Loot storage and Tracking

[theirongiant 200]

Just thought I'd throw this out there and see what people thought.

Loot storage: I don't know what the plans are for the SA equivalent of tents are but I hope it isn't tents. In the mod the things were almost utterly impossible to hide and were easily spot-able from many hundreds of metres away, even more so if you could get in the air. In the SA I'd hope that loot stashes are a lot more hidden, think Epoch's lockboxes

)

although these were still spot-able at distance, it'd be nice if they could be prevented from rendering until they were within the grass rendering distance. That means they would require a bit more effort in finding but it would also mean that you'd have a lot to gain by tracking players back to their bases rather than just killing them and things that encourage non-KOS behaviour == good.

Tracking: In combination with the above a simple tracking mechanism could be implemented that could be used to follow recent player movements to give you a chance to pick up other players trails. User has a menu option - "search for tracks", if a player has passed through recently(*) then the player has a 75% chance of detecting tracks and a 50% chance of reading those tracks correctly. Feedback would be something like 'There are tracks leading N|NE|E|SE|S|SW|W|NW. They are fresh|recent|old', if the player gets it wrong then a random direction/age is shown. Player can only test each sector once per 30 minutes. If there are multiple tracks then only the freshest are displayed (new track obliterate older ones). Fresh = 0-10 minutes old, recent = 10-20 mins, old = 20-30 mins. From a server point of view, you'd need to have a hexagon grid over the map (maybe 50m width hexes) to split it into reasonably sized sectors, each sector would hold two bits of info, what direction the last player left in and how long ago that was.

The idea isn't to give a bloodhound like path to follow but to have a mechanism so that if you are tracking someone and happen to lose them then you could use this to give you a rough idea of what direction they went. In practice you would scan the place were you lost the player you were tracking and then scan the surrounding sectors to see if they backed up your initial scan, maybe with a third scan a little further out just as confirmation. Point being it would be time consuming and far from accurate but might give you a clue when all else is lost.

Edited March 11, 2014 by theirongiant74

[kichilron 8550]

Loot storage: I don't know what the plans are for the SA equivalent of tents are but I hope it isn't tents. In the mod the things were almost utterly impossible to hide and were easily spot-able from many hundreds of metres away, even more so if you could get in the air. In the SA I'd hope that loot stashes are a lot more hidden, think Epoch's lockboxes

 

 

Did you take a look at the last DevBlog? They're already working on persistent objects, which would not only be backpacks you could hide filled with stuff, but also for example that you can use fridges as storage.

[theirongiant 200]

Did you take a look at the last DevBlog? They're already working on persistent objects, which would not only be backpacks you could hide filled with stuff, but also for example that you can use fridges as storage.

I thought the fridge thing was just added as a place to check for loot, don't really see it being used as long term loot storage. What I would like to see is camps being something you have to follow players to find rather than being totally obvious.

[Dolle 2]

Well persistent backpacks are already on the way so I guess they're gonna expand on that later on.

 

I don't like your idea of tracking, it would most likely not be used much and would add a lot to the server load. We already have footprints in the game and if you go prone you will trample down the grass. I think this should just be made a bit more obvious so you can track players manually, without the help of a context menu.

[theirongiant 200]

Well persistent backpacks are already on the way so I guess they're gonna expand on that later on.

 

I don't like your idea of tracking, it would most likely not be used much and would add a lot to the server load. We already have footprints in the game and if you go prone you will trample down the grass. I think this should just be made a bit more obvious so you can track players manually, without the help of a context menu.

Fair enough if you don't like the idea but what makes you think it would add a lot of server load? No offense, but when you go on to suggest a method that would require every single footstep of every player being recorded, broadcast and rendered it makes me think you don't know what you're talking about.

[KT_Cobra 22]

I like the idea of the small, better camouflaged storage units.

 

However, I don't like the idea of a context menu for tracking.  Now, personally, I'm not talking about tracking a human.  I'm talking about tracking an animal or group (flock, herd, etc.) of animals.  If you don't see one in the distance right off, then the server would randomly place a set of tracks on the ground, along with other signs, for players to follow.  The server would then recognize that the player is participating in the hunting process by following these signs, and, therefore, would place the appropriate animal(s) in the environment appropriate to those signs.  This would allow the server to not require a large amount of randomly placed animals.  After all, in reality, when someone is in the woods, forest, plains, mountains, etc., they don't see THAT much wildlife anyway (with the exception of a swamp :D )

[kichilron 8550]

I thought the fridge thing was just added as a place to check for loot, don't really see it being used as long term loot storage. What I would like to see is camps being something you have to follow players to find rather than being totally obvious.

 

 

How is a fridge more obvious than a camp in the middle of nowhere? There are loads and loads of fridges Not all will have stuff in them that players put there. I would think it's quite a good idea.

[theirongiant 200]

How is a fridge more obvious than a camp in the middle of nowhere? There are loads and loads of fridges Not all will have stuff in them that players put there. I would think it's quite a good idea.

I don't imagine I'm unique in the way I play. If I'm going through a town quickly I'll make sure to at least try check out the 'best' loot spots before leaving. If players start dumping 'good shit' into fridges then fridges will shoot to the top of my list of non-military places to loot. Finding tents in the mod often lead to high end gear, if fridges become the new tents (even in the short term) then damn sure I'm going to be checking each and every one I can find.

[sYs 133]

although these were still spot-able at distance, it'd be nice if they could be prevented from rendering until they were within the grass rendering distance. That means they would require a bit more effort in finding but it would also mean that you'd have a lot to gain by tracking players back to their bases rather than just killing them and things that encourage non-KOS behaviour == good.

 

 

This + 10beanz

[theirongiant 200]

Wee addendum: hex's would be over complicating the tracking thing, you would still have 8 cardinal directions from a simple squares grid and the maths would be a lot simpler. You'd could sample player positions at fairly long intervals and draw a straight line from their last known position to set which boxes they passed through. Might not be 100% accurate at longer time spans but for an imprecise mechanic that's not a massive drawback. Ideally tracking would work naturally from the environment but for a simple, light touch solution this would work well I feel.

[kichilron 8550]

I don't imagine I'm unique in the way I play. If I'm going through a town quickly I'll make sure to at least try check out the 'best' loot spots before leaving. If players start dumping 'good shit' into fridges then fridges will shoot to the top of my list of non-military places to loot. Finding tents in the mod often lead to high end gear, if fridges become the new tents (even in the short term) then damn sure I'm going to be checking each and every one I can find.

 

 

That's the way it works, though. And what you're saying doesn't speak against the fridge system. Tents are vulnerable, so are fridges. Nothing is safe in DayZ, as it's not Epoch. That's just not how it works. Find yourself a sweet spot amongst the manymany fridges on Chernarus and you'll be good.