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Build 34 Discussion


f3rret

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RJ wants the main build thread to be for stats, so let's use this one for discussing the build.

 

I don't want to try to overcomplicate things, but wouldn't it be a good idea to throw in a general "nutrients" variable to go along with carbs, lipids and proteins? The jar of vitamins would be an easy way to add "nutrients", and would give them more of a purpose. Spinach would be high-nutrient, and celery would be low-nutrient, for example.

 

Food and nutrition is such a complex thing, it will be interesting to see how this all works out.

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This is going to be a really interesting thread :)

 

I have a nutritionnist degree, and although its not what I do for a living, is a topic that really drives me crazy, specially with all the intentional missinformation flying around to make people eat worst every passing day. 

 

Nutrition itself is a pain in the ass IRL. You really need to pay attention to what nutritients are you putting in your body... In all meals. I struggle with it enough in my life so I'm curious about what level of "realism" will PZ pack in this regard. I'd go for a relatively simple system, based specially on food freshness and variety. As long as you are eating "a bit of everything" you should be fine. Bonus and malus should come from a diet based only on canned foods, or lack of different foods.

 

In game, besides what you can find in the fridges (which eventually rottens, so let's discard those) we have:

 

- Vegetables  (low on carbs, really low on protein and lipids, high in nutritients and fiber)

- Fish (high in proteins and lipids)

- Meat (high in proteins and lipids)

- Insects (high in protein)

- Fruits (high in nutritients and carbs)

 

Basically (IRL) you must consume lipids, you must consume proteins, and you have to control the amount of carbs (specially sugar based) you consume. The carbs are not mandatory, proteins and lipids are (the former builds your muscles and the latter is the basic energy source and its crucial for your internal organs). Carbs help providing energy... but they are not as mandatory as the industry has been telling the world they are. Anyway this topic would get too complex if we jump into these details so let's leave it there :)
 

In my opinion the fact that the player will have to worry about getting sources of protein is awesome. It will give the hunting and fishing skills the importance they should have in a post apocaliptic scenario. Farming is a great source of food and nutritients, but someone living of vegetables only for a long time will for sure present some muscle deficiencies, unless they get access to soy, peanuts and other vegetables with high protein values (which are really not that many, and more importantly, they are not in the game -yet-). Someone eating only canned food would surely present deficits in essential nutrients, leading to all kind of healthy issues, from depression to loss of strenght

 

How could this work on PZ? I picture a system with a progress bar that goes from Low to High in terms of good eating. Each direction gives you bonus or malus.

 

A player would start in the middle of the bar (this could be also based on your traits: if you are a chef, or a nutritionist, or a fitness instructor it would be closer to the "high", and if you are obese, to the "low" area, for example). 

 

The player "level" of nutrition should move slowly, both ways. Meaning that if you have been eating poorly for a month, if you start eating healthy it would take you a similar amount of time to get back to "normal", and double to get to "high", and viceversa. 

 

Eating should affect your basic traits as well: you won't retain your "strenght" values if you don't eat enough proteins. Or you could get rid of your "obese" trait if you have been eating healthy for months.  

 

And this are my two cents for now. Gotta get back to work!

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The only "problem" I sense is that everyone is different. I'm underweight, not massively, I've been worse. I used to only eat cereal and drink tea (lots and lots and lots of tea) and eat plain snacks like either biscuits or I'd eat fries all up to around 17-18 when I went to a dietitian. Then I started eating full dinners, well small ones but I'm eating better now. I was pretty unfit I guess, I still am. Living on those foods for me didn't make me gain anything but I didn't eat as much as some people overweight may eat.

On top of that, I was barely ever hungry. Now I am hungry a lot. It's because I'm eating food which is making me crave more, something the dietitian said.

 

I'm just giving my own personal info, and as others will prove they'll be different. Eating more varied and filling food, like porridge in the morning, toast then with jam then something else like a snack and then dinner and I got hungrier. This was the first time I had a dinner on Christmas (Last year obviously, I was gonna say this year. :P). It's also worth noting we were trying to get as much food as possible into me so I gained weight. Which is damn well hard and I know people think the struggle of losing weight is hard, and even though I can't personally say it is, I know the opposite side and how hard that is.

 

So for a summary: In a real life situation for me personally I'd have survived on simple food, definitely would have gotten sick of eating the same food over and over and if I was starving eat other food (I'm really picky so that'd be hard, I'd rather drink something than eat it. (Smoothies for PZ might be an idea if characters were like this for them to digest easier.) The more I eat the hungrier I got so the search for food and more nutritional food would definitely occur. I was unfit even though I was underweight (to some it may seem obvious, some people think we're able to run miles, or so I thought, I'd get cramps easily.) If it was climbing or vaulting something I was good at it and flexible and I'm fast but tire easily. No idea what can be done with that, but hopefully an insight into that and others diets or life story will help. :P

 

Edit: Oh yeah, my health throughout that time? Um, I was weak I guess, in terms of like lifting something extremely heavy and the only thing that happened was an annoying tingling on my left back because of too much protein  (No idea where I got that from but it sure wasn't from too much meat and fish I can tell you for a fact.)  When I had a balanced diet with more veggies, it went away. So I guess to much protein gives you an annoying tingling which can only be fixed by either sitting the tingling against a chair or vegetables. For me anyway.

 

I know PZ isn't going this extreme, but it's when you see someone else if they post something like I did, you'll see everyone's differences so I'd love to see how it'll work as an "average Joe" type thing with nutrition and the more detailed stuff like mine could come with Thin or the opposite of what comes with thin, Obese.

 
I have a sheet ready for the game side of things I'll be trying in awhile.  (clyde)
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It's not meant to be a huge micro management thing, don't worry about that.

Main concern is calorie, I really want the playuer to have a fear of late-game nutrition, as Ohbal said, only living on 2-3 vegetables will tend to give you bad nutrition, not kill you, but give you some malus (broken bones faster, getting sleepy faster...)

But, a good protein diet could give you significant gain in strength xp for example!

 

But yeah, prot/carbs/lips aren't the big thing, I'm quite sure about my calories system, but I'm kinda afraid of bad other nutrition variable as it'll be hard to manage 'cause: 1) player eat bad in game, they doesn't care only hunger reduction matters, 2) lack of certain food to vary your alimentation (I'm working on new foods btw, pasta, rice...)

 

And last word: OMG OHBAL IM PMING YOU I NEED MORE INFOS :D

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(Sorry for the Off topic here)

 

Hey man, obviously I'm not going to try to give you any advice on what you should do, as I don't know you and as you very well said: everyone is different, and reacts differently to certain foods.

 

However, there is one advice that I give to everybody that comes asking me for tips on how to get healthy: do not eat canned food. Try to eat as much "fresh" food as possible. Nothing (or barely nothing) that comes in a bag is healthy: the industry uses all kinds of shit to make things last for longer and cheat your brain to think is good (aka: sugar). 

 

This could be applied to PZ as well :)

 

 

And last word: OMG OHBAL IM PMING YOU I NEED MORE INFOS  :D

 

It would be an honor. I f'ing love this game, so let me know if there is anything I can do to help! :)

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(Sorry for the Off topic here)

 

Hey man, obviously I'm not going to try to give you any advice on what you should do, as I don't know you and as you very well said: everyone is different, and reacts differently to certain foods.

 

However, there is one advice that I give to everybody that comes asking me for tips on how to get healthy: do not eat canned food. Try to eat as much "fresh" food as possible. Nothing (or barely nothing) that comes in a bag is healthy: the industry uses all kinds of shit to make things last for longer and cheat your brain to think is good (aka: sugar). 

 

This could be applied to PZ as well :)

 

I'm too picky to eat canned food or like pot noodle or shit like that. It makes me disgusted. I'm fairly confident I've eaten a good few full bugs in my food too. But they were tasty, at the very least. :P Salt is my weakness. Anyway, back on topic, thanks! :)

How do I get rid of the second quote? :P

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Few suggestions if you want to make it realistic and fairly simple.

 

I'm not a nutritionist like Ohbal but I was into body building and read a lot on nutrition and at my peak I was eating 6 times a day focusing on clean food, calculating lipid, protein and glucid.

 

II would suggest taking the following item into account:

 

Basic Caloric Burn Rate should be based on your Strenght and Fitness Rating.

 

Right now you burn 11 calories at rest every 10 minutes and 82 calories while running (haven't tested calories while sleeping yet).  These numbers are approximation you know the exact value.

 

Or 66 per hours at rest and 492 sprinting.   Which is actually a bit low.  The athletic, fitness trainer with sprinting 2 should probably be burning at least 700 at the speed he is running.  Being in shape means you can sustain higher level of activities, longer it doesn't reduce your calorie burn.

 

You will have to make a decision if faster running speed means quicker calorie burns.  In real life it does, in project zomboid it doesn't have to.

 

If you want to go with only a pure base value then your 492 calories is good.

 

A full day of rest for an average individual not eating would burn 1,584 calories which is a bit high.  If you don't eat food in a day you burn a lot less calories has your digestive track is not active.   You would fell bad quickly though, especially if you are in good shape and are use to eat regularly.

 

Muscle burns more calories than Fat, but Fat still burns calories at rest.

 

I would suggest the following basic burn rate:

5 calory + 0.5 calory per point of strenght + 0.2 calory per missing point of fitness from max.

 

If you want to change fitness to cardio and have a fat/slim scale added then use that scale instead of fitness, since your cardio capacity is not the same has your fat level although the two often follow opposite direction they are not absolutely the same.

 

So a 5, 5 character would burn 1224 per days if they did nothing.

 

A top strenght, obese character

 

You could then add 600 calories once per day if the character eats that day.

 

This would give you a normal character burning 1824 calories if they did nothing but ate that day.

This character would burn 500 calories running in an hour.  (this is pretty good if running is 5mph and you consider about 150lbs)

 

A feeble, slim character would burn 1320 calories a day if they did nothing but ate that day.

This character would burn 295 calories running in an hour. (this is pretty good if running is and you consider about 80lbs)

 

A strong, obese character would burn 2328 calories a day if they did nothing but ate that day.

This character would burn 705 calories running in an hour. (this one is actually a bit low).

 

Panic and stress should also decrease calory burn (about 100 calories less for the day following getting in panic).  High stress triggers your body survival response which is to preserve food among other things.

 

Of course, high stress should have other effects besides what it currently has but this is not the topic of this discussion.

 

Not sure what protein, fat, lipid ratio you want to shoot for (it really depends on your activity level).

 

Fresh fruit and vegetable should provide you with nutrient which should help protect you from illness and help in long term fatigue and endurance loss.

 

Protein should be needed to maintain high Strenght level and to help with injury recovery.

 

Lipid should help against stress and panic.

 

Glucid should help in short term fatigue and endurance loss. 

 

Junk food should have a negative impact on protection from illness, stress, fatigue and endurance loss.  The negative impact should take at least one week of clean eating to wash out.

 

Processed Sugar and Fat should have a negative effect that should slowly dissipate over time.  Eating bad food once in a week isn't too bad but too frequently and it is.

 

So people might say eating a little bit of junk food and day and the rest healthy isn't bad, but it actually is.  It modifies the bacteria in you intestine which throws off y our entire metabolism and takes a while to properly re-establish.

 

Really like where this game is going.

 

Keep up the good work Robert.

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Forgot to mention, lack of food and stress will favor your body burning muscle and storing fat (again survival mechanism, since for the longest time for human, stress meant lack of food).

 

Also to keep thing simple, 1 pound of body fat could be considered to store 3500 calories.  It is important to note though that has you start starving your body start shutting down and burns fewer calories.

 

Meal frequency should play a factor in the calorie burn.  If you eat one large meal a day you will burn less calories then if you eat the same amount of calories over 6 meal (you will also tire more quickly since your blood sugar level will be low most of the day).

 

On the evolutionary scale, we are still coming out of the caves and our bodies are built for lack of food, not an overabundance.

 

So the above should help you with the caloric level.

 

The protein, lipid and carbs level is a much more complicated topic for burn rate (intake is easy, outtake is difficult).

 

Carbs should be the key factor for energy level and be burnt first.  While you are burning carbs you should not feel too tired.  

 

Once you start burning lipid and protein then your Fitness level should determine how quickly you get tired and how quickly you recover.

 

Fatigue, Carrying weight, Stress, Injury and Health status (whether you've been eating clean or not) should all affect the speed of Endurance recovery.

 

I haven't tested for the impact of carrying too much in the current calory outtake impact but I would use similar ration based on Fitness and Strengh.

 

Now to actually get some play time with Build 34 and provide stats :)

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I would suggest the following basic burn rate:

5 calory + 0.5 calory per point of strenght + 0.2 calory per missing point of fitness from max.

 

If you want to change fitness to cardio and have a fat/slim scale added then use that scale instead of fitness, since your cardio capacity is not the same has your fat level although the two often follow opposite direction they are not absolutely the same.

 

So a 5, 5 character would burn 1224 per days if they did nothing.

 

A top strenght, obese character

 

You could then add 600 calories once per day if the character eats that day.

 

This would give you a normal character burning 1824 calories if they did nothing but ate that day.

This character would burn 500 calories running in an hour.  (this is pretty good if running is 5mph and you consider about 150lbs)

 

A feeble, slim character would burn 1320 calories a day if they did nothing but ate that day.

This character would burn 295 calories running in an hour. (this is pretty good if running is and you consider about 80lbs)

 

A strong, obese character would burn 2328 calories a day if they did nothing but ate that day.

This character would burn 705 calories running in an hour. (this one is actually a bit low).

 

 

The thing with calorie consumption is that varies a lot from person to person. Each one of us has a different metabolism. The weather affects as well, both resting and active calorie consumption (maintaining the body tempterature is the most -passive- calorie consumption function we have) and our body also gets more efficient the more we do something. So for a newbie, an hour of running may get to consume up to 1k calorie, while the same guy after getting used to run marathons will be closer to the 400. On the other hand, males need more calories than females. Do we want to reflect that in game? If we do so, we open the door to jump into strenght or carry capacity base stats based on genre... which I don't think we need (although is a very interesting design idea). 

 

I think your approach of "passive calorie consumption" (what we consume for the shake of being alive, even if we don't move a muscle) + level of in game fitness is a great starting point. This equation would also help defining the amount of food someone uses (which could lead to getting rid of the hearty appetite and light eater traits, what make little sense with this system in place). 

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The protein, lipid and carbs level is a much more complicated topic for burn rate (intake is easy, outtake is difficult).

 

Carbs should be the key factor for energy level and be burnt first.  While you are burning carbs you should not feel too tired.  

 

Once you start burning lipid and protein then your Fitness level should determine how quickly you get tired and how quickly you recover.

 

 

 

Just for the sake of discussion: from a purely scientific approach, fat is the most efficient nutrient to provide energy (1 gram of Fat has 9 calories, vs the average 4 found in carbs or proteins). Also, eating "good" fat will help you burn more fat (how crazy is that?! xD). 

 

Anyway, I will not be getting into "healthy" habits as that would drag us the hell out of the topic. 

 

PS: I knew this thread would drag me. Hope my boss doesn't catch me :)

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You are quite right Ohbal that we have different metabolic rate and some people put on fat more easily and some muscle more easily and some both.

 

I was guessing the current hearty appetite and light eater could change to fast or slow metabolism and just increase or decrease the caloric burn without getting into the complexity of fat/muscle loss.  

 

It's more complex than that but that would probably be complex enough for a good simulation of eating (and a lot more complex than most people pay attention to in real life). 

 

Would be cool if Project Zomboid can help teach some basic principles of good eating.  Adds an educational aspect to an already great game.

 

You are also quite right that body temperature would play a big factor especially shivering in cold weather.

 

I wanted to start with basic calorie burn based on fat/muscle ratio and exercise and build from there on the other dimension of calorie burns based on where Robert wants to take this thing and of course what you would be adding based on your expertise.

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Calory information in Game.

 

Robert I noticed that some food have caloric information, while others do not.

 

Do you want the community to provide you some links with nutritional information for those types of food.

 

For example peas:

http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/vegetables-and-vegetable-products/2525/2

 

Current bag of peas provides about half the calories it would in real life.   I would tweak the value to be closer to real life values.

 

Easier for immersion, quick understanding and actually learning stuff too.

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Unrelated, just need to get your attention.

So can I be testing this in Sandbox mode with different Day length (15 minutes) or do you want info from Survival only?

I kind of want to know because I'll feel sad if my info ends up useless.

Edit: Also, bug reports, Tracker or Build 34 thread? Here's one on the tracker. I ask because of the non IWBUMS nature of this Beta, I'll default to tracker though.

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I was guessing the current hearty appetite and light eater could change to fast or slow metabolism and just increase or decrease the caloric burn without getting into the complexity of fat/muscle loss.  

 

I like the approach, nice and easy :) 

 

This would be another of those traits I'd like to see from a dinamical approach. In the same way as someone "strong" could get downgraded to weak, or an obese into a skinny dude... In PZ world, the metabilism could be affected by the cuantity and intensity of the physical activity, the amount of times (and amount of food per meal) we eat every day, etc. 

 

This could also get an effect on the winter. As you mention before, we are practically one step out of the caves in terms of evolution (by the way I'm a fan of this theory and I use that argument a lot :)) and our body has mechanism to adapt to lack of food. An extended sedentary period, combined with a reduction in food consumption will make your metabolism slower. This would has the trade off of losing strenght and resistance, of course :)

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please review worms and how overpowered and game breaking they are.

 

 

heh, laugh it up, but we may end up basing most of our protein ingestion in insects!

 

Check this out:

 

http://forestandrange.org/modules/behavior/images/insectnutrition.gif

 

Anyway and back to Zomboid... I don't think the problem is the worms themselves, but the lack of real de-buffs to your morale if you are basing your whole diet in them. I have the feeling that may change with this update, so probably gonna get solved.

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Jack the true way to address that is to review sadness and panic (eventual mental health system).

 

The following game change would resolve the worm eating issue.

 

Hopefully mental health would go down when severely panicking or depressed (or maybe just depressed).

 

It should go down like health and at zero the character should go temporarily insane (would get controlled by the NPC engine for a few hours, sanity slowly coming back to about 25%).   This is only because they don't want to put force suicide in the game.

 

Let's focus on sadness first (with the following penalty and the mental health above you would think twice before eating a worm):

 

Feeling a little sad

"Find a way to raise your mood."

-No game impact.  

-First level of negative moodlet normally have no or little impact.  

 

Getting a tad weepy

"Seek some excitement or human contact"

-Should start having an xp penalty about 10% less xp. 

-Interaction penalty with NPC (placeholder)

 

Depressed

"Ravaged by mourning and depression"

-Should have the same effect has slow learner (lack of motivation).  Both should stack but only for the remaining percentage (if they both give 25% penalty they would give 44% penalty together not 50%).

-Should also get the effect of about half sleepyhead.

-Very High NPC interaction penalty

 

Severely Depressed

"Find a way to forget reality"

-Should have a 75% xp gain penalty (should stack with slow learner as above).

-Reading book for learning purposes should be impossible.

-Building things should be impossible.

-Should suffer from sleepyhead (or double the penalty if sleepyhead has been taken).

-NPC interaction should be severly limited.   

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