Messages

1

Suggestions / Re: Reducing amount of blunt hits enough to kill prey

« on: December 05, 2024, 10:29:09 AM »

No. You don't want to hit your prey in the neck with blunt attacks. The reason you're using blunt attacks is to preserve the skin. Hits to the neck damages the skin, which is what you wanted to avoid.

2

Gameplay questions / Re: Is it possible to swim off this island

« on: November 06, 2024, 09:50:31 AM »

As JP_Finn said, the absolute hurdle used to be the requirement of a real axe to make a paddle, as it used to be impossible to make boards with a stone axe.

Tying material is also an issue, although you can eventually scrape together enough materials for ropes, so that part was a matter of time, but a raft without a paddle is useful as a platform from which to fish, but not for traveling between islands (it would be if you could tow it and climb up onto it to rest when you get tired, but that's not a game feature).

3

Gameplay questions / Re: Man traps

« on: November 02, 2024, 08:50:44 AM »

As mentioned, trap lines are detected by humans, so you'd have to use "mine fields" instead. It's a lot of work, of course.

A few years ago I made an experiment with various traps in a mine field layout, luring njerps into them by having them chase my character and get a trap in a straight between me and the njerp. Bear traps worked at the time, as did pit traps, at least injuring them (with stakes causing more injuries than plain pits). However, experience from then and later (with animals) indicates that if you see the creature get caught by the trap, there's a chance for them to get free and resume chasing you, while I've never seen an animal get free from a trap when I've found it trapped (and the one case with an idiot adventurer who first felled the tree making a trap line a trap line, and then fell into the trap beside the tree stayed put for a month while healing, all the while claiming everything was good). I have, however, found triggered but empty traps i later years, but that's mostly (or only?) small game ones. Of course, there's also the case of triggered traps where predators have taken the animal caught.

4

Gameplay questions / Re: Is it possible to swim off this island

« on: November 01, 2024, 11:12:36 AM »

All my attempts to start on a remote island have succeeded in getting back during the first summer (starting in "spring"), ignoring the ones where the character died before getting the chance to start training swimming. I think I may also have had an attempt where I managed to get to an island where I made a raft and paddle, only to succumb to the robbers that had dumped my character on the island in the first place.
But yes, hard and consistent swimming training is required, with multiple swimming sessions per suitable day to get as close to the maximum daily improvement as possible. I think some escapes may have been made with only 90+ skill, though.

5

Gameplay questions / Re: Is it possible to swim off this island

« on: October 31, 2024, 11:01:36 AM »

You can carry a very small amount of stuff with you.
- You can wear a small amount of clothing for no encumbrance.
- If I remember correctly, you can have an encumbrance of 1 with no penalty compared to 0. I've used that to bring a small amount of stuff with me.

There's only a small window where the water is warm enough not to cool you down, and you can't really afford any cooling when going for a long distance swim. You can do shorter distances when cooled down (assuming you can warm up at the destination), and you can start your swim training (from 0) when the water is quite cold, as you can't stay in for long anyway before getting tired.

The exact point at which you get your tiring percentages is indeed random, but for long distances this averages out. Also note that your range is more random at lower skill levels, as you get swim attempts that won't propel you forward.

6

Development News / Re: Version 3.85 beta released

« on: October 30, 2024, 10:16:02 AM »

Interesting images. So these were essentially very small kegs or barrels with (mostly) unusual dimensions.

If it was my decision I'd keep the water skins until the replacement was fully available (I'd still miss them, but it makes sense to remove them eventually). There are two game play aspects that suffer from an early removal (if you're bothered by realism and thus open containers):
- You have to rely on villages to be able to carry water with you properly (if only available in villages).
- They're fairly sophisticated, and thus out of reach for the early game, because of lack of skills and equipment.

It can be noted that if, at some point, the ability to carry around liquids in open containers in the inventory is removed, care needs to be taken to still allow for it to be carried by hand (e.g. carrying water from the stream to the hearth for e.g. cooking) by carrying the container in the hand(s).

7

Development News / Re: Version 3.85 beta released

« on: October 29, 2024, 11:04:24 AM »

I'm a bit puzzled by the removal of the water skin. While it's true there's a lot of water in the world, it's rather inconvenient to get at during the winter. A water skin kept close to the body should keep it liquid, so you don't have to spend a lot of time making a hole in ice each time you need water.
It would be fine if there was a corresponding closed container, such as a wooden flask, but now you'd have to resort to using an open container, which works in the game, but not in the real world. You'd have to move extremely carefully to retain the water inside a bowl in the backpack...

8

Solved'n'fixed bug reports / Re: [Fixed - persists in 3.84.2] crawling while skiing

« on: October 12, 2024, 09:17:15 AM »

It can be mentioned that one case where you'd definitely want to crawl with skis is when you're trying to recover a large animal who's drowned after going through the thin ice. In that case you want to spread out your weight over as large an area as possible (after having dropped off all excess weight at the shore, optionally with a fire going if you fall through anyway).

9

Bug reports / Re: Reindeer and elk seem not very averse to thin ice (that kills them)

« on: September 12, 2024, 11:24:10 AM »

Lots of other animals drown in the same manner in the game (but it's a lot harder to recover them, and I mostly detect them when finding bone "floating" in the water when passing by during the summer).

It does happen in real life, but the rate in the game is probably much higher than that.

10

Gameplay questions / Re: If you eliminate Njerpez culture, do wandering njerpez stop spawning?

« on: August 31, 2024, 10:03:00 AM »

How to kill humans: Ambush and Hit and Run (NOT run: walk!)
- Attack from long range and lure a single enemy towards you.
- As soon as the enemy runs towards you, back away walking. The purpose is to get the enemy to run itself into the ground and become incredibly slow.
- Once the enemy is sufficiently slowed down, kill it with arrows from a short distance, and make sure to maintain a distance.
- Make sure you have no fatigue when starting the engagement and also drop everything you don't need during the fight beforehand (water skin, food, etc.). Never attack while injured, as that causes additional penalties.
- Heavy armor is very helpful if the enemy manages to catch up despite your back pedaling, but you're doomed if you try to run wearing it. Also note that it's not a guarantee: an enemy can always get a lucky hit.
- It's usually better to try to move away even when the enemy manages to catch up with you, as attacking racks up fatigue.
- You can use the cover of darkness for surprise attacks. It CAN work to be lightly equipped and run away into the darkness, but you run a significant risk of getting hit by an arrow.
- Enemies wielding bows are extra dangerous as they can fire at you as long as they have arrows. Tiring them out can impair their aim, but you still run the risk of a lucky one shot kill.
- Shields and heavy armor can help against bow wielding enemies. You'd basically have to weather their attacks until they're out of arrows. Also don't be surprised if they are able to pick up one of your arrows and fire it back. Flee if injured (NOT running in your heavy armor!) and come back when healed.
- Using water craft can allow you to tire out enemies on the shore, and lying down on your craft with a shield at the maximum range can allow you to get the enemies to expend their arrows with the lowest risk (but it's never risk free).
- Getting injured and ganged up upon is a death sentence. Run them out of breath and take them on one at a time and leave when injured.

The above applies when you are the one attacking in a controlled manner. For a robber quest I'd suggest recruiting twice as many henchmen as the scouted number of robbers, and then you'd have to try to take things from there. It used to be suicide to equip henchmen with bows (they shot you and your other henchmen in the back more often than they hit enemies), but that's supposed to be fixed. However, consider whether you should really take the risk of this quest. I haven't for quite some time.

Before actually performing the robber quest with henchmen, it's best to locate them alone quipped with spare garbage equipment you can afford to lose, give up and let them take whatever they want, be told to get lost, leave, recruit your posse and equip your character with the good stuff, and then return. However, you should really have consider whether to take on this quest at all.

There is one situation where running may be useful: when you encounter robbers/njerps at a distance it can work to run away and escape to the overmap. However, if you fail, you'll be tired and facing enemies...

11

Gameplay questions / Re: Leaving dogs alone with a pile of meat?

« on: August 22, 2024, 10:13:26 AM »

And a starving hunting dog can eat from the prey, damaging the fur, if role playing and role playing decency isn't enough incentive.

12

Suggestions / Re: Pre-generate remains of dead animals

« on: August 20, 2024, 09:01:01 AM »

Drowned animals "existed" in the world and drowned when failing to get out of the cold water.
The feathers result from birds being taken by predators, and sometimes you can find remains of animals taken by predators, which can give you a small meal if you're not too squeamish to act as a scavenger.

13

Bug reports / Re: Stackable Items not stacking

« on: August 18, 2024, 07:45:10 AM »

No. Archaic units don't have higher resolution (pounds are half the weight of kg, but inches are twice as long as cm, so some units are smaller and some are bigger). There's a setting where you can select the number of digits (or, rather, decimals) the UI uses to display values.

14

Bug reports / Re: Stackable Items not stacking

« on: August 17, 2024, 10:56:10 AM »

Furs only stack if they're of the same size and the same season variety. I suspect you'd see them having different weights if you displayed measurements with the highest resolution.

When it comes to arrows I'm guessing they come from different sources, such as being generic ones purchased versus one constructed using different recipes. That's just a guess, though.

Personally I find weight to be the biggest restriction when it comes to hauling stuff around. When faced with stack restrictions (such as e.g. hauling loot from a robber quest and using beasts of burden to haul it), I use the fact that the player has a higher stack limit than beasts (and vehicles), so the large heavy stacks go onto the stack limited carriers, while the many small light ones are carried by the PC. Basically, I load stacks onto carriers in weight orders, starting with the heaviest stacks first and have the PC pick up the remainder (although it's best to keep at least one stack slot free on water crafts to allow for the need to drop a weapon or paddle.

15

Suggestions / Re: Herblore- getting plants identified in villages

« on: August 12, 2024, 08:31:25 AM »

It seems you've missed that you can train your herb lore skill by repeatedly trying to identify plants (without eating them). In fact, herb lore is the skill that's the easiest to train to its maximum level, because you can keep on trying until you get there.