Thirst Mechanics

[Butterrobber202]

Thank for the IPC Thrist Removal.

Was not looking forward to G2’s moving at one til a second.

[ShameOnTurtles]

I will start off by saying I don't think this feature should be added.

I think the points raised about SS13 not being a survival simulator are very important to consider and outline the issue I have with the proposed feature.

I disagree that this mechanic will improve immersion for a few reasons.

• It is not realistic or believable that someone would be crippled with thirst over a two hour shift. This goes for hunger as well, but I am moderately more tolerant of hunger.
  
• As Coalf said, being forced to take a drink every X minutes to prevent crippling effects happening to your character is not going to promote roleplay or interaction. It will force players to put their current situation on hold until they can complete the task. Therefore, people will find ways to game the system. You may call this an administrative issue at this point, but I do not believe it will promote good RP at all.
  

 

Hunger is a mechanic that is supported by a job on station, with a lot of depth to make what they want, but it is not debilitating and nor should it be. People should not be primarily RPing through mechanics, but through their own impetus. If someone's character is thirsty, they can RP that. If they are hungry, the mechanics allow them enough leeway that they are mostly not forced to solve that immediately. Making the effects of these two mechanics worse just forces players onto a single avenue of action for their character.

[Evandorf]

I will start off by saying I don't think this feature should be added.

[*]It is not realistic or believable that someone would be crippled with thirst over a two hour shift. This goes for hunger as well, but I am moderately more tolerant of it.

---

Making the effects of these two mechanics worse just forces players onto a single avenue of action for their character.

 

I may be in the dark on lore here, but has it been explained why the shifts are so short?

I had assumed the two hour length was simply for the sake of round turnover and to make sure that things didnt get stale. I don't think the normal two hour time frame should be a large factor when calculating how realistic something is.

And from what I've seen of the proposed changes, especially now that IPC thirst has been removed, the mechanics are not being made worse. The time it takes to dehydrate or become hungry appear to have remained the same.

[Doxxmedearly]

In light of the discussion going on in this thread, I think my stance has changed from "Sure why not" to "I don't think I want to see this feature." Especially the points coalf and shame have raised.

I think this is because drinks are already used in RP. People stop at the bar all the time to get drinks. They go there after a tough workday, or to get coffee on early shifts, or because their character just really loves booze (I have a character that loves soda so much it's in her exploitables). I've had people just stop in at the bar for orange juice. The drinks do nothing for them, but they get them anyway. It's RP'd. I've never lacked for interaction as a bartender, and I know this isn't something being done to give this job more interaction, but it is a job that will be affected by it. I don't think it needs it.

I don't think thirst is a doom and gloom scenario, or would break the game, but at the same time, I don't feel like it's necessary, or will even go as far to add to RP/Immersion as you think. I think it will be mostly a nuisance. It's another meter to manage, even if managing it isn't difficult.

I still believe that removing milk/tea healing and the new hunger gauge are worthwhile changes.

[BurgerBB]

None of the posts they raised apply to this. I'm going to explain this once and only once, and if people don't read this post while still complaining about how it's crippling without understanding the code then I have a right to verbally abuse them. I can see a lot of misunderstandings and misinformation going on so let me correct it. A lot of the feedback and criticisms about the core concept of the thirst mod surprises me considering that this is an HRP server and the mechanics themselves aren't bad.

Here is what the balance entails:

Running does not take up an additional hunger or thirst point per tile. I removed it.

The amount of nutrition lost by walking was reduced 50%. That 50% was added to hydration loss.

The amount of nutrition lost by stamina regen was reduced 50%. That 50% and 25% more was added to the hydration loss.

The amount of hunger required to have not-negative effects was doubled.

The amount of thirst required to have not-negative effects is 50% lower than hunger.

Antags and sec had a problem with maintaining hunger levels because they moved around a lot. This changes that.

[SatinsPristOTD]

Yes, we're hRP, but it's also a game. Heavy roleplay doesn't mean "You have to RP out even the most mundane of life because if you don't, then you aren't RPing properly." Heavy RolePlay means you imphasize how well your character interacts to situations during the round. How your character develops background, lore, relationships and character traits.

it's not "Oh, 30mins have passed. joe needs to drink water." Applying such mundane life tasks to, what is literally a game, doesn't benefit anyone. Even in D&D, a game you could argue has helped shaped the hRP community, you don't have forced mechanics. Your Dungeon Master may, after a session, tell you it's a good time to grab food and water, but you aren't strictly bogged down during that session from thirst or hunger (unless your DM is a CE asshole).

I've gone against the ridiculous "starvation" code multiple times within the past month, and gave reason why it doesn't make sense. Thirst, I GUESS, can be easier to explain, but even still... you aren't going to dehydrate to the extent your body is trying to compensate for the loss in less than a day. It's a mechanic to nerf players, hunger is. You need balance in the game, so I'm willing to overlook some of it's flaws.

Thirst mechanics just... don't need to be added. Doxx is entirely right. People don't need something to remind them to grab drinks. The bar gets plenty of action. Soda machines get used. I've even used the water cooler in Security. You need to have more trust in the community to RP, and not try to force us to do things we are already doing. Half of these suggested IR's have been kinda insulting, if I'm honest. We don't need code to tell us to do things that we already do, collectively, as a server. Those that add to rounds, those that actually RP out the comfort of their character, are the ones who get punished by "mechanic enforced" real-life code. You adding some code to "enforce RP on people who aren't RPing" isn't actually getting them to RP. They aren't going to, even with this code. It's just another mechanic to them.

You're so wrapped up in making things realistic as possible. We have wizards. A singularity that can be used to create energy (and in the grand scheme of things, not a lot of energy). We have cloning. We have working hypnosis. We have food that is cooked in less than 15 seconds. The point is, this game isn't realistic. We add realism through how our characters respond and act. Not by drinking a glass of water.

Nerfing the ridiculous hunger code and just adding a thirst mechanic doesn't really fix anything. It doesn't add RP. It's just another brick in the wall.

[Evandorf]

In light of the discussion going on in this thread, I think my stance has changed from "Sure why not" to "I don't think I want to see this feature." Especially the points coalf and shame have raised.

I think this is because drinks are already used in RP. People stop at the bar all the time to get drinks. They go there after a tough workday, or to get coffee on early shifts, or because their character just really loves booze (I have a character that loves soda so much it's in her exploitables). I've had people just stop in at the bar for orange juice. The drinks do nothing for them, but they get them anyway. It's RP'd. I've never lacked for interaction as a bartender, and I know this isn't something being done to give this job more interaction, but it is a job that will be affected by it. I don't think it needs it.

I don't think thirst is a doom and gloom scenario, or would break the game, but at the same time, I don't feel like it's necessary, or will even go as far to add to RP/Immersion as you think. I think it will be mostly a nuisance. It's another meter to manage, even if managing it isn't difficult.

I still believe that removing milk/tea healing and the new hunger gauge are worthwhile changes.

 

It seems like the schism here lies between people who want to/can RP without direct in-game consequences (who will drink if they deem their character needs to drink) and those who want/need RP where the consequences are reflected in the game via the mechanics (even if the outcome is very small and seen only to themselves).

I, personally, would get enjoyment and immersion from this addition but I understand the concerns presented as well. To me, the proposed changes do not seem radical, but any issues should be addressed/tweaked as we get more information or as the changes are playtested.

I also feel that some people in this thread have misgivings not related to the proposed changes directly, but because of the author and incidents in the past.

 

None of the posts they raised apply to this. I'm going to explain this once and only once, and if people don't read this post while still complaining about how it's crippling without understanding the code then I have a right to verbally abuse them.

 

On the other hand, it makes it hard for me to argue in favor of changes I agree with when you threaten to verbally abuse people, Burger. Snark or not.

[BurgerBB]

(Verbally abusing people gets me banned so that's not something I will ever do.)

A point I wanted to make is that a lot of people are a little too scared of any mechanics changed because of assumptions on balance. Thirst is super adjustable so if there are any issues on launch it can be tweaked to be less of an impact, however I don't think that will be needed considering thirst is easy to maintain.

[Doxxmedearly]

I also feel that some people in this thread have misgivings not related to the proposed changes directly, but because of the author and incidents in the past.

Agreed. I'll be the first to admit that I really don't like Burger's attitude in OOC, and have been pretty vocal about it. I feel some initial resistance to his ideas based on how dismissive and abrasive he can be and has been, but I have to put that aside and judge the idea for what it is. There's plenty of legit criticisms of his ideas and such, but plenty of flack, insults, and shitposting he gets from other members is incredibly unfair (Really, the heart attack meme stopped being funny months ago, and he has asked people to stop PLENTY of times). People thought the mining dungeons were going to be the end of science getting materials. People thought cKAs were going to make mining impossible. And this probably won't affect people as much as they think it will.

 

It seems like the schism here lies between people who want to/can RP without direct in-game consequences (who will drink if they deem their character needs to drink) and those who want/need RP where the consequences are reflected in the game via the mechanics (even if the outcome is very small and seen only to themselves).

I, personally, would get enjoyment and immersion from this addition but I understand the concerns presented as well. To me, the proposed changes do not seem radical, but any issues should be addressed/tweaked as we get more information or as the changes are playtested.

I feel like this is definitely the case. I agree that the changes aren't radical and won't be as awful as many are making it out to be. I just view it as unnecessary and I don't think it's really going to add to any immersion or generate much RP. Lots of things in this game are useless mechanically, but used because of RP. Drinks are one of those, and I feel like they should stay as such. My thought is that this will be a nuisance at best; it's unnecessary, even for a HRP environment. That's the feedback I can offer.

That said, if and when it is implemented, you won't hear many complaints from me unless it's ridiculous (Which it doesn't seem to be). I admit I enjoy the idea of this curbing how crippling hunger can be to sec and antags, as mentioned. It's still not enough for me to support this, but those are my thoughts.

[ShameOnTurtles]

I may be in the dark on lore here, but has it been explained why the shifts are so short?

I had assumed the two hour length was simply for the sake of round turnover and to make sure that things didnt get stale. I don't think the normal two hour time frame should be a large factor when calculating how realistic something is.

And from what I've seen of the proposed changes, especially now that IPC thirst has been removed, the mechanics are not being made worse. The time it takes to dehydrate or become hungry appear to have remained the same.

The consequences of hunger are being made worse, and the time til you get those negative effects is being halved, if I understand it correctly.

 

Running does not take up an additional hunger or thirst point per tile. I removed it.

The amount of nutrition lost by walking was reduced 50%. That 50% was added to hydration loss.

The amount of nutrition lost by stamina regen was reduced 50%. That 50% and 25% more was added to the hydration loss.

The amount of hunger required to have not-negative effects was doubled.

The amount of thirst required to have not-negative effects is 50% lower than hunger.

 

In addition to that, many more negative effects are being added with the thirst feature, on top of hunger.

As for the shift length, I do not pretend to be the voice of authority on this but I believe it's two hours, because accelerating time each round leads to very weird things to keep canon consistency I feel. Even if it's 8 hours, that's not enough time to be believably crippled by hunger/thirst.

[mention]BurgerBB[/mention]: I say the consequences 'cripple' characters due to this description on the github:

Penalties for not eating or drinking are now more severe. If you refuse to drink or eat all shift, you will be 4 times slower and take 4 times more pain damage. The amount scales based on your hunger or thirst levels. If you are considered hungry or thirsty, it starts scaling at 1 all the way to 4, until you're starving or seriously dehydrated. If you overeat and overdrink as well, you get a 25% reduced movement and pain tolerance with each mechanic.

I do not think that adding another statistic about their character that people have to micromanage to just be 'normal' is something that will promote good gameplay. I explained why particularly I feel this isn't a good change in my previous post.

A lot of the feedback and criticisms about the core concept of the thirst mod surprises me considering that this is an HRP server and the mechanics themselves aren't bad.

 

Mechanics does not always equal RP, but sometimes it can. I do not think this mechanic will promote meaningful roleplay, as vague a phrase that is.

That is getting on a bit of a tangent though so I would appreciate it if you focused on my main points in this post.

[Evandorf]

Burger wrote:

Running does not take up an additional hunger or thirst point per tile. I removed it.

The amount of nutrition lost by walking was reduced 50%. That 50% was added to hydration loss.

The amount of nutrition lost by stamina regen was reduced 50%. That 50% and 25% more was added to the hydration loss.

The amount of hunger required to have not-negative effects was doubled.

The amount of thirst required to have not-negative effects is 50% lower than hunger.

 

From the way this reads, most of these effects increase the amount of time it will take before hunger sets in.

Burger can correct me if I'm wrong but it seems that the hunger created by walking was halved, so you get less hungry from walking but the half that was removed was simply moved from hunger accumulation to thirst accumulation. So overall hunger will accrue at a slower rate, thirst will accrue at a similar rate, but since you eat and drink approximately around the same time the affect over all will be fewer trips to the vending machines.

The same is true of hunger accrual from stamina regen.

The amount of hunger required to have neutral affects was doubled, but this would make sense if hunger accrues slower. The amount of thirst required to have neutral affects is 50% lower than hunger which also makes sense because as I understand it thirst will accrue slightly faster and may be affected by other considerations like salty food.

The numbers here can be tweaked if they appear to be unbalanced as well, but I trust that it will be worked out to everyone's satisfaction.

[BurgerBB]

Tbh if I have to I could make it so that people only get a 10% speed penalty from excessive hunger/thirst and work from there. Obviously I'm going to be on top of things and submit a shitload of master patches after it's implemented to fine tune the mechanics if I notice that the mechanics themselves are too disruptive.

If this PR is submitted, another one will come after this. If a chef is present in the round, the station time is either set to 7am, 11am, or 5pm. A 15-30 minute optional breakfast, lunch, or dinner break will occur at 8am, 12pm, and 6pm and people's hunger levels will be medium-high at these times so people can dedicate time to social activities and eating in the holodeck and bar.

[Conspiir]

If this PR is submitted, another one will come after this. If a chef is present in the round, the station time is either set to 7am, 11am, or 5pm. A 15-30 minute optional breakfast, lunch, or dinner break will occur at 8am, 12pm, and 6pm and people's hunger levels will be medium-high at these times so people can dedicate time to social activities and eating in the holodeck and bar.

 

I don't think this part is necessary. For starters, just because a chef is present at round start doesn't mean they're

1) Competent

2) Going to be staying for the whole round (or even long enough for said break)

3) Want to DEAL with thirty people on a station all ordering at once

4) Even going to be in the kitchen if they want to do tator or ling things

Keep the station time dynamic. People will eat when they want to eat. I have a character that eats. Constantly. You'd be surprised how few chefs are actually in the kitchen even when we HAVE a chef.

Having kept up with this thread, though, I understand concerns and arguments for both sides. The only way to figure out which side is more true is to test it out and get some feedback. Hypotheticals about the numbers haven't really told me much until I feel it for myself.

[BurgerBB]

If this PR is submitted, another one will come after this. If a chef is present in the round, the station time is either set to 7am, 11am, or 5pm. A 15-30 minute optional breakfast, lunch, or dinner break will occur at 8am, 12pm, and 6pm and people's hunger levels will be medium-high at these times so people can dedicate time to social activities and eating in the holodeck and bar.

 

I don't think this part is necessary. For starters, just because a chef is present at round start doesn't mean they're

1) Competent

2) Going to be staying for the whole round (or even long enough for said break)

3) Want to DEAL with thirty people on a station all ordering at once

4) Even going to be in the kitchen if they want to do tator or ling things

Keep the station time dynamic. People will eat when they want to eat. I have a character that eats. Constantly. You'd be surprised how few chefs are actually in the kitchen even when we HAVE a chef.

Having kept up with this thread, though, I understand concerns and arguments for both sides. The only way to figure out which side is more true is to test it out and get some feedback. Hypotheticals about the numbers haven't really told me much until I feel it for myself.

 

HoPs and cargo can order the crew pizza if the chef present isn't that good. Botany can provide fruit, and vending machines can fill up people. Donk pockets exist in almost every breakroom.

[Conspiir]

HoPs and cargo can order the crew pizza if the chef present isn't that good. Botany can provide fruit, and vending machines can fill up people. Donk pockets exist in almost every breakroom.

 

Yes! Precisely why altering station time isn't necessary. People will eat when they need to, and what they want to. I wouldn't suggest that next PR if this one goes though.

[Bauser]

While I was initially against it, I've come to think fixing the station start-time to 0800/1200/1800 would be nice just so we wouldn't have awkward 3AM rounds anymore. So, even ignoring whatever effect it could have for establishing meal times, it would be a nice roleplaying-quality-of-life improvement. So you can just look at the clock at the start of the round and know:

"okay it's morning, gonna roleplay morning"

"okay it's afternoon, gonna roleplay afternoon"

or

"okay it's evening, gonna roleplay evening"

AND CRUCIALLY you could expect everyone else to recognize the same. Because, yes, you can already roleplay morning, noon, and night - but since the time is never actually featured except for the purpose of dimming the lights, most people wouldn't even know to act based on time considerations. So simplifying it to just a few options will get people to recognize it better.

instead of the time being perpetually nebulous and irrelevant

[Skull132]

My main concern with this is.

Are we slowly drifting towards a stats management game with this? A concept shared by the Sims series, most notably. What I would like to ask besides that, is there actual gameplay value within this mechanic? Because a mechanic that exists just to be monitored, arguably, has little gameplay worth unless the aim of the game is to monitor those stats. IMO space station is about focusing on matters that are external: the environment and the people around you. Drawing the focus too much on having to monitor your own stats would be somewhat counter intuitive to what we have been doing for the past half a decade.

[Bauser]

After playing chef a bunch, my main concern is the prescribed 'meal times.' Being a traitor is already hard enough when people expect you to stay inside one room. We get enough interaction already if we look for it by communicating with other players. If this feature is added that gives the whole station a reason to swarm the kitchen and bar for food at a certain time, that means the chef will potentially have to spend their entire round leading up to that point just getting enough food ready for the event. Which means practically zero opportunity to sneak out and be criminal.

[BurgerBB]

I'm uncertain if arrow meant to post the results of the poll or not but I don't think he's gotten around by that. The results show that the majority of the server are interested in thirst mechanics. 69% show support towards the mechanic while 31% either don't care or don't want it.

Any fears about whether or not the mechanics are too annoying or too whatever can be solved by balancing it appropriately. I'm sure people had these exact same fears when hunger was introduced but obviously those don't exist anymore.

[Coalf]

If I remember correctly there were about 4 yes answers.

Did arrow give you the specific selection and could it be posted here so we can see what people wanted.

[BurgerBB]

If I remember correctly there were about 4 yes answers.

Did arrow give you the specific selection and could it be posted here so we can see what people wanted.

 

You remember incorrectly. I'll get arrow to post them in here.

[Arrow768]

Those are the results, after votes made by accounts that have most likely been made with the purpose of influencing the vote have been removed.

 

[Coalf]

Thank you very much.

[Zundy]

I like thirst mechanics however can you do us all a solid and remove overhydration (and to evolve into a stone cold stud muffin also remove getting "chubby" from food)? Otherwise top stuff so far imo.

[BurgerBB]

I like thirst mechanics however can you do us all a solid and remove overhydration (and to evolve into a stone cold stud muffin also remove getting "chubby" from food)? Otherwise top stuff so far imo.

 

Being addressed: https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/5439