Sustainability

[FrankTheYank]

Hello All;

 This is my first post, though I've been lurking around here for a bit, so I apologize if this has been suggested and kiboshed before. This isn't so much a single mechanic or item I'd like to be, but rather a whole system. Also, I may be completely unqualified to make this suggesting as my late game experience is limited at best, but here we go.

 To me, the biggest problem with the way the game is set up right now is that you will eventually run out of resources. Cloth, Scrap Metal, Cured Leather, and other necessary crafting items are man made and non renewable. Now, this may be completely intentional on the developers part. Perhaps this is a way for the makers to make a statement about how dependent we are on the civilization we live in. In which case, so be it. I also know beach combing is a thing, but that seems like a silly way to spend your days to be honest.

 But if that is not the case, then it seems to me that once you run out of cloth (which you will) then eventually your clothes will fall off your body. Also, you will eventually run out of whetstones to keep your tools in top shape. You will run out of metal to make more tools. Also, there are no craftable hats or inner layer items that I'm aware of. 

 So what I propose is that certain items be added in that are renewable (and make certain game items renewable like saplings). Flint/obsidian for knives and arrow heads, foxes or beavers for hats, and craftable under layers. These items would have to be either hard to craft requiring great skill (which as a hobbyist knapper I can tell you they do), or be much less effective than the metal items. Or both. 

 I guess what I'm kind of envisioning is that after a certain amount of time in the bush the character has gone totally native. His rifle ran out of ammunition and cleaning kits long ago, and was left in a cabin somewhere. His clothing is completely made from the animals he has been able to trap or hunt. His bow and arrows don't even show a sign of civilization, having been tooled and tipped with stone and bone. He has gone back to his hunter gatherer roots.

 Maybe this is already in the works, or perhaps this defeats the purpose of the game by eliminating the sense of impending doom. But anyway, what would you guys think of being able to live completely off of what nature has to offer?

[stratvox]

This runs pretty counter to the game philosophy I think. One of the things I like about this game is that eventually, everybody dies. How long it takes is a measure of your skill playing it.

It reminds me of what video arcade games were like in the 80s like Berzerk or Space Invaders... eventually you're dead, guaranteed. The "iron man" approach to saves underlines this... once you croak, your save is deleted and you have to (metaphorically) plug in another quarter to do it again. No going back and fixing it, you're just done.

That's what the world decay mechanic is all about... making conditions harsher over time until they kill you. In another post I talked about my head canon for this game: that the geomagnetic disaster (which looks like a geomagnetic reversal coupled with a solar CME) has triggered a cascading series of natural disasters which has made Earth inimical to human beings, triggering a massive earthquake along the Cascadia subduction zone (which terminates somewhere near where @Raphael van Lierop lives, actually) which in turn has triggered the Yellowstone supervolcano... which is why winter never ends and just keeps getting worse and worse. This explains why you see all that earthquake damage at various locations (when that particular fault goes it's going to be a massive 9+ Richter scale earthquake) and why winter never ends (in my longest play through to date I should be well into May by the time I checked out, but no sign of spring). This is actually a fairly accurate representation of what would go down after Yellowstone pops; best scientific estimates of how long Earth would experience winter after a Yellowstone supervolcanic eruption range from around five to fifteen years. 

The last time this happened (Lake Toba supervolcano ~70K years ago) it's estimated that 99% of all human beings died after global temperatures dropped by ~20C for over a decade.

[stratvox]

Actually, I'd like to suggest a custom survival mode that represents this:

1. An aurora every few days, possible to have them during the day.
2. Wildlife exhibits pilgrim behaviour towards humans when the aurora is not on, but goes to interloper behaviour when it is on.
3. When the aurora is not on, over the course of the following fifty days, wildlife becomes rarer and predators get more desperate, so they move to voyageur behaviour around day 25, and go to stalker behaviour around day fifty.
4. Stalker level loot.
5. Temperature starts at voyageur temperatures and over the next fifty days drops to the worst of interloper temperatures (so a temperature drop of thirty or forty degrees C over those fifty days).
6. Weather gets progressively nastier over that time as the sulfuric acid high in the atmosphere blocks out the sun; I think the fog weather could eventually replace all sunny days given how this would work.

As I understand it, best guesses as to what the sky looks like if you happen to be unfortunate enough to be alive when something like this goes down is the sky becomes a bright bright white as sunlight is scattered by the sulfuric acid droplets high in the stratosphere but the amount of light at the surface goes way way down. One fringe benefit (from the game and art perspective) is that those droplets are high enough that you'd actually be able to see the lower altitude parts of the aurora under it, which would make for some eldritch skies and glowing wolves and bears when the aurora was on during the day. Downside (again from art perspective) is no stars at night... no stars at all.

[KinoUnko]

49 minutes ago, stratvox said:

that the geomagnetic disaster (which looks like a geomagnetic reversal coupled with a solar CME) has triggered a cascading series of natural disasters which has made Earth inimical to human beings, triggering a massive earthquake along the Cascadia subduction zone (which terminates somewhere near where @Raphael van Lierop lives, actually) which in turn has triggered the Yellowstone supervolcano... which is why winter never ends and just keeps getting worse and worse. This explains why you see all that earthquake damage at various locations (when that particular fault goes it's going to be a massive 9+ Richter scale earthquake) and why winter never ends (in my longest play through to date I should be well into May by the time I checked out, but no sign of spring). This is actually a fairly accurate representation of what would go down after Yellowstone pops; best scientific estimates of how long Earth would experience winter after a Yellowstone supervolcanic eruption range from around five to fifteen years.

There's hypothesis geomagnetic reversal may trigger earth quakes, though CME almost certainly would not.  From what I gathered in story mode there's been a long global economic collapse which decimated the island, which is already been in long decline, and many of the island's inhabitants have already left well before the Flare event, with only some stragglers and people who didn't want to leave or can't leave(The NPCs). The Flare is just the final straw on the camel's back. Locations that appear to be earth quake damage could simply be due to lack of upkeep on the infrastructure as is likely to happen when economy tanks long term. Closest historical match to the Flare would be the Carrington Event in 1859 when X10+ CME hit Earth directly. Auroras seen as far as the equator, telegraph system were nonfunctional, telegraph operators electrocuted.

As for perpetual Winter, I think season change simply wasn't planned to begin with. The 5 episodes takes place in fairly short period of time, well before winter turns into spring. If Will is really so hard up to find Astrid as he seems to be in the cutscenes, would he really spend months gallivanting around Great Bear Island hunting bears and making wolf skin jackets?

The only thing that's unclear is the continued auroras, so the perpetual winter could have cause similar to something like the movie Sunshine.

[stratvox]

Actually, there has been some argument about whether geomagnetic reversal could do that. That said, it's argument and far far from settled; from what I've read most paleogeologists think it's not too likely, but you know, it's a video game so I figure it's plausible enough to just go with it. Plus note the "special game mode" part of what I was talking about... it uses a different headcanon from the actual game to justify the world decay decisions. I mean, I figure if you have that game mode and make it to ten years survival (say 3652 days) you get to see spring return to Great Bear Island... and hopefully by the time someone makes it there they'll be done the work on seasonal changes and it'll be good to go!

The real question is... how interesting do you think the setup I have created would be to play?

[stratvox]

9 minutes ago, KinoUnko said:

As for perpetual Winter, I think season change simply wasn't planned to begin with.

Oh one other thing: a Yellowstone super eruption would completely explain world decay and temperature changes over the course of the first fifty days. I mean it's pretty close to perfect.

[KinoUnko]

yea I just read little more on geomagnetic reversals, I suppose possibility does exist, though I'm on the more skeptic side. And there isn't any such event in recorded human history.

As for the story taking so soon after Yellowstone super eruption, I'd expect ash covering everything instead of pristine snow. no? The iceland eruption in 2010 sent ashes as far south as Italy and Spain, NE Canda, and well into Russia. Yellowstome super volcano would do far more than that. On the other hand if the cause was the Sun itself, it would pseudosplain the continued and frequent Auroras, and apparently endless winter... and who knows, winter might end eventually and the world goes out in a super hot summer.  

your custom survival mode does sound cool, a new challenge in game perhaps. Death is fairly guaranteed by day 50. I don't see anyone, or anything, surviving to day 100. 

Also apologies for hijacking the thread.

 

[stratvox]

Actually, the graphs I've seen showing likely distribution of ash from Yellowstone tend towards east south east, so it's possible Vancouver Island would not see very much of that. USGS modelling indicates ashfall there at 1-3 mm (yes, I have spent far too much time thinking about this ). Simply put, the prevailing global winds are simply in the wrong direction for it.

Actually, voyageur loot might make for a more balanced version of this... once the predators start going nuts one'll want to have better means to defend oneself from them, at least for a while. I mean, by day fifty you're looking at extremely dangerous predators... being able to keep it going past day fifty would be very hard but I think it should be possible to get past there. Realistically, if you wanted to have the challenge be to make it ten years for spring to return you'd definitely need to have a way in game to revert to stone age tech for when the bullets and matches run out (e.g. fire plow, stone knives/hatchets/arrowheads, bunny hats, etc), and also maybe ramping up the stuff you get out of beachcombing so one can return to metal tools from time to time as stuff washes up that's drifted over from Japan; ISTR that stuff from the 2010 tsunami took about three years or so to cross the Pacific to start washing up on the BC coast. I could also think of some map stuff that'd be necessary to really get that ball rolling given that a massive Cascadian subduction quake would almost certainly result in a 10m+ tsunami on the west and southwest coast of Great Bear Island. It's part of the reason I see Crumbling Highway being in the shape it's in... but you'd need to trash CH too. Well, I guess one could make a case that it was protected by the headland to the immediate west of that bay (basing this on the map found here). Hmmm... it all does make for some interesting thoughts on how one could expand the game's milieux... a trifecta of awful natural disasters, global in scope, guaranteeing that help is not coming and that one is almost certain to die before springtime returns. I guess you could consider it to be further north; Banks Island up in the Haida Gwai bears a passing resemblance to the map I linked earlier, which helps get rid of the ash fall problem and would also mean that some structures in the coastal regions could survive the tsunami.

No worries about hijacking from me... after all, I'm the guy that took over the plane on this one . Along the way I'd also love to give the TLD treatment to creating a set of regions based on the Killarney region in Ontario, just north of the Georgian Bay. It would be an astoundingly beautiful place to set up a new set of regions for sandbox play. The quartzite ridges and ridge top lakes would make some very beautiful landscapes.

 

[stratvox]

Oh, and @FrankTheYank welcome to the forums. Lotta opinionated people here, but that's what makes it fun... nothing wrong with opinionated yet respectful

 

[StrayCat]

5 hours ago, stratvox said:

Actually, I'd like to suggest a custom survival mode that represents this:

That's an REALLY good custom setting you're suggesting. Add a really hard and long way to finally flee from that damn frozen island (or get rescued), and there will be no need (for me) for a story mode, I would only play this (and I think I won't be the only one). Only the 6th point is a no-no, as you stated, it you remove the beautiful night sky.

[Fuarian]

No, I want items to be finite. Because they game is easy as is even on Interloper. I don't want sustainability. I want a challenge. That's where the devs have gone wrong. It's that in the "challenging" experience modes it's a challenge at first but once you get the hang of it, it's too easy. Sustainability makes it too easy over time. I want something that forces you out of that sedentary sustainable mode and into a nomadic kind of survival. O

[KinoUnko]

1 hour ago, Fuarian said:

No, I want items to be finite. Because they game is easy as is even on Interloper. I don't want sustainability. I want a challenge. That's where the devs have gone wrong. It's that in the "challenging" experience modes it's a challenge at first but once you get the hang of it, it's too easy. Sustainability makes it too easy over time. I want something that forces you out of that sedentary sustainable mode and into a nomadic kind of survival. O

Eventually one would deplete scrap metal, birch, maple, and is left with nothing but stones, even on pilgrim. granted I can't imagine most people would play the same run for that much time... probably several years in game time at least. Also, the routine is the nature of it no? It's only the modern person without the need of basic survival that continually seeks out challenges and adventures. 
The limited ways to play early game in Interloper may also be what makes it easy... the challange is steep, but it's always clear what one must do in the first few days.

[FrankTheYank]

13 hours ago, stratvox said:

This runs pretty counter to the game philosophy I think. One of the things I like about this game is that eventually, everybody dies. How long it takes is a measure of your skill playing it.

I think you may be right here. I think for survival mode having sustainability would make sense, but in the Wintermute where you're just trying to find your girl and get out the current mechanics make a lot of sense. In this case you're basically racing against the clock, trying to find what's important to you before the inevitable happens. 

2 hours ago, Fuarian said:

No, I want items to be finite. Because they game is easy as is even on Interloper. I don't want sustainability. I want a challenge. That's where the devs have gone wrong. It's that in the "challenging" experience modes it's a challenge at first but once you get the hang of it, it's too easy. Sustainability makes it too easy over time. I want something that forces you out of that sedentary sustainable mode and into a nomadic kind of survival. O

I don't think sustainability would necessarily decrease the challenge, especially if you made the items easy to break, hard to make, and not effective to use, which would be fairly realistic as well. To gather the resources for these materials would still require you to adventure around the map to collect necessary resources. As for the game being too easy, speak for yourself sir   I've gotten my butt whooped pretty good on Pilgrim  

 

And holy cow guys we went to a whole other scientific level on this thread didn't we? I love it though, we have some deep thinkers on here. There's some really good theories about what is going on in the game, and the science to back it up. Y'all are awesome!

[Fuarian]

@FrankTheYank I mean sustainability as in obtaining food. Right now all I need to do to survive is stay at the Camp Office and fish all day and I'm good for EVER.

[Mroz4k]

Actually, thanks to the beachcombing, the resources in the game that are neccesary for survival are renewable. Scrap metal, saplings, even bullets and flare shells, all of these things can be found through looting the coastal areas regularly. The only clothing piece that is not "craftable" - the headpiece, is the only weak link atm. While it is possible to find cloth, it is not possible to find non-ruined headwear - so if your head piece breaks, you will likely eventually die to frostbites - but other than that, thanks to beachcombing, infinite survival (on any difficulty) is possible, albeit very boring.

I would like to see sustainability as a custom mode setting but dont think its likely to come. Would need renewable plants and that is not a mechanic that would be currently in the game.

[Salty Crackers]

Sadly, the rifle can't be used forever. After an absurdly long period of time, you'd run out of rifle cleaning kits, so your rifle would break. The distress pistol doesn't decay, but flare shells wash up even less frequently than bullets.

[Boston123]

Please no flintknapping, please no flintknapping, please no flintknapping.

The only reason we would run out of resources is because the majority of resources that would logically be available are not interactable in-game.

The sheet metal provided by a single locker would be enough to make 100 arrows or knife-blades. The wool blanket and mattress-stuffing provided by a single bed would be enough to make at least one set of full-body clothing. By binding together twigs, you can make bundle-bows until you die of old age.

We just can't access any of it..... just 'because"

[KinoUnko]

@stratvox seen this? http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a28593/crystals-hold-timing-secrets-of-yellowstone-supervolcano/

[stratvox]

On 12/10/2017 at 5:51 PM, KinoUnko said:

@stratvox seen this? http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a28593/crystals-hold-timing-secrets-of-yellowstone-supervolcano/

Not that specific article, but yeah, saw that last week. Definitely interesting. I'm not really that surprised tbh; I think that disjunctive changes in nature can happen far faster than most people think.

[Wade]

Honestly, has anyone here really had a run where you ran out of materials other than perhaps matches?  It is a pretty big world and with the exception of Interloper most things are so abundant that you quit for boredom way before you ever run out of materials to continue surviving.

[JAFO]

On 10/11/2017 at 10:57 AM, FrankTheYank said:

To me, the biggest problem with the way the game is set up right now is that you will eventually run out of resources. Cloth, Scrap Metal, Cured Leather, and other necessary crafting items are man made and non renewable.

On 10/12/2017 at 2:12 AM, KinoUnko said:

Eventually one would deplete scrap metal, birch, maple, and is left with nothing but stones, even on pilgrim. granted I can't imagine most people would play the same run for that much time... probably several years in game time at least.

As @Mroz4k pointed out above, beachcombing actually brings in enough of all necessary resources that it's possible to survive indefinitely, even on Interloper. People who've crunched the actual numbers say that it's entirely possible to survive in TLD for in excess of 4000 days. That's around 11 years. Though of course, you'd probably have died of boredom long before then.

 

On 10/13/2017 at 6:50 AM, Salty Crackers said:

Sadly, the rifle can't be used forever. After an absurdly long period of time, you'd run out of rifle cleaning kits, so your rifle would break. The distress pistol doesn't decay, but flare shells wash up even less frequently than bullets.

Doesn't matter really. There's enough bow & arrow resources to survive for years.

[KinoUnko]

For sure, though one would need a lot of patience for beach combing. Seems one of the recent updates changed the coastal ice to weak ice toward the edges, where drift items are. You have enough time to run out and back before the ice breaks, but it's added risk sort of. in v1.2 I could walk all the way out, into the ocean, without breaking the ice.

But yeah, it's really just theoretical exercise for sustainability given the way the game currently is. I'm barely 350 days and ran the regions end to end twice already, that's taking it slow and disorganized, no real motivation for more until new regions open up. I can see thorough and organized players getting bored fairly quickly. At least I still surprise myself when I stumble on a stash of now rotting meat I had forgotten about.

[JAFO]

3 minutes ago, KinoUnko said:

though one would need a lot of patience for beach combing.

It's not so much about patience as caution and methodical planning. Experienced beachcombers in TLD usually strip naked just before dashing out to grab items. Or they carry a spare set of clothing.

[KinoUnko]

Remove all cloths button would be very helpful here. All this beach combing talk is making me thirsty for a margarita