Other Resting objects

[T.L.H.E.]

Yay! Big fluffy leather couch. If I can't have one in real life, I can have one in Cantr, at least. Would it be just like the current couch? Leather stretched over a wood frame? Well, I can pretend it's fluffy.

Speaking of the couch couch... is it really made with just plain cotton, or is the "cloth" in the requirement listing for it just missing?

[kroner]

just keep in mind leather couches have to be stuffed with something.
otherwise they aren't soft, and therefore not really couches, just leather covered benches.

[Anthony Roberts]

just keep in mind leather couches have to be stuffed with something.
otherwise they aren't soft, and therefore not really couches, just leather covered benches.

Stuff it with FUR?

...Haha, it would rot. But surely not the point.

[Surly]

Why would it rot, Anthony? Fur coats don't rot... (except in certain circumstances obviously)

Of course I'm assuming that the fur is cleaned and whatever before use.

Am I wrong?

[The Sociologist]

just keep in mind leather couches have to be stuffed with something.

Well, all couches, beds, etc, are stuffed with stuffing material, and such material is composed of fibre. Even those with springs are lined with it. Technically such material could be made from any fibrous material. In the real world this would usually be something like kapoc. In Cantr we could use cotton, hemp, cocoons, wool, feathers or even fur. The only reason you don't often see silk or fine fur used to stuff things in the real world is because it would be ruinously expensive for mass-production beds or couches, not because it is technically infeasible.

I'm still getting the impression that you guys in Programming have charries who've already invested heavily in cotton and so you want cotton to "win". Insider trading!

And my further suggestion is that the feather bed should be clad in silk, not cotton at all. So that would give us a break from cotton. Similarly the elite leather couch should use a stuffing other than cotton. Finally, the hemp cloth-and-string hammock sounds like a must.

[Agar]

I dissagree Sociologist. It SHOULD be cotton, sheerly because it is harder to find than silk (where's the balance in that???) The feather bed shouldn't have any "breaks" given to it, becuase it should give you a really huge, extra good, best-in-the-game, rest.

In short, you should have to work your butt off, and then reap a just reward.

And then rent it out.

100 grams of iron an hour.

1000 gram of iron deposit in case we need to "clean up" after you've used it.

[kroner]

i wasn't implying couches had to be stuffed with cotton, just that they can't be all leather.

[Just A Bill]

I have a few thoughts on this matter, In no particular order...

1. Game balance- Having a game that is balanced is nice, but this should take a back seat to reality, otherwise, the best rest around would be found on a bed made of solid steel, perhaps decorated with some papaya or something exotic from one of these far off lands. Now I like a firm mattress as much as the next guy, but coming home to a bed of cold steel would not be my idea of comfort.

2. To me, a good nights rest is a good nights rest. As long as I fall asleep relatively quickly after hitting the pillow, it doesn't matter to me if I am sleeping on a feather matterss, or one stuffed with cotton, or a waterbed for that matter. Barring obvious problems, do you think you would sleep less at a Four Seasons hotel than at a Motel 6? I am not suggesting that all sleeping items be equal, but broad catagories should be equivelent. For example a bed is a bed, a couch is a couch and a chair is a chair. Local societies will naturally construct those devices out of what they have around, be it cotton, silk, fur or whatever.

3. The location of the resting device should affect sleep. I suspect that I would get considerably less sleep in a night if I moved my bed outside and slept there. I know that there is no weather in Cantr (Yet), but still being indoors should be more comfortable than outdoors, if only because you don't have the animals disturbing you.

4. The Ground- It is my understanding that when you are not working a project you recover tiredness faster than when you are working. If I was tired, I would naturally lie/sit down automatically. The non working tiredness recovery rate should be assumed to reflect resting on the floor/ground. Adding a project for this would just be a waste of time for both programmers and players alike. Perhaps we need to modify the doing nothing recovery rate, but that can be debated.

5. Sleeping Bags/mats - these should affect the basic non working recovery rate. If you have a sleeping bag, you recover a little more when not working on a project. I also think clothes should have a similar effect. I have seen some items of clothing descriped as warm, or comfortable. These should increase the natural recovery rate when not resting on something, and also when resting in less than ideal situations, outdoors on a chair or similar. But there should still be a maximum recovery rate, perhaps equivelent to being indoors on a bed that should not be able to be exceeded, in any event, so being indoors by a fire, in a bed with a fine fur cloak and sleeping bag would be no better than just indoors with a bed.

[Agar]

Bill's post had the seed of an idea:

Waterbed!

3000 grams of rubber (you've got a rubber tapping knife right? ) 4000 grams of water, 2000 grams of wood. Needs something to make seams (seamer? Soldering iron?) hammer, planer (because you really really don't want splinters here).

Gives better than bed's night of rest. May or may not be true in real life, but it uses larger amounts of resources that are gathered in tiny amounts.

As for game balance taking a back seat to reality, how's them potatoes you eating? Little chunky I think, unless you got your stone pot our, added some water and boiled them over a fire, them mashed them up.

1234-5 Project crushing boiled potatoes with a sledge hammer ended, with 23 grams ending up in the inventory of Galhager, and a little bit of the other 4 kilos ending up on everyone else.

I'll quit diverging, or someone will come and split the topic and give me a warning.

[Revanael]

*pokes his head in, avoiding the flying pureed potatoes, glances around, grins, and leaves again*

[Just A Bill]

I have actually slept in a waterbed only once. I was staying at relatives house and my cousin was out of town so I used his waterbed. Nobody told me about the heater. Going to bed I felt a little cool, I woke up with the oddest sensation I was a little cold on the outside, but my insides felt very cold. Kind of hard to explain, but I was told that people had actually died that way. You might what to add some kind of heater to your water bed.

Back to game balance, first why look at just resting when talking about balance. You can do things with cotton that you cant with fur. Making bow strings is the example that comes to mind. If you really want to both make using fur more difficult, you might make it need to be treated first, in a similar fasion to curing leather.

Next, not every resource has to be equal/balanced. I had a character spawn in a location where the only food source you would eat at just about the same rate that you gather it. Spent the first year or so of his life gathering and eating, gathering and eating. Realizing this he moved on rather quickly and is now doing much better. I have seen maps of a location with no resources whatsoever, thats hardly fair I suspect nobody lives there, which is ok too. As a society indicator, no metropolis would spring up where there is no access to food or resources to trade for food. Another example is Seatown Garden, where there are many many food, sources, but are they all equal. I suspect that the great majority of gathering is composed of 3 or 4 foods, with the rest only occasionally being harvested for variety.

In other words, doing some game balancing is probably a good idea, especially in areas where competition is likely (ie weapons/shields), but for it to be the driving factor for everything that happens is going too far.

[Anthony Roberts]

Can't add a waterbed, sorry.

I wanted to before, but Jos has plans for Water. I can't specify what, nor should I even be telling you that at all, but I'm sure if I said "I can't add it" you'd all want to bite off my head for an explaination.

That's your explaination. I can't add it, at the request of Jos.

[Just A Bill]

Please give advanced warning on the water implementation. I have a character who will be walking thru the desert at some point in the future. With my luck, thirst and water will be implemented right when I am furthest from the edge of the desert.

[Agar]

Oh no. No advance warning.

When hunger was added, many people thought "Oh ok. I'm not taking damage from hunger like I used to last week. I suppose when the hunger bar gets more full, I'll start taking damage like I used to. That makes sense."

Wham. Corpses everywhere.

Nope, no warning. What I would suggest is other ways to remove thirstyness get made up, BEFORE thirstyness is set in motion. Milking goats, cows, lions (I just want to watch that really). Making juice. Catching rain in a bucket (we need rain and rain buckets first, but whatever). Then, when there's solutions to thirstyness, implement thirstyness.

Back to the topic: Resting on stuff

Cushions - makes those wooden chairs LOADS more comfortable. Cotton cloth bag with fibre filling. I don't know how everything is scaled against each other, but if you've ever sat in class on a hard plactic chair, and then sat in your next class on a cushioned chair, you know resting on a cushion might make it nearly twice as comfortable.

[kroner]

There was certainly warning given when the health system changed. It was posted on the front page. Making such a risky assumption about how the machanics work after the change was really a bad move, especially considering there was very little basis for it.
I would guess that the reason the programming dept didn't explicitly state that characters would die when the bar reached full was that they never dreamed people would assume otherwise. When people get too hungry, they die. Seems intuitive enough.