Cataclysm: DDA - Temporal Farming!

Game Talk The Bunker
1

I’ve discovered a possible exploit I noticed in the latest stable release (0.C), which I dubbed “Temporal Farming”. It requires 2 characters in the same world, but in different seasons. Basically, plant seeds with 1st character who’s in spring, Save, then Load the 2nd character who’s in Autumn - the plants will be harvestable for the 2nd character. I’d advise against using it, tho - having infinite food kinda ruins the game. :confused:

I haven’t tested it in the experimental builds yet, but I’m guessing it’s possible there, too.
Btw, am I the only one out there who’s using more than 1 character per world? Everyone I know of seems to play with only 1 character until he dies, then create the next lone survivor. :confused:

P.S.: I wanted to put a link to the video showing the process, but I was told I’m not allowed to post external links. :frowning:

2

interesting, i would have thought the world dictates the season, not the character.

personally i usually play with the world deleted when the character dies and honestly, if i try as well as make it a priority i can usually keep enough amoral aspic around to last, but i have to make a point of using the meat before it can spoil, plus bones are heavy/volumish and a pain to cart around a lot.

3

As far as I can tell there’s no good way to prevent this sort of thing from happening unless we literally prevent characters from existing in the same area, I outlined how it could work here.

4

The flow of time itself is convoluted, with heroes centuries old phasing in and out.
The very fabric wavers, and relations shift and obscure.
There’s no telling how much longer your world and mine will remain in contact.
But, use this, to summon one another as spirits, cross the gaps between the worlds, and engage in jolly co-operation! - Solaire

5

Meh, food is already easy and infinite. Heck, “collected perma-food” could practically be used as a score counter!

6

Meh, food is already easy and infinite. Heck, “collected perma-food” could practically be used as a score counter![/quote]

One of the most satisfying things I’ve done is use an ice lab as a base and come back from a distant raid to a stock pile of literally tons of food and just walk through it all well organized.

7

@Kevin Grande:
Imo, the easiest way to fix the temporal abnormalities would be to have the Date bound to the World instead of the Survivors. Then again, that would disable Winter Start, 2nd Summer and such, so maybe we could have a World-based Date as a (True/False) World Creation option?

@Rot:
Let’s do the Time-warp again? XD

@deoxy:
True, I usually just stockpile perma-food and eat the perishables. The only time I was running low on those (perishables, not the perma-food) was when I spent almost an entire month reading books and crafting in my base. XD

@bostltch:
A sight to behold, indeed. :slight_smile:

8

[quote=“Nijuni, post:7, topic:13803”]@Kevin Grande:
Imo, the easiest way to fix the temporal abnormalities would be to have the Date bound to the World instead of the Survivors.[/quote]
That trades one set of anomalies that rarely occur for a set of anomalies that would occur every time you switch players, its not an improvement.

9

@Kevin Granade:
Imo, it all depends on why and how one wants to play multiple characters in the same world.

For example, I planned on using 1 HQ with multiple characters to simulate having a survivor community. Unfortunately, I played with 1 of them more often than with the other, so the 2nd one was left in late Spring, while the 1st was in late Autumn. The anomalies weren’t exactly rare - and they became even more obvious when I added a 3rd character (who started in Spring). Playing with the 2nd character became almost pointless (3rd one was a crafter/engineer/mechanic/cook who almost never left the HQ). Any perishable food, meat (from butchered creatures) and crops (which he harvested from the HQ’s farm) he got would turn rotten whenever I’d Load the 1st character (even if they were put into a powered, active Minifridge). The farm crops wouldn’t grow at all when I played with 2nd and 3rd character, as I planted them with the 1st character. On the other hand, looting and harvesting with the 1st character resulted in perishable items that wouldn’t rot for months for 2nd and 3rd character. And, as I’ve mentioned before, planting seeds with the 2nd character, then switching to the 1st one made the crops instantly grow and ripen. In the end, I moved the 1st character into a new, distant HQ (refurbished Evacuation Shelter).

As things are, the only way I can think of to avoid the temporal anomalies and still work within the same map tiles with multiple characters would be to switch characters after each in-game day, to make their dates the same (or at least similar) for all of them - but that would’ve worked only if I knew about these problems in advance. Hmm… Now that I think about it, putting 2nd character’s perishables in the now-unused basement should at least prevent those from rotting when the 1st character is around the 1st HQ (as long as he doesn’t go into the basement, which he wouldn’t have a reason to). Having the 1st character as the only one who works on the farm should at least prevent the temporal farming exploit. But, again, these are just work-arounds, not fixes.

If date was world-bound instead of character-bound, the only “anomaly” I can think of would be time advancing for all characters while any character is active. In the case of “1 HQ, multiple survivors” (which I had), having inactive characters “off-screen, doing nothing productive” is actually a desired result. I can’t think of any other problems with this, but I’m only speaking from my experience of playing the Stable 0.C version of the game by myself (I haven’t seen any of the code behind it). Of course, this wouldn’t work for worlds in which each character is played by a different player (by taking turns on the same PC/Mac/Whatever - unless they all want to share an HQ and don’t mind time progressing while they’re away), nor for servers - hence why I suggested it as an option, not a new/default behavior.

Of course, these are just my opinions - feel free to disagree or ignore them. Heck, you’re the one working on the game - do with it whatever you think is right, not what some no-name newbie is asking for - especially if it clashes with your vision of what the game should be. Thank you for taking the time to read these and respond to them, it’s very appreciated.