A Study on Water

[Cookie]

Hey guys! I've been in several discussion threads since the launch of the new experimental. With the change to water being a large topic at hand, I grew more and more curious as to how much players should expect to find in the beginning days of their journey in this apocalyptic world. So I set out to do a bit of data collection out in the game world, and I wanted to give you guys a rough analysis of my findings so far. Bear in mind that it isn't a massive sample size, but it should be good enough to determine some expected average yields when looting early game POI's.

Setting

All settings were on default. Adventurer difficulty, 60 minute days with 18 hours daylight, 100% loot abundance, etc. All worlds were Random Gen.

My control is that I stuck to specifically T0-T2 POI's. Even more specifically, 10 of each. I tried to do 5 residential and 5 commercial of each tier (though I didn't find enough commercial T2's related to food/water in my playthroughs, so I subbed farms in instead).

I also made a point to avoid the trader after the first day of my first playthrough. I was originally going to use him just as a quest giver so that I could double loot POI's, and then entirely forego his actual trading inventory, but after 2 quests I ended up not using him again. This was meant to determine how difficult it might be for a player to simply survive in the world without the use of Dew Collectors or the cooking pot/grill that they sell.

Finally, I kept this all to within the first 4 days of each playthrough. This would have hypothetically allowed me to take the three days leading up to horde night to build a base (or fix up an existing POI).

With that, let's get started on my journey! I have albums listed under each playthrough, so you can see exactly what loot I got from each POI on each day.

Game 1

https://imgur.com/a/Zo8pFWx

I spawned in this world practically sitting on top of a trader. Joel was maybe 200m away from my spawn point about 500m out from the nearest town. After finishing the quests, I accepted a clear quest for a nearby POI. This was Willy's Cabin. Unfortunately I did not grab individual captures of each loot sequence, so the image you'll see is the total loot after a double clear. After I returned to complete the quest, I decided to clear the T3 Pass n Gas right next to the trader. Not originally part of the plan, but I needed a place to bunk for the night. With day 1 finished, I had collected a total of 16 murky water.

Day 2 started up similarly. I grabbed a quest and headed off to Camp Carwhal nearby. I also double looted this POI, and was smart enough to grab individual screenshots of both runs. After I dropped everything off at my temp hub and completed the quest, I explored a bit and found a T0 in the middle of the woods. The Papaw Residence was defended by a measly 2 zeds, but it yielded 4 murky water. I went back to drop everything off and chill for the night. I had a yield of 7 murky water for the day, as well as a coffee.

Day 3 started with me packing my stuff and moving on to a more dense area. I found the nearest town and cleared through a T3 residence (Grand Forks Estate) to set up camp. After that, I looted the house right across the street (Zeigler Residence). I wanted these playthroughs to be relaxed and as non-sweaty as possible, so 2-3 moderate level POI's would do just fine. Overall these were not great hauls for hydrating liquids. Only a measly 3 waters.

Day 4 was also pretty slow. I explored the downtown area until I found a Hurry Harry's (T1), and then not too far from it a Zip Coffee (T0). These yielded 10 murky water, and Harry's had a static cooking pot in the POI.

Now I could continue with the storytelling, but this isn't about that. This is about data. So the next two playthroughs I'm just going to summarize what POI's I went to on what day, and the total water found for the day.

Game 2

https://imgur.com/a/MMZZTsq

Day 1:
T0 - Pass-n-Gas #06
T1 - The Hinton Residence
T2 - The Burnett Residence
Total Drinks - 10 Murky Water and 1 Goldenrod Tea

Day 2:
T0 - Abandoned Downtown Deli
T1 - Prowlin Pete's (Has a static pot)
T2 - Downtown Shamway
Total Drinks - 10 Murky Water, 2 Mega Crush, and 1 Coffee

Day 3:
T0 - Zip Coffee
T1 - Beaver's Restaurant
T1 - Fats Food
T1 - Hurry Harry's (static pot)
Total Drinks - 13 Murky Water, 3 Mega Crush, 1 Goldenrod Tea

Day 4:
T0 - BRR Ice Cream
T0 - Mini Market
T2 - Boar Barn Fields
T2 - The Lopez Residence (static Pot)
Total Drinks - 9 Murky, 1 Mega Crush, 1 Yucca Juice

Game 3

https://imgur.com/a/SflR5QX

Day 1: Long trek from spawn to city
T2 - The Jensen Residence
Total Drinks - 0

Day 2:
T0 - The Bath Residence
T0 - The Cook Residence
T0 - The Splinter Residence
T2 - Hersh Farm
T2 - The McCormick Residence
Total Drinks - 8 Murky Water

Day 3:
T2 - Luigi's Pizza (Static Pot)
T2 - Red Barn Bed-n-Bath
Total Drinks - 9 Murky

Data

In total, 32 POI's yielded a grand total of 95 Murky Water, 5 Mega Crush, 2 Coffees, 2 Goldenrod Teas, and 1 Yucca Juice

T0:
The T0 POI's yielded a total of 25 Murky Water, 1 Goldenrod Tea, and 1 Mega Crush. The commercial T0's specifically yielded 18 of the Murky Waters as well as both the GRT and Mega.

Commercial T0 expected returns per clear: 3-4 Murky Water
Residential T0 expected returns per clear: 0-2 Murky Water

T1:
The T1 POI's yielded a total 29 Murky Water, 5 Megas, 2 Coffees, and 1 Goldenrod Tea. The commercial T1's specifically yielded 18 Murky Water, 4 Megas, and 1 Coffees.

Commercial T1 expected returns per clear: 3-4 Murky Water, 0-1 Mega
Residential T1 expected returns per clear: 2 Murky Water

T2:
The T2 POI's yielded a total of 41 Murky Water and 1 Mega Crush. The 2 commercial T2's yielded 15 Murky Water and 1 Mega Crush. The T2 farms yielded only 5 Murky Water, but also a random Yucca Juice.

Commercial T2 expected returns per clear: 7-8 Murky Water with
Residential T2 expected returns per clear: 4 Murky Water
Farm T2 expected returns per clear: 1-2 Murky Water

Conclusion

Overall I had fun with this little experiment. It took about 12 hours of playtime as well as time to compile everything. At nearly 100 bottles of murky water gained over that duration, it would take only 3 Dew Collectors to produce the same average yield.

For those who dislike playing with the trader, these findings generally provide relief that it is NOT impossible to survive without them. For those who find eating bottles immersion breaking, well take into consideration that you seem to have no issue eating entire metal pots that the stews are filled in. For those who want to be able to mass craft glue for endgame material, it looks like you're really gonna need the dew collectors as early as you can get them to start stockpiling.

Obviously the higher tier POI's like the T3 restaurants, factories, warehouses, etc. will provide even more chances for water looting, but as I said previously I just wanted to do the early level POI's as a way to determine the expected results from an average player on default settings.

If you've read through to the end, then I hope you've enjoyed my little data collection. Cheers!

[Cookie]

Originally posted by Crimzn:

possibly without even having 7d installed.

Wait, I was supposed to have the game installed? Dang, and here I was playing it on my browser like an old flash game.

[NocternalDaze]

Originally posted by Cookie:

Originally posted by Crimzn:

possibly without even having 7d installed.

Wait, I was supposed to have the game installed? Dang, and here I was playing it on my browser like an old flash game.

Not just that how dare you use traders when those having issues with water find traders break immersion, even though if it was in the real world i am pretty sure they would trade items with other survivors.

[Cookie]

Originally posted by NocternalDaze:

Not just that how dare you use traders when those having issues with water find traders break immersion, even though if it was in the real world i am pretty sure they would trade items with other survivors.

All the others are dead. I'm the sole survivor because I AM the Alpha.

[NocternalDaze]

Originally posted by Cookie:

Originally posted by NocternalDaze:

Not just that how dare you use traders when those having issues with water find traders break immersion, even though if it was in the real world i am pretty sure they would trade items with other survivors.

All the others are dead. I'm the sole survivor because I AM the Alpha.

Hahaha i will give you that one, and nicely done :)

[Oktokolo]

Originally posted by NocternalDaze:

Not just that how dare you use traders when those having issues with water find traders break immersion, even though if it was in the real world i am pretty sure they would trade items with other survivors.

It isn't the real world. I want to be able to kill the traders, turn them into grilled meat and glue and take over their bases.

[NocternalDaze]

Originally posted by Oktokolo:

Originally posted by NocternalDaze:

Not just that how dare you use traders when those having issues with water find traders break immersion, even though if it was in the real world i am pretty sure they would trade items with other survivors.

It isn't the real world. I want to be able to kill the traders, turn them into grilled meat and glue and take over their bases.

You can kill your own traders, just don`t kill mine. And not sure if it was patched but i know at one point you could kill traders.

[onanonehand8]

Nicely done, thank you very much.

[NocternalDaze]

Originally posted by onanonehand8:

Nicely done, thank you very much.

Like i say though i am not sure if killing traders has been patched but would have thought so because it would affect mp servers.

[FT]

Even with DoubleLooting and searching for residential POIS, it took 4/2/3days until you found your first CookingPot in order to make use of any of the water you found (without taking health-damage/12%Dysentery ThirstDamage/and only getting half the drink benefits).
So it looks like it's a good thing the devs added CookingPots to the trader inventory (for $600) unless you want them cluttering the common loot tables.
At least good for anyone who knows about this or realizes to look here. Fresh players might not get the same benefits if they aren't thinking about it.


Also looks like you can expect 3-13 MurkyWater per day from looting a lot, though that can also fall to 0-16 extremes if you're unlucky/lucky.
A little surprising to me that commercial POIs have more water than residential...until I think about the size difference where more residentials are lowTier and the commercials are higher-tier on average, so I guess that does make sense.

[frostyglen]

I've only played two games in the new alpha, and I've found a cooking pot on day one both times just by looting T1 buildings. I've scrapped probably a dozen. Are they really that rare?

[FT]

Originally posted by frostyglen:

I've only played two games in the new alpha, and I've found a cooking pot on day one both times just by looting T1 buildings. I've scrapped probably a dozen. Are they really that rare?

In my first two playthroughs (singleplayer b313, MP b317) we didn't get cookingpots until several days in despite a ton of looting and quests. In my SP game I actually forged a CookingPot before finding one the next day, (I think day 5?) and in the MP game I joined late and just bought one from the trader after a day of missions/looting which was also around day5 and the other fellow who had started the playthrough from day1 hadn't found a pot by that point...nor did they realize they were supposed to buy a DewCollectorFilter since it's only mentioned as an "advanced" water collection method in the journal/notes many players skip through at this point.
I guess "advanced" means "try to get it by day 1-2", lol.

[NocternalDaze]

Originally posted by frostyglen:

I've only played two games in the new alpha, and I've found a cooking pot on day one both times just by looting T1 buildings. I've scrapped probably a dozen. Are they really that rare?

i think it depends, but i am sure the patch notes stated the chance to find cooking pots had been increased. At same time i could be wrong but will have to double check that.

Edit: I am wrong, patch notes only state added cooking pots and grills to trader inventory.

[Cookie]

Originally posted by FT:

Even with DoubleLooting and searching for residential POIS, it took 4/2/3days until you found your first CookingPot in order to make use of any of the water you found (without taking health-damage/12%Dysentery ThirstDamage/and only getting half the drink benefits).
So it looks like it's a good thing the devs added CookingPots to the trader inventory (for $600) unless you want them cluttering the common loot tables.
At least good for anyone who knows about this or realizes to look here. Fresh players might not get the same benefits if they aren't thinking about it.

Also looks like you can expect 3-13 MurkyWater per day from looting a lot, though that can also fall to 0-16 extremes if you're unlucky/lucky.
A little surprising to me that commercial POIs have more water than residential...until I think about the size difference where more residentials are lowTier and the commercials are higher-tier on average, so I guess that does make sense.

Yeah, if I was able to find a drinkable liquid other than water before finding a pot then it definitely helped. Along with that, I did also find quite a few vitamins. Pop that, drink a murky if I have nothing else, and then eat to replenish hunger and health. Not the worst thing in the world even if it does have only half the hydration of normal water.

I wasn't as surprised that commercial had more water. I expected that to be the case. What I was surprised about mostly was how little the farms gave. I was most miffed about was that the 55-gallon water barrels can't be looted. The 5-gallon water jugs lying around the world can, but not the big blue water barrels? Meh. Seems like an easy change that I would hope they implement.

The biggest piece of advice I have to give is to learn which POI's have static cooking pot entities so that you don't have to worry about RNG for it. Prowlin Pete's, Hurry Harry's, and Luigi's Pizza all had cooking pots sitting on a counter. I'd assume that's also true for most of the T3 restaurants as well. Some residential homes will also have one.