I love the implementation of hunger and body temperature as a mechanic, but I feel like it has some loose ends and some room for expansion. I have a lot of independent ideas on the subjects, and would like to go over them here. You can put faith in my ideas put-forth on the matter of temperature; I'm a weatherman anchor. Or, at least, I roleplay as one in bed with my wife... whilst I'm roleplaying as a guy who has a wife. I'm OCD, so "Temperature" will henceforth be abbreviated as just "Temper" for the sake of being roughly the same width as "Hunger". Let's go. Hunger: Benefits from being full. What if a positive twist was added to hunger. In real life, being full has merits. It gives you energy, increases body fat, and more. Maybe the body fat thing wouldn't be considered as a merit, but it does keep you warm. So what if we applied this to Starbound? Being full could: Increase the rate at which you regenerate energy. Increase your resistance to the cold. Give the player health regeneration. It could also do the inverse when you're hungry. Temper: Benefits from being warm. Let's face it, being cold sucks. This is true in Starbound and real life. But aside from just killing you, in real life, people tend to expend more energy and have a harder time moving around in the cold. So what if we applied this to Starbound? Being warm could: Lower the expenditure of energy. Increase the speed of which you're able to mine, move around, and attack. Raise the players damage resistance. It could also do the inverse when you're cold. Temper: Body temperature finds a realistic medium rather than always progressing to absolute zero. When you go out underdressed and you think, "damn this is chilly", one of two things will happen. You will either be slightly inconvenienced or your body temperature will gradually fall to absolute zero causing you to die. The latter usually only happens when you're playing Starbound. This is because, unlike Starbound, in real life when it's cold you tend to... not die. Just get colder up to a point where you're as cold as you're going to be given the current temperature. What if we applied this to Starbound? Well, presently, in Starbound when your character encounters a climate that he doesn't posses the proper attire to confront, he gets cold. His body temperature gradually drops at a fixed rate towards absolute zero, which once reached he will quickly die. What if, in less severe climates, the player's body temperature drops but won't go below a certain degree unless it gets colder. A maximum drop in body temperature that is congruent with how cold he is. For this to have any meaningful effect, this change should likely be made in combination with the suggestion to give meaning to temperature beyond death. You get colder, you lose buffs provided by warmth or get a debuff for being cold. Makes sense, right? Temper: Being in a bed makes you warmer. This one is simple. Ever laid in bed in the morning, not wanting to get out because of how toasty it is? Your body heat warms that bitch up, which in-turn warms you up, creating an amazing infinite effect. Scientists have yet to discover why this hasn't burnt us all to a crisp yet, but they're pretty sure it's just because no one has ever slept that long. So what if we applied this to Starbound? There's not much to it, really. Laying in bed could either warm a player up like a heat source, or give him extra resistance like clothes. It might not be a big deal, but sometimes I think it's the small attention to detail that make big games feel more loved. Temper: Make lava and burning effects actually hot. Why are you reading this? Make lava and fire hot. It's not complicated. I'm freezing my ass off, "wow a pool of lava, sweet serendipity!", and I figure out that standing around it doesn't even affect my temperature at all. Hell, I could be swimming in lava whilst freezing to death. Step it up. Temper: Make temperatures prominent endgame. It's annoying. The coldest planet, the highest difficulty, and I feel nothing wearing only the highest tiered armor of my race. Not the special heat resistant stuff, just the standard Tier 10 armor that everyone ends up with. Temperature as a factor is eliminated once you unlock this armor, what's the challenge in moons or arctic planets now? There's not a lot of logic or real-life comparison to back up this one, it just doesn't feel right for me for that aspect of the game to disappear once you craft the last piece of armor. This ended up more of a temperature suggestion thread rather than a thread for both, but the hunger suggestion was an important one so I'm leaving things as they are. I made a lot of jokes in the thread but I'm very serious about all of my suggestions. I'd like to hear feedback and more suggestions on the matter. I might even add some of them up here. Thanks for reading!
I'll agree with all but your last point. I think the highest tier armors are probably somewhat powered to have heaters etc. The rest sounds pretty awesome to me. Way more logical
What if it was factored in with "Body temperature finds a realistic medium rather than always progressing to absolute zero."? Maybe the armor, having resistance enough to avoid freezing to death, still wasn't enough to completely withstand cold and still ended in a moderate drop in body temperature (but not enough to kill you)? I just don't like seeing the feature gone entirely, it bothers me.
Hyperbole aside, I think you're taking the temperature gauge a little too literally here. That said, I agree that night-times in temperate biomes shouldn't be cold enough to cause a person to freeze to death. Further a player that's in or has recently been in water should have their temperature likewise affected if it's cold out. After all, body heat is lost far more quickly to water than to air. Potential debuff for being cold: Reduced attack rate due to cold induced clumsiness.
