Some suggestions about upcoming mushroom foraging.

[Whyherro123 2283]

Could you please post a direct reply instead of editing the post I was responding to, thanks. Because now it seems that I didn't answer your question. It just wasn't there when I replied to your original post =D

 

And to answer you question, I'd probably give a single edible mushroom roughly the same amount of nutrition as an apple.

Oh no. I would give far less

[Zboub le météor 250]

well, i harvest agaricus campestris (rosés des prés) since i'm old enought to walk, it's my favorite shroom. i was told by my grand-ma to not eat those that turn yellow, in fact i found very few of those, and they smell different and i heard many times that you  can recognize immedialty them when they are cooked because they taste awfull (one bite will not make you sick). i harvest shrooms for about 20 years and i still not have been sick once with those. Cantherellus cibarius (girolles) and Hydnum repandum (pied de mouton) are my other usual targets, only the first can be mistaken with a toxic one (for very untrained eyes).

 

i definitely woul not recommand to harvest shrooms with the only experience of things red in books, but if you harvest them for years, you can easily pick the good ones 99.9% of the time, and the 0.1% left, you'll know you've made a mistake on the first bite, which is without consequences.

Edited May 22, 2015 by Zboub le météor

[Exorade 214]

Unless you are a vegan, mushrooms are useless.

and dangerous.

 

Hmmm... No.

 

About as dangerous and useless as berries.

Which at this level of development will probably behave identically.

Only difference is that mushrooms are easier to find in forests than say apples or cans of beans.

Edited May 22, 2015 by Exorade

[pilgrim* 3514]

Hmmm... No.

 

About as dangerous and useless as berries.

Which at this level of development will probably behave identically.

Only difference is that mushrooms are easier to find in forests than say apples or cans of beans.

 

Hmmm..No.

 

lol - youz guys are really STRANGE  :)

 

             

 

              BERRY

 

              MUSHROOM 

 

             " there are 27 calories in a typical serving of fresh mushrooms "

             " eating mushrooms gathered in the wild should only be undertaken by individuals knowledgeable in mushroom identification "

 

xx

Edited May 22, 2015 by pilgrim

[Whyherro123 2283]

Whyherro123 and pilgrim, you are right in that mushrooms contain very little energy, as in calories, but I think it's a bit of an oversimplification to say they have zero nutritional value. Wild mushrooms are rich in fiber, vitamins, minerals and micronutrients. All of these essential for your wellbeing. Dayz, being a game, has a simplified nutritional system. It only accounts for your stomach capacity and energy. In this system, I think it's completely fine to have wild mushrooms fill you up somewhat more than they realistically would, so that they aren't completely useless, which they are not in real life. Also, there might be a time when all you can find for food is mushrooms :)

 

I don't want to derail this conversation into the realm of nutritional science, though :D

If you come across a patch of woodland where the only "plant" that you can find growing are mushrooms, which is basically statistically impossible in the type of forest Day Z takes place in, you could either 1) kick apart some stumps/rotten wood for grubs and other insects, which would actually be far better for you than most other food sources, or 2) follow the terrain down until you hit water, where you could find a plethora of other, safer and more accessible foragables.

 

I have three different survival guides in front of me, 2 military and 1 civilian, and all three essentially state: don't bother eating mushrooms. Even the edible ones are barely worth the time and energy it takes to gather them.

 

Only the "civilian" guide touches on mushrooms in any capacity, and even then, mushrooms are used as garnishes or add-ons to other foods, and the whole "mushroom section" of the guide focuses more on alternate uses of mushrooms (chaga from birch trees, tinderbox fungi, etc), than on actually edible mushrooms.

 

They just aren't worth it

[Sister Ray 41]

If you come across a patch of woodland where the only "plant" that you can find growing are mushrooms, which is basically statistically impossible in the type of forest Day Z takes place in, you could either 1) kick apart some stumps/rotten wood for grubs and other insects, which would actually be far better for you than most other food sources, or 2) follow the terrain down until you hit water, where you could find a plethora of other, safer and more accessible foragables.

 

I have three different survival guides in front of me, 2 military and 1 civilian, and all three essentially state: don't bother eating mushrooms. Even the edible ones are barely worth the time and energy it takes to gather them.

 

Only the "civilian" guide touches on mushrooms in any capacity, and even then, mushrooms are used as garnishes or add-ons to other foods, and the whole "mushroom section" of the guide focuses more on alternate uses of mushrooms (chaga from birch trees, tinderbox fungi, etc), than on actually edible mushrooms.

 

They just aren't worth it

 

Every survivor in Chernarus doesn't have 2 military and 1 civilian survival guides in front of them (or is a professional survivalist). If they are hungry and they spot a familiar mushroom they know is edible, they sure as hell are going to eat it. And it's going to help them continue for at least a little while longer.

 

Hmmm..No.

 

lol - youz guys are really STRANGE  :)

 

             

 

              BERRY

 

              MUSHROOM

 

             " there are 27 calories in a typical serving of fresh mushrooms "

             " eating mushrooms gathered in the wild should only be undertaken by individuals knowledgeable in mushroom identification "

 

xx

 

Look, guys. Perhaps we should just agree to disagree on the nutritional value of mushrooms. It's not like this whole debate has any relevance to my original suggestion other than that I said that some of the mushrooms should be edible (and I quess we can all agree on that they'll have at least some nutritional value). The devs have already modeled some mushroom varieties which will be implemented some day. We can leave it up to them to determine their nutritional value. This wasn't the point of my suggestion. It was more about different effects of the varieties, their preparation and identification as in suggestion about how they will be implemented, not whether they should be implemented at all and what their nutritional value should be.

Edited May 22, 2015 by Sister Ray

[Whyherro123 2283]

Every survivor in Chernarus doesn't have 2 military and 1 civilian survival guides in front of them (or is a professional survivalist). If they are hungry and they spot a familiar mushroom they know is edible, they sure as hell are going to eat it. And it's going to help them continue for at least a little while longer.

 

 

 

And then they die a very painful death as their kidneys shut down. Misidentifying mushrooms happen all the time, even among experts, as the differences between "safe" mushrooms and "deadly" mushrooms can be, and often are, very minor indeed.

 

And we have already touched on the fact that eating mushrooms doesn't provide enough, well, anything to survive. They have barely any calories, no water, no carbohydrates. Only space to fill your stomach, which means that by gathering and eating mushrooms, you are essentially shooting yourself in the foot, causing your body to starve faster through the processes of mastication and digestion. The digestion of food in and of itself requires energy, so whatever you eat has to provide more energy than it takes to digest, preferably more by an order of magnitude. Mushrooms do not do that.

 

Also, your point is false: if they are hungry and they spot a "familiar" mushroom, why haven't they stopped to eat any of the other, more viable, tasty, and available forageables? These things don't exist in a vacuum. You are never going to come across a point in the environment of Chernarus where there isn't edible plants, more so than edible mushrooms. 

 

And yes, as someone trained in Wilderness Survival and Bushcraft, several of the "survival ideas" of the devs seem suspect, according to my experience. This being one of them.

[Sister Ray 41]

And then they die a very painful death as their kidneys shut down. Misidentifying mushrooms happen all the time, even among experts, as the differences between "safe" mushrooms and "deadly" mushrooms can be, and often are, very minor indeed.

 

And we have already touched on the fact that eating mushrooms doesn't provide enough, well, anything to survive. They have barely any calories, no water, no carbohydrates. Only space to fill your stomach, which means that by gathering and eating mushrooms, you are essentially shooting yourself in the foot, causing your body to starve faster through the processes of mastication and digestion. The digestion of food in and of itself requires energy, so whatever you eat has to provide more energy than it takes to digest, preferably more by an order of magnitude. Mushrooms do not do that.

 

Also, your point is false: if they are hungry and they spot a "familiar" mushroom, why haven't they stopped to eat any of the other, more viable, tasty, and available forageables? These things don't exist in a vacuum. You are never going to come across a point in the environment of Chernarus where there isn't edible plants, more so than edible mushrooms. 

 

And yes, as someone trained in Wilderness Survival and Bushcraft, several of the "survival ideas" of the devs seem suspect, according to my experience. This being one of them.

 Damn, this is somewhat hard to admit, but I now realize that you (And Pilgrim) have been right all along about edible mushrooms being unviable for survival food. I didn't quite grasp the idea that it takes more energy to digest a mushroom than what you get from it, and that other nutrients won't help in this situation. You explained it well and I thank you for it. Perhaps I was blinded by the fact that mushrooms are healthy in so many other ways that I couldn't understand how they couldn't at least give you several more hours of being alive before starving.

 

It seems that the devs are still adding edible and poisonous mushrooms ingame and I doubt they will make all of them (even the edibles) harmful or insignificant for you. I think I'm ok with them giving the edible ones some function as in filling your stomach a bit even though it isn't realistic. I quess it would be better if they tried to look for a realistic solution such as your suggestion about them being viable as a side dish or ingredient in for example a soup. We'll see.

 

And, as I said earlier, I think we'll get the mushrooms before some other (perhaps more useful) forageables (Is that a word? I'm not a native english speaker) because mushrooms are somewhat iconic to foraging culture. I'm sure we'll get more stuff to forage later on.

[pilgrim* 3514]

 ..//..

And, as I said earlier, I think we'll get the mushrooms before some other (perhaps more useful) forageables

..//..

 

For sure your OP is good sister Ray:

 

With a couple of million players of different lifestyles and ages, most people think (expect) that apples, cow, pig, berries, mushrooms, fish, deer .. are edible things you can find in the wild - they are all well-known foods people are used to. The actual real problems of hunting in a survival situation, gutting boar, knowing which plants (and which parts) are edible, etc - just don't come up.

 

Very few people think its normal to eat grubs, worms, small birds eggs, ants eggs, plants, insects, watercress, hedgehogs, grass snakes, nettles, frogs - they don't think about this, don't expect it, haven't tried any of it, so this would seem strange to them.

 

I'm not attacking BI designers. Just saying that in real life ... etc etc ..  So having mushrooms in the game is not a *bad* thing for gameplay, it will probably look good, and it also educates players that you can kill yourself by eating those things. Nice simple lesson to include in a zombie apocalypse game.

 

For other things that you can forage that would really help you survive IRL - probably Whyherro123 and other folk have suggestions that would not seem completely crazy to most players - not too "survival hardcore" or too difficult to bring in the game (like eggs, snakes, grubs and insects might be technically difficult ?)

 

Off the cuff - wild  rhubarb is a European plant [it's a start ?] ..wood pigeon  ?   

What would be practical in DayZ ? Any ideas ?

Edited May 23, 2015 by pilgrim

[Sister Ray 41]

Hmm, it's a tough pickle, because obviously we shouldn't make survival too easy. It's a good thing that some of us starve to death (Ingame, I mean :D). Walking up to a plant and promting "pick up" doesn't really portrait the real life struggle, where you should really know what you're doing (as in having the survival knowledge needed) well enough. This is why it's a good idea to add plant-families that have poisonous varieties in them. Still foraging should, at least partly, be entry-level survival, as in something that you do when you don't have a gun to hunt with yet, etc.

 

I'm a layman in survival so I'm not that well versed in edible plants you could forage for. Also, I'm from Finland, which differs somewhat from the area that Chernarus depicts. Wood pigeons and hedgehogs and frogs, etc. you mentioned are good ideas imho, and I think it doesn't matter too much if it seems strange to most of us. I'm also wondering if some domesticated wild animals, such as domesticated pigeons and ducks, as in city-pigeons and -ducks would make sense. I've heard that some of my local, broke junkies have succesfully hunted some city-ducks (the ones that people feed in the parks) with lead pipes (rough, I know =D). Dunno if they'd still be as trusting to humans as before with the infected coming after them, though...

Edited May 23, 2015 by Sister Ray

[☣BioHaze☣ 7337]

I would guess shrooms are being added because they have that chance to be dangerous OR beneficial which fits the DayZ mold (no pun) quite well.

 

Remember, game.^

 

Mushrooms are notorious in this way as laid out in the above posts.

 

I'm an armchair survivalist so to speak and have only done 1 solo self sustained cycle tour where I used some of my survivalist knowledge.

 

Mushrooms are often one of the last things you hear any of the popular survivalists focusing on and are viewed as supplemental at best.

 

In our context for DayZ they can be food, poison, or possibly intoxicant (psychedelic) as well.

 

Personally, a Psilocybin trip, during the apocalypse, does not sound particularly appealing.

 

EDit:

 

 

 

-snip-

 

Off the cuff - wild  rhubarb is a European plant [it's a start ?] ..wood pigeon  ?   

What would be practical in DayZ ? Any ideas ?

 

Deathlove recommended cattail stalks, which I thought made sense. Lots of starch.

 

Some pulp found under the bark of certain trees (birch?) is edible.

 

Why can't we feel for clams in the harbor/shores with bare feet?

 

Pine needle tea is a thing, has vitamins.

 

Seaweeds can be edible.

 

Also, we need to switch berry colors...

 

I ate blueberries my whole life and was told to avoid those same red berries we eat now, the ones with the spiky leaves.... no good.

 

Maybe birds nests and bee hives will be a thing.

 

If I kill a bear, I hope I can craft a bear tooth necklace for bragging rights... I think I'm getting ahead of myself....

Edited May 23, 2015 by BioHaze

[Whyherro123 2283]

Hmm, it's a tough pickle, because obviously we shouldn't make survival too easy. It's a good thing that some of us starve to death (Ingame, I mean :D). Walking up to a plant and promting "pick up" doesn't really portrait the real life struggle, where you should really know what you're doing (as in having the survival knowledge needed) well enough. This is why it's a good idea to add plant-families that have poisonous varieties in them. Still foraging should, at least partly, be entry-level survival, as in something that you do when you don't have a gun to hunt with yet, etc.

 

 

That is just the thing: the environment Day Z takes place in is abundant with wild food, both plant and animal. There is no reason we should starve to death, unless we are physically unable to go out and forage for food. This thing is: foraging takes time and effort, during which you aren't really competing against other players. Some people might find the foraging process boring, while others, like myself, find it awesome. 

 

Safe drinking water, on the other hand, should be a serious issue. Remember: just because the water is clear and running, doesn't mean it is safe to drink. There is plenty of water available in Chernarus, it just has to be boiled or filtered, preferably both, before drinking. Having a well with safe water in every town (and having every town be 5 minutes apart) kind of removes that aspect of survival. If I had my way, 95% of the wells in Chernarus would be removed, broken, or otherwise unusable, to promote people actually boiling/filtering/purifying their water. Plenty of food, but no water.

 

And I disagree with you as to foraging being "entry-level". 1) you don't need a gun to hunt, you can trap small game, fish, or make a bow, and 2) I would forage as I traveled. AS you follow that deer, mark down where you see groups of edible plants, to go get them later. etc

[gannon46 788]

maybe i'll get to practice herbalism after all in dayz maybe one day be a medicine man on a server cooking up ointments and cures with nothing but what i find in the woods.

[Whyherro123 2283]

I would guess shrooms are being added because they have that chance to be dangerous OR beneficial which fits the DayZ mold (no pun) quite well.

 

Remember, game.^

 

Mushrooms are notorious in this way as laid out in the above posts.

 

I'm an armchair survivalist so to speak and have only done 1 solo self sustained cycle tour where I used some of my survivalist knowledge.

 

Mushrooms are often one of the last things you hear any of the popular survivalists focusing on and are viewed as supplemental at best.

 

In our context for DayZ they can be food, poison, or possibly intoxicant (psychedelic) as well.

 

Personally, a Psilocybin trip, during the apocalypse, does not sound particularly appealing.

 

EDit:

 

 

 

 

Deathlove recommended cattail stalks, which I thought made sense. Lots of starch.

 

Some pulp found under the bark of certain trees (birch?) is edible.

 

Why can't we feel for clams in the harbor/shores with bare feet?

 

Pine needle tea is a thing, has vitamins.

 

Seaweeds can be edible.

 

Also, we need to switch berry colors...

 

I ate blueberries my whole life and was told to avoid those same red berries we eat now, the ones with the spiky leaves.... no good.

 

Maybe birds nests and bee hives will be a thing.

 

If I kill a bear, I hope I can craft a bear tooth necklace for bragging rights... I think I'm getting ahead of myself....

I also hate how they mixed up the berries coloration.

 

 

See those little star-shaped things on the bottoms of the berries? Those markings indicate what is known as a "king berry", usually a member of the blueberry family, and almost (99.999% of the time), perfectly safe to eat, as well as being tasty.

 

The "Day Z Standalone Wiki" calls these berries "sambucus" (http://dayz-standalone.wikia.com/wiki/Berries), which is to say, elderberries (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sambucus).

 

Now, in real life, elderberries look ...... kinda like blueberries, if you squint and have never seen a blueberry/blueberry before.

 

These are elderberries

 

 

These are blueberries

 

 

Now, boys and girls, which berries look the most like the in-game version? I'll wait.

 

Yeah, these berries really need to be changed. The red ones should make you sick.

Edited May 23, 2015 by Whyherro123

[pilgrim* 3514]

^

bilberries, also called whinberries are the European close cousin of blueberries. they are widespread, many countries from Ireland to Poland have specific laws permitting their collection, and there are traditional days and festivals for gathering them, and traditional recipes and jams, ie they are very common and extremely well known. I remember as a kid having my hands and arms stained completely purple from eating these things off the bush. It's a real red-purple stain almost like mercurochrome - takes a couple of days to was out. End of July and through August we collected kilos of them.

 

They are blue-black, with a blue surface bloom on the ripe berries, so they look very much like blueberries -  or like the in-game blue fruit.

There is no chance of confusing them with sambuctus as bilberries grow on low ground-covering stiff bushes forming a carpet average maybe 6 inches high. They grow on heath, grassy slopes, moorland, in the borders of woods, in glades.. I hear that Sweden for instance has more than 10% of the total land surface covered by these whinberry bushes. That's plenty fruit.

 

They are a totally standard widespread famous native European berry.

 

- aðalbláber - fraughan - bilberry - blauberry - winberry - jagody - myrtilles - afină -  &etc..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilberry
 

Edited May 24, 2015 by pilgrim

[Sister Ray 41]

That is just the thing: the environment Day Z takes place in is abundant with wild food, both plant and animal. There is no reason we should starve to death, unless we are physically unable to go out and forage for food. This thing is: foraging takes time and effort, during which you aren't really competing against other players. Some people might find the foraging process boring, while others, like myself, find it awesome. 

 

Safe drinking water, on the other hand, should be a serious issue. Remember: just because the water is clear and running, doesn't mean it is safe to drink. There is plenty of water available in Chernarus, it just has to be boiled or filtered, preferably both, before drinking. Having a well with safe water in every town (and having every town be 5 minutes apart) kind of removes that aspect of survival. If I had my way, 95% of the wells in Chernarus would be removed, broken, or otherwise unusable, to promote people actually boiling/filtering/purifying their water. Plenty of food, but no water.

 

And I disagree with you as to foraging being "entry-level". 1) you don't need a gun to hunt, you can trap small game, fish, or make a bow, and 2) I would forage as I traveled. AS you follow that deer, mark down where you see groups of edible plants, to go get them later. etc

When I said that foraging should be at least partly entry-level survival, I was only meaning that it should be something you can get at right as you spawn, as in something you can use to sustain yourself even if you have hard time finding any useful loot. Of course it should also be a viable survival strategy in late-game. I know the environment dayz takes place in is abudant with forageable plants, etc. I just find it better for gameplay if it wasn't too easy to sustain yourself, as in it would need some skill and time-investment to be able to survive, which is, I think, exactly what you were saying :) I think the best way to simulate this would be to add as many forageable plants as possible. Some of them useful, some of them harmful, some of them completely useless and have the ingame descriptions be minimal (as in my op suggestion). Trapping and hunting shouldn't be too easy either. This way, it's all there, you'd just have to know how to use it. Of course this learning process can be negated by metagaming, as in just browsing dayz wiki or something with pictures and uses of every plant ingame, but still it's something.

 

I also agree with you in that it's way too easy to keep yourself hydrated with every well ingame being 100% safe to drink from without preparation/purifying it. I've only had to purify my water a handful of times when I was in an area without wells nearby.

[liquidcactus 719]

Would be useful if you could tip your arrows/knife/spear with a deadly poison from one of the mushrooms (if any are lethal in that way). I have a feeling that nothing that poisonous grows in that part of the world though.

 

But Cash ! you could tip your arrows with the hallucinogenic properties of magic mushrooms.. Imagine that. That is the last thing someone would suspect after being hit with an arrow, afterwards bandaging, provided they didnt die.. but someone shooting "magic arrows" would more than likely be up to something less sadistic then say a character with actual poisoned arrows 

[OrLoK 16186]

But Cash ! you could tip your arrows with the hallucinogenic properties of magic mushrooms.. Imagine that. That is the last thing someone would suspect after being hit with an arrow, afterwards bandaging, provided they didnt die.. but someone shooting "magic arrows" would more than likely be up to something less sadistic then say a character with actual poisoned arrows 

Hello there

 

I live in the 70s, not quite the 60's but I dont think that would work.

 

Interesting concept though.

 

As to mushrooms, well as a teenager I may have tried them but i certainly never inhaled.

 

Rgds

 

LoK

[pale1776 375]

I'm still waiting on snakes to be added.

Snakes are native to the Czech Republic, which is what Chernarus is based on, and there's one poisonous type there (a viper) for extra food and another thing to watch out for when forgaging and hunting

[liquidcactus 719]

Hello there

 

I live in the 70s, not quite the 60's but I dont think that would work.

 

Interesting concept though.

 

As to mushrooms, well as a teenager I may have tried them but i certainly never inhaled.

 

Rgds

 

LoK

To be honest, I do agree, I was kinda pissin in the wind with that comment..

As to mushrooms also, well as a 20+ yo I may have tried them and don't regret a thing, I had an incredible time opening up perceptions..

 

Anyway, the thing is..  I'm not exactly sure if they intend to add  actual magic mushrooms?, I think they may be considering it ? I mean we will have pot to grow soon so who knows.

I think just having a number of poisonous mushroom and normal mushrooms to choose from to eat would be more than adequate than actually having a "magic" variety available also..

 

To capture what those effects do from magic shrooms is impossible in a game or anything for that matter that isnt the real deal and couldnt really go past tunnel vision with silly colours flying but if the devs can be bothered than well.. why not i spose ?

[pilgrim* 3514]

To be honest, I do agree, I was kinda pissin in the wind with that comment..

As to mushrooms also, well as a 20+ yo I may have tried them and don't regret a thing, I had an incredible time opening up perceptions..

..//..

 

Me too - Do you remember those red ones with the white dots and fat white stems, with tiny little sash-windows and a little door with a brass handle and a tiny Jensen parked outside ?