Temperature could do with being less aggressive. 10-30 degrees centigrade should be pretty livable while dry. Frostbite should really not start to occur until sub 5, or even zero - your character is running around most the time. Melee combat should warm characters up. Stimulants likewise.
Beds should make a character warm. Being indoors/in caves should make characters warm due to no ‘windchill’ factor. being anywhere near a small fire should likewise, as the character would warm themselves.
This post went pretty much wholly ignored, and I believe it needs to be noticed. Being in a bed and still waking up from the cold is very annoying and makes little sense.
Temperature in general needs to be less hardcore, too. I’m getting a cold head at 7 degrees Celsius while wearing a hat that offers 30 warmth. Am I supposed to wear TWO hats? 7 Celsius is not THAT cold.
[font=calibri] Generally agree with all the above sentiments. If stimulants are being considered for a reason to temporarily boost temperature, I suggest alcohol do the same and be coupled with a temperature penalty when it wears off.[/font]
No use replying to threads that are using an outdated temperature mod. For current discussion, see http://www.cataclysmdda.com/smf/index.php?topic=309.msg10988;topicseen#msg10988
Although I absolutely agree that the current temperature scheme is a bit off-kilter, the main problem with making the temperatures less aggressive is that encumbrance is a pretty important balancing mechanism, and it keeps you from just layering armor and running around with it. If you didn’t need to wear much clothing to get by, you could wear the best armor with the least amount of encumbrance and not really have to worry about much.
One possibility would be to rebalance the temperature effects to something more realistic, but start the game in late autumn. That would give players some time to gather clothing but it would get progressively colder and clothing would become about as important as it is now (and more important as time goes on). If you can survive the winter then cheers, you get to enjoy warm weather and less encumbrance. Summer is the season for raiding.
As a side note, Alcohol doesn’t raise your temperature, it just makes you feel less cold. Ie, you aren’t actually less cold. Frostbite will occur at the same temperature, and I believe I’ve read that hypothermia actually occurs at a higher temperature in correlation to blood alcohol levels. What you could do with alcohol is have it decrease cold and wet mood modifiers and make it easier to sleep while cold. But any physical effects of cold like frostbite or hypothermia (should totally be a thing in Cataclysm) should definitely remain.
I think there needs to be more research done on the effects of alcohol when cold.
Two important terms to note are vasodilation and vasoconstriction. Vasodilation causes blood vessels in the circulatory system to widen thus providing more blood and heat around the body, vasoconstriction is the opposite, however vasodilation will cause the body to cool more rapidly due to more surface area being exposed while vasoconstriction will cause extremities to get colder more quickly but will keep heat in the body due to less surface area being exposed.
If your going for a quick stroll or short walk from pub/bar to home then alcohol will actually help keep your extremities and nerves feeling warm but overall you will be losing body heat but as you are going home (heated hopefully) then it doesn’t matter as you will regain the body heat. If you have just eaten food as well and/or are fat then alcohol will actually help nutrients get around the body more quickly and help you burn energy more quickly to generate body heat.
There is a line between when to take alcohol in the cold, alcohol will make your extremities more resistant to frostbite in short term but will in the long run lower your body heat and thus make you susceptible to not just frostbite but death, however not taking alcohol can cause extremities to be unresponsive thus lowering dexterity and can cause muscle fatigue so although your overall body heat will be higher your extremities may be vulnerable to frostbite.
It might be fun to code in alcohol effects on body in cataclysm but I doubt it will be realistic especially as it’s not well researched now. Interestingly though in long term cold exposure your own body can screw you over by vasodilating and constricting alternatively in extremities to try and avoid frostbite but it doesn’t seem to be efficient especially in making extremity useful in the duration.
[font=calibri] I am aware of the effects of vasodilation and alcohol on body temperature. Admittedly, I oversimplified the ‘warmth’ bonus to a literal one when really, it’s largely a perceived difference, true that. Hyena your suggestion of having it remove mood modifiers does make more sense now that I’ve had a decent night’s sleep.
Hmm. Sharp you’ve pretty much nailed it. For gaming purposes I still think a grossly simplified version would be easier to implement, which was kind of what was steering my original comment’s inaccuracy. A removal of cold mood modifiers for a time, and a small boost to hands and feet temp might do, coupled afterward with an overall reduced body temperature (particularly torso, to reflect core temperature?) perhaps? Rough ideas. Admittedly based on personal experience as much as education.[/font]