Stone and Bone tools?

[Rayde]

May I suggest that a variety of stone and bone tools be included?  Some of the first tools used by humanity were crafted from animal bone and stones.  A fish bone might make effective needle, at least for a time. A stone knife isn't the sharpest, but it's still something. Sharpened antlers can make decent points, albeit not as hard as stone or metal.  Heck, a bear or moose femur would probably make a formidable club without even altering them. 

I think in general stone and bone tools would be either less durable, or slower to use than their modern metal counterparts (though perhaps bone tools would be lighter in weight as well), but could still provide a way to get the job done if ready made implements or a furnace and forge aren't available to the player.  Bone would also give us something additional to harvest from animal carcasses.

While I'm on the topic, perhaps introducing bone marrow, and bone marrow soup would be a good addition as well.  Marrow is very calorie rich and would give the player a reason to harvest and crack open bones even if they didn't need any primitive tools.  

[Mroz4k]

Well, sorry to say, you have brought up an idea that has been around these forums more times then I could dare to guess, and yet, this one is just never going to happen.

First, let's make a very important distinction. Stone tools are not a thing. Well, except maybe a stone hatchet, which would be utterly useless in frozen conditions, as it is more of a blunt kind of instrument, has no real edge at all. 

What you probably meant by stone is actually called flint, and flint tools. Flint tools and bone tools have been suggested by the community many times - for a good reason. Flint has an edge that is often sharper then surgical scalpel. But the devs will not add them. Because while from a realistic point, they make sense, we have to take a look at TLD as a game, too. Games need to provide a challenge. If flint tools and arrowheads were possible, there would be no point to use forge anymore to forge new metal tools. No point to make the trip to the forge, to collect fuel to bring the forge to life, or even to find the somewhat rare tools needed to use the forge. Which would make that part of the game, which is fundamental for long-term survival, irrelevant. As well as removing one of the core challenges of modes like Interloper.

Instead, the tools would be easily accessible without much of the current effort. Even if these tools would be technically worse then the forged ones, the fact that you had the option to craft them before forged tools takes the challenge away.

I am not opposed to the idea of bone marrow soup, that said, the marrow would have to be harvested directly, not in the form of bones which would then be split for the marrow, but straight off the carcass.

Edited April 17, 2019 by Mroz4k

[Rayde]

Ah, well there is game balance.  I just figured, "Hey, I can fish without bait and grab hot pots off the stove without consequences, why not?" XP  It can be tricky balancing realism and game play.  A body fat mechanic would be realistic, but also game breaking I imagine, so yeah.

[Moll]

Flint can be looted in wilderness caves, very rare, excellent whe nyou start in region with no civilisation.

[Mroz4k]

1 hour ago, Moll said:

Flint can be looted in wilderness caves, very rare, excellent whe nyou start in region with no civilisation.

I dont know what kind of reishi tea are you on, but where can I get some?  

Unless you meant flint as in the real life flint. Which I could only say yea to, but not only in caves, can be found just lying on the ground as a rock, too. Thats basically what it is, just a type of a shard-spitting kind of rock, which if worked down can be shaped into the shape of tools.

Why the comment about "excellent when starting in a region with no civilization" - I didnt quite get the point?  There is no item called flint in the game as far as I can tell. And the suggestions you brought up is kinda the whole point why it shouldnt be added - so that players cant craft tools without the use of forge, as that would make forge irrelevant.

2 hours ago, Rayde said:

Ah, well there is game balance.  I just figured, "Hey, I can fish without bait and grab hot pots off the stove without consequences, why not?" XP  It can be tricky balancing realism and game play.  A body fat mechanic would be realistic, but also game breaking I imagine, so yeah.

Care to elaborate? Sounds like it could be an interesting idea. Do you mean some sort of detriment for eating too much/not enough? I could see a benefit to further deter players from lenghty malnutricion. However, not really sure if its even possible to grow fat in survival enviroment... the body in such conditions burns through so much calories, that eating a lot is just about the only way to maintain the posture. But I guess maybe there could be something for overfeeding... 

There was once a suggestion that eating too much food at once would trigger stomach sickness. Which is something Id get behind. 

Then again, the food amounts and the amounts of food obtained from animals are far from realistic as well. Still, I think this could be an interesting idea and discussion to have.

As for fishing without bait - Im pretty sure the point here is to just not be over-complicating game. Id always assume you are fishing with a bait, but the bait is just simply never mentioned within the game.
As for hot pots... not that difficult to do with a rag, a piece of clothes, or gloves on.

[Rayde]

#1 rule of ice fishing...don't EVER mention the bait. XD

But what I mean is that in reality, 1 pound of body fat generally is enough to sustain a person for at least a day, probably more, having about 3500 kcal in it.  Now, our survivor is burning a lot of energy, but we'd still expect body fat to be able to sustain us for while, even under these conditions.

Many players have relative food security too, at least at times.  And it would be realistic to gain some weight during the good times.  But as I mentioned, even having just 10 pounds of extra body fat on you would be about 35000 kcal, enough for several days, even in TLD.  It would be pretty game breaking to be able to store calories in that way.

But then again, it's not like it would be 1 to 1.  Your body wouldn't save calories perfectly.  And if you were running off reserve body fat you could incur a weakness debuff, decreasing your speed, stamina, and weight capacity.  Still though, it would be a trick thing to balance for the game.

[Mroz4k]

Gotcha. I know what you mean. There is the Survival rule´s of 3s.

Average person survives: 3 minutes under water without breathing.

3 hours exposed to extreme weather like blizzard.

3 days without water.

3 weeks without food.

this being the general rule of thumb, not applying to everyone, but most people. 

Thing is, even starving kills you pretty slowly for the ingame... if you were only starving, and at full condition in the beggining, it would take almost 4.5 days for it to kill you since the moment you got into the "starvation" mode. Thats still pretty damn long for a game of survival. Now, with the caloric expense in those crazy conditions, this time to starve to death no longer sounds so insane, if we assume he never replenished any carbs.