Obinhi

Ok so last night I was doing a lot of wood working and I would get over burdened when I would haul logs back to my construction site. This got me thinking, over a few weeks I would get stronger, provided I was eating plenty of protein and getting enough rest. I wonder if there are any plans to put something like this in, if only to try and recover from the 'weak' trait. I want to point out that I think the PC hitting the gym is a bit much, but it would be cool if you got stronger as time went on if you were doing alot of physical labor.

Chemists and the like who make medication go to school for a very long time, earn very good marks, and aren't even allowed to practice their craft without being in a controlled environment. I find the idea that you could simply learn to do it from a book (spending fifteen days reading a single book =/= more knowledge or practice) completely asinine. Same with building most machines. Building simple constructs/tools, like putting together a home-made wheelbarrow or plow, rigging up crude traps and warning systems... These are things I'd expect to be able to actually learn and accomplish from a book. Surgeons typically practice on synthetic organs/patients or cadavers under supervision after many years of college and study. It's galling to think that someone could self teach themselves any type of surgery or drug synthesis through text alone, especially in such a short period of time IN ADDITION to fending off the goo-bags and staying well-fed. And as I've said, arbitrarily giving it a high chance to fail doesn't make it more fitting or suited to the game... If you're making something difficult for the sake of making it hard, it shouldn't be just because you wanted to nerf it so it gets implemented. Ok, first off, I would ask that you get into the following page: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/659/03/ Now, I dont think anywhere I motioned to have the PC go from nobody to master chemical engineer. I am saying that for survival people who get sick will try just about anything to get better. Being sick sucks. Do you know how to cut out an ingrown toe nail? Most likely not, but damn it if you wont try to get the thing out when it starts to get infected. The PC can be a cop/fire fighter. Emergency Responders are all trained in basic first aid and how to do basic life saving tasks. Who here honestly knows how to treat for shock? I would say not a lot of you. How quick would you learn if it was a life or death matter? Pretty damn quick I would say. I am also a bit discouraged buy the argument "If you let people do X, then they will build SPACE SHIPS OMG NOOOOOOOOO" No one is asking for anything that will break the mood of the game. But as the Dev team has also said, they take the Zombie survival guide as just that, a guide. Page 71 bullet point 8: Advanced Medical Kit (must include field surgery implements and antibiotics) So by the counter arguements the dumb ass you are playing as would do what with a med kit? Put the stitches in his pee hole to conserve water? come on. I also would like to mention that my fun is not your fun. I for one do get off on the whole realism thing. I like it to be hard to do things that seem easy. I love it when something that seems like it is not such a big deal kicks me in the nuts down the road. I get the fact that you don't want to play that way, but just because you don't see value in a medical skill or science skill does not mean others wont. If it is implemented in game you never have to use it. At the end of the day the build of the game does not give a lot of clues to what recipes are anyway so you could play the game for years and never know how to build a simple wind mill if you didn't want to. Oh and doing a window tour of Kentucky doth not make you an expert on the state, which is no more or less competent then any other state despite what stereotypes would have you believe. So TL;DR - No one is asking for the PC to be a college level anything by reading a poxie book. What is being asked for is the ability to treat basic ailments and build basic constructs out of available materials to help with basic tasks. The request also asks that one would get better at doing said tasks with time. The request understands that some of the elements of medical and engineering skills could break the game, and suggests ways to bring the skills back into balance ( ie fuel consumption, makes you sleepy, trial and error can kill you ect.)

Not bad points at all rath, I think we'll have to agree to disagree on the PC being special ;D. I want to clarify that my implication of the school was not retention but instead the fact that schools are already in place to provide a base of potential study. Further more there should be one hell of alot of error when it comes to trial and error. I also want to point out that building a fence that stands up to normal weather is not as easy as the game makes it seem, but in the interest of game play the concession was made not to make you dig post holes, mix concrete sink posts and so on. I do want to say that any system should not take away from the core game play of killing zombies, but I will say that my wife is very interested in buying the game because she likes the idea of building additions to the houses and such. She has stated that she would most likely just turn the zombies off.

I dont disagree with the crux of the post, that this may be outside the scope of the game, but I do take issue with the idea that normal guys dont manufacture machines from scratch. First point, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appalachia to quote the article "The economy of Appalachia traditionally rested on agriculture, mining, timber, and in the cities, manufacturing." So at this point I would like to motion that all mention of the common person in the game region would be some how unable to fashion basic, and I would like to stress basic, mechanical devices. Basic electric generators are constructed by spinning an iron rod inside of a copper coil. Transistor radios are constructed out of kits in most american high schools. I for one build a pneumatic cannon out of PVC pipe and pressured it up with a bike pump. The valve and trigger were a standard off the shelf model from the hardware store. My point is, and I don't want to come across like an ass to the non American folk, but here in the states we get a lot of basic mechanical training in primary school. This said it is not so much of a strech to have basic, simplistically written text books on engineering in any high school. I would like to at this point disclose that my high school was Easton High School in Easton Maryland. It has a drafting class that has autoCAD and design classes, as well a a very advanced wood shop, auto repair, and electronics lab. I know that I was lucky in that I lived in a relativity wealthy district, but the basics of the aforementioned classes would be on offer in the local public schools. SO TL;DR Do not underestimate what the common man or woman may be able to do. Next I would like to point out that just by the fact that the PC has survived where nearly every other person has died would in my opinion make them very smart or very lucky, and not at all common or ordinary. Ok so for the second part. I agree with the notion that if medical and electronic skills are put in it must be very quick and dirty, A high rate of failure would need to be a part of it for sure. Electronics could cover basic jury rigging stuff like the above mentioned rigging a car as a basic generiator. Where top level electronic skill would let you build a small wind/water mill for recharging a battery or two a day. The medic skill would be the same sort of thing, the untrained knows just enough not to OD on pain killers if they can read the box, mid levels could identify local plants that can help with minor things. Dandelion is a good example http://www.webmd.com/vitamins-supplements/ingredientmono-706-DANDELION.aspx?activeIngredientId=706&activeIngredientName=DANDELION. It is also eaten and you can make an ok wine out of it. High skill would be reserved to set bones, and be able to diagnose basic ailments. (If you are link averse this is the important segment ) How does it work?Dandelion contains chemicals that may increase urine production and decrease swelling (inflammation) I would like to stress that this should not be like the carpentry skill where you can spam walls until you get the skill up, to get to the highest skill levels you should have to get loads of hands on experience, or there should be a high material cost. Anyway, sorry for the long post but that is my two bits.

Bingo sideways, the reason I used munitions is that's what I do for a living. I also want to point out that the suggestions here should only be taken as idea seeds and not demands and such. Isn't asprin made from willow bark? If that's the case you could have make shift pine killing tea with the full kettle and some willow bark. This would only require reskinning some trees and adding bark as a drop I think. Mind you, I am no coder so there could be alot more to it then that.

I love the cooking pot idea, even if it's only in the game as an Easter egg. I know most people only have kid football pads if they have them at all. Lots of people just rent them for the season. Helmet would be more common but not a whole lot.

I would like to pint out that modern military uniforms ate designed to rip so medics can get to wounds quickly. The only part of my uniform I would take with me are my goretex lined winter boots. An mainly because they are broken in. I like the brad Pitt mag around the arm idea. Also if a jaw can't fit around the arm it can't get full bite force on the location.

sorry, I think you may have missed my point in that the reason I pointed the stuff in OP out is because civilians may not use think about it. I have seen alot of requests for explosives on the fourms, C4 asked for by name. Well Billy the construction worker who stumbles acress the stuff reasonably would not know about the toxic compound. I think that it would be a nice touch if the illness mechanic could be triggered by mishandled munitions. so say you can split the 1 lb block of c4 into 4 equal quarter pound segments. You would need a sharp item to do this sort of the way watermelon is currently cut up. Well the tool you use would then get a toxic tag on it, so if you cut c4 with a kitchen knife and then say cut a watermelon the melon slices would make you sick. I wanted to draw attention to stuff like this because most people don't know and really don't care, so in the situation the PZ plays out people will make basic intuitive choices like why fill my inventory with knives when one will do and said choice could kill them in an unexpected way. Same thing with left over munitions, i would bet money that you would not notice, nor would you care about condition code tags. You would see a damn rocket launcher and shout for joy at the good luck you have. Only when it fails to fire or blows up in the tube will you realize it was left there for a reason. This same mechanic can be used to set traps for the soon to be added NPCs and even multiplayer when that happens down the road. think back to Saving Private Ryan. The part where they were out of mortar tubes but had mortars. The smacked the round on a steel plate to prime them and the tossed them like a grenade. After a few worked as expected one blew up in a dudes hand. I really like when reality rear's its ugly head. As an aside, sorry about the grammar errors, auto correct is killing me. I'm gonna fix my posts when I get to a real computer.

So I have been lurking on the forum for a week or so and I noticed the lack of knock on effects in suggestions. Let me give you an example: c4. So plenty of people like the idea of making explosive charges right? How many people know c4 is poisoned by the manufacturers to prevent people from eating it? The original formula for the explosive would get you high, as soldiers in Vietnam fond out. The DoD got wind of the practice and had the a poison added to the formula that would make people sick enough to need medical attention. The stuff is so bad that if you were to use a knife to cut some c4 to the size you want, and then use the same knife to prepare food you would vomit and crap yourself to death. I love it when hidden surprise death bites me in the ass. Here are some others from the munitions world that bear keeping in mind. tear gas and other crowd control munitions would only mask the dead and hurt you. Tear gas for example works by messing with vision and breathing, two things our zeds don't care so much about. C4 can be thrown and not explode, be lit on fire and not exploded but if you light it up and then throw it hard enough at a wall it will explode. Most mil spec belt fed ammo is packed 4-1 ball/tracer. The rounds are painted to mark them, but people who don't know may not even notice. The first 4 rounds would fire like normal and then you would have your location given away by the tracer. At the same time the tracer can cause fires an is used to correct aim, so its not all bad. almost every military base has claymores, LAWL, and personal distress flares in addition to marking charges and small arms for base defense. Most of it will be deployed in the event of a massive break down of law and order but some of the oldest and least reliable assets may be left over, stuff that may have expired or been damaged. lighting a heavy duty flare indoors with no ventilation is a good way to suck all of the oxygen out of the room, zombies won't care but we might. most modern police and military forces have alot of frangible rounds on hand which are designed to shatter on impact with a hard surface. This is great for training at an urban gun range or responding to a shooter in an apartment buildings but not so good at shooting zombies through doors and walls. Bomb disposal units tend to have alot of ' explosive tools ' they are special 12 gauge rounds and set cord segments that are used for cutting and disabling dangerous explosives. sorry about the wall of text but I love this game and I love the depth of the interactive world. Take the above or leave it but I wanted to throw it out there.

So I got to 4 hours, this is a real pain! Can we submit more than one time?