The impracticality of settling afar from a lake or a river

[BeetlePie]

I think that the only way to truly survive in the long run (talking about advanced worlds) is by having the guarantee of a consistent source of meat. Thirst can be easily solved by just installing rain collectors if none of the options mentioned in the title are available. However, you cannot solve the problems of living away from the woods or from one of these sources of water. The reason is that you will always rely on some kind of vehicle that requires both gas and maintenance, and even yet, there is a high chance you will eventually lose access to it due to wear.

Eternally replacing one vehicle with another is not very realistic. Given that you need to travel regularly for food, you are wasting and deteriorating a highly valuable resource such as a car. This means burning transport options faster than it would normally take if they were used for looting or long trips. On top of these issues, wooden traps require nails, that would theoretically run out as well in the long term. The rest of the traps are not as worth, given the materials needed to craft them or the prey they catch (such as birds).

Living near a lake or a pond allows you to access fish meat easily and steadily, having unlimited access to water both for farming and drinking in the process. The reason is that you need nothing but a spear in case there are no other resources available, such as fishing line or twine. It may not be the most profitable way to fish, but you are always given the chance to carry on such task. Naturally, this way of living also allows you to save on gas and vehicle maintenance, not having to worry about finding a new substitute for your car.

[BeautifulRnr]

wtf. no u can farm potatoes . u dont need meat.

[Quill]

Originally posted by [e-mail]:

wtf. no u can farm potatoes . u dont need meat.

Trapping exists as well

[agustinzomboid]

As a metalworker enjoyer, I do believe that the maintenance of the car can be a very meaningful objective to keep the game entertaining, in my friends mp server we actually travel from rosewood to lake ivy for a week at a time, with a camping trailer with a functioning fridge, and thats it, we get some calories, we are out. having everything at hand is very much a boring experience imo. We do not live "far" from water but we dont have it right next to base. its our preference to do so, but we will change it soon enough

[anywhatshisname]

Need horses for later game travel. Horseshoes, protecting horse from biters, feed...

[BeetlePie]

Originally posted by anywhatshisname:

Need horses for later game travel. Horseshoes, protecting horse from biters, feed...

Yes, this would be the most viable way of travelling in advanced worlds.

[Greb]

A few metal barrels and some stick traps can keep you going for a very long time. Grow some crops and you're basically all set. You're never far away from a deep forest, unless you settle in the middle of Louisville or something. People used to play this game for years at a time before cars got added too, though I don't know how abundant stuff was back then or even if trapping and foraging was a thing, lol.

Do stick traps or whatever break? When I play with my friends, one of us is a forage trapper and the other takes up farming, and the fridge is always full of vegetables, fatty or lean meals (salads or rabbit stews) and we've always turned out okay. The trapper never mentioned his traps breaking or wearing down, either they don't do that or it's not a problem, we've never had trouble finding nails. We always play on the rarest possible loot settings, too. They're planning to make renewable sources of things like nails in the future, hopefully part of Update 42.

If we had access to a river or whatever that'd mean fish, something we've never been able to really take advantage of, but presumably that'd just make survival almost completely trivial and we'd never have to leave our base except maybe in Winter, lol.

As far as I can see anyway it's less impractical and just more inefficient, at least for now. The biggest issue is how much weight you can end up losing if you keep travelling on foot everywhere now, I guess. Right now, honey, lard and butter aren't renewable which makes making fatty high calorie meals a little more annoying but once ranching and hopefully bee keeping gets into the game it'll make surviving without your belly meeting your spine in under a month a lot less tedious. I hope.

I mean, thanks to Louisville right now you can survive for over a year just going from house to house and eating non-perishable food even on the rarest loot settings too. I don't recommend that because it's boring but you totally can do it, lol.

Generally the way I've always played is pretty much scavenging everything you need to set up long term sustainability, and then restarting due to boredom. There has never really been any challenge to survival, except not acting dumb and biting off too much than you can chew in regards to zombies, I guess. I fail that one all the time.

Originally posted by anywhatshisname:

Need horses for later game travel. Horseshoes, protecting horse from biters, feed...

Yeah horses would be good. They'll take you far distances without causing you to enter a massive deficit of calories because you're not swallowing a block of lard every three hours, and they can graze to restore and keep their energy up while you're busy looting somewhere. Perhaps we'll even get a cart they can pull, for more loot (almost certainly with mods if not in vanilla, lol)

Cars wearing down is a definite long term problem, and a good one, I say. Keeping a singular car running as a precious resource (especially in very long running games) ought to be a core mechanic. Right now you just replace the car when it gets run down with another one off the street. Also gives you a reason to scavenge parts from vehicles to keep it running, which is cool too.

[BeetlePie]

Originally posted by [e-mail]:

wtf. no u can farm potatoes . u dont need meat.

Growing potatoes takes too much time to rely solely on them, and it's honestly boring as well or that's what I think at least. I prefer to have variety, combining carbs, veggies and meat whenever possible.

[Deklend]

It's doable without a fishing source if you focus on foraging, but yeah fishing definitely makes it a lot easier.

[KaveMan]

Every time i setup near a water source, I hardly ever use it, It's more of a scenery than the usefulness it provides, Foraging/Trapping provides more variety of sustenance than fishing ever could.

Multiplayer, avoid such locations because everyone will have the same predictable thought. Best place to go looking for people.

[Nordil(Hun)]

Originally posted by KaveMan:

Every time i setup near a water source, I hardly ever use it, It's more of a scenery than the usefulness it provides, Foraging/Trapping provides more variety of sustenance than fishing ever could.

Multiplayer, avoid such locations because everyone will have the same predictable thought. Best place to go looking for people.

Yeah, most of my games, i never have a reliable water source, instead i just use watever container I can to collect rainwater.
Probably because every time i settle nearby a lake and rely on fishing my char gets fat:D

[BeetlePie]

Originally posted by Cat Supremacist SM:

All of this will be addressed in the next build as well, with cattle being added and the crafting overhaul with the goal of survival on a nature only map being part of it.

Next build will change everything indeed, and there will definitely be more varied and viable ways of surviving.

[stevasaur]

Originally posted by BeetlePie:

Eternally replacing one vehicle with another is not very realistic. Given that you need to travel regularly for food, you are wasting and deteriorating a highly valuable resource such as a car. This means burning transport options faster than it would normally take if they were used for looting or long trips. On top of these issues, wooden traps require nails, that would theoretically run out as well in the long term. The rest of the traps are not as worth, given the materials needed to craft them or the prey they catch (such as birds).

Snare traps catch rabbits and squirrels and only cost planks and twine. You get the twine back if they break, so they are theoretically renewable with a source of planks (which should be fairly easy from random ambient trees growing in your base). The level 3 wire traps also have no material loss when they break: you can just pick up the wire off the ground and remake it into a cage trap on the spot.

(To everyone saying "grow potatoes": cabbages grow in 1/3rd the time and have more than twice the calories individually compared to potatoes. Potatoes are a very distant second when it comes to "crops you grow for direct consumption")

[ambi]

does anyone know if there's a way to smoke meat & fish for preservation?

[BeetlePie]

Originally posted by stevasaur:

Originally posted by BeetlePie:

Eternally replacing one vehicle with another is not very realistic. Given that you need to travel regularly for food, you are wasting and deteriorating a highly valuable resource such as a car. This means burning transport options faster than it would normally take if they were used for looting or long trips. On top of these issues, wooden traps require nails, that would theoretically run out as well in the long term. The rest of the traps are not as worth, given the materials needed to craft them or the prey they catch (such as birds).

Snare traps catch rabbits and squirrels and only cost planks and twine. You get the twine back if they break, so they are theoretically renewable with a source of planks (which should be fairly easy from random ambient trees growing in your base). The level 3 wire traps also have no material loss when they break: you can just pick up the wire off the ground and remake it into a cage trap on the spot.

Mmnh... that's an interesting point. I didn't know about these facts, so thank you a lot.

[Another Mother's Son]

Originally posted by stevasaur:

Originally posted by BeetlePie:

Eternally replacing one vehicle with another is not very realistic. Given that you need to travel regularly for food, you are wasting and deteriorating a highly valuable resource such as a car. This means burning transport options faster than it would normally take if they were used for looting or long trips. On top of these issues, wooden traps require nails, that would theoretically run out as well in the long term. The rest of the traps are not as worth, given the materials needed to craft them or the prey they catch (such as birds).

Snare traps catch rabbits and squirrels and only cost planks and twine. You get the twine back if they break

I have a hard time finding twine. I just build box traps, and you get some nails back. Save all the unusable scrap wood to fuel a fire pit in your trapping camp.