I was thinking about what the possible usage for mattresses when disassembling beds and thinking its kind of annoying have to take the mattress off first then having to remove the frame, and it also got me thinking about how little uses there are for mattresses and what could be better ones besides just spare parts.
It also occurred to me (since I was currently surrounded in a four floor building) while thinking of a way to possibly either set some traps outside to make outside safer or a way to move to get to the ground without opening the door to a zombie, I remembered how I occasionally used dropping furniture on zombies heads during a prison escape, and I was thinking about how nice it would be if I could drop mattresses off of roofs to make landing not take out half of my healthbar at least.
Mattresses, even a pile of them, aren’t elastic enough to provide a slow enough deceleration to avoid injury. Jumping off a roof onto a mattress will at best make the part where your legs give out and the rest of your body smacks into the ground a little less abrasive, but won’t do much of significance to stop deceleration injuries. Anything past a second floor window/first floor roof, and I’d be seriously worried about the springs ripping free and stabbing you through the top surface.
There’s a reason that most safety nets, stunt nets, and even the devices firefighters use to help catch jumpers from burning buildings are so stretchy. You need to spread the deceleration period over a much longer duration, not just put something soft under you.
I didn’t mean to completely absolve of injury, but it would at least not make falls fatal from only one story. I was thinking they should mitigate the damage from 1/2-3/4 of a health bar to something like 1/4 of a health bar. It would inflict distracting pain but a much better alternative if surrounded on a rooftop
In my experience, that’s already the damage for jumping down one floor. ~138 damage consistently, for a starter character with basic clothing, no additional stats, toughness or perks, spread across the body. Limbs at 70-80%, three and a half bars. Pain is prominent, but your average person yeeting themselves off a roof and pancaking would be in a lot of pain from that.
And in testing just now, not only does that hold up, but its probably too generous. Jumping off one Z level above the ground with a 100kg anvil in my inventory only does an extra two points of damage and no notable difference in pain.