Animals, plants, and 2 POI ideas

[ZipporahssBird]

HI! I'm new here. I didn't find any posts for specifically what I'm interested in talking about here. Tell me what you think!

We all want rabbit and chicken coops, I think that evident. But why can't we also have cows added to the game? I don't live in Arizona but I live in Texas, we have cows, and bulls, donkeys, goats, and sheep. Why not implement one of these animals (or all of them?!) for food as well, regardless if we can raise or tame them or not. I must say I've wanted to have cows for a long time. When I first picked up the game I thought there would be cows because certain parts, like Texas has a lot of ranches. 

I would enjoy having cows but to add a level of danger to the game bulls would be better. They are not exactly always friendly, so much like the boar they will attack if they're injured by you, and their attack is weaker than a bear but slightly stronger than that of a boar (forgive me, I am not savvy enough to play with game codes so I don't know what those numbers would look like.) For obvious reasons, you would get more meat and more bones, but less fat than you would if you caught a bear. 

And as I'm not savvy with the codes, and I don't remember seeing a specific setting when making a new game, I would love to see a bit more animals in game. I frankly feel like there is just too little? I feel like I don't see them enough. But with that being said, I think they should have their own spawn setting, but to make it fair the animal spawn setting will include zombie animals (bear, dogs, and [new!] boars.) 

Anyway, this next part is brief, but I'd love to see more edible plants make their way in the game like spinach, carrots, tomatoes, and cucumbers. 

And last thing, sorry this is so long. 

My POI ideas is basically a meat production factory and the other one is a Fire department. The meat production one is obvious, either small bit of live animals in cages, or just a crap ton of raw meat everywhere but a crap ton of wolves and dogs.

But going around from town to town I always wondered what was missing, and it dawned on me a few days ago. The towns don't have a fire department. The departments don't have to be big and super fancy but they could spawn one or two fire trucks, fire axes, first aid kits, and food.

Anyway, sorry again this is long! 

 

[Liesel Weppen]

We all want rabbit and chicken coops, I think that evident. But why can't we also have cows added to the game? I don't live in Arizona but I live in Texas, we have cows, and bulls, donkeys, goats, and sheep. Why not implement one of these animals (or all of them?!) for food as well, regardless if we can raise or tame them or not.

That are all domesticated animals. After the humans where gone, nobody cared for them anymore and they all starved in their barns.

That is a survival game and food is also an issue. Except maybe the first few days it's far to easy anyway to get food. Getting even more by more animals food doesn't make it better.

I tried war of the walkers that adds animal traps. They are relatively cheap to craft and you can put out a lot of them. They have a chance to spawn meat in them (that's oviously suppsed to simulate it caught an animal). But that made the whole food issue a no brainer. Once you had like 10 traps up, you get more meat that you ever can eat, even in multiplayer groups. 

Anyway, this next part is brief, but I'd love to see more edible plants make their way in the game like spinach, carrots, tomatoes, and cucumbers. 

There are many mods out there that add a lot more plants.

However just more plants are pointless imho, because there is no real difference in the meals you can cook from all the ingredients anyway.

From the plants you need basically only potatoes and corn. If you have meat and fat, you go for the meat stew. If you have rotten flesh you go for hobo stew, as this is the most fullness giving meal.

If you don't have meat, you need mushrooms too and with them go for vegetable stew.

Only other meal that has an effect (afaik) is the pumpkin cheesecake, as he gives you a barter buff. For this you need pumpkins. So basically some plants of corn and potatoes and some less plants of pumpkin and mushrooms and you can cook everything worth cooking anyway.

Everything else is just cosmetics, as those just give lower fullness and don't have any other effect.

The drinks are a little better, as they all have some effect.

Imho before introducing even more plants, they should give them or the meals you can cook out of them some kind of buffs, to make them worth anything. Or at least give them different grow times, so that maybe carrots grow once a day (instead of 3 days) but allow you to make other meals that give less fullness, so you can decide if you need anything fast, or have time for planting more efficient stuff.

And finally: Since there is no food spoilage, you get huge stacks of food pretty easy anyway.

My POI ideas is basically a meat production factory and the other one is a Fire department. The meat production one is obvious, either small bit of live animals in cages, or just a crap ton of raw meat everywhere but a crap ton of wolves and dogs.

There is a farm in the game which has increased chance that there are pigs and it grows some corn arround it. Also there is some kind of animal shelter with increased chance of having pigs, dogs and snakes. It is even written on it's wall that you should be aware of pigs, dogs and snakes in there.

There are already 2 or even 3 (not sure) variations of fire departments in the game.

Afaik there is no mechanic in the game that allows you to find specific items like fire axes in just one poi. There are different loot crates that have increased chance for tools, weapons, food, medics... but not as specific as only one kind of item and not changed by the poi.

Did you play RWG or Navezgane? Don't know about current state of Navezgane. Maybe this map has not yet added those firedepartments. If RWG... RWG is a little tricky. There is no guarantee that some kind of pois will be spawned on the map, so you may still have just bad luck and no fire stations were spawned (Chance that pois are missing increases on smaller maps). I had a game in A18 with not a single bookstore on the whole map.

 

[ZipporahssBird]

Interesting. Well, as far as the domesticated animals, I hear you but that's if they're physically stuck in the barn. I can tell you first hand that most of the time, the ranchers I've seen keep the animals inside usually only at night, however during the day they're outside grazing. Usually, ranchers have a lot of land and the ten or fifteen cows they may have don't usually eat all of the grass that's available to them in the acres. The fences aren't even electric ones and even if they were after humans died out the would be able to escape to get more grass. But overall I feel you. 

BTW you didn't comment on the idea that animals get their own setting when creating a new game. What is your view on that?

To answer your question I usually play the Navegane map. I really don't remember a fire station but I see crack a book often or rather I've seen them in towns, there's a really big one in the desert city near Dishong Tower.

 

[Liesel Weppen]

Interesting. Well, as far as the domesticated animals, I hear you but that's if they're physically stuck in the barn. I can tell you first hand that most of the time, the ranchers I've seen keep the animals inside usually only at night, however during the day they're outside grazing.

That was more or less a lore-compliant explanation why there are not in the game.

From a gameplay point of view, as i explained, it doesn't have a reasonable effect to add further animals. There are enough animals, and you get a lot of meat easily. Adding more animals would give you just even more meat.

More animals as a threat... fine. But i don't see the point for adding e.g. domesticated cows, even if they may be aggressive. If anyway, there should be predators added. Not as an additional source of meat, but as threat.

BTW you didn't comment on the idea that animals get their own setting when creating a new game. What is your view on that?

There is a lot of discussion going on what should be an gui-supported setting and what not. A lot people like to have various settings as ingame, ending up having 50 pages of granular settings in the game.

I'm sure you can easily edit the XMLs to get way more animal spawns. Or maybe there is even a modlet out there that does this. There are modlets that increase zombie spawn. I'd estimate it would be almost the same to increase animal spawn. So it should be easy to do.

If you can't find an existing modlet, just ask for it in the forums. Maybe someone could quickly make you one.

To answer your question I usually play the Navegane map. I really don't remember a fire station but I see crack a book often or rather I've seen them in towns, there's a really big one in the desert city near Dishong Tower.

I don't know about the current state of Navezgane. Maybe TFP hasn't overhauled it that way in the last times. I don't play Nav anymore (did 2 or 3 times on A15). Once you know the map, it becomes boring and takes the whole excitement of exploring a map away.

 

[Laz Man]

That was more or less a lore-compliant explanation why there are not in the game.

From a gameplay point of view, as i explained, it doesn't have a reasonable effect to add further animals. There are enough animals, and you get a lot of meat easily. Adding more animals would give you just even more meat.

More animals as a threat... fine. But i don't see the point for adding e.g. domesticated cows, even if they may be aggressive. If anyway, there should be predators added. Not as an additional source of meat, but as threat.

There is a lot of discussion going on what should be an gui-supported setting and what not. A lot people like to have various settings as ingame, ending up having 50 pages of granular settings in the game.

I'm sure you can easily edit the XMLs to get way more animal spawns. Or maybe there is even a modlet out there that does this. There are modlets that increase zombie spawn. I'd estimate it would be almost the same to increase animal spawn. So it should be easy to do.

If you can't find an existing modlet, just ask for it in the forums. Maybe someone could quickly make you one.

I don't know about the current state of Navezgane. Maybe TFP hasn't overhauled it that way in the last times. I don't play Nav anymore (did 2 or 3 times on A15). Once you know the map, it becomes boring and takes the whole excitement of exploring a map away.

The way I understand it all POIs are supposed to be in Navezgane and then hopefully also in RWG at some point.  At least, historically.

 

[Liesel Weppen]

The way I understand it all POIs are supposed to be in Navezgane and then hopefully also in RWG at some point.  At least, historically.

Navez is handmade. If new POIs are introduced but nobody updates Navez, the POIs are missing there.

RWG also does not care to spawn every POI at least once. Maybe is supposed to, but it doesn't do it well.

Imho RWG ist just bad. It simply doesn't do a good job. It generates nice landscapes, but the POI-placement is just bad. Nitrogen does a way better job in POI placement but sadly it still creates that ugly cones for POIs.... so worse landscape.