Suggestion : mice / rats destroy food?

[hardy_conrad]

One of the best things for this game is, curiously for something about zombies, realism. That got me to thinking. I spent some time living in a bit of a dump and when I set mousetraps all over the place it wasn't so I could have a snack, it was so my existing snacks wouldn't get holes chewed in them while I was at work. It's also nice to come home and not find rodent turds all over the place. So how about a similar mechanic in the game? Say if you have lots of dry goods in containers there's a chance it'll get pinched. Open it up and either find it gone, or replaced by a mouse. If it's perishable goods maybe they could end up prematurely rotten courtesy contamination. Might even have a slight disease chance from rodent infestations, similar to the risks from dead zombies piling up in the front yard. And you could counter these risks with mousetraps. Same as in the real world.

[Nordil(Hun)]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von hardy_conrad:

One of the best things for this game is, curiously for something about zombies, realism. That got me to thinking. I spent some time living in a bit of a dump and when I set mousetraps all over the place it wasn't so I could have a snack, it was so my existing snacks wouldn't get holes chewed in them while I was at work. It's also nice to come home and not find rodent turds all over the place. So how about a similar mechanic in the game? Say if you have lots of dry goods in containers there's a chance it'll get pinched. Open it up and either find it gone, or replaced by a mouse. If it's perishable goods maybe they could end up prematurely rotten courtesy contamination. Might even have a slight disease chance from rodent infestations, similar to the risks from dead zombies piling up in the front yard. And you could counter these risks with mousetraps. Same as in the real world.

No. It would not be.
It would just add another thing to micromanage. Also how the hell would a mice open up a tin can and destroy the food inside? Or how it would get in your fridge?
Your farm would most likely be overtaken by them, but still no.
In another game that is already HEAVILY micromanagent focused, to the level where most folks just abandon it, they just introduced this system. (It was in the first part of the series, and second one is in beta i think.) Instead of mice they have rats, and cats and dogs to catch them. But you need to find the cat, or and the dog. You install rat traps, but they are so bad at catching rats, that whatever you do you get major infestations.(Even with 3 traps and a cat) In that game they are already destroying items as well making you constantly repair them as well, wow how nice it would be that all the weapons you finally managed to get, or your tools to be...destroyed by mice.

Also a mouse trap would do nothing, without bait. So you want to set up every friggin day, 10-20 mouse traps, have enough scrap of food to do it too. Trapping in this regard is already present and it can be quite tedious. Now you just want this to be a necessity. Not to mention that in this case every friggin house should have their own "RAT/MICE counter, model" whatever. It would just make the game more tedious and not really add anything to it. Beside a false sense of reality, which would be quelled very fast, as it would become a job like boring thing you MUST do.
You really did not think this through.

[hardy_conrad]

I can appreciate the micromanaging concern, however this would be a fairly minor thing. Perhaps I gave the impression people HAD to load up on rodent traps or face desolation? Not at all. And obviously the mice wouldn't be burrowing through tin cans. Again, I didn't say that so not sure why you'd think so... Is it because I mentioned containers? I meant like cupboards for example. To be more specific, I'm referring to foods such as rice, crackers, chocolate and so forth. Thought it was self evident, but no worries. My bad.

So overall, just every now and then if you do meet certain conditions such as not having any mouse traps and having cupboards full of the kinds of things mice tend to chew on, there's a chance of those things getting chewed on by mice. Maybe failing to clean up the place if it's splattered with bloodstains too. If it's really a problem should be easy enough to make it an optional type setting to be turned on or off in sandbox mode. Plenty of stuff already much more difficult than what I'm suggesting in the core game so there is a demographic who might enjoy the extra challenge.

[Greb]

It'd be neat for them to add rats etc when they add animals and make them a physical entity within the world instead of just a chance to occur based on the game ticking over or something. Especially if as you say the infestations could occur with rotten corpses, or even rotten food - the idea of cracking open a Spiffo in a town you've not visited for six months, only to find a small swarm of rats run out of the door because of the rotten food, would be pretty cool.

I'm the sort of person that takes joy in "setting up" and becoming resistant to things, going from nothing to something, so having addtional layers to that would be pretty neat in regards to making your food storage pest proof as best you can, maybe through the use of Carpentry etc to make pest-proof doors, or by putting food on an upper level where pests couldn't reliably reach as easily, in pest proof containers or something. Also with the sickness mechanic, heavily pest infested places could present a proper health hazard that needed to be dealt with from time to time. Doesn't have to be a daily thing, and shouldn't. That'd be too much. But getting infestations because of piss-poor management of your base or finding them in other locations that have been abandoned for months would be cool in my opinion.

Rat poison and rat traps etc in the world would also give Trapping a reason to exist beyond "damn, I'm out of canned food" which thanks to Louisville even on the lowest loot rarity is hard to achieve now (although NPC looters might be a dynamic that changes this) not to mention rats and mice would make a good extra food source that comes to you.

Complexity is good for a game, especially one such as Zomboid that already covers after-effects of a zombie apocalypse better than most other zombie games (grass growing, erosion, water and electricity shut off, car batteries being drained, zombies weakening over time, etc etc) - you can bet places like the farm warehouses would be swarming with pests once the food begins rotting. I dunno, it'd be cool to me. That extra thing to prepare for or deal with, keeping the game entertaining and interesting.

And as mentioned, ideally it'd be a sandbox setting I.E "Pest Abundance" you could change from "Off" to "Mild" "Normal" "Extreme" or something, adjusted for personal taste.

[D3st]

The idea of adding rats as a physical animal is a good idea but as nordil say,if in the other hand its turn out to be a rats hunting simulator to prevent them from eating your food in a constant battle each day its would ruin the experience for many player.If adding these kind of event,balance between fun and realism must be really well made.

[hardy_conrad]

I agree getting the balance right is important. Letting the player adjust the settings or turn it off entirely would be ideal so people could play the game they want to play. The idea of a ton of rats popping out of a building is pretty awesome actually. Like it would complicate things for players used to just listening before they open a door. Is that rustling you hear a rodent? Or, something else...