PC Alpha 21 Discussion Overflow

[zztong]

Everyone can build that cooking pot on the first day, int build or not. (One just needs 3 duct tape for the forge )

If they spent a point on that INT skill or they get a schematic. I don't, but that's by choice.

If you invest in the skill, or are on a multiplayer cooperative (where the players start together) there's no question there should be a cooking pot on day 1. Otherwise, it is more like Day 3.

I watched 3 new players on Twitch last night. The player sharing his video (1) did not even start the intro quest (bedroll, etc.) and (2) spent an hour (weaponless) trying to get with his friends, including crossing a sizable Wasteland biome (running for his life) arriving battered, bloodied, exhausted, hungry, dehydrated... and all-told, it was an epic journey and fun to watch.

These players didn't even know they needed a cooking pot. The player I watched didn't even have skill points to spend because he never finished the starting quest.

more pockets

I'm not sure how pockets makes it to a "first day" calculation, unless A21 has made Sewing Kits much more frequent. To me, pockets are more of a 2nd week item once my emerging medkit has a Sewing Kit or two in it. In A20, Sewing Kit drops are rare. I can't prioritize pockets until I have a surplus.

we already know that basic hydration is solved the moment you have a cooking pot

Yes, assuming that you have a source of Murky Water. In A20, that's either loot or a water source. In A21, that's only loot which is the source of my objection.

When loot is the only source of Murky Water (it a transportable form), it puts the matter of water entirely in the hands of randomization and completely takes away a player's ability to solve problems. It discourages rational actions, like looking for a water source, and rewards what would be irrational action, like going into a building full of zombies.

Of course, this being a zombie-fighting game, I see why players going into zombie-infested locations, is ultimately desirable. Players are drawn to POIs and cities like moths, where-as rational people in real life would be fleeing to remote rural semi-independent locations. Thus, there's no need to further incentivize POI plunder. POIs and Horde Nights are the primary "reason to be" in the game.

If water were taken from loot and could only be gotten from water sources, it would influence base building locations. If that were combined with stacking limits on water, it would influence travel planning. Those are high-order game problems to solve, far more compelling than... another cabinet, roll the dice.

Just my opinion. Of course, I have great respect for everyone in the conversation.

 

[meganoth]

If they spent a point on that INT skill or they get a schematic. I don't, but that's by choice.

If you invest in the skill, or are on a multiplayer cooperative (where the players start together) there's no question there should be a cooking pot on day 1. Otherwise, it is more like Day 3.

Possibly. I would guess if an experienced player were specifically looking for it even in SP he would have a high chance to get it in loot on day 1

I watched 3 new players on Twitch last night. The player sharing his video (1) did not even start the intro quest (bedroll, etc.) and (2) spent an hour (weaponless) trying to get with his friends, including crossing a sizable Wasteland biome (running for his life) arriving battered, bloodied, exhausted, hungry, dehydrated... and all-told, it was an epic journey and fun to watch.

These players didn't even know they needed a cooking pot. The player I watched didn't even have skill points to spend because he never finished the starting quest.

I'm not sure how pockets makes it to a "first day" calculation, unless A21 has made Sewing Kits much more frequent. To me, pockets are more of a 2nd week item once my emerging medkit has a Sewing Kit or two in it. In A20, Sewing Kit drops are rare. I can't prioritize pockets until I have a surplus.

Ah, correct. As I was checking the list of all recipes that detail escaped my notice.

Just checked loot.xml, Sewing Kits are in a loot group called groupCraftingUncommon and drop as likely as GunPowder, DuctTape(!), Oil, Springs and Electrical/Mechanical Parts. Best chance to find them is cars, but with low probability in any containers. (And yes, I also checked that outside of that loot group for example Duct Tape is not occuring in some easier loot group)

In the test play I mentioned above I did find 2 duct tape it seems, could as well have been sewing kits. But yes, not something you can count on.

Yes, assuming that you have a source of Murky Water. In A20, that's either loot or a water source. In A21, that's only loot which is the source of my objection.

When loot is the only source of Murky Water (it a transportable form), it puts the matter of water entirely in the hands of randomization and completely takes away a player's ability to solve problems. It discourages rational actions, like looking for a water source, and rewards what would be irrational action, like going into a building full of zombies.

Of course, this being a zombie-fighting game, I see why players going into zombie-infested locations, is ultimately desirable. Players are drawn to POIs and cities like moths, where-as rational people in real life would be fleeing to remote rural semi-independent locations. Thus, there's no need to further incentivize POI plunder. POIs and Horde Nights are the primary "reason to be" in the game.

If water were taken from loot and could only be gotten from water sources, it would influence base building locations. If that were combined with stacking limits on water, it would influence travel planning. Those are high-order game problems to solve, far more compelling than... another cabinet, roll the dice.

Just my opinion. Of course, I have great respect for everyone in the conversation.

I agree that loot being the only source is taking away a bit player agency here. We have to wait if the search for dew collectors provides some instead.

But I doubt that filling a stack of jars at a pond or lake or sewer was a lot of player agency to begin with. For that water places were just too numerous and jars too easy to produce to make a noticable difference

If I had a say I would make the diamonds you find while mining or the testosterone extract of bears part of recipes for items (or workstations?) that provide optional but powerful utility.

 

[zztong]

Again, just my opinion...

If you want to slow down progression, give players a reason to spend time out in the Wilderness on some time sink other than raiding POIs. Hunting, foraging, and travel right now are the only activities the game supports. Looting food and water from POIs detracts (even eliminates) the need to hunt (meat) and forage (water, plants/seeds/snow).

I miss snowberries. I always thought they had potential to be an ingredient to some top-tier food. And if they only grew in the snow biome and could not be farmed, folks would have to go forage for them, though they probably would just fall back to all-veggie lower tier meals and raid more POIs rather than bother collecting them.

But I doubt that filling a stack of jars at a pond or lake or sewer was a lot of player agency to begin with. For that water places were just too numerous and jars too easy to produce to make a noticable difference

I agree that in the cities and towns, swimming pools and ditches do provide a "convenience mart" effect. In the wilderness with default RWG, lakes and rivers are kind of rare.

But to me the significant difference is stacking. I know not everyone agrees. But consider:

In A20, I've usually got 10 Water, a stack of up-to 125 Murky, and a stack of up to 125 empty. If I pass by a ditch with water, I fill up the empties. doing so usually allows me to combine my "empties" and "murky" stack into one, lowering my encumbrance and letting me get back to base (or trader) faster. I can then throw all the murkys into a chest for later crafting.

But if stacking for empties and murky's were 10, like water, my rate of accumulating murkys is going to drop. My packs will be full of loot and I'll not want to get rid of cash items just to carry more jars. Thus, later when crafting, if I need a bunch of murky's I may need to make an intentional run to a water source. If you have to do lots of intentional runs to water sources, then next time you might select a base with a close proximity to water.

Back to the city's water convenience issue, if the water in ditches and pools was finite -- or more finite: hand out less water per water block -- it would provide some relief. If POIs with pools would arrange to have leaks so there were limited water within them, it would provide some relief.

 

[zztong]

Another side effect of stacking in 10's ... you can only fill 10 jars at a time. It takes longer to do a water run.

If a water block (voxel?) only filled 10 jars, then the city ditches and swimming pools will start to run dry. (You'd still want lakes and streams to be infinite, of course.)

Oh, erg. Quests regenerate POIs. So quests can lead to infinite water. hehe

 

[meganoth]

Again, just my opinion...

If you want to slow down progression, give players a reason to spend time out in the Wilderness on some time sink other than raiding POIs. Hunting, foraging, and travel right now are the only activities the game supports. Looting food and water from POIs detracts (even eliminates) the need to hunt (meat) and forage (water, plants/seeds/snow).

I miss snowberries. I always thought they had potential to be an ingredient to some top-tier food. And if they only grew in the snow biome and could not be farmed, folks would have to go forage for them, though they probably would just fall back to all-veggie lower tier meals and raid more POIs rather than bother collecting them.

I agree that in the cities and towns, swimming pools and ditches do provide a "convenience mart" effect. In the wilderness with default RWG, lakes and rivers are kind of rare.

But to me the significant difference is stacking. I know not everyone agrees. But consider:

In A20, I've usually got 10 Water, a stack of up-to 125 Murky, and a stack of up to 125 empty. If I pass by a ditch with water, I fill up the empties. doing so usually allows me to combine my "empties" and "murky" stack into one, lowering my encumbrance and letting me get back to base (or trader) faster. I can then throw all the murkys into a chest for later crafting.

But if stacking for empties and murky's were 10, like water, my rate of accumulating murkys is going to drop. My packs will be full of loot and I'll not want to get rid of cash items just to carry more jars. Thus, later when crafting, if I need a bunch of murky's I may need to make an intentional run to a water source. If you have to do lots of intentional runs to water sources, then next time you might select a base with a close proximity to water.

I would say the time to get say 100 water would consist of 2 real time minutes of switching 10 stacks of empty jars to get them filled and on average 20 seconds to get to a water source. If you then choose a location closer to water for your base you might save many of those 20 seconds amounting to less than 10% savings overall on these uncommon runs while probably increasing the distance to the trader where you have to go to for every quest.

I don't see any time savings in this scenario and while I don't like the "draw" the trader presents on base location your suggestion doesn't seem to solve it and adds lots of tedious inventory clicking to the cost. 

Back to the city's water convenience issue, if the water in ditches and pools was finite, it would provide some relief. If POIs with pools would arrange to have leaks so there were limited water within them, it would provide some relief.

 

[zztong]

I would say the time to get say 100 water would consist of 2 real time minutes of switching 10 stacks of empty jars to get them filled and on average 20 seconds to get to a water source. If you then choose a location closer to water for your base you might save many of those 20 seconds amounting to less than 10% savings overall on these uncommon runs while probably increasing the distance to the trader where you have to go to for every quest.

You might be right.

I think the time to get to a water source is more than 20 seconds. It really depends on the situation:

• A "honey, can you pick up some water on the way home from the POI" scenario. Of course, I'm just guessing. Depends on the map, but I'd say it is more like 2-3 minutes, or 5 minutes of potential detour.
  
• It's no delay if I'm in a "oh hey, water, let's fill up" mode, but that's luck, I think.
  
• The ultimate convenience is if water is right next to the trader, which also usually makes it right next to the player's base.
  

The full ditches are on rural Tiles and most are empty. If we make sure the Gateway Tiles (where the Trader spawns) are empty, then the Trader isn't a one-stop shop. (If that's the strategy, then I need to adjust my modlet because I made a lake possible on the Gateway Tile. D'oh!)

If a water block in a ditch disappeared after filling 10 bottles, then a ditch would disappear in probably 10-20 fills. That's plenty of water for early game, so yeh, still a probably a convenience until such time as players are advanced, except on a multiplayer server where the early birds will have gotten the worm. But then the POIs will all be empty of loot too and quests will be the only way to play.

 

[BFT2020]

No, I had meant without needing to find a schematic. workbench is not the problem

Sorry I misunderstood.

However, if you remove the ability to unlock workstations via perks, it can be a problem.  I was at day 35 and I still haven’t found a workstation schematic.  I had all these neat items I could craft, but nothing to craft them on. 

 

[BFT2020]

I'd have to disagree here, and I'd use the existing game as proof that a very broad number of playstyles can be supported in a fairly balanced manner. That's one of the things that TFP have shown themselves to be very good at doing.

No you can't balance the game out for all playstyles.  For example, I play the game without having the ability to repair items.  So crafting equipment becomes very important for me.  On the other side, you have a player that mass produces glue for making a crapload of explosive bolts.  If you balance the game out for that scenario, you can't balance it out for those that struggle to get by.  However, I don't expect TFP to balance it for my playstyle as it is not within their target.  I also don't expect them to balance out the game so people can setup mass production glue factories.  Both playstyles are valid, but you can't limit glue production in one and increase it in another.

Fortunately, they made the game easy to mod so people like me can easily move it to the other end of the spectrum (or vice versa).

 

[BFT2020]

So I did add a few new lines to my mod code to try and play without empty bottles - though I didn't start on Day 1, just continue with my current playthrough on Day 21.

I have to say, I am liking the possibility.  Murky water has become a valuable resource in the way I play and this is without the dew collectors and the ability to drink directly from water sources.  Some things I noticed that have changed in my behavior since I made those changes:

• I will now buy any glue or duct tape I find at traders - never did before as I could easily make it in bulk before
  
• I have had to hold off on crafting some new gear I wanted because I needed my existing stock of murky water for crafting some higher tier meals
  
• I been drinking a lot more yucca juice (and yucca smoothies)
  
• Mineral water has become more important (to make that one jar of murky water go further) - before I wouldn't craft it
  

Disclaimer:  Modded play (my mod) so experiences will differ

A decent farm will neglect water issues if you can plant yucca (and since it only takes 2 per drink to craft, LoTL1 gives you enough for 2 drinks each harvest).  I wonder if they are changing Yucca drinks around (though if not, I might double the amount of yucca per drink).

 

[Neminsis]

And if it wasn't tried, what has that to do with how much glue some beginner may want and actually have?

Because part of the reason that it's functionally a myth is how rarely anyone would craft jars, when they would craft jars, and at what scale, because of soft limits already built into the game.

Now let's say that by taking boiled water out of the loot table (a necessary change) has shifted the equation so that crafting jars to make up for the difference is suddenly more appealing because loot drops have come up a few duct tape short, those jars are still locked behind the forge, and once you have the ability to craft glue you're already producing excess water.

I get it, that means that sometimes you'll have to make a choice between water and glue, or at least that's what you're thinking, but the loot frequency for glue and duct tape is already set so that you never have to make glue at all and still have enough to craft anything that you need or would want, up until late game.
 

Later I found duct tape (2 or 3, not sure because in the meantime I had converted glue to duct tape).

So that's 3 pocket mods on day 1 on a bad roll, and you'd've likely done better sticking to tier 1 pois because they're balanced a little more towards beginning needs and are going to be the target for new players, but good job proving how difficult building that forge and crafting those jars on day 1 actually is though.
 

But this was just a sample play, it easily could have been 0 or 6 glue instead.

Glue belongs to groupCraftingCommon which uses the lootprobabilitytemplate of "low" or 0.20 or 20 out of every 100 or a 1 in 5 chance of getting glue from any container that can spawn it, at level 1 with no modifiers

Duct tape belongs to groupCraftingUncommon which uses the lootprobabilityyemplate of "med" or 0.5 or 50 out of every 100 or a 1 in 2 chance of getting duct tape from any container that can spawn it, at level 1 with no modifiers

Now this is obviously affected by the availability of containers that can spawn them, for glue that's chem piles, workbenches, chemstations, construction crates, sinks, junk piles and for duct tape that's workbenches, rolling toolboxes, cars, working stiff crates, junk piles

This means that first trip to the trader has a 1 in 5 chance of having glue in the chemstation, and another 1 in 5 from the workbench, while the workbench provides you with a 1 in 2 chance of getting a duct tape, and since the trader now always has a car on the corner you can add that 1 in 2 chance for duct tape there too.

Now we could do something really exhaustive like calculate the average rate those containers will spawn around the player within let's say a 500m radius, or we can just figure that looting 10 containers of the preferred spawning type will average you 5 duct tape and 2 glue, and then remember that the loot rate will go up with level, loot will respawn every 5 days on base setting, and many of those containers will appear within resettable quest pois. 
 

So TFP can't make the game impossible by withholding the pocket mod or the resources for it in loot containers. And even the forge is nice to have in the first days but not essential.

So what does your baseline tells us: The lower bound for glue in loot is 0.

But the ability to make glue is gated behind the cooking pot, which itself is gated by RNG, so TFP provide an alternate path to crafting by providing those resources in loot. You're confusing the term "baseline" with "worstcase" The baseline is not 0 unless you get one of those special players that never loot any of the preferred spawn containers.
 

Do you really think people will go into the wasteland for dew collectors and then be OP because of it?

To refresh your memory, I'm of the opinion that dew collectors as presently advertised are inadequate for mass crafting, but are completely adequate for any other crafting needs when taking loot drop frequency of glue and duct tape into account. 

I presented the possibility that 6 dew collectors were potentially achievable by heading to the wastelands as a way of showing that my particular issue might already be solved without any changes. I'd still be concerned for the average players ability to dabble in that playstyle however.
 

I would suggest the following: Next time Roland hints at a change to solve X you post a list of solutions and their probabilites and you also post what conclusions you draw out of that list.

Sort of exactly what I'm doing now?
 

If it fits you can then say "look, just what I predicted"

Why would I care? To be clear, I don't care how the problem is solved, only that it is. I presented the solution that I did only to show that it was possible to get the same results without having to remove the ability to collect water into usable containers from a water source, and to keep the discussion going. 

I'm also quite partial to Roland's idea of just adding a mod in late game that would increase the production rate of dew collectors. Because it not only solves production capacity, and also reduces the necessary footprint for that production, but adds a new toy to be acquired.

Browser bugged...to be continued.


 

 

[meganoth]

You might be right.

I think the time to get to a water source is more than 20 seconds. It really depends on the situation:

• A "honey, can you pick up some water on the way home from the POI" scenario. Of course, I'm just guessing. Depends on the map, but I'd say it is more like 2-3 minutes, or 5 minutes of potential detour.
  
• It's no delay if I'm in a "oh hey, water, let's fill up" mode, but that's luck, I think.
  
• The ultimate convenience is if water is right next to the trader, which also usually makes it right next to the player's base.
  

The 20 seconds are real-time seconds (since the 2 minutes are as well) and I was sort of assuming you have a minibike or motorbike. To get some feel for it, I play two maps at the moment:

In one we have our base in a wooden farm house and there is a small pond directly on the farm that has not dried up yet. We must be above day 30, maybe even 40, but it is a very unhurried game. No vehicle needed at all

In the other game a large pond/lake that we couldn't dry up even if we play to level 300 is about 2 blocks away. It is a bit difficult estimating how many seconds it takes to drive there without actually testing it, but it can't a lot more. (Also I haven't searched if there is maybe a closer source)

Your current game, do you know which water source is closest to you? I must assume you mean ingame minutes or by foot because in 5 real-time minutes driving with the minibike I am in the next town at least.

The full ditches are on rural Tiles and most are empty. If we make sure the Gateway Tiles (where the Trader spawns) are empty, then the Trader isn't a one-stop shop. (If that's the strategy, then I need to adjust my modlet because I made a lake possible on the Gateway Tile. D'oh!)

If a water block in a ditch disappeared after filling 10 bottles, then a ditch would disappear in probably 10-20 fills. That's plenty of water for early game, so yeh, still a probably a convenience until such time as players are advanced, except on a multiplayer server where the early birds will have gotten the worm. But then the POIs will all be empty of loot too and quests will be the only way to play.

I can't say how much a water block last, but that little pond in my one game has definitely less than 10 blocks (maybe 4-5) and has filled multiple hundreds of water jars already

 

[Neminsis]

In A21 there is no actual cooking pot schematic to find. Just that the forge will likely need a few magazines to be found, we don't know at what time beginners or veterans will be able to craft one. Likely not on day 1, so the glue wanted on that day should be 3 less.

So, it's all still gated behind RNG doesn't affect initial needs? Glad we could agree.
 

No. Not if you want to use some jars for other things. That is not what I call solved.

So are you now saying that jars shouldn't be removed or that by not removing them completely and limiting their availability as an uncraftable item that disappears the moment it's actually used would cause a serious imbalance? Notice that I've said nothing against removing jars as a crafting requirement for any recipe? It's weird to make molotovs without a container but I don't care. I'm not looking for perfect realism here, only the broadest number of viable playstyles.
 

Sure, lots of bones to find

And plenty of excess water once you have the cooking pot, just not enough to meet mass production requirements.
 

I think my comment that even an agility player does not need to shoot ONLY exploding bolts all night to survive was totally ignored here.

Never have I suggested that it was the only way to play or even required, but I have said that it would be discouraged by a too low availability of water. It shouldn't be that difficult to keep track of my actual arguments.
 

And more dew collectors are not anything I would judge as a power boost that needs to be curbed.

Again, I've not said anything about dew collectors needing curbed and that's completely contrary to my point.
 

Those numbers are as arbitrary as my guess that there will be 10 dew collectors by day 30.

They're not arbitrary at all given what we already know about trader frequency and distribution and the need to restrict filters in order to maintain their value as a quest reward.  The lowest probability setting in the game is just one below glue, and that's veryLow at .05 or 5 out of every 100 That's what "rare" means in the context of this game. I mean, once I find out what containers they spawn in I'm willing to give it a go, but the average player will still be discouraged from trying out those exploding crossbow bolts when they've only got a couple dew collectors.

Though yesterday I noticed on our current map that 2-3 small ponds are just around the corner so it seems it largely depends on the map what you find

More RNG gating! The map I'm on currently has exactly 1 water source within 500m of any of my 6 bases. and I've already used half of it up.

Boy, it sure would make things a lot easier if there was some sort of perpetual water source that was independent of needing to find a water source, if it could also scale up to meet my production needs without using up a ton of floorspace.



 

 

[Neminsis]

Both playstyles are valid, but you can't limit glue production in one and increase it in another.

Certainly, you can given that many items are already level gated. An m60 on day 1 would imbalance the game a lot more than excess water production. The book to make the exploding bolts is already gated that way. It's just that once you do get it, you still can't utilize them without sufficient water production.

Yes, modding solves everything, but it doesn't do much for encouraging the new play to explore the myriad of playstyles in the base game.

 

[Laz Man]

I watched 3 new players on Twitch last night. The player sharing his video (1) did not even start the intro quest (bedroll, etc.) and (2) spent an hour (weaponless) trying to get with his friends, including crossing a sizable Wasteland biome (running for his life) arriving battered, bloodied, exhausted, hungry, dehydrated... and all-told, it was an epic journey and fun to watch.

Streamers are good feedback but they don't represent all players.  Alot of the time they are multi tasking so many things (video, chat, voice chat, etc.) they often miss a ton of things.

 

[Neminsis]

Yes, assuming that you have a source of Murky Water. In A20, that's either loot or a water source. In A21, that's only loot which is the source of my objection.

If murky water retains its present loot probability settings of "high" then you're going to get murky water in 3/4 of the containers that it can spawn in. There will be no shortage for boiling or basic crafting. 

I only use 3 waters per day in my examples as a baseline maximum requirement for drinking water, you're likely going to have 3x that per day.

 

[zztong]

The 20 seconds are real-time seconds (since the 2 minutes are as well) and I was sort of assuming you have a minibike or motorbike. To get some feel for it, I play two maps at the moment:

In one we have our base in a wooden farm house and there is a small pond directly on the farm that has not dried up yet. We must be above day 30, maybe even 40, but it is a very unhurried game. No vehicle needed at all

In the other game a large pond/lake that we couldn't dry up even if we play to level 300 is about 2 blocks away. It is a bit difficult estimating how many seconds it takes to drive there without actually testing it, but it can't a lot more. (Also I haven't searched if there is maybe a closer source)

Your current game, do you know which water source is closest to you? I must assume you mean ingame minutes or by foot because in 5 real-time minutes driving with the minibike I am in the next town at least.

I was thinking real-time too.

Of my "current games":

One was a limited duration "sprint" where I had an objective to achieve and then the game ended. I traveled 20 km. I started by a lake, which didn't help because I had 1 jar of fresh water. After crossing a desert, I had just an empty jar, not having found a jar in trash, a water source, or a cookpot, or even a POI. I had a bunch of Yucca fruit. On the second day I raided a few Western POIs in a Forest biome, found water in loot, found no water source and no cookpot. I probably had around 8 jars. I converted Murky to fresh because A20 lets you do that without a cookpot. On day 3 I found the outskirts of a city, finally found a cookpot in a food truck. I occupied a POI for the night that had a swimming pool. It provided a number of jars, but I limited myself to 10 because that was the experiment. Since I now had a cookpot, I converted two stacks of meat and 70 eggs to 35 bacon and eggs to fuel the rest of my trip. (Foraging nests while you travel long distances on foot is rewarding.) On days 4 and 5 I crossed the last 7 km which was all Wasteland. I blew through about 6 water the first day and I think around 6-7 bacon and eggs, mostly do to a nasty encounter with a bear. The night would have been rough if I wouldn't have found a nice POI in the Wasteland to hold up. The final day, 5, was spent getting to my destination, the far corner of a 15 km map. I think I arrived with 1 water left. There was no water in the Wasteland, mostly because I didn't find a city/town.

Of the other game, I play on a server that is at Day 169. I had to look at a map to find the nearest water source because I don't drink water anymore in that game. I'm 100% Yucca Smoothies. I think my stock has 6-8 stacks of those left before I had to worry about it. I make them 6 stacks at a time because that fills up the workbench. There's more than 1000 snow stored away in my ingredients. My farm plants 15 of each type of seed. Anyways, water sources ... The closest is two Tiles away, a Tier 1 POI with a small pond. After that, a larger pond three Tiles away that is part of a filler POI. There's another pond three tiles away which is part of a distinctive rural Tile that makes water super common in cities and countrytowns. There's water in a movie theater about 3 tiles away. A swimming pool 2-3 tiles away. It looks like a fountain downtown, 3 sources of water in maybe an industrial zone. (I don't know that area too well.) Outside of town, I have to either cross a mountain to get to a lake or travel East to the coast. Those are easily day trips unless on motorcycle. -- If I harken back to my memories of Day 1 on that server, I seem to recall having to make a trade with another player for a cookpot because I was tired of not finding one and I think it was Day 5. They had a forge so they could make one. I had been subsisting on loot drops.

I only use 3 waters per day in my examples as a baseline maximum requirement for drinking water, you're likely going to have 3x that per day.

That seems light to me, but I should pay attention more closely. I'd have guessed 5-6 waters per day, specially if you're eating the poorly prepared meat or taking some drug that dehydrates you. I tend to eat to heal, combined with investing in the quicker regen skill. I don't usually have to use meds unless I get ambushed. I'm not good enough to make a good go at those "you're hit, you're dead" challenges, but give me some armor and I can usually stay near full health for days on end.

Because I hunt/forage at night, and I take the cooking skill, I'm usually making bacon and eggs immediately after finding a cooking pot.

 

[zztong]

We've debated quite a while. My objection to being unable to carry water away from a water source is it just seems like a fundamental thing. There's player agency taken away and folks are used to a world where they can fill containers.

I completely get that there will be enough loot drops to support life and once you have a cookpot you probably won't ever drink Murky water again. So, by day 3, nobody is drinking murky water from a lake. The entire water issue becomes moot so long as you're raiding POIs.

It doesn't change players going into POIs. That's where the loot and XP is. They're always going to do that. So, why then is it important to take away carrying water from a water source?

I've apparently lost track of the stated motivation for the change.

--

When we talk about rates of food/water consumption, how long a game day are we assuming? The server on which I play uses 90-minute days and 4-hour nights. My solo games are 90-minute days and 6-hour nights. Maybe that's the difference between my 5-6 waters a day and your 3 waters a day?

 

[Neminsis]

That seems light to me, but I should pay attention more closely.

Full disclosure, in my present game I'm lvl 115 3 points in Iron gut (15% reduction) and 1 point into well insulated (15% reduction when overheating) I spend exactly 1 normal water every 24 hours unless I use drugs and it was the same at the beginning of the game before I spent those points.

Some potential differences would be that I wear light armor exclusively except on horde nights, I prioritize having the right clothes for the environment early game and the environmental mods late game., I reserve melee for when ranged has failed, I avoid taking a long time zooming in or aiming, I avoid sprinting or otherwise spending my stamina bar down below 50%. That last bit has no other effect than to get me into the habit of not spending my stamina unnecessarily.

So, you can spend more than that if you're wearing heavy armor, sprinting everywhere, depending on melee, eating charred meat to heal, and in the desert, but otherwise, not so much.

 

[meganoth]

Because part of the reason that it's functionally a myth is how rarely anyone would craft jars, when they would craft jars, and at what scale, because of soft limits already built into the game.

Now let's say that by taking boiled water out of the loot table (a necessary change) has shifted the equation so that crafting jars to make up for the difference is suddenly more appealing because loot drops have come up a few duct tape short, those jars are still locked behind the forge, and once you have the ability to craft glue you're already producing excess water.

I get it, that means that sometimes you'll have to make a choice between water and glue, or at least that's what you're thinking, but the loot frequency for glue and duct tape is already set so that you never have to make glue at all and still have enough to craft anything that you need or would want, up until late game.
 

So that's 3 pocket mods on day 1 on a bad roll, and you'd've likely done better sticking to tier 1 pois because they're balanced a little more towards beginning needs and are going to be the target for new players, but good job proving how difficult building that forge and crafting those jars on day 1 actually is though.
 

Did we have an argument about crafting jars?

Was I trying to craft a forge? If I were I would have had enough glue/ducttape for it, so not sure what exactly I would have proved. 

Glue belongs to groupCraftingCommon which uses the lootprobabilitytemplate of "low" or 0.20 or 20 out of every 100 or a 1 in 5 chance of getting glue from any container that can spawn it, at level 1 with no modifiers

Duct tape belongs to groupCraftingUncommon which uses the lootprobabilityyemplate of "med" or 0.5 or 50 out of every 100 or a 1 in 2 chance of getting duct tape from any container that can spawn it, at level 1 with no modifiers

I think you misread loot.xml. Ask yourself: Do you really find duct tape in every second car like you claim below?

When an item is in a loot group, usually only one item of that list is selected (except if there is a "count=all" or "count=1,5" or similar in the header line). The default is "count=1" meaning only 1 item of that list gets selected.

Now in the case of the workbench for example, there is a lootgroup groupWorkbenchLoot. It has a count=all, but the entry groupWorkbenchLoot02 has the probability-template medlow = 1/3. And in groupWorkbenchLoot02 there is a list of 8 items, one of which is glue and one other ducttape. So your chance to find glue in a workbench is 1/8*1/3 = 1/24, one in 24. The same probability is for finding duct tape, one in 24 as well.

Now if you find glue in the workbench, then it is a random amount between 1 and 6, on average 3.5 glue (not 100% sure about that). On average you find about 14 glue in 100 workbenches.

Now this is obviously affected by the availability of containers that can spawn them, for glue that's chem piles, workbenches, chemstations, construction crates, sinks, junk piles and for duct tape that's workbenches, rolling toolboxes, cars, working stiff crates, junk piles

This means that first trip to the trader has a 1 in 5 chance of having glue in the chemstation, and another 1 in 5 from the workbench, while the workbench provides you with a 1 in 2 chance of getting a duct tape, and since the trader now always has a car on the corner you can add that 1 in 2 chance for duct tape there too.

Now we could do something really exhaustive like calculate the average rate those containers will spawn around the player within let's say a 500m radius, or we can just figure that looting 10 containers of the preferred spawning type will average you 5 duct tape and 2 glue, and then remember that the loot rate will go up with level, loot will respawn every 5 days on base setting, and many of those containers will appear within resettable quest pois. 
 

But the ability to make glue is gated behind the cooking pot, which itself is gated by RNG,

Does glue in A21 need boiled water? They said that making boiled water needs a cooking pot again, but I don't remember whether they also changed the glue recipe (in A20 it needs murky).

so TFP provide an alternate path to crafting by providing those resources in loot. You're confusing the term "baseline" with "worstcase" The baseline is not 0 unless you get one of those special players that never loot any of the preferred spawn containers.
 

To refresh your memory, I'm of the opinion that dew collectors as presently advertised are inadequate for mass crafting, but are completely adequate for any other crafting needs when taking loot drop frequency of glue and duct tape into account. 

I presented the possibility that 6 dew collectors were potentially achievable by heading to the wastelands as a way of showing that my particular issue might already be solved without any changes. I'd still be concerned for the average players ability to dabble in that playstyle however.
 

Sort of exactly what I'm doing now?

Don't think so. You didn't post a complete list of possible changes and their probabilities yet. You just argued that it would be useful.

Why would I care? To be clear, I don't care how the problem is solved, only that it is. I presented the solution that I did only to show that it was possible to get the same results without having to remove the ability to collect water into usable containers from a water source, and to keep the discussion going. 

I'm also quite partial to Roland's idea of just adding a mod in late game that would increase the production rate of dew collectors. Because it not only solves production capacity, and also reduces the necessary footprint for that production, but adds a new toy to be acquired.

Browser bugged...to be continued.


 

In one we have our base in a wooden farm house and there is a small pond directly on the farm that has not dried up yet. We must be above day 30, maybe even 40, but it is a very unhurried game. No vehicle needed at all

...

I can't say how much a water block last, but that little pond in my one game has definitely less than 10 blocks (maybe 4-5) and has filled multiple hundreds of water jars already

Correction. When I played that map tonight I did take a look at that pond. It is bigger, with about 25 blocks size, 15 of which have been depleted. We are also on day 60 already. 

And I just tried to fill 45 jars and that emptied quite a lot of blocks which makes me suspect that partially emptied blocks refill themselves over time. If not then that pond should have dried up a long time ago since we overproduce meals.

 

[zztong]

Full disclosure, in my present game I'm lvl 115 3 points in Iron gut (15% reduction) and 1 point into well insulated (15% reduction when overheating) I spend exactly 1 normal water every 24 hours unless I use drugs and it was the same at the beginning of the game before I spent those points.

I rarely take Iron Gut or try to forestall the effects of temperature, but at level 115 who knows I might. I certainly don't take them in levels 1-20. Around level 20 I'm just starting to take an attribute (CON, DEX, or STR) to level 3. (I don't focus on one attribute. I like a well-balanced character.) When do you start taking Iron Gut or the temperature skills? I'll use more food/water than you here.

Hot or Cold, I just eat and drink more because I'm not spending inventory space on alternative clothes. That will increase my food/water consumption.

I'm into light armor for POIs and Horde night. I'm stealth/bow about 80% of the time, and melee the rest, saving guns for horde night or when ambushed. I don't run a lot early game to save on food/water. I don't run in POIs because I'm always sneaking. I can end up running if teamed with somebody who runs. We're probably about the same on food/water there.

Horde nights are special, and I play them... weirdly... if left to myself. I don't think we can make a reasonable comparison there.

When it comes to loot, if I get a single yucca juice, red tea, goldenrod tea, I just drink them rather than use the inventory space. That's just like canned food. I don't keep it, I eat it and salvage the can. Thus, I maybe be over hydrating at times and it could inflate my estimates of how much I drink. IIRC, our capacity at level 1 is 151, so 170 at level 20. The bar is showing 100 and lower, I think.