Hunger Duration

[SabinSnake]

Seriously, hunger needs an overhaul and to be more realistic. In reality a person can survive without food for over a week or more, but in the game even with the Iron Gut skill at max level, you already start dying of starvation before the game day is ending,.. This really needs to be addressed, please! Thank you!

 

[ALEXZANDER]

Seriously, hunger needs an overhaul and to be more realistic. In reality a person can survive without food for over a week or more, but in the game even with the Iron Gut skill at max level, you already start dying of starvation before the game day is ending,.. This really needs to be addressed, please! Thank you!

Well....In reallity - when u dont eat for too long - ur body starts consuming its resources/fats untill depletion (it means also that stomach also heavilly changes)! In addition - after long time of not consuming food - u must not eat big portions of food/heavy food instantly, or u may heavilly damage ur stomach and even die! And game currently doesnt have this mechanic! Also not only hunger mechanic needs overhaul

 

[bdubyah]

You say "survive", but you wouldn't be worth a ■■■■ for anything in a zombie apocalypse going days without eating. What fun would it be after a day of running around killing and looting to have your stamina max reduced and all that? Would make the game not fun and guess what you'd do? Eat something. Plus I'm assuming you aren't sitting around in base doing nothing for a week? How long IRL do you think you could run around on foot, carrying a backpack full of stuff, killing zombies and animals and buildings things along the way, without eating?

Besides that, it's a video game.

 

[Riamus]

Seriously, hunger needs an overhaul and to be more realistic. In reality a person can survive without food for over a week or more, but in the game even with the Iron Gut skill at max level, you already start dying of starvation before the game day is ending,.. This really needs to be addressed, please! Thank you!

You don't need to even use Iron Gut. Just grab some eggs or kill an animal in the first day or two and you'll be fine. Or loot a few kitchens and you'll most likely find canned food, though I personally avoid eating that without cooking it unless it is one of the types that don't have a recipe. Food in this game is extremely easy to get, so you shouldn't ever be dying of starvation. There really isn't any reason to make it so you can go days without food. You shouldn't ever be down to 0 food in this game to begin with, so it wouldn't affect 99% of people if they changed it.

Also, this isn't a game that focuses on realism. It's just a game.

carrying a backpack full of stuff

Including vehicles. Very realistic!

 

[4sheetzngeegles]

I think what you are talking about is caloric intake or wellness. It's been talked
about on both sides of the fence, will it change, dunno. But, until then if ever,
there is a solution.

If on a computer if you are playing longer days there is an edit that you can do
to playermale in entities classes, to adjust it to your play preference.

<effect_group name="food/water balancing">

It is based on 60 minutes, if on 120 min days it kind of feels like a hummingbird
metabolism. Just multiply value X .5 on food and water.

I think they gave it a K.I.S.S. because it is potentially another Pandora's box, like many
other volatile preferences in the game.

Maybe in the future a sliding scale will be added like the one for brightness.

For all that is presented and all that is seen, I always remember it is still a simple
game at the core, and as things are addressed for access across platforms, and being
streamlined, a lot more things may get a lot simpler also.

I say simple but: here are some of the particulars: Player loses food over time 60 min cycle,
Doubled at 120 minute days, every time you run your stamina bar down water loss is 41% of the
water loss overtime per point of stamina reclamation, every time you run your stamina bar down
food loss is 49% of the food loss overtime per point of stamina reclamation. Riding a bike fast
or accelerating a vehicle, is considered running.

Want to see a visual, just look at Neebs gaming the older a16 series, When ever they had a minibike,
they would Flintstone it.

 

[SabinSnake]

You say "survive", but you wouldn't be worth a ■■■■ for anything in a zombie apocalypse going days without eating. What fun would it be after a day of running around killing and looting to have your stamina max reduced and all that? Would make the game not fun and guess what you'd do? Eat something. Plus I'm assuming you aren't sitting around in base doing nothing for a week? How long IRL do you think you could run around on foot, carrying a backpack full of stuff, killing zombies and animals and buildings things along the way, without eating?

Besides that, it's a video game.

But in the game, I'm not going without eating for days, even with a full belly at the beginning of around 4:00AM of the day of eggs and bacon, the hunger diminishes so fast, by the time it's around 13:00, it's already at 0 hunger, which is BS.

 

[SabinSnake]

You don't need to even use Iron Gut. Just grab some eggs or kill an animal in the first day or two and you'll be fine. Or loot a few kitchens and you'll most likely find canned food, though I personally avoid eating that without cooking it unless it is one of the types that don't have a recipe. Food in this game is extremely easy to get, so you shouldn't ever be dying of starvation. There really isn't any reason to make it so you can go days without food. You shouldn't ever be down to 0 food in this game to begin with, so it wouldn't affect 99% of people if they changed it.

Also, this isn't a game that focuses on realism. It's just a game.


Including vehicles. Very realistic!

Kill what animal? There's hardly any deer, much less boars, chickens and rabbits in the Pine Forest, or at least you rarely see any, it's mostly canned foods that I find in buildings I mostly get food from, or buy from the trader. The only place that has an abundance of animals is in the snow biome, which I move to after earning the Mt bike.

 

[Rhythm-Wave]

Never once have I had a problem with not having enough food,don't forget part of the game play is to harvest food and grow crops. I'm able to craft farm plot boxes, water collectors, and gather enough eggs and meat over the first 24 hours to last me a week. I think the problem is with how you are paying the game. Just spend one day a week (including nights for the meat) harvesting food. Don't forget to harvest all road kill and corpses laying around, Day one usually spawns you in close to the corn farm and there is plenty of pigs there as well. Change how you are playing the game to hpw its been designed to be played. Its not hard. Good luck!

 

[zztong]

Seriously, hunger needs an overhaul and to be more realistic. In reality a person can survive without food for over a week or more, but in the game even with the Iron Gut skill at max level, you already start dying of starvation before the game day is ending,.. This really needs to be addressed, please! Thank you!

If realism is the goal, then I'd agree. I think you can tweak the food XML via XPath and put that into a modlet and be happy. If you needed help getting started, some folks on these boards would likely help. I don't think you'd need C# unless you have bigger goals.

This is just speculation on my part, but I don't expect TFP to act on your suggestion because realism is kind of a thread that if you pull on it and keep replacing systems then you will replace the whole game. Perfect realism doesn't appear to be one of their goals. Perfect realism also doesn't appear to be a big deal to the majority of players. For instance, if we're making healing more realistic then recovery times for a broken leg are 6-16 weeks depending on the nature of the break.

 

[Riamus]

But in the game, I'm not going without eating for days, even with a full belly at the beginning of around 4:00AM of the day of eggs and bacon, the hunger diminishes so fast, by the time it's around 13:00, it's already at 0 hunger, which is BS.

Your food shouldn't go down that quickly with default settings and no mods. Even on 2 hour days, unless you're constantly sprinting, you shouldn't use a full bar of food in 9 hours. I've sprinted over 2km on day 1 to get to a trader, using up a lot of my day, then did some quests before dark and still wasn't out of food by night on 2 hour days and that is without using Iron Gut. If you have any mods, you might look into whether any are causing the issue.

Oh, and make sure you're not using the healing perk. Whenever it is actively healing you, it uses up a LOT of food and water.

Kill what animal? There's hardly any deer, much less boars, chickens and rabbits in the Pine Forest, or at least you rarely see any, it's mostly canned foods that I find in buildings I mostly get food from, or buy from the trader. The only place that has an abundance of animals is in the snow biome, which I move to after earning the Mt bike.

Animals really aren't hard to find. Boars aren't in the forest unless they wander in from the burnt forest or are part of a POI, but you can find chicken, deer, rabbits, and snakes. Chickens are particularly easy to find if you just follow asphalt roads in the wilderness because there isn't any grass to hide them and you can see them from far away. Deer only come out at night. I forget the exact time, but it's something like 2am or so. You can find them later if they haven't despawned, but mostly you'll find them only late at night or very early in the morning.

I don't normally even look for animals and I'm always overflowing with meat. If things are going particularly bad for me, then I might have to go looking on the first day or two, but I'll usually just follow a road until I see a chicken or two. And if hunting isn't working for you, eggs are easy to find and so is corn. They aren't great food sources, but they work until you can start making bacon and eggs and don't require hunting at all. And if that is still not working for you, put one point into Animal Tracker and it will make it easier to find the small animals.

 

[meganoth]

Food can go to 0 without killing you, it just means your stamina is lower and your hitpoints go down at a very slow rate that can be easily countered with bandages. I had a similar discussion just 2 weeks ago when I still thought hunger debuffs were serious and someone told me how mild the conditions really are. I tested it and yes, you can go on for days without eating. Just like in reality. Unlike reality you can even survive infinitely without food.

Probably similar to you I often miss chickens and rabbits until it is too late and they run away. One point in the perk Animal Tracker is really a live saver for me. Other players will often dismiss that perk as useless because they have a better peripheral vision I assume, but not me.
You just have to remember to often kneel down, even if you are not speccing into stealth. For example just drive somewhere you haven't been lately, exit the vehicle and kneel down. You will notice that lots of times there is a small animal around you that you would have never noticed without the perk.

Food gets used up by activity, for example running, fighting or digging, whatever uses stamina uses food. And wearing heavy armor when running increases how much stamina and consequently food you use up. Sounds realistic, right? If someone is low on food, mostly in the early days of the game, it is a valid strategy to not using heavy or even medium armor until your food production is adequate.

 

[SabinSnake]

Your food shouldn't go down that quickly with default settings and no mods. Even on 2 hour days, unless you're constantly sprinting, you shouldn't use a full bar of food in 9 hours. I've sprinted over 2km on day 1 to get to a trader, using up a lot of my day, then did some quests before dark and still wasn't out of food by night on 2 hour days and that is without using Iron Gut. If you have any mods, you might look into whether any are causing the issue.

Oh, and make sure you're not using the healing perk. Whenever it is actively healing you, it uses up a LOT of food and water.


Animals really aren't hard to find. Boars aren't in the forest unless they wander in from the burnt forest or are part of a POI, but you can find chicken, deer, rabbits, and snakes. Chickens are particularly easy to find if you just follow asphalt roads in the wilderness because there isn't any grass to hide them and you can see them from far away. Deer only come out at night. I forget the exact time, but it's something like 2am or so. You can find them later if they haven't despawned, but mostly you'll find them only late at night or very early in the morning.

I don't normally even look for animals and I'm always overflowing with meat. If things are going particularly bad for me, then I might have to go looking on the first day or two, but I'll usually just follow a road until I see a chicken or two. And if hunting isn't working for you, eggs are easy to find and so is corn. They aren't great food sources, but they work until you can start making bacon and eggs and don't require hunting at all. And if that is still not working for you, put one point into Animal Tracker and it will make it easier to find the small animals.

Yeah, I just remembered, just go to a boar farm and i'll more than likely find some in the barns. Chickens, I haven't been lucky with, other than at the Dead Rooster Bar, which there's a good number of em in the basement. Deer at night? I don't usually go out at night, since the zombies (feral) are more active at that time, roaming around. Rabbits and snakes are possibly even more rare sighting than the deer in my experience. Eggs are more abundant, especially when you put 1 point into Master Chef skill that'll make it so you'll find 1 or 2 eggs in a nest almost every time (depending on what you have the loot amplifier set at). After moving to the snow biome, I don't have the need for the Animal Tracker skill.

 

[SabinSnake]

Food can go to 0 without killing you, it just means your stamina is lower and your hitpoints go down at a very slow rate that can be easily countered with bandages. I had a similar discussion just 2 weeks ago when I still thought hunger debuffs were serious and someone told me how mild the conditions really are. I tested it and yes, you can go on for days without eating. Just like in reality. Unlike reality you can even survive infinitely without food.

Probably similar to you I often miss chickens and rabbits until it is too late and they run away. One point in the perk Animal Tracker is really a live saver for me. Other players will often dismiss that perk as useless because they have a better peripheral vision I assume, but not me.
You just have to remember to often kneel down, even if you are not speccing into stealth. For example just drive somewhere you haven't been lately, exit the vehicle and kneel down. You will notice that lots of times there is a small animal around you that you would have never noticed without the perk.

Food gets used up by activity, for example running, fighting or digging, whatever uses stamina uses food. And wearing heavy armor when running increases how much stamina and consequently food you use up. Sounds realistic, right? If someone is low on food, mostly in the early days of the game, it is a valid strategy to not using heavy or even medium armor until your food production is adequate.

True, but I later found out

Food can go to 0 without killing you, it just means your stamina is lower and your hitpoints go down at a very slow rate that can be easily countered with bandages. I had a similar discussion just 2 weeks ago when I still thought hunger debuffs were serious and someone told me how mild the conditions really are. I tested it and yes, you can go on for days without eating. Just like in reality. Unlike reality you can even survive infinitely without food.

Probably similar to you I often miss chickens and rabbits until it is too late and they run away. One point in the perk Animal Tracker is really a live saver for me. Other players will often dismiss that perk as useless because they have a better peripheral vision I assume, but not me.
You just have to remember to often kneel down, even if you are not speccing into stealth. For example just drive somewhere you haven't been lately, exit the vehicle and kneel down. You will notice that lots of times there is a small animal around you that you would have never noticed without the perk.

Food gets used up by activity, for example running, fighting or digging, whatever uses stamina uses food. And wearing heavy armor when running increases how much stamina and consequently food you use up. Sounds realistic, right? If someone is low on food, mostly in the early days of the game, it is a valid strategy to not using heavy or even medium armor until your food production is adequate.

True. Later on I found out I can keep from dying from starvation by equipping the fortifying grip mod on one of my melee weapons/tools, which keeps my HP at half, as long as I have the item with the mod on it in hand .

 

[SabinSnake]

If realism is the goal, then I'd agree. I think you can tweak the food XML via XPath and put that into a modlet and be happy. If you needed help getting started, some folks on these boards would likely help. I don't think you'd need C# unless you have bigger goals.

This is just speculation on my part, but I don't expect TFP to act on your suggestion because realism is kind of a thread that if you pull on it and keep replacing systems then you will replace the whole game. Perfect realism doesn't appear to be one of their goals. Perfect realism also doesn't appear to be a big deal to the majority of players. For instance, if we're making healing more realistic then recovery times for a broken leg are 6-16 weeks depending on the nature of the break.

I'm on console only, so the XML and XPath would be out of reach. I'm not expecting perfect realism, but keep the hunger part to a reasonable logic to it. Know what I mean?

 

[zztong]

I'm on console only, so the XML and XPath would be out of reach. I'm not expecting perfect realism, but keep the hunger part to a reasonable logic to it. Know what I mean?

Sure, everyone has their own perfect game. I hope you find a way to get to yours.

Since I can't offer you XML and XPath, I can only offer a different perspective. Perhaps think of the game's meals as being small portions.

 

[4sheetzngeegles]

This will work on console.

Spoiler: scouting

Unless your main base is in a desolate location away from all other
pois. If you would like to hunt a few deer in the beginning.

Spoiler: What to look for

Make at least 10 wooden ladders which is available from the beginning.
Go to a poi that is close to your safe zone, the poi should be like one
of the old Gable houses, meaning the ones with a peaked roof.

Look for one approx with a third floor attic. Prior to night run the ladder up
the side of the building. The lowest rung should be at least third block up
for safety. Place a wooden block on the ground and pick it up as you climb.

Spoiler: safety first

When night comes climb to the top with a bow and quite a few arrows until you
become accustomed to the drop rate of the arrow, go to the part of the roof with
an unobstructed view all around.

TFP adjusted one of the texture layers so at night, deer have an iridescent silver
tone to them, then you can shoot it in the head, a well placed shot will drop them
instantly. Listen before moving. Zombies make a sound if they are going after the
corpse.

Climb down with bone knife in hand, cut corpse and climb back to safety, make sure
coast is clear, then climb back down and run to your base and cook. Or carry you pot
and grill with you, and cook there.

Spoiler: The return

It takes 4 burnt steaks to lower water 1 jars worth, but it gives you 40 points to
health.

Spoiler: No pot No problem

After finishing beginner quest, on the way to meet Rekt punch
Red white and gold flower groves as you pass them, do that on the way to the first
meeting, then to and from the first dig a hole quest. To make it faster collect all
the garbage on the way. You will have enough to buy pot grill and a surplus of water
for the first night maybe 2 if you are consistent.

You will have enough time to clear a poi for the first temp or permanent base.