Minor randomization

[Doc Feral]

I know there are more pressing tasks, but I've been thinking. Randomized maps have been asked before, and I guess adding them would be a hellish mess, but I think some components could be randomized.

Cars. Abandoned cars are like corpses. They could be "spawned" at the beginning of a game, so their number and location could be unpredictable. This doesn't mean a car could be dropped from the sky onto the Ryken, just on roads.

Houses and caravans. There are destroyed houses, boarded up houses and several types of accessible houses. Caravans all look more or less the same from outside. Going to a known location without knowing if there's a burned ruin, a construction site, a boarded up hut or a comfortable shelter with a fireplace would mess up the plans of even the most hardened survivor. Maybe it shouldn't apply to iconic "named" buildings such as the hunting lodge, trapper's cabin, Grey Mother's House or the farms. Even not knowing about the interior if a caravan would be something.

Caves. A cave is usually a hole in a cliff. A boulder can close it, and one could appear instead of a grey stone surface. Given a number of caves for each map but randomly choosing from a larger number of "spawn sites" would add even more sense of the unknown. This shouldn't apply to cave systems with more than one access.

Fishing huts. Everybody agrees that some maps could benefit from the addition of a fishing hut or two, and there's plenty of water bodies to put them on.. On the other hand some maps look like there's too many of them. A given number and random "spawn" site for each map would be nice. Some maps could still have none such as Milton, other maps may have a few less or the same number as before but with more "slots" to put them in. And FM and DP could finally have one, but with several potential locations.

What do you think?

[Drifter Man]

I think those are good ideas. It would make each run a bit more unique. Some of the bases used and roads taken in one run would not work in another.

Just a bit of variability, not a complete randomization - it should only apply to a small subset of locations.

[Luciën]

I think the distance between caves, cars and other shelters is quite balanced the way it is. To create walls where caves could spawn might not seem impossible, but you'd  imagine not wanting two caves really close to each other and then a whole lot of nothing. Resulting in having more or less the same distance between them as you have now, therefor very probably no difference from now.

I like the variation, but in my opinion from prepper caches, bodies and carcasses we already get that variation, enough as it is. I think the real thing you are wishing for is that first time visit to an area, feeling like you know nothing. I guess, now that the team has develop a new way of region building, with the release of the third episode a more rapid stream of new regions might follow.

[huntergathers]

There are actually a bunch of minor shelters that can be burned out between runs, they just generally are always standing in lower difficulties. Coastal high way has a bunch of houses that are just a random chance to be standing, mystery lake has the lakeside cabins, and milton definitely has some houses that are only a chance to be standing. The other suggestions are good though, for sure. The fishing huts just have random doors, which can affect the way you play the area for sure, but I haven't fished at all since the cooking update. I just use them to wait out cabin fever, like caves. A lot of these things would have to be on new maps though, like the caves thing. It would just take a lot of editing to an existing map to implement.

[Doc Feral]

4 hours ago, huntergathers said:

There are actually a bunch of minor shelters that can be burned out between runs, they just generally are always standing in lower difficulties. 

You mean they're already randomized? I may not have noticed it because some 95% of my runs ended in a day.

[huntergathers]

7 hours ago, Doc Feral said:

You mean they're already randomized? I may not have noticed it because some 95% of my runs ended in a day.

Certain lesser houses are, yes. If you play on pilgrim or voyager they are generally always standing, though. Stalker is more of a chance, interloper you generally see most of the random houses burnt out besides one or two.

[Drifter Man]

29 minutes ago, huntergathers said:

Certain lesser houses are, yes. If you play on pilgrim or voyager they are generally always standing, though. Stalker is more of a chance, interloper you generally see most of the random houses burnt out besides one or two.

That's right, I recently had a run where all of the Waterfront Cottages in CH were burnt down. It changed things a quite bit when I arrived there, started processing a deer kill and a blizzard suddenly intervened.

Cars are always the same though. Also trailers and fishing huts - all of these would benefit from slight randomization, in my opinion. Not so sure about caves, they are part of the natural background world... I'd probably prefer keeping them fixed.