How does depletion work in Die2Nite?
Is it a set percentage chance to become depleted each time you search the zone? (Or each time an item is found?) Or is there a set number of items to be found in the zone, and once they are gone it become depleted?
This could make a difference when choosing which zone to auto-search when you are offline.
Best Answer
Zone depletion is based on set numbers. Each zone when you start a new town has 6 items in it. Each building has 10 items in it. This is not 6 & 10 searches, this is 6 & 10 items to be found.
If an area is replenished by the search tower, it will gain between 1 and 10 items. If a building is replenished, it will always be back to the full 10 items. Buildings and zones are treated seperately, so the zone may not replenish but the building will, and vice versa.
Each zone has a cap on the number of items it can hold. This cap is 20 for each zone. So the way this works for example, if a square has never been searched (6 items) and is then affacted by the search tower also (1-10 items) that zone would then have anywhere between 7 and 16 items in it. AT that point it would be very important to make sure the zone is depleted before its effected by the search tower again. If it had not been searched and was replenished once again, it would then contain between 8 and 20 items. Potentially you would be losing 6 items becuase of the cap. You cant actually tell if a zone that has not been depleted has been effected by the search tower or not as it is already showing as undepleted, the only way to find out is to deplete it and see how many items come out.
For buildings, I unfortunately cannot confirm if there is a cap of 10 or 20. To be safe you are best to always deplete a building before the zone is replenished again.