I was wandering through the streets at night, considering my options when I thought it would be pretty nice to have a mundane way to cover up my scent. I can do that in experimental versions with a cigarette or a joint. But what about other ways of covering up smells? What about good and bad smells, that affect the PC’s mood? What about other beneficial toxins and repellant? Well, here’s a thread suggesting as much:
Rot clouds / miasma
With all of these dead things, we need a source of discomfort and a reason to move all the rotting bodies away from our bases. I suggest we add scent clouds that linger indoors to the action of rotting. Rotting meat tainted meat produces the strongest odor (possibly causing nausea), followed by normal rotting meat/fish, with vegetables producing no miasma at all. The odor clouds would be produced roughly two times. The first time when the item acquires the rotten tag and the second time when it fully decays. This should save a bit on CPU usage since there tend to be lots of piles of rotting things. We can further limit it so that stench clouds are simply not generated outdoors. In addition, decayed zombies have stench clouds that follow them around. Players that step through normal or strong stench clouds get these morale effects: “Bothered by a bad stench” or “Bothered by a horrific stench” The effects are cumulative but do not stack with each other. If you’ve been bothered by a terrible stench it supercedes being bothered by a bad stench. It’s also cumulatively reductive, meaning the more you’re bothered, the less the effect grows upon you, to prevent suicides from bad smells alone. Terrible stenches can have a chance of causing nausea in normal people, no-chance in people with Strong Stomach, and double chance in people with Weak Stomachs. Even normal rotten stenches can cause nausea in people with Weak Stomach.
Perfume, cologne, and spray deodorant
Essentially glass / aluminum spray bottles that allow the player to mist the air with a non-damaging pollutant to hide the player’s scent and destroy existing scent clouds. Perfume / cologne would create temporary perfume/cologne clouds that when entered, give the player a “Pleasant Smelling” affection. Character’s who are “Pleasant Smelling” get a morale bonus if they have the Stylish Trait. The clouds function similar to the air freshener below but the clouds do not spread as quickly and dissipate in the same amount of time.
Air freshener / odor neutralizer
Air freshener would work differently. It’s an aluminum or steel can that when sprayed, creates a cloud tile that spreads and dissipates rapidly, allowing it to quickly remove player scent from an area but does not give the “Pleasant Smelling” affection. When thick air freshener mist comes in contact with a scent or stench cloud (as above) it neutralizes it and continues on until it dissipates. It does not eliminate other air contaminants such as smoke, toxic gas, or tear gas.
Incense / potpourri
Incense is a lit object that generates fragrant smoke. Fragrant smoke is thin and wispy, like cannabis smoke. Players that pass through a fragrant smoke cloud will gain a positive morale adjustment for “Enjoyed a pleasant scent” Handcrafted grades of incense or potpourri could be created from wildflowers. Perhaps a mutated wildflower can be used to create a euphoric incense that grants the “Enjoyed an intoxicating scent” morale effect or the “Elated” status. Fragrant / Intoxicating smoke clouds will hedge out and destroy stench clouds. The smoke spreads slower than the air freshener but it lingers for a much longer period of time. An effective strategy would be to light incense and throw it at decayed zombies before engaging in melee combat. Incense would come in stick form. Handcrafted incense is wrapped in paper and must be lit and dropped or thrown, otherwise it will burn your hand after a few turns.
Insecticide
An additional mist cloud type, generated from househould and commercial steel canisters of insect poison. Household insecticide is unhealthy to breathe for long periods of time for a player but it is highly toxic to mundane insects/arachnids and irritating to mutated insects/arachnids. Mundane insects that enter an insecticide cloud become “Heavily Poisoned”. Mutated insects that enter the cloud suffer from irritation that causes stat penalties. Commercial insecticide is much more potent, lethally poisoning normal insects and moderately poisoning mutated insects per tick and adding breathing and blindness penalties (if applicable) Breathing in commercial pesticide is dangerous for the player without any protection and can cause poisoning and health loss.