Not all corpses have same effect on meat degradation

During my current run I noticed something. I used the corpse outside the Camp Office to store the meat of a freshly shot wolf and the deer it had just killed. Not everything fit, so I stored the leftover part in the corpse that is sitting behind the island in the middle of the lake.

I was using the meat in the nearest corpse first, but at some point I went to collect the meat from the island corpse as I had now enough space in the CO corpse. Imagine my surprise to see all the meat in the island corpse degraded to 30% while the meat in the CO corpse was still around 80%!

Since both corpses are outside in practically the same conditions they should have the same effect on the degradation of the meat stored in them.

Well that depends. I never tried it myself, but I can imagine, that the huddled corpse on the lake is more "protected" of the elements, and the game would then calculate the average temperature (without windchill) to be on average 10°C higher than on the exposed one.

And while I agree that degradation should not vary by this much, since both would still be in sub-zero temperatures, there should be a difference between the two.

No, I don't think the game simulates that. Those must be two different classes of corpses, with different value for degradation. I presume there is nothing but a table with "degradation" values for all containers, and that the weather isn't even considered.

Related: I noticed that the metal container outside has the same degradation as the one inside. The difference to rucksacks and corpses is quite dramatic. I could store meat in a rucksack (outside) for over 2 weeks, but in metal containers (inside, outside) for only a few days. I don't know if the rucksack inside is the same as oustide but I suspect as much and that it also shares the same class.

You could be on to something there. As far as I know there are only 2 sitting corpses, the one near the island on Mystery Lake and the one sitting at the top of the stairs in the Camp Office. The degradation rate would seem more normal for the corpse inside, so if they do indeed use the same rates it would explain the rates for the corpse outside.

I know at least 1 other, in the Lone Cabin near Unnamed Pond

During my current run I noticed something. I used the corpse outside the Camp Office to store the meat of a freshly shot wolf and the deer it had just killed. Not everything fit, so I stored the leftover part in the corpse that is sitting behind the island in the middle of the lake.

I was using the meat in the nearest corpse first, but at some point I went to collect the meat from the island corpse as I had now enough space in the CO corpse. Imagine my surprise to see all the meat in the island corpse degraded to 30% while the meat in the CO corpse was still around 80%!

Since both corpses are outside in practically the same conditions they should have the same effect on the degradation of the meat stored in them.

before you stored any of the meat did you cook any of it?

The meat I'm talking about in that quote was still raw, all of it. The meat in both corpses came from the same deer I just killed hours before and had about a 1-2% difference between them when I put it on the corpses. I haven't tried it with cooked meat yet, but I doubt it would make a difference.

I noticed a similar issue with meat in my pack after cooking some chunks. The last 6 pieces degraded a lot slower than other pieces in my pack and I am wondering if it is the same issue, just being witnessed a different way

@RJIII: Well it would certainly be odd if different pieces of raw meat degraded at different speeds in your backpack. But cooked meat degrades a lot slower than raw meat either way. so if all you noticed was that raw meat degrades faster than cooked meat then no, it's not the same issue and most likely ny design

I think BurningBridges was right about items having a set value of degradation speed. I tried the three corpses in the lone Cabin, Camp Office and near the fishing huts and they had all the same degradation speed. Same goes for the Corpse opposite Camp office, the lying corpse near Forestry Lookout and the one in one of the Logging Camp Trailers. I haven't tested backpacks yet, but I would assume they simply created various items and set a degradation value for each of them, regardless of weer it was an indoors or oudoors location.

But this is not really a bug, but more of a very legit suggestion on the Alpha Wishlist, anyway:

+1 there should be two degradation values, one for indoors and one for outdoors.

It's interesting, I'd always had very good luck with the corpse outside the camp office regarding slowing degradation and also the one outside the 2nd fishing hut on the lake. I was told that the corpse must specify "frozen" in order to work well. However, Max, at Max's Last Stand is a frozen corpse and has the same degradation rate as an inside container. As suggested, it would be nice if there could be a standard expectation across containers. For example, frozen corpses work the same across the map regarding degradation values. Same for backpacks and other containers. It could be the devs want the players to experiment and find what works well and I guess that's fine too. The game is a blast. <3

If the different degradation rates for lying ans sitting outside corpses is by design, then yes this should be on the wishlist instead of here. But I rather doubt this is intended behavior, rather something the devs missed. And that would classify it as a bug.

I think all corpses in the game are frozen (even the ones inside) since they all look to be dead for some time already and they are all in sub-zero temperatures. So I think all outside corpses regardless of whether they are lying or sitting should have the same effect on degradation. Unless maybe there is one that is clearly better sheltered from the elements. And likewise all inside corpses should have the same effect on degradation.

However, Max, at Max's Last Stand is a frozen corpse and has the same degradation rate as an inside container.

You should really check that. I have stored 10 kg of my best equipment, including matches and medicine in Max depot for over 30 days already and I am 100% sure items in Max degrade at the low rate. Just ike the rucksack behind Trappers Homestead .. which holds 20kg and is my favorite meat container. I also put my rifles and knife in the rucksack.

One thing I am not sure is the degradation inside the first aid kit. It holds only 1 kg but sometimes seemed to have even lower degradation that corpse. I currently always store my matches in the first aid kit but I am just not sure if my observations are right.

I haven't tested backpacks yet, but I would assume they simply created various items and set a degradation value for each of them, regardless of weer it was an indoors or oudoors location.

But that would mean that the rucksack inside Trappers homestead provides you with 20 kg free frozen meat storage. Unfortunately it did not spawn in my current game, so I can not verify that.

It would make it a very valuable asset that's for sure.

You should really check that. I have stored 10 kg of my best equipment, including matches and medicine in Max depot for over 30 days already and I am 100% sure items in Max degrade at the low rate. Just ike the rucksack behind Trappers Homestead .. which holds 20kg and is my favorite meat container. I also put my rifles and knife in the rucksack.

Yes, but equipment degrades a lot slower in inside containers than meat. So if max has the degradation rate of an inside container, it would keep your equipment in good condition, but meat would not last long.

I would expect meat to degrade faster in an inside container than in an outside container and actually expect tools/ equipment to degrade faster in an outside container than in an inside container (they are more exposed to the weather in an outside container).

In short:

Inside container: good for storing equipment, clothes and canned/ packaged food as it protects it from the elements but not very good for meat as it is too warm.

Outside container: good for storing meat as it keeps the meat cold but not so good for storing equipment, clothes and canned/ packaged food as it is still exposed to the elements (but better than just laying around in the snow outside).

One thing I am not sure is the degradation inside the first aid kit. It holds only 1 kg but sometimes seemed to have even lower degradation that corpse. I currently always store my matches in the first aid kit but I am just not sure if my observations are right.

The first aid kit does seem to have a very low degradation rate, not sure if it works on meat too. It shouldn't IMHO. But it is indeed the best place to store your matches.

But that would mean that the rucksack inside Trappers homestead provides you with 20 kg free frozen meat storage. Unfortunately it did not spawn in my current game, so I can not verify that.

It would make it a very valuable asset that's for sure.

That's absolutely true. If someone has a game where both backpacks spawned, could they verify this?

@RJIII: Well it would certainly be odd if different pieces of raw meat degraded at different speeds in your backpack. But cooked meat degrades a lot slower than raw meat either way. so if all you noticed was that raw meat degrades faster than cooked meat then no, it's not the same issue and most likely ny design

I think BurningBridges was right about items having a set value of degradation speed. I tried the three corpses in the lone Cabin, Camp Office and near the fishing huts and they had all the same degradation speed. Same goes for the Corpse opposite Camp office, the lying corpse near Forestry Lookout and the one in one of the Logging Camp Trailers. I haven't tested backpacks yet, but I would assume they simply created various items and set a degradation value for each of them, regardless of weer it was an indoors or oudoors location.

But this is not really a bug, but more of a very legit suggestion on the Alpha Wishlist, anyway:

+1 there should be two degradation values, one for indoors and one for outdoors.

No it has to do with the left over raw meat after cooking a few pieces it's already been verified and fixed in later versions I'm wondering if it is something that stuck with particular pieces of meat after they had been off loaded to containers. I'm pretty sure the decay rate of everything is the same in any of the corpses.

To be absolutely clear, from my experience, everything degrades much slower in Max than in any inside container (except first aid locker). MUCH slower. I would be really surprised if I made a mistake here, but I havent played for a week or so.

I had no surprises with any of the corpses and the backpacks, it just surprised me that the (hidden) metal container outside had the same degradation as the inside ones. I had already planned to store 20 kg gear in it, then had to drop that plan completely.

One thing I am not sure is the degradation inside the first aid kit. It holds only 1 kg but sometimes seemed to have even lower degradation that corpse. I currently always store my matches in the first aid kit but I am just not sure if my observations are right.

The first aid kit does seem to have a very low degradation rate, not sure if it works on meat too. It shouldn't IMHO. But it is indeed the best place to store your matches.

It should have the same degradation for everything across the board, but you cannot put more than 1 venison in it, or 2 if you store nothing else. But that would be stupid because you want to store your matches and firestrikers here.

I disagree. Like I said before, meat should benefit from a cold environment, as cold as possible while tools (and matches) should get the maximum protection from the environment. So the first aid kit, being an inside container, should be great for tools and matches (even though there's no room for tools, but I'm talking about the effect on degradation here) while not very good for meat.

Since the first aid kit is the same temperature as the other inside containers there's no reason why it should preserve meat better if you ask me. The only explanation for it being the best place to store matches would be if it was sealed and therefore protect the matches better. Then it should have a better degradation meat for meat as well, but using an outside container that is practically functioning like a freezer should still be better for meat.

I would not treat this as question what it should do, but what it actually does

if you ask me, degradation rates should be something along the lines of this:

inside:

on person: 5

food on floor: 4

food in container: 3

tool on floor: 2

tool in container: 1

outside:

on person: 5

non-food on ground: 4

food on ground: 3

non-food in container: 2

food in container: 1

the reason being that non-foods should degrade slower when stored in a dry place, where conditions are unchanging.

of course, outside, when exposed to the weather they will degrade quickly, hatchets will rust etc. but they should not be entirely protected in outside containers either.

foods however should do fine out there in the freezing cold.

inside, non-foods should keep much better, but foods will spoil more quickly.

I agree mostly but think it needs some changes:

1. tools should degrade faster outside on the floor than on your person. Carrying a hatchet in your pack protects it better than if it where lying in the snow.

2. When inside items carried on your person should not have a higher degradation as when lying on the floor.

3. Clothes you wear should have an higher degradation than clothes lying on the floor or carried but not worn.

4. Food on person should depend on whether you're outside or inside.

So I think it should be something like this:

inside:

clothes worn: 3

food on person: 4

clothes/tool on person: 2

food on floor: 4

clothes/tool on floor: 2

food in container: 3

clothes/tool in container: 1

outside:

clothes worn: 5

food on person: 3

clothes/tool on person: 3

food on floor: 3

clothes/tool on floor: 4

food in container: 1

clothes/tool in container: 2

The numbers listed are the effect the different "containers" have on the degradation rates of the specific items. I'll try to explain what I mean with some examples. Note that the numbers I use are not actual in game numbers, since I don't know them and may be way off. They are just for illustration purposes.

Example 1:

Item: hatchet

Item's base degradation rate: 1% per day

inside, on body, effect = 2 -> actual degradation rate = 2 * 1% per day = 2% per day

inside, on the floor, effect = 2 -> actual degradation rate = 2 * 1% per day = 2% per day

inside, in a container, effect = 1 -> actual degradation rate = 1 * 1% per day = 1% per day

outside, on the floor, effect = 4 -> actual degradation rate = 4 * 1% per day = 4% per day

Example 2:

Item: jeans

Item's base degradation rate: 1% per day

inside, worn, effect = 3 -> actual degradation rate = 3 * 1% per day = 3% per day

inside, on body, effect = 2 -> actual degradation rate = 2 * 1% per day = 2% per day

outside, worn, effect = 5 -> actual degradation rate = 5 * 1% per day = 5% per day

outside, on the floor, effect = 4 -> actual degradation rate = 4 * 1% per day = 4% per day

Example 3:

Item: raw venison

Item's base degradation rate: 5% per day

inside, on body, effect = 4 -> actual degradation rate = 4 * 5% per day = 20% per day

outside, on the floor, effect = 3 -> actual degradation rate = 3 * 5% per day = 15% per day

inside, in a container, effect = 3 -> actual degradation rate = 3 * 5% per day = 15% per day

outside, in a container, effect = 1 -> actual degradation rate = 1 * 5% per day = 5% per day

Example 4:

Item: cooked venison

Item's base degradation rate: 2.5% per day

inside, on body, effect = 4 -> actual degradation rate = 4 * 2.5% per day = 10% per day

outside, on the floor, effect = 3 -> actual degradation rate = 3 * 2.5% per day = 7.5% per day

inside, in a container, effect = 3 -> actual degradation rate = 3 * 2.5% per day = 7.5% per day

outside, in a container, effect = 1 -> actual degradation rate = 1 * 2.5% per day = 2.5% per day

I read @Trandor's post and thought yeah that would work with just 1 minor change. Then when I started writing my post more and more popped into my mind until I had a dozen different categories for both inside and outside :? I tried to condense it as much as possible but there's still quite a few left. I do think however that this would most accurately represent what I would expect from the actual environment.

When you think about it, it all makes sense. But I get that it would probably be a lot of work to implement it as I have described here. So I would understand if it gets simplified further if this is actually implemented.

And that is the problem, too many "IF"s.

It can be worked out while the game progresses but for the alpha they made it a flat value, everything degrades the same depending on the container.

@elloco: That was exactly the way I had it in mind as well. Andthe changes you are proposing to what I said make sense. I would love to see this implemented.

And while I do think it would take some work to get this done, I think at least half of it is already there. I suppose they have one variable per container and a base degradation speed per item. Additionally I think, there's already a variable in there to check what type of item it is, otherwise you wouldn't be able to sort items in containers.

So all you'd have to do is add a second variable for all containers and an overall variable assessing wether you're inside or outside. Your backpack or "you" can simply be thought of as a container as well. Or maybe they already have a special variable to check wether the item is on you, then this may also already be in there.

So, to illustrate here's an example:

Item: raw venison

Item's base degradation rate: 5% per day.

Item class: 3 (food)

Current:

Inside/Outside Map variable: -

Container degradation rate (inside and outside): 3

Base degradation rate: 5%

--> Degradation: 15%

Suggested:

Inside/Outside Map variable: 0 (outside)

Container degradation rate for item type 3 (food): 1

Meat degradation rate: 5%

--> Degradation: 5%

Inside/Outside Map variable: 1 (inside)

Container degradation rate for item type 3 (food): 3

Meat degradation rate: 5%

--> Degradation: 15%

@Burning: Sure, but we're here making suggestions for the finished game, not for just what we wish for in the current alpha. Whether the devs take this into consideration or not will be entirely up to them. But you do have to agree, that elloco's suggestion makes a lot more sense than the current system?

But that would mean that the rucksack inside Trappers homestead provides you with 20 kg free frozen meat storage. Unfortunately it did not spawn in my current game, so I can not verify that.

It would make it a very valuable asset that's for sure.

That's absolutely true. If someone has a game where both backpacks spawned, could they verify this?

I checked this, the backpack on the chair in trappers homestead had my raw venison decay from 90 to 85% in a matter of hours, while another piece of venison from the same deer stayed at 90% in the backpack outside. So these backpacks have (very) different decay rates.

However, I think they are both different backpacks just like the sitting and prone corpses. The backpack inside is standing upright, while the backpack outside is laying flat. I think all upright backpacks have the same rate and all the laying backpacks have the same rate.

Your suggestions make a lot of sense, unfortunately item class is not related to degradation.

The item classes are Food, First Aid, Material, Tool, Clothing, Other. And that says nothing about the material (corrosiveness, water resistance, ..) the way it is preserved (cooked, raw ..) or packaged (canned, wrapped in paper, plastic bag, ..). So in the end an individual degradation value is probably needed per item and you want to make it dependent from n containers, so degradation becomes a [m x n] matrix. With m being the number of items and n the number of containers this becomes a whole lot of numbers (1000's).

I would have a hard time to provide a complete table of values. The problem what what we are doing is that we are just throwing around basic ideas and somebody has to make the hard work to make the all complete. Personally this drives me nuts when somebody throws at me the barest sketch of an idea (which is normally just 1% of all possible cases) and then expects me to "just" complete the rest.

With such a large number of items and containers it could actually become a whole lot easier to assign a number of "natural" properties to every item and properly calculate degradation accordingly. I will not give you all permutations for the same reasons as above But this could be properties like:

material

corrosiveness

thermal sensitivity (heat)

thermal sensitivity (cold)

food deterioration

and so on

with

deterioration(container, item)=

container.corrosiveness X item.corrosiveness +

container.temp X item.thermal sensitivity (heat) +

1/container.temp X item.thermal sensitivity (cold) +

container.food deterioration X item.food deterioration +

AND SO ON ..

(a lot of work to model this, but it's much easier to decide on the properties, because we know most of it already .. that cans have high corrosiveness in the open, that a rifle has 0 food deterioration, that meat is very sensitive to heat, that apples are very sensitive to cold, that wood, rifles etc quickly erode with humidity but practically last forever as long as they are dry etc..

I'm not trying to come up with Drake equation of item degradation here .. but I just want to show that a real formula could be better than trying to assign magic numbers to every item type according to in container class | on body / according to inside | outside / according to ground |floor etc etc .. yadda yadda, and hope that it will eventually cover everything .. such systems become quickly unwieldy, especially if you can spend a lot time not agreeing on them.

But that would mean that the rucksack inside Trappers homestead provides you with 20 kg free frozen meat storage. Unfortunately it did not spawn in my current game, so I can not verify that.

It would make it a very valuable asset that's for sure.

That's absolutely true. If someone has a game where both backpacks spawned, could they verify this?

I checked this, the backpack on the chair in trappers homestead had my raw venison decay from 90 to 85% in a matter of hours, while another piece of venison from the same deer stayed at 90% in the backpack outside. So these backpacks have (very) different decay rates.

However, I think they are both different backpacks just like the sitting and prone corpses. The backpack inside is standing upright, while the backpack outside is laying flat. I think all upright backpacks have the same rate and all the laying backpacks have the same rate.

Great, thanks! That saves me the work of checking it

And it makes total sense, as you say, the backpack outside is lying flat, the other one upright.