Yeah I’d be interested to see the effects of larger/more bushes and grass on stealth. It would help dampen noises and make it harder to see things at a distance, which could make things very interesting. Ivy might also have interesting effects since it can essentially block out a window if enough grows. You might even argue that it strengthens things it grows on (or weakens them, in some cases.)
I’d like to see fields and forests stay fields and forests (most of them weren’t being maintained in any way before the Cataclysm anyway) but grass growing and occasional tree respawns wouldn’t be bad for adding a sense of the movement of time. Vegetation in towns would make access to materials a little easier and would make things a big more dangerous late-game. You could even make grass tiles flammable in summer, so big areas of dry grass could be burnt to produce flat areas for hunting, killzones, etc.
I think growable fruit trees/bushes would be really nice. Make them take a year to grow, but having access to semi-regular fruit would be really nice without all the replanting nonsense.
I’m newbie here, my best character survived half year, but…
I think that detoriation of human-build stuff would have better effect. sorry if already in game, but after year-two side of roads should be dirt/grass, fallen tree here or there, small tree could spring from wrecked car… for building some wall could be missing (wild animal? fallen tree?), with bit of grass inside… That would be more sad, more striking effect than bit larger forest…
Forest expansion would probably take at least a decade before any really noticeable signs start to appear, so there’s not much point in trying to code it. Plants and weeds growing all over every town happens much quicker though, like you described with grass starting to encroach into sidewalks and roadways very quickly.
Related to this is fuel denaturing over time. Eventually, all that fuel you find is going to expire, meaning it gets harder and harder to go all Mad Max.
Also related, I’ve heard that among Doomsday Preppers and the like, Diesel Engines are really popular because of Biodiesel.
Anyway, if anything like this gets coded in, I suggest looking at the series “Life After People” for inspiration. It essentially deals with the scenario of what’d happen if all the humans on Earth disappeared, which is close enough to the Cataclysm for reference, IMO.
I was going to say this as well, but forgot what the show was called. It basically showed that after 10-20 years things would be crazy overgrown and like 100 or 500 years there would be almost no trace of cities, as it would just look like a jungle… or something like that. We don’t really build stuff to last in this day and age, and things would deteriorate pretty quickly without anyone doing upkeep on it.
Though in CDDA you don’t really last for more than a couple years, or at least I usually start a new character after 3 years of 90 days seasons, but that’s because I get bored of being too OP and/or the game ends up having too many errors.
I think a good approximation would be Chernobyl city and larger Pripyat, both abandoned since disaster, well, 30 years ago. If you see recent videos from you-tube - not very impressive
