Injury

Injury damage is a type of damage value that will slow the player's movement. The higher the injury value, the slower the player will move.

A low number of injury will only create a minimal amount of slowness, slightly affecting movement. A value of 50 injury will send the player's creature into a limping animation and disable their ability to run. At 100 injury, any king of movement becomes nearly impossible.

A player's injury can be inspected by opening the character stat HUD.

Creatures heal from injury damage overtime automatically, though the healing process can be sped up by resting and obtaining high levels of comfort.

Note: Injury damage is not the same as health damage, though the two are linked

_________________________________________________________

Sources of Injury Damage

- Falling (higher falls inflict more injury)

- Being struck by another creature (larger creatures inflict more injury than smaller ones)

Gameplay mechanics

Injury damage was created as a means to allow certain creatures to have an additional, unique advantages and abilities while either hunting or defending themselves. While all creatures are capable of dealing some level of injury damage to others, certain ones rely on it heavily as a defensive or offensive mechanism. Often times, slower creatures are capable of utilizing injury damage to either slow down their attacker via infliction of injury to allow escape, or to slow down prey that would otherwise escape them due to speed differentials. It is also a mechanism designed for unique ways to allow fall damage to become a relevant danger that could allow fleeing prey to potentially fall victim to a predator's pursuit, or for fleeing prey to potentially trick a swifter predator into hurting themselves, thus allowing escape.

A creature who receives a blow that inflicts 3% or more injury damage will play a bone breaking sound effect to indicate as such.

As a creature accumulates injury damage, their limp will become heavier. A creature with mild injury damage will have a slight limp to their gait, often barely noticeable. As injury accumulates, however, the limp will become heavier. A moderately injured creature will step heavily onto its leg with each locomotion cycle. As injury worsens, the limp becomes worse and worse, until the creature is heavily crippled in gait at very high levels of injury. This is intended as a means by which potential predators can spot injured prey and chase it down, knowing it will be slower, and likely will not be as full on HP as a healthier creature with no deformation in their gait.

Injury currently has no representation on the user interface. One can only view how much injury they have sustained directly by opening the skin customization UI. It will be displayed numerically on the left along with other numerical values for stats. Opening this UI is by default keybound to O, though it can be changed if the player wishes.

Injury Damage from Combat

Under most circumstances, a player must be hit in the leg in order to receive any injury damage. Injury damage is computed as a constant multiplier multiplied by the square of the inflicting creature's damage, and then divided by the square root of the victim's size. This function on infliction of injury damage was crafted for a couple reasons. Most notably, smaller creatures such as the Velociraptor and Utahraptor are almost completely inept at dealing injury damage to their opponents. Other creatures such as the Megalosaurus and Carnotaurus, other light hitting creatures, are also almost completely inept at dealing injury damage as well. The square relationship in injury damage ensures that creatures who rely on many, low damage bites will be very ineffective at inflicting injury damage. Larger creatures are also less effected by injury altogether, allowing harder hits be required in order to slow larger beasts down.

Some creatures, ones with the Bruiser trait, are capable of inflicting more injury damage and are capable of inflicting injury damage under more lenient scenarios. Most notably, the Pachycephalosaurus is profoundly adept at dealing injury damage as it possesses this trait. It is granted a bonus that multiplies any amount of injury it would otherwise cause by a factor of 10. On top of this, the Pachycephalosaurus is capable of dealing injury to its foes without needing to strike the legs. Tail hits, however, will never inflict injury damage to the owner, regardless of whether the inflicting player is a bruiser.

Healing Injury Damage

One intent of injury damage is such that it is difficult to heal while being chased, while chasing, or while defending yourself from potential predators. The other intent, however, is that it must not be too overtly onerous to heal while in a place of relative safety. For this reason, the rate at which a creature recovers from injury damage varies significantly depending on what the creature is doing. Resting is the fastest way to clear injury damage, clearing all but the most severe of injuries in a couple minutes. Sitting is not as effective at healing injuries as resting, but still grants a significant increase to recovery rate. Standing is a fairly poor way to heal injury damage, but it is better than walking it off. Injuries heal very, very little while sprinting.

Other factors beyond mode of movement influence rate of healing for injury damage.

• Comfort influences rate of healing for injury damage. High comfort will improve the rate at which a creature heals from injuries, whereas lower comfort will hinder a creature's recovery rate.
• Hydration influences rate of healing for injury damage. Being well hydrated will improve the rate at which a creature heals from injuries, whereas being at or near dehydration will hinder a creature's recovery rate.
• Being well fed will improve the healing rate for injury damage. Being at or near starvation will hinder a creature's ability to swiftly recover from injuries.
• Overweight creatures will heal more quickly from injuries than their normal weight counterparts.