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ComSenMod (now for A18)

Boy, it's hard to stop tinkering long enough to actually make a release. My local change list has grown to over 60 items.

I was finally able to test weather survival in different biomes, and it feels good. Wear your coat inside, and you'll generally get hot. Venture naked into the pine forest, or worse yet jump in a pool, and you'll get cold. Walk through the desert, and you're hot in long sleeves, pants, and boots; but tolerably warm in tank top, shorts, and shoes.

As before, the bulk of the changes will be loot related. People in the ComSenMod universe will soon stop carrying around doorknobs & candlesticks, cool actual beverages in their refrigerators instead of only empty jars, put papers inside desks instead of their clothes, and so on.

One more highlight: you'll dismantle bird nests with an axe instead of a wrench. :)

 
By dismantle I mean harvest, like animals. I personally have been playing with no loot respawn, so it's worth chopping up bird nests. You get those last few feathers, and the nest is destroyed so you don't keep revisiting nests that are already empty.

 
I like most of your edits, well done.

I suggest you consider adding one new feature though. I don't understand why felling trees produces cordwood, rather than logs first. It would be common sense that chopping down a tree would drop "woodLogPillar100" which is an existing block. It would be great if a pillar50 block was added for smaller trees, but the pillar100 would be more realistic than dropping already chopped up chunks of wood. These pillar logs then can be chopped into wood pieces, or in other mods made into planks using a saw.

 
Announcing Version 2.0

A new and improved version of ComSenMod is now available! See the first post for the download link.

Since we're still on A15b8, I'm calling this version 2.0. Here's what's new. (part 1 of 2)

biomes.xml:

  • Made all biomes 25 degrees cooler
    Compensates for what people would typically wear, now that clothing doesn’t cool the player

blocks.xml:

  • Removed requirement to use a wrench when harvesting bird nests
    Wrenches look silly on organic things. Now you can bust it up with an axe, like a tree.
  • Changed desks to use file cabinet loot instead of dresser loot
    Clothes in a desk is uncommon; this loot list makes much more sense
  • Changed material for school desks from furniture to metal
    So that it uses metal SFX & VFX, and the pickaxe works better than a fire axe on them
  • Changed wall ovens to use oven loot instead of cupboard loot
    Assumed to be an oversight. Cupboards are already abundant.

items.xml:

  • Redesigned insulation of all items so that clothing & armor can only warm the player
    The system wasn’t robust enough to support warming and cooling items. No more taking off your shorts when you get cold. More and heavier clothes = warmer, less and lighter clothes = cooler.
  • Changed cigar material from cloth to plants, and added weight so it can be scrapped
    Cigars are rolled tobacco leaves, not cloth

recipes.xml:

  • Changed cornbread & blueberry pie recipes to use animal fat instead of water
    This is more true to life, and maintains the ‘water=pot’ convention. These foods didn’t hydrate you, either.

weathersurvival.xml:

  • Increased threshold before weather system considers you ‘inside’ from 15% enclosed to 25% enclosed
    Experimental - sounded too low, like it would almost always be in effect
  • Decreased snowfall soak time from 5 minutes to 2 minutes
    Snow melts as soon as it hits skin, so IF you don’t have waterproof clothes, you should get soaked almost as fast as with rain.
  • Let player get colder before they stop drying out (30 instead of 40)
    Should be forgiving, because there’s a punishing feedback loop where you get cold because you’re wet and stay wet because you’re cold. 30 is closer to the freezing point.
  • Temperature has a less pronounced effect on how fast you dry out
    Lessens the feedback loop, and re-scales the curve to fit the above change
  • Narrowed the difference in how fast player changes temperature when wet versus dry
    It looks like this affects how fast you cool down AND heat up. You shouldn’t heat up faster when wet, so this is a compromise.
  • Expanded range of temperatures under which you heat up/cool down at regular speed
    If you’re not hot or cold, you don’t really need to warm up or cool down extra fast
  • Reduced temperature drop when wet from 30 to 20 degrees
    This is very hard to model accurately without humidity, so wind will be a bigger factor as an approximation
  • Disabled BaseOutsideTempChangeWhenWet
    Research indicates this is an absolute value that negated biome conditions.
  • Increased the cooling effect of the wind
    Wind plays a bigger role in absence of other factors like humidity. Now wet skin can ‘feel’ twice as cold when it’s windy.
  • Made a cloudy sky only warm you 20% as much as a sunny sky
    I researched what a good value would be, but in the end just went with what felt intuitive.
  • Increased temperature shift when running to 10 degrees
    Running never had an appreciable effect on temperature.
  • Remapped elevation’s effect on temperature to a parabolic curve once above ground
    This way you only really notice it getting cold as you get up ‘in the mountains.’ Less realistic, but remember we’re compressing thousands of real meters into 250 game meters.

 
This is part 2 of 2 for version 2.0's change list. Enjoy!

loot.xml:

  • Replaced coffee beans in sink loot with buckets
    This group is also used for public bathrooms, where coffee beans would be an odd find.
  • Made all water murky, except when found in coolers, fridges, beer coolers, and shamway boxes
    In the age of a zombie infection, you can’t assume random water you find on a corpse is safe to drink
  • Added water & canned food to air drop loot
    Complements that clean water is harder to come by. Not sure why the airdropfood group wasn’t enabled.
  • Added jackets wherever clothes or warm clothes are found
    Jackets were effectively disabled from the game. They offer another tier of warmth.
  • Removed medicine from stumps
    It didn’t feel right to find a beaker in there. Stumps had enough different goodies as it is.
  • Added goggles to warm clothes
    Ski goggles are cold weather gear, and they have a warming effect now
  • Reduced amount of survival stash loot found in stumps
    I was finding too much good loot in the pine forest
  • Increased quantities of arrowheads, while reducing the chance of finding them
    Incorporating feedback to reduce the clutter of finding a near-useless amount of something
  • Increased minimum quantities of items in ammo & military ammo loot
    Incorporating feedback to reduce the clutter of finding a near-useless amount of something
  • Removed duplicate entry for paper in locker loot
    Assumed to be an oversight
  • Standardized quantities of paper found, outside of books & filing cabinets
    Incorporating feedback to reduce the clutter of finding a near-useless amount of something
  • Removed rotten flesh from cold food loot
    Establishing a general convention that refrigerated food isn’t spoiled, while other food may be
  • Removed some car parts from car loot & added other stuff you might find inside
    There might be a drink in the cup holder, a flashlight in the glove box, or motor oil in the trunk. But if you want radiators, springs, and engines, you’ll have to harvest the car rather than loot it.
  • Added snowballs to cold food loot
    Representing ice buildup on the wall of a cooler or freezer, which still has value to a thirsty survivor
  • Increased minimum quantities of military fiber, potassium nitrate, oil, springs, cloth, gunpowder, scrap metals, wood, nails, casino tokens, bullet casings, feathers, grass, dirt, plastic, forged iron/steel, & leather found at once
    Incorporating feedback to reduce the clutter of finding a near-useless amount of something
  • Removed old cash from junk loot
    People don’t just throw away money. Still found on bodies.
  • Increased amount of loot in fridges
    They were set to have less loot than coolers & shamway crates, despite being larger
  • Added beverages to fridge loot
    More consistent with other food containers. Refrigerating an empty jar is unusual, so now it will happen less often.
  • Added books to backpack loot
    Books in a book bag? What an idea! :)
  • Replaced glass panes in junk with broken glass
    If it wasn’t broken, it probably wouldn’t be in the trash. They were only good as forge material, anyway.
  • Added cooking grill to oven loot & split probability of finding either
    The grill’s usefulness is already overshadowed by the pot. It shouldn’t be overly rare, too.
  • Added broken glass to medicine cabinet loot
    Represents ‘scrap glass’ from glass vials and broken mirrors. Fits the game’s dilapidated look.
  • Removed hazmat gear from regular zombies
    These clothes are too special case for any old zombie to have on them
  • Slightly decreased chance to find mining helmet in cars
    Flashlights are more believable, and they appear more often now
  • Added paper to cop & nurse loot
    For an air of authenticity: these jobs involve a lot of paperwork
  • Added scrap brass to cop loot
    Representing their brass officer’s badge
  • Reduced chance of finding flashlights in stumps & backpacks
    On further inspection, flashlights are meant to be rarer than I thought
  • Cherry picked a few junk items for suitcases & rebalanced loot chances
    Suitcases are rare enough they don’t have to have common junk, much of which you wouldn’t find packed in a suitcase
  • Added armor, crossbows, & old cash to corpse loot (the ones that are dead but not zombies)
    They needed more variety, so you don’t get too many magnum parts. These items better ‘tell the story’ of this fallen survivor, plus crossbows weren’t found in any loot.
  • Added candy tin to fat zombie loot & rescaled loot percentages
    Fat people like candy :)
  • Added treasure maps & nerd glasses to filing cabinets
    The map makes shuffling through all those papers worthwhile, while the glasses are because the poindexter using the file cabinet is absentminded ;)
  • Increased time to open suitcases, file cabinets, coffins, bookcases, dumpsters, and mortician’s drawers
    These are things that either take a moment to get open, or have lots of stuff inside to sort through
  • Added trophies to football player loot
    If anyone should be carrying around a trophy, it should be these guys
  • Created new “junkPersonal” loot list just for zombies & other bodies, with adjusted probabilities
    This way zombies don’t carry odd things like door knobs and candlesticks, but you can still find these in trash piles
  • Added old cash and vitamins to junkPersonal loot
    People carry these things on them, and they’re no more valuable than the casino tokens and painkillers, respectively
  • Added candles to junkPersonal loot
    Candles are thought of as lighters in this mod. Giving them to zombies allows you to start a fire without relying on specific PoIs.
  • Removed rotten food, quests, & treasure maps from generic zombie loot
    Now redundant with junkPersonal loot group
  • Moved facial piercings from generic zombie loot to clothes loot
    These could be found, rarely, wherever clothes are found. Individual zombie types have an extra chance of having them.
  • Added junk to football player & utility worker loot
    For consistency with other UMA zombies
  • Adjusted each zombie’s chance of dropping specific clothes
    On horde night you would get a glut of things like running shoes: more than you can even sell.
  • Insured some type of clothing could be found on all corpses
    All zombies wear clothes (except ferals & animals), so it should be possible to loot clothes off of any of them. Zombies drop generic clothes if no specific clothes are specified or, in the case of strippers, cloth fragments. :)
  • Took automotive loot out of air drop crates
    This was the one subset of working stiffs loot that didn’t fit well
  • Added chrysanthemum seeds to seeds list
    If you can find other biome-specific seeds like aloe, you should find chrysanthemum, too

 
And lastly for now, anyone is welcome to incorporate ComSenMod into their own works, but I'd appreciate it if you'd credit me, Crater Creator, if you do. Or to put it formally, ComSenMod is released under the CC BY license. I will gladly take an opportunity to put out a Terms of Use that isn't 10 pages of legalese. :)
Click to expand...
I appreciate your openness to this and your preference for having a limited but proper terms of use. :)

 
I like most of your edits, well done.
I suggest you consider adding one new feature though. I don't understand why felling trees produces cordwood, rather than logs first. It would be common sense that chopping down a tree would drop "woodLogPillar100" which is an existing block. It would be great if a pillar50 block was added for smaller trees, but the pillar100 would be more realistic than dropping already chopped up chunks of wood. These pillar logs then can be chopped into wood pieces, or in other mods made into planks using a saw.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the praise and suggestion!

It's true that the game glosses over processing logs into lumber, which is nontrivial in reality. At your suggestion, I considered two ways it could be implemented: via a station, or through hand crafting.

For the station approach, you'd take logs to a table saw, comparable to the cement mixer. The problems with this would be:

A) For now, I'm not prepared for ComSenMod to add new art assets to the game

B) It creates more unanswered questions downstream. The major ones are, how do you get a saw station? And if you don't have one, how does the lack of usable wood affect your ability to survive and progress through the early game?

Alternatively, you could craft logs into lumber by hand. As it turns out, we know how this would affect gameplay, because the game was this way before Alpha 13. TFP concluded that the only thing that logs (and other intermediate ingredients like metal strips and blades of grass) added to the game was clutter and extra time processing. So a guideline emerged where if A -> B -> C, and B doesn't have uses other than turning into C, B is removed.

I can appreciate their reasoning, so I'm not yet convinced that going back to logs would improve gameplay. I think it's necessary to accept a level of abstraction - that some steps are extradiegetic, assumed to happen 'off stage' for the sake of skipping over what would be tedious to act out manually. I think common sense is maintained so long as that acceptance is achieved.

 
I've split too many logs with an axe in real life I guess, but if you insist on gating, duplicate the axe (call the new one a splitter, you can tint the icon for variation). Or, allow axes to spit wood, since, they can. Just watch out because I would build with those logs (like we could in the past). That's fixable too

 
Crater Creator you broke the temperature and clothing. Now everywhere is cold. Return the weather back and clothes. Which files are responsible for this? Replace the standard, because it is impossible to play.

 
Thanks for the praise and suggestion!
It's true that the game glosses over processing logs into lumber, which is nontrivial in reality. At your suggestion, I considered two ways it could be implemented: via a station, or through hand crafting.

For the station approach, you'd take logs to a table saw, comparable to the cement mixer. The problems with this would be:

A) For now, I'm not prepared for ComSenMod to add new art assets to the game

B) It creates more unanswered questions downstream. The major ones are, how do you get a saw station? And if you don't have one, how does the lack of usable wood affect your ability to survive and progress through the early game?

Alternatively, you could craft logs into lumber by hand. As it turns out, we know how this would affect gameplay, because the game was this way before Alpha 13. TFP concluded that the only thing that logs (and other intermediate ingredients like metal strips and blades of grass) added to the game was clutter and extra time processing. So a guideline emerged where if A -> B -> C, and B doesn't have uses other than turning into C, B is removed.

I can appreciate their reasoning, so I'm not yet convinced that going back to logs would improve gameplay. I think it's necessary to accept a level of abstraction - that some steps are extradiegetic, assumed to happen 'off stage' for the sake of skipping over what would be tedious to act out manually. I think common sense is maintained so long as that acceptance is achieved.
Click to expand...
Ok, first..... +1 for teaching me a new word.

I agree with the a/b/c model. I never played before A13, but I don't see why you shouldn't build with logs. I think you could safely make it a non-upgradable block with a durability similar to reinforced wood blocks. Making it not upgradable would provide for early shelter, but a disposable one. Certainly more believable than making wood blocks without nails (yeah, you can join with pegs or T/G but doing that with a stone ax at the beginning is a stretch).

Anyway, great new changes. I never liked cooling clothing so once you balance this out it should be a great improvement.

 
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I like common sense too, this is my solution: Trees drop logs (only when the tree is actually felled, throughout the cutting process, it occasionally drops branches). A log can be crafted into a crude workstation, that is basically just a base/support and denies crafting in your backpocket. The workstation can be equipped with a stone axe, that cuts crude woodplanks from the logs. These can then be crafted into crude wood frames, weaker and with a lower maxload (a crude wood frame has 50 hitpoints and can hold two more frames, while the regular frame has 100 hitpoints, holding another five). The crude wood frame can be upgraded once to an equally weak crude wood block (again with the crude wood planks). Also, the stone axe cuts less (crude) wood planks from a log than a saw. The saw, though, cuts the log into flawless wood planks, that can be used to craft regular frames.

The whole "crude"-branch (it's also it's own material "wood_crude" ) simulates the limitations that the early game stone axe has compared to proper iron tools in the later game.

 
Crater Creator you broke the temperature and clothing. Now everywhere is cold. Return the weather back and clothes. Which files are responsible for this? Replace the standard, because it is impossible to play.
Click to expand...
biomes.xml makes all biomes 25 degrees colder.

items.xml rebalances how warm all the clothes are.

weathersurvival.xml changes how things like wind and water affect your temperature.

If it's really unplayable, you can revert those files, although you'll lose other changes.

I tested the temperature and clothing changes most in the pine forest, but also in the maple forest, burnt forest, desert, and wasteland. All biomes were changed by the same amount. I tested all kinds of different clothing over multiple weeks, and it felt really good! So this feedback surprises me.

Can you tell me what biome you were in, and everything you were wearing? Also, were you wet at the time, and were any buffs active? This information is really important for me to be able to fix it.

 
biomes.xml makes all biomes 25 degrees colder.items.xml rebalances how warm all the clothes are.

weathersurvival.xml changes how things like wind and water affect your temperature.

If it's really unplayable, you can revert those files, although you'll lose other changes.

I tested the temperature and clothing changes most in the pine forest, but also in the maple forest, burnt forest, desert, and wasteland. All biomes were changed by the same amount. I tested all kinds of different clothing over multiple weeks, and it felt really good! So this feedback surprises me.

Can you tell me what biome you were in, and everything you were wearing? Also, were you wet at the time, and were any buffs active? This information is really important for me to be able to fix it.
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I'll boot up your changes now and give them a test also. Maybe its a specific biome he was in, or something.

Edit:

Test: Snow Biome with basic clothing 100% Wet. http://imgur.com/55iNCCu

Based on this limited example, seems fine, you just need to wear clothing. The only issue I can see is maybe there was a specific oversight issue with a biome or clothing unit.

Edit 2:

Theory: Drinking Tea and some other drinks have a cooling effect, this could be the reason behind being really cold. Since in vanilla, this buff would almost never be an issue, it could be confusing. Might be worth adjusting their values if you haven't already. I have not extensively tested this, i Just popped a redTea and started to suffer for that choice.

 
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Thanks for your testing. In your screenshot, you're in the coldest biome, you're as wet as possible, and you're wearing mostly plant fiber clothing with no coat, which I made 'pound for pound' the least insulating material. So you being very cold matches expectations.

One way it might be broken is if you're never able to warm up, because you dry slower when you're cold. I reduced this effect from vanilla, though, since it's a negative feedback loop.

I checked buffs.xml for buffs that affect your core temperature. None of them are changed from vanilla. These are the values:

yucca juice, red tea -10

coffee, stew +10

snowberry juice +15

fire +30

 
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One way it might be broken is if you're never able to warm up, because you dry slower when you're cold. I reduced this effect from vanilla, though, since it's a negative feedback loop.
Click to expand...
Hey. Been following this quietly, and wanted to comment on this one. This is how it works in real life too, and this is what makes snow biome so dangerous early on. If you make it easier, it will be way too easy for veterans, although it also depends on how well you have balanced the clothing... The "feedback loop" is there for a reason, and can be overcome very easily and quickly.

As it is in vanilla, there are many different factors that affect cold weather survival, and while survival is hard early on in snow biome, it's perfectly possible, was even when weather survival didn't have a grace period of one day. I know this for a fact as I played in an all snow world for a couple of (real life) months after weather was implemented for the thrill of the challenge.

I'm interested to see what you come up with balance-wise eventually.

 
biomes.xml makes all biomes 25 degrees colder.items.xml rebalances how warm all the clothes are.

weathersurvival.xml changes how things like wind and water affect your temperature.

If it's really unplayable, you can revert those files, although you'll lose other changes.

I tested the temperature and clothing changes most in the pine forest, but also in the maple forest, burnt forest, desert, and wasteland. All biomes were changed by the same amount. I tested all kinds of different clothing over multiple weeks, and it felt really good! So this feedback surprises me.

Can you tell me what biome you were in, and everything you were wearing? Also, were you wet at the time, and were any buffs active? This information is really important for me to be able to fix it.
Click to expand...
Одежда перестала охлаждать. В кленовом лесу идёт снег, при температуре +25 градусов цельсия. Если одеть одежду на героя, то ему становиться жарко, поэтому бегаю голый. Находясь в зимнем биоме, вышел из игры. Загрузил сохранение и сразу замёрз. Окружающая температура резко упала с +5 до -15. Был одет в тёплую одежду. Добежал до кленового леса, но окружающая температура половину дня поднималась. В ванили мог балансировать с помощью шорт, майки и шляпы. С собой носил пуховик и при охлаждении одевал его. Теперь это не работает. Переводчик ломает смысл, не знаю поймёшь ли?

Clothing stopped cooling. In the maple forest, it's snowing, at a temperature of 25 degrees Celsius. If you wear the clothes on the hero, then he becomes hot, so running around naked. Being in a winter biome, out of the game. Loaded a save and immediately frozen. The ambient temperature has plummeted from +5 to -15. He was dressed in warm clothes. Ran to maple forests, but the ambient temperature is half of the day was raised. In vanilla could balance with shorts, t-shirts and hats. A wore a jacket, and cooling to wear it. Now it's not working. The translator breaks the sense, do not know whether you will understand?

 
Re: weather

One thing I have done is give all the biomes a single temperature (the average of the vanilla min/max) since the weather.xml already provides a range effect by rain/shade/sun/wind/wet/dry and helps keep the biome and weather.xml from constantly fighting with each other for no reason (strangely enough It play a bit smoother as well).

I then gave all clothing that provided a cooling affect a "Zero" instead of a cooling factor (until TFP allow clothing to have both a cool and heating effect that is). This provided a more consistent clothing management scheme that was easier to control and intuitive for the game or at least I think so and from what has been relayed too me.

OFC I adjusted cooling/warming foods/drinks and items, so you at times would struggle living in the deep freeze of the snow biomes or the extra hot times of the desert but it plays nice.

edit: a nugget of info Just in case you don't already know. You cool down 25% faster wet as opposed to being dry, unlike what they have it set in the game as being 10times faster.

edit2: changing the <property name="EnclosureDetectionThreshold" value="0.15"/> to Value="0.09" will stop ppl from getting wet when standing near a window/door.

This is not to say I want you to change your mod, just parlaying info.

 
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