"Perishable" tools?

[a-z-booka]

Hi guys!

I want to share an observation I made while playing the game:

The tools are degrading even if you don't use them (doesn't matter if they are in your inventory or just lying on the floor/spawn point. Every 12h they loose 1% of their quality. This applies to can opener, prybar, hatchet, hunting knife and simple tools (don't know about rifle and sewing kit - didn't have them at hand to test). The lantern and quality tools (found in bunker) don't fall under this "rule".

Can somebody explain to me the physics of this situation? Are they made of some kind of biodegradable alloy?

Don't know if it is a bug or feature but I think it shouldn't be like this.

And since I'm talking about tools and degradation I have a couple of suggestions:

1) The hatchet.

Why does it degrade for 10% per use (even when you didn't find any usable wood)?

My suggestion:

it should loose 1-2% of it's quality per found wood unit (e.g. reclaimed wood/tinder plug - 1%; cedar wood/fir wood - 2%). And there shouldn't be "you haven't found any usable wood" as a result (never) - you're surrounded by wood! At very least you can always find some pine cones or tore off some bark and use all this as a tinder.

Also repairing should be in fact sharpening with a whetstone (no consumption of scrape metal). The handle can break (1-2% chance) BUT you must be able to do a new one using any kind of wood.

2) The knife.

As much as hatchet you should sharpen it, not "repair".

But more important that you must be able to use it in a fight with a wolf. What bonus should it give? You don't need to build up the force of your attack, just hit attack and wolf runs away. But if you did build it up (~20-25%) then 1 hit should be enough to kill him.

3) The rifle.

First, it shouldn't degrade so much after each shot. Second, degradation must depend on air temperature (not wind chill). Metal becomes brittle only somewhere after -30-40°C (depends on alloy).

4) Stackability.

Please make bandages and antiseptic bottles stackable, so if I need "to loose some gear" I could know that I have 1kg of bandages or antiseptic when I order everything by weight. Also it would be great if rests from one lantern oil can could be poured into another one (same goes for jerry cans). Newsprints and newspaper rolls should stack as same thing in the inventory (let's call it paper), because the only difference between them is their world model.

5) Books.

I suggest to add books to the game. Not for reading though, they would serve the same purpose as newspaper does. For book cover I suggest use something funny or scandalous (e.g. "Fahrenheit 451" as a reference to burning the books or "Mein Kampf" nazis also did burn them).

Hope it wasn't exhausting/boring to read all this stuff. I would have wrote something else but it's too late where I live so I must go to sleep.

P.S. The game is great, I've played the sandbox ~10 times. My "record" for now is 23 days.

[oversoul]

I like your post.

I would sum it up by saying the decay rates are ridiculous for a game that is striving for some modicum of difficulty. I hope the super decay rates are merely a place holder for soon-to-come mechanics to make the game difficult.

So that's what the current decay seems to me... a hack to make the game hard. Oh yea also spraining my ankle every day. That's also neat.

[madrepityu]

I like your idea. I think almost the same about item degradation.

Please read my post about my opinions, if you have time: http://hinterlandforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=1476&p=8581#p8435