EnvironmentalChoice

Oh, me too! I hate that the game makes you decide whether or not you want to kill it... I already decided when I threw that stone lol. But let's be honest, there's some pretty diehard Lopers out there that would love nothing more than to get that sweet, sweet waterproof hide!

Only found on the shores of coastal maps such as Coastal Highway, Bleak Inlet, Crumbling Highway and Desolation Point, lone harbor seals can be found lounging near open water. They are passive animals that flee when a player is detected, having the same range as deer. Once alerted, seals will run for the open water. The only way to safely and effectively kill one is via a single, critical shot. Otherwise, players risk losing valuable arrows forever as they are taken into the ocean. Seal spawns are more rare than moose, and will only spawn in one map at any given time. Once killed, seals will take anywhere from 10 to 30 days to respawn in the map it was killed. Killing a seal can go a few ways. A single, critical shot will take it down immediately. However, if the seal is fleeing as it gets hit, there's a chance that it drops on the weak ice before open water. For those who don't have crampons, harvesting the seal would be a death sentence. Seals that are hit entering open water can be seen floating out of reach of the player. If you manage to safely take one down, harvesting would yield between 10-12kg of blubbered meat, 6 guts and a hide. Seals cannot be quartered. Upon cooking, seal meat would yield 0.1L of lantern oil per kg. A fully cooked seal of 12kg would provide 1.2L of lantern fuel. The meat would be very calorie-rich and would provide between 1000-1500cal per kg. Hides would take 10 days to cure. Seal hide would be an invaluable item to Interlopers, with the ability to craft sealskin coats, pants, mukluks and gauntlets. They have similar stats to high-tier clothing items with 100% waterproofing due to the unique qualities of sealskin, but lower protection. They would be invaluable in a blizzard and cold weather, but would be fragile and offer little protection in the event of an attack. The recipes and stats are as follows: Sealskin coat - 2 cured seal hides and 6 cured guts (30 hours at a workbench) Weight: 3.0kg Warmth bonus: 5.0 C Windproof bonus: 6.0 C Waterproof bonus: 100% Protection: 10% Mobility: -10% Harvest: 1 x cured seal hide, 120 minutes Repair: 1 x cured seal hide, 2 x gut, 120 minutes, 40% condition Sealskin pants - 2 cured seal hides and 4 cured guts (15 hours at a workbench) Weight: 2.0kg Warmth bonus: 3.0 C Windproof bonus: 3.0 C Waterproof bonus: 100% Protection: 5% Mobility: -5% Harvest: 1 x cured seal hide, 40 minutes Repair: 1 x cured seal hide, 100 minutes, 60% condition Sealskin mukluks - 1 cured seal hide, 3 cured guts, 2 cloth (15 hours at a workbench) Weight: 1.5kg Warmth bonus: 2.5 C Windproof bonus: 2.0 C Waterproof bonus: 100% Protection: 5% Mobility: -5% Harvest: 1 x cured seal hide, 90 minutes Repair: 1 x cured seal hide, 2 x cured guts, 1 x cloth, 90 minutes, 50% condition Sealskin gauntlets - 1 cured seal hide, 3 cured guts, 1 cloth (10 hours at a workbench) Weight: 1.0kg Warmth bonus: 2.0 C Windproof bonus: 2.0 C Waterproof bonus: 100% Protection: 3% Mobility: -3% Harvest: 1 x cured seal hide, 30 minutes Repair: 1 x cured seal hide, 2 x cured guts, 1 x cloth, 60 minutes, 50% condition Due to the rarity of seals and the difficulty in killing them, a player would have to risk losing arrows and ammo as well as potentially wasting their kill if not done properly. Repairing these clothing items would be extremely difficult for the same reasons, creating a conflict in whether or not the player wears them often or only when needed. If these items still seem unbalanced, there is the opportunity to create a quicker deterioration. Traditionally sealskin isn't tanned in the arctic due to the low temperatures being more than enough to eliminate risk of deterioration, meaning that a deterioration mechanic of 0.5% per hour at a temperature of more than 10 C could be implemented. This could force players into leaving these valuable items outdoors when sleeping inside a warm building, and risk leaving them behind. If left inside, sealskin clothing at 100% condition would become ruined after 200 hours, or a total of 8.3 days. At 50%, it would only take 100 hours or 4.2 days to become ruined. This mechanic would only apply to the true temperature and not the "feels like" temperature. It would not apply outdoors, even if a fire increases the temperature to above 10 C. The mechanic would still apply to interior sections of caves and other outdoor locations considered "indoors". Locations such as the Spence Family Homestead would be an example of where this mechanic would not apply. In all, sealskin clothing would take extremely long to obtain and would be used only when the benefits outweigh the risks. For lower difficulties, these clothing items likely wouldn't be worth the effort. To interlopers, it would be the only way to obtain top-tier clothing stats as rare clothing items such as the gauntlets and mukluks do not spawn in the Interloper difficulty. Take the long journey of killing seals, waiting for the hides to cure, transporting them to a workbench and spending hours to craft them to obtain invaluable clothing; only to use them sparingly and as needed. These clothing items would be very valuable end-game, but would take until then to even be craftable due to the labor and time-intensive process. They would become a survivors prized possessions, and treated with intense care as to not waste them.

Thats pretty much why I want it haha I'm sick of never being able to travel on stalker. It would be awesome from climbing the summit up at TWM

The addition of a smoker would allow for more variation when it comes to getting calories and food strategy. This mechanic would be more difficult than simply "cooking" the meat and would require somewhat of a strategy to be effective. The smoker itself would be a craftable item (similar to the snow shelter) and would require ~20 sticks + 3 deer hide. It would be crafted at a workbench and uses the same placing mechanics as a snare. It would be fairly heavy (~5kg) so that survivors would be discouraged from traveling long distances with it. The smoker would have similar mechanics to a stove, having 4 slots and a fire menu. In order to operate the smoker you would need to start a fire, let it burn to embers, then add the right amount of tinder to keep the smoke going. Meat would not be permitted inside the smoker until smoke is blowing. The smoker would consume around 5 pieces of tinder per hour. The smoker would take 2 hours to complete the process no matter the amount of meat inside and would need to be "on" for 2 hours without interruption. Unlike cooking meat, interruption would result in it becoming ruined instead of still being raw. Over-smoking would not burn or ruin the meat. It may sound like an easy way to preserve meat so far, but let's consider how the yield amount would be affected by smoking. Much like the 50% decrease in yield from a quarter to steaks, smoked meat would yield only 50% of the weight of raw meat. This means that at full capacity (four 1kg steaks), the smoker would yield 2kg of smoked meat. *As an example, in order to get 12kg of smoked meat in one day you would need 40 tinder plugs (20 sticks), 24kg of meat and visits to the smoker every 2 hours over the course of 8 hours to switch out the meat.* This would discourage the farming of large animals/smoked meat due to the number of resources required. It would be more efficient to smoke the remaining meat from a kill as an alternative to dry goods (and to save your extra meat from going bad!) once they're gone in higher difficulties. One or two rounds of smoking would yield 2-4kg of smoked meat, and would be the most time and resource efficient method. -Extra Info- - Smoked meat would maintain the same caloric density as a cooked steak of any variety. This means the same amount of calories in half the weight. - Intestinal parasites are still a risk until level 5 cooking. - Smoked meat would deteriorate in condition by 5% per day with no food poisoning risk. Once the condition reaches zero, it is considered ruined and inedible even with level 5 cooking. - Smoked meat would increase the scent indicator at the same rate as cooked meat (2.5kg=1 scent indicator). - The smoker would attract predators the same way butchering a corpse does. The attraction would remain for 24 hours after the most recent use. NOTE: These stats would be altered at the developers discretion as I am no expert in balancing the pros and cons of gear.