Thirst Mechanic?

[buddahballs]

I really love the in depth cooking mechanics, as well as other mechanics that require some time investment to utilize.

HOWEVER i am a bit surprised there isn't any sort of thirst mechanic alongside the hunger bar.

A thirst bar would be really cool and add a lot more immersion. You would have to purify water or suffer debuffs from drinking dirty water, it'd be real cool and i hope it's considered.

[Thorfinn]

Welcome to the forums, @buddahballs

Depending on your taste, people highly recommend  https://mods.vintagestory.at/show/mod/13227 or https://mods.vintagestory.at/show/mod/13245

Incidentally, this has come up many, many times in the past. Enough that it was added to the Frequently Suggested thread over 4 years ago. There are many since then, as recently as a couple months ago. There's nothing wrong with starting a new thread. Heck several many people started new threads in the last 24 hours about the authentication servers. It would just be nice to not rehash all the old discussion. Particularly right after a new release.

[EDIT]

It may well be the long term plan, though they have resisted adding it to the Roadmap yet. Fruit juices at the moment don't do much but extend the Sell By date in exchange for reduced Satiation and increased storage space.

Edited January 18, 2025 by Thorfinn

[LadyWYT]

It would be immersive, yes, and it can add a bit of extra challenge that some might find fun. I've added the mechanic to the game with mods before and while it was fun, I don't think it would be a good addition to the vanilla game. It becomes an unavoidable chore a little too easily, to the extent a player may spend quite a bit of time interrupting their current task to take care of that need. There are also quite a few locations that the player will need to spend quite a bit of time in, that don't have any water sources. Inventory space is a premium resource as well, so while players could just carry more water bottles, that's just more space they won't be able to use for carrying treasure or other survival supplies.

As for adding the mechanic as a purely optional challenge, like the cave-ins...that's one way to handle it, but a thirst mechanic feels a bit too prominent of feature to be reduced to a simple optional challenge, if it's incorporated into vanilla.

[Thorfinn]

My concern turns out to have been misplaced, @buddahballs. I thought with the new release only a few hours ago, no one else would be stopping by. I was kind of afraid that if no one responded you might take it the wrong way. I only stopped playing to get food cooking, and now to check on it. Make sure I didn't do something stupid like setting the heat too high and burning it.

Looks like one of those mods will probably work right now, the other, maybe, though they will likely display a warning in Mod Manager. Wanted you to be able to get to playing a game more to your liking as soon as you could.

Edited January 18, 2025 by Thorfinn

[LadyWYT]

I'll also note that I think a better alternative to a thirst mechanic in the vanilla game, is giving the player better reasons to make and drink beverages to begin with, and not just for survival instincts. Reasons like temporary buffs:

Alcohol, when consumed, could allow players to shrug off a small percentage of incoming damage for a short time. Of course, since it's harder to control a drunk character, frequent consumption of alcohol is ill-advised, especially if a player intends to be doing something that requires more precise actions. Stronger alcohol could give a larger benefit to damage reduction, while of course getting you roaring drunk much faster.

Milk already has a definite benefit, in that it increases dairy nutrition rather quickly, which in turn boosts a player's health.

As for juice, I'm not really sure which benefit you could give here, aside from the extended shelf life it already offers. And while it may not currently hold a lot of nutritional value, it doesn't have much saturating value either, making it a good idea to finish your meals with a drink if you need to replenish lost nutrition quickly(you'll get hungry again much faster).