, food, cold, fatigue meters can be done away with completely in the final release and feedback be given to the player by the character/environment etc.

[gwishades]

yes i was just speaking about this in another post, there should be more negative effects to starving yourself. i also noted if you were starving then stuffed your self with excess amount of food to get your calories back up this would make you sick, its called re-feeding syndrome. while starving i think your fatigue meter should raise much faster, maybe tasks like aiming your gun you would be shaky, or repairing items and starting fires you would not be as successful.

[dwayneotron]

This sounds pretty interesting, and still hinges on the calories system the game runs on. Instead of sitting at -1500, you have a big tank of calories that you can put into or take out of (i.e. your fat reserves). Some thought would need to be put into the total starting reserve value (the starting figure would probably be based on a certain number of days survival). Below some certain reserve point (say .25 of starting value for an example), there could be associated performance effects; you're slower and weaker.

While you could take out of the reserves easily, putting back into the reserves would be harder. You could keep the 2500 kcal top-end cap. This would signify that your stomach can only get so full. Otherwise people could just pack away an entire deer since bodyfat doesn't spoil like food does.