Hygiene and other ideas


djanico

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One of the biggest overlooked feature in long term survival is hygiene. Hygiene plays a very important factor on overall health. The longer you stay dirty, the easier you are susceptible to bacteria and viruses. In other words.. yes, you do need to bathe! Considering we are carving carcasses and battling wolves, we need to take care of ourselves!

 

My suggestion:

Add the ability to bathe to the game.  On your health/injury screen add a slow buildup of dirtiness... 1%..3%.. 5% etc.  that will take days, weeks (whatever devs feel comfortable).  The longer you go dirty, the easier it is for you to get sick. (catch a cold, flu, fevers, infections, etc) Your character must regularly bathe in order to keep yourself healthy.

Items needed:

Towel: Make towers lootable ingame. You can still harvest cloth from them in inventory, but now you can use em to give yourself a shower.

Soap: Make soaps lootable ingame, found in homes. Have them work like whetstones in such that they degrade over usage.

Bucket: Add a bucket lootable ingame. Buckets can be found in random locations.

 

How to bathe.

Bucket needs to have water filled in. You cannot use snow, you must use clean water, i would say 4L should be enough? or 6?

Soap in inventory and a towel.

You must remove all clothing off your character (you are bathing after all)

Bathing will take around 20-30min? The act of bathing will lower your body temperature as you are wet. So make sure you are nice and toasty before you start.

And tada! you have kept yourself clean and tidy!

 

other thoughts on hygiene:

 

You should also wash inner clothing (your longjohns, socks, toques and sweaters) should also be susceptible to getting dirty as it is in direct contact with your body. You need to wash them and dry them out in order to keep them clean. You need to use the soap and water to wash out your inner clothing. (30min?)  and then you need to hang them to dry. (2hrs to dry?) This could add synergy to indoor activities as you do other things around your shelter while you wait for your clothes to dry off.

 

Other ideas:

Buckets should be used to collect snow to melt, always found it strange i can be indoor and magically make snow appear to melt and boil. Use a bucket to collect snow outside, then use that to melt on the fire.

Pots: Pots should be lootable ingame as well. Pots are needed to boil your water. No pot.. no water, Simple as that.

 

Thoughts?

 

 

 

 

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I am liking this idea.  Having seen a Dirtiness meter in My Summer Car was the first time I needed to clean my virtual ass.

There are bars of soap and bath tubs already modeled so there is some groundwork already in place.

Could hot bathing provide an improved rest benefit as the Herbal Tea?

 

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6 hours ago, Farrgin Ice Hole said:

I am liking this idea.  Having seen a Dirtiness meter in My Summer Car was the first time I needed to clean my virtual ass.

There are bars of soap and bath tubs already modeled so there is some groundwork already in place.

Could hot bathing provide an improved rest benefit as the Herbal Tea?

 

That a good point.. Since there are tubs ingame, its not so hard to model them like the Toilet (water container) but you are allowed to xfer water into the tub.=D  love the rest idea also! Little details like that will add to the game!

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It could be something for late game survival. Minimize infection risk, but at the same time need to risk puting yourself out there.

1. Melting snow enough to do in inside. (Time consuming)

2. Rolling in the snow. (Lower temperature/nude outdoors)

3. Have a sauna ingame. (I would love this)

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How often would a full bath be required though? I mean these days there is data to suggest that we humans have a habit of bathing too often and thus wind up washing away good bacteria. Wouldn't washing one's hands, face, armpits and groin area and letting clothing air out be good enough most of the time? That could be done with a supply of warm water and soap. Also, that would turn soap into a more important item. Therefore, like lamp oil, we would need some way of creating more. Perhaps we could create lye from the ashes of fires?

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13 minutes ago, Captain Obvious said:

Yeah didn't the Victorians bathe only once a year or something?

ha yeah.

I don't think this game needs a washing / cleaning theme just now. There are so many other cool features to add before this. and I think it would suck if your trying to survive and a alert says you need to bath.

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Yeah I like the idea of having to bath occasionally, improving your overall health ,nice idea .I wouldn't want it to become a life or death thing regarding infections thou . I say that because at the moment I'm at 435 days survival and matches are what I think will halt me in the game . I couldn't afford to keep lighting fires wasting matches just for a quick splosh and then there's the wood etc so it would have to be something quite quick like a flannel and soap job . What I'm really hoping for is for the powers above give us the skills to start fires the old fashioned way ... By rubbing two sticks together!! Then there wouldn't be any problems.

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2 hours ago, Captain Obvious said:

Yeah didn't the Victorians bathe only once a year or something?

Yeap.  and most of them lived up to around 30-50yrs. lots died due to infections and diseases. So yeah..  not exactly healthy for you =D

 

2 hours ago, nicko said:

ha yeah.

I don't think this game needs a washing / cleaning theme just now. There are so many other cool features to add before this. and I think it would suck if your trying to survive and a alert says you need to bath.

 

2 hours ago, Richt3a said:

Yeah I like the idea of having to bath occasionally, improving your overall health ,nice idea .I wouldn't want it to become a life or death thing regarding infections thou . I say that because at the moment I'm at 435 days survival and matches are what I think will halt me in the game . I couldn't afford to keep lighting fires wasting matches just for a quick splosh and then there's the wood etc so it would have to be something quite quick like a flannel and soap job . What I'm really hoping for is for the powers above give us the skills to start fires the old fashioned way ... By rubbing two sticks together!! Then there wouldn't be any problems.

 

Thats actually correct, i wouldn't want bathing to be life and death, nor a health spam ordeal, but more as a secondary treatment for overall health. You "don't" have to bathe or forced to be bathed, but it will affect your % chances of catching diseases/infections raising the overall risk factor. So at your convenience it would be suggested to bathe and keep yourself healthy.

 

Btw its already on the roadmap to include primitive fire making skills

http://hinterlandgames.com/the-long-dark/roadmap/

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44 minutes ago, djanico said:

Yeap.  and most of them lived up to around 30-50yrs. lots died due to infections and diseases. So yeah..  not exactly healthy for you =D

 

 

 

Thats actually correct, i wouldn't want bathing to be life and death, nor a health spam ordeal, but more as a secondary treatment for overall health. You "don't" have to bathe or forced to be bathed, but it will affect your % chances of catching diseases/infections raising the overall risk factor. So at your convenience it would be suggested to bathe and keep yourself healthy.

 

Btw its already on the roadmap to include primitive fire making skills

http://hinterlandgames.com/the-long-dark/roadmap/

Exactly fella . Yeah I remembered a mention of a bow-drill ... Good old sticks would do me fine 

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6 hours ago, Captain Obvious said:

Yeah didn't the Victorians bathe only once a year or something?

Actually, that wasn't even what I was getting at. That is not nearly often enough.. In the area I live in right now, the conditions are similar to what the survivor deals with and even when it's not below 30 degrees Fahrenheit, the dry air is enough to make bathing or showering more than every other day or so cause severe dry skin, which can lead to severe itching and cause microbes to be able to get under the skin and cause infection. I actually have to apply lotion to my hands after every time I wash them after using the bathroom or before eating because they are so dry right now. The type of heaters that are in my building don't help either because they cause the air to be even drier. I actually wanted to suggest that maybe 3=4 days to a week between baths/showers might be suitable (many elderly people do this because they are exceptionally prone to dry skin) with regular hand hygiene before meals, and maybe daily face, pit, and groin washings with a rag would suffice.

However there are many other features I would like to see implemented before this became a thing.

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I do like some of your ideas especially shaving your beard ( more for fun this one ). And obviously Ape knows his stuff but I really wouldn't like it to be that in depth in those areas. I know in the real world cleaning And hygiene are extremely important but.. Do I really want to spend lots of time in the game doing it ?? I could think of much more exciting things to do .

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  • 5 weeks later...

A big reason for hygiene is that its an immersion breaker. 

I am not as far as day 400 in game yet, but even at day 50 I am wondering to myself... didn't I find this pair of underwear 40 days ago? and I haven't washed them once! wft?! lol. It kinda bothers me. It will also make it more important to try hang onto all those other clothes that arnt quite as good as my best clothes. It might take a day to wash them, and so having an alternative set would be really useful!

Function of washing us, as well as washing clothes? 

Washing clothes improves longevity. They dont wear down so easily... this is kinda true for real life. Wet, dirt jeans rip easier.

Washing us could help with mental well being, improve resistance to cold and help us recover from illness? The best could be when we get to fix up our places and we could have a BATH!!! OMG! That would help with my cabin fever. In fact, I might get agoraphobia: Spend 24 hours in a hot bath to recover :P

TLDR:

washing helps maintain us in body and mind, and it helps improve longevity of clothing while giving us a reason to keep those less good items of clothing in late game.

 

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A bath?

Do I want a bath in cold non-potable water or in hot potable water?

Assume the bath holds 80 litres and I half fill it with 40 litres of water

Assume also that I am melting snow and boiling water inside.

One litre of non-potable water takes 20 minutes to create while potable water takes 30 minutes. Correct me if I'm wrong but I think it would take 13+ hours for the non-potable bath and 20 hours for the potable bath.

Even a twenty litre bath would take between 6 and ten hours to fill with water. That's a lot of boredom right there.

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7 hours ago, mystifeid said:

A bath?

Do I want a bath in cold non-potable water or in hot potable water?

Assume the bath holds 80 litres and I half fill it with 40 litres of water

Assume also that I am melting snow and boiling water inside.

One litre of non-potable water takes 20 minutes to create while potable water takes 30 minutes. Correct me if I'm wrong but I think it would take 13+ hours for the non-potable bath and 20 hours for the potable bath.

Even a twenty litre bath would take between 6 and ten hours to fill with water. That's a lot of boredom right there.

And that is the biggest reason why I don't think this will catch on. At least not while boiling large quantities of water is so hard.

As far as hygiene is considered the only thing I would like added is hand washing after field dressing game and before cooking to reduce the risk of food poisoning. Even if you don't add soap to the game at least going through the motions of hand washing should confer some benefit.

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You would not heat all the water, and this probably only works in PV because the woodstove there could be kept going without an inordinate amount of wood.

 

Day one: Fill tub with snow. Day two - four: after the snow melts add hot water until it reaches a comfortable temperature, then, enjoy your bath. Before draining, wash your clothes. 

 

It would require way to much wood to do with just a fireplace.

 

 

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10 minutes ago, Lovehandel said:

You would not heat all the water, and this probably only works in PV because the woodstove there could be kept going without an inordinate amount of wood.

 

Day one: Fill tub with snow. Day two - four: after the snow melts add hot water until it reaches a comfortable temperature, then, enjoy your bath. Before draining, wash your clothes. 

 

It would require way to much wood to do with just a fireplace.

 

 

Downside is the OP proposed needing potable water for the bath so just melting snow wouldn't work. Additionally, until dynamic interior temperatures are a thing most of the buildings are below freezing so the snow would never melt.

Otherwise a great idea! In that this would work in real life but can't be simulated (yet) in the game :)

 

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A good bath is definitely worth 17 hours of hard work :P

but in all fairness, it would not realistically take 17 hours to melt enough snow for a bath or to heat it up. But I need you to realise when I am being serious! My stance still sticks with regards to hygiene. We should be able to wash ourselves and our clothes, otherwise it just feels immersion breaking. 

It should not be a win or loose thing like eating, but there should be consequences if you are not hygienic 

 

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wouldn't a sponge bath be the preferred method in this environment? heating a full bathtub seems difficult at best. If they do something with Mental health in this game I could see having the occasional bath as a way to calm nerves or "clean the slate" so to speak. Got roughed up by a wolf or you trying to trade with a NPC and they took a couple of shots at you? Your not going to be okay, but a little personal care can go a long way. Sometimes even tough guys need, pampering.

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