Spoilage of building materials

[Dimpy]

So, I understand that food spoilage is realistic in the sense that it is something that you see in the real world, but the link between that and better gameplay seems kind of tenuous. The biggest reason I see for adding it is it encourages players to continuously harvest food, rather than just stockpiling it. How does that make the game more fun though?

 

If it does make the game more fun, Why not apply spoilage to other things too, such as building materials?

[RestInPieces]

Refer to Roland's post about what food spoilage does.

 

Spoilage doesn't have the same effect wherever you apply it. If you apply it to food, as you said, it creates a sink, stops farming from becoming irrelevant and makes food something more other than "click me at fixed intervals" - it makes it a valuable resource that drives the player into making certain decisions.

 

But if you apply it to building materials, it won't have the same effect (assuming you mean crafted blocks as well, because if it applied to materials only it wouldn't make much of a difference since the player would craft them to blocks asap).

Unlike food, building materials MUST get stockpiled, simply because building is an activity which "has a duration" - it is continuous. Imagine if the player had to place (consume) a few blocks at a time - it would become annoying.

[Dimpy]

Unlike food, building materials MUST get stockpiled, simply because building is an activity which "has a duration" - it is continuous. Imagine if the player had to place (consume) a few blocks at a time - it would become annoying.

 

How fast of spoilage are we talking? I was thinking something around a half-life of 6 days.

[Roland]

Food spoilage adds to the feeling of "not enough time to do everything" which is another aspect of the game that needs some shoring up. Time as a currency is in too much supply right now and the game could use some mechanics to eat away at it so that the player is always needing to make decisions based on how much time will be spent.

 

With spoilage, in the early game you have no way to stockpile so you have to eat everything you acquire rapidly. That means every day you have to spend some time working towards keeping yourself fed. That time competes for time you would spend doing other things. It also drives you to want to find/learn tech to be able to start stockpiling it better so that more of your day is freed up. This process of going from taking care of food needs daily to not needing to take care of food needs daily delivers a huge feeling of accomplishment and makes you feel you've reached a major milestone in moving from basic survival to being prosperous and thriving.

 

Yes, some people will call that process tedious and a bunch of micromanagement and food simulator 2019 which is why it should be optional-- but certainly not absent.

 

As for building materials there is already an agent of entropy for those-- Zombies. I suppose we could accomplish a bit of "spoilage" if zombies were attracted to destroying farms and containers holding food and campfires containing food. Maybe that could be a compromise if we can't get actual spoilage.

[AtomicUs5000]

Food spoilage adds to the feeling of "not enough time to do everything" which is another aspect of the game that needs some shoring up. Time as a currency is in too much supply right now and the game could use some mechanics to eat away at it so that the player is always needing to make decisions based on how much time will be spent.

 

I always thought so too. It's hard to wrap my head around though because of the current time settings. The "not enough time to do everything" concept would need to be independent of the game day.

 

I always thought blood moon horde every 7 days could be a candidate for this and the day length just acts as a difficulty slider. The goal here being to prepare your base in time. Digging zombies solidified this candidacy, but since they added the ability to have BM daily, not to mention the BM avoidance issue in general, this candidate got thrown out the window.

 

Maybe food spoilage isn't the best fit for this game, but there really should be more urgency--at least to the point where the decision to hide and wait somewhere throughout a night instead of risking it to accomplish something becomes a tough choice.

[Roland]

For time to be a true expensive currency that is agonizing to spend there has to be a serious threat of death at the end of the timers. So food spoilage would require time spent gathering food or death. Blood moon requires time spent preparing or death. Infection requires time spent finding the cure or death. etc.

 

Of course death needs to matter too. (cue Rest in Pieces)

[RestInPieces]

For time to be a true expensive currency that is agonizing to spend there has to be a serious threat of death at the end of the timers. So food spoilage would require time spent gathering food or death. Blood moon requires time spent preparing or death. Infection requires time spent finding the cure or death. etc.

 

Of course death needs to matter too. (cue Rest in Pieces)

 

Definitely, if the end result (survival/death) doesn't matter, the actions that lead to it don't really matter much either.

Will have to spam MM at some point for a DP option for A18.

[Limdood]

I always thought so too. It's hard to wrap my head around though because of the current time settings. The "not enough time to do everything" concept would need to be independent of the game day.

 

which is directly counter to the point of putting an adjustable game day as an option in the first place.

 

Adjustable game day is a type of difficulty slider, it allows customization and picking how much the player wants TIME (as a resource) to be restricted.

 

You don't give people the option to do something and then remove the impact of that option.

[AtomicUs5000]

which is directly counter to the point of putting an adjustable game day as an option in the first place.

 

Adjustable game day is a type of difficulty slider, it allows customization and picking how much the player wants TIME (as a resource) to be restricted.

 

You don't give people the option to do something and then remove the impact of that option.

 

Let's look at hunger. Let's say if you play a game where days are 120 minutes long. You eat 10 times throughout the day. Now shrink the day to 30 minutes. Are you going to eat 10 times every 30 minutes? Hell no. This is why it must be independent.

[Lanadon Conners]

I am 100% all for adding a new "situation" for players to adapt and overcome and food resource management is a viable obstacle for a Survival game but at this stage of development I would rather have seen a lot more work on the other problem "Hurdles" that already exist.

 

Elemental debuffs and their counters (Campfires actually warming you, Drinks like Coffee and Yucca juice returned), The Damned "Bleeding" debuff applied every 2nd hit, the unpopularity with current Mining resource gathering and a fully functional "perk" system; some of which directly affect food and water consumption and gathering.

 

This isn't a complaint. Once it is dropped on us, I will start playing brand new games with the latest version and soldier on.. hopeful that there will be new food resources added like fishing and new farming, domesticated animals even ones captured in the wild and brought home, and an upgrade to the Electrical system for even minor refrigeration.

 

With the new RWG still untested and it's resourse distribution unknown, it feels like you guys are hanging pictures on the second floor before the foundation is even dry.

 

Ever Hopeful and loyal

[Dimpy]

For time to be a true expensive currency that is agonizing to spend there has to be a serious threat of death at the end of the timers. So food spoilage would require time spent gathering food or death. Blood moon requires time spent preparing or death. Infection requires time spent finding the cure or death. etc.

 

Of course death needs to matter too. (cue Rest in Pieces)

 

Totally agree. Back when I first started playing, I thought the "race against time" was the central theme of the game. One of the things that made A17 less fun for me was that I had learned about gamestage on the forums between A16 and A17, and that really took away a lot of the time pressure.

[OzHawkeye]

As for building materials there is already an agent of entropy for those-- Zombies. I suppose we could accomplish a bit of "spoilage" if zombies were attracted to destroying farms and containers holding food and campfires containing food. Maybe that could be a compromise if we can't get actual spoilage.

 

I would love to see Zombies being able to trample crops as they did back in Alpha 9. It made for a positive game mechanic of having to strategically place and defend farms, rather than just putting them "anywhere".

[Damocles]

A technical suggestion for food spoilage: instead of having each item have an atomic spoilage counter, make the spoilage an average of the stack of foods.

 

Example: combining a stack of two fresh 100% eggs and two almost rotten 1% eggs would create a stack of four 50% eggs.

 

Its not realistic but technically easier to handle than forcing each food item to be non stackable and having its own rot counter.

[mr.natural]

Only mixed concrete could spoil, would be a nice touch

[RipClaw]

Only mixed concrete could spoil, would be a nice touch

 

Cement should not be stored for longer than 3 months as it draws moisture from the air and then hardens.

Wood, on the other hand, lasts forever when stored dry. If you store it wet it can get rotten.

 

Stone, clay and sand should be storable indefinitely. Unless you play over a period of 100000 years or so.

 

Generally such a system would be quite interesting but the periods must be right. Otherwise you have a lot of micromanagement in the game and some players don't like that.

[mr.natural]

Cement should not be stored for longer than 3 months as it draws moisture from the air and then hardens.

Wood, on the other hand, lasts forever when stored dry. If you store it wet it can get rotten.

 

Stone, clay and sand should be storable indefinitely. Unless you play over a period of 100000 years or so.

 

Generally such a system would be quite interesting but the periods must be right. Otherwise you have a lot of micromanagement in the game and some players don't like that.

 

That would be 90 days ingame next to the fact that you can easily put hardened cement in a mixer with some bricks to pulverize it. And you can use it again (I often do this in RL). So a non issue really. Did think about it but as you mentioned yourself, too much micromanagement is tedious.

[RipClaw]

Of course death needs to matter too. (cue Rest in Pieces)

 

Actually, you don't die. You are only magically teleported back to your bed. The message you get when you wake up is "You barely made it... again"

[RestInPieces]

Actually, you don't die. You are only magically teleported back to your bed. The message you get when you wake up is "You barely made it... again"

 

Plot armor...

[Scyris]

If they add food spoiling that will be one of the first things I will mod out completly that update on day 1, as I HATE those systems. Probally even more than I hate weather survival. If they do this they need to add a option under basic, for weather survival and food spoiling. I bet the majority will shut both off as they really bring nothing of value to the game and just are an annoyance. Mind you the weather survival in a17 is much better than it was in a16, its less annoying.

[RestInPieces]

If they add food spoiling that will be one of the first things I will mod out completly that update on day 1, as I HATE those systems. Probally even more than I hate weather survival. If they do this they need to add a option under basic, for weather survival and food spoiling. I bet the majority will shut both off as they really bring nothing of value to the game and just are an annoyance. Mind you the weather survival in a17 is much better than it was in a16, its less annoying.

 

I am sure that "majority" has nothing to worry about, because if implemented, it will definitely be optional.

[RipClaw]

I bet the majority will shut both off as they really bring nothing of value to the game and just are an annoyance.

 

It would probably meet with more acceptance if something useful could be made from the spoiled food. For example, fertilizer that promotes plant growth and needs to be applied regularly.

 

In Ark, for example, spoiled meat is needed to produce a narcotic. There are even mods that allow large amounts of meat to spoil quickly.

[Khulkhuum]

If it's only for the purpose of annoyance then it will be quickly modded out. On the other hand, if it is not a very severe change so that you can barely survive when food starts spoiling (it's tougher, but not critically) and there is a usage for spoiled food, why the hell not? We can find rotten meat in many places, yet there is not much usage for it (only recently it got some attention).

 

I would expect though for this feature to be seriously well designed, otherwise it will be something most will despise.

[Roland]

Actually, you don't die. You are only magically teleported back to your bed. The message you get when you wake up is "You barely made it... again"

 

But then the stat that is tracked is “deaths” and not “near deaths”. What a load of mixed messages!

[n2n1]

An example of the practical implementation of the use of food spoilage you could see in the "Starvation" mod.

But as it turned out - it does not have a good effect on the gameplay.

 

In practice, everyone tried to get around this feature, keeping the products in the workstations where it did not spoil.

[Viktoriusiii]

 

In practice, everyone tried to get around this feature, keeping the products in the workstations where it did not spoil.

this only meant that a bug ruined this feature.

 

If implemented correctly, electricity and a battery bank would be like bread and butter because you need it to run the fridge.

 

But early on you cant just craft 50 meat stews and be done with.