Daylight hours and game pace?

[upnorth]

I'm sometimes a bit surprised that you have to sleep for 11-12 hours for it to be sunlight again. Then I remember that it's "Canada the simulation" and in the winter the days are indeed shorter in the northern hemisphere.

But also, I do find that I don't have too much time to do things in a given day. If I spend it all on repairing clothing, it sort of feels more realistic as that's kind of time consuming IRL as well. But if I simply try to cover distance, it does seem like the hours pass pretty fast.

What are the ideas behind these things in the game design, is it supposed to feel like 12h day / 12h night, and that every day should be relatively limited in terms of time for activities?

Edited January 19, 2023 by upnorth
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[hozz1235]

There's actually quite a bit of stuff you can do at night.  But I think the idea is that you do enough during the day to tire yourself out and need to rest to recover your fatigue meter to full.  Course, all this depends on your game settings/difficulty level.

Perhaps repair your clothes by a fire at night vs during the daylight hours?

Edited January 19, 2023 by hozz1235

[upnorth]

11 minutes ago, hozz1235 said:

There's actually quite a bit of stuff you can do at night.  But I think the idea is that you do enough during the day to tire yourself out and need to rest to recover your fatigue meter to full.  Course, all this depends on your game settings/difficulty level.

Perhaps repair your clothes by a fire at night vs during the daylight hours?

Good point. I never bother to light a fire simply to get light, only too cook or boil water. But mostly because I find it frustrating to navigate the game in general without daylight. Dusk is usually fairly bright but the game getting dark usually feels like times up to get stuff done.

[hozz1235]

Cooking is a pretty popular nighttime activity.  Double-productive then...as your food cooks/water boils, do something else (sleep, mend clothes, break down clothes, read a book, etc.)

It's good practice to start seeking shelter as dusk approaches.  Don't want to be caught outside at night (for lots of reasons).

Edited January 19, 2023 by hozz1235

[upnorth]

3 minutes ago, hozz1235 said:

Cooking is a pretty popular nighttime activity.  Double-productive then...as your food cooks/water boils, do something else (sleep, mend clothes, break down clothes, read a book, etc.)

It's good practice to start seeking shelter as dusk approaches.  Don't want to be caught outside at night (for lots of reasons).

Now you are just making me feel bad for how much I procrastinate after daylight hours IRL 🙈

[Leeanda]

I don't do anything except sleep  so I wouldn't feel too bad  @upnorth😊

[I_eat_only_wolf_meat]

The candlelight mod really helps with this, giving you a fairly long term source of light without making you pull 50 kg of wood into your base.  Too bad it doesn't work right now.

[conanjaguar]

I like to take short walks, or patrols, if you will, after dark to do various things such as grab sticks, pick cattails, and hunt rabbits.

I’ll usually stay up an hour or three to repair clothes, harvest odd junk, organize my base, and craft teas.

If there’s an aurora out, often I’ll light a fire and boil water while spamming F10.

[Serenity]

During clear nights you can read and work by moonlight in a cave or car

[TonyInPleasantValley]

I spend a lot of time outside at night, either late or in the early AM before dawn. Find that there are fewer critters out there and there are lots of things to do as others say above, like check my rabbit traps and even read. Like to be out during the aurora as well as the game looks great, and the critters look even more menacing. I do think the game should give us a few more hours back and not push us into sleeping 10-12 hours, cuz who does that IRL? Like hozz, I like to cook and read/craft to double dip when I can.

[upnorth]

12 hours ago, TonyInPleasantValley said:

I spend a lot of time outside at night, either late or in the early AM before dawn. Find that there are fewer critters out there and there are lots of things to do as others say above, like check my rabbit traps and even read. Like to be out during the aurora as well as the game looks great, and the critters look even more menacing. I do think the game should give us a few more hours back and not push us into sleeping 10-12 hours, cuz who does that IRL? Like hozz, I like to cook and read/craft to double dip when I can.

I might just sleep 12h straight every day if it was as simple to fall asleep and stay asleep as it is in the game 😅

Joking aside, I guess I just don't like to actively light up my surroundings with a fire or something. Modern day life (with electricity) does seem to extend "daylight" hours for me in that sense, so I strongly associate the game getting darker with the productive day being over.

[upnorth]

Something that would be really cool in terms of pacing. If you didn't constantly over-pack your backpack, you should get a walking/sprinting speed bonus similar to well fed that makes you move around faster. That would make more sense, almost every TLD video I've seen people are constantly over-packed. If packing normally was rewarded like this it would be a way to make the pacing a little more realistic, at least for me. But it's a pretty interesting idea either way. Perhaps lower the risk of injuries as well from not over-exerting yourself?

[Leeanda]

There are still things to do in the dark inside, obviously more if not on loper.. gun cleaning ,if used a lot like I do,can pass quite a while.  

There are of course breaking up furniture by hand,crafting meds you've picked up during daytime travels.. even if you don't need them at least they'll be ready in storage for a later date.