What would be an effective way to encourage variety in diet somehow?

[Aesirkin]

As a preface I'll say that I'm very very new to modding.  I've been noodling around with an idea for a mod that just adds a few new mats, and buff items made with them, to the game.  Even that's been a bumpy road. 

I'm now finally far enough in a game that hasn't crashed or corrupted to have a good set of farm plots going along with high level cooking, and noticed a weakness in the food system.  We now just farm a couple crops needed to make one really good food and eat that all of the time.  I feel like it detracts from the game; instead of food management evolving and staying fun in the late game it simply disappears.

I'd like to see a mod that encourages dietary variety somehow, so in the late game there's still reason to farm more crops, continue to forage/hunt, and we'll face challenges with the food supply.  The best approach I've come up with so far with my limited modding knowledge is to have each different food provide it's own small non-stacking buff that lasts 2-3 game days.  However, if that buff is small it won't be worth worrying about, and if large it will make the game too easy (I like the challenge level Nomad provides right now), so I don't know that's the right direction to go.

I couldn't find an existing mod that tried to address this, so I'd be willing to try to create one myself, but I'm just really not sure where the start.  So I'd really welcome suggestions on how this might be accomplished given the modding capabilities we have from those more experienced than I.  Or if someone else would like to try creating something based on this idea please feel free to take it and run with it.

 

[meganoth]

Couldn't you create a few cvars, to denote each nutrient, lets call them a,b and c ? Then only give a specific buff (like faster running) if a is at least 5, b at least 5 and c at least 10 for example. The buff always restarts after eating anything but only prevails/gives a bonus if all 3 conditions are met.

But are you really sure you want this? It would mean everyone having to take 3 stacks of food with him for 3 nutrients and eat them all instead of just one. And the farmer and cook would also always produce the same food all the time, just three instead of just one.

I would make the variation on the side of the buffs instead. I.e. a running buff with sphagetti, a carrying buff with meat stew, a melee damage bonus with vegetable stew. In other words depending on your specialization you might want different food, and in a typical multiplayer game everyone would ask the cook and farmer to produce some of HIS food. And the buffs are easier to implement this way.

 

[doughphunghus]

Couldn't you create a few cvars, to denote each nutrient, lets call them a,b and c ? Then only give a specific buff (like faster running) if a is at least 5, b at least 5 and c at least 10 for example. The buff always restarts after eating anything but only prevails/gives a bonus if all 3 conditions are met.

But are you really sure you want this? It would mean everyone having to take 3 stacks of food with him for 3 nutrients and eat them all instead of just one. And the farmer and cook would also always produce the same food all the time, just three instead of just one.

I would make the variation on the side of the buffs instead. I.e. a running buff with sphagetti, a carrying buff with meat stew, a melee damage bonus with vegetable stew. In other words depending on your specialization you might want different food, and in a typical multiplayer game everyone would ask the cook and farmer to produce some of HIS food. And the buffs are easier to implement this way.

I was thinking you could do a constant “drain” of these nutrients (start them at 100 at game start, count down each every hour? Or so) where your nutrient stats slowly drop until you eat something to bring them back up.  Maybe hen if the stats drop too far, you add buffs to take away something (stamina/health) or add a screen effect (light blur) 

same cvars idea, just “they run out unless topped up” vs “eat to get the boost”

I imagine it wold only be fun if the nutrients were spread out a bit so eating “a decent meal” tips them all up (like meat, + water + vegetable + fruit) or steak and potato meal + water.

I could see it also being interesting to make the “vitamins” it’s own food group, like they add to/top off all or most of the cvars, making you eat vitamins just to not have to eat all the food (which already gives water/food/etc bonuses).

Maybe make more “vitamin” types for some long running cvar that you don’t really get from food  (“oh crap, my daily intake of selenium is low! My stamina is cut half!”) 

“Extra food stats” is  an interesting idea, but I’m not sure a lot of people would want to manage it unless it “buffs” attributes like @meganoth states as it seems a lot of people (at least on these forums, Steam forums) want an easier time with the game… but some do not and like more pain/complications/considerations

 

 

[einhinder1]

Perhaps this is a unwanted injection of my personal thoughts but here we go . I personly like this idea, with the thought of carbs vs fats vs protein. carbs = stamina(sugar rush anyone ), fats = health( got pretty far to go before you hit a artery if your hella fat), and protein = dmg resistance( hard to cut though muscle). One could say that a balanced diet would be a proper amount of each, and such would last a day if your were completely inactive for 24 hours( i'll elaborate on that more later). A degrading stat bound to timescale would be excellent for this. You could go as far as making fat have positive benefits to cold protection and healing rate( well established that those who get cancer while overweight survive at much higher rates). where as protein could effect tool/armor stamina usage. with the addition of carbs effecting action speed . related actions would increase the rate at which these daily counters degrade. of course stat bars representing these needs would be required much like water and food. I personally would get rid of the hunger bar as these system would replace rather than enhance the pre-existing system.

 

[Aesirkin]

Thanks, everyone, for your responses.  You've already fleshed this out to a far better concept than my original thoughts!

Couldn't you create a few cvars, to denote each nutrient, lets call them a,b and c ? Then only give a specific buff (like faster running) if a is at least 5, b at least 5 and c at least 10 for example. The buff always restarts after eating anything but only prevails/gives a bonus if all 3 conditions are met.

I was thinking you could do a constant “drain” of these nutrients (start them at 100 at game start, count down each every hour? Or so) where your nutrient stats slowly drop until you eat something to bring them back up.  Maybe hen if the stats drop too far, you add buffs to take away something (stamina/health) or add a screen effect (light blur) 

same cvars idea, just “they run out unless topped up” vs “eat to get the boost”

This sounds great.  I assume there's some way to tie a cvar to a buff, and to do a drain over time?  I'll need to do some research on this.  Any chance you could point me to a mod that does something similar so I could learn by example?

But are you really sure you want this? It would mean everyone having to take 3 stacks of food with him for 3 nutrients and eat them all instead of just one.

I don't think they will if we make it a larger pool that depletes more slowly.  Maybe it takes 5-7 days to dip from full to empty, so as long as they eat a different food each day they'll be doing okay.  And maybe add an extra buff at 90%+ so you can get a little boost for blood moons at a resource cost you can't sustain the rest of the time.

I personly like this idea, with the thought of carbs vs fats vs protein. carbs = stamina(sugar rush anyone ), fats = health( got pretty far to go before you hit a artery if your hella fat), and protein = dmg resistance( hard to cut though muscle).

I really love this idea!  My original thought was just to track how many different foods had been eaten, but tying it together like this could create a far more complex, fun, and in-universe-meaningful mechanic.

of course stat bars representing these needs would be required much like water and food.

This was one of the first questions that popped into my head when reading all the responses.  Is it possible to add additional bars to track stuff?

Also, this could result in a large number of buffs/debuffs and they would really clutter the display.  What would be the best way to handle that problem?

I personally would get rid of the hunger bar as these system would replace rather than enhance the pre-existing system.

That's an interesting thought, but wouldn't that require more invasive changes than a modlet could do?  And would it cause problems with using other mods at the same time?

“Extra food stats” is  an interesting idea, but I’m not sure a lot of people would want to manage it unless it “buffs” attributes like @meganoth states as it seems a lot of people (at least on these forums, Steam forums) want an easier time with the game… but some do not and like more pain/complications/considerations

That's okay for me.  I'm interested in creating something fun for me and my friends primarily.  And adding something to the community for the minority makes me feel good as well.  

The beauty of mods is they're not forced on everyone, so you don't need to make something everyone enjoys; just something some people will enjoy.   

 

[meganoth]

That's an interesting thought, but wouldn't that require more invasive changes than a modlet could do?  And would it cause problems with using other mods at the same time?

the xml system is quite powerful in this regard. But even if some part of it were not exposed to xml you could practically turn off the hunger system by keeping the characters fully feed all the time through automatic buffs instead of food.

And yes, it will cause problems with some other mods. This is inevitable the more you change the system.

 

[Aesirkin]

Just thinking this through more.  Here are the tasks I came up with to make this work:

1. Create several cvar variables
   
       one for each nutrition category (maybe start with protein, carbs, greens?)
   
2.     set to 92 on spawn
   

[*]Decrement cvars over time

1. 
       maybe -20 per day or -1 per hour; whatever is easiest
   
2.     min value of 1
   

[*]Add effects to existing foods that increase these cvars

1. 
       max value of 100
   

[*]Add debuffs/buffs based on these cvars that update as the cvars do

1. 
       -10% associated stat when a nutrition drops below 2
   
2.     -5% associated stat when a nutrition drops below 20
   
3.     +5% associated stat when a nutrition increases above 70
   
4.     +15% associated stat when a nutrition increases above 93 (for blood moons or focused activities)
   
5.     -something when all stats are below a given value?
   
6.     +something when all stats are above a given value?
   
7.     other combined buffs/debuffs?
   

[*]Add ability to track these nutrition values

1. 
       Some thoughts here:
   
2.     Just have to learn what xui is.
   

[*]Prevent UI overload

1. 
       Figure out if nutrition bars should be displayed on the HUD, or just leave it in a subwindow
   
2.     Figure out how to display buffs so that players don't constantly have 3+ cluttering their screen
   

I'm assuming that cvars are some sort of session variable tied to the player that persist from play session to play session; I still need to read up on them.  No idea how to set, access, or use them yet.

Does this sound like I'm on the right track?

Again, if anyone knows of another mod that uses cvars like this please let me know.  I learn much quicker from example than from docs or tutorials.

 

[doughphunghus]

This sounds great.  I assume there's some way to tie a cvar to a buff, and to do a drain over time?  I'll need to do some research on this.  Any chance you could point me to a mod that does something similar so I could learn by example?

I don't recommend using this mod as a good tutorial as its a bit convoluted AND the "infection" system in the game seems "special" to me in how its set up, BUT it does hook into the existing cvars for infection, which naturally "counts up": Doughs-Buff-Infection

Anyway, this mod hooks into the "buffInfectionMain" buff system of the vanilla game ( search for this in the games buffs.xml file) and its a bit convoluted to work out how it works, as the infection logic/buffs/etc is a bit special. So don't look at it and get too overwhelmed

So: the game has a main buff handler buff called "buffStatusCheck01",which I would also look into.  its probably where you want to hook into... maybe for handling the "constant, slow countdown".  Maybe.  I'm not an expert on buffs and tricks so I can be wrong about this.

Additionally: I would also look into the games buffs.xml files at the candies (like "buffDrugFortBites") and of course food ("buffShamChowder", etc) as they're all similar and show how to use a basic buff that just "counts down and works on its own". They all have their own cvars and tie to items so you can see how the items hook to buffs, and also how to display the item status for nutrients.  Example:

item: in items.xml, lets look at "foodCanSham":

<item name="foodCanSham">
<property name="Extends" value="foodCanBeef"/>
<property name="UnlockedBy" value="foodCanShamSchematic"/>
<effect_group tiered="false" name="Food Tier 0">
<triggered_effect trigger="onSelfPrimaryActionEnd" action="ModifyCVar" cvar="$foodAmountAdd" operation="add" value="15"/>
<triggered_effect trigger="onSelfPrimaryActionEnd" action="ModifyCVar" cvar="foodHealthAmount" operation="add" value="7"/>
<triggered_effect trigger="onSelfPrimaryActionEnd" action="AddBuff" buff="buffProcessConsumables"/>
</effect_group>
</item>




Here we see it's extending (building off of) the "foodCanBeef" item, and triggers "buffProcessConsumeables".  Look at "foodCanBeef" and see it contains a lot more properties, all of which are shared by "foodCanSham" (because of the "extends" property in "foodCanSham") *except* those used in "foodCanSham" itself, these properties/effect_group's are special to "foodCanSham". The main point to this is: foods are all processed through the main ""buffProcessConsumeables" buff. look at that buff to see how hey handle eating/drinking an item for health./stamina stats as you're likely going to have to add your own "stats upkeep" here to at least "add nutrients" when an item is eaten, likely by adding to your own cvars you have defined for the nutrients.  this brings us back to the "buffStatusCheck01" buff... check it out again o see how they use this to "add more buffs" when health/hunger/thirst is getting low

For "how to show nutrient stats", look into the ui_display.xml file.  Search for "foodShamChowder" (for example). This shows:

<item_display_info display_type="foodShamChowder" display_group="groupConsumables">
<display_entry name="$foodAmountAdd" title_key="statFoodAmount"/>
<display_entry name="foodHealthAmount" title_key="statHealthAmount"/>
<display_entry name=".foodStaminaBonusAdd" title_key="statFoodStaminaBonus"/>
<display_entry name="dFortitude" title_key="statShowFortitude" display_leading_plus="true"/>
<display_entry name="dDuration" title_key="statDuration" display_type="Time"/>
</item_display_info>




which are the cvars/variables that are displayed when you inspect the "foodShamChowder" item stats in the game. I'm not super knowledgeable on how all of the data here is determined/used/defined, just "item display stuff is in this file". Also: Some of these are "generic" display info, like this one:

<item_display_info display_type="food" display_group="groupConsumables">
<display_entry name="$foodAmountAdd" title_key="statFoodAmount"/>
<display_entry name="foodHealthAmount" title_key="statHealthAmount"/>
<display_entry name=".foodStaminaBonusAdd" title_key="statFoodStaminaBonus"/>
</item_display_info>


which is for "food". I believe? this is used for something that is tagged as "food" in the item IF there is not a more specialized/literal display definition for the item itself (like "foodShamChowder")... for example... "foodCanBeef" (which "foodSmahChowder" extends from has this tag "food" , which is also shared (I think?, some properties do not extend!) by "foodCanShamChowder:"

<item name="foodCanBeef">
<property name="Tags" value="food"/>
...
... rest of XML here
</item>


so basically: the display for "foodCanBeef" will use the "food" display in ui_display.xml UNLESS there's a specific "foodCanBeef" defined in ui_display.xml

SO: Hopefully this can get you started a bit into seeing how things hook together, generally.  but BEWARE! you are wanting to make a mod I'm not sure anyone else has made, so it may be a bit rough to make it all work as you can't easily copy/borrow from someone else's' mod.  It might be quite a bit of trial and error to get something to work, but if you persist (and hopefully others can help if you run into issues) it seem do-able.

This is just a general overview of what to look into. What I haven't covered is how to define/handle/manage your own cvars, which I'm not very knowledgeable on (sorry) so I've left this out as I don't want to make up too many wrong things. Something else not covered is "how to ad all of this to the existing games food/drink".  You might find its worth to not define nutrition info for every thing in the game, but instead to try to make a few "basic XPATH rules to add your nutrients to all edible items in thw game" (like :" add 5% nutrient x, y to all things with food in the name", "add 5% nutrient y and z to all things with drink in the name" to just give most things some low nutrients, then go in and hand select items you feel should have "lots more" of a certain nutrient(s). this way by default all items give nutrients, but only what you bother making exceptions for have "more" or "special ones". This way if the game adds/removes food/drink, your mod likely won't need to change, as well as it might add the basic/default low level nutrients to all items from other peoples food/drink mods.

Also: First I would try to get this to work with a SINGLE food item and a SINGLE nutrient.  Something very simple and basic like "foodCanBeef". Once you can get it all worked out for this, it will be much easier to add more, but I would then do a SINGLE drink item.  Get all the nutrient "counting/adding/subtracting" and effects (stamina debuffs, etc) and display information looking good first.  I've spent a lot of time futzing around on my own mods trying to add too much at once and just burning time   Even thoen I still don't follow my own advice and regret it later!

The Tutorials forum section has a lot of good XPATH info, and likely have some cvar stuff in there as well: https://community.7daystodie.com/forum/39-tutorials-guides/

Good Luck!

 

[Aesirkin]

Thanks doughphunghus; that is some great information!  Much appreciated.

I've made surprisingly quick progress on this.  Xpath is very powerful and very easy; if only there were a 7DTD reference somewhere that would help me look up attribute meanings and possible values easier this would be a breeze!  So my current status is:

1. Create cvar variables
   
   
       one for each nutrition category (protein, carbs, greens)
   
2.     set to 50 on spawn
   

[*]Decrement cvars over time

1. 
       -15 per day
   
2.     min value of 1
   
3.     increase rate of loss above 75 to make powerful buffs possible but expensive to maintain
   
4.     decrease rate of loss below 15 to make avoiding malnourishment easier at the beginning?
   
5.     apply iron gut bonuses? (may unbalance the system)
   

[*]Add effects to existing foods that increase these cvars

1. 
       based on food/drink digestion
   
2.     max value of 100
   
3.     show nutrition info in item table
   

[*]Add debuffs/buffs based on these cvars that update as the cvars do

1. 
       Malnourished is minor debuff, currently slight stamina regen debuff
   
2.     Healthy (50 of all metrics) gives minor boost, currently slight stamina regen buff
   
3.     add buff for each nutrient when above 90
   
4.     other buffs/debuffs
   

[*]Add ability to track these nutrition values

1. 
       Added to character stats screen
   

[*]Prevent UI problems / overload

1. 
       Show nutrition info as integers; not doubles (values currently sometimes showing as decimals with many sig digits)
   
2.     Figure out if nutrition bars should be displayed on the HUD, or just leave in a subwindow
   
3.     Figure out how to display buffs so that players don't constantly have too many cluttering their screen
   

I'll continue to work on it this week.

How do you know if a modlet will require a new game or work with an existing game?  Are there any rules of thumb?  Or do I just try it?

What's a good way to test, not just for errors but for balance?

I may want to rework things a bit eventually.  For now I think this will address my original goals; to maintain a sustainable balanced diet, especially above 75, will require at least four different farmable mats plus meat, while avoiding the malnourished debuff really just requires you to not be starving all the time.  I think there's room for improvement, though, to keep new food items being interesting as the game progresses even after you meet those basic five.

I'd love to add some sort of "variety" cvar that tracks the number of different foods you've eaten (or maybe just basic ingredients) in the past 5 days or something, but can't begin to conceptualize how that'd work yet.

 

[BFT2020]

6. Prevent UI problems / overload

1.     Show nutrition info as integers; not doubles (values currently sometimes showing as decimals with many sig digits)
   
2.     Figure out if nutrition bars should be displayed on the HUD, or just leave in a subwindow
   
3.     Figure out how to display buffs so that players don't constantly have too many cluttering their screen
   

A suggestion for #6.  You could add them to the character display information tab rather than having them on the HUD, to avoid cluttering it up.

 

[poly]

How do you know if a modlet will require a new game or work with an existing game?  Are there any rules of thumb?  Or do I just try it?

If you're adding new cvars it will require a fresh game initially, each edit thereafter should be fine presuming you don't add any other fundamental character changes.

For example, adding protein, carbs etc is essentially adding a hunger system which every new player needs to have. If you add the mod to an existing game it will cause errors.

This might be a useful mod to look at: https://7daystodiemods.com/yakovs-wellness-system/

I'm incorporating something similar to my own mod in my next update.

 

[Aesirkin]

A suggestion for #6.  You could add them to the character display information tab rather than having them on the HUD, to avoid cluttering it up.

That's the direction I decided to go.  I like the idea of maybe having a 2-pixel tall overlay on the health bar or something for each nutrient to help track it, but I can also see that annoying some players who want a stock-looking UI.  And you don't really need to track these things that closely; they don't change often.  So the player information tab seemed like the best route.

I've also set the nutrition-gain buffs to show only in the full list and not the UI.  I may update some others to as well; not sure yet.

So I've managed to complete and test just about all the functionality.  Yay. 

However, I still have one major problem...

In windows.xml I have this:

<configs>
    <set xpath="/windows/window[@name='CharacterFrameWindow']/grid[@visible='{showstats}']/player_stats_entry[string-length(@textcontent)=0][1]/@textcontent">Protein</set>
    <set xpath="/windows/window[@name='CharacterFrameWindow']/grid[@visible='{showstats}']/player_stats_entry[string-length(@valuecontent)=0][1]/@valuecontent">{cvar(cvarANBProtein)}</set>
    <set xpath="/windows/window[@name='CharacterFrameWindow']/grid[@visible='{showstats}']/player_stats_entry[string-length(@textcontent)=0][1]/@textcontent">Carbs</set>
    <set xpath="/windows/window[@name='CharacterFrameWindow']/grid[@visible='{showstats}']/player_stats_entry[string-length(@valuecontent)=0][1]/@valuecontent">{cvar(cvarANBCarbs)}</set>
    <set xpath="/windows/window[@name='CharacterFrameWindow']/grid[@visible='{showstats}']/player_stats_entry[string-length(@textcontent)=0][1]/@textcontent">Greens</set>
    <set xpath="/windows/window[@name='CharacterFrameWindow']/grid[@visible='{showstats}']/player_stats_entry[string-length(@valuecontent)=0][1]/@valuecontent">{cvar(cvarANBGreens)}</set>
</configs>




Which seems to work great.  Except that as math starts getting done on these cvars I start to see something like this:

So, okay, that's technically correct I guess .  The math I do is all to only one significant digit, but I believe cvars are all doubles, which results in these tiny discrepancies that result in numbers like the above.  I'd like to show these either as integers or with one decimal place (ie: 96 or 96.8).  And I have absolutely no idea how to go about this.

Anyone have any thoughts?  My preference would be some sort of display mask in the windows.xml file if that's possible, but I can't find anything that works.  I tried:

<set xpath="/windows/window[@name='CharacterFrameWindow']/grid[@visible='{showstats}']/player_stats_entry[string-length(@valuecontent)=0][1]/@valuecontent">{int(cvar(cvarANBProtein))}</set>




Which just resulted in nothing being displayed.  And:

<set xpath="/windows/window[@name='CharacterFrameWindow']/grid[@visible='{showstats}']/player_stats_entry[string-length(@valuecontent)=0][1]/@valuecontent">int({cvar(cvarANBProtein)})</set>




Which resulted in "int(12.75426)" being displayed.

Having trouble finding any other clues in the default windows.xml file that would help.   

 

[BFT2020]

My guess is that you would need to limit the number of decimel points in the cvar variable you are reporting out.  I looked at the same location as you looked, and health (for example) doesn't add anything special to the variables it is reporting out.

            <player_stats_entry backgroundcolor="[darkestGrey]" textcontent="{playerhealthtitle|once}" valuecontent="{playerhealth}/{playermaxhealth}" />




I bet that where playerhealth variable is defined, limits were placed on how many numbers after the decimal was set.  However, that is far outside of what I have done so far in this game so I am really not much help here.

 

[Aesirkin]

I bet that where playerhealth variable is defined, limits were placed on how many numbers after the decimal was set.  However, that is far outside of what I have done so far in this game so I am really not much help here.

This was a great suggestion; thanks so much!

Unfortunately, playerhealth isn't defined anywhere I can see in the config folder.  I tried looking at coretemp, which is a cvar, but no joy there either.  However, I started looking at all the cvar addition and subtraction methods on buffs and noticed that just about every one (all operations done to variables reporting to display, anyway) were done in whole numbers.

I multiplied every number in my mod so that no more decimal operations were taking place (all additions and subtractions were of integers) and a quick test indicates that may be working.  I'd prefer smaller numbers capped at 100 as I think that's more relatable, but if making the cap 1000 fixes this issue I'm happy to make that trade. 

Going to do some more testing tomorrow, and probably some more tweaking, but I may be approaching completion.

 

[BFT2020]

This was a great suggestion; thanks so much!

Unfortunately, playerhealth isn't defined anywhere I can see in the config folder.  I tried looking at coretemp, which is a cvar, but no joy there either.  However, I started looking at all the cvar addition and subtraction methods on buffs and noticed that just about every one (all operations done to variables reporting to display, anyway) were done in whole numbers.

Probably in the C# code

 

[Aesirkin]

If anyone is interested in trying this out, and in helping me test, I have a version available for download at https://www.dropbox.com/s/wnlppi3wlo9xemc/AesirkinNutritionBuffs.zip?dl=1

Please be sure to backup your game files (including C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\7DaysToDie) before trying it.  Recommended for a new install, but preliminary testing seems to indicate it may work okay on an existing game.  There is an included readme.txt file that explains exactly how it's supposed to work.

 

[Aesirkin]

Anyone happen to try this and have any thoughts, suggestions, or bug reports before I put it up for download?