NPC Robots

[NotWilson]

First, the family loves Don't Starve Together. We've played it on the PS4 for many years.

Here is my feature request: Have a craftable robot/wobot NPC that handles the menial/repeative tasks. 

Once we have an established base, it seems like with two people, we get into a cycle of just routine base maintenance and never get to explore other areas (like the caves or sailing the seeds). Would be if we can create specialized "robots" to do the following tasks:

* Chop down trees and replant them

* Once fruit/vegetables are stale in fridge, have bird convert them to seeds

* Once the garden produces something, pick it and put in fridge

* Fertilize an empty garden and replant

* Restock ice flingamatic

* Etc

Keep up the good work!

 

[minespatch]

29 minutes ago, NotWilson said:

Have a craftable robot/wobot NPC that handles the menial/repeative tasks. 

The WX version of Sweepy for ONI?

[Owlrust]

I think it's great your family plays DST with each other, I wish I saw that more often. As for the robot-servant, I think some of the actions you listed would be a little hard to interpret in the game unless there were a way to manually program them to do those things. I know there are mods that are available for PC that function similarly, but from what I recall PS4 doesn't allow them at all (if i'm not mistaken).

[chirsg]

17 hours ago, NotWilson said:

* Chop down trees and replant them

 

Puts Maxwell and Woodie out of a job. Their specialties revolve around being a lumberjack and as soon as you eliminate this, it devalues them too much.

 

17 hours ago, NotWilson said:

* Once fruit/vegetables are stale in fridge, have bird convert them to seeds

 

spoiling foods and managing them is a component of surviving of don't starve. having a contingency for complacency such as this one rewards lazy behavior. also, it would take a LOT of complacency to let a vegetable spoil to rot. 

 

 

17 hours ago, NotWilson said:

* Once the garden produces something, pick it and put in fridge

 

this would be such an extraordinary buff for a team with a warly player on a team. I can't weigh in much on this as far as criticism goes, but i'm sure this would cause some weird balancing issues. Farming is currently an extremely time consuming method of producing food so perhaps a rework on the entire farming mechanic should be addressed in the future.

 

 

17 hours ago, NotWilson said:

* Fertilize an empty garden and replant

 

Can't criticize much here without referencing the first 3 tasks. you eliminate tasks people should be doing on a team. However, farming should be reworked. it's tedious as a food producer.

 

 

17 hours ago, NotWilson said:

* Restock ice flingamatic

 

flingos suck. I avoid fires altogether where I can help it. Building bases around a flingomatic's range inhibits freedom of building and emergency mode only starts extinguishing fires by the time what you're protecting is already burned. If I had to give you anything for your suggestions, it would be flingomatics. 

 

 

17 hours ago, NotWilson said:

Once we have an established base, it seems like with two people, we get into a cycle of just routine base maintenance and never get to explore other areas (like the caves or sailing the seeds). Would be if we can create specialized "robots" to do the following tasks:

 

Your issue is you're currently focusing on busy work that begets busy work. There are a lot of ways to come across food in this game that don't involve too much farming and picking. Bunny farms will solve every single one of your food problems to the point where you're in excess.

Hang the meats you gain from them to get jerky and feed carrots dropped to birds for a food source that lasts for a year in your pockets so you're free to explore and have enough food not to worry about cutting exploration short. 

Honey is arguably the best food source in the game. Unless your name is wigfrid or warly, you only really need this to live off. when you have even just 6 boxes set up by flowers, you're producing food that can last a season even when you just eat it on it's own. 



The major problem I have with your suggestion is it takes too many tasks away from the game. People creatively find ways to chop wood, manage spoilage and even use spoilage to their advantage. But what I see in your post that's apparently an issue you're having in the game is farming. 

Relying on farms as a way to net you food will take a lot of time. If it wasn't for warly's spices, a lot of worlds that exceed 300 or so days will not use them to feed a lot of hungry mouths. 

This game consists of a lot of small tasks that can contribute to making the game interesting. But if I had to name a use for your npcs I'd like, is for creating boards and rope. that would be a godsend.

[NotWilson]

Wow! Thanks for all the well thought out replies. 

As @chirsg points out, introducing something like this could devalue other characters that a player may use. Since DST game creation is pretty configurable, maybe it can be toggled - have it off by default to respect the purists.

We enjoy playing DST on the PS4 because of couch co-op. If we were more open to playing online games with others, I think the division of labor would cut down on the menial tasks. However, our stubbornness brings us to the same conclusion time and again.

In retrospect, we're probably over producing and thus we find ourselves constantly managing food inventory/spoilage. When it comes to food, starving isn't something we need to worry about. In our case, maybe there needs to be an obesity dimension/metric 

Our "end game" tends to wind up the same way every time. Our base has multiple ice boxes, crock pots, and many drying racks. Using a flingamatic allows for our crops to stay in the ground longer and bee box farms are great for food. We usually recruit pigs to chop down trees - or use Maxwell's abilities.

Spring is our busy season (growing and replenishing seeds). I'm trying to get others to go into the caves during the summer (to beat the heat and nothing really grows), but once Autumn arrives, it's time to replenish the food stock. Going into the caves in the Winter is hit or miss (depends if we need to harvest the Deerclops, or harvest logs). At some point I have to start begging others to start a new game before I lose my mind as a result of excessive repetition.

In terms of an immediate resolution, I totally get that we need to change our play style so that we can enjoy other aspects of the game. However, to do that we will need to take on more risk... it's hard to do when the people I play with have perfected base construction/maintenance and find comfort in doing that - "Why would I put myself in harm's way when I'm very comfortable at my base - TYVM?"

However, since Wilson is a super scientist, it just got me thinking -- if I was Wilson, I'd be looking for ways to automate as much as I can.

Just an idea/thought. 

If food lasted longer in the ice box or ice Chester then I probably would not have thought about NPC automatons. However, then you'll be sacrificing some realism. "Wow, that Dragon Fruit pie tastes as good as when I made it 2 seasons ago!". Err.. maybe a case can be made for adding preservatives to the foods you make