Aging Wood

[Grampa Twizzelsticks]

Dear Vintage Story Creators

 

There seems to be a theme of the 'old' in this game.

The thing about a survival game is that once you can live, the game is over, but... how about giving people something to do after the wild has been tamed?

I suggest letting wooden beams, roofs etc, that have not been treated with polish, paint or the like, become rotten and aged. This would reflect real buildings. This would also tie in to the games creative theme and help push building skills (which many people enjoy). It would give the game a real sense of the 'old'.

Every time it rains on exposed dead wood,a it 'ticks' towards old and the aged, eventually becoming the ruins found.

This does not have to be catastrophic, but to play a game where someone's building erodes echoes the relics.

This also emotionalises the abandonment found in old servers. Does someone live here... ? 

 

Love from Twizzelsticks

[Broccoli Clock]

I like the idea, but it's a ton of work. A lot more than most people would realise, imo.

Would you be looking for this to be SP only or MP, as the intermittent existence of players in their SP worlds is very different to always on multiplayer environments.

It's a game so we can play around with realism, but just for reference, I used to live in a house that was built in the early 1700s, very little of it had changed and very little of it had rotted away over 100s of years.

As I say though, I like the idea.

[-Glue-]

This would be a builders nightmare. It could work, but I think it would end up more frustrating than anything. You should never change or destroy the materials of a persons build without their direct input. Building a large and detailed home is already a lot of work. Having to additionally maintain it, or use even more materials to avoid it decaying would likely push it a bit too far into tedium.

Personally, I think just having vines, ivy, or moss growing on the outside, or having a removable dirt layer build up over time, would be more than enough. Rather than changing the actual block materials. It would definitely have to be a toggleable feature, and I think the "decay" should only happen when the build is out of the players render distance. Sorta simulating that you are upkeeping the build by living in, or near it, but if you left to live somewhere else for a couple in-game years, then it would decay, since no one is around to maintain it.
I'm not super intelligent on coding, but it may also decrease performance, having so many blocks keep track of their decay and exposure values. I think that calculation headroom could be better utilized in actual gameplay features.

[ifoz]

I like the idea of being able to make wood into aged wood by sealing it in an empty barrel or crate for say... 3-6 months or something.
That would be fun, I think.