No hunger or thirst!

[Nitote]

I don't see the hearty marines cry out for water when being swarmed by zerglings in Starcraft 2.

For the love of no-one but yourself, do not add this in... Keep it playable

[Ciraaxx]

How about this.

You make a tavern (Multiple if you have a big city).
The entire food and drink thing is automated ( if you have the required buildings ).
This way you only have to make sure you have enough farms and such to supply your citizens.

And as said by someone earlier, people can go roughly 3 days without water and maybe a week without food.
But don't make it instant-death when the bar reaches 0!
Make them pass out first, so you can drag them to your "Hospital" where you can get them fed and watered.

Not super complicated, and not annoying.

[Bancheis]

My primary concern with adding food and water requirements would be that I would have to keep too many faction members working to provide said resources. Right now, it isn't too bad with only 20 members... but what about when there are 200? Now, I don't know exactly how big Chris plans to make the maximum size for factions, but a few hundred seems likely to be the minimum when the game is complete. If it becomes even larger, say a thousand or so, then what? I would have to have a whole lot of people making food and water to keep the faction going. I would estimate that 1 out of every 10 men would have to work just to provide the amount of food and water needed to supply the faction. So if I take my men out to fight, travel back and forth to buy/sell, or even just to explore, it would make sense to leave some behind to work. Also, you would need guards to make sure they don't get jumped by bandits. That's a large chunk of my men unavailable for use doing what I want.

Though I lean a bit in the direction of the against party, I am somewhat neutral on this subject. While I can appreciate the desire for realism, I don't play RTS games for their realistic feel. I am not saying that other RTS games haven't done this before. I am merely stating that in my humble opinion, this would add a mundane and ultimately boring aspect to the game. If you want a farming simulator, there are better options.

Alternatively, I think this game transcends the label of RTS, and could make it work. If it was to be implemented, I would rather it not be a burden to the gameplay. I liked the idea someone mentioned of making food and water give some sort of buff, like a morale boost. The tavern idea by Ciraaxx was nice too. As long as it wasn't something that could kill my guys, or give such severe penalties that you have no choice, I wouldn't mind it.

We already are going to have plenty of jobs for people to do to keep a city going; producing fuel for the generators, building structures and machinery, farming materials for crafting, some sort of financial system for making a profit (ie. making fabric to sell), and many other jobs that are likely to be added with new features. I suppose when you look at it this way, making food and water are just another task to add to the list. We already have the ability to make them, but not consume them. Adding that would be the next logical step.

Question is, should we add hunger and thirst to the game purely because we have the ability to, and because it is logical? Personally, I think we should not. If it must be added though, make it optional instead of mandatory (for example, no negative or very slight negatives for not doing it).

My final vote on this subject is this: You should be rewarded for providing sustenance, rather than punished for not doing so. This would add incentive to having it implemented, without making it feel like a tedious chore. Therefore, I am in favor of a buff or morale boost system using food and water.

[zibathy]

I agree with everything Zuty Puty's said.

[hbrown]

My primary concern with adding food and water requirements would be that I would have to keep too many faction members working to provide said resources. Right now, it isn't too bad with only 20 members... but what about when there are 200? Now, I don't know exactly how big Chris plans to make the maximum size for factions, but a few hundred seems likely to be the minimum when the game is complete. If it becomes even larger, say a thousand or so, then what? I would have to have a whole lot of people making food and water to keep the faction going. I would estimate that 1 out of every 10 men would have to work just to provide the amount of food and water needed to supply the faction. So if I take my men out to fight, travel back and forth to buy/sell, or even just to explore, it would make sense to leave some behind to work. Also, you would need guards to make sure they don't get jumped by bandits. That's a large chunk of my men unavailable for use doing what I want.

That s a easy thing to "fight" as many might have said before not just this thread but others, tho unsure if will be implemented, for this such jobs, you could be able to "hire" AI employes to be abe to do this smal jobs, not sidekicks as you have at the moment but employes, with salary and so on, they would not fight for you, most liekly they d ran away if the thing would get uggly who knows xD, but their objective would be solely to do what you had ordered them, you would not be able to control them in any sort, just a simple order "Farm for me for money", like this you could have your trops fully functional at any time, and even if you in a peace time you can simply fire them and place temporary your "soldiers", refering soldiers as your current side kicks.

[Bancheis]

That s a easy thing to "fight" as many might have said before not just this thread but others, tho unsure if will be implemented, for this such jobs, you could be able to "hire" AI employes to be abe to do this smal jobs, not sidekicks as you have at the moment but employes, with salary and so on, they would not fight for you, most liekly they d ran away if the thing would get uggly who knows xD, but their objective would be solely to do what you had ordered them, you would not be able to control them in any sort, just a simple order "Farm for me for money", like this you could have your trops fully functional at any time, and even if you in a peace time you can simply fire them and place temporary your "soldiers", refering soldiers as your current side kicks.

You make a very good point. I do recall reading something along those lines, and I should have thought of it myself as well. I agree with your statement, though I still have some concerns. They will have to wait until we see where the development team is going with this. However it turns out, I am certain it will be a good choice. I haven't seen anything in this game that I did not like so far. I believe this quality development will continue. Thanks for your input.

[hbrown]

Yeah in the end is up to Chris how will be and all we can hope and i guess we can all trust that is decision will be a good one, i guess any wil be since the moment he forged this great game, and no need thanks, we here for each other, at least i like to think so xD.

[philthymcnasty]

yeah im pretty much with you on this one. the one thing i would fear about the hunger and thirst part is that, like many games. your men would be affected by something that no npc in the game is afflicted by. so you would have dust bandits roaming free without concern for such things but you are limited by it. on the other hand if sieges became a thing hunger and thirst could be a very useful tool to help you win or if you were the besieged, force your hand. (so would catapulting diseased animals and corpses into the middle of town but we wont see that)

Yes, i believe that npcs need to be affected if this is implemented. This would give people a reason to attack my base, and me a reason to defend it.

I would love to return to an abandoned base to discover hungry bandits working my fields to feed themselves. It would also be awesome if be some sort of seabee clan, one that randomly builds safe havens for people in the desert, and automatically gets good diplomacy stats for doing this.

[Clawdius Talonious]

As a side note:
The quality of discussion on these forums has dropped a bit since it's on steam and more sales are made. This is expected, it happens with every game, but don't be one of those people lowering it.

I keep an eye on this particular discussion to keep people from getting out of hand. We allow some debate, even if most of the people who are having the debate are missing out on one key fact which I constantly reiterate here.

Chris has said that hunger and thirst mechanics may be added, but only if they can be done in such a way as to limit micromanagement and tedium. Hunger and Thirst mechanics may very well become essential for large army management, and given that he hasn't added anything to the game that hasn't been fun, I'm inclined to believe what he says on the matter.

I leave this thread open because perhaps someone may come up with more novel ideas than the traditional automatically refilled water skins when you approach a water resource, and automatically distributed foodstuffs. Currently it's entirely possible Chris might go another way entirely to make the process less demanding while requiring there to be some allowance for realism. Wages, for example, come to mind. It would stifle the ability of early towns more than food and water, but once we have slave labor for our workforces wages for the guards might work instead of having to have them consume food and water. The issue there again is it lacks something, so we're really going to have to wait until Chris says what he plans to do.

Whatever is going to be done, it is quite a long time out currently, so getting all worked up about a feature that isn't even on the current agenda for what is soon to be added to the game is a little silly. Keep the discussion civil, and bear in mind that Chris hasn't let us down yet, so try not to imagine the worst possible methods as being those he would utilize for the implementation of any eventual feature.

[philthymcnasty]

the first two fallouts had a good mechanic: survival skill. if you ran out of water, you would do a survival check to determine if you found some or not. This would be a great use for prospecting. Also research for a portable condenser or still suit would also help.

another option is to establish forward bases out in the desert. This would give "excuses" to build more stuff, as well as make the exploration more realistic.

We need to keep in mind however, that this is still in alpha, and more types of biomes may occur. it would be pointless to have a thirst mechanic if only one third to one fourth of the land mass is desert.

Also to appears everyone on both sides of the argument, have the thirst and hunger mechanic something that can be turned off and on. Like what they did in new vegas.

[cniht]

I could read pages and pages of lengthy posts. Carefully analyzing arguments both for and against this idea.

However, I'm going to save myself the time, and stick to a very simple argument.

This would be "Micromanagement Hell".

Some aspects of realism need to get ditched. Best suggestion is leave the ability to 'mod' it into the game like Skyrim realism mods currently have, but leave it out of the retail finished product. As the game develops more there will be plenty of other things to busy ourselves, as players, on. It also frees up a lot of programing time to get devoted to other things then balancing out a wide scale intricate, and in my view unneeded, core system.

[hbrown]

I could read pages and pages of lengthy posts. Carefully analyzing arguments both for and against this idea.

However, I'm going to save myself the time, and stick to a very simple argument.

This would be "Micromanagement Hell".

If you did had the trouble to read the pages and carefully analysing arguments on obht or just one side of the idea xD, you would had realized people gave ideas as well as to not be having "Micromanagement Hell", some might be bad others good (or all bad/good), but at least they gave them.

[Asimov.42]

I think the hunger and thirst debate is one of those, that will be important to witch kind of game Kenshi will be. For me at least.
1 problem i have: If there is no need for drinking and eating, then i have a problem understanding who will buy the water and food i produce, and why they will do it.
Right now i have problems arguing why they buy my water, since the well is automated, but there is still a few arguments like, that there is no water in the ground beneath the city or they dont have the technology i have.
Food i understand, since you need people doing the job making it.

If the need for food and water is totally ruled out, for me the game will be less simulation and more like RTS. RTS is good, its just not what i expect of Kenshi.

The micromanagement problem is there to be solved. I have talked about Frank Herberts Dune before, since it takes place in an environment like Kenshi. Frank Herbert solved thirst with a stillsuit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology ... #Stillsuit
It may not work in RL, but it was a creative solution, that did make sense.
Some have talked about food in bars.
They is no reason why it should be a huge micromanagement problem.
Instead it should be a research "problem". If you dont want to jump from city to city to drink and eat, then you would have to research some kind of technology, so you can travel over long distances. Could be, that there is places you only can get to, when you have the technology, because there is no cities close to.

[Clawdius Talonious]

I could read pages and pages of lengthy posts. Carefully analyzing arguments both for and against this idea.

However, I'm going to save myself the time, and stick to a very simple argument.

This would be "Micromanagement Hell".

If you aren't going to read "pages and pages" of arguments, how about a few of the more recent arguments on the page you're about to post on?

...
Chris has said that hunger and thirst mechanics may be added, but only if they can be done in such a way as to limit micromanagement and tedium. Hunger and Thirst mechanics may very well become essential for large army management, and given that he hasn't added anything to the game that hasn't been fun, I'm inclined to believe what he says on the matter...

[wepley]

I was gonna post the same thing. In an apocalyptic environment food and water are very prevalent factor of surviving. I think it should be in the game, but nothing too complicated. If I were to implement it, I would have a food and water meter that displays hunger and thirst. Then just have a food item and an water item in the characters inventory and they will use as they need it automatically. Then when do use the food they will use a percentage of it. So for example, one character get hungry and has a loaf of bread in his inventory. He eats a certain amount of bread depending on how hungry he is, then the bread has an icon or meter that displays how much of it is left. Same for water.

[Bancheis]

Would be cool to have a hunter/gatherer mode, where you can send people to gather edible things and water. Maybe even a skill to determine how much they can find. When you think about it, it is nice to have the ability to make bread and water from buildings, but in the beginning you will not have the ability to do that for a while. You could argue that you can just buy water and bread, but a system for surviving on your own would be better suited for this game. In a world like that, one would have to learn to be self sufficient. This is a concept that Chris wants us to experience anyway, the harsh realities of being weak or alone/outnumbered in an unforgiving land. Makes sense to me to have a hunter/gatherer mode.

[Viruk]

Here's a suggestion, give each character a food and water bar(or just one bar, for both food and water) similar to the health bars for arms, legs, torso, head, etc. Starts at 100 and slowly goes down(possibly faster during daytime, fights, working). When it reaches 0 your speed, attack, strength, working efficiency, etc. all get worse and less effective. The bar will continue to go down until it reaches -100, then you die.

You can refill your hunger bar by just going to wells or food supplies(like humble bread), when you right click on them an option will appear that says something along the lines of "eat" and it will restore your bar to 100. Towns and cities can have a food restaurant type place where you refill to 100, cost maybe 10 cats per use. Also you can buy rations of food and water to keep in your inventory for future use.

small oases(i think that's plural of oasis) could be located throughout the map, and these can be areas where a lot of fighting occurs as everyone wants to drink water to survive. Or possibly everyone views these places as sacred grounds where there is no fighting(not that you can't tell your people to attack, but that no one will attack without being specifically ordered to). Finally some form of livestock could be added, sort of like the wild west where people herd animals and sell them.

[hbrown]

There a post already open in the deatures for this discussion, http://www.lofigames.com/phpBB3/viewtop ... =16&t=3309

[Clawdius Talonious]

Threads merged. Viruk, pack animals are already planned as well.

[Valgor]

Chris has said that hunger and thirst mechanics may be added, but only if they can be done in such a way as to limit micromanagement and tedium. Hunger and Thirst mechanics may very well become essential for large army management, and given that he hasn't added anything to the game that hasn't been fun, I'm inclined to believe what he says on the matter.

How about a "Feed" button, similar to the medic one we already have? We have to put medkits into character's inventory manually, so let the food and water items be the same.
Select an eqipped (with food supplies) army, press "Feed" button - here you are.