Wetness and consequences

  • Wet clothes could either slow down the character, OR cause more fatigue while the character runs or fights.
  • Tie drying speed (wetness reduction) to air humidity. Slower reduction of wetness when the humidity is high, faster when low. Max drying speed while standing next to a fire.
  • Tie drying speed to ambient temperature. Slower drying speed at low temps, higher speed at higher temps.
  • Wetness level together with wind speed and ambient temperature should determine the amount of cold (heat loss) the character experiences.
  • Consider giving the various clothing items a liquid absorption stat and tracking the wetness level of each individual worn/carried clothing item. It’d be the amount of liquid (water) the clothing item is able to absorb, which would be later used in determining character’s total wetness level, added weight, swimming penalties, drying duration, bonus fire resistance, and potential additional movement/fatigue penalties.

Bonus tip for chilling drinks fast IRL (haven’t tested personally):
Wrap a wet paper towel around a warm can of soda/beer before putting it to freezer. It’ll go ice-cold in 5-15 minutes. Wet fabric/clothes together with low temps just suck the heat out. Try putting two cans into the freezer at the same time - one with the paper towel and one without. Compare results.

[quote=“BeerBeer, post:1, topic:12688”]- Tie drying speed (wetness reduction) to air humidity. Slower reduction of wetness when the humidity is high, faster when low. Max drying speed while standing next to a fire.

  • Tie drying speed to ambient temperature. Slower drying speed at low temps, higher speed at higher temps.
  • Wetness level together with wind speed and ambient temperature should determine the amount of cold (heat loss) the character experiences.[/quote]

Those are already in, it’s just that things like this are so minor and unnoticeable that you (or ~95% of the players) haven’t noticed them.

The only noticeable change here would be speed penalty for wetness. Though I’m not sure if it’s a good idea.

If anything, I would recommend increasing the encumbrance of clothing that isn’t designed to get wet, rather than a flat speed penalty.

Not sure it’s necessary though.

Wetness makes the cold worse? I say make the effect stronger! Could be a setting too. The issue could also be the lack of feedback. A few printed messages would notify of their existence. “Your wet clothes make the cold feel worse!”

Further brainstorming:

  • Clothes could have windproofing value too. Leather jackets don’t let wind through but loosely knit wool shirts and thin t-shirts are useless against wind. Windproofing value together with coverage would determine the true wind protection.
  • Waterproofing value as well, which would control the rate of water absorption for a piece of clothing.
  • On clothing and water absorption: So if clothes could absorb water, and each piece of clothing could hold a specific amount of water, we could have a system for (more or less) logical drenching order. The first clothes to get wet in rain would be the ones on the ‘outer’ and ‘strapped’ layers. Let’s say a character is wearing a t-shirt, a wool shirt, and a wool coat. The wool coat’s coverage is 95% (unverified). So in this example it would let 5% of the rain through to the next layer (‘normal’), unfiltered, to the wool shirt. The wool coat would start accumulating water, but when it’s at (let’s say) 50% capacity, it would start leaking water to the layer beneath. At this point, the wool coat’s drenching rate would slow down by (for example) 30%, but the wool shirt beneath would start to “enjoy” an increased drenching rate. And when the wool shirt (100% coverage, unverified) gets at 50% absorption capacity, it starts to transmit water to the skin layer, meaning the t-shirt. Only when the skin layer clothing starts to get wet, that’s when the heat loss gets serious, basically multiplying with the ambient temperature.
  • As for drying, the clothes would dry proportionately, meaning that wettest clothes would first dry down to the level of the least wet clothes, at which point they dry at similar rates. So for a 100% wet wool coat, a 60% wet wool shirt and a 30% wet t-shirt - first the wool coat dries down to 60% (could take a long time due to likely having a large absorption capacity), then the shirt and the coat dry down to 30%, and finally they all dry to 0%. So if it’s cold, it would be in the player’s interest to ditch the wool coat, and change the t-shirt to a dry one (at the very least).

Some recap:

  • Clothes would have an absorption capacity (in litres)
  • Clothes would have an absorption rate, which would work in conjunction with the ongoing rain intensity.
  • Clothes would have a windproofing value
  • Clothes would have a drenching order in rain, based on layering and coverage
  • When the skin layer gets wet, heat loss becomes more serious
  • Wind + cold + wet = very bad

It’d be a huge amount of work to assign each individual piece of clothing these additional values. I think the root issue is that while clothes are made of specific materials, the proportions of these materials within a clothing item aren’t defined at all. It might be prudent to go through the clothing items and define the proportions, e.g. 100% cotton, or 80% plastic and 20% cotton, or whatever. THEN we define the absorption rates and windproofing for the various MATERIALS. Absorption capacity could be calculated based on item volume, materials and material proportions. Only wool, cotton and leather would absorb water (that I can think of). Neoprene, plastic, kevlar and metal are all waterproof, although the “plastic” is bit tricky, or vague rather. Windproofing would depend on coverage, materials, material proportions and weight. The weight reflects the thickness or the density of the clothing.

Of course none of this ever considers sweating or moisture permeability…

Or water equalization among clothing items.

Or potential exploits o_O

Realistically, wet clothes are only annoying, lowers your body temperature and hence makes you more prone for illness. I would add wind speed to drying time thou.

Anything else I think is just gratuitous extra annoying stuff to add and hell of a lot of extra variables to track on each cloth item.

[spoiler=spoiler’d for length: comments][quote=“BeerBeer, post:4, topic:12688”][quote=“Coolthulhu, post:2, topic:12688”]Those are already in, it’s just that things like this are so minor and unnoticeable that you (or ~95% of the players) haven’t noticed them.[/quote]
Wetness makes the cold worse? I say make the effect stronger! Could be a setting too. The issue could also be the lack of feedback. A few printed messages would notify of their existence. “Your wet clothes make the cold feel worse!”

Further brainstorming:

  • Clothes could have windproofing value too. Leather jackets don’t let wind through but loosely knit wool shirts and thin t-shirts are useless against wind. Windproofing value together with coverage would determine the true wind protection.
  • Waterproofing value as well, which would control the rate of water absorption for a piece of clothing.
  • On clothing and water absorption: So if clothes could absorb water, and each piece of clothing could hold a specific amount of water, we could have a system for (more or less) logical drenching order. The first clothes to get wet in rain would be the ones on the ‘outer’ and ‘strapped’ layers. Let’s say a character is wearing a t-shirt, a wool shirt, and a wool coat. The wool coat’s coverage is 95% (unverified). So in this example it would let 5% of the rain through to the next layer (‘normal’), unfiltered, to the wool shirt. The wool coat would start accumulating water, but when it’s at (let’s say) 50% capacity, it would start leaking water to the layer beneath. At this point, the wool coat’s drenching rate would slow down by (for example) 30%, but the wool shirt beneath would start to “enjoy” an increased drenching rate. And when the wool shirt (100% coverage, unverified) gets at 50% absorption capacity, it starts to transmit water to the skin layer, meaning the t-shirt. Only when the skin layer clothing starts to get wet, that’s when the heat loss gets serious, basically multiplying with the ambient temperature.
  • As for drying, the clothes would dry proportionately, meaning that wettest clothes would first dry down to the level of the least wet clothes, at which point they dry at similar rates. So for a 100% wet wool coat, a 60% wet wool shirt and a 30% wet t-shirt - first the wool coat dries down to 60% (could take a long time due to likely having a large absorption capacity), then the shirt and the coat dry down to 30%, and finally they all dry to 0%. So if it’s cold, it would be in the player’s interest to ditch the wool coat, and change the t-shirt to a dry one (at the very least).

Some recap:

  • Clothes would have an absorption capacity (in litres)
  • Clothes would have an absorption rate, which would work in conjunction with the ongoing rain intensity.
  • Clothes would have a windproofing value
  • Clothes would have a drenching order in rain, based on layering and coverage
  • When the skin layer gets wet, heat loss becomes more serious
  • Wind + cold + wet = very bad

It’d be a huge amount of work to assign each individual piece of clothing these additional values. I think the root issue is that while clothes are made of specific materials, the proportions of these materials within a clothing item aren’t defined at all. It might be prudent to go through the clothing items and define the proportions, e.g. 100% cotton, or 80% plastic and 20% cotton, or whatever. THEN we define the absorption rates and windproofing for the various MATERIALS. Absorption capacity could be calculated based on item volume, materials and material proportions. Only wool, cotton and leather would absorb water (that I can think of). Neoprene, plastic, kevlar and metal are all waterproof, although the “plastic” is bit tricky, or vague rather. Windproofing would depend on coverage, materials, material proportions and weight. The weight reflects the thickness or the density of the clothing.

Of course none of this ever considers sweating or moisture permeability…

Or water equalization among clothing items.

Or potential exploits o_O[/quote]

[quote=“Alec White, post:5, topic:12688”]Realistically, wet clothes are only annoying, lowers your body temperature and hence makes you more prone for illness. I would add wind speed to drying time thou.

Anything else I think is just gratuitous extra annoying stuff to add and hell of a lot of extra variables to track on each cloth item.[/quote][/spoiler]
I like both of these.

In warm weather, for sure.

A simpler version of drenching might be just all clothes getting wet at the same time, sharing the received rain equally. And then drying individually. Skin layer clothes are all thin and light, drying fast. It might be just enough realism and way less work.

A large hat could cut down the rain on torso by half. Brimmed hats could grant varying rain percentage reductions. A sombrero is basically an umbrella.

This is also in.

Honestly, if so many of those effects are in and still go unnoticed, that’s very good evidence that they aren’t needed.

[quote=“Coolthulhu, post:8, topic:12688”]This is also in.

Honestly, if so many of those effects are in and still go unnoticed, that’s very good evidence that they aren’t needed.[/quote]
Well, I think it’s just very good evidence that the properties are hidden and unadvertised. People might be getting their apparel based on their visible protective values, and the items incidentally happen to provide good protection against the less visible elements. Then there’s the role-playing aspect, or the desire to go with what you would realistically go with.

Upon inspecting armor.json, I see some items have “material_thickness” value. Is this same as windproofing?

Regarding rain:
Personally, trying to figure out how to avoid getting wet, has been almost impossible to me. I’ve noticed that the rain coat makes you almost if not completely immune to rain though. Beyond that, trying to pin down the exact mechanic is impossible. Probably because the layering isn’t a factor at all, IIRC. Is it like that? That all the clothes get wet in then rain, and only if an individual clothing item is resistant to water, it doesn’t take water, and that NO clothing item actually STOPS the lower layer clothing items from taking water?

Thickness is used for calculating cut and bash protection.

This has changed a bunch of times.
Nowadays it works like this:
If ALL your body parts that would get wet are wet-immune, you don’t get wet. Otherwise immunity is ignored.
Raincoat provides 98% chance to avoid rain wetness this turn. Umbrella grants immunity to entire body, same for feathers mutation.
Rain targets head and torso. Once torso is 50% drenched, also targets legs.
There is a chance dependent on rain intensity, 80% of torso warmth and 20% of head warmth that you avoid rain this turn.

tl;dr Umbrella > rain coat > water immune torso and head > avoiding heavy rain > warm clothing