Dirty / Bloody Clothing Deteriorates + Affects Mood

[Bullet_Magnate]

IRL, clothing that is bloody and/or very dirty for a prolonged time will rot and fall apart. 

 

For obvious reasons, regularly wearing soiled clothing would (for most people) lead to reduced mood.  There could maybe be traits aggravating / reducing these affects.  

 

This would give good in-game reasons (beyond aesthetics and RP) for keeping clothing clean.  

 

Apologies if these functions already exist in-game; if they do, I am not aware.  

[Axezombie]

hemophobic trait (renamed fear of blood for some reason) causes stress which can lead quickly to depression, and maybe injuries are more prone to be infected with dirty clothes (not sure at all about that) but except that there is no disadvantage of wearing dirty clothes and you're right, the vast majority of people wouldn't stand having bloody clothes especially all day long, maybe after a very long time it would desensitize them though.

 

But I feel like it would be really annoying to be forced to have clean clothes most of the time, maybe once a day you would have to get clean or every 2 days, some kind of balance to make it realistic with a new aspect to take care of without being too annoying AND having a way to protect your clothes like by wearing an apron, a k-way or hazmat suit so you have less laundry to do.

[Irken Empire]

 POV: Your clothes became dirty and you didn't wash them!
I agree on the mood part, dirty clothes start to bother me after a while idk how blood soaked clothes would feel in ever day life but this part makes sense, now this:
IRL, clothing that is bloody and/or very dirty for a prolonged time will rot and fall apart. 
Makes little to no sense. Everything deteriorates after a long time

[Bullet_Magnate]

Yes, everything deteriorates after a long time, but poor conditions and care will cause things to deteriorate more quickly.  No, fabric will not dissolve on contact with filth and blood as though being soaked in acid -- BUT unwashed clothing, if heavily soiled with organic matter (like blood), will deteriorate far more rapidly than normal if not cleaned.

 

Blood and filth ground into the fibers of fabric, assuming it is not removed, will begin to rot.  The intimate proximity of this rotting filth to the fabric will soon cause the clothing fibers themselves to begin to moulder and decay (particularly in the case of organic, natural fabrics like cotton).  Over the course of weeks / months, this will cause the affected areas to begin to weaken and essentially start to disintegrate (particularly in areas where the clothing covers occluded areas of the body like the armpits and groin -- as the increased warmth and moisture will encourage growth of mold and bacteria that cause decay). If the article of clothing is worn outdoors frequently in damp conditions (like the fogs and rains common in Knox County), or the user frequently engages in exertion that causes sweat (like running from / bashing zeds), and the garment is never cleaned or dried, the process will be much faster.  Eventually this will cause holes to appear in the fabric, which will expand over time, until the garment ceases to become wearable and basically falls apart / off of the wearer unless reinforced / repaired (assuming it's even possible to fix it at that point). 

 

This could easily happen to, say a heavily-soiled t-shirt that is worn without washing for a prolonged time -- a scenario that's entirely possible in PZ.  How much of an issue it is for a given item of clothing would depend on what its material and usage (cotton t-shirts and underwear would be very susceptible; a rayon jacket or rubberized raincoat much less so, maybe not at all).  

 

Obviously the process takes considerable time, but the devs have artificially accelerated other processes in the game for various design reasons, so the time for clothing to deteriorate could also potentially be tweaked if the devs saw value in it.  

 

I agree with the earlier comment that requiring regular cleaning of clothes would probably not be super fun for a lot of players, so I'm thinking this has more potential as a sandbox option than anything else.  

 

 

Edited January 16, 2023 by Bullet_Magnate
fixing typo