I am curious if it would be possible to implement certain events that have a long (eg in-game week/months) runtime.
I was thinking:
(after reading a Hardcore Injuries suggestion) Broken bones and appropriate heal times
More challenging/complex NPCs, eg you don’t suddenly become their best friend from doing one or two quests, but you actually have to build up to it - also assigning quests to NPC’s, eg ask them to run to the closest grocery store and pick up some food, ect
Family creation: if you find a (appropriately gendered) NPC who you have build up a good reputation with, you can build a relationship and eventually create a child, hampering stats and speed progressively over the course of nine (or so) in-game months, so you have someone to care for and supply food/water for, with the associated morale buffs for fathering/mothering a child and debilitating morale penalties for losing said child. I think that this would add an interesting and challenging longer term aim to the game.
On the topic of NPC’s, I think that fixing the autopickup aspect is important (i.e. NPC’s don’t pick up any and all items near them, only player-defined (or inbuilt i guess) ‘useful’ items, like food, water, drugs, weapons, ect.).
Anyway, enough of that. Those are just some features I would be interested to see implemented into the game but are probably entirely unrealistic as of now. Oh well.
But we already have broken bones. When a limb reaches zero (and you live (aka, not torso or head)) it is considered broken. And will not heal automatically unless you first put a splint on it.
Hm. Child-rearing would be interesting. Successfully raising a post cataclysmic child, with a mix of your and your partner’s stats, and then switching over to them as your new character, starting as many years on as your last character died at, or to become potential new NPCs for your next character to meet?
Ever more epic games where you can really feel the impact of previous generations on the gameworld sounds like a great long term gameplay goal.
The current system for broken bones is, appropriately enough, a bit broken. A limb reaching zero should totally represent a complete loss of function in that limb, but “broken” as in “the bone itself is snapped” wouldn’t always be the outcome of that. A dog biting your arm two dozen times is gonna hurt like hell and mangle the flesh and muscle, but it may not fracture it.
I think I’d like a system where taking a large hit in one go could have the change of breaking a bone, no matter where it hit. Perhaps if you take more than 20% of the health of the limb in damage, then there’s a chance that a bone in that area breaks.
This could mean a broken leg, which would require a splint, crutches to walk properly, and a lot of time to heal, or maybe just a broken wrist, which would need a sling and less time, but wouldn’t cripple you fully. We could even have broken ribs or cracked skulls, putting a little bit of danger back into injuries when you’ve stocked up on every medkit from here to Florida.
Well neither do dinosaurs, but there’s a mod for that aint there? Note that I’m not saying this should be a core game mechanic, just that it would make the game more interesting for the player. Also note that this wouldn’t have to be used, i.e. you don’t have to try and make a family, ect.