Sleep!
04Leonhardt
I came here to laugh at you Join Date: 2015-08-01 Member: 206618Members
I came here to laugh at you Join Date: 2015-08-01 Member: 206618Members
The ability to sleep is much needed for skipping through the dark, cold nights under the sea, and can also offer various other gameplay benefits.
For this purpose, I would like to propose a few things.
MECHANICS
NEW FURNITURE
These would just be some simple little things that could go along with a "Nighty Night" update.
Just a few thoughts on how I'd like to sleep.
Let's get comfy.
For this purpose, I would like to propose a few things.
MECHANICS
- Sleeping
Sleeping would be a simple matter. Can be done on Beds, of course, but a Bench will do in a pinch. To go to sleep, simply interact with a bed or bench and lie down/sit. After a few seconds, the option to Sleep will appear. Hit the key or press the button and the character will face upwards and close their eyes. It would be slightly more complex on Benches, since the character would need to lie down on the bench before they close their eyes.
The screen will fade to black, and after a second or two and maybe a "lullaby" jingle, the player will wake up and time will have passed to the next morning or evening. The whole process of laying down, sleeping, and waking up should take no longer than 5 to 7 seconds. - Time Passage
The primary use to sleeping would be skipping nights or days. For reference, "Morning" will refer to when Solar Panels register sunlight and begin to generate power, while "Evening" will refer to when the game gives you the message "The sun is setting".
To put it simply, Sleeping after "Morning" has passed will pass time to the "Evening", and sleeping after "Evening" has passed will pass time to the next "Morning". This will affect things like power storage/generation, the growing of plants, the collection of Stillsuit water, and the breeding of creatures. - Rest Buffs
Sleeping in a Bed can apply some special Buffs to make you stronger temporarily. For example, sleeping with Full Health, Hunger, and Thirst would confer the "Well Rested" bonus, where your Hunger and Water stats do not decrease for a short time after waking up, letting you skip breakfast. Benches would not confer Rest bonuses because they're not all that comfortable to sleep on. Waking up from sleeping on a Bench could even come with some stiff joints popping for effect. - Healing
Sleeping in a bed will heal the player over time, with the amount calculated based on how long you slept (I.e. how close to the next Evening or Morning you went to sleep) for a maximum of 50% health per sleep. Benches would not heal the player during sleep. - Sanity
Sanity could be an unrecorded stat in Survival and Hardcore modes, which slowly decreases the longer you go without sleeping. Having a low Sanity stat could make you start hearing or seeing things, like hearing phantom footsteps while in your SeaBase (Top spook!), hallucinating Stalkers lunging at your face when you turn around (Jumpscare!) or any myriad of other crazy nonsense.
The idea being that Sleeping and getting the healing, time passage, and sleep buffs would be important enough to remind players to sleep regularly.
NEW FURNITURE
These would just be some simple little things that could go along with a "Nighty Night" update.
- Chronometer
"Uses advanced quantum mechanics to automatically synchronize with local stars and display time accurate down to the picosecond." Also referred to as a clock. A simple wall mounted model with holographic hands and an analog swinging pendulum. Its a really fancy clock. I can't play it up anymore than this. - Light Switch
A small, wall mounted switch that will toggle the lights in a room and all connected rooms so you can take a snooze during the day. "Connected" rooms are rooms and corridors not separated by Bulkhead doors. Light switch would have two buttons: "On/Off" which would toggle the lights manually, and "Auto" which would automatically turn the lights off when the player leaves the room. Turning off lights when you leave is a great way to conserve power. - Medi-Bed
An advanced bed found in the defunct Sick Bay aboard the Aurora. Extremely comfortable, and heals the player 100% no matter how long they sleep. Unfortunately, not equipped to deal with foreign diseases.
Just a few thoughts on how I'd like to sleep.
Let's get comfy.
Comments
I never knew how much I wanted a clock in game until I made this thread.
I need it.
You can't carry your bed around with you m80. That's what medkits and the Medkit fabricator are for. You would go home and sleep after a long adventure where you used up your medkits and still got hurt a little bit.
As for sleeping, I'm on the fence about that feature. On the plus side, it would be a great way to pass the time and heal up injuries while waiting for daylight, as well as preventing eventual insanity by staying awake for weeks at a time (we need food and water to survive but not sleep??). But on the flipside, I feel that the current day/night cycle runs far too quickly if we're trying to allow for realism. Even the fastest planetary day in our solar system is 16 hours on Neptune, which is nothing compared to how fast time goes on Planet 4546B. If we had to spend every other 20-30 minutes of real-time needing to sleep then I wouldn't like that change.
Leave out the insanity bit as long as you've had sleep at least one night out of say 7, and/or have an insanity meter. Then you can have the cool sleep deprivation stuff, and still be able to stay awake almost 24/ if you wish, getting stuff done.
Maybe throw in some fluff about spacers having their genes tweaked to need less sleep or something, IDK.
This would be some good fluff.
As for sleep and deprivation, needing to maintain an energy meter I think would add an interesting game mechanic; if you move or swim for too long it depletes faster, but can be recharged by sitting on a bench (slowly) or laying in a bed (faster). You wouldn't need to sleep for real-time, just have the screen go black for 15 seconds and advance time 5x as fast while "asleep". Also, it would finally provide a use for the Coffee Dispenser and Vending Machine items outside of just being novelty prop items!
I LOVED Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem for GameCube, having weird trippy stuff happen to you while playing was super fun! So I think sleep deprivation could be a factor also: if you go without rest for a while you would start to see weird stuff happening, and longer beyond that you would ultimately pass out. Some weird stuff that could happen would be like phantom enemies that spawn where they shouldn't, such as a Boneshark in the Safe Shallows. Are you imagining it? Or is your addled mind so stressed that you believe it's there, and you suffer injury from its attack before it vanishes... We already have the Mesmer attack in Stable now, so I'd love to see more mind game/hallucination effects happen.
Fun Fact™: Did you know that Nintendo currently holds the patent for sanity meters and sanity effects in video games? It's from when they were making Eternal Darkness, so that might affect whether UWE could add sanity effects, but it shouldn't stop them from adding more hallucinations and an energy meter.
PDA: "Studies show that miners who stay submerged under water for extended periods of time, suffer from increased risk of heart failure. I do hope your family will miss you." *screen dims and Bleeder heartbeat sound effect plays*
PDA: "When exploring hostile regions, be sure to keep aware of your surroundings. Also, you should look behind you."
*Warper energy blast shoots past you and sound of Warper skreeee plays*
PDA: "I don't mean to alarm you, but perhaps you shouldn't look down..." *pan camera down and see two red eyes staring up from the darkness...*