Late Night Idea

[ILikeToHackThings]

After playing a little too late into the night I had an idea!

Does anyone else think that food items should freeze when left outside?

Like, in real life if you wanted to preserve your food, you'd want to place it outside to save it's condition, which would cause it to freeze. And before you cook it, you'd need it to defrost it!

I feel like this would add an extra bit of challenge and realism by forcing players using this setting to wait an extra bit of time to cook their food, while also adding an extra bit of balance to the game by putting a respectable penalty for plopping everything outside.

A small thing, but it could have a nice impact on the game!

[past caring]

You could speed up defrosting time during an aurora by sticking it in the microwave.
😉

[hozz1235]

This would seem realistic, but I think trying to have the game architecture account for each item and the freezing/thawing that could occur as temperatures fluctuate constantly would be troublesome.

[Fr0styTheLoneman]

Doesn't keeping cooked meat outside prolong its decay? So it's in there to some degree, but definitely wish there was more nuance to it like OP is saying. 

[ILikeToHackThings]

6 hours ago, hozz1235 said:

This would seem realistic, but I think trying to have the game architecture account for each item and the freezing/thawing that could occur as temperatures fluctuate constantly would be troublesome.

I don't think that this would be too much of a challenge.

I don't know what the code looks like, but I assume that most food items in the game are grouped in common class, if not then a common folder.
Where certain things like the meats maybe are grouped under a common class and the main difference being the variables passed into their constructors.

Meaning that each of the food item class would require a few parameters; such as freeze rate doubles, frozen boolean,  structures/classes containing the graphics for the freeze meter. There would also need to be some modifications made to the function that handles the actual cooking.

Since this feature is already built into the dead animals, clothing and boiling water, a good chunk of this stuff would be a copy and paste job. Could be tedious, but there isn't an overwhelming amount of food items in the game.

~source: I am a programmer

Edited November 17, 2020 by ILikeToHackThings
Wanted to better address the person I'm replying to

[hozz1235]

Quote

I don't think that this would be too much of a challenge.

I could be wrong but it seems that most items in the game have a simple variable, Condition.  That is based upon time.  Say we add in another variable, Frozen.  That variable would not be based on the simple parameter of time, but instead, a constantly changing variable of temperate of that specific spot in the world.  For example, you have (2) 0% frozen fish.  Place one here by this car and another 50 feet away behind a tree.  The temperatures will vary widely in those 2 locations.  Track that for every "frozenable" food item in the game...yikes.

I'm also a developer

Edited November 17, 2020 by hozz1235