Hygiene

Game Talk The Drawing Board
1

It’s not a huge deal, but could be another layer to survival to add on to morale modifiers.

Obviously in a post apocalypse, you’re not as keen on your hygiene (brushing teeth, changing clothes, washing yourself). But it can still have an effect on you. Have you ever gone days/weeks without changing your clothing, or washing yourself, while still doing sweat worthy activity, and then finally showered off and changed into clean clothes? It’s a real difference in comfort. It also might take a while for a character to get used to a sub-hygiene lifestyle, or there would be traits to have a character who didn’t care about it in the first place, or even generating a smell. Think about grabbing clothes off a rotten corpse and wearing it, doesn’t that skin sticking on the inside feel nice? Or having to wash your clothes after getting boomer bile on them (though after initial splat, it’s more just uncomfortable to be in them) Just a thought to toss around on how it might incorporate, as it’s kind of a “bottom of the list” for most survivors.

2

I actually like that idea (even though about it myself some time ago). OP already stated the effects on morale and I also like the idead that dirty clothing would generate “smell”. However, I’d like to add that dirty clothing could even have a detrimential effect on you health stat. Literally running around in the same clothing for weeks or even months certainly isn’t healthy.
You could probably indicate the “dirtyness” of a certain item of clothing the same way the damage is already shown. So for example a “jeans” would turn into a “dirty jeans” after some time. But as OP already stated, this is a pretty minor “concern” for both a survivor and the devs, even though it’d be to see it implemented someday.

3

Ever since soap and towels became items I have wanted this. I am one of those people who would probably complain about not having taken a shower in a week even in the midst of an apocalypse.

I enjoy being clean, and I think that most other people do, too.

4

[quote=“Nighthawk, post:3, topic:7459”]Ever since soap and towels became items I have wanted this. I am one of those people who would probably complain about not having taken a shower in a week even in the midst of an apocalypse.

I enjoy being clean, and I think that most other people do, too.[/quote]
Eh, you get used to both being clean, and being dirty.

As long as it’s not a chore, but something like “activate water/clean water, if there’s enough you get clean, if not enough you get a message” or “examine a shallow water tile you’re standing on, or swim a bit in deeper water” I’m okay with it.

5

I am against cleaning simply for hygiene. Maybe after certain attacks to get rif of the aftereffeckt is okay. perhaps even a moral bonus after you had a bath or something along those lines . But certainly no penatly for not Cleaning … seems like to much work to me xD.

6

I would feel like being clean would generally have to come along with ways of being dirty as well.

For example, rolling in mud and walking through sewage water would make you dirty in different ways. I feel like this could be made to interact with the scent system in Cataclysm; mobs would be fairly poor at smelling you through sewage water, but if you had sewage water on you on the overworld, you would be fairly noticeable by the smell.

Muddying yourself would not make you feel very happy, unless you happened to have a particular trait / mutation that made you uncaring of the fact, but would significantly lower the amount of scent you leave until it wears off to be a slight deduction to scent generated. Melee and running (when implemented) probably could interact with this as well.

tl;dr - soap doesn’t have to be used for dynamite

7

If you smell of something strongly that isn t you its actually much harder for enemies to follow you by scent because they follow your scent not the stench of sewage water for instance :stuck_out_tongue:

8

We’ve been over this before. We’ll accept a “clean” bonus but not a “unwashed” penalty. Idea is to avoid adding needless tedium to the game.

9

Wash your clothing, get the bonus, have it wear off in a day or two?

10

I think one would get dirty much faster in the cataclysm (Like the next zombie you enage in meele). I would suggest a few hour boost from having a bath or something like that.

11

That would be outer grime, not inner grime. Reasonably athletic person wouldn’t get sweaty all over in just that few a time. Could be dependent on how much you act and what the temperature is - the more and higher they are, the faster it wears off, so if you’re in your base crafting all day, it’ll last for that day too, but if you’re raiding a city fighting zombies, it’ll wear off much faster.

12

Depending on how permeable the stuff is you wear you can get soaked in body fluids pretty fast (depending on how bloody you kill a critter)and thereby feel unpleasant in what you are wearing or say dirty-.
With the rest i mostly agree… so if its handled right it might be a nice feature.

13

Since I happen to work in the wastewater treatment field, I would like to point out that, technically, you do not have to bathe in potable water. You can and most folks in the 1st world do, but it is not, strictly speaking, necessary.

I would, however, recommend using potable water for dental hygene.

You may want to distinguish between ‘filtered’ water (as through a brita filter or another carbon filter, for example) and potable (implying sterile) water. Yeah, depending on the components, the cobbled-together carbon filter might (or might not, depending on the assembler!) remove a bunch of contaminants and sediment and the like… but I would still recommend boiling the water before consumption. Also. Depending on the quality of the filter, several passes through the filter may be required to remove the desirable amount of suspended solids.

That filtered water could (depending on the source and the nature of suspended/dissolved contaminants!) be safely used for applications that do not require strict water purity or clarity. Like bathing or washing your clothes.

Also, ya’ll don’t mention it… but you can ‘take a shower’ out of a bucket (5-gal, paint). You can also wash your clothes in a bucket. The water source was a nearby lake, so… yeah. Wash/shower for variable degrees of ‘cleanliness.’ By the way, it’s simple. Clothes + Bucket + Water + Soap [optional] = clean’er’ clothes. Clothes line to dry them on, or a table. Whichever.

Hmm… and since I’m on that track, you can rig up a simple shower with a suspended water-tank, a bit of tubing, a valve (not, strictly speaking, necessary), and a shower head [also not necessary]. Add some power and a waterproof heating element (see every house known to man with hot water) and viola! Warm shower. If you’re curious how much power? Lots. Your car-battery is not going to be enough… unless you’re just splashing yourself with the pan off the stove.

By the way. Water is heavy. So be careful how you keep your tank suspended or it may not stay suspended. Also be careful hooking up your improvised water-heater. As any electrician will tell you : water + electricity = Dwarfy Fun [okay, maybe not dwarfy fun…].

And before you ask : yes. I like commas.

14

You also seem to like adding unnecessary spaces before colons. Just an observation.

We have magic car-batteries that can supply enough juice for welding and an induction forge. Water heating’s not a problem, and besides, you can use the strongest power source in 1 AU vicinity, aka the Sun. Water in a metal tank gets pretty hot if it’s summer, allowing hot showers. No luck if it’s winter, though - unless you’re heating it with a fire.

15

What about a solar shower? I got one and it’s essentially just a black plastic bag with a hose attached that has a shower head at the end of it. The sun warms the water from the black plastic and bingo, hot water.

16

I like the idea of a hygiene stat too, although as KA101 said, it may easily get tedious for the player.

I have to admit the major reason why I like this idea is because I’ll finally be able to find actual stuff you would find in my bathroom in cataclysms bathrooms. Like, toothpaste, toilet paper and not first aid kits and drugs.

17

[spoiler]Making a dirty debuff would really slow down the early game and would seem to be tedious to keep clean to prevent a moral loss that would slow down the gain of focus, which may also slow the progression of stat gain and make getting a higher combat stat or tedious to get construction stat, mechanics, really any stat even more difficult to obtain if you don’t have the appropriate book to raise the stat.

However adding a clean buff instead of a dirty debuff would allow end game players to focus on other projects of interest such as a shower or a working washing machine/dryer to clean their clothes.[/spoiler]

I agree with what other people are basically saying, a buff not debuff.

Edit: also i’d imagine some feline mutation of you licking yourself would keep your character clean, just a little after thought.

18

This suggestion happened before with pretty intense discussion/debate, in general the devs are inclined toward a “clean” bonus, not a “unclean” penalty.

My personal opinion is somewhat along these line: Making these mechanics non-intrusive, which does not exclude the possibility of a penalty for staying too dirty. BUT instead of the normal morale penalty per se, the penalty is increased chance to catch ambient sickness. AND you should be able to become insensitive to it. Other effects may include NPC interaction.

Pretty much this. If anything, being dirty make you less vulnerable to smell-based predators as the smell of dirt and trash screen your own personal smell.
If inplemented, this could potentially introduce an interesting dilemma for the survivor:
Being clean (soap; perfume!)
Better interaction with NPC
(Without perfume) Enemies can track you easier
Being dirty (dirt, sewage, zombie brains,…)
Better smell screening
NPC flee upon seeing you

19

Dirty debuff would just be annoying as hell, I agree on that point.

20

I’m right in the buff crowd too. I probably wouldn’t worry too much about hygiene in a post-apocalyptic world. But a morale penalty for poor hygiene might be good for a new negative trait.