Proposal for improved Windproofing of inner clothing

[thefistoffury1]

(Apologies if this has been posted again before now, and apologies to Fahrenheit users, because I only converted the first few numbers, I hope I get my point across to you)

As anyone who's played this game for a decent chunk of time knows, wind is your enemy most of the time. It carries your scent to predators so they detect you faster, it blows out your fires and, most importantly for this topic, it reduces your warmth vital on top of the ambient cold air temp. It's no accident clothes in survival have a maximum warmth bonus of 39 ° Celcius (102.2 Fahrenheit) while your maximum windchill protection bonus is 16 ° Celcius (60.8 Fahrenheit). It's meant to be difficult to withstand the frigid winds of Northern Canada. Sadly, the current system gives you no windproof bonus from clothes worn under your outermost slot. You got an Expedition Parka and two Cowichan sweaters, and wear all three of them under a Simple Parka? Only 2 ° Windproof bonus. Which makes zero sense. It's just a simplification for the sake of the clothing system.

My proposal is to add a fraction of windproof bonus from clothes under the outermost ones, but only for the better (top 2/3) clothing items. General rule of thumb is this: If the clothing item in question has a maximum (100% condition) windproof bonus of anything below 1 ° Celcius (1.8 ° F) it gives no bonus when worn underneath the outermost item. It still does on the outer slot, but that's the same as the base game. If it has a bonus of 1 to 6 ° Celcius, it contributes half its Windproofing value (0.5 to 3 degrees) worn as inner clothing. And, to avoid the issues that too many decimals cause, the number is rounded. Maybe your worn down second pair of snow pants you wear on the inside has above 1.5 and below 2 degrees Celcius windproof bonus? Rounded up to 2, so the inner slot windchill bonus given is 2/2= 1 °. Is it below 1.5 degrees? Then it gets rounded down to 1, so your bonus will be 1/2 = 0.5 °. As for items that have only 1 ° of Windproof when fully repaired (like the dress shirt) , they can contribute 0.5 ° as long as the rounded number is still 1. In other words, when that dress shirt dips below 50% condition - below 0.5 ° windchill bonus -  you get nothing from it.

In my earlier example for the torso area, where I equipped the two Cowichan Sweaters and (purposefully) wore my Expedition Parka under a Simple Parka, instead of a meager 2 ° Celcius of windchill protection I would have, assuming all items are 100% in condition :

Cowichan Sweater A and B: 2+2= 4 ° windproof bonus divided by 2 -> 2 °, and the Expedition Parka: 6 ° windproof bonus divided by 2 -> 3 °,

for a total of 5 °. That's 7 ° Windproof bonus with the Simple Parka on top. Of course, equipping the Expedition Parka on the outside would allow you to get the most out of the Windproof bonuses for your chest (9 ° total actually) , but for the sake of the example I wanted to equip the best windproofing chest area clothes under a mediocre one.

Using the best items possible in slots where windproof layering makes the most sense (Torso area, 3 inner slots, and Legs, 1 inner slot -I say one because longjohns don't protect you from windchill-) you get a maximum of:

Two Cowichan sweaters: (2+2)= 4, 4/2= 2 ° , One expedition Parka: 6/2= 3 ° , One pair Snow Pants: 2/2 = 1 °

That adds 6 ° Celcius of Windproof bonus on top of a vanilla maximum of 16 ° granted by clothes on outer slots which gives us a new maximum of 22 ° Celcius Windproof warmth bonus. It might not seem like much, but it's a big deal sometimes. Especially when the air temperature is countered easily by your clothes, but the wind temp is colder, your windchill protection is naturally lower, and all that results in you losing warmth.

I used the best four clothes for these slots to show how big the difference can be, so you can imagine the bonuses won't be as great with the early game clothes you wear on the inside. Also, bear in mind that you get drastically reduced wind protection from inner clothes if they're damaged. Let's look at all these great clothes with more than -75% condition. If the Cowichan Sweaters are worn as inner clothes and below 25% condition (under 0.5  ° Windproof bonus for each sweater) they contribute nothing to your windproof total if worn as inner clothes. The expedition parka below 25% condition would give less than 1.5 °, so that gets rounded down to 1 °. The half of that is 0.5 °, which is the final bonus. Snow pants, like the Cowichan sweater, give no windproof bonus as inner clothing because their windproof stat is below 0.5 °. Instead of the 6 ° these clothes added to windproofing as inner clothes, now it's only the Expedition Parka adding to your total Windproof score a considerably lower 1.5 ° Celcius. Needless to say, early game inner clothes will stop adding to your windchill protection much sooner (around 50% condition, depends on the item) and the worst ones -to stress the point again- contribute nothing at all. Combat pants and their half degree of Windchill bonus can only help you on the outer slot, for example.

I considered adding the head inner slot to the list, but decided against it. I kept only the slots for your biggest clothing items, which naturally would act as better armour against the cold.

__________

In summary, if you maintain your inner clothes (which wear down slowly anyway) you can buff your Windproof bonus slightly. Sure, lower quality or lower condition clothes help disproportionately less. However, if you had something as simple as two dress shirts, a down vest, and one pair of work pants on as supporting garments, that would give you 1.5 ° Celcius of Windproofing on top of whatever you equipped on the outermost torso and leg slots. If you had, let's say, another pair of work pants and a simple parka on the outer slots, that would be 3 ° of windproofing in the vanilla game, now 4.5 °. It's not overpowered in any way, just a subtle bonus that better clothes make far more noticeable. A better idea compared to getting absolutely nothing to resist the windchill from your inner slots.

 

I marked this as a discussion, because I very much want to hear your feedback. I may have under - or over- explained, so feel free to ask me anything. Even better, improve upon this suggestion.

 

Edited July 31, 2021 by thefistoffury1
Edited for clarity

[odizzido]

Almost anything would be better than the current system where people have to know how the system works before they can use clothing properly. You can see how much of an issue it is when you can put on additional clothing and then actually get colder.

Personally I would have windproof add up as you go in. So wearing 2WP and +3C on layer 1 would give you those stats, and then wearing another 2WP and +3C coat would give you 4WP to the internal +3C but then 2WP to the outer +3C because the inner layer doesn't protect the outer layer. It would be similar to real life that way, as in real life wearing a wind breaker on the inside layer is the least effective thing you can do as it won't provide wind protection to the clothing holding heat on the outside. I would explain more but this will never get implemented as it's way too complicated for hinterland to consider.

Edited August 1, 2021 by odizzido

[thefistoffury1]

10 hours ago, odizzido said:

I would explain more but this will never get implemented as it's way too complicated for hinterland to consider.

Feel free to elaborate more if you want. I understand the stats of the outer piece add up and increase the inner item's stats, right? But only for specific clothing combos based on the materials they're made of, so a warm parka works like crap if you wear a windbreaker under it. That does work like real life, indeed. They do read these forums. Also, look at my post. Do you think that isn't complicated?  I posted this because I had an idea, not because I had an idea that's simple to explain.