Missing outdoor firewood storage boxes

[AdamvR]

Whenever I arrive by the Milton House, i find myself surprised thinking "oh yeah, the outdoor firewood box was only here in the storymode".
I think it was a cool addition there, and as I see, they show up in more new locations (within Ash valley for e.g.) lately, so perhaps they were not added previously as the model simply did not exist/had not been thought of back then.
I think a couple of the larger, "older" places would be more realistic to have such a box at the back/side - added retroactively in a future update. (see my list below)
Not necessarily for a utilitarian purpose (as all these places already have ample space + of course I can always build a stone-cache, which I personally find more fitting near a wilderness base, and a bit weird near a dwelling), more for realism as I would expect many of the houses in a cold environment would have such a thing outside.

I would probably only add them near a couple of the bigger places, e.g.:
- ML: Trapper's Homestead, Camp Office
- MT: Milton House, Paradise Meadows
- FM: Old Spence Family Homestead
- CH: Quonset, Jackrabbit + Misanthrope, maybe Waterfront Cottage

[Mroz4k]

I think the idea here is that it makes these locations more convinient. Storage capacity is something people often consider when choosing a base. Afterall, plenty of items in the game that are a pain to pick up if you drop them on the ground. Things like stones, sticks, arrows... etc. So, having the box there with significant inventory space is convinient, to store said sticks and use them to save up on more valuable firewood or coal. 

You can make stone caches now outdoors so we can use that. Frankly I use these to store the firewood outside. But I agree I would feel better if there were coal bins or a firewood bin there, looks better then a pile of rocks.

I would not mind them in the game. But, I think they could be done more interestingly - what if they were found there, but were ruined? And the players could use the heavy hammer and reclaimed wood to repair them, make them usuable again?  I think that would be a reasonable balancing issue - with the box, being an option only if some effort is spent to make it viable again. Not asking to "craft a whole new box"  - just fixing some of these boxes that would already exist within the game.

[ajb1978]

I can't really vote since my response is more detailed than the options, but I would appreciate firewood storage boxes in frequently used bases...with the caveat that it can ONLY be used to store firewood. Mainly because picking up 100 sticks off the ground is a tremendous chore, and doesn't add enjoyment or challenge to the game. Repeated mouse clicks presents an accessibility issue that has already been acknowledged via the inclusion of the choice to use click/hold interactions for wolf struggles, vs. rapid manual clicks.  A firewood storage bin would be one way to offer the player that same courtesy with regards to piles of sticks, since you can use Take All. Or the wish list item I've posted in the past: craftable firewood items, specifically a bundle of sticks which allows a player to add a large number of sticks all at once, instead of having to click dozens of times to pick them up off the floor one by one, then dozens more to add them to the fire.

[Mroz4k]

9 minutes ago, ajb1978 said:

I can't really vote since my response is more detailed than the options, but I would appreciate firewood storage boxes in frequently used bases...with the caveat that it can ONLY be used to store firewood. Mainly because picking up 100 sticks off the ground is a tremendous chore, and doesn't add enjoyment or challenge to the game. Repeated mouse clicks presents an accessibility issue that has already been acknowledged via the inclusion of the choice to use click/hold interactions for wolf struggles, vs. rapid manual clicks.  A firewood storage bin would be one way to offer the player that same courtesy with regards to piles of sticks, since you can use Take All. Or the wish list item I've posted in the past: craftable firewood items, specifically a bundle of sticks which allows a player to add a large number of sticks all at once, instead of having to click dozens of times to pick them up off the floor one by one, then dozens more to add them to the fire.

I have always liked the idea.

Frankly, there is a very simple fix with sticks that could be done. The sticks could be treated the same way bullets are in the game. Or matches. This means dropping one stick creates a single stick. But dropping more then one would make a stick x amount, this way you actually place them into one item you can then pick up at once. This could also be treated by the game in a way that more then one stick would use a different texture, perhaps a pile of sticks. Afteral, dropping single bullet makes a bullet, dropping more then one creates a box of ammunition (unless you picked a first bullet as a bullet, then all the bullets in your inventory are converted to a single bullet, the only way to fix that is to put away all the ammo into one box, then picking one that is a "box" and then taking the single ones which converts them back to a box of bullets.)

This would take care of the problem without the neccesity to use special containers or add the craftable you mentioned ,although that might still be a good idea, as you could just throw the bundle into a fire to add a set amount of fire time instead of throwing individual sticks into it.

Edited February 18, 2021 by Mroz4k

[AdamvR]

I really like the idea of autogrouping sticks similarly to bullets - thanks!
I'm not 100% sure of the restriction though: I can also imagine storing meat in it outside, rather than throwing on the ground.
(that to me is probably one of the few, but rather "disturbing" ideas both from a sanitary perspective and the question of "how come wolves do not smell and steal it")

[odizzido]

I don't understand why storage is something that comes up. To me I see the ground as an unlimited but RSI inducing storage box. boxes are simply there to reduce tedium and pain for people? Why not have more available? I don't think they actually help you to survive unless I am missing something?

[Mroz4k]

5 hours ago, AdamvR said:

I really like the idea of autogrouping sticks similarly to bullets - thanks!
I'm not 100% sure of the restriction though: I can also imagine storing meat in it outside, rather than throwing on the ground.
(that to me is probably one of the few, but rather "disturbing" ideas both from a sanitary perspective and the question of "how come wolves do not smell and steal it")

Wont work with the meat, sadly. Meat is a type of an item with condition that deteorates. Although bullets have condition now as well, they are pre-fixed with things such as "revolver cartridge: perfect" that points to their set amounts of condition. It is the same way with matches. They only stack into each other if they have the same condition. This makes it easy with the bullets because bullets dont deteorate, they have fixed condition depending on their quality. The meat deteorates. Another problem with meat is that it can have different weight. So, for this to work, the meat would have to have the same amount of weight and condition in order to stack together. Its really easy with items like "Cloth", "Stick", "rose hip" - basically the craftables. They all share same condition, or dont have condition at all, and have set weight values. 

Luckily, most of the items that are "pain to pick up from the ground" are similar to sticks and cloth in this way. They are usually all of set condition and weight values or they dont have condition at all, and thus they are perfect for this type of stacking. Even meds like painkillers stack this same way, and even though they degrade in condition, they also have pre-set weight so stacking the same-condition one on top each other is possible.

The reason wolves dont eat meat stored outside is because they dont actually have a way of "sensing items". They only zone in on items of smell value that are dropped after they spot the player - hence how decoys work. For a decoy to work, you need to be actively stalked by an animal. 

Storing food outside is not really an issue in terms of realistic survival. It is very much the way meat is often stored in such locations. There is little point to having a larder - so meat would often be hanged high from a tall but young tree to make it out of reach of predators, and usually some distance away from your home, so that the smell of it doesnt bring the predators right to your door. 

Edited February 18, 2021 by Mroz4k

[ajb1978]

5 hours ago, odizzido said:

I don't understand why storage is something that comes up. To me I see the ground as an unlimited but RSI inducing storage box. boxes are simply there to reduce tedium and pain for people? Why not have more available? I don't think they actually help you to survive unless I am missing something?

Containers also allow you to organize things quickly and view their condition at a glance. So if you're trying to use up your worst condition food first before it spoils to 0, you don't have to pick it all up off the ground to find which can of peaches is 25% and which is 35%. Or spend time dropping them one at a time, and positioning them in a "best in back, worst in front" sort of way. Not to mention dropping everything in a pile on the ground only works if you don't touch that pile. Actually trying to ORGANIZE that pile, you quickly chew through a lot of floor space due to the fact that objects cannot clip through other objects when manually placing them.

On the other hand if I have a container or rock cache handy, I just dump all my food in there. Open the rock cache, sort by condition, and Bob's your uncle.

[odizzido]

Ah I never place anything. I just "drop all" from the inventory and everything piles up on top of everything else. I generally have a pile for wood, a pile for water, and a pile for canned food. Outside I pile meat sorted by cook days. Cook day 1 will have whatever meat mixed in there, and when a week or two later I have another cook day I will pile it all in another pile. I guess yes I don't know the condition of everything, but it's generally all close enough that it never seems to matter for me.

Pelts I spread around a bit so I can see the % on them though, if I am trying to make anything at least. Otherwise it's all in one blob all stacked up in one spot.

I never eat canned food below 75% condition since I play without health regen while sleeping. Food poisoning is incredibly deadly for me.

[ajb1978]

1 hour ago, odizzido said:

I never eat canned food below 75% condition since I play without health regen while sleeping. Food poisoning is incredibly deadly for me.

Actually I'd think that would be the ideal case to do so. Eat the low quality food right before you go to sleep. If you get food poisoning, reishi up and go to bed. Since you aren't recovering condition while you sleep anyway, you're not missing anything.

[odizzido]

Wouldn't that drain your health while it was active? Maybe I will test it next time I start a game.

[Old Hermit]

Storage don't makes the survival aspect any easier, IMHO. It improves organization and practicality, as mentioned above. So, i don't see any problem in adding as many containers as possible anywhere.

Ok, having less containers around serves to u can choose wisely your bases and camps. But this is not challenging, is annoying IMO.

 

By the way, my Stalker saves are crowded with empty containers, mostly in weird places where i'll never go again

(using google translator)

[AdamvR]

5 hours ago, Mroz4k said:

Wont work with the meat, sadly. Meat is a type of an item with condition that deteorates. Although bullets have condition now as well, they are pre-fixed with things such as "revolver cartridge: perfect" that points to their set amounts of condition. It is the same way with matches. They only stack into each other if they have the same condition. This makes it easy with the bullets because bullets dont deteorate, they have fixed condition depending on their quality. The meat deteorates. Another problem with meat is that it can have different weight. So, for this to work, the meat would have to have the same amount of weight and condition in order to stack together. Its really easy with items like "Cloth", "Stick", "rose hip" - basically the craftables. They all share same condition, or dont have condition at all, and have set weight values. 

Luckily, most of the items that are "pain to pick up from the ground" are similar to sticks and cloth in this way. They are usually all of set condition and weight values or they dont have condition at all, and thus they are perfect for this type of stacking. Even meds like painkillers stack this same way, and even though they degrade in condition, they also have pre-set weight so stacking the same-condition one on top each other is possible.

The reason wolves dont eat meat stored outside is because they dont actually have a way of "sensing items". They only zone in on items of smell value that are dropped after they spot the player - hence how decoys work. For a decoy to work, you need to be actively stalked by an animal. 

Storing food outside is not really an issue in terms of realistic survival. It is very much the way meat is often stored in such locations. There is little point to having a larder - so meat would often be hanged high from a tall but young tree to make it out of reach of predators, and usually some distance away from your home, so that the smell of it doesnt bring the predators right to your door. 

Thanks for the explanation!
It might have been confusing: I did not expect meat to "recombine" like bullets do, (would not be handy to have to cook 5 kg pieces for 5 hours) - only that it would be nicer in a container, than on the ground - for similar reasons as @ajb1978explained.
I don't know about Canada, when i visited Northern Scandinavia, I've learnt food used to be stored there traditionally outside in these little "pantries/bins on legs" or something high up (against predators), but still closed, not dropped on the floor. Trees are also an interesting idea - as you mentioned, the smell is still an issue.
(just to be sure: I'm adding the below picture as an illustration, not as a suggestion to be added to TLD. the firewood bins, that already exist in the game I still find to be great)

 

 

[ajb1978]

3 hours ago, odizzido said:

Wouldn't that drain your health while it was active? Maybe I will test it next time I start a game.

If you are afflicted with food poisoning, you must sleep 10 hours to recover from it. If you consume antibiotics or reishi tea immediately, then sleep 10 hours, you will recover from food poisoning without losing a single point of condition. This is why I prefer to eat just before I sleep, and then eat the worst of the worst food.  If I get food poisoning, no biggie.  Just treat it with anitbiotics/reishi and sleep. You won't restore any previously lost condition, but you won't suffer further.

[odizzido]

Oh okay. That's handy to know. Thanks for sharing

[Mroz4k]

I am not so sure about that anymore. I know this is how food poisoning used to work, but I believe you still take the damage for the 10 hours till you recover from it. At least that is what I seem to have noticed the last time I had food poisoning. Or maybe I just remember it wrong, and it just felt like that because I had already lost the condition beforehand and just didnt recover any with sleep.

Once I am done with my feats, I am looking forward to starting a game like that, @odizzido. The one with the sleep resting turned off and generally very slow over-time recovery of condition. Thank you for sharing that in your past posts and giving me this idea for a pretty realistic way to set up custom mode. Looking forward to trying it that way! Question for you - because I basically do the same exact thing like you, I also pile things into piles on the ground as a way to sort them. Not the prettiest but functional. Still, having containers is pretty good because of the small type of items that you need big quantities of, wouldnt you say? Things like sticks, cloth, cured guts, lines and hooks, and other various small items. If you stockpile a lot of things, eventually the containers for these items too tend to become full. So having more inventory space in containers is kinda nice. Or do you just drop the items on the ground anyway?

@AdamvR Yes! I have seen a use of these as well. It is essentialy the same idea - to life the food reserves up into a high location to prevent animals from getting into them. If this interests you, I reccomend looking up Dick Proenneke, and documentary about his late life in Alaska, which uses a lot of films he made on a camera in 60s. It documents how he build his whole cabin in one spot in Alaska, and his life there. On 2nd year of him living there, he actually build a very similar kind of pantry too. The entire documentary is up on YouTube.

 

[odizzido]

I usually don't have large stockpiles of stuff....I stop harvesting gut/pelts when I no longer need them and I don't make line/hook unless I need them immediately. I don't really collect cloth either, I usually only have maybe three or four on me. The only things I tend to stock up on in any significant quantity are wood and water inside. The water I always leave on the floor but the sticks I will put in a container if it's near the stove. If there isn't a container right there I leave it on the floor.

Outside I just keep my meat piles in the snow. I have never felt like I wanted to make a rock cache.

[AdamvR]

thanks for the tip @Mroz4k!

[ajb1978]

On 2/20/2021 at 4:09 PM, Mroz4k said:

I am not so sure about that anymore. I know this is how food poisoning used to work, but I believe you still take the damage for the 10 hours till you recover from it. At least that is what I seem to have noticed the last time I had food poisoning. Or maybe I just remember it wrong, and it just felt like that because I had already lost the condition beforehand and just didnt recover any with sleep.

I deliberately tested this on a throwaway and it still works. Food poisoning tanks your condition while you're active, but antibiotics halts condition loss while sleeping. It also overrides your fatigue meter, so you could sleep 10 hours while already fully rested, for the purpose of recovering from food poisoning. Or you could voluntarily break it up into smaller chunks, just be aware that as long as you're awake, your condition will continue to tank antibiotics or no.

[Stoutlander]

On 2/18/2021 at 4:19 PM, Mroz4k said:

Storing food outside is not really an issue in terms of realistic survival. It is very much the way meat is often stored in such locations. There is little point to having a larder - so meat would often be hanged high from a tall but young tree to make it out of reach of predators, and usually some distance away from your home, so that the smell of it doesnt bring the predators right to your door. 

The only time this would be done is while packing it back to camp or home, and then it is usually wrapped in something to keep the sun and birds off it.