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[kulik]

I disagree because you can't read or craft with low morale.

I see, but the negative morale wears off after a short while without any negative effects as well as the poisoning.

The drugs to treat those conditions are also addictive IIRC, which is something I take seriously (AKA: Don't rely on items you can't secure. That's why I never play asthmatics).

I agree, i guess thats why this bad traits give you so much points in exchange.

EDIT: Note that even with 10000xp you can still have low morale. One doesn't counter the other.

Yes but what is the downside of it? The fact you can't read or craft until it wears off? ^Wait 1 hour ...and you're good to go. If you'd constantly balance around 100XP pool and bad morale could bring it down to 0, this would be an issue.

[DalGren]

Is it me, or seems to be highly dependent on gameplay style? I can assert I usually have issues with morale, but I can see where you are coming from.

Perhaps, to prevent keeping too much data around, you could be "immune" to the morale boosts of the last type of morale-boosting items used (instead of keeping a list of recently used items and effectiveness values...). For example if you are using food items, you gain much less for consecutive food items (for example if you eat candy and a chocolate bar, you'd get less from chocolate). That is, unless you have the gourmand trait, which would make a lot of sense here (instead of giving higher morale, prevent morale penalties). Actually, perhaps a stacked list (last in first out) of 3-4 of such items (like drugs, magazines, etc) can work, that would be efficient and do the trick, requiring at least 3-4 measures to raise morale.
I think MP3 players shouldn't decrease that much since they depend on batteries, but their effect can be modified slightly. After being nerfed I see it doesn't give huge amounts, but could still give that bonus over a larger amount of time (which would be more realistic, as battery-based MP3 players usually give 3 hours of battery life. Just reduce the bonus of every individual song so the effect is not so immediate).

Also I just noticed a good bunch of actions do not have proper morale drops. Eating raw meat should have a larger morale drop since the player character is most likely an urbanite. As mentioned previously, drinking toilet water should also be penalized. Eating rotten food should also have a proper morale drop (forgot the value but I think it was nothing special, if any).
Being trigger happy can give you a morale drop if you are low on ammo or with no ammo at all, or even with no guns (that'd be a bit extreme though, wouldn't be a fan of that, but can be solved with a crossbow/pipe weapon or nailgun I guess. Please discuss)

Lastly, I notice from let's players that they never care about their armor being torn to shreds. Thus they never invest on tailoring to repair or reinforce clothing. Being in tatters should actually give a -10 (unless having a "naturalist" trait? hah, just kidding).
That way, even if a marginal decrease, it will be listed in the morale screen making people aware that their armor is a mess, also promoting use of sewing kits.

EDIT: Are rain coats still bugged regarding their "reinforced" status?

EDIT 2: About the tattered clothing. How about actually using some color in the inventory screen? Items that are empty or broken could be listed in a different color, perhaps bright red or gray (aka non-bright-bit-white).

[areyoua]

I simply have to disagree with the statement about asthmatic. The one inhaler you get at the start will last you for eons, and even if it runs out, chances are you'll either have found another in the time it takes to run out or you'll have found some purifier which takes it away. The +4 points you get for it makes up in remarkable fashion for that. The statement that asthmatic is a hard trait to have is completely false.

[Ehndras]

I simply have to disagree with the statement about asthmatic. The one inhaler you get at the start will last you for eons, and even if it runs out, chances are you'll either have found another in the time it takes to run out or you'll have found some purifier which takes it away. The +4 points you get for it makes up in remarkable fashion for that. The statement that asthmatic is a hard trait to have is completely false.

I absolutely agree with this statement. I've NEVER run out of asthma meds even when being careless with it (10 uses when having an attack, lol), and I always find more loooooooooong before I need it.

[DalGren]

Oh, so you start with one xD I thought the starting inventory was set on stone.

[Paul]

You already lose xp for having negative morale.

The way it works is this:

Morale between 0 and 100, you have your morale as a % chance of gaining an xp.
Otherwise you lose or gain morale / 100 xp. Negative 100 morale = XP loss as fast as you gain at +100 morale.

[jc6036]

I was going to suggest MUCH slower xp allocation to skills at low morale, if at all.

[DalGren]

I was going to suggest MUCH slower xp allocation to skills at low morale, if at all.

That'd make learning way too slow though, the average survivor doesn't last too long.

[iceball3]

You already lose xp for having negative morale.

The way it works is this:

Morale between 0 and 100, you have your morale as a % chance of gaining an xp.
Otherwise you lose or gain morale / 100 xp. Negative 100 morale = XP loss as fast as you gain at +100 morale.

I gain EXP at morale of zero. Explain.

[The Merchant Of Menace]

You already lose xp for having negative morale.

The way it works is this:

Morale between 0 and 100, you have your morale as a % chance of gaining an xp.
Otherwise you lose or gain morale / 100 xp. Negative 100 morale = XP loss as fast as you gain at +100 morale.

I gain EXP at morale of zero. Explain.

Whales tweaked it.
Morale is now the percentage chance of gaining exp each turn, starting with a 1% chance at 0 morale and going to 100% at 99, anything above that acts as another check I believe, so a morale of 200 gives you a 100% chance of gaining an XP and then another 100% chance at gaining an XP.
Having -100 morale means you have -101% chance of gaining morale.

So actually, low morale doesn't cause you to lose XP.
This is based on a post by Whales a bit ago.

[jc6036]

Making it hard to learn would be a good reason to keep morale up even when you have heaps of xp.

[Whales]

You already lose xp for having negative morale.

The way it works is this:

Morale between 0 and 100, you have your morale as a % chance of gaining an xp.
Otherwise you lose or gain morale / 100 xp. Negative 100 morale = XP loss as fast as you gain at +100 morale.

Not quite true.  0-99 gives you (morale+1)% chance of gaining an XP; hence even 0 morale will result in a slow XP gain.  You never lose XP points, except by spending them.  I'll try to make this more clear in the help text.

It'd be cool if at high levels of XP some of it went to negating skill rust.

Yes, yes it would.  Done.

Talking edible stuff...and back on topic.

I see salt is only actually used for beef jerky, and sugar only used for fruit pie...I get the feeling they are a bit underused.
I suggest adding salt water and candy (salt+water and sugar+water+pan/pot respectively) for easy extra uses. Jam would be an alternate way to use fruit+sugar as well (it's one of the traditional ways to conserve fruit after all!).

Since milk expires fast, it can be interesting to generate "farm buildings" outside of towns. You might find a few (emphasis on few) surviving cows from which to obtain meat and skin, or milk. Some of that empty terrain would be filled with a few fences and a little factory building. It'd also be fun for someone to die protecting his/her cow from the hordes of zombies and beasts.
An alternative would be a poultry farm, but there aren't even eggs in-game, so not really a concern.

Another alternative would be horses. Both the meat and milk are edible. And can be made to spawn wild like deer, so no need for infrastructure or pollute the building list. Not really caring about riding horses though, sounds counterproductive in a monster apocalypse.

After getting milk, a good caution would be to use a few hotplate charges with it to sterilize.

Also, one last thing. Drinking water from a toiled should give a morale penalty. It's implied they are drinking from the lower part because of the 100% poison chance (a character with an intelligence over 10 should be using the water tank above, though). You can also make "dirty toilets" from which the character will REFUSE to drink from, if the game is going to continue doing it the silly way. (it doesn't need to be sh*t-stained, can be dirty with other stuff like mold, which is possible if it's been static for long)

I like the cows idea.  Salt water is pretty much obsolete by the existance of salt (bottled salt water in grocery stores?  what was I thinking ).

With toilets, the player drinks from the tank; the poison chance is actually 80%, due to the fact that this is stagnant water in a tank which contains potentially rusting parts, rotting rubber, and probably cruft built up around the edges.  I'll add morale to drinking this water.

[DalGren]

Oh I see, so it's actually stagnation. Good thing you thought of it then. I feel better about resorting to it, but in this case the morale suggestion still applies then. Clean your water, source of life.

Whoa, the only use of salt water was beef jerky? I thought/hoped it had some other use with high cooking/chemistry, my bad.

What do you think of the suggested morale penalties, aside from the toilet stuff?

[Whales]

Oh I see, so it's actually stagnation. Good thing you thought of it then. I feel better about resorting to it, but in this case the morale suggestion still applies then. Clean your water, source of life.

Whoa, the only use of salt water was beef jerky? I thought/hoped it had some other use with high cooking/chemistry, my bad.

What do you think of the suggested morale penalties, aside from the toilet stuff?

Well, you can also make faux-heroin with it, but you can use plain old salt for that, too.

I like the other suggest morale penalties, and will be adding them and lots of other ones at some point.  Morale really needs an overhaul, most values are way off-base (mostly because they were designed before the system was actually used).

[erick1294]

I'm starting to think that making several uses for the xp will balance more the xp pool system, because it would make imposible for people to have infinite xp, what about setting the skill learned to consume more xp when past a specific day, like at day 5, most characters got to day 5 are likely to have tons of xp by that time. And i tought of making a xp menu where you can spend xp to do some weird things like getting an adrenaline rush, doing some fighting techniques, we would get certain weapon skills (like headshots) and unarmed skills (like stun kick) torought reading books, that would make the xp a daily need because it would make it go down fast, even for a 5000 xp player.