Rule of Threes anyone ?

[Mikeloeven]

In survival handbooks there is something known as the rule of threes which are average survival times when a human body is lacking one of the resources they need to survive

generally speaking this goes

3 minutes without air

3 hours without shelter(this one is crap unless we assume your going naked into a snowstorm since weather and clothing drastically effect exposure rate) (which is probability why they never film naked and afraid in Canada )

3 days without water

3 weeks without food

of course after the first few days without food and water you will be suffering significant physical and mental impairments however the simple fact remains that in all of these so called ""Realistic Survival"" games the main character eats and drinks like they have some horrible wasting disease and the penalties suffered due to hunger and thirst in excess of normal. the thing is a survival game has to be realistic or artificial. if a game claims to be realistic its mechanics should be as close to real life as possible if some parts of the game become too easy as a result than its because said task is easy in real life. but if you intend to make an artificial environment for the sake of challenging the player than a game cannot claim realism under any circumstance.

[Boston123]

In those books, the "Rule of Three" applies only when the hypothetical survivor is not doing ANYTHING else. You can "live" three weeks without food if you are sleeping 90% of the time, next to a fire (so you aren't burning energy to keep warm), etc. Move around, especially in an extremely cold environment and where you are carrying heavy loads, and that timeframe can EASILY get cut down to a week, or even a couple days. You can "live" for three minutes without air, IF you are doing nothing but sit there, not panicking or moving.

Other than that little tidbit, I actually agree with you. Food and water needs are FAR too accelerated in this game, IMO. Eating an entire wolf in a day or so is utterly ridiculous. Dying of dehydration after sleeping for 12 hours is asinine. Etc.

[akodo1]

I will add my agreement here.

Rule of 3 is not exact. You die quicker of needing water sitting out in the desert sun in 110 degree weather than stuck in a cabin in 50 degree weather.

The point is for people in disaster situations who are hungry, thirty, and cold to be able to prioritize based on the body's actual needs regardless of what your body may be telling you (you may be hungry now and not thirsty at all, but ignore that hunger, because thirst will come eventually, and when it does you'll have a lot shorter time to deal with it before it kills you)

You are right that you can burn a ton more calories being active so the 3 week part isn't exact. But when your belly has been empty for a while, and you will feel weak and listless, you just won't have the energy to cut wood for 10 hours straight and burn 4000 calories in the process.

But all those details aside YOU DIE FROM HUNGER TOO EASILY.

Exposure and need for drink feel about right. Hunger/starvation feels way wrong.

The food factor should be divided into 3 categories.

#1 Daily Diet Rather than 2500 calories max, you can eat 3500. At 1000 calories you get messages about being hungry, but until you hit zero calories you are 100% functional.

#2 Burning fat reserves. Once you get to zero calories you get the condition 'famished' and your walk/run speed is reduced to 80%, as is your carry capacity, you fatigue a bit faster, and you get a penalty on most tasks. You get a 10,000 calorie countdown on this. (just a rough guestimate, It's roughly 3x what a player should spend in a day). Eating anything immediately ends famished, and bumps you up back to level 1...but the system remembers how much of your 10,000 calories of 'fat reserves' are left. When you eat something, if your fat reserves are below 10,000, you automatically get calories equal to 10% of the item you ate back into the count. This does NOT reduce your immediate calorie intake. (At 8,000 calories fat reserve you find a 1000 calorie food. You eat it. Your calorie count is now 'in the white' at 1000, and your 'yellow' fat reserve count is now 8100.) If you keep yourself fed enough daily you'll gradually build up your fat reserves. If you slip down below, the fact that you recently already burned some of your fat reserves means you have less left now.

#3 once your fat reserve goes to zero, you get condition 'starvation' and a certain amount of calories (1000? 2000?) displayed in red. In starvation mode you are at 50% capability, and your vision is all blurry. When this counter reaches zero you die. (although not necessarily directly from starvation. As said above part of surviving 3 weeks without food is a lot of sleep. You just can't force yourself to make fire, to go a little further for shelter, your internal furnace puts out less heat, so you die from exposure rather than true absolute 'look like a skeleton' starvation) If you eat anything, your counter immediately goes to white, but you don't immediately lose the starvation condition. Once your 'white' calories are used up, you'll drop back to fat reserves which having been used up before, you'll only have the 10% equal to the food item you just ate, which you will burn through. The only difference here is you'll start back with a full counter of 1000 'red' calories.

Yes, this means a player could in theory run his red calorie count down as low as possible, eat a small item hopping back into the white for just a little bit then be back in the red with 1000 new 'red' calories. That player would be playing the game at 50% capacity constantly if doing that, so it's not really an exploit. Also, if you didn't get a full reset to 1000 red calories, then once you get that far down, you'd never be able to eat yourself out of that hole.

[Mikeloeven]

In those books, the "Rule of Three" applies only when the hypothetical survivor is not doing ANYTHING else. You can "live" three weeks without food if you are sleeping 90% of the time, next to a fire (so you aren't burning energy to keep warm), etc. Move around, especially in an extremely cold environment and where you are carrying heavy loads, and that timeframe can EASILY get cut down to a week, or even a couple days. You can "live" for three minutes without air, IF you are doing nothing but sit there, not panicking or moving.

Other than that little tidbit, I actually agree with you. Food and water needs are FAR too accelerated in this game, IMO. Eating an entire wolf in a day or so is utterly ridiculous. Dying of dehydration after sleeping for 12 hours is asinine. Etc.

thats why i mentioned

of course after the first few days without food and water you will be suffering significant physical and mental impairments

however one cannot starve to death in under 48 hours