Has storage stacking been drastically reduced?

[Eternie]

Coming back to the game after a bit of an absence, there are lots of items that no longer stack as many as they use to.

Seems like half to a quarter of what they use to with any meat taking a full slot to store.

Like cherries use to stack to 32 per slot now they pick from tree 8 at a time and stack to a max of 16.

[Tryst49]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από red51:

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Mourning Star:

food spoilage is not content, it needlessly complexifies a system that already works pretty well. when building or exploring, i dont want to starve to death every 4-5 minutes with food that spoils every 10. such mechanics have ruined games like hurtworld and empyrion. it just turns the game into a farming food gathering simulator

Well, it's definitely not our intention to turn the game into a farming food gathering simulator ;) And I agree, it's pretty annoying if games constantly push you to eat or drink. Eat one's fill, just to starve to death five minutes later.

The problem with RW is that it's way too easy to get food. Reducing the spawn rates for food plants definitely helps, but as soon as you're able to get a few tomato seeds, all your food problems are solved. There are a lot of players out there who have crates full of tomatoes etc.
When introducing food spoilage, we want to make this part a little bit more complex. It shouldn't be possible to just hoard the food in crates, instead it should require special treatment if you want to keep your food edible in the long term (curing/salting, drying, smoking, preserving etc).

However, even if you don't preserve your food, it remains edible long enough. And ,of course, food spoilage will be a feature which can be enabled/disabled at any time ;)

But it's true that before adding food spoilage, we have to do some tweaks to the cooking part first. Resetting the "cooking status" by picking up meat is annoying and will definitely be changed ^^

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Tryst49:

Red51, how do you create the stack to begin with?

Currently every inventory slot just holds a single item (which has a "stack" variable indicating the amount of stacked items). The idea behind this approach was to keep the amount of objects / garbage low (everything goes to the heap), and also to keep the traffic low when syncing the inventory between client and server, or storing the serialized inventory in the database (when serializing the inventory, every item just occupies 13 bytes [with the exception of a few special items] - but if we treat every item in a stack individually, it would require a lot more bytes [i.e. a single stack of stones would occupy 64 * 13 bytes]). Having lots of data also causes other problems, especially when it comes to networking (while our network implementation already splits the packets "behind the scenes", it's not designed to handle packets bigger than 64kb - so that would require additional splitting, which adds more complexity).

tl;dr the current implementation isn't capable of handling spoiled / fresh food individually (as long as they're on the same stack). We can't just add this feature without requiring extensive changes to the way how the inventory is stored in the database and how it's synced between client and server (in multiplayer). It's really just about the serialization part, but just changing it in a way which causes more traffic could lead to other issues. We will probably take a different approach when it comes to this feature ;)

I understand. Empyrion uses the same system and uses a single timer for the spoil time of the entire stack. The system is somewhat flawed though. If the spoil time for the stack has 0:30 remaining and you add a new item that has 15:00, it recalculates the time of the entire stack to 15:30/2 which ends up as 7:45 so it "freshens" the existing items and you lose nearly half of the spoilage time of the new item at the same time.

It can work in the players favour though. if you have a long trip home and a full stack of harvested food items is close to spoiling, eat one of the items and harvest a new one to refresh the stack a bit more to get you home before it all goes rotten.

I'm not a big fan of these short spoil times though. In Empyrion for example, fruit can spoil in half a day game time as a day is roughly 30 minutes. In reality, fruit can last several days.

On the other hand, in cases where rotten food can be used for other things such as Nutrient Solution, deliberately waiting for a stack of food to spoil to craft Nutrient Solution to then craft Growing Plots can feel like forever, (a watched kettle never boils). Ark had the same problem and both games introduced food spoiler methods to speed this process.

[Eternie]

@Tryst49 Yep in ARK the spoilage only effects the first item in a stack. such that if you have 32 in a stack they would all be usable, but after the spoilage timer runs out that first item in the stack automatically becomes a spoiled meat. and gets added to the spoiled meat stack. keeping inventory simple and organised.

If for some reason you wanted a lot of spoiled meat you could right click and split stacks and resplit stacks until you had them all as individual items in inventory and they would all spoil at that same rate ... usually several minutes say 10 - 15 minutes actual time. which may represent half a day in game.

With various modifiers as to whether food was kept in a feeding trough, preserver, smoke house or refrigerator. All having modifiers to extend the spoiling time from 4x in an animals inventory
to 100x in a refrigerator.
https://ark.gamepedia.com/Spoilage

[red51]

It's indeed a problem if the system can be easily tricked (e.g. freshen rotten food by adding a fresh food item to the stack etc). Probably we'll update the "freshness" value of an item / stack at a fixed rate (e.g. reduce the freshness value every few seconds, so you can't really "reset" the timer). When merging fresh and rotten food, the game could calculate the average freshness of the items (with putting more weight on food which is actually rotten). It would still be possible to trick the system, because adding a rotten apple to a stack of 63 fresh apples would turn the rotten apple into a fresh apple (although all items on that stack would slightly suffer from the rotten apple), but in most situations this could work (you would improve the freshness of a single item by reducing the freshness of the remaining items).

Maybe it helps if rotten food is treated as a separate item, so it cannot be added to a stack of fresh food. So you could still improve the freshness of an apple which is almost rotten by adding it to a stack of fresh apples, but there is no chance to "freshen" a rotten apple).

Nevertheless, currently we're focusing on some other, bigger changes so we still got some time to reconsider this and maybe find a better way to handle this ;)

[Avanar]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από red51:

It's indeed a problem if the system can be easily tricked (e.g. freshen rotten food by adding a fresh food item to the stack etc). Probably we'll update the "freshness" value of an item / stack at a fixed rate (e.g. reduce the freshness value every few seconds, so you can't really "reset" the timer). When merging fresh and rotten food, the game could calculate the average freshness of the items (with putting more weight on food which is actually rotten). It would still be possible to trick the system, because adding a rotten apple to a stack of 63 fresh apples would turn the rotten apple into a fresh apple (although all items on that stack would slightly suffer from the rotten apple), but in most situations this could work (you would improve the freshness of a single item by reducing the freshness of the remaining items).

Maybe it helps if rotten food is treated as a separate item, so it cannot be added to a stack of fresh food. So you could still improve the freshness of an apple which is almost rotten by adding it to a stack of fresh apples, but there is no chance to "freshen" a rotten apple).

Nevertheless, currently we're focusing on some other, bigger changes so we still got some time to reconsider this and maybe find a better way to handle this ;)

maybe you could see it like this:

first 2 separate stacks, one is 100% fresh, the other only, lets say, 30% (almost rotten).

when you combine these 2 stacks it won´t be 1 stack with 50% fresh apples anymore but a crate with "mixed apples". When you eat from it the game will eat from the fresh ones first and after that from the next less fresh one, etc.

we could even use that chance to craft a wooden apple crate and see it as separate container, only for the purpose to store apples with different values of freshness.

[Spongie]

Some games have raw vegetables give very little benefits as food (although good to get water). Cooking the vegetables make them somewhat better, but putting them in a stew or combining them with other ingredients to make a proper meal is the best way to use them. Some games will even add time limited bonus stats for different food types, such as better endurance vs cold or faster stamina regen, etc.
Add a pot (or frying pan) and a bunch of food recipes.

Perishable food seems like a good idea on paper until you try to manage an inventory with such items. It's a nightmare sorting and stacking based on remaining shelf life.

[Tryst49]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από red51:

It's indeed a problem if the system can be easily tricked (e.g. freshen rotten food by adding a fresh food item to the stack etc). Probably we'll update the "freshness" value of an item / stack at a fixed rate (e.g. reduce the freshness value every few seconds, so you can't really "reset" the timer). When merging fresh and rotten food, the game could calculate the average freshness of the items (with putting more weight on food which is actually rotten). It would still be possible to trick the system, because adding a rotten apple to a stack of 63 fresh apples would turn the rotten apple into a fresh apple (although all items on that stack would slightly suffer from the rotten apple), but in most situations this could work (you would improve the freshness of a single item by reducing the freshness of the remaining items).

Maybe it helps if rotten food is treated as a separate item, so it cannot be added to a stack of fresh food. So you could still improve the freshness of an apple which is almost rotten by adding it to a stack of fresh apples, but there is no chance to "freshen" a rotten apple).

Nevertheless, currently we're focusing on some other, bigger changes so we still got some time to reconsider this and maybe find a better way to handle this ;)

Yes, I would agree that adding them as two seperate items would prevent players refreshing a rotten one. Unless you have a generic "rotten food" icon, (like Empyrion uses), it will mean two different icons for each food type.

However, if we do have rotten food, I hope there will be a use for it, even if it's only to make fertiliser to increase the growth rate of plants or make trees produce fruits faster. If you do this, a generic rotten food item would be better as it would save a lot of coding for making fertiliser. Individual rotten items would require several different recipes.

[Eternie]

Red51 it all depends on what you want to achieve, and the consequences that may entail.
I'm a collector and have stacks of whatever I can store.

In the normal biome there is so much food everywhere that starvation isn't an issue, and like you say tomatoes fill both food and water meters. Personally I still prefer apples and water from a canteen though the act of eating an apple does take a long time.

I think the idea by Spongie has a lot of merit, probably instead of a spoilage system.
That eating vegetables like tomatoes only give mild food intake say needing 20 - 30 to get a fill whereas if they are cooked into a vegetable stew with several vegetables and water then you get a fill equivalent of a full meal. With cooking taking a certain amount of time.
Personally I'd prefer that the cooking just completes at cooked without going on to burnt or fried to a crisp.

If going the spoilage of food route can cause a lot more complexity.
You can have all similar foods auto stacking and getting a spoilage on just the top item like ARK that I linked earlier.

Or like in Novus Inceptio where all items that can spoil get a spoilage bar across their tab showing the spoilage rate of that whole stack. Showing how many days until that stack reaches 100% spoiled. The spoilage time changes as the food is transferred between inventory and cooled storage. Also eating food at 50% or more has a large chance of poisoning.
Of course that introduces needing healing potions or needing powders to cure poisoning.

Novus Inceptio is a unique game with the best crafting menu of any game I have seen which can be searched for each and every item you can make, showing which requirements and crafting station is needed on each item.

These are just ideas to help you decide whatever you think is right for RW

[Avanar]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Eternie:

Novus Inceptio is a unique game with the best crafting menu of any game I have seen which can be searched for each and every item you can make, showing which requirements and crafting station is needed on each item.

These are just ideas to help you decide whatever you think is right for RW

I also own NOvus Inceptio but never really tried it more than half an hour. Maybe i should some time soon.

However when its about crafting i really adore 7d2d. It may not be the game with the best building system, not looking the best way, etc. but the crafting menue is great. You can search for everything to be crafted from your inventory and it will show you requirements, even if you can´t craft it without the help of a crafting table.

And even better, you can click on any item and see for which recipes you can use that item.

Very very playerfriendly.

[Eternie]

I played Novus in it's first world where you could build anywhere. With building mode making a ghost plan of what you wanted, that you later filled with which ever textures you wanted. The fun thing was you didn't need to fill in the blue ghost frame work. and could build vast bridges across whole valleys, and walk over.

So they introduced a new smaller world with restricted areas for building, had a flying robot as your main storage and crafting centre. Was only as their 3rd anniversary approached that ominous signs appeared .. with the McMagic developer needing to take a break from game. Until then they had been very active and supportive like her with Red51.

I think they tried to listen to players too much and lost their way, making resource buildings that create items for nothing for an endless supply of resources to the level of tier quality that you manage to create.

The reason for going into all this is as red51 listens to us and gets encouraged to add lots of new features for some players, just don't overreach and stay with your own plan going forward.

Be careful about going the spoilage route unless you think you see how it can work well.

[cosmi]

You should be able to store food, and keep it's freshness. People in the past, had root cellars, and even before that, they had many ways of storing food. I would really hate for all the food that I have stored to go bad. I don't want to spend a huge chunk of the game, just trying to feed myself. I farm and store food.