Tick - tock, tick - tock....

[Warg]

I've touched this issue before but now I got it right. Here it is

The various activities advance the time in chunks but for normal exploring/hunting/gathering the time scale is accelerated (something like 20:1). That is well thought by the devs to keep the player locked in the struggle but... a time scale the player could choose (and change back) in Settings would be great. Perhaps we would like to try 1:1 or 3:1 timescales for a spell, see how we like that.

If the devs would scale the effort and weather effects so the player gets to the objective having spent the same amount of food/water/heat/fatigue, that would not break the balance but would leave more time in the day.

[Patrick Carlson]

I've touched this issue before but now I got it right. Here it is

The various activities advance the time in chunks but for normal exploring/hunting/gathering the time scale is accelerated (something like 20:1). That is well thought by the devs to keep the player locked in the struggle but... a time scale the player could choose (and change back) in Settings would be great. Perhaps we would like to try 1:1 or 3:1 timescales for a spell, see how we like that.

If the devs would scale the effort and weather effects so the player gets to the objective having spent the same amount of food/water/heat/fatigue, that would not break the balance but would leave more time in the day.

Hi Warg,

Are there particular activities that you feel are more (or less) affected by the passage of time in the game? And in what ways?

--Patrick

[Warg]

Hello, Patrick

The dusk setting in so soon is bothering me most of all: walk a few km, make a kill, harvest it and oups, it's evening, let's head back. The normal passage of time in the game is too fast. I'd like to be able to walk more during a day, even consumming a ton of calories.

Of the activities, the meat harvesting seems out of proportion: I'd expect to cut the hunch or the hind leg of a dear and butcher it properly at the cabin. 20 minutes should be enough in the cold. I'd not remove the bone or partition the meat there in the cold. I'd do it at the cabin. Taking the hide, yes, it's laborious, I'd guess, as you need it whole or usable. Even so, if I had a light sled I'd pull it to the cabin and harvest it there. As for a rabit, I'd carry it whole and harvest it at the cabin or when I'm warm. (By the way, a dear is about 40kg so at least 10kg of meat could be harvested, if not more. Not to speak of a fully grown stag, that can get close to 200kgs)

The other activities are ok for me. Oh, I'd add a conditon on repairing stuff while there is light or lamp/fire burning nearby.

[Hesha]

Hi Warg,

Are there particular activities that you feel are more (or less) affected by the passage of time in the game? And in what ways?

--Patrick

Pretty much any activity that isn't covered by a progress bar.

I haven't investigated this myself, but someone said that a minute in-game passes about every 5 seconds real-life time. That would mean that time is accelerated by a factor of 12. This means that it takes several minutes to walk from the bed upstairs in the Camp Office to the back door. So to answer your question directly:

- walking

- searching through your inventory

- dropping / arranging stuff in you base

- looting

This distorts distances and map scale quite significantly. When we see something in the distance, our real life experience will give us a feeling of how long it will take to get there. Since the perceived walking speed in game about matches a realistic walking speed, we do get there in as much real time as we would expect, only that in-game hours will have passed.

[Dirmagnos]

As far as i understand fast pace of time is made to compensate for size of the maps.

While it sorta works, it is also extremely annoying in many cases. Imo devs should start gradually reducing speed of that pacing, while introducing new random events on maps.

Certain game mechanics also could use tweaking.

Like why do i need to sit by the stove while water is boiling ?

Or how about level of lighting affecting certain activities like crafting and salvaging. To compensate for increased usage of light -producing items, adding handmade firemaking tools that has been repeatedly requested, starting with tinderbox and ending with animal fat -based fuel and possibly light sources, like candles.

Moving whole crafting menu into player sheet, reworking it to be more compact and allow more recepies. While requiring player to be in vicinity of certain objects, like workbench, whole performing certain tasks.

So on and so forth. With proper implementation and tweaking, those crazy time speeds could be easily reduced to far more manageable levels.

[Sly]

Of the activities, the meat harvesting seems out of proportion: I'd expect to cut the hunch or the hind leg of a dear and butcher it properly at the cabin. 20 minutes should be enough in the cold. I'd not remove the bone or partition the meat there in the cold. I'd do it at the cabin. Taking the hide, yes, it's laborious, I'd guess, as you need it whole or usable. Even so, if I had a light sled I'd pull it to the cabin and harvest it there. As for a rabit, I'd carry it whole and harvest it at the cabin or when I'm warm.

The meat harvesting is time consuming, and if to harvest all the meat from the carcass, the timing is rather OK. To get several kg of meat means to separate each piece form the bone. Not just limbs, but spine and ribs, witch is rather hard. Because if not get rid of the bones the weight will be twice or so heavier. Maybe it will be good to give the player ability to take "unprocessed meat" (witch may be twice or so heavier and could not be cooked) if it is too cold outside and there is no wood to make the fire? For the big carcasses it may be half-time, for the small carcass may be taken whole as the "unprocessed small carcass or unprocessed meat, unprocessed hide/fur, unprocessed gut". And then to process them indoors.

I think it will be a good thing also to make meat harvesting (at least for big carcasses) when the character is keeping in the inventory both knife and hatchet even more faster then only with the knife.

I would not argue that for the small carcass knife is generally better then the hatchet (harvesting meat only). But for the big ones, especially frozen ones, the hatchet will do better because it is much faster and easier to chop off the leg or the other big part then to separate it with the knife. In real life having both the knife and the hatchet one can use them both for different kind of actions. IMHO, i never did it myself.

I started a topic about the meat gathering: viewtopic.php?f=57&t=9836

[Warg]

The main issue, to me, is the time passing too quick and especially not being able to try other speeds. At least a setting for half speed.

Then the time it takes to harvest things will not matter so much, you would still near freeze in the cold but there is enough time now to build a fire or take a nap to heat up and continue that same day.

All in all, each day could be memorable being able to do more (and consume that much more calories). Just make the day last longer (if now it's 12:1 like someone posted, options for 6:1, 3:1 and 1:1). Don't change the consumption rates (with the notable exception of resting/sleeping - that should cost the same amount of food and drink in all 4 day lengths proposed above). Well, there are other dependencies, but in a nutshell this is it.

[Nick034]

[align=justify]Yeah..I agree,it would be great to extend the duration of the day..for example 2 hours in real equal to one day

in game..time flies so fast in the game with crazy geomagnetic weather patterns which not allow player to enjoy

at least 12hr in game with good weather.It would be also nice if we have extended time of the arrival storm or

fog..in harvesting mode I think we need to have some voice alert from guy in game not only some small visuall

alert in corner for bed wheater when it comes.It should increase maps,focus playing on everything that exists

in the game which is available for survival with a little better weather patterns,but without all this the game

looks very interesting.[/align]

[Warg]

in harvesting mode I think we need to have some voice alert from guy in game not only some small visual alert in corner for bad wheater when it comes

well, 2 hours real time per 1 day in game is the 12:1 the game is using, were you not sleeping at all. Perhaps 2 real hours per 12 hours (6:1), that will rough up the active time in a usual day (from 10AM to about 10 PM)

+1 on weather allert. I mean, you're working on a carcass, every wolf and bear will want a piece of it or you, (whichever comes easier), so you would look around to see if you're not next. So seeing a bad weather developing or feeling getting too cold while working should generate some feedback from the player ("blizzard is coming", "I'm number than my hands" or something), with the option to cease activity, loose the part you were working on (or at least let it there on the animal).

[Dirmagnos]

I mean, you're working on a carcass, every wolf and bear will want a piece of it or you, (whichever comes easier), so you would look around to see if you're not next.

Why do every1 presume that every wolf an bear is a land-based shark ? That they can smell blood miles away and are instantly attracted to it ?

None of those is true.

They can smell blood, yes, sharper than human, also true. But they need to be in direct vicinity of the blood source, or have visual on it, or at least have wind blowing their way, a good one.

When those animals hunt, even if were talking wounded prey, they smell the prey, not just its blood. And if they cant smell that deer, then they wont be able to smell it blood either.

On top of that, while they are animals, blood do not turn them into frenzied berserks. They DO have other things to do.

In compariton to humans, who hunt for pleasure, for example, animals only hunt out of need. So if wolf(or pack) is full, eating(greed is also completely foreign concept to animals, with few exceptions), or is already really close to get their meal, then they will simply ignore other stimulants of that nature.

The only thing that blood smell does is telling an animal that their prey is either wounded or sick, meaning that it will be easier to take down. Thats it.

[Sly]

The main issue, to me, is the time passing too quick and especially not being able to try other speeds. At least a setting for half speed.

Then the time it takes to harvest things will not matter so much, you would still near freeze in the cold but there is enough time now to build a fire or take a nap to heat up and continue that same day.

All in all, each day could be memorable being able to do more (and consume that much more calories). Just make the day last longer (if now it's 12:1 like someone posted, options for 6:1, 3:1 and 1:1). Don't change the consumption rates (with the notable exception of resting/sleeping - that should cost the same amount of food and drink in all 4 day lengths proposed above). Well, there are other dependencies, but in a nutshell this is it.

In my opinion the day duration and time modifier are quite well balanced. But it could be a quite a distortion while being indoors. Maybe indoors modifier (for moving, not for crafting) really could be changed because for now it seems to be the same as outdoors.

[Sly]

I haven't investigated this myself, but someone said that a minute in-game passes about every 5 seconds real-life time. That would mean that time is accelerated by a factor of 12. This means that it takes several minutes to walk from the bed upstairs in the Camp Office to the back door. So to answer your question directly:

- walking

- searching through your inventory

- dropping / arranging stuff in you base

- looting

This distorts distances and map scale quite significantly. When we see something in the distance, our real life experience will give us a feeling of how long it will take to get there. Since the perceived walking speed in game about matches a realistic walking speed, we do get there in as much real time as we would expect, only that in-game hours will have passed.

As for my opinion other things such as the day duration and outdoors walking time modifier are quite well balanced if to have in mind that the traveling distance is 12 times longer (but i do not know how it corresponds with the statistics about the distance traveled). But it could be a quite a distortion while being indoors or another 1:1 scaled locations concerning to the distances.

I think, indoors and other 1:1 scaled locations time modifier (for moving, not for crafting) and other modifiers for searching through inventory etc that differs from walking outdoors time modifier could help to fix that distortion.

[Warg]

Dirmagnos, we both said almost the same thing: that you are (near) the easiest meal around, so every predator will try you for size before trying to catch a running prey. I did not imply them getting berserk, just following the path of least effort for most gain, same as you are in that situation.

And if the predator is able to smell the hide of the animal (relatively clean), all the blood and steaming entrails will be a like a beacon for a much larger area.

...and I agree you can trust animals to act as animals, while you can't trust humans to act as human beings

On topic, the 12 hours of high activity take 1 hour real life, and not even that, as some 3 hours are spent crafting, eating, fishing and most days there is a blizzard during the day that limits the time even further, too much. It does turn into cabin fever as someone said. I'd like to explore the area, for the thrill of it, not to try 3 days in a row to get to somewhere within your line of sight and can't get there because of a storm coming up...

Either slow down time or make the makeshift shelters a reality, even building yourself some iglus here and there...taming the wild.

[Wasteland Watcher]

I haven't investigated this myself, but someone said that a minute in-game passes about every 5 seconds real-life time. That would mean that time is accelerated by a factor of 12. This means that it takes several minutes to walk from the bed upstairs in the Camp Office to the back door. So to answer your question directly:

- walking

- searching through your inventory

- dropping / arranging stuff in you base

- looting

This distorts distances and map scale quite significantly. When we see something in the distance, our real life experience will give us a feeling of how long it will take to get there. Since the perceived walking speed in game about matches a realistic walking speed, we do get there in as much real time as we would expect, only that in-game hours will have passed.

On this note, I believe that map scale could be left alone if time factor was only increased while outdoors and left 'real time' indoors.

I also believe this is a game that wants us to 'think on our toes' so no stoppage (or slowing) of time while going through our backpacks makes sense.

[Warg]

I believe that map scale could be left alone if time factor was only increased while outdoors and left 'real time' indoors. I also believe this is a game that wants us to 'think on our toes' so no stoppage (or slowing) of time while going through our backpacks makes sense.

That would add another "speed" to the other two: normal and doing stuff. You'd loose the track of time. Plus it may be complicated to implement (lots of if's and such)

Larger maps are also out, too much work and anyway they're good and large enough as they are.

By contrast, a sandbox only setting for time passing (changeable at player's whim) would be relatively easy to implement by devs ([shadow=blue]it's only scaling by a fixed factor, not making and verifying a new piece of code[/shadow]), would give the player the option to experiment with whatever factor he likes. IMHO, it can only enhance the gameplay. Who doesn't like it, resets to default and that's that.

[joki]

Had suggested something similiar a long time ago. It is especially odd, when you see a wolf in the background, who has not seen you yet, then start harvesting something, that takes 2 hrs (game-time) and after you are done, the wolf merely moved a bit closer to you. I would expect the wild life to move a lot further than that, when time passes faster for myself as well. Maybe not at the same rate, since this would make it almost impossible to harvest anything, but at least at an increased time passing rate as their "normal" speed. Right now, it's almost going into time travelling mode, when harvesting anything / sleeping.

[Cog]

Sometimes I wish slower (alterable) time passing because of the beautiful environment!