Suggestion: Dew Collectors (and maybe apiaries) should require empty jars as fuel.

G

gofantasy542

Refugee
I love that empty jars have returned to 7 Days, and I noticed that Dew Collectors remain an option as well, even if they take longer to get than previously. This led to me thinking that the jars will eventually become obsolete to players and no longer meaningful as soon as they start building dew collectors. Then I remembered that the new Apiary requires flowers as fuel to produce honey. I had a thought, what if the dew collector required empty jars to be used as fuel to create jars of water, murky without filter and normal otherwise? This way the empty jars remain relevant in late game rather than having the dew collectors magically create jars. This could be taken a step further, requiring the same to be true for the apiary, since it would technically magically create jars as well to put the honey in. You could also potentially use a resource tracker similar to how the forge tracks how much of a material has been smelted and is available for use, like iron, and have the player "use" the empty jars with the collector and apiary similar to how they would collect water from other water sources as long as there is enough water or honey collected and available to fill a jar in the corresponding structure. Thoughts?
 
If you have changed the game settings to get jars refunded then by the time the dew collector arrives you already have arrived at the point where jars are meaningless and obsolete simply by virtue of the fact that you will already have way more than you need. Dew Collectors and Apiaries creating new jars for you won't make any real difference.

For those who are playing the default version of the game, the dew collector marks the moment where water abundance finally arrives. Furthermore, the dew collector doesn't create jars for those players, it only creates water since there is no jar returned after using the water.

If you choose 100% jar return then you are choosing a game of water and jar abundance starting much earlier. If you want jars to have meaning and to experience a longer progression from water/jar scarcity to abundance then play the default game or turn the % lower.

Making the dew collector cost jars destroys their purpose and advantage for those playing the default game whereas keeping them as they are only means you'll have more of what you already have more than enough of by time you start crafting dew collectors.

Why would the devs harm the default intended version deeply just to negligibly help the alternate optional version?
 
I don't think the OP is asking for it based in jar return but to keep jar supply limited and to make jars useful later on.

I think with most survival games there comes a time where things that troubled you early on become irrelevant or less important. In this case it is water when you start building dew collectors.

If you required jars then the dew collector is an expensive and slow lake/water replacement which just doesn't work.

I understand where you are coming from but I don't think it would work the way you envision it.

Plus with weather back in the game you may need a large amount of water for desert runs.
 
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I think this is a good option, but the problem of over-stocking glass jars and their preservation after use still persists. This could be solved by making jars stackable in larger quantities and making them useful in more crafting projects. And the problem of water being too easy to obtain would be best addressed by adding purification levels and reducing the health benefits of drinking regular water, encouraging players to make teas or other drinks.
 
Assuming someone
Kyoji said:
I don't think the OP is asking for it based in jar return but to keep jar supply limited and to make jars useful later on.
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How not? The dew collector only creates empty jars if you are playing with a % return. If it is 10% it will create a jar for every 10 water collected on average if it is 100% it will create 10 jars out of 10 water guaranteed.

For 0% return you never get an empty jar out of the dew collector.

The OP most certainly was arguing from a jar return perspective. Thats the only perspective that gives back empty jars and the only perspective that results in extra jars to feed the machine in the first place.
 
Roland said:
Assuming someone


How not? The dew collector only creates empty jars if you are playing with a % return. If it is 10% it will create a jar for every 10 water collected on average if it is 100% it will create 10 jars out of 10 water guaranteed.

For 0% return you never get an empty jar out of the dew collector.

The OP most certainly was arguing from a jar return perspective. Thats the only perspective that gives back empty jars and the only perspective that results in extra jars to feed the machine in the first place.
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He doesn't want jars to return he wants to use them as fuel so that empty jars have a use. With dew collectors all those empty jars you find would have less value.

Perhaps I am misunderstanding but that's how I read it.
 
Those are both valid arguments, and I completely understand the points. Looking at it from your perspectives, I can understand why my suggestion may be overkill and possible redundant in the long run. I guess I was leaning more into the immersion and realism aspect of things, thinking you would technically need a jar to put the water/honey in. However, thinking about it from that same perspective, destroying bottles on use also kinda breaks the realism a little bit since you would have to be very clumsy to break every single jar you drink from. Perhaps just allowing the requirement to be an optional toggle could be another way to look at it, though adding more toggles to manage could get rough as well...as far as the jar return question, I was originally speaking from the perspective that jars would not be returned ever after use, thus maintaining the need for jars later in the game.
 
gofantasy542 said:
Those are both valid arguments, and I completely understand the points. Looking at it from your perspectives, I can understand why my suggestion may be overkill and possible redundant in the long run. I guess I was leaning more into the immersion and realism aspect of things, thinking you would technically need a jar to put the water/honey in. However, thinking about it from that same perspective, destroying bottles on use also kinda breaks the realism a little bit since you would have to be very clumsy to break every single jar you drink from. Perhaps just allowing the requirement to be an optional toggle could be another way to look at it, though adding more toggles to manage could get rough as well...as far as the jar return question, I was originally speaking from the perspective that jars would not be returned ever after use, thus maintaining the need for jars later in the game.
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What you would be asking for is a toggle for a toggle. All due respect I think it's likely not the best option going forward with the game.
 
Roland said:
How not? The dew collector only creates empty jars if you are playing with a % return. If it is 10% it will create a jar for every 10 water collected on average if it is 100% it will create 10 jars out of 10 water guaranteed.
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That's just a matter of perspective.
If
unit_of_water = lake-use + jar
and
dew_collector_daily_output = 3x unit_of_water

Then obviously
dew_collector_daily_output = 3x (lake-use + jar)

"Lake-use" is mathematically a little questionable concept, but considering that to be an epsilon, a near-zero value; it outright becomes
unit_of_water = jar
dew_collector_daily_output = 3x (jar)

How, and how often, you delete those jars isn't bound to the Dew Collector in any way. It'll generate three per day.
 
Kyoji said:
What you would be asking for is a toggle for a toggle. All due respect I think it's likely not the best option going forward with the game.
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Yea, that was my concern when I mentioned it getting rough to just keep adding more toggles for the player to have to deal with. You guys' arguments definitely make sense, and when I consider the realism aspect I was originally going for, it just strengthens the argument that by the time the dew collectors/apiaries are up and running, the player would definitely have an over-abundance of jars anyway, since, as I had said, it is also unrealistic that bottles would break every single time they are used, even though that was my original thought to keep them valid. So I was kinda fighting with myself? Lol...
 
gofantasy542 said:
Yea, that was my concern when I mentioned it getting rough to just keep adding more toggles for the player to have to deal with. You guys' arguments definitely make sense, and when I consider the realism aspect I was originally going for, it just strengthens the argument that by the time the dew collectors/apiaries are up and running, the player would definitely have an over-abundance of jars anyway, since, as I had said, it is also unrealistic that bottles would break every single time they are used, even though that was my original thought to keep them valid. So I was kinda fighting with myself? Lol...
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Your idea in itself wasn't bad and I can respect trying to make the game better and more logical for sure.
 
theFlu said:
That's just a matter of perspective.
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It’s not just a difference of perspective. There is also the difference of an actual jar. If I am on 0% jar return then the dew collector produces an item that I can use and that’s it. If I am on 100% jar return then the dew collector produces an item that I can use and I’ll get a jar back if I used it for a drink.

So while there are definitely different ways to view what a unit of water + a jar is and conceptually what happens to the jar after use, the difference in what the dew collector produces based on your settings is not just a matter of belief but of actual results.

0% setting: DC —> water + jar - water - jar on use
100% setting: DC —> water + jar - water on use
 
Roland said:
the difference in what the dew collector produces based on your settings is not just a matter of belief but of actual results.

0% setting: DC —> water + jar - water - jar on use
100% setting: DC —> water + jar - water on use
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If I have a murky water in my slimy little hands, and it doesn't produce a jar upon consumption; was there anyone there to hear it being made in the dew collector? You don't see the jar getting eaten, so you can mentally ignore it being there.

But for a mechanical match, you could have an Automated Glass Kiln producing three jars a day (placed next to a lake) and have essentially zero effect on your gameplay. This is the stance one needs to take for any balancing discussion; anything else misses the actual game balance...
 
Roland said:
It’s not just a difference of perspective. There is also the difference of an actual jar. If I am on 0% jar return then the dew collector produces an item that I can use and that’s it. If I am on 100% jar return then the dew collector produces an item that I can use and I’ll get a jar back if I used it for a drink.
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I read the suggestion differently.

I understood the suggestion to be; that a player had to provide the jars (or up to n jars) for the dew collector to collect water or "work". No Jars, no collected water. Hence, jars are not created by the dew collector and the Jar return rate is irrelevant.

But that raises the question, why would I not just fill the jars at a water source?

I think its a great idea, but there is a little more rumination required to balance the outcomes.
 
Okay somehow there is a disconnect between what we are saying and hearing. I can’t be the only one who sees a real difference in the results of a dew collector when you play 100% jar return and when you play 0% jar return. You can’t discuss this topic by ignoring the jar return % can you? But it seems to me that some of you are claiming the return % is irrelevant.

I’ll assume I’m the one missing something here and not understanding. Help me see my error. To me it seems the most obvious thing that with 0% return the dew collector is just producing drinks but with 100% return it is producing actual jars filled with drinks.

This seems to me to be the reality of the difference in actual measurable data and not just a perceived way of viewing it. Like if I harvested from my dew collector after one week and drinking all that was produced I would have nothing at the end of the week. But someone on the 100% setting doing the same thing would have 21 empty jars to add to their stash. Am I crazy? Is the first situation not creating jars but the second situation is? And is this difference not wholly contingent upon the jar return setting someone chooses?
 
Why not just collect jars and throw them out to simulate the dew collector needing them? That way you get what you want and those that don't want the dew collector require jars get what they want?

Or there are mods already to make the dew collector require jars.
 
8_Hussars said:
I read the suggestion differently.

I understood the suggestion to be; that a player had to provide the jars (or up to n jars) for the dew collector to collect water or "work". No Jars, no collected water. Hence, jars are not created by the dew collector and the Jar return rate is irrelevant.

But that raises the question, why would I not just fill the jars at a water source?

I think its a great idea, but there is a little more rumination required to balance the outcomes.
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I get that and that’s how I read it too. But my objection is based on what I just wrote above. You have to take into account the actual results. Sure, for both players they get the same picture to put in their inventory: a water filled jar. But the reality is that for 0%ers that is just a single drink of water and not a jar and for 100%ers it really is a water filled jar.
 
Roland said:
But the reality is that for 0%ers that is just a single drink of water and not a jar
Click to expand...
Do the 0%:ers not loot for jars? To fill with water? As the limiting factor?
Does the dew collector not bypass that exact limiting factor? The jars, not the water?

The dew collector is an alternative to looting N jars per day. Not an alternative to Filling N jars.
Whether you delete them after use or not, doesn't care of their origin. Looted jars disappear just the same as collected ones.

Yes, the balance is different if you delete less jars. For both looters and collectorerers.

The suggestion here seems to be aimed at finding a new balance for the collector with permanent jars... The settings could use something to that effect, but I wouldn't go ahead and make the collector pointless.. (I'd rather remove it from the game, myself, but that's a different branch of the discussion .. :P )
 
The real exploit is yucca smoothies giving you a Jar for nothing @Roland smh

But personally im on the side of jars being required to put in the dew collector even tho my settings are 50/50 (idea being im clumsy and drop them after drinking)

For honey, honestly ima just change it to be honey come that you just eat Whole no jar required. We all have been there were we must eat honey with our hands right?


Plus when I do get my pc ima just make water take longer to boil like 3 min and from water sources the contaminated water just takes even longer to boil, 10 minutes to get all that crap out
 
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