Just another 'I want' list of stuff to add in the future. Take it as you will. Feel free to comment.
1) Tool Additions.
a. I've seen at least one person suggest a lawnmower. I think maybe an easier tool might be a strimmer or weed-whacker. Just hold the trigger, walk around, and *foom foom* grass be gone. We've got chainsaws for wood, augers for stone/dirt, why not a strimmer for grass?
b. On the subject of augurs for stone, maybe a jackhammer, one of the smaller portable ones. Augers in real life are meant for boring through dirt and soft soil and don't do well on stone. A small jackhammer would be ideal.
2) Food Additions.
a. A birdhouse (built with wood, maybe at a table-saw, and replenished every so often with corn-seed) would be a great source of feathers and eggs, like bird's nests out in the wild. Stocked with corn-seed, from 1-100 units, and the amount of corn-seed (or some other bird food) is the chance that it will spawn eggs and feathers maybe once a week.
b. A rabbit hutch. Also built with wood, probably at a table saw. Exact same mechanic as a bird-house, except it could offer meat and possibly a small amount of leather, and be stocked with something rabbits like to eat. Regular corn, maybe, or some other farmed produce. Lettuce and carrots would be a fairly easy addition to the farming menu, I think.
c. On a larger scale, a livestock paddock. Build a certain kind of fence (again, at a table saw or workbench) and for every (for example) 10 square blocks of space fenced in, you would get X% chance of a pig or deer spawning in that area every X days. An interesting dynamic for this might be that if you have too many livestock in the paddock, you have an increasing chance of attracting wolves. cougars or zombie dogs. Maybe even bears.
d. Beehives. Also made of wood and probably tallow, from whence you could harvest that sweet, sweet honey, at the cost of keeping it stocked with flowers (chrysanthemum or goldenrod). Maybe a higher chance of attracting a bear than the livestock paddock. Maybe if you have 'living off the land' at too low a score, you might take a small amount of damage as you get swarmed by bees when you disturb them.
e. Bear traps. I don't know if this would fall under food or weapons, but you can harvest meat from bears, so I'll add it here. Made of iron (or steel) and springs, probably mechanical parts. Deals continuing damage to anything that happens into its jaws and immobilizes them for a time until the limb caught in it is dismembered and they get free. CERTAINLY does bleed damage. One-use only, then you have to go and manually reset them. Of course anything could happen into a bear trap so you could bait it to increase your chances of a certain catch. Meat for a wolf or dog, honey for a bear, maybe corn for a chicken or rabbit or even deer.
f. Add a Skillet (made of black/scrap iron) to the Cooking Tools menu, and drop the Beaker out of the Campfire utility. Save beakers for the Chem Station. Let the skillet be for things like bacon and eggs, fried eggs, fried meat, and let the Cooking Pot be for stews, glue, and so on. The Cooking Grill would still be good for Baked Potatoes, Fish Tacos, Corn on the Cob and Grilled Meat. I think the Grill should be the 'first level' cooking tool, followed by the Skillet and then the Pot. That would require some tinkering and playtesting, perhaps.
3) Weapon Additions
a. Why does the compound bow hit harder than the crossbow. I'm pretty sure it should be the other way around. I think a compound bow should be the 'middle ground' between Wood Bow and Crossbow.
b. Melee variety. Axes would be amazing weapons against zombies - better than a basic club, even a metal-clad one, and a battle axe would be phenomenal, like a sledgehammer with a chance to dismember or decapitate. I've also seen people make suggestions about swords, which I think would be pretty nice. Start maybe with a 'Sharpened Iron Bar' (made out of black/scrap iron and leather) and progress up to 'Katana' or 'Broadsword' with steel, wood and leather.
c. A greater distinction between the machete and the hunting knife. A lot of people seem unsure which is better for slaughtering game - the hunting knife should win that hands down, while the machete should be better at clearing grass or doing melee damage. A hunting knife should be pretty ineffectual at clearing grass in general.
4) Skill tree alterations.
I personally liked the previous incarnation of the skill tree myself. You do something over and over, and you get better at it. Instead of buying most perks with points, just buy the straight Stats (Per, ST, End, Agi, Int) and let your activities decide what you get better at. For instance, digging dirt should make me better at digging dirt. If I make all my XP by hitting zombies and digging dirt, why would I then suddenly know how to eventually make steel weapons just because I bought perks with points from levelling? It doesn't make sense. Let the relevant skill go up a bit at a time as you DO the thing. The more you craft, the higher quality the things are that you craft, and the sooner you will learn to make better things. Let the purchase of stats influence the perks themselves, but don't BUY the perks - earn them. Make the perk levels be 1-100, and for every stat point you buy, it increases all perks in that 'tree' by 5 points.
Example:
Digging (maybe the Miner 69er perk) is based on Strength. Makes sense. For every X amount of blocks I dig (with shovel or pick or stone axe or whatever) I get a potential increase in my 'digging' score. For every point I earn in Digging, by DOING DIGGING, I get a 1% increase in block damage when digging. Obviously as your Digging score goes up, your progression slows down. But, when I buy a level of Strength, then I get a free 5 points in my Digging score. Then you can entirely do away with things like Miner 69er. It's built in.
Example 2:
Crafting is based on Intellect. I craft a stone axe. I get a chance for a 1 point raise in Crafting skill. I craft an iron pick. I get a chance to get a 2 point raise in crafting skill. And so on. Once you get to certain levels of crafting, then you can purchase perks like Advanced Engineering, Hammer and Forge, or Grease Monkey. But you have to EARN your way up to them, instead of 'Oh, you killed 52 zombies, here's a magical beaming into your head of knowledge on how to create a motorcycle'.
I'd be happy to talk to the Fun Pimps on ideas like this. I've got some good ones, I think.
Likewise, the more time you spend in Stealth mode, the better you get at sneaking, eliminating the need for any of the Stealth perks. And while we're on that subject, why the hell does your total amount of Stamina depend on Agility? I would make MUCH more sense for it to be Endurance based. You can be bendy as hell and still not be any good running a marathon. Agility is really a useless Stat. Everything in that tree could be accomplished by earning it by doing, as I've illustrated.
5) Crafting Alterations
a. Give us a sewing machine. We find clothes everywhere, but we can only MAKE ponchos, grass clothing and armor. Cotton can be refined into cloth (maybe several kinds) or thread. Found clothing can be scrapped into either of those. Sewing Machine can be made at a Workbench with a Bone, a Spring or two and some scrap Iron. An Electric Sewing Machine (maybe allows higher-quality clothing or takes over for the Workbench for armor) needs Electrical Parts, maybe Electronic Components, a couple Forged Iron, some Plastic/Polymers, and maybe needs a source of power (like a generator or battery bank).
b. A sidecar for the motorcycle could be fun. Adds cargo carrying when no one is in it. If there is something in the extra cargo space, only one person can ride.
c. Mods for the vehicles, like:
I) Bicycle: Handlebar Pack (Increase cargo by several slots). Headlight (pretty self explanatory). Larger Gears (Faster movement).
II) Minibike: Trunk (As Handlebar Pack, but larger). Larger Fuel Tank (go further without refueling).
III) Motorcycle: Saddle Bags (figure it out). Larger Fuel Tank. Headlight High Beams (larger illumination arc). Spiked Wheels (does more damage when colliding with zombies).
IV) Truck: Cargo Trunk (Duh). Large Fuel Drum (also Duh). Roll Bar Lights (Same as Headlight High Beams). Ram Bumper (Like Spiked Wheels, but nastier, and applies to block as well as entities). Nitrous Boost (Whoosh). Winch (Pull down trees for instant wood-harvesting or instantly harvest boulders).
d. Add boats. I've seen this one elsewhere, too. Call the perk "Ahoy, Matey". Start with a raft, then a rowboat. Then a small sailboat, then a motorboat, up to a speedboat. Again, as elsewhere, could go well with the Fishing implementation, and could go well with potential in-water hazards, like piranha, sharks, barracuda.
I. Raft: Wood and grass. Needs Table Saw.
II. Rowboat: Pieced together from: Hull (Wood and glue), Oars (Wood and tape), and maybe a couple Mechanical Parts. Hull and Oars require Table Saw.
III. Sailboat: Pieced together from: Hull (Wood, tape, glue and polymers/plastic) and Sail (Cloth, thread, leather and tape), Rigging (cloth and/or cotton, thread, leather) and probably some Mechanical Parts. Faster than a rowboat, but harder to control. Hull requires Table Saw, Sail and Rigging requires sewing machine (and a ♥♥♥♥-ton of cloth and thread).
IV. Motorboat: Pieced together from: Hull (Wood, tape, Polymers/Plastic, Forged Iron, Iron Pipes), Controls (Electrical Parts, Forged Iron, Polymers/ Plastic), a Small Engine, Battery, maybe a Headlight or two. Hull and controls require Workbench.
v. Speedboat: Pieced together from: Hull (Polymers/Plastic (lots!), Forged Steel, Iron Pipes,), Controls (Electrical Parts, Electronic Components, Mechanical Parts, leather), TWO (!) small engines, Battery, Headlights. Requires Workbench.
1) Tool Additions.
a. I've seen at least one person suggest a lawnmower. I think maybe an easier tool might be a strimmer or weed-whacker. Just hold the trigger, walk around, and *foom foom* grass be gone. We've got chainsaws for wood, augers for stone/dirt, why not a strimmer for grass?
b. On the subject of augurs for stone, maybe a jackhammer, one of the smaller portable ones. Augers in real life are meant for boring through dirt and soft soil and don't do well on stone. A small jackhammer would be ideal.
2) Food Additions.
a. A birdhouse (built with wood, maybe at a table-saw, and replenished every so often with corn-seed) would be a great source of feathers and eggs, like bird's nests out in the wild. Stocked with corn-seed, from 1-100 units, and the amount of corn-seed (or some other bird food) is the chance that it will spawn eggs and feathers maybe once a week.
b. A rabbit hutch. Also built with wood, probably at a table saw. Exact same mechanic as a bird-house, except it could offer meat and possibly a small amount of leather, and be stocked with something rabbits like to eat. Regular corn, maybe, or some other farmed produce. Lettuce and carrots would be a fairly easy addition to the farming menu, I think.
c. On a larger scale, a livestock paddock. Build a certain kind of fence (again, at a table saw or workbench) and for every (for example) 10 square blocks of space fenced in, you would get X% chance of a pig or deer spawning in that area every X days. An interesting dynamic for this might be that if you have too many livestock in the paddock, you have an increasing chance of attracting wolves. cougars or zombie dogs. Maybe even bears.
d. Beehives. Also made of wood and probably tallow, from whence you could harvest that sweet, sweet honey, at the cost of keeping it stocked with flowers (chrysanthemum or goldenrod). Maybe a higher chance of attracting a bear than the livestock paddock. Maybe if you have 'living off the land' at too low a score, you might take a small amount of damage as you get swarmed by bees when you disturb them.
e. Bear traps. I don't know if this would fall under food or weapons, but you can harvest meat from bears, so I'll add it here. Made of iron (or steel) and springs, probably mechanical parts. Deals continuing damage to anything that happens into its jaws and immobilizes them for a time until the limb caught in it is dismembered and they get free. CERTAINLY does bleed damage. One-use only, then you have to go and manually reset them. Of course anything could happen into a bear trap so you could bait it to increase your chances of a certain catch. Meat for a wolf or dog, honey for a bear, maybe corn for a chicken or rabbit or even deer.
f. Add a Skillet (made of black/scrap iron) to the Cooking Tools menu, and drop the Beaker out of the Campfire utility. Save beakers for the Chem Station. Let the skillet be for things like bacon and eggs, fried eggs, fried meat, and let the Cooking Pot be for stews, glue, and so on. The Cooking Grill would still be good for Baked Potatoes, Fish Tacos, Corn on the Cob and Grilled Meat. I think the Grill should be the 'first level' cooking tool, followed by the Skillet and then the Pot. That would require some tinkering and playtesting, perhaps.
3) Weapon Additions
a. Why does the compound bow hit harder than the crossbow. I'm pretty sure it should be the other way around. I think a compound bow should be the 'middle ground' between Wood Bow and Crossbow.
b. Melee variety. Axes would be amazing weapons against zombies - better than a basic club, even a metal-clad one, and a battle axe would be phenomenal, like a sledgehammer with a chance to dismember or decapitate. I've also seen people make suggestions about swords, which I think would be pretty nice. Start maybe with a 'Sharpened Iron Bar' (made out of black/scrap iron and leather) and progress up to 'Katana' or 'Broadsword' with steel, wood and leather.
c. A greater distinction between the machete and the hunting knife. A lot of people seem unsure which is better for slaughtering game - the hunting knife should win that hands down, while the machete should be better at clearing grass or doing melee damage. A hunting knife should be pretty ineffectual at clearing grass in general.
4) Skill tree alterations.
I personally liked the previous incarnation of the skill tree myself. You do something over and over, and you get better at it. Instead of buying most perks with points, just buy the straight Stats (Per, ST, End, Agi, Int) and let your activities decide what you get better at. For instance, digging dirt should make me better at digging dirt. If I make all my XP by hitting zombies and digging dirt, why would I then suddenly know how to eventually make steel weapons just because I bought perks with points from levelling? It doesn't make sense. Let the relevant skill go up a bit at a time as you DO the thing. The more you craft, the higher quality the things are that you craft, and the sooner you will learn to make better things. Let the purchase of stats influence the perks themselves, but don't BUY the perks - earn them. Make the perk levels be 1-100, and for every stat point you buy, it increases all perks in that 'tree' by 5 points.
Example:
Digging (maybe the Miner 69er perk) is based on Strength. Makes sense. For every X amount of blocks I dig (with shovel or pick or stone axe or whatever) I get a potential increase in my 'digging' score. For every point I earn in Digging, by DOING DIGGING, I get a 1% increase in block damage when digging. Obviously as your Digging score goes up, your progression slows down. But, when I buy a level of Strength, then I get a free 5 points in my Digging score. Then you can entirely do away with things like Miner 69er. It's built in.
Example 2:
Crafting is based on Intellect. I craft a stone axe. I get a chance for a 1 point raise in Crafting skill. I craft an iron pick. I get a chance to get a 2 point raise in crafting skill. And so on. Once you get to certain levels of crafting, then you can purchase perks like Advanced Engineering, Hammer and Forge, or Grease Monkey. But you have to EARN your way up to them, instead of 'Oh, you killed 52 zombies, here's a magical beaming into your head of knowledge on how to create a motorcycle'.
I'd be happy to talk to the Fun Pimps on ideas like this. I've got some good ones, I think.
Likewise, the more time you spend in Stealth mode, the better you get at sneaking, eliminating the need for any of the Stealth perks. And while we're on that subject, why the hell does your total amount of Stamina depend on Agility? I would make MUCH more sense for it to be Endurance based. You can be bendy as hell and still not be any good running a marathon. Agility is really a useless Stat. Everything in that tree could be accomplished by earning it by doing, as I've illustrated.
5) Crafting Alterations
a. Give us a sewing machine. We find clothes everywhere, but we can only MAKE ponchos, grass clothing and armor. Cotton can be refined into cloth (maybe several kinds) or thread. Found clothing can be scrapped into either of those. Sewing Machine can be made at a Workbench with a Bone, a Spring or two and some scrap Iron. An Electric Sewing Machine (maybe allows higher-quality clothing or takes over for the Workbench for armor) needs Electrical Parts, maybe Electronic Components, a couple Forged Iron, some Plastic/Polymers, and maybe needs a source of power (like a generator or battery bank).
b. A sidecar for the motorcycle could be fun. Adds cargo carrying when no one is in it. If there is something in the extra cargo space, only one person can ride.
c. Mods for the vehicles, like:
I) Bicycle: Handlebar Pack (Increase cargo by several slots). Headlight (pretty self explanatory). Larger Gears (Faster movement).
II) Minibike: Trunk (As Handlebar Pack, but larger). Larger Fuel Tank (go further without refueling).
III) Motorcycle: Saddle Bags (figure it out). Larger Fuel Tank. Headlight High Beams (larger illumination arc). Spiked Wheels (does more damage when colliding with zombies).
IV) Truck: Cargo Trunk (Duh). Large Fuel Drum (also Duh). Roll Bar Lights (Same as Headlight High Beams). Ram Bumper (Like Spiked Wheels, but nastier, and applies to block as well as entities). Nitrous Boost (Whoosh). Winch (Pull down trees for instant wood-harvesting or instantly harvest boulders).
d. Add boats. I've seen this one elsewhere, too. Call the perk "Ahoy, Matey". Start with a raft, then a rowboat. Then a small sailboat, then a motorboat, up to a speedboat. Again, as elsewhere, could go well with the Fishing implementation, and could go well with potential in-water hazards, like piranha, sharks, barracuda.
I. Raft: Wood and grass. Needs Table Saw.
II. Rowboat: Pieced together from: Hull (Wood and glue), Oars (Wood and tape), and maybe a couple Mechanical Parts. Hull and Oars require Table Saw.
III. Sailboat: Pieced together from: Hull (Wood, tape, glue and polymers/plastic) and Sail (Cloth, thread, leather and tape), Rigging (cloth and/or cotton, thread, leather) and probably some Mechanical Parts. Faster than a rowboat, but harder to control. Hull requires Table Saw, Sail and Rigging requires sewing machine (and a ♥♥♥♥-ton of cloth and thread).
IV. Motorboat: Pieced together from: Hull (Wood, tape, Polymers/Plastic, Forged Iron, Iron Pipes), Controls (Electrical Parts, Forged Iron, Polymers/ Plastic), a Small Engine, Battery, maybe a Headlight or two. Hull and controls require Workbench.
v. Speedboat: Pieced together from: Hull (Polymers/Plastic (lots!), Forged Steel, Iron Pipes,), Controls (Electrical Parts, Electronic Components, Mechanical Parts, leather), TWO (!) small engines, Battery, Headlights. Requires Workbench.