sleepyheaddreams

In the event of any apocalyptic scenario there would be an extreme shortage of medicine for mental disorders.  Your local pharmacy would run out quick and with production and delivery of new medicine halted, there would be a lot of untreated mentally disturbed people running around.
 
Will there be a few nut-case NPCs? Ones that maybe defy logical decisions?
 
Maybe that could be a negative trait for our characters? Causing hallucinations (seeing zombies/NPCs that aren't there), anxiety, depression, etc?
 
Not a major issue, but something that I would think would be cool have implemented.

I've just about clocked my 24th hour on the current IWBUMS build, with 100+ prior plus a handful more from the Kate + Baldspot versions. I'm really enjoying the new mechanics and features so far; the following is a bunch of things I hope to see changed/added. Beyond the list of commonly suggested suggestions (Some of which I will be reiterating), I'm somewhat ignorant of currently planned features and content, so I apologise if any of this already is. Likewise I'm going to ignore developmental constraints and engine limitations for the time being and present everything as I'd like to see it. Where stats and numbers are concerned, in most cases I'm pulling them out my arse for examples' sake.

Anything marked with *, even I think might be too complex to be worthwhile

Sandbox - Weighted "Random" Zombie attributes, and/or zombie type definitions & Loot Rarity options
This is probably the most simple suggestion here, and the one I feel most strongly about so I'll start with it - the customisation options regarding zombies are quite limited. In short, I'd wish for the player to be able to weight each attribute to their pleasing. For example, I could choose for 5% of zombies to have the ability to navigate + use doors, while 10% are sprinters, 20% are blind, etc - making them unpredictable, without having an overwhelming number of zombies with or without X and Y properties.

As for zombie type definitions, you create several rulesets and again, weight them for incidence. For example, my Type 1 Zombie constitues 80% of the population, and I go with the standard lore for them. For the remaining 20%, my Type 2 Zombies are weak, blind sprinters with a hightened sense of smell, but they are unable to pass on the infection.
This could go so far as to be targeted to existing zombie types, eg. the player could choose for firemen zombies to always be strong, police zombies will always have better eyesight, military zombies will always be sprinters etc but I digress.

The same could apply somewhat to vehicles. For example I'd like to be able to set parked cars to either have 0 fuel or 10-100%, and in generally fine condition, but are almost certainly locked and alarmed - While survivor vehicles will be beat up, either out of fuel and/or too damaged to start, and never alarmed

Also, being able to allow zombies to use (melee) weapons would certainly be interesting.

As for loot rarity settings, I'd like to see them further divided; "Weapons" into Melee, Firearm, Ranged, Ammunition ; "Other" into Medical, Crafting, Books, Electronics etc. Food is fine as it is I suppose.


Sound
This was pointed out in another thread, but there's quite a disconnect between the sounds the player hears, and those heard by the zombies. Doors opening and closing are, as far as I can tell, completely silent as far as the zombies are concerned, but early on I remember being very hesitant to touch them because I hear them. For this case, the player could have a toggle to open/close doors quietly, taking longer to do so in the latter case.

More importantly, I find that it's practically impossible to tell how far north/south a sound is coming from, while East/West seems easy enough.

The sound of gunshots seems to travel much further than the player hears.

Sounds produced inside or from behind buildings & obstacles are muffled for the player, but I can't tell if this is the case for zombies. If it isn't, I'd hope that changes.


Firearms - Dirt vs Condition
The most common cause of a firearm malfunctioning beyond mishandling is dirt and debris entering the action, rather than outright damage. Simply enough, firearm condition would take a loooong time to degrade unless they're directly damaged (And the more degraded its moving parts, the quicker it will damage its self) - but firing them, crawling through woodland with them on your person, dropping them and splattering zombie guts all over them would all contribute to increased dirt. At low levels, just water can be used to clean it. But for a seriously gunked-up firearm, it'd necessitate disassembly, cleaning with water and tools, and re-oiling.

If we want to go really into depth with it, as if we weren't already, you wouldn't just be able to duct-tape the working parts back into functionality. Rather, you'd be able to strip the components from compatible weapons in the same fashion as the vehicle mechanics currently work; My M16's bolt is damaged - I need to find (or manufacture, good luck?) another. My shotgun's stock is cracked - That I can fix with wood-glue or duct-tape. Where applicable, mechanics, metalwork and carpentry skill would factor in.

Suppressors
Yes, it's been suggested many times (even by myself) and somewhat definitively shot down, but while I'm here I'd like to reiterate why I think they'd be a positive addition, while addressing some of the misconceptions around them as applied to Zomboid.
To get that bit out the way first: A suppressor does not make a firearm truly silent - far from it. All the mods that include them, to my memory, had them completely nullify the volume of a shot. This is uninteresting from a gameplay standpoint in addition to being almost entirely unrealistic.

So with that said, what is the need for suppressors in the game?
Currently, firearms are in a weird place. In reality, they'd probably be one of the most valuable tools attainable, or at least would appear to be as evidenced by how high novice players especially tend to place them on the priority list. Throughout most of the game however, they're practically irrelevant especially as weapons. If you're in a situation bad enough to warrant their use, firing a few shots is almost always going to make it even worse - the only real exceptions being very remote areas. Ultimately, firearms' utility boils down to them being an on-demand loud noise that can be used to kite zombies away from your intended destination. That is until you've stockpiled enough guns, ammo and if MP/NPCs, people, to use them to clear out the entire cell's worth of zombies that will be attracted to the noise.

How would I have them work?
-* The noise of a shot is divided into two components - The report (The gunshot its self, the radius surrounding the shooter in which the shot is heard) and the bullet (Noise in direction of fire, extends beyond distance of report radius) - To (poorly) illustrate:

- The best suppressor reduces the volume of the report by up to 70%, the distance it travels by up to 60% - dependent on calibre. In other words, the already-quieter and weaker guns would get the most volume reduction;  the louder and more powerful a firearm the less benefit a suppressor would convey.

- *Subsonic ammunition (where the "standard" round is otherwise supersonic) can be used to decrease the volume of the noise generated by the bullet, whether or not it's suppressed - *at the cost of range and/or damage.

- Military/commercial-grade suppressors can be found. Extremely rare, most likely found in military storage/NPCs/zombies - Absolutely minuscule chance of spawning in homes or already attached to firearms

- Several levels of improvised suppressors can be crafted, contingent on Metalwork and Mechanics skills - possibly necessitating a skill magazine too

- *Military/commercial suppressors are caliber-specific. Crafted suppressors are generic until attached to a firearm.

- Suppressors have durability; The more they degrade, the less effective they are (But they will always keep a firearm quieter than otherwise). *The higher the calibre, the more quickly they degrade. A commercial-grade suppressor will last roughly 500 shots before its effectivness bottoms out, while a top-tier crafted suppressor will last roughly 300.

- Using a suppressor increases the chance of a firearm malfunctioning and/or increases rate of firearm degradation/dirt gain through firing. *The more crude the suppressor, the greater its influence on degradation/malfunction/dirt.

Even with the quietest possible firearm, you wouldn't be able to use it with impunity just because it's suppressed - it'd still be heard for a block or two, but toward the edges of that radius it might not be so loud as to overpower everything else a given zombie is hearing. So for more sparsely populated areas as well as the interior of large buildings, using a firearm becomes much more viable beyond kiting - using a suppressed gun in an emergency would stand a much greater chance of getting you out of it without attracting too much more attention.



Bows
In the same vein as suppressors, bows and crossbows would make for an interesting addition; Again there would be craftable and non-craftable variants. Compared to (even suppressed) firearms they'd be relatively quiet and more sustainable in terms of ammo consumption. However, they'd be much more difficult to use than firearms, with generally shorter range - though their relative quietness would allow you to gain more experience in practice. I feel like they could use their own set of skills, but that might be going overboard.

- Short Bows: Short range, low damage, quietest, decent refire rate, low exertion. Crafting requires beginner carpentry.
- Long Bows: Longest range, middling damage, middling volume, slower refire rate, highest exertion. Crafting requires intermediate carpentry.
- Crossbows: Middling range, highest damage, loudest, slowest refire rate, middling exertion. Crafting requires intermediate mechanics, beginner metalwork and beginner carpentry.

Again, the ability to craft them could be contingent on skill magazines. There could be several varieties of each type, particularly amongst "found" ones, each modifying some of those stats. For example a modern composite bow might be a lot quieter, a modern crossbow pistol might be much faster yet do less damage. I don't know much about archery, but I imagine it's even more bottomless pit of possibilities than I'm presenting here.



Vehicle modification & repairs
I won't go too into depth with this one, but it essentially boils down to weaponising and up-armouring vehicles. Create a plow and strap it to the front to reduce slowdown and damage caused by mowing down zombies (And humans!), bullbars to reduce collision damage, weld bars across windows and windshields to protect them (reduced visibility?), metal plating on bodywork to protect components and occupants from firearms. Would require metalworking and mechanics skills where applicable.

I would like to see the ability to repair bodywork- minor dents would only require a hammer, while more serious damage could be patched over with metal sheets and such.
Of course, all that added weight will reduce acceleration, max speed and increase fuel consumption.
To go even further with it, you could frankensetein cars together, eg shove a V8 into a hatchback and become an accident waiting to happen.




Medical & Physiological
I feel like wounds are too easy to disinfect, and antibiotics are a get-out-of-jail-free card should you be unable to disinfect them. I think that for the more persistent injuries you should have to disinfect them multiple times - and regardless, that there should still be a chance of infection dependent on First Aid skill and the quality of dressings, especially if you're still fighting zombies or pissing about in the mud.

As for the zombie infection, again I'm aware it's a definitive "no" for a cure, but I feel like giving the player a death sentence with no way to come back from it kinda sucks. Eating plenty could help delay it, amputation could prevent it spreading (but that's a pretty tall order considering the development implications). Beyond that, I think the best compromise would be a drug that can delay it perpetually so long as you have a supply, necessitating a sorta gun-to-your-head approach in getting your next dose. It'd have to be very rare, but maybe there could be a chemistry skill allowing synthesis of this drug at the highest level, with some difficult to acquire/sustain ingredients - in addition to allowing synthesis of disinfectants, medicinal drugs and alcohol.

I've also found it a lot more difficult to lose weight in PZ than in reality - I've lost 7kg over the past two months, and as soon as I started maintaining a calorie deficit it started dropping - This doesn't seem to be how it works in-game, with some weird long lag period between not eating and losing the weight. There's no real reason a full day of not eating should not result in weight loss.

For relatively minor arm and hand injuries (scratches particularly), I find attack speed is diminished way too much - Adrenaline and the instinct for self-preservation are going to take precedence over keeping such injuries safe in the face of a handful of zombies. I'd rather they diminished accuracy, with only lacerations or anything more serious affecting attack speed.
Also rather than the speed of the entire process being reduced, I think it should just be recovery - so the length of time between swings/stabs stays the same, but there's no delay between starting and connecting the attack.
Having wounds re-open as a consequence of fighting while injured would give this more depth too, though it could possibly be too frustrating.

Improvised Armour & Tailoring
As I understand it the protection system is still in its infancy, but again the depth it could go to is endless.
Improvised armour could be modifications to existing clothing items, or stand-alone clothing items in themselves. Why not both, beyond the countless hours to code it all and create art?
Facetiousness aside, improvised armour would be applicable to each body part that can be damaged. It could be made from all sorts - the heavier the material/larger the piece, the larger the debuffs to movement speed, exertion and/or attack speed dependent on which body part they're worn on, but the greater the protection. So you could be a walking tank but the moment you have to run you're buggered, or you could travel very light and get bitten by the next zombie you encounter, or anything in between.


Ballistic protection
With armoured vests already in the game and NPCs on the way (or already here with Super(b) survivors, not to mention PvP functionality in MP), ballistic protection has a role to play. Most items that can protect against scratches and bites would likely be useless in the face of a bullet - however some types of improvised (if implemented) or found armour might be better than nothing. Eg. a shot to a flak jacket might cause what would otherwise be a bullet wound to be a bruise. Having both entry and exit wounds possible would also be interesting.


Traits
Some traits I think should be able to be acquired through gameplay, especially across in-game years, eg. near/far-sightedness, deafness (esp. if you've been in proximity to firearms being shot). As another example, if you smoke too many cigarettes too quickly, you gain the smoker trait; If you abstain, you lose it (after a long time).
I feel like athletic, strong, stout and fit shouldn't be traits at all beyond defining your character's starting attributes, and from there would be defined by diet and exercise as with over/underweightedness.
Desensitisation could occur after X time in a panic state, with that time lengthened by the Coward trait and shortened by the Brave trait.


Professions
I feel like some of them are quite lacking - they give you a leg up compared to a traitless, professionless character for sure, but I don't feel like they anywhere near fully reflect the experience someone in that given line of work would really have. For example, I'd imagine a combat veteran to be much more than 20% better than the uninitiated when it comes to all things firearm, and to have some experience with construction, greater aptitude for figuring out improvised explosives. A carpenter by trade would be able to make something much more refined than a bunch of wooden planks assembled into the form of a chair

Quality of life/"minor" feature/content wishlist
-  (Toggle to?) Automatically drop vehicle components when removed  - Wheels, brakes, suspension, seats, gas tanks, doors, windows etc.
- Allow queueing of constructions eg. walls
- Allow all interactions with wounds at all times (assuming I have the requisite supplies) so I don't have to wait for eg. a disinfect operation to complete before I can queue up the bandage.
- Almost all clothing items should, imo, provide some scratch and/or bite defence even if it's 1-5%
- Leaving car key in ignition drains battery
- Skill books renamed to <Skill> for Beginners, <Skill> for Intermediates for better sorting
- Maps renamed to Map of <Location> - Annotated maps suffixed with (Annotated). Eg. "Map of West Point (Annotated)"
- Welding mask functions as apparrel face item
- More options regarding meta events, ie. Frequency, cut-off dates etc.
- Generally increase range of firearms - With the Aiming skill given by the Police profession, you can't even attempt a target across a road which I find to be silly.
- Different types of belt with greater capacity
- Ejecting a magazine from a firearm should not immediately replace it if another is available - Eg. I'll pick up a pistol that I intend to throw away to nick its mag, only to load one I was carrying with me into it
- Fix for eating, smoking or otherwise performing animated actions that still allow you to move, the player-character stops every time they change direction.
- Aiming/looking/sneaking should be able to be performed while crouched, instead of standing up to do so.
- Switching equipped items via the belt possible while sprinting, with a chance of dropping it dependent on All Thumbs/Dextrous trait, and Sprinting skill
- Reloading firearms possible while jogging, with a chance of dropping the mag to load dependent on All Thumbs/Dextrous trait and Reloading skill
- Bandaging/disinfecting arms, torso and head possible while jogging, with a chance of failure and/or dropping/wasting the bandage/wipe/disinfectant dependent on All Thumbs/Dextrous trait and First Aid skill
- A proper equipment/clothing UI, similar to the Medical menu instead of sectioning off part of the existing inventory list
- More in-depth categorisation of items, eg. medical supplies, construction/crafting items etc.
- The ability to "Loot/Transfer All in Category" when mousing over a given item in container/inventory
- Ability to change sandbox settings in SP
- Button to leave the current car's key in its glovebox
- Keys spawn for ALL vehicles - but they might be on a zombie on the other side of town - or a different town
- Vehicle cruise control
- Wire Cutters to cut holes in wire fences
- Jimmy vehicle door locks with screwdriver, pry locked doors open with crowbar - high chance of destroying the lock, room for a skill/trait to factor in
- Reading in darkness takes longer, increases boredom gain - at some point it becomes impossible to read
- Reduce exertion of Wood Axe, currently feels more efficient to use regular Axe to chop trees

NPC/Meta/Story events
- Special Forces/Hazmat teams investigating certain sites, analysing zombie corpses, downloading computer data, extracting VIPs and such - If suppressors ever get in, they'd have them, and they'd shoot survivors on-sight. Good loot on them but practically impossible to kill without an army of your own and/or severe manipulation of the zombie hordes - And that's if you even cross paths with them in the first place.
- Helicopter crashlanding - would havefer a decent stock of relatively obscure supplies, at great risk. Could have some more worldbuilding/story items on board. After a given length of time, the wreck could be destroyed and its important contents recovered by aforementioned SF teams - especially if there are survivors of the crash.
There could also be civilian variations, a news chopper for example.
- Injured/imperiled survivor(s) on ham radio asking for assistance
- Survivors intending to rob you, using above as a lure as one option



So, that's a big old text dump. There's probably a lot more I could add to this list that currently escapes me. And of what's already here, there will be a lot that each of you will disagree with, but please do mention anything you would really like before you shoot the rest of it down. But beyond that go crazy, it's a lot more effort for the devs to implement any of this rambling than it is for me to think and type it up.

It depends -- one piece lids are discouraged mainly for safety concerns in the US, outside of commercial usage. Those you can certianly reuse until the lid fails (antique ones were often made of zinc, so they can 'rust' through) or the rubber gasket fails.  Simply making them deteriorate over time and have a higher chance of causing illness (or just rolling the dice on it becoming rotten upon opening) could balance it.
 
A game-y compromise could also be making lids have a high chance of failure past the first usage, accumulating in uselessness after X uses, with current disposable lids. It'd at least add to the gameplay and end some of these discussions, even if it might not be a good idea (or possibly even possible) in real life.
 
Likewise with using commercial one-piece jars (e.g. pickle and jams bought at the grocery store)  -- you can do it, but you're taking more of a risk than using accepted practices. Some jars / lids won't take the canning process. Apparently some Amish do reuse these jars until the rubber-rings fail.
 
Then  you also get into alternatives -- like pickling without sealed jars, wax plugs, and fermentation that aren't represented in the game right now. (And may never be? I mean, the devs eventually have to say "enough." Who knows)
 
As it's a mod though, none of this really matters -- it's a mod, solving a problem that the OP felt needed to be addressed.

It is a more detailed version of what I already suggested before, but it would be nice if food and to extension could be found either in packaged or unpackaged state.
 
Currently, the system is in place, but it's pretty basic – you can find pack of lollipops or individual ones scattered around and egg packets that you have to open to get the actual eggs, and you can also find a box of nails, screws, paperclips, jars or ammo. Mods adding items such as Hydrocraft add more variation to this, and the most notable one was Littering mod.
 
Since nutrition system was added, there is also a "Packaged" flag, that is used to show nutrition for players that don't have the nutritionist flag.
 
There's also jars and cans that have to be opened before preparation as well as things that can be cut to pieces through crafting (Watermelon, Bacon…) or transformed otherwise (cereal, pasta, rice…).
 
However, there's currently lack of consistence and variety when it comes to this and the system could be further improved similar to what Littering mod have. The food could either be found packaged (packaged meat or fruits in shops – with a nutrition table, I suggested that before) or could be found unpacked lying around in houses or trashcans (such as lollipops) – most notable one being cigarettes that are shown as package, but instead are regular cigarettes, always found in stacks of 20 – Littering mod addressed it quite well, however there's more inconsistencies.
 
This basically would require going through items and adjusting graphics accordingly, as some items are represented by a loose item and some as a pack, having some artwork work to do, but would add more variety and style to the game, especially if items are on ground or 3D models. 
 
This would open possibility for more animation somewhere down the line if you would like to add ones for opening packages too  and more items usable in survival – e.g. pickles could leave a jar behind.

Hi, will farming be fixed so that in winter, in frosty weather, it is impossible to grow plants?  Well, or upgrade farming, and add greenhouses in which it will be possible to grow all year round? And greenhouses can also be heated in winter, another reason to use a generator.
 
sorry, google translate

How vitamins currently work has been bothering me more than it should, it's just ridiculous that you can chug them for an instant energy boost. So I was thinking how it could be made more realistic in an interesting way.
 
* Add two internal values (similar to how the game keeps track of hunger and thirst) for the player: vitamins and minerals.
* Add vitamin and mineral content to all food items: Vegetables have high vitamins, meat has high minerals, junk food is low on both, etc.
* If the player doesn't get enough of either vitamins or minerals for an extended time (e.g. eating nothing but chips and soda for weeks) they get tired, weak and more prone to illness.
* If the player gets too much of either by munching vitamin tablets they could get queasy, but this shouldn't be possible by eating normal food.
 
The goal is to give the player a reason to seek out more healthy food, which is also more difficult to find than the candy and snacks that is everywhere and never goes bad. I'm not trying to take a stance against junk food, I just think the game is more fun when you have to go questing
 
* Add caffeine tablets as a game item. Eat these to get instant energy boost
* Eating more than 3 starts making the player anxious, eat 10 and you get queasy, eat 50 and you die

These aren't necessarily bugs, but a lack of implementation
 
I started a game that was set on 'very cold' and 'very rainy' while running the infinite fog and relentless snow mods because i wanted heavy fog and freezing weather all the time for an interesting experience.  For the most part I really like the result but ran into some issues.
 
1- You should be able to acquire water from snow, I was not able to get any water because it was snowing all the time.  It would make sense to be able to collect snow from the ground and/or in a cooking pot, bucket, saucepan etc., then maybe you have to melt it to get potable water.
 
2- In the case of the game I was playing, it was below freezing outside and inside the whole time, sometimes reaching below -50 degrees F with the windchill; it would be really neato if you could drop food items on the ground and the environment would act like a freezer when the temperatures are low enough, keeping them from spoiling
 
3- It might also make sense for the weather/temperatures to effect growing certain crops, i still haven't got into farming yet in this game, but it might make sense to only grow some crops through the winter and some through summer

We can build walls and doors on level 3 carpentry, but there is for some reason not a single way to make a roof for your own base, unless u wait untill level 6 carpentry, build stairs and build a floor on a second story.
 
So...
Can we please get an abbility to build roofs? uwu

With increasing age, I would add a decrease in the coefficients to the speed of acquiring skills and an increase in the starting professional skill.
For example:
20-year-old farmer: +3 levels farming and + 125% to speed of learning farming;
60-year-old farmer: +7 levels farming and + 25% to speed of learning farming, -50% to speed of learning other skills.
Something like this, the numbers need to be balanced, of course.

If you cut off the hands and jaws of a zombie - he loses interest in you. You can carry bags on zombies (in multiplayer it is useful for traders, on RP servers), or find another application.

get a limb amputated due to infection/etc? basic wooden prosthesis should be a option with somewhat slightly more advanced prosthesis being available late game.
wood would work temporarily for lost legs or arms.
i assume you could have a metal spike arm prosthesis for stabbing zombies to death.
but basic wood ones would be good enough.
and if NPC's are added you would need a surgeon/doctor to preform this operation in a adequate room.

I didn't see this in the commonly suggested suggestions.  The title is pretty self-explanatory, but I'd like an option to walk up to a window and right-click "look below".  That way when you're taking a sheet rope down, you don't land on a pack of hungry Zeds that would have been easily noticed if you would have just popped your head out the window and looked down.  Just using the focus button can see out of a window, but not directly below you.  Considering how hard it is to shake Zeds off of you with the new animation, it would be a huge help and I can't see how this wouldn't be realistic from a game-play perspective.

It always bothered me, that there is no real reason to level Electrical Skill beyond lvl 4. (first to hotwire cars, then to move ovens and washing-machines)
 
I thought it would be great to have a bigger Motivation to max out your Electrical Skill, like the ability to detect and turn off House-Alarms!
 
At Electrical level of 5 you would have the ability to detect a House-Alarm, and the ability to deactivate the alarm at lvl 6 or 7. But there would be still a little chance to trigger the alarm accidentally. The higher your Electrical-level gets, its less likely to trigger the alarm, while attempting to remove it.
 
Greetings,
 
luxlime

Just a small little addition that I think could work well for group survival, as well as just some quality of life goodness...

The ability to dish up up certain foods, such as stirfry, onto plates in a similar manner as adding soup and such to bowls.
Then once added in, there would be a slot opened up similar to adding spices which will allow certain utensils to be added which will increase the happiness gained from the meal. Soup will allow for spoons, whilst stirfry and such on a plate or bowl could have a knife and fork added to it. On consumption, the utensils will be returned to the player, perhaps dirty. This will increase the usefulness of the utensils and give you a reason to keep them around, rather than just being disposable last resort weapons.
Eating without utensils while you're covered with zombie blood and dirt could increase the risk of food poisoning by a bit.
 
What y'all think?

A huge portion of the game is spent on organization and looting; there are a few changes that would make that process much more pleasant. These are not quite as fun or exciting as new features, but I believe these would provide a huge boost to the player's experience with (relatively) little work.
 
Namely:
More sorting categories to break up the huge amount of useful items whose category is "Item" Split "literature" into: "learning" (skill books/mags), "literature" (newspapers, magazines, etc.) , and "logs" (notebooks, diaries, sheets of paper) Rename the skill books so that they automatically sort by Textbook/Magazine > Skill Type > XP level  
Perhaps harder to implement:
Ability to rename all objects. This would be quite useful for organizing equipment, tools, and clothing, as well as provide more immersion for things like dolls or favorite pens. It would even help for food if you needed to remind yourself which head of lettuce has been sitting out longer Change "annotated map" objects to include the town's name, i.e. "Rosewood Map - Annotated" Be able to "combine" many more multiple-use items (like how you can take two 50% alcohol wipes and make one 100% alcohol wipes). It'd be great for non-perishable foods, gasoline, etc.

First I would like to get this out of the way. As a meat eater I think the whole conversation has moved into a slightly insulting way. I don't see a problem with a vegan and or vegetarian trait. Although, I also don't really think it's necessary. At the end of the day in crisis situations vegans and vegetarians do what they must to survive or they die. That's the simple fact of the matter. 
 
In my opinion it would be a lot more logical just to use a pacifist trait that adds depression when killing animals. Maybe an animal lover trait that has a negative choice as well as a positive one both with their own individual effects. But at the end of the day the vegans and vegetarians that refuse to eat what they obtain will simply die. It takes forever to farm and unless they stole fruit and veggies but even then it would be contradictory to the whole concept behind vegetarianism/veganism. 
 
At the end of the day it's up to the devs and we should really learn to respect each other and stop putting each other down. This is a perfect example of why some people *still* haven't learned that catastrophe's are only survived by mutual respect and agreement that it's better to work together than fight with each other.

Okay Lucus time now.
 
 
·In Winter      As known to all of us, fallen snow would appear aground now in PZ winter when we play Survival or Sandbox of default climate setting, it proves that the environment temperature had fallen to 0 alre.     But what delight us is that TID already did make plants change as climate changes ingame, some tough all-seasons-growing plants still growing like Pine, but most defoliate n fall in dormancy, including most crops we could farm in PZ, beyond doubts.            Let me give u a for instances,   under growing info of tomato, we know that they would grow slowly even do not bloom with a temp below 15, and already frozen to death below 0 without question.       Now what I mention about is only influence of freezing excessive cold on plant, we could ignore the high temp cause it might be too different to farm under both.      So I suggest that crops stop growing even frozen to death in winter( might be changed in Sandbox settings? ), then most food with a long shelf life woulb be well-used to a large extent, and more fun added.   ·Building Greenhouse        Insane rare food rarity or have holded on for a long-----long time?      What we need is greenhouses that give plants a normal growing environment.( most added function before needed a large project right? Nice work n thank u so much TID.   )        So what a greenhouse can do could be growing crops with warm temps in winter and let them grow well( growing faster, high production or low farming diseases? )in others.  ·a little tip        Hey dudes I dunno what were u thinking bout, but we cant grow most plants esp green plants without light indoor! Well u could explain this before a blackout forever in game, but we actually cant make it after that except they were grown near windows.      A little tiny problem huh?      Anyway, THX for reading.And I hope these were not be mentioned yet.

A very effective strategy in PZ is to get some dirt, and bring it to a secluded roof top, then survive indefinitely.
Or, you know... A floating fortress of anti-gravity. That, uh... Too.Yeah. 100% legit.Anyways:
 
A way to add some realism and balance this out would be for dirt to have a 'fertility' value that a plant draws from when harvested.
Example: you grab a dirt tile from suburbs with a fertitlity of 14. You plant potatoes which offer 30 food points (Hunger reduction = FP) Lets say we divide given hunger by 10 to determine required fertility to grow a stage, giving it 3.
Each time it grows a stage it reduces this value from the dirt's fertility.
There are 5 stages: (From wiki) Seedling doesn't count as a stage which reduces though.
 
1.Seedling (Don't minus for this stage)
2.Young
3.Fully Grown
4.Ready to Harvest
5.Seed-bearing
 
So the total reduction is 12 from 14, leaving 2.
Now, growing a plant in semi-infertile soil will cause it to give far less food, and be unable to produce seeds.
And when the infertility reaches 0, plants have a large chance to fail to grow.
 
How to fix this?
Use fertiliser and/or rotten food to increase fertility. rotten food (Or even un-rotten?) will give fertility based on it's FP. Fertilizer will give a huge bonus (Imagine like +20-30)
or:
Get new dirt, placing old dirt back on grass will allow it to slowly regain fertility over time.
 
Another potential way to go about this is to use a multi-fertility system, where dirt is considered to have (Lets say) 4 types of fertility. Each crop would take a bit from each type (More from some, less from others) and each crop replenishes different fertility's while taking from the others. Allowing a PC to use crop rotation like a real farmer. Though how you would do this in about 6 inches (With generous rounding) of dirt is out of my experience.
 
Now about dirt:
Dirt from different areas should give different starting fertility.
 
Dirt from the suburbs has all of the products from the suburbs in it to start, cleaning products, gardening pesticides and weed killers, car oil, and constantly being washed out into streets (The inherent nutrients can be washed out in rain and drained into sewers instead of into more dirt.) along with many more problems inherent to suburban gardening.
 
Dirt from the woods is better because it has more natural decomposition depositing nutrients, more animals contributing to the nutrients, and fewer pollutants in side.
 
Dirt from a farm would have the highest starting fertility, as this dirt would have all the required fertilization already added, have been tended and kept clean by professionals, etc.
 
And if you mixed dirt types in a bag you would get mixed dirt, better than suburbs but a little less than woods.
 
AND (This part is important) Dirt directly connected to the ground (Grass tiles more specifically) will constantly gain 1-3 fertility per day/week up to their natural max (For that area). This dirt gains more fertility when it rains than on dry days/weeks. Over farming can still deplete this dirt, but it would take a ton of farming in a very short time.
 
And with farming knowledge you would be able to tell a dirt tile's fertility, but even at lvl 1 you should be able to tell when dirt is out of fertility (If for no other reason than just to stop new players from ripping out their hair and blaming the game for why there crops stopped growing for 'no reason')
 
So what does everyone think? I did a quick search, and looked through common suggestions but I didn't see anything.

Currently potatoes doesn't require to be cooked and eating them raw does no harm. In reality, they are slightly poisonous until cooked. Sweet potato is slightly better in this aspects, but so can you get away with eating raw eggs or even meat which all have DangerousUncooked flag set.

I wanted to post about this for a while now, so here it is.
 
Farming currently is very easy, but at the same time tedious. What do I mean? First of all setting up the garden or the fields is very easy and has no real threshold. Just take your trowel and you basically got a field in 2 hours maximum ready to be sown. You take your seeds and sow them and then hope for rain. If you get rain you are set and most likely don't have to do much else. Plant growth is ridiculus for a game that writes "Realism" on its flag and you most likely don't have to water at all as it regularily rains, but even if it didn't it would be too much of a hassle to because of the UI taking you ages to issue order to water each and every plant.
Then when harvest happens you have too much produce to eat and you can't really store it if you haven't got a generator and a fridge and finding glass jars to store a lot of it is uncommon.
 
That's how I currently see it. Here are my improvement ideas. Keep in mind that a lot of them are for the time after NPCs arrive.
 
First of all it should be an undertaking to farm at a scale to be able to live of it. Working on making a piece of land into a field should be a time consuming effort, but also not be click spammy so I have an idea, zones. You know how in most city building games you use your mouse to make farms, stockpiles and such? This concept could also be realised in a load of other ways, but to that later. This would immensly ease the problem of click spam.
 
Depending on the place you are trying to set up the farm it should be more or less difficult to set up. Digging up the former garden of a nice house a few months after the end? Easy, as there are barely any roots and stones in your way. Trying to cultivise the land you and your groups just grubed? Be prepared to go full pioneer. You have to clear out roots and stones, burn stumps to make it easier for you to clear them and generally spend a lot of manpower and tools to make it ready for use. Hoes will be your friend.
 
Then the actual farming starts. Sowing is again made much easier by just using zones your character should sow in. The earth then also should have some saved water in it to help the crops to grow. Then the real enemy starts to appear, weeds. Weeds are a pain in the ass especially if you don't have any weedkillers. Guess what you'll often will do? Rip out these weeds every so often as they would otherwise destroy your crop. This also a time consuming work, which means at least one person is gonna care about them all the time.
 
Fertilising can be done by using commercial fertiliser or better compost from the weeds you gathered, the food waste and so on.
 
So when harvest comes and you don't have the luxery of electricity or that of canning everything there is a solution, the root cellar. You dig it outside and then are able to safely store your food there, just make sure the rats to get to it.
 
Another issue for me is the growth period the plants need. You should have realistic growth periods, which would make an infestation for more interesting and could lead to people actually trying to counter the pests instead of just destroying every infected crop. But I know not everyone likes pure realism so here is an idea:
 
Difficulty of Farming. Likely with reloading there should be an options for you to choose how realistic your farming expirience should be. Going from an arcady feel (current) to full blown realism with you needing a lot of land to sustain your group.
 

The same with the white small fences, c"mon guys, why car crushes on them? Its wooden! It can be destroyed!

This is a very specific suggestion that needs a bit of a back story.
 
So I'm out at the farm with the chicken coop & well and driving on the driveway as nature begins its reclamation.  I start running into saplings to the sound of glass breaking. So I jump out of the vehicle with my newly acquired ax to chop down the tree but the ax does not interact with the sapling no matter what I try. I chop down a couple trees just to make sure it is a not a bug.
 
So my suggestion is one of two:
 
1) Have the vehicle take a small amount of damage and destroy the sapling (preferred-seems a bit more realistic)
2) If the tree is large enough to 'crash' the vehicle, have the ax be able to interact with it.
 
If you go with option #1, I would think driving over a path would keep it rather clear of all growth.
 
 
thanks,
 
lee
 

I read a while back that the devs were thinking about adding deer to hunt, not sure what the progress is on that. I was thinking, there's all these farms around Redwood with chicken coops and other animal enclosures, wouldn't these animals still be around? It would add so many levels of gameplay.

- zombies could attack the animals initially, chasing them out of their enclosures and also causing more noise and disturbance. This could make for great early-game distractions for those who like more zombies but want a slightly easier start.
- the animals would mostly die after a couple of in-game months for lack of food, and they'd get skinnier and provide fewer calories over time. Maybe some could find food and live longer - for example, some could find the corn field near Muldraugh. [This reminds me, why are there so few crop fields like this one? And why do they go rotten so quickly? But that's another suggestion for a Farming overhaul...]
- taming should be an option, depending on Farming skill
- cows will be easy targets for zombies and many won't survive, but those who make it can live off the land forever. They could be easiest to tame but harder to find, and you won't want to slaughter them unless it's an emergency, so they'll only be good for milk. You could "tame" them just by attaching a rope to them, but you'll them have to lead them all the way back to your base...
- chickens could provide meat and eggs but attract zombies in the morning. Breeding would be easier (but eggs are already pretty plentiful). Cereal or popcorn to tame, leave a trail into a wire cage. There'd be fewer chickens in the world initially, but they can't be caught by zombies, just chased away. However they won't last long in the wild (maybe natural predation?)
- pigs would be hardest to find, hardest to tame (you'd need fresh apples or something) and would take longer to breed and then rear, but could potentially have a big litter of piglets. 
- to hunt these and wild animals, you'd have to be either great at sneaking and use a spear, or use a bow and arrow (please add!), but this wouldn't kill them outright. You'd have to track their blood trail, which along with the noise would attract zombies.
- also, future potential for using animal skins to make warm clothes.
EDIT: oh, also - horses?

That's good idea.
It just make game a bit too easy. All you need is empty sack, shovel, bag of cabbage seeds and bucket and you sorted for half year in food.
Setup base on some warehouse roof - 4 plots (that's why sack - to collect dirt) and seed cabbage on changing phase. Bucket outside collect water, after 1st cycle you get enough cabbage to get you until next plot finish. No need of power, if you get bowl you even improve cooking skills and not get debuf from "not fresh" cabbage. Any difficulty, unless in the middle of winter. 
I deliberately stopped starting game like that to give myself a bit more challenge and setup farm when i actually have base (and forbid myself farming on roofs) but still throw away a lot of food now. 
Oh one more thing - maybe some debuf on eating constantly the same food? like you need at least 3 different ingredients during the day or you get "unhappiness"? That might be interesting and force for some more sophisticated setup (or go full metal jacket and introduce carb/protein/fiber need during the day so you have to eat some meat and veggie during day to remove "hungry" debuf? )

I agree, I think the yield and growing time should be balanced, longer growth time, but less yield, with higher calories for each individual veg.
That way when we make a massive vegetable soup we can actually maintain weight, but it wouldn't be overpowered because of the growing time and yield.