INFECTION IS CHEAP DEATH, COME ON TLD

[toebar]

A wolf bite that you can bandage but then becomes infected because you can't do anything to prevent it from becomming infected after you have exhausted pill antibiotics and relshi tea is a death sentence.

This is a game of resource management. When you run out of any resource (food, clothes, pills, water, bullets, arrows, tools, matches etc etc), your chances of survival are compromised.

Some of the resources were not renewable in earlier versions of the game, but changes have provided work-arounds (for better or worse ). e.g. the number of bullets limited hunting and the effective defense your had, but now there is the bow. Perhaps we'll see another way to deal with infection. (Until then, there's always Pilgrim)

"If the only cure is "don't get bit by a wolf" and manage your "wolf encouters" well this is the same thing as don't go outside in Stalker cuz FFS you can't avoid it forever. You simply can't."

If this was true, why are there so many long stalker runs-- even among non-hibernators?

[jackattack]

I've never had a wound get infected. The first aid screen prompts "bandage+antiseptic" or "old man's beard dressing" -- I pick one and it's resolved. There's lots of bandages, antiseptic, and OMB in the game. Even I, the reigning champion of being mauled by wildlife, rarely run out.

However, if I were jiggering the mechanic for infection, I would base the condition drop on the number and or severity of the wounds.

For example (using placeholder numbers) if a character suffers one bleeding injury that drops their condition 10%, any resulting infection might cause their condition to fall an additional 30% at a steady (or increasing?) rate over time. Once the infection " bottoms out", the character's condition improves (normally, or at the same rate their condition dropped). A character's condition would still vary according to other effects, but condition loss due to infection could only be improved once the infection has run its course.

Multiple infected injuries would cause condition to drop concurrently, so with two infected wounds a character's condition would drop twice as fast (until the slighter wound bottoms out). Also note that a character might have infected wounds whose potential condition loss totals well over 100%.

Even a minor infection could make the difference between life and death if a character is starving and freezing and otherwise injured, but infection would not be a sure game ender by itself.

Antibiotics (pharma or natural) might "interrupt" the infection(s) (causing it/them to bottom out when the antibiotics are taken) and allow infection-based condition loss to improve.

Alternatively, antibiotics might negate some portion of the infection's potential damage (reduce a 30% infection to, say 10%). A player would then have the option of rationing their antibiotics, and would base the decision to take more on how much their condition continued to drop. I would apply the same potential damage negation per dose to multiple infected wounds, but it might also be applied at a reduced rate (20% to one wound, 15% to each of two wounds, 10% to each of three or four wounds, and 5% to each of five or more wounds).

Just thoughts.

[Aduron]

So to return to the title of "Infection is cheap death." Indeed it is, and I'm not referring to The Long Dark. Before antibiotics, people were extraordinarily weary of getting infections. Take for example pirate ships during the exploration era: it was actually extremely rare for pirates to attack anyone, they simply boarded a ship and took what they wanted, or if their numbers weren't high enough they ran. Why? The people on the either ship didn't want to risk infection, even if the other ship fought off the pirates there would be non-fatal causalities and they would essentially all get infected, because cleanliness standards were so low. So, the risk of infection dominated (and in some cases, enabled) the life of a pirate. Cheap indeed.

I have no problem with the current infection system, other than it should absolutely have a chance to kill you, and quite a high chance at that. If you're extremely careful, you can avoid wolf encounters for a very long time, and I can count on one hand the number of times I've had food poisoning in this game, because I'm very careful about cooking my food and eating it in the right order (perishables first). Infection should be a very real concern for the character, and in my opinion it's quite easily avoided.

[KD7BCH]

A wolf bite that you can bandage but then becomes infected because you can't do anything to prevent it from becomming infected after you have exhausted pill antibiotics and relshi tea is a death sentence.

This is a game of resource management. When you run out of any resource (food, clothes, pills, water, bullets, arrows, tools, matches etc etc), your chances of survival are compromised.

Some of the resources were not renewable in earlier versions of the game, but changes have provided work-arounds (for better or worse ). e.g. the number of bullets limited hunting and the effective defense your had, but now there is the bow. Perhaps we'll see another way to deal with infection. (Until then, there's always Pilgrim)

"If the only cure is "don't get bit by a wolf" and manage your "wolf encouters" well this is the same thing as don't go outside in Stalker cuz FFS you can't avoid it forever. You simply can't."

If this was true, why are there so many long stalker runs-- even among non-hibernators?

Different mechanics back then. The game has undergone a lot of changes. There are some places in every map you can live for 1000+ days without wolves, but what is the point?

TLD is about overcoming the impending elements using your brain and planning and succeeding enough in other areas in order to overcome where you come up short. This relies on soft counters and not on death sentences for 1 single event which is very common.

Can you even go for 10 days without a wolf attack? Surely not 20 in typical transit. Even if you bandage which of course you will, if it gets infected, you dead. That is what should not be.