Add a "Malnourished" status

[signal]

This can be a realistic way to reduce the "starvation" mode gameplay:

• If player consumes less than 1000 x 10 Calories over 10 days, she becomes malnourished.
  
• While malnourished, sleep healing is reduced (to 25% of regular rate, maybe?)
  
• While malnourished, all physical activity (chopping wood, harvesting animals) takes longer to complete.
  
• While malnourished, damage done while fighting wolves is reduced.
  
• To remove the malnourished status, consume more than 1200 x 10 Calories over 10 days.

We can think of being malnourished as a status that makes you weaker physically.

[selfless]

Like hypothermia but for calories.

Once threshold is reached, every 100 calories expended but not available because hunger reached zero takes an additional 1% of life. Caloric need and fatigue rates increased for duration of affliction. Lasts until hunger remains above 0 for xxx hours.

[teapot156]

This sounds good. This along with the firewood changes will help kill hibernation.

[Aelaera]

I like it. I really don't like the hibernation style of game play that occurs. I'd like to see our "maximum calories" increase if this were to be implemented though.

[AmericanSteel]

I am not a hibernator by nature, so I really can't speak to the flaws in the system. Not quite sure about 10 days though, it may need to be tooled down to around 5 days. Also the healing penality needs to neutralize the health gain from resting more. People suffering from malnutrition take significantly longer to heal from injury and serious injuries are generally lethal.

By James Collier BSc (Hons) - Consultant in Nutrition and Moderator of Dietetics.co.uk

The importance of good nutrition in the healing of wounds and the promotion of health is widely accepted.

Whereas good nutrition facilitates healing, malnutrition delays, inhibits and complicates the process (Williams and Leaper 2000). Before we examine the importance of nutritional assessment, we need to look at the nutrients which have key roles in the healing process:

Protein

Protein depletion can affect the rate and quality of wound healing (Gray and Cooper 2001). There is an increase in demand for protein in the presence of a wound, a requirement further increased in the event of sepsis or stress. Protein is required as part of the inflammatory process, in the immune response and in the development of granulation tissue. The main protein synthesised during the healing process is collagen, and the strength of the collagen determines wound strength. Even short periods of low protein intake can result in significantly delayed wound healing. Protein inadequacy has also been shown to affect remodelling of the wound. In extreme cases of hypoalbuminaemia (i.e. low levels of the serum protein albumin) from long periods of insufficient protein intake, oedema may develop.

Carbohydrate

As part of the healing process the body enters a hypermetabolic phase, where there is an increase in demand for carbohydrate. Cellular activity is fuelled by adenosine triphosphate (ATP) which is derived from glucose, providing the energy for the inflammatory response to occur. In the case of insufficient carbohydrate, the body breaks down protein to provide glucose for cellular activity (Gray and Cooper 2001). Therefore, in order to correct hypoalbuminaemia, carbohydrate is required as well as protein.

Fats

Fats have a key role in cell membrane structure and function. Certain fatty acids are essential, as they cannot be synthesised in sufficient amounts, so must be provided by diet. The role of essential fatty acids in wound healing is unclear, but as they are involved in the synthesis of new cells, depletion would certainly delay wound healing. It is debatable as to whether omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) are more beneficial than omega-6 PUFAs. Omega-3s are anti-inflammatory, which aids wound healing, but may inhibit clotting which is disadvantageous (Williams and Leaper 2000).

Vitamins

B-Complex vitamins are co-factors or co-enzymes in a number of metabolic functions involved in wound healing, particularly in the energy release from carbohydrates. Vitamin C has an important role in collagen synthesis, in the formation of bonds between strands of collagen fibre, helping to provide extra strength and stability. There is loads of evidence showing increased requirements for vitamin C during injury, stress and sepsis (Gray and Cooper 2001).

Minerals

Iron is a co-factor in collagen synthesis, and deficiency in iron delays wound healing. Copper is also involved in collagen synthesis.

http://www.dietetics.co.uk/articles/nut ... aling.aspx

[KD7BCH]

+1 Absolutely necessary direction for the game to take.

The whole idea of us doing all this extra work without any calorie cost, and also not suffering the ill effects of constant fatigue simply promote the exploit that is starvation. It isn't like it is too difficult to get resources either so why the devs haven't yet fixed this nobody can say.

[LucidFugue]

I like the idea. I'd shorten the timeframes though. Even 5 days is a long time to go without enough food. 2-3 days would be reasonable. You know when you're running short of food and you have plenty of options at that point. This would put pressure on finding food, to the point the player behaviour mimics the ravenous sensation.

[Farmerbob]

Yes. I would like to see malnourishment in the game. Vitamin C should be a significant concern. Scurvy is not nice. Rose hips are a source of vitamin C. Herbal tea could improve vitamin content too. Multivitamins might be findable.

Instead of trying to get a list of all the different vitamins separately, perhaps just have a vitamin balance stat. If all you eat is meat, you start to lose vitamin balance. Meat and fish would also lose vitamin balance, but slower. Rose hips, herbal tea, canned fruits, and perhaps multivitamins.

It could also be possible to allow for liver harvesting from deer - high calorie count, and lots of vitamins. The vitamin count from liver would be drastically lower if the liver is cooked.

[AmericanSteel]

Fir, Hemlock and Spruce tips are packed with vitamin C and electrolytes. Maybe the devs could "drop" some boughs with tips on them, like they have done for sticks and whatnot. You would know a particular area dropped them after a time and we don't have to worry about harvesting some new tree (like the rose tip bushes). Considering it would be an "endless" resource, drop the calorie count to 50 but add in the warmpth factor.

[signal]

> Even 5 days is a long time to go without enough food.

Not really.

>A human can go for more than three weeks without food (Mahatma Gandhi survived 21 days of complete starvation), but water is a different story.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/how-many ... z3i4YixwmL

People in poorer countries can survive for many years on 400 to 800 Calories a day. They get really skinny and can't be as active, but a low-calorie diet shouldn't kill you by itself. The "hibernation" strategy should be viable, but it should make going outdoors super dangerous.

Another idea: have the fatigue bar stay always above 50% if you are malnourished.

[KD7BCH]

In poorer countries, typically desert conditions, but you can't survive anywhere where the temperature drops below freezing on 400-800 calories per day for a long time. They take sticks of butter and eat pure fat on trips up MT Everest, part of that is calorie consumption and the other part is it helps them stay warm by consuming something that will process by the body very easily.

[desrocchi]

This can be a realistic way to reduce the "starvation" mode gameplay:

• If player consumes less than 1000 x 10 Calories over 10 days, she becomes malnourished.
  
• While malnourished, sleep healing is reduced (to 25% of regular rate, maybe?)
  
• While malnourished, all physical activity (chopping wood, harvesting animals) takes longer to complete.
  
• While malnourished, damage done while fighting wolves is reduced.
  
• To remove the malnourished status, consume more than 1200 x 10 Calories over 10 days.

We can think of being malnourished as a status that makes you weaker physically.

In my opinion the 10 (or 5) days period is not the best way to go at it because you could still abuse the condition and just eat your daily ration before going to bed.

I would instead enhance the negative effects of starvation and dehydration as they are now.

Keeping your list as a base we could have that

when starved OR dehydrated

• all physical activity (chopping wood, harvesting animals) takes 20% longer to complete.
  
• damage done while fighting wolves is reduced by 10%.
  
• fatigue raises 5% faster.

when starved AND dehydrated

• all physical activity (chopping wood, harvesting animals) takes 50% longer to complete.
  
• damage done while fighting wolves is reduced by 25%.
  
• fatigue raises 15% faster.

On top of this I would add that

when starved OR dehydrated

• the player suffers of auditory allucinations: while walking around you sometimes hear wolves howling even though they're not in your vicinity.

when starved AND dehydrated

• the player suffers of visual allucinations: a wolf or a bear spawn with a higher chance to be aggroed that disappears as soon as it should start the fighting animation.

[saxel]

I think this is a good idea, the way I would want to implement it would be such that each hour spent in starvation would permanently lower your fatigue and condition maximum by some amount. For example if you spend 5 hours starving, then your fatigue and condition maximums lower to 95% and will not recover beyond that regardless of how much you rest. However, for each 5 hour period you spend not starving (where your calorie count never drops to zero) your condition maximum will increase by 1% until it returns to 100%.

I would say that this is an increase in realism, and a decrease in playability, but the benefits to realism outweighs the detriments to playability.