Thirst, and dehydration.

[Forest Junkie]

Was the code tinkered with lately? It seems that if I eat too much food, I can't get my filling of water, thereby allowing me to dehydrate faster.

Also, an instance which occurs when I'm out in the wastes...

>You are thirsty.
>You are dehydrated!
>You begin to suffer from thirst!

Why is it status effects seem to "stack" on top of each other all of a sudden?

[RunningMountain]

I think it is coded like that to reiterate realism of getting thirsty and then dehydrating, and not truly knowing when you are dehydrated.  It's happened ot me before too, especially outside in the wilderness/desert areas, I like it because you never know if you are just a bit thirsty or if suddenly you're going to start dehydrating.

-RM

[Forest Junkie]

*shrug*

I think I'd be able to tell if I were getting thirsty or not.

[fearwig]

No kidding.

I had a character once, when I was newish, who walked a few rooms into the desert after not drinking for a while to greb some 'sid. He wasn't thirsty when he left. Then, one hour later, he was not only thirsty, but 'dehydrating'. Within one IC hour, he went from being not even a mite thirsty to actually taking "thirst damage". I think there's a bug in there somewhere, but no one seems to believe it when someone indicates that.

[Ghost]

I think it was explained like this before.. Let me put some arbitrary numbers.. They dont represent anything from actual code, but all representation:

Thirst level starts from 0 and goes to up 10 or something.

At 0 you are a little thirsty, and beging to get message of thirst at -1, and at -5 you are dehydrating and -6 you begin suffer.

Lets say your thirst level was zero when you went outside, and since outside a shelter you thirst more and in the desert, that even doubles in itself.. Lets say your thirst drops by 6 points at a given period.

Now..you were 0.. substract 6 and it goes -6.  Which makes you thirsty, dehydrated and suffer.

The realism can be argued, but I guess this might be an explanation for the current code.

[Cuusardo]

I did once have an outdoor character who had that problem with frequent, urgent thirst.  Suddenly I'd go from not thirsty, and get those three stacked messages about being thirsty, very thirsty, and dehydrated.  If I recall correctly, there was something buggy with the character.

I've noticed lately that even with a city based character, I don't even get the "You are getting thirsty." message anymore.  Suddenly I see "You are thirsty." just out of the blue.  It seems to happen more often after eating certain foods, which I also never saw happen before.

[fearwig]

I'm rather confident the thirst code as it is needs some fixing to be more gradual. Urgent thirst like that can kill you if you don't have lots of water on hand, right at that moment, whereas real thirst, even severe thirst, takes some time to build up, even in the harshest environments.

You don't go from a mildly uncomfortable thirst to a potentially deadly thirst within one or two hours' time, even in the Sahara. I think that should be clear to everyone, right? I mean, I know you guys love to argue silly points, but you won't argue this one... right?

It's just the way the code's set up now that makes it drop from "getting thirsty" to "oh shit, I'm peeing sand!" in three minutes. At least that's all I can figure. If it were set up well, you'd get "getting thirsty" long before thirst was really affecting your necessary judgement.

[Angela Christine]

I'm even more accomidating, I'd settle for another thirst level in the "score".  Right now all you get is "not thristy" for a long time, and then "getting thirsty" and various levels of thrist gang up on you all at once.  I'd like two levels of "not thirsty,"  one to indicate that you are full or nearly full -- your back teeth are floating and you slosh when you walk, and then a second level where you are not feeling thirsty yet, but you aren't full either -- you could drink but you don't need to drink yet.  

Pulling out your waterskin only to discover that you are too full to drink is mildly uncomfortable OOCly.  Do you look like a putz and put back the waterskin because you've suddenly realized that you are still bloated with water, do you emote drinking and risk looking like a code-abusing freak, or do you Sip from the container wasting valuable coded water to avoid looking like a putz?

Another level of thirst or fullness would let you know if you are really not thristy at all, or if you are merely not uncomfortably thristy yet.

Not thirsty
You could have a drink  <---new level
Getting thristy
Et Cetra


This way simply by checking Score you could see if thirst is going to be a problem in the near future, reducing the chances of surprise dehydration.


Angela Christine

[Agent_137]

I emote looking like a "code abusing putz" since you're not really abusing anything, since there's no gain to virtually drinking virtual water.

But yea, another level would be nice, and so would some way of a more accurate representation of getting thirsty. There's been a few times where my char's done the "you're getting thirsty, you're thirsty, you're dehydrated, you're suffering OMG!" thing. It sucks. The only way around it I've found is constantly checking score, it'll say "a little thirsty" without giving you an echo. The other way is to just try to drink when you come to a stop outside of the city.

Oh, and I don't think "sip" echoes, so if you whip out your waterskin, sip, and put it back, you don't really gain much of anything.

[Forest Junkie]

Oh, and I don't think "sip" echoes.

It does.

[picklehead]

I guess I'll play devil's advocate on this one. Athelete's, even (perhaps notably) recently, have died of dehydration.. and in much less harsh conditions than exist on Zalanthas.. sometimes that sort of thing can just creep up on you?

[wizturbo]

Dehydration creeps up on your during intensive physical exercise.  This is true.  Otherwise its quite apparent when your thirsty and when your not.

[fearwig]

I guess I'll play devil's advocate on this one. Athelete's, even (perhaps notably) recently, have died of dehydration.. and in much less harsh conditions than exist on Zalanthas.. sometimes that sort of thing can just creep up on you?

This is what qualifies as a medical abberation. Not the normal working of the body.

When you are approaching clinical, life-threatening dehydration, you will be very, very thirsty, and will have been for an extended period. It takes several days to die of thirst, even in dessicating environments.

The biggest thing I'd like to see is more notification that you are becoming thirsty. To have a one (IC) hour warning is not really suitable--it doesn't imply that you're about to get REALLY thirsty, namely. I look at the way it happens sometimes and simply have to think it's a bug. I don't think I'm exaggerating.

[moab]

...perhaps a prompt variable for thirst?