Harvesting cloth and scrap metal in houses

[Hobbesyb]

There are plenty of tapestries, blankets, metallic fournitures inside buildings. Could we be able to harvest these as well to get cloth and scrap metal ?

[Majales]

This wish is here all the time. I don't know, what are develepers plans for the game, but this would ruin the important aspect of the game, resource management. To answer your question. My opinion is, that most probably not.

[elloco999]

I wouldn't like to see more harvestable stuff in houses. The reason is the same as Majales stated: it would ruin resource management.

[Hobbesyb]

Hum. I don't se why... there's a limited amount of reclaimed wood in houses. Why not a limited amount in cloth ?

Right now, there's a point where there's no cloth anymore, and then no player can survive longer. I mean, there's no situation that you can reach, as a player, where you can survive forever (unless you make a mitake, of course).

[elloco999]

Okay, so how much cloth should a house provide? 5? 10? 20? If every house in the game would give you 5 cloth, it would more than double the amount of cloth available. I've never died before running out of cloth and having no more places to loot for more clothes/ cloth, so I don't think we need more cloth. Right now, the game forces you to go out and scavenge for resources from time to time. If every house would provide you with an amount of those resources, you wouldn't need to scavenge nearly as much. I think it would make TLD less fun to play.

The only thing preventing you from surviving forever is when you run out of ways to start a fire. You don't need cloth to survive. If you craft the boots, mittens and coat you get a +15C warmth bonus. That's more than all the best non-craftable clothes combined! Also running out of cloth is something that can only happen if you don't manage your cloth right. I've made it to 999 days (before I killed myself on purpose) on a voyageur run and I still had 50+ cloth and a pile of clothes.

[Hobbesyb]

Well. I've crafted these. But I'm still alive at 64 days, repaired clothes regularly, collected everything in all maps, and have less than 20 cloth left. So I have to choose between repairing clothes and crafting bandages. If you run out of bandages, your chances of survival get very low, very soon.

[Hobbesyb]

Note : I've modified the post title to focus more on what we speak about

[elloco999]

Well. I've crafted these. But I'm still alive at 64 days, repaired clothes regularly, collected everything in all maps, and have less than 20 cloth left.

Well, then I would say one or more of these points apply:

* you were very unlucky (that can happen, sometimes you just find very little resources)

* you did a poor job looting and missed a lot of stuff

* you get in way too many wolf fights and need lots of bandages, consuming a lot of cloth this way

* you've not been managing your cloth for long term survival (ie you repair clothes too often, like repairing something at 85%, taking 1 cloth while repairing at 75% also takes 1 cloth).

* you've wasted cloth repairing gloves/ mittens/ jackets (as you can craft mittens and a coat you should save your cloth for repairing clothes you can't craft an alternative for)

Please don't take this as a comment to you personally, I'm just trying to point out ways cloth can run out too quickly. All of these things have happened to me and I have been in situations where I ran out of cloth before I died. But I learned from these how to better manage my resources and make them stretch the amount of time I need.

So I have to choose between repairing clothes and crafting bandages. If you run out of bandages, your chances of survival get very low, very soon.

And that's exactly why resources are scarce. To force you to make hard decisions like that.

Try playing a game in Pilgrim. You have a lot of resources there and they also degrade slower. It's not nearly as much fun. (not saying I'm not enjoying my current Pilgrim run, Pilgrim has it's merits, but this aspect of the game is almost absent and it changes gameplay from a real survival feel to more of a camping feel) Having to manage your resources and having to make hard decisions is part of what makes TLD the great game it is. That's why you see people advocating to not increase the amount of cloth/ scrap metal etc.

[Burning Bridges]

The thought of getting cloth from beds or using furniture to make fire crossed my mind many times. But there is enough cloth in the game. Lots of it. I hardly ever harvest or repair anything and simply wear out the best stuff until I find something better. Harvesting and repair cost a lot of time, and carrying cloth can add up to a considerable extra weight. Instead of making premature repairs I now regularly make torches (which give me more light per kerosene), and I always have enough to not pick up everything (a spare bedroll alone gives 10 cloth).

Hobbesyb, if you run out of cloth after 64 days there must be something you can do better. Every piece of cloth can give you 30-50% back and if you do repairs at 80 or 90% you will not get much in return per resource. Also, "best" clothing is excessively heavy and I dont know if you factor that in when you decide what is "best" or what could still be worn (a down vest weighs a mere 250g, as much as two and a half energy bars, and still has medium warmth properties).

And btw I liked the game more when wood was also a precious resource. Now you can make dozens of wood in advance (wood from the ground has become almost worthless), if the same happened to cloth it would remove another challenge from resource management.

[Hobbesyb]

Well I think the devs have to choose between a game where your lives are short and the ressources are very scarce, and a game where you can last very long with enough ressources. In the later, the difficulty should come from the environment, while in the first case, it should come from lack of ressources. That's what I think. I would prefer a longer lifespan with renewable stuff, so that you can concentrate in fighting against the great outdoors.