Some water observations on an awesome simulation

[Lifferds]

These presume one day in-game == one day in real life

Water consumption is way outa whack. No way I go to bed fully hydrated and awaken 12 hours later fully dehydrated requiring ~1 liter to re-hydrate. Water loss will occur much more rapidly while chopping wood, tramping through the snow, running through the snow or butchering a deer than while resting. These activities seem to burn calories at different rates and should use fluids at different rates.

The thirst bar should be non-linear simulating the difficulty in re-hydrating as opposed to staying hydrated which will also make it advantageous to drink a little bit more frequently rather than wait till the bar is empty. The bar sections might represent: 3, 4, 6, 9 liters each (right to left) for a total of 22 liters, about 3-1/2 days at 6 liters/day. Because a person can't drink more than about 1 liter at a time, limiting water intake to 1 liter (drink? max @ 1 liter) per hour makes it a greater burden if you allow yourself to become dehydrated.

Some activities could be modified to include water intake if water is available. For instance, if I am fishing it is reasonable to assume I could also drink water, so if I have 4 liters of water with me and I fish for 6 hours starting at 100% hydrated, after the 6 hours I would still be at 100% but would only have, say, 2.5 liters of water left. This would greatly fluidize play rather than fish, drink, fish some more, drink some more, fish again, drink again which would become very tiresome, not to mention aggravating and boring.

Also, the more dehydrated you get, the less sleep restores fatigue, you may not be sleepy, but you are listless.

Food consumption could work in a similar manner.

I have no idea how this works into your simulation dynamics and/or engine, but just some observations.