Forage Upgrade 2.0

[FantasyWriter]

It has been discussed before in threads about broader topics, but wanted to ask specifically what you guys thought of this idea.

From what I understand, a while back forage did not accept arguments, then they added the arguments food/stone/wood/kindling/salt.
Reading the help file, it is obvious that the staff eventually wanted to add more arguments.

It is a PAIN to 'forage rock' if you are looking for something specific.
For example: Flint of you are a fletcher, alabaster if you have an order for it to fill, etc.

1. Do you guys like the idea of it being able to do things such as: forage diamonds, forage baobab, forage grub, etc.
2. Those of you with knowledge of such things: would this be hard to implement?

[Thunkkin]

It seems logical to me that if your character wanted flint, but not alabaster, he wouldn't pick up the alabaster.

[Tisiphone]

Or maybe just make forage togglable on (taking arguments as specific as you like, such as 'food' or 'pan-seared mekillot steak', give it a minor stun penalty (that seems to be the way we're going to simulate distraction), and have it periodically drain stamina.

You wouldn't be able to move rooms while foraging (to avoid accidental following and interrupting your foraging), though you could always turn it off and move, and the flee, sit, any wield, interacting with containers, scan, watch, hide, and a host of other commands would automatically break forage.

Notable commands that would -not- break forage: all momentary or semi-momentary environmental commands like time, weather, look, and so forth would not break forage. Listen would just give a penalty - you can listen while watching, so you can listen while foraging (which is much like watching or scanning for valuable things rather than dangerous things). Emotes and says of the various types, of course. Any use of the change command. Changing movement speed (run, walk, sneak, etc), lighting or extinguishing something.

I'm on the fence about eating, drinking, using the Way (at least contact and expel, barrier should be okay), and changing stance (standing, sitting, etc).

That's the forage command I'd like to see.

[Lizzie]

The only thing I'd love to see, is an option to forage for the "lower" end of your skills ability on purpose.

Because sometimes, you don't want branches. Sometimes, you want loreshi vine. But if you are -highly- skilled with foraging, you're gonna find lots of branches, and hardly any vine.

And sometimes you really -do- just want to find little chunks of sandstone, and not opals. But if you're highly skilled, you're more likely to find the "good stuff" and less likely to find the crap. But if you WANT the crap for some reason, it's frustrating to be stuck with all that good stuff and it just feels wrong to junk it all (OMG I'm throwing away diamonds just fucking shoot me now please).

So yeah, that's really all I have to add to this discussion. To be able to *intentionally* forage for something that's on a skill level lower than your current max level of skill.

Possible syntax:
forage = will attempt at max level and return what you get now, no change to code.
forage low = will attempt at half your current max level and you won't receive anything -more- difficult to forage for, than half your current skill level.
forage lowest = will attempt to find only newbie-level stuff, no matter how good you are.

Of course your success rate will be much higher at finding crap, if you are better than a newbie at foraging, but that just means less time foraging and more time turning those vines into 5000-sid grass skirts

[Kassindra]

That'd be pretty nice to differentiate.

[Cutthroat]

I wonder how the success rate of 'forage' would be affected by being able to specifically choose.

For example, say you can 'forage agate' instead of 'forage stones'. Does that mean your character starts foraging for stones, and if the item found is not agate, the game just displays 'you don't find any stones' and doesn't give you anything? Or does it make every success turn up agate, which pretty much means you are targeting every tiny shard around and grabbing them? Both don't make too much sense to me, but I'd like to see a sort of middle ground where you are a bit less successful than you are usually at with broader foraging, but you will get what you want every time you succeed. I could be okay with something like that.

[FantasyWriter]

I wonder how the success rate of 'forage' would be affected by being able to specifically choose.

For example, say you can 'forage agate' instead of 'forage stones'. Does that mean your character starts foraging for stones, and if the item found is not agate, the game just displays 'you don't find any stones' and doesn't give you anything? Or does it make every success turn up agate, which pretty much means you are targeting every tiny shard around and grabbing them? Both don't make too much sense to me, but I'd like to see a sort of middle ground where you are a bit less successful than you are usually at with broader foraging, but you will get what you want every time you succeed. I could be okay with something like that.

In previous discussions, most people agreed that you would only find a pieces of agate at the same rate you would with the current code, or maybe slightly better.
You would not find agate as often as you found a "generic" stone.

[FantasyWriter]

Another idea that may or may not work (I don't know a thing about coding) Is just to give it a MUCH longer delay, say maybe 3-4 times what is is now, but still would succeed at the same rate you would foraging generic stone.

[Cutthroat]

^ Either of those ideas would be pretty good, then.

[Malken]

I'd visit every single room of the mud and type 'forage gold' at least 20 times before moving on to the next room.

[Bushranger]

I agree with being able to set the skill level that you forage with. Have it togglable simiar to nosave and use the change command.

Change Forage High
You are now searching for everything you can find

Change Forage Low
You are now searching for mostly common things

Then when you forage (whatever) It takes your set state into consideration for what you are foraging for.

[Riev]

I wouldn't mind the idea of it being a constant action. so like:

Code Select Expand


forage diamonds
You begin searching the area for diamonds..


And then, depending on the area, and your skill...

20 RL minutes later...

You find a diamond on the ground, and pick it up.

Forage breaks, your ldesc returns to neutral state, and you have to forage again.

This is ONLY because the idea of picking things up without any interaction to the mud seems a bad idea. If I can type 'forage low' and just go take a shower or something... well it just doesn't sound right.

[Bushranger]

I agree, I am not in favour of having an automated forage system. I like how it is now except for when you're trying to get a small bit of crappy stone or whatever and most of what you find is opals, diamonds, pink pajamas. That is why I suggested having a toggle to choose what level of the scale you want to forage from.

You still need to type forage food, forage stone, forage ammunition etc each time you try to find something.

[KIA]

Foraging the stuff that typically gets discarded during the search for specific things usually acts as important evidence of recent activity for rangers, stalkers, and all sorts of other people. I'd be very reluctant to give that detrius and junk up, because it informs my decisions on where to look for people to harass, raid, pkill or whatever. It also helps me to find places to forage myself, learning where the 'hotspots' are. There absolutely should be this evidence of activity left behind (unless special measures are taken by the original forager to cover his/her traces).

So, in defense of the 'annoying junk' left behind, I say to you: LET THERE BE JUNK.

[FantasyWriter]

KIA's answer also makes me wish that foraging left a "hunt"able like a battle.

Code Select Expand


>hunt

Many hour ago a short-strided humanoid moved in from the east.
Less than an hour ago a short-strided humanoid moved off to the east.
Someone has been disturbing the ground here recently.



[Sephiroto]

I have an idea.  See below.



nosave forage

You begin rolling saves for forage.

forage rocks

You begin searching the area intently.

You pick up a shard of flint.  Do you pick it up?

Yes

You pick up a piece of shard of flint.

forage rocks

You begin searching the area intently.

You find a piece of alabaster.  Do you pick it up?

No.

You locate a piece of alabaster but elect to leave it behind.

nosave forage

You are no longer accepting saves for forage.

forage wood

You begin foraging the area intently.

You find a long, agafari branch and pick it up.

inv

You are carrying:
a long, agafari branch
a shard of flint

[Pale Horse]

Code Select Expand

W

A Gravely, Wooded Hill.
  This is a hill, with some trees and gravel at the base.

Forage Check

You begin checking the ground....

You can forage for wood and stone, here.

Forage sandstone

You begin looking for sandstone...

You find a triangular-piece of sandstone.

Forage diamond.

You begin looking for diamonds...

You don't find any diamonds.

Forage diamond.

You begin looking for diamonds...

You get the feeling you can't find any diamonds, here.

Forage wood

You begin looking for wood..

You find a long branch of wood.

Forage branch

You begin looking for branches...




You get the idea..

[Riev]

Forage Check is actually a cool idea... like... it would give you the idea that you could PROBABLY forage for stones here, and as your skill gets higher, either

forage Check
There are quite a few stones here
vs
There are very few stones here

or, if your skill is low

forage Check
There are some stones scattered about.

Something that doesn't define just how many there are. I dunno, my thought process isn't well defined here.

[FantasyWriter]

What Pale Horse said is exactly, IMO, would be fantastic.

Seph's nosave idea comes in a close second to adding more arguments. 
I like it too. Keeps you from missing the stuff you didn't know was there.

If both were implemented, there would be a few bottles of liquor in it for the staffers working on it.

[Thunkkin]

If both were implemented, there would be a few bottles of liquor in it for the staffers working on it.

I would contribute delicious donuts to this effort.

[Clearsighted]

I have an idea.  See below.



nosave forage

You begin rolling saves for forage.

forage rocks

You begin searching the area intently.

You pick up a shard of flint.  Do you pick it up?

Yes

You pick up a piece of shard of flint.

forage rocks

You begin searching the area intently.

You find a piece of alabaster.  Do you pick it up?

No.

You locate a piece of alabaster but elect to leave it behind.

nosave forage

You are no longer accepting saves for forage.

forage wood

You begin foraging the area intently.

You find a long, agafari branch and pick it up.

inv

You are carrying:
a long, agafari branch
a shard of flint

Win.

[My 2 sids]

What if in addition to the types of matterials found, the number increses as well?  Instead of finding one vine, you find two vines and a branch?  Then foraging actually becomes easier -- you're able to locate things without straining your eyeballs.

[solera]

 My idea (again). 

Code Select Expand

forage food
You search around
You find a withered brown root
gather root (levering it out from the rock hard ground with ~stick
Levering it out from the rock hard ground with a sturdy digging  stick,
the wiry red-haired ranger picks up a withered brown root.

I am still thinking about the selective foraging.  I do like to see all the stuff on the ground.

[tortall]

I'd REALLY like to see something like this put in. When you need only one specific thing for some order, it would be nice to be able to look for ONLY that.

Or even just the forage low/high. Prefer the former though.

[SMuz]

I prefer Pale Horse's idea to Sephiroto, simply because I don't want to go to the yes/no spam

Still want to keep the old "forage rock" too.
Maybe being specific will give you a penalty to foraging. Like sometimes, a character is good enough to find the expensive rocks and stuff, but can't find the typical old junk that I need to craft something in mind. If they can find a ruby lying around with the skill, they should easily find a simple stone, even with the penalty.