Making clothes out of wool

[Skap]

As I was making myself a pair of deer skin pants I started thinking, wouldn't be great if we could make our own clothes out wool instead. Considering how warm and light it is(compared to the clothes made out of hides) it would be perfect. What if when we found an item out of wool we could unravel it and then knit or even weave it to make something else, something better. Or maybe we could have random ball of yarn spawn here and there that we could use. 

I've grown up in norway and we could easily get -20c(sometimes down to -30c) up here so I know very well how effective this stuff is when fighting the cold.  And it remains warm when wet to so it's ideal for the climate we face in the long dark. 

I know very well there's good wool clothing in the game but not so much in interloper and custom modes with low resources, and I thought it could be quite fun if we could make our own clothes that way. 

So any thoughts on this? Is this something you'd like to see too or am I being completely unreasonable? 

[stratvox]

If you're interested, I posted about this a while back here: 

Take a peruse and let me know what you think... though of course in the final analysis it's all up to Hinterland.

[Skap]

On 3/1/2018 at 11:12 PM, stratvox said:

If you're interested, I posted about this a while back here: 

Take a peruse and let me know what you think... though of course in the final analysis it's all up to Hinterland.

This is more or less exactly what I was thinking, you just gone way more in depth than what I have. I kinda agree with the guy who commented under that it kinda goes under mending, but not quite. So maybe it could be a secondary skill like sharpening and cleaning. 

[TheEldritchGod]

Unfortunately, what you are discussing is an age old problem: Game Balance vs Realism.

Oh yes, we want the game as detailed as possible, but on the other hand we don't want to waste the player's time making them hunt down a thimble. it make make far more sense if we were forced to collect water bottles and fill them up. Empty containers could be useful. We'd collect old milk jugs, etc etc etc.

However, would that level of detail be FUN?

As for clothing, I have to go with the current game mechanics of "cloth". It's simplification of a process that is very complex. The purpose of the cloth and repairing of clothing is not because it's "realistic", but because it creates a bottle neck and a threat. If you have no cloth, your clothes will eventually becomes useless. If you have no leather, the gauntlets will eventually go bad.

So this is countered by making hides into clothing. So, over time, some items can be maintained, others cannot. Yes, it doesn't come up often, but I have looted entire maps, had to go back, and then discovered that I had not a single shred of cloth on that map.

The addition of every new material, if it does not significantly add to the game, is a danger. Every additional level of complexity threatens the entire system. There will come a point where every addition to the game is not only impossible to predict, but WILL destroy game balance. So, the addition of Wool, while sensable and thematic, also adds another layer of complexity that doesn't bring anything to the game.

Leather brings "toughness". Hides bring their own unique clothing. What does "wool" bring? That's the question. Wool is just another form of cloth. It serves the purposes of cloth. It's just cloth. Like scrap metal is both screws and sharp edges and round pipes, so too is "cloth" burlap, synthetics, wool, cotton, upholstery, and silk. This is why an entire coat can be reduced to 2 cloth. Trust me, I have taken leans and done far more with one pair of jeans then just made one square of cloth.

So the assumption is, you get "usable" cloth. That your cloth is not one type of cloth, but a "collection" of cloth ranging from Denim to Lycra to Silk To Wool. You have an "assortment" of cloth types and you can then use those cloth types to do things. So when you repair something, say, tear apart a pair of socks to repair a military coat, it's assumed you aren't actually doing that. You've just accumulated a collection of different types. Yes, that's not what actually happens, but for the sake of brevity, we make this assumption and just move on. The suspension of disbelief does not require us to have wool and other various types of cloth.

If Game balance is King, then Suspension of Disbelief is Queen.

The addition of Wool must be an item that makes the game more balanced and/or gives the player something new that previous objects did not give the game. However, it must also avoid breaking SoD. If you add wool, then you must add silk, because why is there "wool" and then "cloth". It draws attention to the the issue. I dunno if you have ever been to a party where everyone was singing and having fun, then someone with ACTUAL TALENT started singing. It throws the utter lack of talent of everyone else into sharp contrast.

Ever seen a movie with bad actors, but with one GOOD actor? In many ways, the one good actor provides the sharp contrast that makes the everyone else look even WORSE. If all the actors had just been bad, then the movie would not draw as much attention to the horrible acting. This is why most old horror movies avoided big names. Uniformity in skill is better then a number of different tiers of ability that call out how bad things are, when they are bad.

We can, as humans, accept any sort of bullshit, as long as it's consistent and internally logical. The addition of "wool" breaks up the internal consistency of the game world and thus results in a breaking of the suspension of disbelief.

For example, I can accept that I am being relentlessly attacked by wolves. On an island. That held at least 3 different communities, that would have, logically wiped out the native wolf population on the island years ago. And the deer population as well, more then likely. I can buy it. It's just part of the setting. However,

The fact that the door to the bridge on the Riken CANNOT SWING CLOSE BECAUSE THE CAPTAIN'S CHAIR IS IN THE WAY, that drives me utterly insane. There are unlimited mutant wolves on the island, but that door makes no god damn sense. And why doesn't a single bathroom have a door, ANYWHERE on this island? Yes, we cannot go into the basement of a single house from a door on the inside. I can accept that. Earthquake shook the island. Basements are a bad place to keep things. It's only mechanicals down there. Why code it? Nothing but DB bloat.

But nobody has a house without a door to the bathroom. Nobody. Sorry. Nobody has a home with the door to the bathroom removed. Ever. That makes no god damn sense.

The addition of Wool then leads to the question, "Why don't you break down the cloth object into all sorts of textile groupings?" And the answer is, "An unneeded and unnecessary addition of complexity that takes away from the game play."

If they want to add more stuff, Hell, let me make crude shirts out of cloth. I should be able to sew together a t-shirt. NOTHING MORE COMPLEX, but a T-shirt should be do able. I'd like to make a leather balaclava. I want to be able to make myself look like leather face. Leather is rare enough in the game that allowing the player to make something for the head slot out of leather would be acceptable. Also, give it a WICKED fast decay rate. The scarcity of head gear is a major balancing factor for game play. It makes players hoard those hats. Still, a leather balaclava shouldn't break the game.

Stuff out of stones would be nice. However, if we must insist on a new material, there is only one logical new material that could be added: Bone.

The addition of Bone would give players a number of options, like a Bone hammer. You can really break some stuff with a thigh bone. Maybe you could throw an uncurred bone to distract wolves. You could allow someone to use cloth and bone to add extra armor value to various clothing items, at the cost of weight and sprint speed.

Of course, then you ask, "Why not metal inserts into my clothes?" And the answer would be, sure, but I'd make the warmth value drop like a STONE. Metal is excellent for wicking heat away from a body. That would be on top of weight and sprint reduction.

And, of course, I really REALLY want to wear a moose skull as a hat.

Any rate, those are my thoughts on the addition of "Wool". Sorry if this comes across as a little harsh. I rather like this game and I only wish the best ideas to be used in it. Feel free to present any counter-arguments you might have. I'm not totally against the idea, but as it stands, I see no merit in the addition of that material at this time.

 

-Bob The Eldritch God.

[morgellons]

I'd love to be able to craft higher quality wool items in Interloper... there is so little warm clothing it would make a huge difference. That said, I tend to agree with the poster who replied to the other thread saying it would add too much complexity and threaten balance.