Create reasons which make it worth revisiting an island

The Problem

I am still playing my first game (0.76.01, #31955765). I have visited 32 islands so far (including start and that island with that huge thing which probably allows me to escape). I think that the amount of resources, which you can find in the game is surprisingly very well balanced.

However, after the first few islands I understood how to loot an island completely within one trip. It always follows the same pattern:

  1. Go there with my huge raft
  2. Kill all dangerous animals (giant crabs, giant pigs, snakes)
  3. 8 am to 4 pm:
  • dive and explore wrecks
  • collect clay.
    4 pm to 8 am:
  • build water collector and fire place and shelter.
  • sort stuff into storage containers
  • collect plant fibers.
  • cut down a few palm trees to create extra planks later.
  1. leave with everything

The problem with this: You don’t have any reason to ever visit that island again. And this is somehow sad.

Suggestion 1: Let plants regrow

Let plants like Ajuga, Aloe, Quwawa, Kura, Pipi, regrow after some time. It can be a long time, like for example 30 or 60 days, but it would be nice if they regrow at some point.

Suggestion 2: Introduce thunderstorm spawners

At every island we can find stranded good (flotsam) and at some even driftwood. We collect it, and that’s it. But why do we never ever find new stranded goods? It is plausible that after a tropical thunderstorm we should have a tiny chance to find new stranded goods at the beach, or new sticks next to the trees,

It is plausible that after a thunderstorm, we can find

  • at the beach: new planks, cloth, corrugated sheets, driftwood, rocks
  • next to trees: new sticks, which were falling down from trees.

My suggestion is, create for every item which you can usually find at the beach and next to trees, a so called “storm spawner”. During a thunderstorm, this storm spawner has a very small chance to spawn that item. Maybe a chance of 10% or 5% or even less for one storm is sufficient. Of course, you should split that chance over the whole length of the storm into smaller time intervals. The chance should be very low, so maybe after 3 month you should only have a few items on the beach of each island, which you did clean up completely earlier. Not many items, but just enough that it might be worth, to give that island a short visit after several month. After world creation all “storm spawners” have their item available. If you collect it, it might respawn after a thunder storm. Then change the island generator to place storm spawners instead of normal items at the beach and for the sticks.

4 Likes

I like these ideas. I was very surprised when I started playing that rocks did not continue to wash up on shore. Imo that made the early game VERY hard, not having access to enough rocks until you are able to craft the pickaxe.