Liquid Containers

[ridankrad]

I have seen other posts within other discussions that allude to this idea (for example, AmericanSteel's post in this thread: viewtopic.php?f=59&t=7464), but I'm not sure that there's a thread specifically to discuss water containers, so I thought I'd create one.

Currently, the character has an unlimited supply of water bottles and other containers for tea, coffee, etc. This means that the player always may prepare water and other drinks and have a place for it without having to worry about carrying a container for that purpose. Additionally, it means that the player may create a huge supply of water which ultimately makes water less of a concern and more just a matter of grabbing a couple bottles from the 100 liter stash now and then, with a rare "marathon" water making session.

I propose that water containers themselves should be a coveted form of "loot" that the player seeks in order to better their position. I can imagine a situation in which the player might begin the game with, say, a 1.5 liter canteen but then gradually come across additional containers. These containers would have different carrying capacities, different weights (depending on whether empty or to the amount they are full), and perhaps even different heat retention. There was another post here (viewtopic.php?f=59&t=7120) about adding a thermos to the game. I think this would be a great idea for the coffee, tea and other hot drinks in the game. But in addition to the thermos, there could also be a variety of other different containers with their own properties. Some could be found, but others could be crafted, say something like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bota_bag.

I can appreciate the current simplicity of not having to worry about different containers for water, just as I appreciated the old wood foraging system, but I wonder if, like with the change to wood foraging, maybe making it so that the player may gradually discover/build more liquid containers might be a good way to encourage the player to explore more (and maybe an indirect way to discourage hibernation?).

Anyway, what does everyone else think about this?

[LucidFugue]

I'm all for most of the suggestions for a thermos/canteen - but I especially like your point that requiring a water container for all water should be included. Plastic water bottles, jugs or liquid storage containers, thermoses, canteens, camelbacks... To whatever extend is necessary/appropriate for game balance purposes, I'd love to see this included as an evolution on meeting needs.

I'd add though, that you'd also want to include the ability to drink directly from water sources such as toilets rather than requiring the container to gather the water first. And I'd probably include the other suggestions around gathering snow as well, as it's all part of the same cycle. I almost never have to rely on non-potable water at the moment, but if I had to actually work my way around gathering snow or finding a non-potable water source, juggle filling the containers (since topping up a partially filled potable water container with non-potable would spoil the lot, but having separate non-potable containers means you would have to carry around multiple containers), and being limited in how much potable water you could produce and store for later, it would make it much tougher.

Plus, if you implemented the whole thing it would be easier to manage the balance against all the other time sinks rather than doing it piecemeal.

[ridankrad]

I'd add though, that you'd also want to include the ability to drink directly from water sources such as toilets rather than requiring the container to gather the water first. And I'd probably include the other suggestions around gathering snow as well, as it's all part of the same cycle. I almost never have to rely on non-potable water at the moment, but if I had to actually work my way around gathering snow or finding a non-potable water source, juggle filling the containers (since topping up a partially filled potable water container with non-potable would spoil the lot, but having separate non-potable containers means you would have to carry around multiple containers), and being limited in how much potable water you could produce and store for later, it would make it much tougher.

Plus, if you implemented the whole thing it would be easier to manage the balance against all the other time sinks rather than doing it piecemeal.

Great points.

As you mention, non-potable water at the moment is a non-issue, really just an intermediary step that represents a few extra clicks for me in creating water. However, I think the juggling of containers could perhaps be avoided by allowing the player to simply melt snow/boil water in a single action. I get the impression that the player actually has a hidden metal pot of some sort in the backpack that is used to melt snow and boil water (because the player can boil water not only by stoves that have pots and pans on them, but also out in the wilderness over an open fire). It just isn't shown because water collection is currently very abstracted so there isn't a need, but if there were limited containers, I can also imagine that the player might also start with a pot or maybe have a canteen like this that allows the player to melt snow without tainting the clean water remaining and having to reboil the entire batch. On the other hand, all this could potentially make water purification tablets a lot more useful than they are now.

I like the concept of having to gather snow, but it might be a tricky issue to solve. With wood, the issue was solved by making the trees spawn points for sticks, branches and tree limbs that periodically spawn. But snow is everywhere. So if the player goes out on the front porch and gathers snow, will that remove snow around the porch area over time and force the player to move out further to gather more, or will any point on the map containing snow work as a snow gathering area? If snow did get removed then this would obviously create complications since the map would then have to be modified to model the removal of snow (and regeneration of snow during blizzards). It would be awesome to see that, but probably too much work, so I imagine that this would ultimately mean that the player would just have to step out on the porch to gather as much snow as wanted. But if the player isn't going further than their front door, then is it maybe better to just imagine that the going outside/gathering snow/coming back in is part of the time spent during the "melting snow" action that exists in the game now? I like the idea of gathering snow, but just not sure how it'd be implemented differently than how it is now, short of a major overhaul to the game engine itself.

[nicko]

A lot of great ideas / thoughts in all posts. I just hope there isn't to much micro management of harvesting and collecting water as well as drinking it. I find it pretty good now. just find it a bit annoying that I have to open my tab/inventory to see if im thirsty or not. Surely I would know if im thirsty and have a drink (if I had water) else alarm I need to find water.

I guess it's up to the dev's to find balance between all of that, they have done an amazing job with the wood harvesting, so maybe they working on the water harvesting next?

[ridankrad]

A lot of great ideas / thoughts in all posts. I just hope there isn't to much micro management of harvesting and collecting water as well as drinking it. I find it pretty good now. just find it a bit annoying that I have to open my tab/inventory to see if im thirsty or not. Surely I would know if im thirsty and have a drink (if I had water) else alarm I need to find water.

I guess it's up to the dev's to find balance between all of that, they have done an amazing job with the wood harvesting, so maybe they working on the water harvesting next?

Great point and you're right, Nicko. I think too much micromanagement is a concern that has to be considered in this. That's why, at least at the moment, I'm not convinced that gathering snow is a mechanic that should be included, since the current abstract system of melting snow (at least the way I imagine it) includes that as part of the process and merely saves me the drudgery of going back and forth with handfuls of snow.

That said, I don't think that individual containers would present a micromanagement concern. It's true that the player would have to create fires more often to maintain a water supply, as opposed to one long fire to create a bunch of water all at once, but I think this presents a threat to the player's wood supply since lots of individual fires are much more expensive wood-wise than one really long fire. Meanwhile, if the player finds the need to make lots of fires to be unacceptable, there's a clear solution: go explore and find more containers or materials to make containers. So I could see there being some limited micromanagement initially when the player just has a single canteen, but that would gradually lessen as (and of course if) the player didn't hibernate but rather went out, explored, and gathered together more containers to improve the situation. I don't think this would solve the hibernation issue, but it would make it less efficient without at least first fully exploring the maps to obtain all the containers possible, which would at least make hibernation a late-game strategy. Plus, it might also give some additional value to the soda cans since they would offer a good early game supplement to the canteen.

[nicko]

@ridankrad the idea of finding / collecting different containers for water storage sounds interesting. I guess it would make the experience more life like as well. We could use all sorts of containers from old food cans to plastic bottles of all shapes and sizes.

[ridankrad]

@ridankrad the idea of finding / collecting different containers for water storage sounds interesting. I guess it would make the experience more life like as well. We could use all sorts of containers from old food cans to plastic bottles of all shapes and sizes.

Good point. Re-using old containers would give them even more value. The only thing I'm not sure of is how a liquid could be reliably stored in an opened can without it spilling everywhere, since there isn't really a way to reseal it. Still though, I like the idea!

[Aduron]

I love all these ideas! Reusable containers to me suggests that they should have a quality, and they should degrade more or less quickly. A store-bought "disposable" plastic water bottle would be useful for a little while, but a canteen or nalgene would last almost forever.

This could be paired with a hotkey for drinking water from the one or two bottles that you keep outside your bag.

[AmericanSteel]

I have been a supporter of pots and containers for quite some time. A container to boil water is a tool, not unlike a knife or a fire starter and equally as important. While I don't want pots to "wear out" as you use them, I do think water "storage" is a real issue that needs to be addressed.

As others have said you can simply have a marathon water session to maximize your fuel consumption and you are done. If you only had the ability to hold a gallon of water at a time it would really change the dynamic. A smart person would simply start saving cans to store water and then just put them on the stove to melt when doing other things. After all, when we leave for the day and your base becomes cold chances are you are going to return to cans full of potable ice. Which begs for the addition of having the heat/cold impact the items in the game... not just the player.

[ridankrad]

I love all these ideas! Reusable containers to me suggests that they should have a quality, and they should degrade more or less quickly. A store-bought "disposable" plastic water bottle would be useful for a little while, but a canteen or nalgene would last almost forever.

Hmm, I like the idea of disposable plastic bottles degrading, but I wouldn't like to see canteens and other heavy duty liquid containers degrading. There's already a time limit of sorts on the game with tools and clothes all eventually wearing out, but a character can struggle on with enough effort by stripping meat of corpses by hand and making trips outside either brief or relying on fires to cope with the lack of clothing. But disposable water containers would be the ultimate time limit and, even if they could be repaired with scrap metal, I think it would mean not using scrap metal for anything else since water is so critical to survival.

But again, as for cheap plastic bottles used as cheap means to store liquid, I wouldn't mind a slow degradation for those since they should be permanent solutions but just a temporary crutch to help the player out while searching for more permanent solutions.

A smart person would simply start saving cans to store water and then just put them on the stove to melt when doing other things. After all, when we leave for the day and your base becomes cold chances are you are going to return to cans full of potable ice. Which begs for the addition of having the heat/cold impact the items in the game... not just the player.

Yes, completely agree with this. Actually I think another part of the water containers that I only briefly mentioned was their heat retention, with a thermos probably being the best of the bunch (and also the most rare). After water was boiled there should probably be a short period of time in which it cannot be consumed (since it is, you know, boiling hot). But after that there should be a period of time, dependent on the type of container, in which the water is warm and gives a bonus to temperature similar like with other warm drinks right now. At some point the water would be cool/lukewarm and give no bonus, but eventually I think the water should become cold at which point it would actually have a negative impact on temperature. This is not only realistic, but it also would create a new dilemma having to consider the consequences of dehydration versus freezing, with a fire to reheat water being a solution to such a dilemma but obviously having its own costs of time, wood and fire starters.

As you mentioned, water could also ultimately freeze inside containers at which point the container (and water inside) would become useless unless and until a fire is created so that the ice can be thawed. I'm a little uncertain about whether this last state might be going too far unless an option to dump water out of a container is also added to prematurely avoid this. Maybe this could be something that could only occur in Stalker mode?

In any case, even without it freezing completely, I think even a cold water penalty would add another interesting element to gameplay and would make it more important for the player to stop and set up a fire to take a break to warm up not only the player but the available water.

[Patrick Carlson]

Thanks for all the thoughtful feedback here. Managing liquid resources is certainly an important part of effective survival. The other day I got surprised by a wolf near the fishing huts on CH. With no food and not enough energy (I thought) to run and catch some fish, it was looking pretty bleak.

A jerrycan full of tea would have come in handy. But I made do.

[GrievingSage]

I think the whole water in plastic bottles is a bit unrealistic as I now have 25 gal. of water boiled and stored. How many used plastic bottles are there in a world really? I think a starting canteen (whatever size) and a chance of finding another canteen throughout each region would be more realistic and maybe the ability to either craft it or just repair it could be useful. but, really, 175 plastic bottles laying on the ground in my chosen shelter is kind of crazy.

Just my thoughts, thanks for reading.