Weather?
scifiwriterguy
Sector ZZ-9-Plural Z-α Join Date: 2017-02-14 Member: 227901Members
Sector ZZ-9-Plural Z-α Join Date: 2017-02-14 Member: 227901Members
Not a request, just a question.
Since the Degasi reports all mention some wild weather (or at least tons of rain), are there any plans to implement any kind of weather system? When I first read the Degasi PDAs on the island, complete with their woes of having crops flooded out, I looked around at my world which was entering its umpteenth day in a row of "Perfect Day in the Caribbean" and wondered what they were talking about.
So I'm not making a request, just wondering if weather is on the horizon. (That was not a pun!) Because I do love a good thunderstorm at sea.
Since the Degasi reports all mention some wild weather (or at least tons of rain), are there any plans to implement any kind of weather system? When I first read the Degasi PDAs on the island, complete with their woes of having crops flooded out, I looked around at my world which was entering its umpteenth day in a row of "Perfect Day in the Caribbean" and wondered what they were talking about.
So I'm not making a request, just wondering if weather is on the horizon. (That was not a pun!) Because I do love a good thunderstorm at sea.
Comments
That said, underwater seastorms would be badass. No idea what that would entail, but it sounds cool to me.
Higher seas would also knock subs around, especially the lightweight Seamoth, making traveling on or near the surface at least tricky if not dangerous.
Lightning and/or wind could make being on the islands during a storm dangerous.
But most of all, it'd add some variety to the world. With every day being exactly the same as the one before, it's not like you need to prepare for anything unexpected. You can build up supplies and gear for expeditions at whatever pace you choose, and it's pretty unlikely that there will be anything you need to allow for. With the potential of a storm damaging subs or shallow seabases, as well as messing with solar power generation, it would be the missing incentive for players to plan with flexibility in mind.
(or was it on Discord?)
I could have sworn I saw a short vid/pic that showed rain and choppy seas.
Found it...
https://trello.com/c/3sie0yxm/203-storms
Though it's just a "Brainstorm" topic and hasn't been advanced since 2015.
Rumor has it that some kind of weather may be added post v1.0.
Watch from 13:24 onwards. There's an awesome (And terrifying) section in SOMA when you're at the bottom of an abyssal trench and faultline activity causes an underwater storm, which hampers your progress and decreases visibility due to the sediment being stirred up. Always hoped Subnautica would do something similar.
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/3afx1u/are_submarines_affected_by_storms_in_other_words/
EDIT: @ApoNono
The Spider section though... I could barely watch someone go through that.
Imagine that in VR tho.
Hell, we have Eclipses and and stuff. I don't think rain or storms is too much to ask for.
Hell, even wirlpools.
how bout if lighting strikes and island base the power goes out for some time only like 30 seconds
Also I would love to see a tsunami when the aurora exploded, it makes perfect sense! It was even in the trailer, because a explosion that big could cause huge tsunamis! All of this would add much more immersion to the game, rather than a clear day/night. Gets pretty boring, and it would give players on the surface something to look up to, rather than constantly on the sea floor.
It's one of the few games which actually caught me by surprise, a real gem.
The entire thing felt so, so predictable. And a lot of it was, the overall gist was pretty obvious from the moment you wake up underwater. But...
(Spoiler follows, if you haven't played SOMA, don't read this. Seriously. No I'm really serious. Go play the game, it's worth it.
The spider-crabs weren't what freaked me out...it was leaving that cave and then running straight into the
Only dark cloud needed, rain is luxury
- great visual
- Impact: solar panel, your ability to see the night coming, darken the night more
Fog
- "low cost" visual?
- Impact: solar panel, ability to see islands and the Aurora
I would be more interested in underwater current, or stuff that ask you to plan more carefully where you travel or build base "like depth do".
As stated eariler weather could be something added after v1.0. As for currents we'll have to see what the devs want to do, I know there was talk before about it but it also might be a thing for after 1.0
I wish we could control weather IRL, this country of mine is weird as hell one day superhot, during the night it goes below freezing... Then the next day rainy -> stormy -> super weather -> catsNdogs etc... On a daily basis, wtf is that even!!! Stick to the damn script mon!
Oh hey, we need weather in any case, it will make the world come a-a-alive o/
it would make getting the moonpool necessary, the cyclops would need an anchor of sorts that is set by the player to keep it in place but you and the seamoth would get bashed around and grounded up on the coral forcing you to remain in your base or anchored cyclops until the storm passes.
also i and probably a few others have noticed that their are no currents the water is pretty stagnent
Current itself could be extremely simple: (near) invisible tunnel across the ocean that push you in a direction, with different force and different slope, some intermittent. The sophisticated submarine (or module? sensor-room link?) would show them on the HUD.
And to satisfy the "KISS" principle (keep it simple stupid): they don't need to move NOR incredible special effect. So it's never obvious and you can still park your subs safely. Also seeing fish get in those will help.
If I could draw I would make a proper suggestion thread.
You're going to have a lot of furious gamers out there. Strong currents without some sort of game mechanic to identify them are likely to only cause frustration as people are constantly blindsided. It's also worth pointing out that ocean currents are largely macro, not micro. The "invisible tunnel across the ocean" idea only applies in very specific and limited environments. Ocean currents are large-scale things. Small, geography-driven currents are limited to the features in question. Modeling all of that and keeping it logically consistent would require a lot of work - work which would likely only spawn resentment and annoyance. It's the antithesis of KISS - it will create dozens of problems with no easy answers.
Severe weather at sea is hardly cosmetic; it's a serious issue. Laying aside the danger of navigating in high seas, violent sea action will disturb vehicles within several dozen meters of surface, and - gameplay effective - seabases in the shallows would easily sustain damage. Storms also reduce surface solar intensity, leading to power shortages in our largely-solar seabases.
Additionally, the lack of weather creates a narrative inconsistency: the Degasi logs clearly mention long-lived and violent storm systems, a record which clashes severely with what we see in-game.
The tunnel idea is meant to add gameplay, rapid but very predictable event you have to compensate for or use as express line, it break monotony more than "everything in the area will slowly drift North-East" global current.
Also, I didn't say it would be completely invisible, I just said you don't need fancy graphics that make it shape too obvious (you aren't forced to make it a tube anyway, it can be anything, from a shallow plate to a deep corkscrew)
If you eventually need a whirlpool, you can use the same tech.
And let's be practical here, google search about it say you need an incredible storm and enormous wave to start bothering a submarine below 50m. Unless subnautica start adding surface boat (or more stuff like the rocket launcher/mobile station), we would hardly notice a costly effect.
Hence my "do current first", "cosmetic weather" suggestion, if you want to add real typhoon later the dev would probably code using the previously cosmetic part anyway.
And as I said before, even a pure visual effect, like having darker night or FOG would have an impact (asking you to use marker).
"Laying aside the danger of navigating in high seas, violent sea action will disturb vehicles within several dozen meters of surface, and - gameplay effective - seabases in the shallows would easily sustain damage" (emphasis added).
Since most players build initial and/or primary seabases in shallow areas, they will be at risk. You do not need to be within the wave's amplitude range to have problems. Not everything needs to be Michael Bay; subtle effects are more realistic and can be the source of gameplay changes and variety. And since storms are cyclical, robust preparation adds a layer of survival planning. "High" seas - otherwise known as sea state 7 - involve waves nine to twelve meters high, but effects extend to beyond twenty meters. Maximal sea state on Earth, State 9, means waves over 14 meters, with effects beyond 24 meters. In other words, working in the shallows becomes risky, and the most abundant source of a variety of resources becomes dangerous. Deep bases and vehicles below 50m would be relatively unharmed, but everything in the shallows as well as accessing the Aurora would become very risky. Additionally, wave current modeling - micro-scale currents - are relatively easy to calculate; waves produce a predictable downward and upward current effect, easily procedurally generated.
Macro-scale currents would be an interesting addition, but are highly impractical. Modeling realistic current interactions with the topology of the various biomes would be a monumental task. Without burning an incredible amount of time (and money) doing so, the resulting currents would be unrealistic, leaving people dealing with currents that do the impossible - slamming into cliffs, diving into the floor. Realistic current modeling is incredibly difficult. Just slapping in a "flat plate" or other cookie-cutter effects won't work. Other games have tried it and earned ridicule for it. Besides, with the size of the map, adding an "express lane" is poor design; it will only serve to make the map feel smaller. Since we already have vehicles that make a map crossing less than five minutes, anything faster would be counterproductive in terms of design.
IDK if you got Sam's point, exactly; namely that the subs being subject to drift is going to be a gameplay annoyance regardless of damage or not. Plus, shallows should arguably be a lot more vulnerable to storms since the volume of water to disturb by the winds is lesser than the open ocean - the mass of a small body of water would be more easily disturbed than a deep one.
Plus, based on the whole "cyclical" argument, there's the fact that we don't know what kind of seasons the planet has - for all we know, the Degasi crew were unlucky to land in hurricane season and we're in the calm point. I mean, this isn't earth - it's mostly ocean aside from a few islands; there's less top-side landmass to displace the surrounding water with and it has two moons to offer a different gravitational effect than our own moon. Simply put, it doesn't feel right to apply our world's perimeters to a planet that has substantially different factors to it.
That's not to say I'm against there being weather cycles in the game, though; just that there's a bit more to consider regarding the fact it's an alien planet with an alien life cycle.
I did understand you the first time and I give you that point: it would make for a nice early game distraction and push player to rebuild deeper. However I stand that the (suspected) cost of adding weather/waves would be very wasteful when we spend most of our time submerged way beyond 50m.
I find your lack of faith disturbing **force choke**
I mean I find your skepticism unwarranted, it's not "poor design", it's a time proven and popular game features in any game who can use it. It fit all criteria for a good mechanic:
- It doesn't need to be ridiculously dangerous, and avoiding to slam into things (or use the current to go faster) is the point.
- you get to plan your approach around difficult zone, you get to choose where you park your subs for safety
- It's compatible with procedural generation (we don't need most to follow the relief, just the biomes and depth)
- several key place in the game are handmade, so it can be added by hand there.
- Development side it just ask for a visual clue and generate area. I'd say that -look- easier than coding large wave and weather/typhoon.
As for realism: let's be serious. It's perfectly within the verisimilitude of this game with floating islands and stuff.
BTW, I never said it needed to be have "200km/h fast currents". But the map is big enough to have anti-frustration features like express line to discover. Ever since the Cyclops got a need for silent running, I've been wishing to use the current to move even more silently (or simply to go normal speed without full power)
I'm not against weather either, but if I had the choice with currents, I'll take currents.
As for weather, I think a simple weather system would be awesome. Gives more reason for reinforcements and bulkheads in your base, to contain any damage from stormy chop.
Hell, you could build say... A weather station, or maybe upgrade a Scanner Room to have a deployable buoy that floats on the surface that can warn you of incoming storms so you can get to shelter. (Clearly this is less important if you set up a base in the Lost River or something, but by that point you have other concerns)
I mean I think it'd be a more fun survival mechanic than "Welp time to eat another Reginald. *Scarf scarf*"
That said, being an underwater world perhaps there is room for a bit of creativity with underwater weather? Areas that occasionally have maelstroms or the like?
https://www.google.com/search?q=how+big+could+storms+get+on+an+ocean+planet
TL;DR: we don't know, some say stronger, some say weaker, it all depends, of course. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Creative licensing ahoy!
Boom...
and...
https://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/152840/storm-mode/p1
Boom.