TrailerParkThor

Especially since the game takes place right after 4th of July in rural Kentucky

Spears are still pretty new give them some time. I'm sure they plan to add the ability to find something like Tall Grass that you can dry. From there you'd probably have to cut it into pieces and twist it into twine. 3 Twine into a rope. Makes sense with the tech level and is renewable like you said. Twine and Leather Strips should be usable in spear crafting, and Ropes should be an alternative to Sheet Rope. Hopefully then they can make sheetropes able to snap while climbing or something.

I agree this could be useful for so many different things. For one, we could put a train or truck horn in a normal horn vehicle just to make it a little louder. I'm sure it wouldn't be added in vanilla, but it would open up modders to add novelty horns to mechanic loot tables. I would love to lure zeds with La Cucaracha! I imagine MP servers could also make use of this feature with emergency sirens for bases.

Romero Zombies by day, I Am Legend Zombies by night. BUMP

Maybe then we can add a different item for fitness gains too? I think a Treadmill could be fun. We need a furniture item for exercise, and maybe this could be the "safe" way to gain Fitness and Sprinting skill

Good idea, but doesn't running already fulfill the advanced fitness need?

I like this idea a lot. Makes the military a threat, without making them some OP enemy force. Instead of risking your health and injuries to defeat them like zombies, you will have to risk good supplies to do the same with the army. I also think what you said about them actually basing up with you would be awesome. Maybe if you have an abundance of food, they will ask your group to be a protectorate of their faction. You would have NPC soldiers guard your HQ, but you would have a tithe to pay. Perhaps having an abundance of food and weapons may prompt them to ask your group to join their faction outright. Giving you access to certain military weapons and vehicles you can't get normally. Imagine having a military doctor or a Navy SEAL sniper on your side.

Like @BentNosesaid, Drying/Smoking foods is the way to go, especially since power will go out quick and you don't want to waste gas on food dehydration. It doesn't take any actual carpentry to make a food drying rack though! All it takes IRL is some sturdy sticks and twine/rope really so that would work in game too. From here I could imagine leaving fresh meat or fish up there for a few days would result in different Jerkies as long as the sun was out. If the meat is already stale, then I imagine it would only dry out safely above a certain temperature and below a certain humidity. If they wanted to take it that extra step, allowing us to craft Salted Fish and Meat to help these cuts stay good longer would be awesome. AFAIK that's all the things around getting Dried Meats. Humanity has been doing it for tens of thousands of years now, it's really a primitive tech level and it makes the meat last 10x longer. I do think it should be locked behind the Foraging skill rather than Carpentry though. Making your own Smoker is a lot more complicated though, and I've never done it IRL but I've used plenty so I understand how they work. I imagine the most PZish way to make a Smoker would be to find a Metal Barrel. From there you would need Metalworking and welding tools, but you could easily just craft that barrel into a Smoker. Maybe they could require 2 grills for the recipe that can be found by dismantling BBQs, Ovens, and Stoves (could be a useful part for redneck car repairs too). Once created and placed, the Smoker would require Charcoal or Logs to be lit, and from there you just put things in and wait. This could be a functional "Dehydrator" of sorts that could dry out anything from Berries to Bananas. I Imagine not everything would have it's shelf life extended by that much. Vegetables, for example, might be better pickled and jarred. I think it would go something like this: Dried Vegetables < Dried Fruits < Dried Poultry < Dried Fish < Dried Meat. Dairy products and bread products can't be dried for obvious reasons. I think this would be a cool progression system and add functionality for the barrels lying around everywhere. Would also make surviving the winter a lot easier in terms of storing up food, but in a super realistic sense that you really need to work your way up to. I think this is also a perfect Build 42 suggestion since I imagine finding a freezer big enough to store 100 pounds of black bear meat will be difficult lol. If we could dry the meat on a bunch of racks and just box up some Bear Jerky to eat during winter, that would be amazing

Well I definitely agree with that! And PZ is one of the worst offenders. I understand the devs have always stayed fast on the fact that they will never simulate the Day 0, but there should definitely be more to Day 1 than just spawning in 3 days after the evacuation with quite literally nothing but a belt, shoes, and the clothes on your back. For one, Character Creation should allow you to select all the clothing and accessories you wish. I never understood why we start with a Belt, but not a Watch? Both are equally useful in different ways and not having a Watch just makes it hard to immerse yourself at first. Either we should get both or neither. Maybe if they made it so we needed Watch Batteries to keep a digital watch going, that would be a better balance to starting with one? Classic ones could need rewinding everyday. Regardless, allowing us to customize more things like piercings and outer layers would just help engage you with the survivor sooner. I understand they don't want to allow every character to start with a Big Hiking Bag, Rain Boots, and a Welder's Mask, but we need more options for customization. Things wear down and break anyways, so it's just a matter of a slightly better start. It also bugs me that you can't start the game during the July 6th Evac day. I usually RP this by just starting that day at 5 PM through sandbox settings and pretend I slept through the army lol. However, this makes for a pretty unrealistic start as suddenly there are just hundreds of undead even though they just evacuated citizens. I understand the vibe they are going for by starting a few days later. You start the game as a survivor who is running low on supplies wherever they are and has finally decided they need to do something. Then you decide what that something is for them. It makes sense and it is a decent hook that doesn't force your hand on anything, but I wish there were more options that weren't just cosmetic date changes. Like I said in my last comment, NPCs will probably fulfill what you are requesting, but I think they could also fill in the gaps here a little too. At least with NPCs, your start could be a little more realistic. Maybe you start on the Classic 7/9, I can imagine that the game would simulate a few people nearby you watch get eaten on the streets through a window. Maybe it could give you a wife or roommate that could be boarding up windows and tell you to go find food maybe. Survivors that start on the Evac Day might encounter a hundred people in the spawn cell all trying to get on a bus or boat or something. Suddenly, zombies come out of nowhere and its pure chaos. Maybe that's why you didn't get evacuated safely! Things like 6 Months Later, or a future Patient/Tourist in Knox Country scenario, would lend themselves well here. Lots of fun story to tell that could get you immediately caring about the survivor you're playing as.

This is one of those things on the backburner until we get to Build 44 and beyond. The devs plan to add persistent NPCs to the game after B43 introduces NPC scenarios and situations. I imagine this could actually even come as early as NPC stories since, as you say, we can just generate a story for the 2nd survivor in a save. However, this will be sloppy and sometimes still not make sense. A much more clean and beautiful fix would be to simply put you suddenly in the control of a persistent NPC who has been doing things to survive that has been tracked by the game. Imagine you are 6 months in and you die in the woods. Suddenly, you are in charge of a woman firing rounds down a dark hallway. You run out the back and discover you are in a hospital where you and your group has been surviving. Now all the sudden, it's overrun and it's on you to try and save everyone. Will you save your group and get out of dodge with your people? Will you round up the important supplies and dip solo? Will you hold up and defend a floor hopeful to secure this awesome base the AI built up for you. Barricades and supplies will already be here for you to use instead of being in an empty base.

Yeah this would be really cool, especially since this would allow them to build off the current character creation system instead of completely starting over from scratch. I think a system that would work well for the game code would be to start off assigning relationships to every zombie and survivor in the game world. The game already tracks a randomly generated name for every zombie in the world, I don't think it would be hard to categorize by family names during worldgen and tag each relative. From there, they could categorize by workplace so coworkers and bosses can be tagged. Finally, tagging a few randomly generated friends that live nearby or work with the character. These last two can be done for only survivors to save on amount of processing required. I imagine players would be able to further specify their relationships by either adding a Spouse, Roommates, or Nearby Family that you could either rescue or find as zombies. Maybe children if old enough for them to be adults. Now the game can spawn the zombies based on where they should be, and can calculate a degree of separation and relationship for every survivor in the game. Then, taking the traits of these survivors, can randomly assign backstory to each trait based on current age. I imagine picking true age won't be practical, but maybe a Young Adult, Adult, Senior system a la the Sims. Maybe we could specify Zodiac sign to further select month. I also think the birthplace should be random like you said, but I also think this should either be selected or left out so we can still RP what we want. Imagine creating yourself and setting up a backstory that you ended up in Muldraugh for some reason then it says you're from Detroit, Michigan! Still I think we would get an incoherent backstory if all blurbs are RNG, so we need a way to tie them all together. I think this should be done with Profession. A Doctor obviously had a decent upbringing and must have graduated med school even if he has a lot of bad traits, but an Unemployed guy probably hasn't had the best life even if he has good traits. So after all that, for your example of Chris Anderson, it would say something like this: Chris Anderson, Adult, Sagittarius, Unemployed (Smoker, Brawler, Runner) Born December 3rd, 1960 (randomly generated) Family - Spouse[X] Roommates [] Siblings [] Parents[] Coworkers [N/A] Children [N/A] Backstory - Negative Childhood - Chris grew up on the streets, and had to rely on his little legs to carry him out of too many hairy situations. [Runner] Adolescence - As a teenager, he started smoking with his sketchy friends. He never was able to kick the habit. [Smoker] Early Adulthood - Since he never graduated school, Chris took up amateur fighting to make some money here and there. [Brawler] Adulthood - Knox Event Old Age - N/A I imagine then that realistic traits and backstory would then be generated for all relatives and relationships so that Chris isn't married to some rich doctor. Then the game could randomly decide if she is nearby and alive, zombified in the bathroom, dead in a burned out office, whatever the Sadistic AI wishes. Ideally, if this was added to the game, the spawn location would be dictated by whatever backstory each entity has. Since we know Chris has a negative backstory, maybe the game can raise the likelihood of starting in a Mobile Home or an abandoned Warehouse/Store. Chris is unemployed, but if he wasn't, he might spawn at work with his boss being eaten by a zombie. It would be very cathartic to kill him. This would allow us to inform the world of the intended backstory and hopefully generate an engaging starting survivor/group for players to then build on naturally through gameplay. I wouldn't be surprised if we get a dumbed down version of the trait system for NPCs, but the devs have said they want them to be immersive and engaging so I imagine only a system like this would work well for creating those procedural characters we all want to see.

Yes, yes, yes, yes. This is one of those ideas that makes perfect sense, but I've never even given it thought. The Hand Scythe functionality alone is a great idea, but the lawnmower is a god tier suggestion. Not only would it make a really annoying part of base maintenance way easier, but also add fun gameplay and progression. Now that Custom Vehicle Model support has been implemented with Trailers, we are one step closer to push vehicles. I've long thought Wheelbarrows, Handcarts, Wheel Trash Cans, Dollies, etc would add so much to transportation and make trading/moving bases more viable. We should definitely add both Push Mowers to that list. It would be really cool if you could actually run over downed zombies with the lawnmower and potentially kill them at the cost of completely shredding their clothes and clogging the system. Maybe survivors would have to use the Electrical skill to repair the motor, probably requiring 3 like generators. I imagine Mountable Vehicles aren't too far off either. Especially if the B42 Animal Update comes with Horses and the like (fingers crossed). Motorcycles, ATVs, Bikes, and Tractors would all be great additions with some opportunities for functionality in other systems. Rideable Lawnmowers would probably be included in this update, and I imagine would need Mechanics instead of Electrical to repair. These mowers could actually knock over zombies at high enough speed and chew them up. This would still cause damage to the machine, but not as much as the smaller push mowers. You would have to be careful though, since you can be grabbed and pulled off/injured by zombies, and the vehicle can be easily swarmed and overrun with only a few undead.

Like MadDan said, armored cars are coming some point in the not too distant future. These are cool ideas forsure. I imagine all the Dash make vehicles would come with a spare tire slot. The Elite and Rancher should even have it appear on the back visually! All the Vans would also support this functionality, with perhaps an extra spare slot on the inside as well. These inside slots could function like normal storage and allow you to place anything, but be perfectly sized for the weight of the Vehicle Type Tire. The outside slots would have to be accessed through the radial menu. As for Radiators, I'm all for it. It's realistic, makes a lot of sense, and adds another resource required for long term car maintenance. Currently, vehicles are pretty OP especially since fuel is infinte atm. Obviously parts and Mechanics skill make things hard, but needing Engine Coolant and Antifreeze would just make them a little harder to keep up with. I wouldn't be surprised if the only reason they haven't added them yet is because they are waiting for Armored Vehicle Mods to be implemented. Radiators damage easily, and having to replace it ALL the time would be more annoying than immersive. Now, if breaking it all the time drove you to getting an Armored Fender or a Snowplow of some kind to protect your radiator and up your DPS when driving, that would be awesome progression. If they do add this, please devs make Antifreeze drinkable like bleach is. With enough of it getting you drunk, but also poisoning you.

Toilet stashes would be rad as hell! I just collect water from toilet with bottle and boil it haha why would you drink directly out of the bowl even if you couldn't clean it??

Maybe easier would be just debuffing different moodles. Drinking out of the toilet should increase unhappiness and have a random chance at illness. Drinking from shower, tub, or washer should increase boredom. Drinking from sink should be neutral. Drinking from a water dispenser should actually decrease boredom ever so slightly as this would be fresh, filtered water. Rivers, lakes, and pools should always be tainted as they already are but no more Fishing from pools lol.

Such a good idea man. Never even thought about this amazing source of water. I think some of this is pretty complicated but I'm pretty sure I understand what you're getting at. I believe the devs plan to add a Plumbing skill some day. The only reason they already added Electrical for Generators/Hotwiring, even though they are a while off from adding real wiring/circuitry/electrical grids that you need Electrical skill to set up. Plumbing hasn't been confirmed, but the system is implied in a lot of ways. You can plumb up rain collectors to water sources, sinks require Carpentry instead of a specific skill, etc. Plumber also seems like a given for a good profession. So I expect something like Water Heaters could be a great feature to the general plumbing system. I imagine they could be the Generators of plumbing. A Level 2 Plumber could pick up and place a Water Heater wherever using a Pipewrench/Wrench, with a chance to break it. Hooking up a water heater to a house would require 3 things, Level 3 Plumbing, a water source, and heat source. A Rain collector above would provide the water, and a propane tank, campfire, or antique oven could provide the heat. This would act as an automatic clean water machine that could then be connected to pipes which would be plumbed up to the rest of the base. Players without any Plumbing skill could also read a magazine to learn how to operate and hook up a Water Heater, however they would have to use what they find where it is since they can't move them. Water as a whole will probably be given an Overhaul before 1.0 as boats, pools, and swimming could all be huge additions to the game. I like the idea of adding a new type of water. Tainted Water would need to be boiled to be drinkable, and the "Cloudy Water" you talk about that you need to put through a charcoal filter (or something similar) to make it drinkable. Devs could also make it so Wells had a limit like Water Dispensers, and once tapped players would need to dig a new well. There could be a high chance for players to dig a well over a Mineralized Aquifer that only gives Cloudy Water. This would mean that some water wouldn't be able to be bypassed by the new Water Heater cleaning system.

I'm on the fence. I don't think it should be hard for a weak person who's good with guns. Perhaps just a weakness modifier to the existing reload skill. The should definitely nerf the Level 0 Magazine loading time. Someone who has never handled a gun shouldn't just be able to eject and insert a magazine from a 9mm with ease. They would definitely struggle and might even fail after a period of time.

Add this to the modders wishlist. This is one of those things that would be better for community creators, but could definitely benefit the vanilla game in future.

@3lackrosenice experiment dude I suspected that running did that, but it's good to see exercising does the same thing but to a lesser degree. I think the system is already pretty realistic, even starving yourself, there's only so fast one can lose weight. probably rename post to obsolete so mods can archive

I hope that this is expanded on in Build 42. They have mentioned that a general Farming Overhaul is being worked on and is planned for the near future. As we can all expect the Animal Update to come with some level of animal farming, it would make sense to squeeze a lot of new crops into the reworked system. I think the main ones the devs should focus on for both realism and utility in the game would be soybeans, wheat, and tobacco. These are 3 of the 4 biggest crops around the real life Muldraugh. Having a renewable source of baked goods and cigarettes would fix some pretty glaring holes in the game as of the current build. Soybeans couldn't be used for much else other than making tofu. This could be good for vegetarian/vegan RP I guess. Maybe soybeans could be used to make cooking oil. This could open up a whole system of frying foods for more nutritional value. Fattening up in the winter has never been so easy. Alternatively, this could be the renewable source of oil that we could use to make Biofuel if the devs ever want to add more fuel sources. Come to think of it, brewing beer with wheat, whisky with corn, and vodka with potatoes would be nice (Renewable Gashohol too). I don't think they should go overboard, but I think Cucumbers and Onions would be another good crop as those are pretty common in KY and add the ability to grow your own pickles. Onions are the backbone of many dishes, so why not? Apples, pears, and peaches would be nice. Maybe eating those fruits would leave a plantable core that has a low chance of actually growing a sapling. The saplings that take would probably grow for 6 months until bearing fruit. Maybe they could take 2 years to reach full maturity and peak fruit growth. Imagine playing on Very Long Farming Time Sandbox settings! These trees would probably give players A LOT of food, and would only bear fruit from June 1 - September 1 like you said. I think they should probably add an orchard or two as prefab farms since it would take a long time to naturally set up a farm. This would be very viable multiplayer, not so much for singleplayer. Making cider both alcoholic and virgin from these would be fun too. Lots of room for different plant diseases and maybe worm infestations also. Grapes are basically a given and Hydrocraft do them perfectly.

Devs plan to expand on helicopter event with NPCs. The whole US Army should have a persistent faction presence in Knox Country upon 1.0 Release. They would act as the rarest, but most threatening enemy survivors of the Knox Event would face. I imagine future iterations of the Helicopter event would either bring them to your location to try and kill you or at least put you on their radar in the worst way possible. These are all fantastic ideas. I always thought of the Helicopter as military, but News honestly does make more sense. I imagine that would still occur around the same time as well, but maybe we can even add a fun easter egg to the game with it. Perhaps if you tune into WBLN news while the event is occurring, you can hear them saying something like, "Let's go to So&So in the Helicopter... I'm here over [Insert Event Location] and as you can see, it's not looking good." Even though we couldn't see ourselves, it would be fun to hear our base location shouted out on TV. My only thought is that the Military Helicopter should actually attract the same size horde, but 12-24 hours later, a military team will show up to try and kill you. This would basically act as a tougher version of the News copter. The news copter should occur occasionally from Day 7-21. The Military Copter should happen rarely from Day 30-90. Humanitarian aid should only happen 1-3 times before Day 90 and it should be hard to secure with NPCs and zombies around. Falling Copter should also only happen one time, not necessarily nearby your character.

Read your other post, but I like this more in-depth version. It acts as a realistic downside to mowing down hundreds of zombies with explosives, vehicles, fire, or guns. You would need to invest A LOT of time into clearing out all the fresh corpses or else you wouldn't be able to return to the location later. It may still be pragmatic to leave them if you aren't planning to stay long, but imagine having to return later and then having to clean up the mess with a respirator. Maybe if the corpses have passed the rotting threshold, they won't be able to be picked up anymore without gloves or something. I also imagine you would get bloody and dirty clothes extremely quickly. Maybe there would even be a special type of tag on clothes worn while handling desiccated corpses. Foul might work. Foul Clothing will act as a rotting corpse while either worn or on the ground. Would need some disinfecting agent and soap to clean. Alternatively, burning the clothing will remove the disease.

Well in real life, Exercise doesn't really burn many more calories than resting does. In fact, 95% of weight gain or loss is dictated by caloric intake. I think Jogging/Sprinting already increases calorie loss in the game, so I think that's realistic enough. It is possible to have a Double Chevron VV thing going on with weight loss too. Try doing laps around a building or track while Jogging and eating lots of Fruits and Vegetables if you are trying to lower your weight fast!

I agree with all of this except that zombies should become stronger. Zombies in PZ are Romero/Brooks lore. That means, they don't have a parasite in their brain or have any need to remain alive. They are dead as a doornail. They will survive years without any kind of food or anything. The only thing that kills them is decomposition, which is already in the game. I think, if anything, the zombies need to become more weak and die off in larger numbers. As you say, the apocalypse wouldn't be about zombies in long term play. Animals will be implemented as you have requested. I hope Wild Boars are added, but we can expect Bears and Wolves forsure. These will be a nuisance in many ways. I do think corpse removal should be more pertinent and deadly, but I wouldn't say that we would need gas masks. PCs are immune to the airborne strain of the virus in the lore. This means we need to treat corpses the same as if they weren't zombified. Enough rotting material will get you sick, but only in the IRL way. Maybe returning to a field of rotting corpses should require this, but idk about all the time.

I agree some combination of numbers 2 and 4 would fit PZ the best. Lots of Number 2ish things are already announced. Animals, NPCs, and Louisville should all fit this category. Currently, you can play as a hardcore combat survivor in a small town, or a farmer in the woods. There is plenty in between, but this is a fairly narrow spectrum. Adding Louisville alone should allow for a new range of playstyle from urban to suburban to rural. It has been mentioned zombie spawns will be fixed when map is completed so that you don't have hordes unrealistically spawning at the Pony Roam-O anymore. This will allow for the range of low loot, low zed areas and high loot, high zed areas to be more extreme. NPCs will definitely create a meta of lone wolf vs trained combat team vs big society, which will all have pros and cons. We don't know how far they will go with animals, but we do know some things are confirmed. Companion animals, hunting, and feral predators. If you remember your first time playing Fallout 3, you know how much value a pet dog can add to a playthrough. Hunting should make it more viable to live a wilderness lifestyle. Wolves and bears would definitely add to the overall threat, but also potentially be a great source of food or protection. Hopefully, we will also see animal husbandry, mounts, and pack animals. These could totally change how players travel and farm, and could open up the world of advanced trading and moving. These announced features alone would push the creativity and replayability to new levels. There's even a cheeky enemy progression mixed in there too. Zombies < Animals < Raiders < Enemy Factions < US Army. I imagine with these systems in place, players would be free to loosely plan out a playthrough beforehand. You could choose to start a game and be a lone Farmer growing potatos and getting milk and beef from cows, hoping to gain supplies by trading with friendly groups. You could be a member of a group of Veterans that want to train and raid gun stores while building up enough firepower to take on the Army and get their elite weapons. You could be a crazy homeless guy with a pack of stray dogs that protect you while you trap pigeons on the roof of a skyscraper for food. Maybe you could just be a mechanic in a small settlement. Number 4 stuff would just be the icing on top in this situation. The Mod, Spiffomon, does a good job of fulfilling this need with fun Spiffo plushies to collect. I've seen others suggest that each town should have a unique item as well. I would suggest maybe a unique machine in each major township. For example, a Sewing Machine in Riverside for making homemade clothes, a Metal Press in West Point to make armored doors and windows, or a Coal Generator in Muldraugh for making electricity. These would not only fulfill more of those Number 2 needs for more gameplay systems to solve problems, but also create a need to plan an op to each urban center so you can collect all these great devices. Since these are the greatest areas of danger, it's fun to kinda force players back into the heat even if they choose rural areas to base up. This could also provide a fun resource for factions to battle and trade over since there would only be one of each on the map. Maybe they could even be randomly generated in different towns so each playthrough is different. I also think adding a collectible cosmetic for each major POI would be nice too. Like a Top Hat and Monocle at the Country Club, Cowboy Boots from the Pony Roam-O, or a Pirate Costume at the Docks. There's a lot they could do here, but it would be fun to have to find the clothes you want to wear. As an alternative, since clothes are kinda important to survival, devs could always add Backpatches, Decals, Posters, and Sculptures to serve as collectibles too.