Smeden

On 1/25/2016 at 9:46 AM, Dirmagnos said:

Trees ARE rocksolid. And they ARE completely frozen thru.

There is a reason why there is no trees in Antarctica and one of those is extremely cold weather. With constant temperatures dropping pretty much every night below -40 in game, they will freeze thru in matter of days. There is no circulation of nutrients under those conditions.

Even if winter were to end, most of the forest would end up dead.

Youd have greater chance to fall a tree if you go at it with a big bat, instead of an axe. While they are solid, they are also fragile and you may have better chance at breaking it, rather than cutting it down.

Even if you will fall a tree, then you need a saw(that we dont have) to cut it(pls dont even joke about using a hatchet/axe). And it would take quite a lot of calories and time even with warmer weather.

Since most trees were/alive alive prior to incident youd have to dry them for a month be4 youd be able to use them without dying from co2 poisoning.

Best bet would be going for dead trees, since they had no circulation in them to begin with, plus cold will do rather good job at breaking them, plus they wont require as much time to dry. Altho we again run into "no saw" problem.

As with many aspects of game, most people completely discard effect that extreme cold has on various objects and view the issue from the standpoint of just low(but not extremely low) temperatures.

Been gone awhile but am back now.  We're not talking about the Antarctic here, we're talking about an area in Canada that according to the game will reach ambient temperatures above freezing.  Also, the current weather conditions in game are part of the event that brings the game about by my understanding.  Logic therefore dictates that within those parameters, the trees are not rock solid all the way through.

Occasionally you will get a night as cold as -40, especially if it's storming and heavy winds, but keep in mind that's windchill factor in affect as well.  Typically the game ranges from -13'ish to about 8 during the day depending on the weather and wind, this is during the beginning.  Once geared up even a -25 day can still feel like 5.

Saw not required, would be nice, just with Axe would mean more waste, which could be used as tender....win, win....

The extreme cold isn't constant, it does fluctuate, otherwise the game would be a very short one and you could forget travelling to different zones with starting clothes and again, the event just happened.  It's not like this has been going for years, months or even weeks yet.

Considering abundance of respawnable wood i dont really see why cutting down trees is needed.

Not to mention that that it would simply be a waste of time and energy.

Those trees and frozen solid, so cutting it down would be quite a feat, especially with hatchet(they are rocksolid). Then you have to cut/saw it somehow into logs, then you have to transport and dry that wood. Player would spend a week to deal with just one tree... only dealing with that tree, putting everything else on hold.

Everything about survival is time and resource management. Trees themselves aren't exactly "rock solid" even in cold environments. Is the outer inch or so harder? Yes. But that's all, other wise the tree would not survive at all because it couldn't circulate nutrients. There have been plenty of times when I have a good supply of wood(15-20 fir/20-25 Cedar), water(30-45 liters), food(25-40kg meat) and all my weapons, tools and clothing are repaired and capable. That doesn't mean sit on your butt for a day or two and relax.

Quite literally what you do on the days you don't "NEED" anything can drastically change your chances of long term survival. If I have 2 good clear days where I don't "NEED" anything, then absolutely I'd drop a nearby tree, harvest it and set it to drying in the cellar or some other suitable place. There have been far too many times where I get 3 straight days of storm/severe cold weather conditions where going outside wasn't an actual option if you didn't want your clothing being destroyed or chance Hypothermia.

From the Pleasant Valley Farmhouse the closest limbs are either to the east just across the road(2-3 limbs) or west, past the orchard, south across the road heading towards the broken barn(3-6 depending on spawns). Consider it takes 45m and 188 calories per limb. Let's say you do good and find 5 limbs by the time you hit the green barn. That's about 6 hours(travel time added in) at roughly 1200 calories. That's 940 calories just in harvesting and another 260 calories in travel which I think would be reasonable for the distance and effort. The only advantage of this wood collected is that it can be burned immediately. But if I don't need it immediately then felling a tree and harvesting it would not only give me a future supply, but leave the limbs already on the ground available for immediate use should I "NEED" to harvest for immediate use later and the time and calorie usage should be about the same over all because all you're doing is changing out travelling time and energy for felling a closer tree.

I fully realize that most people probably don't prepare the way I do. I never harvest sleeping bags, but save them and put them in satellite locations where I hunt and travel. (1 each in Green Barn, Red Barn, Cave to West(not the bear cave) and Cave entrance to Coastal Highway). I only carry a bearskin bedroll when I'm travelling across multiple maps. This cuts down on my weight and if a storm come up unexpectedly I can duck out of it in any of those locations and be able to a) pass time faster, b) have a higher level of warmth available if needed, c) if I have to track a kill down in any of these directions I have a place to camp out and prepare the meat immediately. So each of these locations has at least 15 cedar, 5 liters water, 3-5 plugs, 2 bandages, antiseptic and matches, besides the sleeping bag. Occasionally I'll even leave canned food there if it was present to begin with just in case.

The worst thing you can do is nothing when you think you're prepared.

As it stands now the limbs and sticks are removed from the landscape temporarily and respawn on a rough timer of about 2 days. Could do the same with trees but much, much longer respawn, like 100 days. It's not like anyone is going to be going out and clear cutting the countryside.

I think you've missed the programming issue (as mentioned by Toebar)...

To make the trees available for cutting down would mean having to convert every single instance of the current trees [which are display meshes with a no-go blocked collision path] into trackable items. You would then also need to track each state of each tree item, as well as each harvested item. You would also need to add in an axe and the applicable mechanisms [a hatchet isn't made for chopping down large trees].

To regrow a tree every couple of days makes little sense as well -- branches can continue to break and fall in storms, but trees should be expected to magically regrow overnight. There are a few larger branches which respawn, but that's mainly for gameplay purposes.

If you magically regrew trees in a day or two, then players would complain "well why doesn't the cat tail, rose hip, old mans beard, mushrooms (etc) replenish too. Likewise you also couldn't logically pick and choose which trees could be chopped down, because players would then complain "why can't I chop that other tree too?"

Given that all the maps would need to be redone [removing all the static meshes and replacing them with trackable items] doesn't really give much in the way of new gameplay value considering how much would have to be redesigned. There's already plenty of wood available.

As a side note, chopping down trees and carrying them back is not like simply having some real life firewood. You're not going to fell a tree and chop the whole thing into firewood in the middle of winter. Having done it when I was young, and living in an area and climate extremely similar to the TLD conditions, it took a number of experienced men and a team of heavy horses to transport the harvested trees and logs -- the wood had to be dried enough before they could be used in the kiln. :?

While I can understand everyone wanting to chop down trees [as in the Forrest or any dozen of other games], but it simply wouldn't give enough return value to redesign everything at this point. Perhaps it might be considered for the sequel which would take place in a warmer season, but it's not really a sub-zero winter activity you would want to take on -- especially when there is already a huge surplus of available wood.

If you read my post again you'll see I put for a rough 100 day respawn on trees. Also the idea breaking the current mesh isn't necessary. All they would need to do is add in individual trees scattered around just like they did with the limbs, sticks and branches. None of those existed prior, you just hit the forage option and clicked how many pieces of Cedar, Fir and fire plug you'd like to harvest up to the then maximum. If they can add in those individual items without breaking the mesh, they can add in some trees. In short, I didn't miss the programming issue, you just assumed there would be one whereas they've already bypassed this same issue before.

I'm well aware of the process of felling trees and allowing them to "cure/dry" for a season before they are good firewood. I, too, have lived in environments similar to TLD and know how difficult it is. I also know that people do it everyday. When you have a game in Alpha and players who have already gone well over 2/3 of a year and many even closing on a year with no problem, the drying process shouldn't be so much of an issue.

At each major update where a new region is added I completely restart the game, always in Mystery Lake. Why? Because as far as we know Mystery Lake will be the starting point for everyone when the game goes live. I've hit well over 200 days after each of these updates, so again, the drying process shouldn't be a problem.

As for the timer issues, I don't see any. They clearly have timers for every stick, branch and limb across multiple maps for once they've been harvested. Adding in a third of that current number shouldn't be a problem. Will it need more processing? Sure. But since we're still in Alpha it's not like there isn't going to be more processing coming anyway with new item additions and maps.

I'd also like to see an actual axe and be able to cut down trees. Single tree, 5 hours to harvest, 30 pieces of wood. Sounds reasonable.

Reasonable, but being able to fell a tree might be difficult to program... E.g. do you foresee that tree would be removed from the landscape?

As it stands now the limbs and sticks are removed from the landscape temporarily and respawn on a rough timer of about 2 days. Could do the same with trees but much, much longer respawn, like 100 days. It's not like anyone is going to be going out and clear cutting the countryside.

To me it just doesn't make sense that some tools and weapons are available while others that would be just as likely or more likely aren't. There's no good reason a spear shouldn't be available to craft. If we can use a forge to make small arrowheads we should be able to make spearheads or by harvesting bone from animal carcasses for fishhooks and arrowheads.

I literally posted this back in July of 2015 viewtopic.php?f=59&t=6041. The first item on it was a spear. Over 6 months later not a single word on the possibilities of it. We did seem to get Whetstones and hacksaws which I don't recall anyone ever asking for..... Personally I give it as follows:

+1 spear

+1 slingshot

I'd also like to see an actual axe and be able to cut down trees. Single tree, 5 hours to harvest, 30 pieces of wood. Sounds reasonable.