Clothing Strategies: Layering, Drying, Effects [POLL]


SteveP

Clothing strategy  

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I wanted to open up the topic of clothing strategy for discussion. As you may be aware, in certain scenarios, the weather conditions continue to deteriorate as the game progresses. I am curious about what your strategies are to cope with this. I don't have time to build a list of all the clothing items possible however I'm curious especially about footwear. Foot wear often gets wet in real life whereas under cold conditions, your parka will often stay very dry. You can get wet by sweating but this is more of an inside out concern. Does anyone know if sweating is a thing in the game? or if it is on the timeline or proposed wish list?

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Since I don't have enough recent experience nor information, I felt I needed to add options for not enough information/experience. Is there any way to tell how effective it is to dry clothing by the various methods? Does it just dry automatically? What are the effects of having wet clothing? Can they be quantified? I just don't know; I do know that it was very frustrating at times to try to move, probably because my clothing got wet. I also don't know if clothing stops getting wet when the temperature drops.

I don't know if sweating affects your clothing.

There seems to be little way to tell so I wonder if Hinterland can shed any light on this interesting subject.

Are you guys frustrated with this feature? I know I felt frustrated when I did not understand what was happening and had no way to tell (prior to the latest release that is) I know that in the prior release, my character was very very slow at times.

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Wet clothing, from what I understand, just makes you a bit colder and increases the risk of hypothermia should you be below 100% freezing condition.

I find that if i've fallen through weak ice or something, best method I have of dealing with it is to get a fire going, and take everything off while i'm sitting like on top of the fire. In all honesty, not really frustrated with it. Wet clothing can come about when its snowing (which makes sense, since if you're giving off body heat, the snow on you will melt thus wet clothing), but I find it takes absolutely no time to dry if you're indoors or have access to a fire.

As far as i'm aware, sweating isn't a thing in the game. I've played something like 600+ hours, and the only time i've found wet clothing to be a problem again, is during heavy blizzards, or after having fallen through weak ice. Again, i've never been hindered by wet clothing.

Also, i'm pretty certain different types of clothing have different waterproof levels. But again, this is just from observation, and couldn't tell you if it's completely true or not.

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3 hours ago, SteveP said:

Do you have to keep the clothing near the fire for it to dry? How long does it take under various circumstances? And for the various articles of clothing? Do boots, for example, take longer to dry? Or a heavy parka?

Good questions.  I decided to run some tests to find out.  I stood outside the farmhouse in the snow and got my clothes wet and/or frozen.  Then I went inside and passed one hour at a time, checking the wetness of my clothing.  Here are the results.  (126 = 26% frozen)

58f4946b69a45_DryingTestSheet.thumb.JPG.d90d2967df0947ea7cebcfecd3c0e3b3.JPG

58f4946dc4634_DryingTestGraphs.thumb.JPG.045f91db83b23b73130b673943e96b56.JPG

58f4946f4b696_DryingTestMittens.JPG.d0709948cb3228fca16b42405243e152.JPG

Note: I omitted the test wearing clothes and sleeping, because the results were identical to wearing while passing time.

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@Timber Wolf Graphs! You're my hero!  @StevePI have noticed that the air temperature does seem to affect how quickly things will dry and that in FM my boots will get wet even when nothing else is. And if you have the wrong layers on the outside your encumbrance can dramatically increase and/or you lose warmth bonuses.  So as an example fleece mittens really are useless when wet, wool sweaters get heavy but keep the warmth bonus.  But a better option would be to have something with a higher waterproofing on the outer layer and wool on the inner layer.   I've also noticed that you can get wet clothing even during a "light" snow.  If your items get frozen you lose your frostbite protection.  Which is how I lost a toe in FM while hanging in a snow shelter.

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@Timber Wolf really good stuff - thanks!  I think I knew all of that except two things you say in the caption of the image:

Quote
  1. Outermost layer of each section counts toward ... Sprint
  2. Frozen pants and boots decrease sprint 6% more

#2 is good to know, thanks.  My question is about #1: could I wear a Bear Coat as an inner layer with no effect on sprint?

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58f4afa3a0fa6_ClothingSystem.thumb.jpg.6043a0001d2933fa872338048c617d50.jpg

Nope, you didn't learn anything new!  :P  I was a bit quick on the draw.  All of the torso and legs layers count toward sprint.  I have revised the image.

Quote

My question is about #1: could I wear a Bear Coat as an inner layer with no effect on sprint?

Otherwise you could get away with this!

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Nice graphs, @Timber Wolf! Thanks for sharing!

I personally usually don't worry much about clothing layering or wetness, simply because frostbite doesn't feel like a threat to me at all*. I try to wear more water-resistant clothes on the outside and that's pretty much it.

If I happen to see that some of my clothes are getting wet (>50% hardly ever happens anyway), I fix it by spending a few hours indoors. Never had to light a fire or anything similar so far and I doubt there are many situations in which this may really be necessary. However, lighting a fire in such situations certainly adds to immersion and roleplaying aspects I guess. ;)

*I have never ever managed to really contract frostbite (only the warning, but never the real affliction), not even during multiple attempts when I tried to get it on purpose. So I guess that's where my "minimum effort" attitude regarding frostbite and clothing wetness is coming from. Why would I worry about getting something by accident that I don't even manage to get if I try really hard...

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4 hours ago, Timber Wolf said:

58f4afa3a0fa6_ClothingSystem.thumb.jpg.6043a0001d2933fa872338048c617d50.jpg

Nope, you didn't learn anything new!  :P  I was a bit quick on the draw.  All of the torso and legs layers count toward sprint.  I have revised the image.

Otherwise you could get away with this!

Gotcha.  It was fun to dream about while it lasted :D

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Yeah, I don't worry much about clothing layering, stats, or drying. As it is, there is no real granularity. You just wear the warmest clothing you have that doesn't reduce your sprint/carry weight. Until there are more choices in the clothing system it remains really simple.

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I'm still trying to understand the system. Don't really have any clear strategy yet...  but I agree it  doesn't really look to have a ton of different variables: get water and wind-resistent clothes on top and try to maximize warm and minimize weight on the rest. 

I still strugge to understand the amount of weight in clothes I need to pack since the resolute outfitter udpdate... Current clothe weight would only make sense when they are wet. Otherwise it feels weird, I'm having a hard time going down the 8kg of clothes. This feels quite forced and unnatural, but It could be that I just need more time to adjust to the change.

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@Timber Wolf Those graphs are unreal mate!

16 hours ago, SteveP said:

Do you have to keep the clothing near the fire for it to dry? How long does it take under various circumstances? And for the various articles of clothing? Do boots, for example, take longer to dry? Or a heavy parka?

I find they take roughly the same amount of time, and even fully soaked I find my clothes dry within an hour next to a fire. If i'm indoors, i'll generally just get a quick fire going, drop the clothes next to the fire, and sleep for an hour and they seem to be fine.

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On 4/17/2017 at 8:03 AM, Scyzara said:

If I happen to see that some of my clothes are getting wet (>50% hardly ever happens anyway), I fix it by spending a few hours indoors. Never had to light a fire or anything similar so far and I doubt there are many situations in which this may really be necessary. However, lighting a fire in such situations certainly adds to immersion and roleplaying aspects I guess. 

Hmmm, maybe that needs tuning? I know damp boots in real life take a long time to dry  unless you can prop them over a heat register or hang them near a wood stove.

Drying wet socks by a fire is something I've had to do a few times; it's fraught with peril. Synthetic socks tend to melt.

Now if I had a clothing iron I could heat on the stove, that is the very best way to dry wet clothing in the real world.

It seems like the ski jacket has definite advantages; best weight to warmth ratio and it dries out rapidly.

I think my early frustration was related to the implementation prior to the clothing release where it happened but we didn't know why everything was suddenly so slow at moving.

So what I am hearing, is that it's not frustrating but it's also not much of a factor or concern. Should it be an important game concern? Does it make the game too procedural and mechanical rather than dynamic and interactive? As a strategic game player, I like that aspect; I'm not sure that is a universal feeling. I know certain players and play styles tend not to think about numbers of things nor review their inventory slowly and carefully at times. Maybe that's a function of recording her/his videos. Not saying any names but it's not hard to guess who my favourite you tuber is! ;-) Personally, I do like to pause and review things so the game clock tends to make me feel pressured to just do it. I feel that survival should be a deliberate process with only the occasional heart-pounding crisis!

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How quickly do the various options for boots get wet? Do the deer skin boots get a lot heavier when wet or are they pretty water proof?

Is there a consolidated reference for the insulation and wind protection of clothing on the wikis? If something gets wet fast does it then dry fast? or dry slowly?

Does the game need to make this aspect more important in order to have game value? In other words, are things way too easy right now?

It seems that people just tough it out, slogging from base to base without concern for fatigue. In fact, there seems to be a trend to desire more fatigue in order to get around the problem of needing to heal after starvation by sleeping for a long time. Shouldn't fatigue have more of a penalty rather than a benefit? Is this why clothing wetness is not a concern?

I was wondering if we should have another poll and if so, what questions need to be settled.

Thanks so much for your inputs! Great work @Timber Wolf! I was wondering if there is a constant rate of drying per Kg of clothing weight or if boots dry slower since they get really soggy. I find in real life, wet boots take a very long time to dry out and also need to be water proofed again after a thorough wetting. I hate wet leather boots; bad bushcraft. You should never let this happen. Proper winter boots don't get wet unless you walk in wet snow or water. Sneakers & leather shoes always do. They are next to useless and an invitation to frost bite! There should be a severe penalty for anyone who is outside for more than one hour in sneakers or bare feet.

What's up with Frost-bite anyhow? Is this going to  change?

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Your boots or any clothing get wet based on their wetness factor :) and the actual weather your in, .i.e when its raining or a blizzard they get wet more.

As far as I am aware all clothing drys similar percentage, I might be wrong but it seems so.

I.E

Deerskin boots have a water proofness 50%

Trail boots have a water proofness of 35%

Climbing socks - 25%

Wool sock - 20%

etc. etc.

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Here is a reference for clothing. Clothing - Official The Long Dark Wiki

It does not describe the effects of wetness except to mention that it leads to frozen clothing eventually and frost bite risk. Doesn't discuss mobility much nor weight increases from wet  clothing. I have the feeling that this is not well understood. I'm hoping Hinterland can give us some much needed User Guides or at least insights that can be incorporated into the various community wikis.

This wiki entry has a little more information but doesn't describe the relationship between wetness and impairment of clothing values and weight except to suggest it may vary linearly with wetness. Clothing | The Long Dark Wiki | Fandom powered

It does talk about how quickly clothing dries off as affected by waterproofness as well as the protection benefit when engaged in wolf combat. It also mentions the mobility effect but not the relationship of mobility with wetness or frozenness. We also don't know much about how frost bite happens.

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Firstly, thank for this analysis guys!

I have some new questions:

  1. The Clothing Display shows various icons many of which make sense. Is there a legend to understand the meaning of each icon? There seems to be a lot of information here however I can't quite be sure of how to interpret it.
  2. From the slope of the drying graph for Ski Jacket, I don't see a more rapid rate of drying for this item vs the other items (wool mitts for example) despite that it is more water proof and is supposed to dry faster.
  3. It would be nice to have the same picture shown 5 times at each stage of the drying (or wetting) process; how long did it take to get wet? What were the weather conditions?
  4. Is there an active item selection that could give more details, perhaps in a more verbose format on each individual item? That is, if you are able to  highlight an item, can you see more details? It would be nice to see a rate of drying or wetting for example. That would be also nice if you could select an item on the floor for inspection.
  5. Is there an aggregate for the total of all factors on this display? It looks like that is the small "box" immediately to the left of the upper torso/head but it lacks some details
  6. On your picture, the temperature is -5 so is this inside a building or outside? If inside, then nothing should dry on the floor at all or it should dry very very slowly over a period of 12 hours and then only if the item is hung up. With the warmth bonus we can see that we have a net positive warmth so actually our body heat should be helping to dry the clothing. This is how it is in the real world; body heat helps.
  7. I wish there was an option to hang up the clothing on a chair near the stove. Obviously we should be able to have some way to move a chair around or perhaps a clothes line or something; some method to expedite the drying process.
  8. For boots, sometimes we invert them over a forced air register or put crumpled newspaper inside them to absorb moisture. I also wish there were a way to apply fat to leather boots to increase their waterproofing. Normally, I would use Mink Oil on my good leather boots whereas my winter boots have a canvas upper and rubber lowers with felt lining. The felt lining is removable to dry it. These are so-called moon boots. I also have insulated rubber boots for fishing; late in the year, there can be water on the ice. The felt linings are removable to aid in drying should they become wet with sweat, snow/rain or misadventure. Normally my winter boots never get wet; they are water proof. My leather hiking boots offer very moderate protection from water if you step into a puddle however, in rain or wet conditions, after an hour or two, they can get water logged.
  9. Why is there no slicker or poncho to block rain and wind? When fishing in bad weather, this item really makes a huge difference! Combine a poncho and a nice coat and you have a very warm combination! All you have to worry about is sweat however a poncho is ideal because it still permits plenty of air circulation; it just blocks the worst effects of any wind
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Hey Steve. To the best of my knowledge there is no legend. For your remaining comments I think the problems you're identifying are a result of the simplicity of the new clothing system as it is now. While the new system offers way more depth than the original system it still lacks the granularity and options (e.g. hanging up wet clothes) to truly make it shine.

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5 hours ago, cekivi said:

Hey Steve. To the best of my knowledge there is no legend. For your remaining comments I think the problems you're identifying are a result of the simplicity of the new clothing system as it is now. While the new system offers way more depth than the original system it still lacks the granularity and options (e.g. hanging up wet clothes) to truly make it shine.

I know. I think I need to make another poll to see if people want changes to clothes; if they like the system or if they hate it. I notice that Interloper has very little options for clothing. I think they should close the exploits that make long term survival possible on Interloper. I think Stalker should be for the hard-core extended survival and Interloper  should be reserved for the masochists. Stalker just seems to be too easy. Interloper lets you exploit starvation but there has got to be a long term retribution for this exploit. I don't know if long term, you should be able to survive Interloper. Personally, I think the clothing needs should be more punishing although much more plentiful, as in Pilgrim. Most people think they can start in Voyageur. I think they should really need to start in Pilgrim however if they are willing to die frequently, maybe they can start in Voyageur.

I'm hoping the clothing system gets more discussion and then refinement. Then the wikis can document the end product more fully because obviously, the meta data here counts. The values should be subject to change and tuning. I hope I exposed at least one mistake, that water proof clothing doesn't seem to dry faster despite the documentation that says otherwise.

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Clothing doesn't seem to make much opportunity for strategy when you are just trying to eke out an existence. I think it becomes more important and consequently, more fun on the easier levels with abundant clothing.

Has everyone had the chance to vote or share their information?

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  • 1 month later...

I did a Pilgrim run recently to get the hang of the new stuff and had an occasion to test out wet clothing after a brief dip in the refreshing Coastal Highway Beach Combing.

So clothing does indeed dry out much quicker if you shed it near the fire. I had to rotate through the clothing since I could not remove all my wet clothing at once without dropping below the safe sleeping temperature. Slept about 4 hours and dried half my clothing and then swapped out wet clothing and dried the rest.

It was the closest I've come to expiring in the Pilgrim game however the experience is valuable. During normal play, I haven't had wet clothing; I get cold so fast outdoors with poor clothing spawns on Voyageur that I never get much chance for the clothing to get wet. Moving fast is essential. You do NOT have much time to lollygag while outdoors. Not until you can get a nearly full set of decent clothing.

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While I look at all the stats, I'm primarily concerned with warmth, weight, and encumbrance. So I'll often wear wool mittens, and thin wool sweaters, despite having significantly warmer clothes. The light weight to reasonable warmth bonus is just too good. Footwear is tough, as any footwear that will protect you at all from the weather is heavy. 

It also kind of irks me that wind protection doesn't do anything, except on the outer layer. It's unintuitive, makes clothing items often much less useful than they appear, and is highly unrealistic. I live in a very windy place, and any protection between you and the wind, at any layer, is helpful. 

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