Limited world size?

[OneStar]

What if you just make a mod that creates a severe radiation barrier at the edge of the map to deter players from trying to leave like the glowing sea in fallout 4 but at all 4 edges.

[kevin.granade]

There are a lot of options for making this happen, but what hasn’t been answered is why it makes the game better. You can exhaust all the resources and have to fall back on farming or whatever instead of scavenging, and that’s good because?

[Aggregate]

Because it makes those resources meaningful, by making them eventually run out. I’ve never farmed for biodiesel, for example, because I know I can just get more by travelling a bit.

Edited to add more examples: I’ll also never reload ammunition, because I could, quite literally, fill a small swimming pool with all of the factory loaded rounds I’ve scavenged. And scarcity may actually make me use diesel and reloaded ammo, because things like solar panels and factory loads’ll be ever dwindling resources, to be used only when they are absolutely needed.
It’d also make me hoard chocolate bars.
…
Well, more than I already do.

[kevin.granade]

It sounds like the problem is the ratio of gear to zombies, if you limit map size, it very much sounds like you’re just going to kill all the zombies before running out of ammo/tools/gasoline/food/etc, then have nothing left to do.

Aren’t you going to get the effect you wasnt from reducing one or more of:
City size
City spacing (increase this one of course)
Item spawn rate
And/or eschew vehicles (especially as a weapon
And/or increase zombie spawn rate

[Aggregate]

That doesn’t add scarcity, it merely increases travel time. Or murder time. And I don’t think removing systems (or refusing to use) systems is a valid option.

Edit: Unrelated, but can we get an option to mute the game on focus loss?

[Zhilkin]

Some bugs, but should be playable:

[WIP] Limited world size

[Human_Shield]

It is useful for a challenge map scenario. 4X strategy games don’t normally generate unlimited planets, the limited nature of the space drives conflict.

The gameplay becomes, ‘with these limited resources can I defeat this map? Every unit of gas on driving is gas I can’t use to burn things.’ I modified the overmap special spawn rates to get science labs, ant hills, bee hives, triffid groves, and fungal towers all in the same overmap mega city. The threat of hordes increase as the distances between areas decrease.

[redxlaser15]

In terms of what I said, it’s largely for the expert guys who play the game. Or you simply want a different kind of game play. And something to think about, is that ‘radiation barrier’ could have zombies spawn from it, and work like the wander-spawn thingy, so they will always be something to worry about. I’ve seen it done before, where the enemies simply spawn off-screen, and that often works quite well. There could also be an ‘item respawn’ option if you want, which respawns gear and stuff, but at a VERY slow and much smaller amount as before.

With all that, you’d need to think about the eventual lack of resources, zombies will ALWAYS be a consideration, and while you will need to be at least somewhat self-sufficient, you could still think about looting the towns (which might also have respawning zombies too)
I don’t know how much I’d do this, and it’d need a considerable amount of balancing and work, but if nothing else a mod adding this would be useful. Even more so if it’s one of the standard ones in the game.

[Aggregate]

Just want to add, this sounds like a good thing to me, as it effectively adds an ending other than death.

it very much sounds like you’re just going to kill all the zombies before running out of ammo/tools/gasoline/food/etc

[druidniam]

Just want to add, this sounds like a good thing to me, as it effectively adds an ending other than death.

It wouldn’t matter even if you eradicated all the zombies on the planet because the blob is already in the ground water supply, and will eventually start evaporating and raining down once saturation is high enough. Earth is doomed, it’s just a question of how long can you survive before that doom hits you,. That and random portals opening shitting out mi-gos.

[Aggregate]

From a lore perspective yes, but from a gameplay perspective my point stands.
That said, I would very much like to have the world slowly change to show that doom encroaching, to become more dangerous and alien. Things get a little stale after a while.

[druidniam]

Crank up the evolution factor on a worldgen.

[Aggregate]

That doesn’t really work; the monsters don’t evolve enough to actually become dangerous to an endgame survivor.

[proxiehunter]

Aren’t most endgame survivors themselves dangerous and alien posthuman beings? Humanity is over and your endgame character is in most cases no longer part of it.

[psyxypher]

I’d hate a limited world size. Because inevitably I’d run out of a non-renewable resource that a I really need, or be completely unable to find a rare item that I’m desperate to find.

[Aggregate]

Hm, I actually want to run out of resources, to be forced to use alternatives. Being completely unable to find some rare item would be irritating, though.

[dissociativity]

I definitely think with a limited world size, a compromise would be having events happen, maybe like in DayZ, helicopter crash site, ‘you hear a loud crash and see plumes of smoke in the distance’, cue showing it on map, NPCs will find it attractive to loot so you’re likely to encounter hostile NPCs there, and soldier zombies.

Cults spreading, building monoliths, trying to manually create tears in reality, maybe giving NPCs a goal of building houses or smaller shelters in safe places and storing items there.

new tears in reality, resulting in artifacts or other rare items, spawning otherworldly monsters, these rifts open and close with time to prevent the world from being flooded with too many mi-gos, perhaps a way of locating events like these, maybe a high electronics skill frequency detector that points the direction of tears in reality?

A static world size, with events, and mandatory having all overmap specials exist at least once should keep the game fun and fresh.

Events happening in a finite world hardly matter, your world going to shit doesn’t matter if there’s more world yonder.

[dissociativity]

Gameplay-wise, the game feels empty if the world revolves around the player too much, and despite the player having so much control over the world, their impact meaning nothing because they can so easily start anew in another infinite location.

If resources are running out, provide alternatives to manufacture said resources, add similar alternatives to said items in crafting recipes, or more makeshift items?

[Aggregate]

I like these ideas. Events like those would be nice to have even in the standard limitless worlds. Though, a helicopter crashing or rift opening in one’s base wouldn’t be fun. Hopefully should such a system is implemented, they won’t happen in bases or other areas the player has built up.

[druidniam]

OVERMAP_EXTRAS have a chance to spawn when the reality bubble hits a new unexplored chunk. This includes helicopter crashes, craters, unstable portals, drug gangs, dead soldiers, dead scientists, extradimenional creatures, etc.