It's Time to Improve the Wetness Mechanics for Non-Player Creatures

[Sofy Happy]

  Electricity is a great mechanic, and the mechanic most closely related to it is wetness. The wetness mechanic is still in a very outdated version, and it's time to make corresponding improvements.  

1. Make all creatures in the ocean permanently wet. 

  Currently, among creatures that meet this condition, some are permanently wet while others are not, which is very inconsistent. Examples include: Crab King, swimming otters (hound waves are currently wet), birds in water, and Terrorbeaks (should they be?).  

2. Add a "Temporary Wetness" status.

  That can forcibly make creatures wet for a period of time even when the world is not wet. The duration should be temperature-dependent—the higher the temperature, the shorter the duration (similar to the effect of holding "Volatile Clouds" in the Legion mod).  

  Ways to apply "Temporary Wetness" to creatures:

• Being hit by water balloons.Currently, water balloons can only wet Dragonfly, while other creatures cannot be wetted by water balloons at all, which is very unreasonable.  
• When creatures fall into the ocean and return to shore, they should also enter "Temporary Wetness" (don't forget the Malbatross that dives into water to catch fish). This is mainly for realism considerations.  
• Add more items similar to water balloons that can make creatures enter "Temporary Wetness," or add this function to suitable existing items (this is also a good opportunity to revive underused items). For example, add the ability for the Trident to make creatures enter "Temporary Wetness" with each attack.  

3.Additional details,Just two suggestions for game realism  

• Food placed in trawler kits should become wet.  
• Creatures wearing Watermelon Hats or Ice Caps should always be wet.

[Milordo]

Bravo! Bravo! 

Nothing else to add 👏

[Jakepeng99]

2 hours ago, Sofy Happy said:

don't forget the Malbatross that dives into water to catch fish). This is ma

They have waterproof feathers

[Edible Coal]

2 hours ago, Jakepeng99 said:

They have waterproof feathers

birds should never be wet ngl

[HeatAndRun]

I couldn't agree more.

[hoxi]

7 hours ago, Sofy Happy said:

3.Additional details,Just two suggestions for game realism  

• Food placed in trawler kits should become wet.  
• Creatures wearing Watermelon Hats or Ice Caps should always be wet.

Might as well point out some examples I addressed with some personal mod scripts that I use when playing with friends (keep in mind some of these would be very simple to address because Klei added an isexposed parameter for containers to determine if they protect items from rain or not, as well as some logic to find the exposed parent entity of an item):

• Fish inside Tin Fishin' Bins. They're supposed to be under the boat, submerged (or at the very least, the storage is connected to below the boat as when breaking it, it creates a leak, either way, they should stay wet).
• Items placed in Hallowed Nights' Living Trees and Winter Feast's trees should be exposed to rain.
• Items in fishing rods when not in a container should be exposed to rain. Items in fishing rods when floating in the ocean, as well as when the hook is on the ocean (they will receive wetness when landing on the ocean with the latter, but will start drying off).
• Slingshot ammo and slingshot mods equipped on a slingshot, as well as ammo inside the Howlitzer, should be all exposed to rain if not in a container.
• Items in Ocean Trawl Nets when the net is lowered (similar to the fishing rod, they will dry, but also won't gain any wetness while the net is submerged or when they're added to it while submerged). They should also be exposed to rain when not submerged.
• More of a stretch, but it's weird how the Rabbit King's Horn ground storage doesn't apply wetness to items based on world wetness.
• I also made it so things like chests or other containers, when applicable, don't protect from rain when opened (not really an issue unless you stay there with the chest open for a while). It's not that complex to get it working thanks to a lot of the changes Klei has made, but while I can see some of the above being addressed, I doubt this would make it into the game as it never worked that way before.
• More unrelated but still vaguely related: W.O.B.O.T. can't be protected from rain with hats (but is also not affected by rain at all when unloaded, despite still being able to move things).

I don't think any of these should be looked at right now, given that there's more important things to look at during this beta, but this:

7 hours ago, Sofy Happy said:

Creatures wearing Watermelon Hats or Ice Caps should always be wet.

Along with the suggestions for balloons and creatures that drown and teleport to shore, would be really nice changes.

 

2 hours ago, Edible Coal said:

birds should never be wet ngl

Agreed. This is already the case for the most common birds, as they have a unique "likewateroffducksback" tag, but curiously it's not the case for Malbatross or mutant birds from Moonstorms, could be easily addressed though.

Edited July 21, 2025 by hoxi

[Maxil20]

49 minutes ago, hoxi said:

This is already the case for the most common birds, as they have a unique "likewateroffducksback" tag

This is an incredible tag name to prevent birds from getting impacted by wetness effects

[hoxi]

10 minutes ago, Maxil20 said:

This is an incredible tag name to prevent birds from getting impacted by wetness effects

Yeah it's silly on purpose, been there for a while in DST.

 

8 hours ago, Sofy Happy said:

swimming otters

I should note that Otters, the birds I mentioned, and Squids, all have this tag that prevents them from counting as wet. This could be revised however (except for birds).