suggestion Environment improvement: ZIPLINES!

[Ghurcb]

I wanted for them to be added for a long time. When I first saw this concept art of Ash Canyon, I thought "wow, this will be so much fun!". Even if it was just a platform you could move back and forth, there would still be a lot of level-design potential in this idea. Unfortunately, this idea was bound to remain on paper, not added in Hesitant Prospect or any following update. But I still think, the addition of ziplines and platforms like the one on the picture would greatly improve the long dark.

The most obvious use for ziplines is using them as shortcuts. It might be a long and difficult road to reach some point of interest, but if you want to backtrack after reaching it, that would only take you a few seconds. Hinterland already utilise this shortcut type. There are slopes too steep to reach the top, or rocks that you can jump down from, but can't climb up. But they are a bit unrealistic. My survivor can climb 15-meter long ropes but can't climb a waist-high piece of stone? On the other hand, going up the zipline from the wrong end would be realistically impossible. 

But why would there be any ziplines on Great Bear? This island isn't particularly known for its tourist attractions. Sure, there's the Mystery Lake camp office, implying that some people would visit for a vacation near a lake, or some ice fishing, but pushing it further would go against realism. 

Well, ziplines are not only used for recreation, they are also a means of transport for both people and cargo. They would certainly fit a mining region that has many different elevation levels. Perhaps, when you initially explore this region, you can't use the cables, and you'd have to climb ropes and walk in long zig-zags to move further in. But in a mineshaft at the very top of the map, you can find a harness that would allow you to ride on all the ziplines. This would not only allow for faster backtracking, but also further exploration, as some remote and low parts of the region could only be accessible by zipline. 
Some of the cords could have carriages full of ore and coal stuck on them. You would have to stop your ride to reattach the harness, while the small carriage sways hundreds of meters above ground as you move.

A bonus use for the harness is that it would aid you when climbing ropes. It would give you more second chances when you run out of stamina, and if you fall, you will land mostly unharmed. As long as you have a harness in your inventory, you would use it for climbing, with an animation of the survivor attaching themselves to the rope indicating you're safe.

[xanna]

With the same weight restrictions as ropeclimbing, presumably? I'd feel concerned about using a zipline with a 40kg pack, but I don't know why that feels less possible to me than rope climbing.

It feels plausible to me that anyone living in Great Bear for a long time after the Collapse would set up something like this in places like AC and HRV. If not for people-use then at least for shifting supplies about. My headcanon might be that the preppers or Forest Walkers set them up.

[Leeanda]

I'd forgotten about that picture!  I remember looking for it when ash first came out,and being disappointed it wasn't there. 

[Kranium]

Ziplines are popular out here, many ski resorts do this for summer business, also. So, there's tons of places to zipline all over the province, including Vancouver Island:

 

 

[Ghurcb]

On 12/24/2022 at 6:39 PM, xanna said:

With the same weight restrictions as ropeclimbing, presumably? I'd feel concerned about using a zipline with a 40kg pack, but I don't know why that feels less possible to me than rope climbing.

I'd say, it's even more possible, because when you use a harness, you don't have to hold on to anything with your arms and legs. But if it wasn't for it, and you used a hatchet or something else to slide while carrying 40 kg of supplies... That would be a speedrun of survival mode.

[Ghurcb]

On 12/24/2022 at 8:11 PM, Leeanda said:

I'd forgotten about that picture!  I remember looking for it when ash first came out,and being disappointed it wasn't there. 

Is it just me, or does the location on the picture look like the Hushed river? The part where you can do down a log to get to the bottom of the crevice? Just add this platform there and that's it!

[Leeanda]

I don't spend any time in hrv so I don't know.. it looks messy enough to be  there though. 

[UTC-10]

I had thought that Ash Canyon might be a more appropriate location for that kind of cable-way if only to deliver moderate amounts of cargo.  I think that it would have had to have been much more substantial if people/miners were to ride across the chasms between the cliffs.  

I did think that there should have been more ruins in Ash Canyon like stair ways or hoist systems for more complete depiction of how one got to particular locations like Homesteader's Respite and that collapsed sort of picnic and storage area near Angler's Den Cabin.  Access to Miner's Folly was fine for adventuring but not so good for an actual supposedly functional camp (and don't get me started on missing things at Miner's Folly like where was the stove and kitchen that cooked for all the miners or how incidental things like food supplies were moved to the camp?).  

But that's just me.  

 

[Leeanda]

@UTC-10.  I feel the same about the lack of toilets in desolation point😊