Streamlining items and supplies in Zafehouse 2
Zafehouse 2 adopted the supply model of Zafehouse because, well, it works. Where Z2 diverged was by allowing each survivor to carry their own cache of supplies. You can also make definitive decisions about which supplies you’ll get – barricades can be made from furniture, found in almost every building type, and each building type favours one or more supply types (the hospital and medicine, for example).
But, I’ve been thinking over the last few days that the supply model could be folded into the item system. The result would be that supplies would no longer be counters with maximums, but discrete items, just like guns and furniture. In this way, a survivor could load themselves up with barricades, at the expensive of ammo, medicine and alcohol.
What makes me strongly in favour of this system is that it opens up more choices for a stronghold. If you think the hospital is your best chance at survival, you can now literally drop everything and cart barricades over from other buildings to fortify it, rather than a couple at a time.
The main interface would still keep track of how many of each supply type you have so the information is available at a glance, but the trade window would recognise them as singular items. The system would probably necessitate a weight system, and items like bullets and medicine would need a stacking mechanism… because I can’t see anyone staying sane with the prospect of moving 50 bullets from one inventory to another.
The risk is that trading and collecting supplies might end up with a Diablo-like inventory mini-game, but I believe this can be avoided.
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Question:
You could drop stuff in building (medicine for instance), run in another building and take other stuff (lets say barricades) back and pickup what you previous left there (medicine)? …that would be great!
On top of that, i think that it would be great if buildings have somehow limited supplies. Maybe not literally but for instance your searching rates would go down if you would searching in one building for too long or perhaps if you found manny items in that house. That would give you reason to actually use your “Streamlining items and supplies” system and not camp one building.
…and to the diablo thingy, i wouldnt be so afraid of it. But more than diablo where you can carry around shitloads of stuff i would make it more X-Com like. You have hands, belt and some pockets. No chances to put a shotgun into your pants. :D
This would open a new kind of items to allow you to carry more stuff like backpacks, bags, tactical wests…
What do you think?
kulik242 said this on April 11th, 2010 at 9:25 am
wait, speaking of tactical vests, do you get armour.
also, what guns are their precisely? and when will there be a new video out?
murray said this on April 17th, 2010 at 5:43 am
@murray: No armour, at least for now. A vest doesn’t really help against zombies, as the locations that get bitten are the arms, legs and neck. A vest might help against other survivors shooting you though. As for guns, there will be pistols, shotguns, SMGs and rifles, as well as golf clubs, cricket bats, axes and machetes. The demo will probably have just one variant of each weapon.
I hope to put another video out soon. Can’t give a date right now.
@kulik242: The system could always handle that scenario (carting items between buildings). The problem was that you couldn’t hold a barricade or med-kit in your hands. Which didn’t make a lot of sense. What also didn’t make much sense is that you could run around with say, 5 barricades… and a shotgun… and cricket bat. Considering a barricade is essentially a plank of wood, it wasn’t that realistic.
The new inventory system is in and works fine. Ammo, medicine and alcohol stack, while barricades don’t. Furniture can only be carried by hand, to stop survivors from carting around four chairs in their backpack.
Buildings aren’t unlimited sources of supplies like they were in Zafehouse. Each room provides a few supplies, and that’s it. Whatever you find is all you’ll have from the start of the game to the end. If you don’t collect enough supplies, don’t take risks and search the better buildings, or ration your supplies poorly, you’re going to be in a lot of trouble. Buildings only have a subset of each supply/item type – there are no guns in the hospital, warehouses have barricades and nothing else, and houses are fairly bare, except for the odd bottle of alcohol or golf club/cricket bat.
Put simply, hiding out in one building and limiting your searches will almost certainly get you killed, unless you’ve taken the time to turn it into a stronghold. And that’s just one strategy. You could always run from building to building, eluding zombies rather than taking them on, or attempt to clean out the town to reduce the zombie population to managable levels. It’s up to you!
Logan said this on April 18th, 2010 at 7:15 pm
thanks for the response logan, i have an idea, what about supply drops? e.g an image on the screen saying supply drop, or something like that, it has ammo, meds, basically anything you would expect to be dropped into a quarintined city (i doubt they would drop in alcohol for instance)
this is to possibly give you another objective to secure the drop and think strategic as how to secure it.
murray said this on April 19th, 2010 at 7:30 am
Yeah, thanks for the response, it really made my day, the system you described works exactly how i hoped it would work! And the last part about be able to lower zombie population make my jaw drop, its more than i hoped for …i see so much possibilities!
kulik242 said this on April 19th, 2010 at 1:54 pm