Building a Teepee

[Ahatch]

I know folks are using the snow shelters but what about the ability to build a teepee , Using 5 deer skin hides combined together one could pack this tent around and after harvesting a few small spruce trees build a teepee. This could be built in strategic locations. Benefits would be an indoor fire and safety from wildlife and ward off cabin fever. Drawback would be heavy weight carrying. The deerskin tent part can be taken down and the frame left for later use.

[Aurimas]

Isn't there enough man-made structures in game? making building additional kind of redundant

[UpUpAway95]

There is absolutely no weight room in my inventory to be carrying around 5 cured deer hides all the time just to be able to make a fire inside a "temporary" shelter.  With the abundance of caves and man-made shelters in the game, there are really no places I can think of where this would be worth the trouble.  I really think that allowing the player to build their own shelters with inside fires would make the game much too much easier.  As it is, Hinterland's has deliberately put up several man-made shelters that do not accommodate inside fires.  They want us to have to go outside and risk being attacked to enjoy the benefits of a fire.

In order to provide an additional use for hides, I could see adding a version of the snow shelter that consumes a single  hide (even fresh if a cured one is not available) as an emergency substitute for cloth.  However, as I've said on other threads, I think that the cloth issue could be more easily resolved by having the snow shelter return almost all or even all of the cloth used back to the player when the shelter is dismantled.

[UpUpAway95]

7 minutes ago, loriaw said:

The teepee appeals, maybe because I've slept in one and happen to be married to a NA :-) 

I'd have absolutely no issues carrying around the extra weight, even without the well-fed buff and my moose satchel. Except for early on when I'm carrying loot to a base camp, I pack light. Years ago I tended to carry everything around, but times change. 

Hinterland may envision only one end to this game, but I prefer surviving. +1 to the teepee!

... and did a single person, alone, carry about the teepee cover (hides) in a backpack while walking from place to place?  The cover alone would weigh between 100 and 150 lbs (ref:  http://plainshumanities.unl.edu/encyclopedia/doc/egp.arc.048).  As a permanent structure in the game (if Hinterlands wants to add a "we're now settling and thriving here" type aspect, I have no problem with it.  As a movable, temporary shelter, it can't be done without making a total joke out of the carry weight limits in this game.

[UpUpAway95]

4 hours ago, loriaw said:

Unless Hinterland completely changes ingame weights, a deer hide weighs  just over a pound, and saplings weigh half of that. At current weights a 5 hide teepee and poles should amount to less than 10 pounds.

You stated you wouldn't mind building a complete cabin. Ever done that? I have, along with two men who were both experienced builders. It took three of us two months to put together a 499 sq ft cabin ~ and it took logs that we had dried for a year and debarked. It was summer so we weren't wearing layers of bulky, ill-fitting clothing, no wolves or bears were stalking us 24/7, and we had plenty of food and water that we didn't need to stop building to obtain. Given a choice, I wouldn't build a cabin in this game even for an achievement. I'd be grateful for a teepee or a lean-to.

You don't seem to have noted that this is a single player game, with as many different playing styles as there are players. Why the angst for anything that you don't personally want to do? 

The carry weight limit isn't out of line right now.  The weight assigned to items like hides is already a joke; but it would make it even more of a joke to suggest, in game, that one could make even a small teepee out of 2.5 kg of deer hide and a few small saplings that, as you say, also weigh significantly less than they should.  I really don't see the point just to allow the player to put a fire inside the shelter instead of just outside the door (which is what can be done now with the current snow shelters).  If I had my druthers and the game became more realistic, a fresh deer hide in game would weigh 6x what it does now; once cured it should weight 1/2 of what it does fresh.  If they put in a teepee as a permanent structure, it should be made of 3 or so moose hides (originally buffalo hides were used).  Moose hides in game should also weigh significantly more than they do.  My friend has hunted moose and tanned the hide.  Hair off, he says they weigh in at 30 to 40 lbs.  In this game, they weigh 5 kg (11 lbs).  Fresh (hair on), he says, he can't generally lift them himself and estimates they can weigh in around 150 lbs.  On another thread, you're pushing for more realistic meat yields from animals, so I could ask you why you're so selective about your realism.

I wouldn't mind if, somehow, the game shifted over time from mere survival towards "I'm settling here permanently."  People have requested NPC's be introduced... and they could help with building a permanent home for the player.  Then, and only then, bigger structures should become available to be built; and hopefully it would involved more detailed animations that watching a dial pass the time.  Permanent structures could then a selection between a log cabin and a full-sized teepee and a fishing hut.  Until then, the current snow shelter serves the function of providing a quick, efficient, accessible emergency shelter.  I really doubt that temporary teepes or lean-tos, if introduced with any sort of realistic time "penalty" for building them, would be used since most players would go the quicker route to avoid hypothermia and the expenditure of an inordinate number of calories.  As for what the player might want to do - Well, it's not like the player's character is actually doing anything... the animation is always the same - watch the timed dial go full circle until the job is done.

[UpUpAway95]

1 hour ago, loriaw said:

I've got absolutely no problem with items in game having more realistic weights, and I've mentioned that on several occasions over the years. The only thing that comes close right now is that can of peaches. 

That being said, I can guarantee that the reply you'll get from Hinterland is that the game isn't about 'realism'. 

Realism would include windows you could see out, sleds left lying around by children on that island, a whole lot more food in terms of variety AND the amount harvested from any of the large animals, being able to pick up that broom and sweeping up the mess, neatly stacked containers, using a plain old table to lay hides out on to sew instead of needing a 'workbench' with a vice, and a very steep learning curve that involves months of trial and error to produce a single useable pelt (that is the general time frame for a person to produce a single rabbit or fox pelt even with a huge mentoring group and the proper supplies). 

Look; I grew up hunting. My Dad had me in the woods walking along with him when I was two. I've worked as a vet tech and rehabber (vectors, mostly predators including mountain lion, wolves, and a lot of smaller species such as fox, coyote, badgers, as well as a few raptors). I live sustainably in a 12 x 24 cabin with wood heat, a garden and meat and dairy animals outside. The animals have bigger living quarters. My husband and I still hunt ~ although age and health issues have slowed that down quite a bit. We've built three of the homes we've lived in ~ two of them from the ground up. The food we grow and raise is canned, frozen, or dehydrated by us in our own kitchen. You're preaching to the choir as far as the lack of 'realism' in this game about just about everything. 

Realistically speaking, you probably shouldn't hold your breath for 99% of anything on this 'wish list' at this point. The game is long out of EA and making these changes now ~ outside of cosmetic things like more labels on cans ~ just aren't going to happen. 

It's a good game. It introduced a completely different 'feel' and experience. It could have been a great game but has been limited by various factors. I'm sad about that because for a while it seemed to be headed that way. Then the clenched knuckle bunch began howling and it became all about crazed amounts of bad weather and a complete lack of supplies. It isn't 'my' game and the computers I sit in front of (one of which is now comparable to anything the devs are using) don't have this game engine or resources on them. Trust me when I say I've got a vision of my own for an actual survival game ~ not a sim, but not something that swaps out human zombies for furry ones. 

I will continue to play TLD because I love playing this game. I've modded a different one into 'my' vision of TLD and will continue playing that as well. I'd honestly be willing to bet that most loper players would struggle a lot because the difficulty isn't in running to gather loot and relying on 'known' locations, spawn points, and mechanics. The difficulty is that my version starts off with the player truly clueless and inept. Skills must be learned, there are no 'loot' stashes, the weather is utterly unpredictable and it is dark for roughly 18 hours per day. There are far more predators as well as prey, but initially hunting and self defense is crude and low yielding. It takes weeks before any pelts aren't ruined, a fire will last through the night, or cooking produces consistent meals. By the time those skills are learned the weather is worsening, and the predators have adapted.  At the start, there are no human bodies to loot. There are no towns, no containers, no caches. There are a few humans, all hostile, and all better equipped and stocked up. There is permadeath. If I can catch a horse, I can ride it. If I can catch a wolf pup I can raise it ~ provided I can feed it. I have a ratty tent that I must keep intact until I figure out how to craft a better one. Survival is very realistic ~ but so are the abilities to hunt, defend yourself, etc. It's 'my' version of TLD, and where I hoped this game would go when I started playing in only ML. If nothing else, I now have the capability of going beyond modding. 

Shrug.  You asked me why the angst.  In short, I answered... the ability to  build larger structures shifts the focus of the game, IMO, away from desperate and unequipped winter survival to something more "settled." Catching and raising animals also smacks of that same movement towards settling the map rather than just barely surviving it.  To each their own, of course.  I've said many times, if Hinterlands wants to take their game in that direction, I'd be OK with that.  Right now, though, as the game is, I see no point to having more complicated temporary structures just for the said of having pixel variety.  The snow shelter serves the purpose just fine... IMHO, of course.

[UpUpAway95]

1 hour ago, loriaw said:

Fair enough. My view is that there aren't going to be very many ~ if any ~ real changes from this point on outside of new regions. I doubt I would want animals one could catch or raise in TLD ~ I have them in the other game because the map size is 10 times the size of TLD and because they are there already. The ones I use are modded in because neither of the actual game animals functions the way they do in the mods I'm using. If I were going to consider any animal currently in TLD to catch/raise it would be rabbits.  The down side is that wild rabbits need a generation or two before you have a viable breeding program. I just don't see any animals being converted to 'tame' or domesticated. 

I would use/craft other shelters at this point, but mostly for something to 'do'. Endlessly trudging isn't all that entertaining for me.

Also fair enough.  I admit, the game has a problem with becoming a bit of snore after the player survives for a number of days.  It's more fun at the beginning when the player has some angst about whether or not their avatar is going to see the next dawn.