Some liquids, like blood or bile, are able to splash onto floors, furniture, items, and vehicle parts, and color them differently based on said liquid. The mop item (found or crafted via rags, some string and a plank) is able to clean these spillages up and revert the tile back to its original color. As far as I know it is the only item with this ability, unique in that it also serves as a great quality of life feature (reinforced by the fact it’s crafted from very common items and requires no skill or knowledge to do so).
Once [a]ctivated, a prompt to select a dirty tile appears, then a direction is input and the tile gets cleaned up. The cleaning is instantaneous and does not use up turns, the in-game clock does not advance after the cleaning is done either. This seems to me like an oversight, as most in-game actions that require locomotion do use up in-game time, even if just a little bit of it.
On a different (not bug related) note, mopping dirty tiles should probably require water or soap, just like washing filthy items does. Alternatively, it could turn the mop itself filthy (if such a thing is even possible), requiring you to wash it before being able to use it again.
Can’t confirm this for experimental build 2021-06-13-0522 (or, to be more clear, I can confirm the opposite).
Mopping takes some time, be it mopping cosmetic splatters or liquid items.
Please always specify the version in which you’re experiencing the bug (and depending on the bug also the mods loaded), otherwise it might be hard to reproduce.
While the idea is good, most players would probably bother even less if it takes up resources, given that it’s only a cosmetic thing and - given enough time - disappears even without any interaction.
There’s no benefit from cleaning up tiles, but there is in washing clothing and other filthy items.
One exception would be cleaning up spills, but handling this codewise might turn into a nightmare, as cleaning up clean water from a clean floor should not require soap, while cleaning tainted blood should…
I apologize, it’s been many years since I reported a bug on this forum.
I’m using Stable 0.E-3, with the following mods:
Bionic Slots (cbm_slots)
SpeedyDex (speedydex)
Stats Through Kills (stats_through_kills)
Stats Through Skills (StatsThroughSkills)
Faster Stamina Regen (stamina_regen_buff)
I was not aware the effect disappeared with time. This should probably not be the case.
I feel the game should require players to put effort into tidying up their hideout, even if there are no practical benefits to doing so (perhaps for Squeamish characters?); it would bug me to cook food and sleep around a massive blood spill. The sight and smell of it, coupled with it dirtying dropped items and being spread through footsteps, would probably bother anyone but a Psychopath. Players who are bothered by the “disco floor” effect of random spills will still probably take time to clean them up.
this would render the mop next to useless
as it stands you’ll use plenty of time just walking about trying to clean up all the mess but with added resources it would be better to just abandon the location for a new one if you ever found yourself needing a mop
it should be noted that blood and bile the two liquids the mop cleans are noted for being stronger than the player character in terms of the hidden smell stat so even if keeping caareful watch over lighting and visibility and sound you can’t stay in a place forever as eventually the scent draws the horde and blood and bile accelerates the process by a lot considering it’s by the tile
for that reason additional resources or additional time (which is limited in how long you want to leave it messy) would make moving to greener pastures more viable pun intended
Would you abandon a remote location, next to a conveniently lootable city, that you have barricaded, booby-trapped, fenced off and organized the way you like, with all your loot piles, furniture and vehicles, just because it is dirty? Would you abandon your deathmobile, that gets dirty with every new zombie you run over? No. You’ll opt to tidy it up, destroy or move corpses, and remove any obstacles such as tall grass, shrubs, and trees around it, just to make your living space more comfortable to live in.
I already use plenty of time “just walking around” cutting grass, chopping trees, organizing loot piles and maintaining my household. This game is about routine. There is no end goal (without heavy modding), just survival. Part of surviving is cleaning up and organizing your living space. If I find a piece of filthy clothing I like I will use up resources to wash it, even if I never intend on wearing it. I will organize loot in ways that make sense - clothes go in closets, weapons go on display racks, kitchen utensils go in cupboards etc. There is not much else to this game other than routine. CDDA is the definition of tedium.
If a certain feature is introduced - e.g. the ability to mop spills up with a mop item - I believe it should be introduced in a way that makes sense for the game. Having an eternally clean mop (made of rags that are able to get dirty on their own) requiring no maintenance whatsoever doesn’t make sense to me.
If you’re not using Wandering Spawns, which is an option that is toggled off by default and probably best be left that way, you’re not going to attract creatures with blood and bile if they are not in your immediate vicinity. Mopping tiles is mostly done for aesthetic purposes.
Ah yes, it might have changed since that, or the SpeedyDex mod messes with it.
Assuming it was changed since then, there are no plans to backport it to the last stable, so you’d have to either switch to an experimental version to see this “fix” or wait for the next stable version to release…
It makes sense that blood slowly decays (rots away), just like corpses and food, so yes, this should be the case.
Reading this text without any punctuation marks worsened my headache, but anyway: Last time I’ve checked (that was after the 0.E stable release), neither blood nor bile (or butchery refuse, despite the description) did emit any scent visible on the scent map or in any other measurable way.
However, I did not check the horde (wandering spawn) code, so it might be hidden in there somewhere. But for plays where this is turned off, it would have no effect…
Huh, the more you know. Blood does seem to decompose after 8-10 days, although it is also said to leave a visible grey stain on the surface after it does. I don’t know how this translates to the in-game timeline, but I’m sure if it were real life you wouldn’t be content with leaving a spot you just bashed a living corpse’s head in stay the way it is and let it “rot away” (or let the sun bake the blood stains on your car’s chassis and windshield after you’ve driven through a horde of the undead).
I’m sure that if it were real life, I’d not survive the Cataclysm and will end up as one of the shambling creatures… and if I’m not, I’d probably would do anything to not have to bash in any heads (when it was still possible to “enslave” Zombies, I did exactly that with everyone possible)…
Based on the code the “half life” of blood tiles is 2 days. If I remember right, this applies to a single “layer” of cosmetic blood, meaning that a puddle of blood will decay into a blood stain and then into a blood splatter before it disappears. So it seems pretty accurate represented in game (even though the article you’ve linked talks about blood in a human body, if I see that right, not blood exposed to the elements)…