Snowmobile

[ElvisHunter]

3 minutes ago, cekivi said:

why not use it everywhere if it works?  

- It is stuck in a deep long valley with ropes at either end.

- It only works durning certain atmospheric electrical conditions

- Only enough fuel for a one way ride then more must be collected? (if wasted return may be impossible) 

[cekivi]

29 minutes ago, ElvisHunter said:

- It is stuck in a deep long valley with ropes at either end.

Which would then beg the question of how it got down there

More varied transitions zones (which I think was your original argument) would improve the game but I don't think a snowmobile is the right way to go about it. Having working technology - even briefly - wouldn't really be fitting the themes and atmosphere of the game as portrayed to date.

[Carbon]

9 hours ago, ElvisHunter said:

I didn't say it was not a factor. I said it wasn't a large one. I agree that distance generally increases exposure to the actual dangers of the game (wolfs, cold, injury and so on) but what has been proposed wouldn't eliminate any of that. 

  I won't continue to push this after this post, as I think I have been clear, but again, removing or drastically lowering the time spent in travel, the threat of wolf or bear attack and that of the known injuries pretty much clears the danger list and again it is not that distance increases exposure, it forces it, makes it a factor at all, is it, in a very real sense. Decrease distances - which a faster mode of travel effectively does - and you have a mechanic that circumvents most of the other core mechanics of the game.

 Consider Mystery Lake and the run from Trapper's Cabin to the Dam: normally quite a risky trip. One may argue that it is the wolves and weather that makes it risky, but the reality is that if the distance were reduced to a few minutes and those spent on a fast-moving machine that would most certainly scare away wildlife - asking one to believe that a wolf would jump a person on a moving snow machine is a bit of a stretch - then all bets are off as safe arrival is all but guaranteed. If not the danger itself then the potential for it is reduced to being insignificant with an assurance of survival.

 One may argue then that there could be risks built in to using the snow machine, but that seems to me to be adding unnecessary complexity and a kind of shell game.

Quote

 

- It is stuck in a deep long valley with ropes at either end.

- It only works durning certain atmospheric electrical conditions

- Only enough fuel for a one way ride then more must be collected? (if wasted return may be impossible) 

 

 All of these sound interesting but again, seem to be adding complexity. If it's -40 ambient, you're under-dressed, freezing, starving and facing dehydration, who would stop to rope-off and drag a snow machine out of a drift? What would determine those "certain atmospheric electrical conditions"? Would one be expected to wait around for them to occur, all the while afflicted with cabin fever, cold, hunger or dehydration? While I suppose fuel could be sought out and collected as anything else, the time necessary to do so seems to negate the benefit.

  I strongly believe it simply won't happen, regardless of how interesting it might be, a point on which I can agree with you. It goes against many fundamental elements of the game and in a very real sense, would be game-breaking and would require too many new mechanics to be implemented in such a way that it wouldn't do so. It would require a massive overhaul of the game engine, would need a new approach to mapping - one that would make it very difficult for either walking or snow machine traversal to be reconciled - and frankly, it just wouldn't feel like the same game; it just doesn't fit. The contradictions it presents is another glaring issue, as I have said already. If the snow machine works, then why not the cars? Wouldn't there likely be a chainsaw around and a portable generator? The survival environment certainly says they would and if they were, then we are essentially back to civilization, or at least the foundations for it and most certainly into a different game.

 Placing any limits on the notion of a functioning combustion engine and you have a cheap, nonsensical 'blocking volume' effect, like a wall that is 2 cm too high to be jumped or rubble that cannot be simply moved, as seen in many games. It's a cheap 'out' for developers to control the player with an invisible hand. TLD does this with steep surfaces and mountains, but this is believable and one never feels that these things exist as a player limitation, but as part of a reality; regions are separated thus and there are indeed steep surfaces that require one to circumvent rather than ascend in reality; quite believable and not jarring or contradictory.

 Who knows about the future chapters of the game and how it might evolve, but in the immediate future, I see this as something that would ask more questions than it would answer, cause more issues than it would solve and undermine many of the aspects that make TLD what it is.

 The idea of a sled - a Travois - however, is something that would be very possible, fitting and all flavors of awesome. But now I am cross-posting.

 Its been a good discussion, thank you, and I will no further push my point. Let's see what the future holds.

[Vulp]

One, snowmobiles shouldn't work in this universe unless they were older models with no electronics.

Two, Gas isn't renewable, so it would stop working after a while

Three, It would be extremely hard to code in due to a lack of physics in the current state of the game

Four, The maps aren't snowmobile friendly at all, often times we have to go over fallen trees, climb ropes, and cross  bumpy terrain

Five, one of the most difficult factors of the game is the cold, and how long it takes you to get between places, at least early game. Adding a snowmobile, even if it only doubled the speed of the player, would devastate the balance of the game, because you would be able to get to places that would normally take many hours (even a day in bad weather) in half the time, without worrying about bears or wolves. And this is ingoring the fact that in order to be somewhat realistic, it would have to travel at speeds much faster then the players run. The first snowmobiles could travel at speeds faster than 60KPH, and the average human walks at 4.5 KPH.

While the idea of a snowmobile is cool, it isn't practical for this game, it wouldn't add much other then questions, disappointment, and game breaking balancing issues

Sources

http://www.upsnowmobiling.com/1st-snowmobile