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Completed

Stamina bar/meter

Tyler Owen (Lead Developer) 7 years ago updated 7 years ago 14 1 duplicate

Running has a hidden stamina meter that is also influenced by how exhausted you are (how long it's been since you've slept). Would be good to have a way to show the player their stamina while running, but that's hard to do in a "scientific" way like all the other survival stats. Open to suggestions.

Duplicates 1

I think there should be a note somewhere in the habitat telling the player that sleep is important as it helps to recover stamina (even though it seems logic).


However, I wouldn't tell the player that he is running low on stamina as I assume they should figure it out for themselves. It makes the game more realistic and forces the players to think before they do something.


All you could do is add an effect to make the player's vision slightly blurry when exhausted, which would be a good indicator of the player's current stamina level.

Sounds like a Rest bar, and a Stamina bar are needed. These are personal resources we need to be aware of and able to manage. Somehow this info should be displayed to be easily available. These are pretty standard in games so I don't think having something visible for them would be a bad thing.

There is a representation of your exhaustion level in the Vitals App, but I've yet to come up with a good representation for stamina. I do like the idea of having some kind of visual or audio cue like blurred vision. I may experiment with that in the future.

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Here's my opinion.  While it isn't realistic to have a bar showing how tired/hungry/stamina you are in a game... the problem is that there is no realistic way to convey that info.  In real life you automatically know how tired, hungry and exhaused you are.

Currently having to open the vitals screen for info you have to check regularly is annoying (to me).  Sometimes I forget to check often enough and get caught someplace where I can't eat/drink/sleep in time.


My Idea for a solution:

Create a stamina/sleep bar and a hunger bar that are optional.

If the player doesn't want to have to constantly check the vitals in the pad, they can have them turned on.

If a player wants less screen clutter game-play, the player can have them turned off.


That's not a bad idea. I'll be dealing with launch support for the next few days and I have other update priorities after that, but I'll certainly think about how that could best be implemented as an option.

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What happens when someone who's relatively fit and scientific get's short of blood sugar and other physiological issues? They tend to know what certain feelings indicate if they're not distracted...

Game play wise, this could manifest as randomized pings of awareness of perhaps:
"oh, my blood sugar is low, I need to eat soon"
"Why am I dizzy?"
"My heart rate is elevated....."

Some issues would also be that when low on blood sugar, the Player's avatar should be dizzy and more sluggish. Introduce a error in pointing and direction function as well as tunnel vision effects when this happens. If the player is hasty, then mistakes happen. I've worked when was low on blood sugar, but I was slow and methodical so mistakes didn't happen. The same thing can be noted with people who are competent when somewhat drunk vs those who are not. The more careful person is careful to aim before pulling the trigger on something vs the one who isn't.

 By the same token when a player is low on blood sugar or hydration or has other physiological issues, simply stopping and looking around, taking the time to drink and rest a moment should allow for flashes of insight into the actual physiological state rather than a hard numerically driven status bar. 

So as a suggestion, a player rushing to get all the systems up could make a mistake, put in a component in such a way that it damages it...or in such a way that it has a lower MTBF value..But if the Player is careful, lines up the mouse, lets the dizzy waggle of the pointer settle down, then they would not. A player rushing across the landscape who takes a moment to stop, look around, settle their hear rate, take a sip of water would then note that their blood sugar was low and get a message of insight or the character's voice indicating as such....

Hopefully those are useful suggestions...

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I can't remember what it's actually called, but there is something like "blood oxigenation", which I believe is something that changes relatively quickly depending on a number of factors, and can be measured in some non-invasive way. Maybe looking into this and using it as a "stamina" level if applicable would work?

I'll check into that. Thanks.

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Completed

I've implemented a simple solution for now that isn't exactly "accurate" but works well enough I think. When you begin running you will see a "Heart Rate" number appear at the top of the HUD. It will transition from normal blue to bright red when you are out of stamina. The color is the indicator, because if you are exhausted your actual heart rate may only hit a maximum of around 110 bpm, while if you are well rested you may be able to withstand a heart rate of up to 160 bpm before needing to rest to recover stamina. Then, you will also have a nice indicator of your stamina recharging by watching your heart rate fall to a normal level around 60 bpm. This will be in the next update.

Heart rate...! Could there anything more straightforward than that? I really like this solution. The 60-ish base rate may be a bit low tho. I'd say an EVA, even for an otherwise trained and experienced astronaut, is a somewhat stressful situation so heart rate would be slightly elevated even when at rest, plus, she's carrying the weight of the EVA suit (and whatever else she has at that time) so not really "at rest" even when not specifically moving.


I also have to mention that that low "huh" sound the player character makes when recovered her stamina and is able to run again is a nice touch. Maybe you could slightly increase its volume to make it a bit more noticeable?

Good point. The sound effect you are noticing might be unintentional actually, but I think the visual of seeing your heart rate return to a normal level is a better indicator now anyways. I may raise the "resting" heart rate in line with your observation on the stress of even just walking during an EVA. Thanks.

Now that I had a longer of time to see it in action, I think a bit of change/tweaking would be in order.


As far as I could determine, stamina loss (and lower vitals) currently lowers the heart rate cap, meaning that your heart rate increase stops at a lower value as you lose vitals and while under stamina "cooldown/recharge", but the heart rate delta is always the same (about 3-4 per "tick", however long ticks are).


I think what would be more realistic is that the heart rate cap stays the same and vitals/stamina level instead modifies the rate delta: the worse condition you are in in either/both regard, the higher the delta gets and thus the faster your heart rate builds up to the same cap (blood nutrients/oxygenation gets lowered by worse condition, so more blood needs to be moved in a given time interval to supply the same amount, meaning heart rate needs to go up faster, not that it can only get to a lower value; actually, I think that exhaustion / nutrients/oxygen deprivation condition in fact results in a higher heart rate under the same physical load than you see when in a better metabolic state, so the current cap lowering effect is sort of incorrect).

I had originally planned on displaying it that way, but I thought it would look too awkward in the case of extreme exhaustion. If you are very exhausted then you can have almost no stamina at all. So that means you would jump all the way up to the max heart rate in only a few seconds, which seemed more unrealistic to me.