Various ideas

[ColdWinter]

Hello everyone, I really enjoy the long dark (the best survival game out there for me), so I wanted to share with you several ideas. That’s the first time I involved myself in an alpha because I can see that devs are really listening the community. (And sorry for my bad English)

Sanity

I would like to manage the sanity of my character.

Bad action for sanity:

search dead body, being attacked by a wolf, go outside in the night…

Good action for sanity

Go out in a sunny day, make a fire, maybe play music (add a guitar?), decorate the inside…

Sanity should be a slow process; It would take maybe 10 days to go from prefect sanity to madness if you do nothing against it.

Vehicle:

Being able to repair a car would be great. First it would need to get the battery out of the car and charge it on a generator that we could found in a gas station (use kerosene for the generator). Once the battery charged and back in the car, we just have to fuel the tank with kerosene.

It shouldn’t be an usual thing to use. That would need a lot of kerosene. Moreover, it can’t go on big slop. But for example, if you killed a bear far from your base, you could get your car, harvest the meat and put it in the trunk and get back in one trip. You could also use your car as a moving shelter. Or just have a fun trip!

Wildlife

More wildlife would be awesome, like fox, goat, snake, squirrel…

Being able to shoot the ravens and cook them.

It would be great if more food was harvestable in the nature (like the mushroom).

Sleep

I think that more you are in good shape going to bed, better you will recover your condition (it’s maybe the case but I didn’t notice).

I have read something about dream, it’s a great idea. I see it like that: Some screen shot are taken by the game during the day. When you go to bed and dream, all those picture appear to you one after another, fogy and moving. That could be really beautiful and be a funny way to remember the day. But it shouldn’t happen every night and only if you sleep more than 6 hours. Also, depending if it was a good dream or a nightmare, it would affect sanity.

Weapon, hunting

I like the idea of a revolver (maybe already working on it?)

Another “premium” rifle with a scope could be cool. It would take down a wolf or dear far away, and even kill a bear with like two bullets. But of course, ammo should be extremely rare.

Add crafted spear with a knife and a branch.

Add binoculars, compass.

Add dynamite. It could be used to kill pray like a Wolfe, even a bear. But that would destroy the hide and damage the meat. Maybe to go on “secret” location were the passage is blocked.

Forage wood

The actual way to forage wood is too easy and not very realistic. I think it would be great if we had to go near a tree and select an option shopping tree. No need to see the tree fallen, we can still have a loading bar. But after that, see the tree on the ground would be awesome. If we stay a long time in a place, get wood would be more challenging. And see the impact of our action on the environment is important.

Same for the interior. To get reclaims wood, we would select the option near a chair or the bed, after that it appear destroyed. And of course we could not use the bed after that.

Add a shovel

That would allow us to dig a hole in the snow: if we are outside and caught in a blizzard, we can protect from the wind. We can make an “hunting hole” to hide. Use shovel to find root that we could eat.

Sorry for the long post, and thanks for reading! Hope you can find some good ideas in there

[bethany]

Thanks for the feedback! We've addressed quite a bit of these topics already, but I'm going to link you to some of the more recent threads in case you want to get involved in the discussion.

Sanity/Morale

Sleep/Dreams

Weapons

Working vehicles aren't really in the plans for now, as the geomagnetic storm mentioned at the start of the game has basically eliminated all working technology (this includes batteries). The actual physical destruction of assets in the world is pretty time consuming and costly to create...That being said, I don't know future plans for this. Destructible environments is no small undertaking.

Some other things you've mentioned may appear as the game develops!

Thanks again and welcome to the forums!