ajb1978

This probably doesn't quite fit but I'm reminded of a fan-fiction in-character journal I wrote a few years ago, where my survivor (a military recruit fresh out of boot and on special advanced hostile environment training) had shacked up in an old abandoned whale processing plant out near Desaulnier Point. Which the jaded and cynical locals had taken to calling it "Desolation Point".

24 minutes ago, Sgt Socks said:

Umm.... Futurama? 

Quest for Glory 4, Shadows of Darkness. The whole series is kind of tongue-in-cheek, but in this game in particular there's one NPC named Dr. Cranium, who is the quintessential mad scientist trope. (But also a valuable ally.) If you select "Mad Scientist" from the "ask about" menu, you get that dialogue. "Mad, Mad?! They ALL CALL ME THAT!!..."

Edit: Okay so I was quite a bit off with my recollection of the original dialogue but... yeah lol Here's the clip. 

Dragging/sled systems as a general topic have come up a few times. The main pros are that it would allow you to carry more supplies at once, especially if those packed-up supplies (or unharvested carcass) were not immediately accessible. So like you can't just eat the deer, you'd have to drop it, harvest something, and then either eat it raw at your own peril, or cook it. Likewise you couldn't pick your rifle off the sled to fend off a bear because it's all packed away and tied down.

I'm all for it it personally. But there's complicating factors to consider. Dragging things on level terrain or downhill is one thing, but uphill? How would you rectify that? There's lots of potential methods, each with their own pros and cons. Altering the variables on what grade of slope contributes sprain risk, or disallows movement altogether, is probably the best approach.

Then what about animation? Would there be a visible object being dragged behind you? Or would it just be some subtle alteration to the UI, like when Astrid carries someone you just see her arms at the periphery of the screen. When you put it down, what would it look like? If it were a carcass that's easy, just drop a carcass. But what happens if you drop that carcass indoors? Does it decay faster? Does it naturally thaw on its own? Do you just disallow the player carrying it indoors at all? Easy with clickable area transitions, but what about caves that auto-transition if you walk far enough in?

Good idea that many people share, but not without its complications!

8 minutes ago, Sgt Socks said:

I am often amazed at what your mad scientist brain offers us.

Mad?

MAD?!

THEY ALL CALL ME THAT!

Sure I'm a bit perturbed by the sociopolitical global climate. But definitely not mad.

(props if you know what game that's from)

Once again this backyard scientist is up to his old tricks, this time checking effectiveness of wolf scares with clothing. Now I didn't try every article of clothing in the world because that's silly, but what I did do was try 3 specific scenarios. 1: Regular clothing. 2: Wolfskin Coat outer layer. 3: Bearskin Coat outer layer.

For all three trials I instigated 100 wolf close encounters on Interloper, and then disengaged if the wolf locked on. These are my results.

Regular Clothing: 6 scare-offs, 94 disengagements.

Wolfskin Coat: 25 scare-offs, 75 disengagements.

Bearskin Coat: 26 scare-offs, 74 disengagements.

So while this is overall a pretty small sample size, I think it does illustrate that Wolf or Bear skin doesn't matter, the scare-off chance is identical. But significantly higher than nothing at all.

2 hours ago, Sgt Socks said:

Really great idea 👍

Gracias. My other big obsession is Skyrim VR, and I love the Legacy of the Dragonborn mod in particular. (Bear with me, I'm building up to my point.) One of the items in that mod is Rains' Shelter, which apparently is an allusion to one of the mod's backers, but I digress. Rains' Shelter, when used, transports you into a very cozy interior environment, which when viewed in VR is absolutely breathtaking. It's got a cot, a little smoldering metal dish full of coals, several bags and maps and such hanging about. Imagine that kind of environment, in TLD's style of "watercolour that's trying to kill you" artistry.

I'm just sort of imagining what it'd be like to plop this hypothetical sucker down in the lower central region of HRV and watching through the tent flaps that wave in the breeze as a light snow descends.

I'd prefer a reusable "snow shelter" in the form of a unique pup tent item. Decays slowly, like 1% per day, and can be repaired with cloth and a sewing kit. Provides +15C temp bonus when used, AND doubles as a rock cache. So you can stash up to 30kg of junk in it.

1 hour ago, Ghurcb said:

Now that I think about it, in the long dark the time is compressed 12 times. So, if the survivor travels 3km in one in-game hour, they have to move at a speed of 36km/h. And that's not even sprinting! When you sprint you're twice as fast. that would be 70+ km/h. Like a car! Are the calculations correct? I mean, there's no way that can be true...

If you travel 3km in one hour, you travel 3km/h. 

So I found myself wondering recently, what exactly is the perfect balance of being over-encumbered, and getting to your destination in a timely fashion. Starting from a base 30kg limit, we all know by now that you start slowing down once you exceed 30kg. But the loss of speed seemed to be a lot slower at first, escalating exponentially the closer you reached 60kg.

So not unlike my lamp oil experiment a few years back, I decided to science the hell out of this.

I used crafted 100% torches as my timer, as they burn for exactly 30 in-game minutes. I used Coastal Highway on Pilgrim, on the open ice on a clear day with no wind, and the default 30kg base carry limit. I then began loading myself up with gear and tracking the distance I travelled between the instant the torch was lit, and the moment it went out. This is not super precise and was merely intended to help me ballpark it, which I think these numbers do nicely.

4.15kg: 1.5km
15.87kg: 1.5km
30.07kg: 1.5km

Good so far... But here's where it tanks.

34.97kg: 1.2km
40.06kg: 0.9km
45.02kg: 0.8km
50.03kg: 0.5km
54.97kg: 0.2km
59.50kg: 0.05km (I had to burn through two torches to get the distance to go up by a measly 0.1km)

So with this in mind, I calculated three scenarios. In all three, I'm transporting 90kg of materials exactly 1km. There is no distinction between what's worn or what's in my pack, I'm assuming I'm dumping everything, heading back naked, picking up the next load.

Scenario 1: Travel heavy the first time, travel light the second.  55kg the first trip takes 2.5 hours. The return trip takes 20 minutes. The final trip with 35kg takes 25 minutes. Total duration is 3.25 hours.

Scenario 2: Equal loads both trips. 45kg the first trip takes 38 minutes, the return trip takes 20, and the second trip takes 38 minutes. Total duration is 1.58 hours.

Scenario 3: Three trips, unencumbered. All 5 trips take 20 minutes each, for a total of 1.65 hours

Now these are unrealistic scenarios, so allowing for equipment worn you wouldn't be able to do scenario 3. You'd need to shave off maybe 10kg to allow for your clothing, meaning you could only transport 20kg at time unencumbered, which means 9 total trips to move the 90kg of supplies....not cool. So yeah, it looks like keeping your inventory at 45kg is the balance between carry limit and making good time. Which pretty much confirms everything I already believed, but it's nice having the math back me up.

I've eaten my cat's dry food once, just to see what it tasted like! (Only a couple pieces...it tasted kinda like those Chicken in a Biscuit crackers, but much less salty.)

In the US at least, all pet food has to be made safe for human consumption. Because the sad reality is that some people are so poor, they do eat cat/dog food. Usually the wet stuff though. This clerk at the quickie mart by my friend's house growing up, he was homeless for a while, and always had weird little nuggets of wisdom. I forget the exact type but he singled out one specific brand of dog food that was meat chunks in gravy, basically put that over toast with a handful of microwaved frozen peas, you've got yourself a complete meal.

I've seen on Reddit that some people have problems advancing the plot when you're supposed to go to Signal Hill, because Molly's phone call never happens. Thus never triggering the blizzard, timberwolves by the crashed truck, or the unlocking of the radio shack at Signal Hill.

So far reloading an older save and replaying seems to be the only solution. I'm currently starting a new story playthrough on unmodded Hardened Survivor to see if I can replicate any of the problems I've heard of, just in case I'm the lucky one to discover some heretofore undiscovered workaround that doesn't involve "keep trying until it works."

On 8/20/2022 at 8:12 PM, Stinky socks said:

The only 'proper' way to make it work is to have two different weights. One for 'on person' and another for 'in backpack'.

I'd rather have it the way it is right now. No point in making a clunkier system for the sake of minimal properness.

Not to mention that the current state of things you can carry a maximum of 45kg between what's worn and what's on your pack, before you even start to suffer the effects of being weighed down. Think about that for a moment. Go out and get one of those giant containers of Tidy Cat cat litter. Y'know, the 40lb buckets. Now get a second. Now, strap each to a pack frame, wear say another 20lbs of clothes (which counts as 15 thanks to the reduction), then go for a walk and see how far you can get before you're just dog tired.  Or try to climb a rope. Or sprint.

Unless you're in the military and drill for this kind of thing regularly, there's no way your average Joe is going to up and lug around 45kg of junk and be as mobile as we are in the game today.

7 minutes ago, piddy3825 said:

Considering the relative abundance of scrap metal sources on the island needed to repair the hacksaw, it would take years before you'd run out of materials to repair the hacksaw.  

I did the math once. I no longer have my notes, but if I recall correctly it would be something like 20,000 in-game years before you ran out of scrap metal.

Edit: Scratch that, i was thinking about scrap cloth and repairs. Meh. Anyway, there is still a stupid amount of scrap metal, and you're far more likely to die of boredom and delete your save than you are to run out.

13 hours ago, conanjaguar said:

@Satouthedeusmusco

I agree. Nighttime navigation in TLD is almost impossible, even without the glowing snow.

I just want to preface this by saying I'm not in any way trying to shame anyone or come off as a braggart, but I can navigate Forlorn Muskeg at midnight in a raging blizzard with ehhh....maybe 90% accuracy. It all comes down to map knowledge and identification of landmarks. That said, it can be challenging, and I do still find myself walking in circles on occasion if I try to do something so brazen as to brave a blizzard in FM at midnight. Kind of the price I pay for my hubris. But navigating at night during a blizzard IS possible. Difficult, as it should be, but possible.

17 minutes ago, piddy3825 said:

Remember back when the best we could do was to cure some hides on the wall using the curing in place glitch you discovered?  Ah, those were the days...

Well now I feel like an old decroded turd lol

1 hour ago, piddy3825 said:

I think we'd all enjoy seeing some pics of your loft!

It's not much, but it's mine.

I've embraced mods whole-heartedly. There's one called DIY by Santana that lets you craft certain objects, like furniture...but more importantly, boards. Used in conjunction with the Placing Anywhere mod, you can craft functional shelters anywhere (windproof but at the mercy of outdoor temps), or make certain improvements to existing ones. For instance, I added a loft to the Mountaineering Hut. It's nothing fancy, but affords me more place to store stuff like stacks of animal hides. Also, I used the same mod to patch the hole in the roof.

My current project is trying to construct a more direct path to get from the Blackrock prison entrance to the Warden's office, that doesn't involve snaking through the wolf-infested back 40, and climbing a rope.

12 hours ago, Leeanda said:

If I go to the mine I will pick them up. But  they sit in the fridge in pv farm gathering dust.  If I ever get to the stage where I run out of rifle ammo and bow/arrows then I might use them.    Have I made any - no. It's a waste of gunpowder.

They are useful in Story mode where gunpowder and cans are plentiful, and you can't craft ammunition anyway. Two direct noisemaker hits will send even the largest timberwolf packs running. Of course, those wolves aren't actually dead, just scared off, and they will regroup. But since you probably can't take anything with you into Episode 5, the sheer disposability of your resources makes noisemakers pretty good things to have on hand.

Survival mode though, that gunpowder is better spent on making more bullets.

Donner's only purpose was to serve as motivation for Mathis to truly have it out for Mackenzie. Anger management is a problem of his, so in Episode 5 he would've been a villain based on that alone. But in order for any sort of direct, personal attacks on Mackenzie (or Astrid) to make sense, he needs a reason to hate Will specifically.

So paint Donner as this evil psychopath to motivate the player to want to keep him locked up, and provide a reason for anyone from the outside world risking contacting and helping anyone inside the prison. Because let's face it, I don't know of a whole lot of people under these circumstances who would take that risk for any reason. Even law enforcement. Hell, ESPECIALLY law enforcement, considering what they did to the prison staff.

Anyway Donner served his purpose and is probably dead, and I think Mathis is going to be the penultimate big bad. Like you need to get to such and such location before time runs out, and just as you're nearly there, boom. Mathis. Introducing Donner as an antagonist would honestly come off forced, unless he were critical to the plot for some other reason. Like being patient zero for some kind of evil alien virus or something.

4 hours ago, conanjaguar said:

@Valuable Hunting Knife

One could put another spin on your concept by having it be a survey team going to explore a new planet. That would be interesting; it would literally be an open world in the truest sense of the term, perhaps with randomly generated environments?

You've basically just described No Man's Sky.

I could go on like this all day....

Wild Gunman: You've scored 1000 total firearm kills. Time now slows down by 50% while aiming with a Revolver or Rifle.

Robin Hood: You've scored 2000 total Survival Bow kills. You now reflexively and automatically nock arrows (near-zero reload time).

Fastball Pitcher: You've scored 500 Stone hits on rabbits. You now throw stones with deadly force that instantly kill rabbits, and inflicts bleed-out on anything but a moose.

Mr. Fix-It: You've completed 500 toolkit repairs. All equipment that degrades with use now degrades 50% slower.

Brawler: Win 100 wolf struggles using only bare hands. Your bare hands now hit with the impact of a Heavy Hammer in wolf struggles.

Iron Fist: Break down 10,000 firewood objects with your bare hands. You can now break down any firewood object with your bare hands.

Cardio King: Sprint for 10,000km total. Sprinting and rope-climbing no longer consume stamina (although it still depletes your Fatigue at 3x).

Bear Wrestler: You've survived 100 Bear Attacks. You can now struggle with Bears to try and fight them off, as you do with wolves.

Superhero Landing: You've suffered 10,000 total condition loss due to falls. You now no longer suffer sprains from falls, only condition loss.

I'll probably think of like 4.82 million more over the course of the next hour. But basically, Feats are what "achievements" ought to be. Accomplish some goal in the game that toes the line between a personal challenge and an asinine demand, and your effort is rewarded with something seriously cool that makes it all worthwhile. Little buffs that, while they don't make you almighty, really do give you a solid edge in a specific category.

On 7/18/2022 at 5:27 PM, Semple Fi said:

I don’t know that I’ve seen propane appliances??

They're typically used in campers or in remote locations where there is no electrical grid. Propane powered refrigerators use a sealed system with water, ammonia, and hydrogen.  You'd need to talk to an engineer to get the specifics, but basically the propane evaporates the refrigerant, which triggers a cycle of evaporation, condensation, and re-boiling that results in a heat pump. Basically instead of using electricity to power a compressor, you turn the reaction on its head and boil the refrigerant on the other end instead.

And of course stoves and ovens just burn the propane for heat. But if you're camping, may as well cook over a campfire and save the propane for the fridge. A 20lb propane tank can run a small fridge for 1-2 weeks, depending on the ambient temperature. Obviously it's going to burn more propane in summer than in spring or fall. And if you're using a propane fridge in winter, there's something wrong with you.

It would make more sense to implement the Bear Spear into the game. The spear has been called the king of weapons, and with good reason--it has offensive and defensive capabilities both up close and at range. You can slash with the tip, or strike with the butt. You can set it vs. charge (how it works in Story mode) or thrust it like a knife. You can block and deflect, and in a pinch throw it as a ranged weapon.

The spear is king.

3 hours ago, Glacia said:

Remember that fires last longer when it's cold outside

Sort of. It's based on your ambient temperature, wherever you are. While this is most noticeable inside a house vs. outside a house, it also applies to places like the Mountaineer Hut or Forestry Lookouts, where you can have an indoor heat vs. outdoor heat without changing environments.

For instance, if you dump 11 hours and 59 minutes worth of fuel into the fireplace at the Mountaineer Hut, that exact same fire will last longer if you're outside the hut than inside. Because your personal temperature is lower outside the hut, the fire lasts longer.

I gotta say those enamel mugs are handy because you can apply heat directly to them. On cool summer evenings I like to sit out on my deck with a Dietz lantern that has a cook surface on the top, read by lamplight, and keep my drink hot by setting it on the lantern. (It does a great job at keeping hot things hot but I wouldn't suggest trying to cook with it unless you have a couple hours to kill.)

The downside though is the mug handle gets as hot as the drink does. So if it's hot enough that you have to sip at it carefully, it's also too hot to hold by the handle. Kind of a catch-22 there. When the coffee is the right temperature, you can't drink it unless you have a folded up napkin or something to pick it up with.