Godot Genre Survival

NEVER Do (Expert Anti-Patterns)

Physiology & Needs

• NEVER use constant "Needs" decay; strictly scale with activity (e.g., Sprinting drains hunger 3x faster than idling).
• NEVER use Instant Death for starvation/dehydration; strictly trigger gradual HP drain and provide distinct visual/audio warnings.
• NEVER use float timers for exact life-critical checks; strictly use is_equal_approx() or <= to prevent 0.0 precision misses.
• NEVER represent world time/day cycles within UI scripts; strictly use an AutoLoad (Singleton) to decouple state from visuals.

Gathering & Inventory

• NEVER make gathering tedious without progression; strictly implement Tiered Tool Scaling (e.g., Stone Axe = 1 wood/hit, Steel Axe = 5 wood/hit) to reward technical advancement.
• NEVER allow infinite inventory stacking; strictly use Weight Capacity or strict Stack Limits (e.g., 64 items) to force strategic resource management.
• NEVER force players to "Guess" crafting recipes; strictly use a Discovery System where recipes unlock upon acquiring materials.
• NEVER forget to duplicate(true) a shared Resource (like Item Durability); otherwise, all instances will break simultaneously.
• NEVER store heavy item/crafting definitions in Node properties; strictly use custom Resource containers for lightweight data.

World & Performance

• NEVER spawn threats at Respawn Points; strictly enforce a Safe Zone radius (Beds/Spawn) where enemy spawning is prohibited.
• NEVER instance 10,000 individual MeshInstance3D nodes for foliage; strictly use MultiMeshInstance3D for batched draw calls.
• NEVER load massive world chunks synchronously; strictly use ResourceLoader.load_threaded_request() to prevent hitches.
• NEVER save complex dictionaries to standard text files; strictly use binary serialization for speed and size efficiency.
• NEVER run procedural terrain/noise algorithms on the main thread; strictly offload to the WorkerThreadPool.
• NEVER hardcode massive crafting tables in GDScript; strictly use ConfigFile or JSON for easy balancing and modding.

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Expert Components (scripts/)

MANDATORY: Prefer these scripts over inline stubs. Do not paste pass architectures into scenes.

survival_patterns.gd

MANDATORY first read — Activity-scaled vitals, MultiMesh populate, threaded chunk load, WorkerThreadPool noise chunks (generate_noise_chunk_async), GridMap snap/place, Persist collect, deep duplicate(true).

status_depletion_manager.gd

MANDATORY for needs — Activity-scaled hunger/thirst in _physics_process (aligns with NEVER: no constant decay).

inventory_data.gd

Core Resource-based grid inventory: stack limits, metadata, add/remove.

inventory_slot_data.gd

Lightweight UI↔logic slot DTO.

inventory_slot_resource.gd

Serializable slot Resource with durability tracking.

modular_inventory_controller.gd

Controller wiring inventory data to UI signals.

interactable.gd

Universal harvest / pickup / world-trigger interface.

crafting_recipe_processor.gd

Ingredient check → consume → grant result (discovery-friendly).

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Decision Tree — Survival Systems

Key Mechanics (pointers, not tutorials)

Needs (activity-scaled)

Wire movement → StatusDepletionManager.sprinting. Empty vitals → gradual HP drain + warnings (never instant death). See script — do not reintroduce constant decay_rate in _process.

Tiered Tool Scaling

Stone Axe 1 yield / Steel Axe 5 yield / proximity Auto-Saw — encode as item Resource metadata, not hardcoded harvest scripts.

Spawn Safe Zones

Re-roll spawn points outside bed/player_beds radius before enabling threat spawners.

Godot-Specific Tips

• TileMapLayer (Godot 4) for 2D worlds — do not use Godot 3 TileMap APIs.
• FastNoiseLite for biome/resource density (off main thread via WorkerThreadPool for heavy maps).
• ResourceSaver / binary serialization for large inventories and chunk dicts.
• Y-Sort for top-down 2D occlusion with trees/props.

Common Pitfalls

1. Tedium — Scale gather yield with tool tier.
2. Inventory clutter — Generous stacks + storage sinks.
3. No goals — Tech tree / boss pressure beyond pure survive.

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Elite Technical Implementations

MANDATORY when starting base-building snap or biome/noise work: read elite-technical-patterns.md. Do NOT Load for first-pass needs/inventory/crafting — use the script catalog above.

Deep recipes (on demand)