suggestion Exact and fine per-item control of it's quality and quantity in Custom sandbox settings

[Roarke]

Exact and fine control over loot/item settings (on Custom sandbox games) would be desired.
Specifically; control over how low (and high) both the quality and quantity of a certain type of item can be or appear in the sandbox.

I'd like to create a Custom sandbox game where you'd have an "Interstalker" experience with rifles and pistols in the game that spawn with either Ruined or 1% to 5% condition.
Dito with tools like the Hunting Knife and Hatchet. You can find them, but hardly use them due to their near-Ruined quality.

I'd also like to tweak ammo availability for weapons by specifying the loot drops available; maybe up to one cartridge per firearm per region, and no boxes of cartridges. Maybe other folks want up to two, or three -- because they tend to miss the hard-to-spot loot.
Dito with casings; maybe up to one casing per weapon per region. You'll have the POTENTIAL to turn that casing into a usable cartridge, IF you manage to dominate the Bleak Inlet region.
Maybe some folks prefer no cartridges - and only casings. Maybe they'd like an Ammunition Workbench outside of Bleak Inlet to make that a possibility earlier on.

Also, quality range of these cartridges being tweakable would be very nice.
Perhaps that one cartridge you find was a 15% quality one that was the previous owner's first try at reloading ammunition.

With the above you'd get an experience where the local inhabitants have taken their servicable/viable weapons and boxes of ammunition with them when the Quiet Apocalypse's long-duration Super-Carrington type Event hit.
But then that one round that local clumsily dropped and bounced behind the trashcan two years before the Event, one they couldn't find back then, is still there for me to find.

Furthermore, restricting repair items for these weapons or tools (Cleaning Kits and Whetstones) similarly to the weapons -- they'd be Ruined or have just 1% to 5% condition.
So you can repair your tools and weapons - if you're lucky to find the repair kit. But to a very limited extent.
This'll make this "Interstalker" experience one of juggling weapons, experiencing more misfires, cartridge cycle fails, etc.
And being excited to find "Hunting Rifle #3" that might give you one to three more chances to fire a shot, instead of "eh, decoration for the safe house".

The off-chance of seeing a weapon or repair item only to then have to appear to be Ruined is another interesting roll of the dice -- if you see it, you don't quite yet know if you can actually use it.

When in Stalker you can trivially grant yourself a 100% quality Pistol with over fifty cartridges. That's after fully looting your second region -- if not your first.
Having a barely functional revolver with two rounds in it and then finding another cartidge by searching very well is an endorfin spike. And a +50% damage output boost.
Having a perfectly maintained sidearm with more ammunition then most professional soldiers have during their patrol and then finding a full box of perfect ammo, let alone a single subpar cartridge, is "whatever".

How Hinterland would handle/allow the above with the repair mechanics introduced with Aurora-powered apparatus in Bleak Inlet is up to them.
I'd like an option to limit that repair ability (up to a certain low percent) -- there's a bit of handwaving with the nighttime Aurora to allow advanced electronics like computers or elevators to function; but I'd like the option to severely limit the quality (upper limit) of repair work that can be done.
I mean, that fluorescent lights can be powered by a geomagnetic storm is probable. That long conductors will get magnetically induced current and voltage is true to nature as per the Carrington Event of 1859.
But buck-boost convertors are designed to deal with a very specific voltage, current, and AC frequency in mind -- I doubt machines would function with power induced by a massive geomagnetic storm that has massive voltage and current surges and wild frequencies all that well - if at all.
Hinterland can use that reasoning to allow limiting of the quality that repair facilities in Bleak Inlet deliver. Or at least introduce the option of having that in the game.

Maybe also an option for improvised tools having low quality/durability upon creation - just as suggested for firearms as per above.
You only have an iffy furnace at your disposal; not a proper blacksmith forge which operates at 1400F/800C -- let alone a complete modern workshop with stable 230VAC power supply.

Not only that, the ability to tweak the quantity and quality of a certain type of item (like food) in the world would allow folks to tweak their Custom game to be back to earlier an earlier, tighter and harsher, Interloper experience.
It could be that some players like to tweak the number of calories of lootable food items per zone, as well as the quality range of said items upon spawn.

Obviously the percentages will need to be tweakable. Some folks prefer lootable items with higher initial quality then just between one and five percent.

Having the "survive by the seat of your pants" feeling is what Interloper players enjoy -- and starts to fade once they reach abundance due to their crafted armor, bow and arrows.
Extending that feeling (or introducing it for pre-Event made weaponry) is a GoodThing™. This suggestion would allow that.

[Estanfork]

Very difficult to program and apply such specific things

[bighara]

Hadrian has discussed on his YouTube channel a similar idea, where one could include tools like the hatchet or knife without altering the availability of other goods. This would provide an interloper-like experience, but one where you don't need to immediately push for a forge.