Does BAC reduce realism?

[JaxonThomas]

I was reading through the wiki and my concerns that the mod would unbalance the game and make it less grounded in history seem justified. One dude in the forest couldn't mine iron ore and make steel surely, you'd need a village full of people to do that.

Some of the stuff sounds cool and relevant (bone fish-hooks etc) but I'm worried it'll just become cheesy and unrealistic if there's a slew of unbalanced piecemeal additions.

Any thoughts?

EDIT by Erkka: I think JaxonThomas was a spambot, first posting a copypasted version of another topic, then later on editing the post to insert links to suspicious sites. I deleted the user account and removed the suspicious links from this post, but I kept the thread for there is some good discussion below.

[Brygun]

Well, now. Didn't expect that question.

Fair disclosure: I'm Brygun. The B in the BAC mod. Organizer of the mod from its various sources including my own addittions.

So where to being:

Q: Is play balance different with BAC?
A: Yes
Of course it does. There is many ways to get different tools or results other than the options in the vanilla game.
Ways of generating wealth bundled up in ways of entertaining your self with role playing whittle a board game. Even if the game tracks how much of a different good is sold that there exists multiple new items means you could profit by selling them to a village.

Q: Does it change realism?
Well what is your reference for realism? Many, though not all, players are modern urbanites enjoying the game as a trip to the woods. I'm a bit urbanized but also grew up in the country side running around in forest was normal. It was a very safe wood without bears or lynxes or wolverines or Nerjpez to worry about.

Q: Is there realism basis for items in the BAC?
A: Yes
In fact if you open up the diy_BAC_XXXX.txt files I specifically included references including links to youtube videos you can watch. Those certainly show there is realism is the mod.

Q: Did item XXX exist in real world Iron Age Finland?
Oh now there is a varied question. Item by item of all items would be too much so here is a few. Again many others have references in the .txt file comments.
= As a Canadian with a tradition of birch bark canoes I put it in yet as Saami, maker of Unreal World and a native Finlander, pointed out is the sort of birch trees in Finland are different so they probably couldn't even made at all.
= The largest of the boats, the clinkered punt, is a combination of the steamed open tree logs known to Finland plus the clinkering and caulking of what is known for sure in later ages but possible in that age.
= The steps for making iron come from Rain's Ironworking mod and do indeed match up to my own studies of blacksmithing in that period. I was surprised to find that lake ore is a real thing. I thought it was a quirky gamey thing but low and behold if one looked into it this actually is realism. Secret: Finland has/had so much surface and near-surface iron ore that it flowed down with the rains into rivers into lakes. In the lakes, like the bogs, biological processes pulled it out and tended to make it into clumps mixed with non-iron. Thus you did need to roast the lump of lake ore (or bog ore) and process.

= Back strap weaving is a real world thing. I believe there is a video for that in the .txt files.

=  Cordage is easier to make in BAC through various real world ways. Only the recent 3.60 ish (IIRC) added the withe making. Prior to that it took capturing animals to get leather to get the cords to hang meat to dry in the winter. A rather recursive if you have it (an animal kill) you can do it but if don't have it you can't do it (if that makes sense). In my own research I looked into real world ways for making cordage, like digging up spruce roots, and added them in. Real = yes. Changing the play balance = yes.

Part of the BAC goals was to include things that were known or plausible to teach woodland survival skills. Thats why the Shaman mod was excluded, that is well researched but deals with a metaphysical.

If you are new to UnReal World you might want to give a few goes at playing without the mod. It can be added mid-play or removed. The way Unrweal World recipes work once an item is created its properties are assigned to the instance thus not needing an ongoing reference. IF there is a graphic custom that might end up being empty but it should still show up in the list if you stand on a tile to pick it up. Of course without  the mod you don't need a Ball Hammer.

Good question. Think I will add the answers to the BAC forum and the text files.

[Brygun]

I'd also like to point out that a lot computer games today get crafting wrong. The do it wrong on purpose. They create artificial values and needs based on the programmers following popular tricked perceptions or to have things break to give players something to do again and again.

On tricked perceptions: Gold
Gold is a soft metal that stays shiny and conducts electricity. It is also very heavy. It is utter rubbish for making armor and weapons. The real world Kings of Europe had full plate armor of >steel< with >gold as pretty trim<. Many games make you want to use gold as something like a pick axe to pound on volcanic granite rock. Utter non-sense.

On having things break to give you repetitive things to do: Minecraft pick axe
Pick axes of real world miners last for how long? Sure a mining company will wear through them. Sure they need to be sharpened now and then. They last for weeks or months. You don't have to take a shipment of pick axes for your 8-hours of work. By having the tool break the player of the game is now forced to go to the same parts of the game world to gather the same materials. It is forcing repetition.
To be honest I love it in Fallout 4 running mods where I have to go hunt copper for the casing of my modded in .50 caliber semi-automatic anti-material rifle my power armor character uses. Bullets though really are one use except for that copper (really bronze) casing falling to the ground which could be gathered up again.

Award for worse realism in a computer game goes to Minecraft for making players strive to get the so called high quality tool of a Gold Pickaxe that breaks regularily.

#2 for the award also goes to Minecraft for the diamond headed pick axe. Seriously. You want to poke fun at realism in a computer game try to find a real world example of a diamond headed pick axe.

[JP_Finn]

Metallic firearm cartridges are made of brass, not bronze.
Or aluminum: which are non-reloadable.
Or steel, which can be reloaded, but exert excessive wear on the reloading dies. A lot of the steel cases use Berdan primers too, which makes depriming even slower manual task, vs most brass cases being Boxer primed. Of course there are some brass cases using berdan primers. And some manufacturers brass cases have narrow flash hole and standard de-capping pins won’t fit through (.223 Remington by Fiocchi being one such ‘case’)

Another exception would be brass headed plastic shot shells. Shotguns have lower pressures than rifles or handguns.

And most metallic cases can be reloaded from 2-20-ish times. How hot are the loads, are the cases conducive to reloading: mouth, shoulder geometry. Mouth and wall thickness. Is the chamber oversized. Are the cases neck or full sized. Are the cases annealed between reloads.

I’ve played FO4, I like the setting. But it’s far-cry from realism too. Generic pipe won’t make a barrel. It’d end up as pipebomb most likely. Or couldn’t hit wide side of barn: even when shot from inside of the barn.

But then, for failed realism: nothing beats Minecraft magic contra-gravity tiles, simply floating in air when supporting block gets removed.

[Ezezaguna]

That's a very interesting question. Is realism in games a thing? Well, obviously for UrW it is, but for others no. In my experience the UrW is, what I think, one of the more realistic games about survival, but is it really realistic? well, no; that's somewhat impossible for a videogame. There are many things to be considered like balancing, and obviously, fun (that delicate line between tedious realistic work in-game and reward for the user).

Therefore, does BAC unbalance the realism of UrW? I would say no, on the contrary it brings more realism.
Maybe you can find Finnish realism discrepancies (like the birch-bark punt Brygun mentioned), but in general it just adds historical iron age heavy-inspired-realism processes. Balanced and, as the same UrW authors said, with some artistic liberties for the purpose of make an entertaining game, not an documentary about Iron Age Finland (although UrW can be considered a similar thing, is very educational ).

I think that if the game goes 100% realistic wouldn't be fun. Life was and is hard, and the struggles for ancient people were a thing. But there is a well said principle you can find in Aristotle's Poetics: The spectator will be satisfied if the story presented to him respects the own rules of the world representation delivered. For example, you maybe don't know what a giraffe is, you may never seen one, but if someone came and explain it's properties to you, respecting the rules of physics and biology that governs 'your' world (this very world), you would understand what a giraffe is and be satisfied seeing a characterization of that. A similar thing applies for UrW and BAC, both gives you elements of a world that you can say "oh, yeah, sure it was a thing in those times".

And in addition, in my gameplay experience, I would say it is balanced. If you read the code it has limitations for keeping things difficult as those things were  in those times. Mining bog ore was a thing, but the process would surely be a slow one. The same goes for 'carrying tree trunks' and 'building a house'. Man that was a thing. You don't want to do it in actual life in the same way you do it in UrW, is really tedious and hard work. That's why lots of cultures had rituals for many things, those were very important accomplishments.