Activity Ideas

[Pyro]

Someone said, and I agree, that we need more activities like wood collecting which they recently added. So I thought I would start a thread where people can give their ideas as to what those activities might be.

Please give your idea and an explanation as to how the mechanics might work. Also try to keep this thread clean of discussions, debates and denouncements of certain ideas. It should just be a list of possible activities. If you want to expand on a certain activity then please create a new thread about it.

Well lets get the ball rolling; I think digging might be an interesting activity. You can find/craft a shovel where you can dig out, the snow, different types of objects e.g. edible roots like groundnuts. You can find them by looking for a vine that is growing on the tree then digging at the base of the tree to uncover them. Or maybe you can dig out a corpse/create that has been covered in snow.

[Patrick Carlson]

Interesting. How would you balance digging against other strenuous activities in the game (sprinting, breaking down a bear carcass ect.)? Frozen ground can be pretty tough.

[Pyro]

Every time you use the shovel; you become more fatigued and a section of the snow is dug up thereby uncovering what is underneath. If it is ice then it may take a few 'digs' to dig up that section.

[Seancushing]

Hello!

I'd like to propose this idea, as well as an unrelated Idea that I'll link to the post I have it in.

An idea for "Busy Work" that could be added can include a way to collect different styles and types of arrows. Just to give a better variation of attack, as well as give you busy work. Making Arrows from, say, maple wood would be lighter, but flimsier, meaning that you can hit targets from further away with less drop, but they have a harder time trying to penetrate tougher hides.

The idea that's unrelated to the topic at hand is available for open discussion at this Link:

viewtopic.php?f=59&t=7100

If you find the time, reply to what I have here or at the other post.

[iSUGGESTthings]

Digging sounds fun: prime the ground with your campfire and potentially find something good or horrible.

I for one would like many more food items so that cooking can become more complex, ie a crafting system of its very own. Collect ingredients to cook recipes and make better/more calorie-dense food. Also I want to see more 'questionable' food items in the same vein as the can of dog food. Like a bottle of maple syrup since we're in Canada. Plenty of sticky-sweet calories if you drink it, but drinking it is kind of ew. :lol:

I'm also just a fan of having extra things to do so I've commented on the personal hygiene suggestions in other threads. Washing yourself and your clothes makes for busy work, and I like busy work.

[redfield]

I think there should be more activities to do whilst you while away the hours either at night time or when the weather is too bad outside.

Some activity ideas:

• Cards. Find a pack of abandoned cards and play some solo games (e.g. solitaire).
  
• Darts. Discover an abandoned pub/bar in a village and play some solo darts. Darts could also be weapons for last resort attacks against wolves?
  
• Reading. There are lots of books / newspapers in the world. Would be good if you were able to read these to upgrade your knowledge (which I believe is in the works anyway) or just to relax after a hard days surviving.

[Aduron]

Smoking meat: First, you build a smoke rack sorta like the one in

. Required materials would be:

• 3 long "branches", but not the current version of in-game branches. Maybe for balance purposes, they could be birch saplings?
  
• Several sticks
  
• Several pine boughs, a new item that falls. These line the outside and keep the smoke in.

You then build it at a workbench and "deploy" it in the same manner as a snare, except it's much larger. This would be reusable, but perhaps degrade slowly over time for balance. To smoke the meat, you would need materials for a decent-sized fire, and something to generate a good bit of smoke (The pine boughs could also be "harvested" to make pine needles and sticks, you could "harvest" fir firewood into "smoking chips", or perhaps you could find dry leaves?).

Then to smoke, the fire has to be a certain temperature, and let that fire go through to embers. Add the meat, add the smoke generators to the embers, and close it up with boughs. Leave it for 18 hours and boom, you've got smoked meat. Smoked meat should retain all the calories of raw meat, and keep for a very long time. It would be excellent for stocking your distant bases, so that you always know there will be food there waiting. It would allow for a variable respawn rate in wildlife (maybe an event happens where there's a week-long blizzard so all the animals go into hiding for a long time). Also helpful for bears, since their meat will go bad unless you eat basically just bear meat for a couple of weeks (helpful if basic nutrition is added to the game, so that the player can't survive off of just meat). Just brainstorming ways it could be useful, instead of just another thing to do.

Finally, these pine boughs could additionally be used to make pine needle tea, which has shown up on the forums a bunch. Basically it's a way to warm up your core once you run out of tea and coffee (cause who in their right mind would drink just hot water?)

[Deerber]

Smoking meat: First, you build a smoke rack sorta like the one in

. Required materials would be:

• 3 long "branches", but not the current version of in-game branches. Maybe for balance purposes, they could be birch saplings?
  
• Several sticks
  
• Several pine boughs, a new item that falls. These line the outside and keep the smoke in.

You then build it at a workbench and "deploy" it in the same manner as a snare, except it's much larger. This would be reusable, but perhaps degrade slowly over time for balance. To smoke the meat, you would need materials for a decent-sized fire, and something to generate a good bit of smoke (The pine boughs could also be "harvested" to make pine needles and sticks, you could "harvest" fir firewood into "smoking chips", or perhaps you could find dry leaves?).

Then to smoke, the fire has to be a certain temperature, and let that fire go through to embers. Add the meat, add the smoke generators to the embers, and close it up with boughs. Leave it for 18 hours and boom, you've got smoked meat. Smoked meat should retain all the calories of raw meat, and keep for a very long time. It would be excellent for stocking your distant bases, so that you always know there will be food there waiting. It would allow for a variable respawn rate in wildlife (maybe an event happens where there's a week-long blizzard so all the animals go into hiding for a long time). Also helpful for bears, since their meat will go bad unless you eat basically just bear meat for a couple of weeks (helpful if basic nutrition is added to the game, so that the player can't survive off of just meat). Just brainstorming ways it could be useful, instead of just another thing to do.

Finally, these pine boughs could additionally be used to make pine needle tea, which has shown up on the forums a bunch. Basically it's a way to warm up your core once you run out of tea and coffee (cause who in their right mind would drink just hot water?)

I think this is an absolutely brilliant idea. It fits the game very well, and it gives us something more to build, so it makes every one if us happier Also it gives us something very useful to build, not just some random thing thrown in just to increase the number of craftable items (not that Hinterland has ever done such a thing!).

It was also very well thought with all the new materials required and the process idea.

Besides, it would also fit very well with an eventual reduction in the number of animal spawns but increase in their calory amount (see the other thread about switches...).

Really, I can't endorse this idea enough

[kamajutsu]

I have always thought that a shovel would be a great addition to the tools in the game, with the same drop rate as a hatchet.

Mechanic - The shovel can be used to dig holes via a menu option. Digging a hole could pass 10 in game minutes. The hole is then used for storage, particularly for food items, which will significantly slow down (or even freeze) the degradation of the meat, which will stop it from rotting and going below 50%.

Another example - Digging is useful for creating landmarks as you travel around the map. I would love to be able to dig a hole near a specific tree, plant some cans of food for emergencies, then moving on. Next time I am desperate and caught outside, I can navigate back to the tree and dig up my supplies.

Previously dug holes can be signified by a circular mound in the ground, maybe with a slightly different texture

[Aduron]

I have always thought that a shovel would be a great addition to the tools in the game, with the same drop rate as a hatchet.

Mechanic - The shovel can be used to dig holes via a menu option. Digging a hole could pass 10 in game minutes. The hole is then used for storage, particularly for food items, which will significantly slow down (or even freeze) the degradation of the meat, which will stop it from rotting and going below 50%.

Another example - Digging is useful for creating landmarks as you travel around the map. I would love to be able to dig a hole near a specific tree, plant some cans of food for emergencies, then moving on. Next time I am desperate and caught outside, I can navigate back to the tree and dig up my supplies.

Previously dug holes can be signified by a circular mound in the ground, maybe with a slightly different texture

When you say "dig", are you thinking of digging into the ground? Or just to the ground level, as in digging away the snow? The ground would be crazy frozen and impossible to dig up, right? Am I not understanding my cold-weather physics?

I think digging could be useful if there are vast open fields implemented into the game, to get some wind blockage, especially for fires. Also, fires on top of snow doesn't work IRL, right? Maybe we should have to dig down, at least on Stalker?

As far as "markers" go, that bright red flag blowing in the wind on the menu screen would be my go-to strategy for marking in the wild. They already have a really great flag-blowing mechanic built into the game. I say put a few more red scarves in, and let us harvest those into several "flags" which we can tie to low-hanging tree limbs. And speaking of the menu screen, there's a shovel on that, right? So this is clearly something the team has thought about.

[kamajutsu]

When you say "dig", are you thinking of digging into the ground? Or just to the ground level, as in digging away the snow?

Yes, just digging the snow away to make a shallow hole approx. 1 foot deep maybe.

And definitely +1 to the flag idea. or any aesthetic landmarking idea, for that matter. Even being able to shove a branch or stick in the ground vertically to mark your tracks.