PC V2.0 Storms Brewing Dev Diary
- Thread starter Crater Creator
- Start date
YourMirror
Well-known member
0 it seems. They wanted to include it in 2.0 but 2.0 got delayed more than expected.
EvilPolygons
Active member
EvilPolygons
Active member
You know what I don't see in that video? I don't see any 110° patches of sandy desert, with cactus in full bloom. I don't see leaves on the non-evergreens. Because obviously it's winter.
No one is arguing that Arizona doesn't get snow. The argument is that the air & climate in a region can't be 110°F in one spot, and 15° just 3 feet away at the same elevation. Unless you're standing at the edge of a lava field or hot spring, anyway.
khzmusik
Well-known member
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EvilPolygons
Active member
Welcome to any game forum.
Sadly, yes. But this forum is generally pretty decent, I think.
zztong
Well-known member
The question would be then how much of an elevation change would be desired to set apart the snow...
... and how gradually the change in elevation needs to be. What is the elevation difference that you used and how much space did you allow for the transition?
I don't know about AZ, but I remember what I considered to be plains in the Colorado Rockies. I'm thinking of Gunnison CO if you want to take a look via Google Maps.
LowfDog
New member
Roland
Moderator
Kinyajuu experimented with elevation based snow and temperature years ago but ultimately rejected it. I don't know why but I do think it is interesting that the concept isn't something that hasn't already been considered and tried already. Gradual transitions between biomes and dithering effects were also experimented with quite a bit in the past. None of these requests are new feedback and TFP seems to have responded to all this feedback already with due consideration.
If my memory serves, when they made their final decision on the current tech that generates the terrain it had great benefits but also certain limitations. It was at this time that they had to change farming to the farm plot method, the number of biomes had to be reduced, and they no longer were able to make the transitions between biomes as gradual as they had been attempting in the past. It was also at this time that the game started forcing terrain textures within a biome to comply with that biome so trying to have a forest biome landscaping look in your desert base wouldn't work. All the forest terrain would turn into desert terrain.
Faatal posted a bit above that he plans to have a separate slider for storms with a domain from 0% to 500% for storms which will be separate from the toggle for biome hazards. So, yes, they can be independently selected. The biome hazard kits don't protect from storms. You have to either get into shelter or leave the biome or endure through the damage while the storm persists.
If my memory serves, when they made their final decision on the current tech that generates the terrain it had great benefits but also certain limitations. It was at this time that they had to change farming to the farm plot method, the number of biomes had to be reduced, and they no longer were able to make the transitions between biomes as gradual as they had been attempting in the past. It was also at this time that the game started forcing terrain textures within a biome to comply with that biome so trying to have a forest biome landscaping look in your desert base wouldn't work. All the forest terrain would turn into desert terrain.
Faatal posted a bit above that he plans to have a separate slider for storms with a domain from 0% to 500% for storms which will be separate from the toggle for biome hazards. So, yes, they can be independently selected. The biome hazard kits don't protect from storms. You have to either get into shelter or leave the biome or endure through the damage while the storm persists.
zztong
Well-known member
I don't doubt you, though I wonder if the current discussion involves a slightly different approach. What I think you're saying that Kinyajuu experimented with snow appearing at certain heights. What I think being ideated presently is that the base height of the snow biome be some number of block higher. Or, did Kinyajuu and the gang consider that at the time as well?
Roland
Moderator
They did. The snow biomes only generated at a certain high block height and the desert only generated at a certain low block height and the three forest biomes and plains biomes generated between those extremes. Temperature also rose and fell with block height.
One of the downsides is that it created many smaller biomes and the team wanted larger biomes with fewer instances of crossing borders. It only lasted for one or maybe two alphas maybe around alpha 12 or 13. I don't recall but I think it was tried and rejected before the first console version came out. Alpha 10 was the last alpha to have unlimited maps and I'm pretty sure it was after that.
I found the reference to temperature change based on block height in the Alpha 13 patchnotes: https://7daystodie.com/alpha-13-status-and-release-notes/
I'm not sure if that is when they also tried making the biomes based on block height as well.
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Adam the Waster
Well-known member
Now this has style
Dark times especially the lost of the plains and maple forest
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Riamus
Well-known member
Yeah, you can make what is basically a large flat hill be covered with snow. Plateaus work as well. But in this game, that doesn't have the same effect visually as a snowy mountaintop. It ends up looks more like just a normal biome map rather than one that is based on elevation.
I wasn't meaning that you can't do anything at all with it. There are plenty of Teragon maps that have elevation based biomes that work fine. But it's not as simple as just adding elevation based biomes. You need to do something with the terrain to make them work.
Jugom
Active member
umm.. no. the person I quoted was saying that AZ would only have snow in the mountains.
but ignoring all that... there are different biomes, and there will always be transition between them. the map is only so big. you can't just slowly increase/decrease the temperature across 50 km. leaving snow as elevation would also kill snowy cities unless you make a big ass cliff/plateau to accommodate one. Other option would be simulate the 4 seasons, but then how long would you wait between them. will players have to play 365 days to see a full cycle? people who like to just stay on the forest will have to suck on the winter like it or not?
Some sacrifices must be made for the sake of gameplay.
Riamus
Well-known member
To each their own. I personally don't like that kind of UI. I prefer a clean UI and one that isn't brown. It makes certain things harder to see and just looks bad to me. There also isn't any reason to have all that protection stuff showing all the time in this game. That's just a cluttered top section, imo.
UI designs that aren't rather plain are best left to mods as most people have very different opinions on what looks good and what doesn't or on what they want on their screen and what they don't. It's fine to have a couple presets or even have a configurable UI in vanilla, but they should always have at least one UI that is more generic/plain like what we have now. It'll appeal to more players overall, and those who want something else can use mods. (Yes, console players can't use mods... nothing to be done about that unless TFP wants a bunch of different styles of UI, which is a waste of time.)
4sheetzngeegles
Well-known member
@zztong The map in the image is the Thank You one I created for you.
I'm temporarily using it as a template, while I enjoy my spartan Police station
that you recovered for me.
The how: photoshop magic wand %; large psd with 27 layers; 10k my map sized
blender layers included.
The altitude why: to be able to potentially include the tallest skyscrapers without
posting past the Z:1 ratio grayscale scale. Give the Mountains a crew cut, and Bob's
your Uncle.
The variance: the rules somewhere in world gen, limit full consideration
to an approx 170 then begin to fall of by scale.
The math: Z:1 ratio scale is 255, Base gen 35 to give a slope for the water
table which is 30.
So base thought is 255 grace 3 meter in case I King Kong it.
255 - 3 = 252 Z Top - tallest poi that I want to render there; if I want to possibly
included skyscraper 1 is 108 height. 252 - 108 = 144 is my top gen for "potential"
100% possibility. For vanilla biome config (144 - 35) / 5 rounded = 22 block
separation between biome gen if even. So top down snow forest burnt desert waste
preferential cold to hot thought for me. So 22 average then do "rise over run" to get good grade
for roads. Or in my case I do a second render including poi layout , and cut a path through some of
the hills. It looks hella better, especially when on a cycle. Plateaus vary by only a few meters unless
being creative, and to keep poi cluster streets relatively level.
snow forest burnt desert waste
(144 to 122)(101 to 122)(79 to 101)(57 to 79)(35 to 57) Utopian, with forest being
the lesser. This allows for the flux between each "meter" for gradient grayscale.
The rest is just preferential slide scale to add or subtract to the biome coverage,
and depending on the terrain type I draw. Then I select the wand and paint or use
my layers. Drag and drop before first game start and it renders.
I don't do Utopian though.
Temperature in weathersurvival.xml I follow the same rule, temp scale set from Hell to BeeBees
So much time was spent getting water right, there was now way Hell I wasn't going to create a map
that showcases it. So it follows the rules and stays within the limits. But I have a dream. A
Shadow of the Erdtree 1/2 a mile high height Dream. To be continued
4sheetzngeegles
Well-known member
@Roland I think I remember part of it.
Customer feedback translated to BMC desires for map to gen
as fast as possible, So TFP and Faatal adjusted. BMC consideration
2 was the angle and grade of some of the connecting roads so TFP and
Faatal adjusted. BMC consideration 3 water generation and flow.
#4 losing things in the terrain at that time. #5 Thinking about the
future, making it compatible with lower powered pcs, and potentially
consoles, to not exclude or unintentionally alienate any market.
A preventive maintenance back end consideration was to stop the willful
transgression of the upper height limit. The generation shape difference
between lots and generation base shape, basically quads in a circle, ergo
tiles were born. Grain of salt, but this is some of what I remember from
then. Street layouts were more of an algorithm, likeFFOFFFoF,
something like that.
<street_gen level="10" length_multiplier="4">
<axiom value="[FFCT][-FFT][+FFI][--FFN][+FFT][-FFI][++FN][F-FF+FF[-T]FF+FF+FFFF-FF-FF[+I]FF-F[+N]"/>
<rule char="T" replace_with="F-FF+FF[-T**]FF+FF+FFFF-FF-FF[+I**]FF-F[+N*K]"/>
<rule char="I" replace_with="F-FF+FF[-T**]FF+FF+FFFF-FF-FF[+I**]FF-F[+N*K]"/>
<rule char="N" replace_with="F-FF+FF[-T**]FF+FF+FFFF-FF-FF[+I**]FF-F[+N*K]"/>
<rule char="K" replace_with="[FFCT][-FFT][+FFI][--FFN][+FFT][-FFI][++FN]"/>
<alt_commands chars="T,I,N,K"/>
</street_gen>
Tiles are expedient, less process and connect the streets and plots
easier. Again grain of salt.
I will be corrected if any or all of my memory is wrong.
You are right it was at the bottom, there was terrain gen, biome gen distance
from center, and height included for weathersurvival.xml
Customer feedback translated to BMC desires for map to gen
as fast as possible, So TFP and Faatal adjusted. BMC consideration
2 was the angle and grade of some of the connecting roads so TFP and
Faatal adjusted. BMC consideration 3 water generation and flow.
#4 losing things in the terrain at that time. #5 Thinking about the
future, making it compatible with lower powered pcs, and potentially
consoles, to not exclude or unintentionally alienate any market.
A preventive maintenance back end consideration was to stop the willful
transgression of the upper height limit. The generation shape difference
between lots and generation base shape, basically quads in a circle, ergo
tiles were born. Grain of salt, but this is some of what I remember from
then. Street layouts were more of an algorithm, like
something like that.
<street_gen level="10" length_multiplier="4">
<axiom value="[FFCT][-FFT][+FFI][--FFN][+FFT][-FFI][++FN][F-FF+FF[-T]FF+FF+FFFF-FF-FF[+I]FF-F[+N]"/>
<rule char="T" replace_with="F-FF+FF[-T**]FF+FF+FFFF-FF-FF[+I**]FF-F[+N*K]"/>
<rule char="I" replace_with="F-FF+FF[-T**]FF+FF+FFFF-FF-FF[+I**]FF-F[+N*K]"/>
<rule char="N" replace_with="F-FF+FF[-T**]FF+FF+FFFF-FF-FF[+I**]FF-F[+N*K]"/>
<rule char="K" replace_with="[FFCT][-FFT][+FFI][--FFN][+FFT][-FFI][++FN]"/>
<alt_commands chars="T,I,N,K"/>
</street_gen>
Tiles are expedient, less process and connect the streets and plots
easier. Again grain of salt.
I will be corrected if any or all of my memory is wrong.
You are right it was at the bottom, there was terrain gen, biome gen distance
from center, and height included for weathersurvival.xml
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faatal
Fun Pimps Staff
I don't know, but I hope it does not look like that!
LOL. Sure, sure...if someone wants a game to follow their hundreds of exacting specifications of what it should be, they are probably not going to find it in any existing game and need to go make it themselves.
Biome Progression and Storm Frequency are two different settings with separate code/data, so are completely independent of each other.
Biome Skills (or whatever we end up calling them) do not help with storms.