CanadianWolvie

You don't have to really wait as long as an hour each time, 15 min maybe 20 for the first test. Only 5 or so min for the second test, and 15 for the third. For the forth longer than an hour, maybe up to eight depending on what it is your testing. We were taught an hour for a couple simple reasons: 1) Its easy to remember, and 2) We weren't allowed to take time pieces like watches with us of any kind and with the cloudy sky pouring down on us, shadow clocks weren't really possible. How we judge time without watches is quite interesting and what we think is an "hour" may wildly differ from how long it actually has been. Judging how much time we had left till we no longer had enough light by which to work on important survival tasks become very important, like making sure we had enough fire wood to last for the whole night to keep our shelter warm till it was light enough to go look for more. So you are correct, the timing I gave is overly cautious but in practice works.

I just recently took a wilderness survival course with the Canadian Rangers ( pro tip - starving in the woods soaking wet sucks ) and on the subject of food and poisoning, especially mushrooms, its possible to test if something is safe to eat if you are uncertain with these steps: Take a tiny bit and... 1) Rub it on the back of your hand and wait an hour to see if there is any bad reaction. Bad reaction, wash with water and/or fine ash. No reaction, proceed to step 2. 2) Rub it on your lips, wait an hour to see if there is any bad reaction. Bad reaction, wash with water. No reaction, proceed to step 3. 3) Place on tongue, do not swallow and wait an hour. Bad reaction, rinse with water. No reaction, proceed to step 4. 4) Chew and swallow, chase with water, and wait an hour. Bad reaction, induce vomiting, drink water. No reaction, safe to eat ... ...but don't eat too much, you don't want to lose too much to diarea and what not if you haven't eaten for a while and/or aren't used to the local parasites/bacteria. Now, I understand the need for abstraction in games, so I don't expect this to make it into the game in all its unfun but safe meticulousness but if you might have a menu option in the game where by my character, especially if the character has the background Ranger, tests their food to see if its is not poisonous and/or unfit for consumption, I would appreciate it. Especially since as a player if I didn't have some choice in the interaction with poisons would be quite unfun.

Well, Devs are updating the system according to the post on the Tracker. http://theindiestone.com/forums/index.php/tracker/issue-243-rain-indoors-carrot-radish-plants-water-max-no-carrot-radish-farming/?gopid=571#entry571

I refurbished a storage room at a warehouse into a greenhouse for the express purpose of keeping the carrots and radishes out of the rain. I used a sledge hammer and then replaced the walls with window frames to let the sun light in. With a shovel and a sand bag, I moved dirt on to the concrete in 4x2 sections. I barricaded the window openings ever so slightly so the sunlight could peak in still but I would still have time to deal with a zombie that somehow broke into the compound before it wrecked the carrots and radishes, should such an event take place. And yet, disease still got into the make shift green house somehow. So when I tilled under the disease affected young plants that had managed to get to stage 3/7 growth, whose water I was keeping hovering under 65 and 75 aproximately, so that the disease wouldn't spread, I had to leave to find more farming tools. In this case spoiled milk to make the proper cure for mildew, I already had the cigarettes for the flies, but only one spray can. As I was out searching the nearby abandoned houses' fridges, it started to rain. When I got back, apparently unless the game is rendering it for me, the game treats interiors as exteriors, and the rain had watered my carrots and radishes, even though they were indoors! Damn, damn, damn! Poor plants, they seem to be slowly dying now, I hope I can somehow keep them alive long enough for their water levels to drop... Update: AUGH! Even though I am indoors with these plants, the rain is watering them to 100 and killing the carrots and radishes! And yet, my character is not being rained on, getting dried off in fact. Son of a ... oh well, off to the tracker, I suppose. Build IWBUMS 25 v3 Screen Shot: http://cloud-3.steampowered.com/ugc/3296940386264275466/EDAF06DE684ACE7B4F821B7FCFA33042A0B73D98/

Any of the homes that are "off grid", like the farm houses or cabins would have a wood burning stove to heat and cook in the home. Some would even have smoke houses for the preserving of meat. Any of the fireplaces in the more urban settings are often just gas or pellet burning fire places with ornamental logs, meant more for pleasure viewing than heat and cooking - and often only found in high-middle class or higher income homes. These require electricity to function for the pilot lite. The problems involved with jury rigging a stove or heat source with a metal cannister are plentiful, if you don't properly insulate it sets things around it on fire, especially the floor. If you don't properly set up the air intake and smoke venting with a properly insulated chimney smoke will fill the room suffocating those within with smoke inhilation and even possibly set the chimney on fire. Even already existing wood burning stoves and large brick fire places that you could roast something on a spit or cook hanging it over the fire, if the chimney is not properly cared for by cleaning the soot out, it can set the place on fire. If anything, unless you have the proper skill to pull it off like say the level 4 rain barrel, you're more likely to set fire to things indoors than just piling some dirt/sand in a 3x3 space, even better if its on concrete and has open space above it like a 2 story warehouse area, placing a campfire in the center like a fire pit and not making the fire too big is a far safer proposition. So yes, people in the US would have fireplaces and wood stoves but only in particular cases. Many of the small houses, trailers, and businesses would just have gas or electric heating. Some rare places even have geo-thermal and solar-thermal, more often than not those are heating systems that can found in newer homes in the more rural, well-to-do homes. But this is a game, not real life, so I hope what is done is what is possible within the constraints of development and probably more than a few of these realities can be abstracted with some homes just having a better minimum heat level value perhaps for the purposes of not freezing to death in the winter. That and blankets. Love me some blankets on a cold day.

Er, no thank you? That is to say, there is already bleach and I already don't use that as it has no other ingame use - unless perhaps the game were to add ... other chemicals so that a sensitive explosive could be made to use against zombies, structures, and other players. Since the game has no desire to do hygiene, their isn't much use for the disenfectant use of the household cleaner bleach solution, Sodium Hyphochlorite. There is only one fun way to commit suicide in the game, you're bit or starving and are so hopeless you go down swinging trying to take as many zombies with you as possible.

I know you are all focused on the topic of a player tripping but I would like to change the subject... ...to tripping zombies. How fun would it be to tangle up their legs so you could get away? Quick, toss some crap on the ground, maybe it will slow em down long enough for you to get away! Or just a right click > toss stick. I am definetly in agreement with a zombie tumbling over a fence or through a window, as I am sure you can tell. But how about crafting some a couple sticks, twine and say a couple of empty glass bottles for a trip wire alarm, that they get tangled up and the glass clinks noisely, that we place across a entrance? That would sound like fun and something I would actually do in a hypothetical zombie apocalypse. You know, on top of the snare traps for some food. I don't think bear traps would be all that helpful though but maybe punji sticks would be. But I suppose this is probably covered by a thread about traps, eh? Oh well, traps that trip, think about it ... please.

Strange thing for me when I read this thread was ... doesn't this game already have RPG elements? Hmm, I'm a little shocked I am asking this but Benw, have you played the older isometric Fallout games? And if that isn't your style, there is the FPS RPGs that are the newer Fallout games (New Vegas was a lot of fun). The reason I mention these games is because they have zombies of a sorts and all the other ideas you brought up too while being a type of sandbox as well, it might be your thing and you don't have to wait for it to be developed, you can probably even get it on sale too on Steam or Good Old Games.

Thank you, I am glad it is on their list of things to do, I will be over here waiting patiently. Been watching their development for a while now when I first heard about it through a PC Gamer podcast IIRC, I first started using Desura pretty much just because they got on it and I am glad they are on Steam now and MP is being tested (with friends). They've come through so much

Thank you and sorry I didn't post to the already existing thread which for some reason I didn't acquire in my search of the forums. I searched for "Raingear" "Rain Jacket" , whoops, should have searched for "rain coat". So again, thank you for the link. Should I re-post in that thread too?

Where I live, it rains a lot. And it comes down sideways. But that doesn't stop us from going outside. We don't get soaking wet and catch a deadly cold, even though the temperature and wind chill can be pretty nasty, like hypothermia levels. Why? Because in our rain forest area along this stretch of coast on Vancouver Island, we use Rain Gear. So when I am in the game and a light drizzle is keeping my character indoors instead of carrying on, I find this rather immersion breaking. Because even the poorest of us around here can jury rig some rain gear with a few plastic garbage bags or even grocery bags with a hole for the face as a rain poncho that keeps us dry and warm in our core while our pants, shoes, and hands get damp. But first chance I had, I got water proof boots, a rain jacket, rain pants, a dry sack for my hiking pack and ziplock bags. Heck, my rain gear is even tear proof, accidentally had a drill slip and run across in once on a construction site and it just had a few nicks and a broken zipper afterwards that was a easy enough fix. And a proper rain poncho has a great second use as a small tent cover. So, my suggestion for the game, there be durable warm rain gear jacket, pants, and boots in the game that even acts as a bit of protection from zombies if it is of high enough quality, and the ability to jury rig a rain poncho out of a few garbage bags and perhaps some duct tape if it needs more than that - and that it can be torn when moving through trees, over a fence, through a broken window, or the most obvious culprit in this game, a zombie attack (grab, claw, bite, etc).

I came to the forums wondering about more bladed weapons than the axe and kitchen knife, if they were in the game or going to be added to the game. Because eventually that axe is going to break and I don't want my skill to be useless. I would think with all the forests around the towns that people would have more axes in their homes *shrugs*. I found this thread using the forum's search. And I see the swords are out in full swing, especially the ever popularized Katana. But why are the more obvious tools / weapons not posted about? Machete - I have found this to be abundantly useful in my Canadian Ranger work, great for making shelter and fire materials out of the dead fall and boughs. A very durable blade, lighter than my axe, good length and very dangerous if not used with safety in mind in the wet bush around this Vancouver Island rain forest. Heard about a surveyor that lost a few fingers that way when they weren't minding their feet and stepped in a root depression and their hand slid of the wet handle and down the blade when they tried to use it as a cane to correct their stumble. I would be shocked if this tool wasn't available with all the forests around Maldorough and West Point. Cleaver - Definitely goes through bones and should be common enough in kitchen's of any respectable cook. Sure it won't have the reach but it should be a damn sight more durable than a kitchen knife and won't have to be used in a piercing manner. Entrenchment Tool aka Folding Shovel - For more than just digging a hole (to shit in), many are designed these days with a sharpened edge and other designs for saw, axe, and even combat work. Some even come with a can opener. Survival / Combat Knife - I make good use of this, great for making feathered kindling, magnesium shavings, and getting the spark off my striker into the "bird's nest" in the fire notch to get a fire going even in our wet enviroment. The sheath is great for holding just about everything I could need to survive for a few days and in a nice light weight package. Would be far more durable than a Kitchen Knife, that's for damn sure. Hatchets and Tomahawks - Lighter than a Fire Axe but no less useful. Perhaps slightly less damaging and a shorter reach, but just as durable if not more so since there are some great designs where the head is continous right through to the handle. That's where most axes break anyways, not the head but just below it where the handle fractures with the grain in the wood and snaps off or the wood contracts and the axe head just slips off. Come to think of it, the Park Ranger character background, I would think that would have some axe bonus as well, not as big as the Fire Man but something. And some sort of camp fire and tent building bonus. Hmm, that's all that comes to mind at the moment and if there is another thread I should have posted this in, my apologies, I hope you will direct me to the appropriate place to post and discuss this.