Does Inventory Affect Sprain Probability?

[Ice Hole]

The Probability of a sprain should increase with the amount of loot we carry.  If the items are stowed in the backpack then that weight should make it difficult to walk maybe sending the centre of mass of its kilter and increasing the risk of sprains.  Where if less bulky the risk of sprains should decrease.

 

 

Edited November 1, 2019 by Ice Hole
stranding and waiting for death

[Guest kristaok]

I think it already does work like this. 

[Ice Hole]

The sprain risk condition that occurs after becoming tired with the weight capacity reduced depending on the exhaustion level I am aware of that.  What I am considering is the bulk of the items.  So for example sticks would be more bulky compared to fir.  Carrying equal weight of both the fir logs, being condensed compared to sticks, take less physical space.  This would make it easier to carry or port around.

There is an indicator for bulk already in game.  When carrying a few sticks compared to carrying eighty sticks the sound of the sticks changes and becomes more intense with more rattling.  Same goes for water.  The sloshing sound changes depending on the amount carried.  So there could be a hidden game mechanic.

[ajb1978]

When you are carrying more than your limit, you do get an increased risk for sprains.  The baseline is 30kg.  If you carry 31kg, you get the red weight icon in the corner, and you pick up a "sprain risk" affliction.  A more advanced encumbrance system that factors in volume as well as mass would, as I understand it, be quite an undertaking because the current inventory system has roots that run pretty deep.

That said, as a thought exercise I have seen other games handle both weight and bulk simultaneously, and did a great job at it.  Neverwinter Nights for instance, portrayed your inventory like a grid.  Items had weight, but they also took up one or more squares on the grid.  So items could be small and heavy, or light and bulky. And of course small and light, or bulky and heavy.  This also meant certain containers could have certain grid orientations, further limiting the items that could be stored in there.  For instance a desk drawer might be a single row of boxes, meaning you could stuff things in there like rings, arrows, or daggers...but never a shield.   You could carry over your weight limit and it would slow you down, but you could never exceed your physical capacity to store items.  Which again, makes perfect sense.  If I can comfortably carry 30kg, uncomfortably carry up to 60, that's one thing.  But I cannot ever carry 30kg worth of styrofoam, because the sheer volume is impossible to handle.

[Guest jeffpeng]

While I get what you are getting at @Ice Hole I feel this would be hard to implement in an intuitive way that doesn't feel like an artificial burden to work with. Working with a grid would be impractical with the amount of items we carry around.

For a sandbox game I was working on (that never left early concept stages) I was actually working with both weight and volume to determine if the player could still carry more items. Since it involved altering terrain (a bit like minecraft) that made sense and worked somewhat okay for that purpose, but I relatively quickly realized that this way you would leave one capacity usually dramatically underutilized. The few people that had the doubtful honor to play this buggy mess had a hard time understanding why they could not pick up more stones when their inventory was clearly not full, or not pick up more wood despite still being able to carry more weight.

Also enough players already are annoyed even with the improved sprain system, and there will always be the faction of more casual players that think limiting inventory space is a relic concept in the first place. So I think the audience that would appreciate this added level of "realism" would be rather small. And I would require a grounds up rebalance of many things in the game. But it would be a pretty deep mechanic, and I would probably like such a thing.

[Ice Hole]

21 hours ago, ajb1978 said:

Items had weight, but they also took up one or more squares on the grid.  So items could be small and heavy, or light and bulky. And of course small and light, or bulky and heavy.  This also meant certain containers could have certain grid orientations, further limiting the items that could be stored in there.  For instance a desk drawer might be a single row of boxes, meaning you could stuff things in there like rings, arrows, or daggers...but never a shield.

This technique offers a realistic approach but in the end it turns into a mini game of looTetris.  With my irl junk drawer if I put something in it the stuff sorts itself out as long as the drawer closes all is good.  Maybe an auto sort could help when dealing with volume.

11 hours ago, jeffpeng said:

Also enough players already are annoyed even with the improved sprain system, and there will always be the faction of more casual players that think limiting inventory space is a relic concept in the first place.

The concept of bulk or volume is tricky to portray and have it blend into game play.  A talent that increases as the player becomes more skilled at packing could have advantages.

The sounds in game do change with inventory carried.  So this could be the feedback for the player.  The loot making sounds should also attract predators.  Think of scent markers, but with loot.  The packaging skill could dampen the sound the loot is making.  Unpacking should also be included as items that are packed tightly take more time to access.  

The loot we carry should affect more than sprain probability.  Alerting predators seems to be another area.

Edited November 2, 2019 by Ice Hole
the smell of an ocean that died pervades the air

[ajb1978]

1 hour ago, Ice Hole said:

This technique offers a realistic approach but in the end it turns into a mini game of looTetris.

And it did indeed.  I recall more than one instance where I'd find some super valuable dagger that I just had to have, and then it's like...crap.. Ok so if I move the armor over here, shuffle the shield here...maybe I can drop these arrows then equip that other stack..now I can move the rubies into that slot...may as well drink that potion...Ok now if we move the swords....

[Guest jeffpeng]

8 hours ago, Ice Hole said:

Maybe an auto sort could help when dealing with volume.

Subnautica does that fairly efficiently. But again it's with a much smaller amount of loot. In TLD we have dozens of items, sometimes hundreds if you count every stick, arrow, bullet, cattail for themselves. At that scale things would become pretty chaotic rather quickly.

In general your ideas are all well and good and would find high appreciation among hardcore players that like to micro manage. But that kind of audience is even smaller, I'm afraid, than TLDs audience already is. Some people really love to dive into the depth of a simulation, but most people just drown in it. 😕 

[MarrowStone]

The burden is incorporated into the weight in this game. Some items weigh more than they would than in real life to simulate how bulky they are. Others weigh different for balance reasons. Some things weigh less. A pound of bricks is not the same as a pound of feathers in TLD. I like it this way, If we had Unturned style Tetris inventories it would make it even harder for console players to adopt, I'm not a console player but If i was introduced to this game via a controller I would probably not want to play with that style of inventory management. Just incorporating the bulkiness into the weight is actually very intuitive. The only downside is that some values seem arbitrary or subjective. 

9 hours ago, Ice Hole said:

The loot we carry should affect more than sprain probability.  Alerting predators seems to be another area

This sometimes feels like an actual thing. I'm too lazy to do the testing but in reality it is probably just a the fact that moving slower in general puts you more at risk at not getting through a gap in a wolve's patrol. So it already has its own hidden risk due to lower mobility.  @ajb1978, Is loot a variable in detection range that you know of? Most likely candidates: firewood, water, and storm lanterns. 

[ajb1978]

34 minutes ago, MarrowStone said:

@ajb1978, Is loot a variable in detection range that you know of? Most likely candidates: firewood, water, and storm lanterns. 

I've not noticed any effect on detection range.  It does contribute to the background noise of you walking around, but that's just an aesthetic thing.  Carry a bunch of water, you hear sloshing.  Carry a bunch of metal, you hear a bunch of clanking.  But none of it affects detection.

[JAFO]

On 11/3/2019 at 1:42 PM, ajb1978 said:

I've not noticed any effect on detection range.  It does contribute to the background noise of you walking around, but that's just an aesthetic thing.  Carry a bunch of water, you hear sloshing.  Carry a bunch of metal, you hear a bunch of clanking.  But none of it affects detection.

Sorry, but that's not so. A wolf that's nearby but out of sight can hear you moving around, and the more gear you're carrying, the noisier you are. And they will come to investigate. I've had a couple of 'bumped into each other coming around the corner of a building' encounters this way. Crouching reduces the noise you make when moving. Also, it pays to be aware that nearby wolves will investigate the sound of car doors closing. *

Fortunately it appears that the range they can hear you at is fairly limited. I've never tested it, but would estimate it's probably something like 10-20 metres.

* All this has been confirmed by Hinterland. Just don't ask me to find the forum thread where they did so. It was a long time back.

Edited January 2, 2020 by JAFO

[manishbr]

Sorry I don't know 

[MrWolf]

11 hours ago, JAFO said:

Also, it pays to be aware that nearby wolves will investigate the sound of car doors closing. *

Fortunately it appears that the range they can hear you at is fairly limited. I've never tested it, but would estimate it's probably something like 10-20 metres.

* All this has been confirmed by Hinterland. Just don't ask me to find the forum thread where they did so. It was a long time back.

I remember when this was first mentioned and I've experimented with it numerous times.  I've never had a wolf react to opening/closing car doors.  I've been crouched next to cars with wolves pretty close, certainly close enough to detect me if I stood up, then got in and out of cars and never had a wolf react.  Maybe it was a thing for a brief time, then was dropped in future builds or not working due to a bug that's never been fixed.  Does anyone have first hand knowledge of wolves reacting specifically to car doors?

[ajb1978]

19 minutes ago, MrWolf said:

Does anyone have first hand knowledge of wolves reacting specifically to car doors?

Yep.  They react to car doors in much the same way they react to stones hitting the ground.  They go from passive patrol to active investigation, and once they reach the source of the noise, they resume their passive patrol.  Basically if a wolf is already pretty close, that sound will bring them right to you.  But if they're already a safe distance away, they won't hear it.

[MrWolf]

1 hour ago, ajb1978 said:

Yep.  They react to car doors in much the same way they react to stones hitting the ground.  They go from passive patrol to active investigation, and once they reach the source of the noise, they resume their passive patrol.  Basically if a wolf is already pretty close, that sound will bring them right to you.  But if they're already a safe distance away, they won't hear it.

Thanks for the info.  I've never been able to reproduce that behavior, I'll check again next time I get a chance.

[ajb1978]

4 hours ago, MrWolf said:

Thanks for the info.  I've never been able to reproduce that behavior, I'll check again next time I get a chance.

It's kind of a rare situation, but Milton or Coastal Townsite are your best bets to replicate the situation.  Any time where you're within detection range of wolves, but they don't see you because you're crouched, and you enter a car while crouched.  They'll come trotting over to investigate the sound.  And if you exit the car before they are sufficiently far away, that sound will send them trotting back to investigate all over again.

[JAFO]

6 hours ago, ajb1978 said:

It's kind of a rare situation, but Milton or Coastal Townsite are your best bets to replicate the situation. 

Yep.. it is a kind of short(ish) range thing.. I've never pinned it down, but as I mentioned above, I'd estimate it's maybe 20 or so metres range..

[ajb1978]

10 hours ago, JAFO said:

Yep.. it is a kind of short(ish) range thing.. I've never pinned it down, but as I mentioned above, I'd estimate it's maybe 20 or so metres range..

Sounds about right, at least from a visual appraisal.  The mechanic seems to be more to prevent players from abusing cars to get the drop on wolves/bears.  i.e. enter one side while crouched, exit out the other, and the critter is magically oblivious to your presence.

[Ice Hole]

What I noticed right from the start of the EP update was the sound level increase of foot falls based on inventory.  Battery was the first thing I went for to place into inventory.  Then I grabbed another and the sound of the foot falls went noticeably louder.  Do not try and grab more than three otherwise you are stopped in your tracks. 

[MrWolf]

On 1/2/2020 at 3:17 PM, ajb1978 said:

It's kind of a rare situation, but Milton or Coastal Townsite are your best bets to replicate the situation.  Any time where you're within detection range of wolves, but they don't see you because you're crouched, and you enter a car while crouched.  They'll come trotting over to investigate the sound.  And if you exit the car before they are sufficiently far away, that sound will send them trotting back to investigate all over again.

I finally made it back to Coastal Highway, lit a fire between the Quonset and truck to boil water and a wolf came along while I was sitting in the truck.  I gave this a try and had mixed results.  The wolf came from my right, in front of the truck toward the left.  As it got a short distance away, I exited the truck and took this screenshot.  No reaction from the wolf (it's walking away above the truck's hood, right of the gas pump).  When the wolf got farther away, I brought it back nearby by throwing a rock.  I tried multiple times from the driver and passenger side and never had a reaction from the wolf when I got in or out of this truck.  Maybe because it's too close to the garage?

'

 

Next I moved up to the car on the road, the one that's beyond the gas pump in the image above.  The wolf walked by and started up the hill as seen in the image below.  I exited the car and the wolf immediately reacted, trotting back to the car.  I got in and the wolf went around the car and toward the side of Quonset.  I got out of the passenger side (always crouched) and the wolf reacted and came back to the car.

Thanks @ajb1978 and others for the info.  It's another of many things to keep in mind when dealing with wolves.

 

[ajb1978]

On 1/4/2020 at 11:27 AM, Ice Hole said:

What I noticed right from the start of the EP update was the sound level increase of foot falls based on inventory.  Battery was the first thing I went for to place into inventory.  Then I grabbed another and the sound of the foot falls went noticeably louder.  Do not try and grab more than three otherwise you are stopped in your tracks. 

Yeah when I went to loot Milton of its batteries, I stupidly lugged them all back to Paradise Meadows intact, then harvested them all at once.  That took FAR longer than if I had brought a hacksaw with me and simply harvested the battery from the safety of the car I had taken it from.

Incidentally you don't need to harvest every single battery in the world.  By my calculations based on the amount of gunpowder I found and crafted on a custom game with loot tables cranked to the maximum, I can craft 500 additional rounds and that's it.  So that works out to 14 batteries needed to make full use of all the gunpowder in the world.  Probably fewer on a low-loot game.

[JAFO]

8 hours ago, ajb1978 said:

Incidentally you don't need to harvest every single battery in the world.  By my calculations based on the amount of gunpowder I found and crafted on a custom game with loot tables cranked to the maximum, I can craft 500 additional rounds and that's it.  So that works out to 14 batteries needed to make full use of all the gunpowder in the world.  Probably fewer on a low-loot game.

However, there is another reason for casting as many bullets as you can... maxing out to level 5 gunsmithing.