The Weatherstation, a possible buildup of tense situation

[garg1]

Okay, today in university i had an idea.
As you can guess, it's about a buildable weatherstation in the game.

So here some ideas about the mechanics.

The weatherstation has three researchable levels so far:

• The Station makes very vague predictions for the weather (which may be wrong, sometimes. maybe there's a possibility-value in this mechanic?)
  I imagine expressions like this: "Weatherstation reports a sandstorm 124 miles west. It will reach us in 2 days. (49%)"
  Maybe even a little more vague, but i think this kind of information creates a good "fear" of the event. Will the player make preperations for the storm or does he risk having damage from the sandstorm so he can focus on building defense against raiders?
• The weatherstation initiates a countdown to the next weather-event (which has a failure-possibility of -2 to +2 hours but the event WILL happen sometime in between.
  Expression: "Heavy Sandstorm in 3:49h"
  The player is able to prepare more or less (he knows it will eventually come in the next 1:49 to 5:49 hours).
  I believe it's satisfying to have relatively good reports after building, researching and upgrading an object, the cost/time to build/research is a balancing-thing
• The weatherstation creates a report for 3 to 7 days.
  This is a complex level, i imagine
  
  
  • a) a report you can let the station create/"produce" in a certain time for the next x days
  • or b) you have a permanent, self-updating report (maybe extra-research/upgrade needed?)
  So why would that be tricky? I don't know how far the Storyteller-AI "plans" it's events. I believe it's deciding very situational what do throw at the player. So a x-days-report would limit the story-teller in it's possibility to adapt to the players actions.
  
  I think one possible way to do it anyway would be to create a report with varying weather-possibilities.
  In real life weatherreports are very safe for the next two or three days, but after these it's failures grow for each day predicted.
  
  So maybe the ingame report is structured like this:
  
  
  
  • st day: Clear Sky (100%)
  • nd day: Rain (100%)
  • rd day: Rain (87%)
  • th day: Sandstorm (53%)
  
  
  • etc.
  That's just ONE way to give the storyteller more freedom to change the weather if it wants to. I'm sure there is a good balance possible for this system.
  Also it's possible to give exact times to those information, maybe with another upgrade?
  

I like my idea because it embraces to things I like about the game:
- It gives the player more information to plan with. ("I should really harvest the plants before the next rain, so the water of the rain won't be wasted.")
- It creates tension. ("Sandstorm in 1h and Ford is far away from the base, RUN FORD!!!")
- And it gives alternate solutions to critical moments ("50 Raiders in front of my base, hold them 30 minutes longer outside, from then the Sandstorm will get them MUHAHA *evil laughter*")

Opinions?

PS: please excuse my english, not my native tounge ^_^

[Raufgar]

This is well thought out, I would go with less information than what you have listed, to allow the ST more leeway to torture us

Your idea would have to wait until Tynan implements weather though

[AspenShadow]

Actually we've already got some weather conditions; so far no sandstorms though I love the idea and it's pretty much a given at some point I think, it's mostly rain, thunderstorms and fog, outside of the traditional cloudy or sunny of course.
But they do effect things already, the rain damages outdoor electronics, solar panels don't collect as much energy on cloudy days, fog reduces weapon accuracy and the lightning from thunderstorms can create wild fires.

I very much approve of your weatherstation idea, it adds a touch of planning and forethought to the game that at the moment is very much a 'do what you want and then react to sudden changes' build.

[garg1]

But they do effect things already, the rain damages outdoor electronics, solar panels don't collect as much energy on cloudy days, fog reduces weapon accuracy and the lightning from thunderstorms can create wild fires.

I didn't even know that^^ (I backed for the open alpha so I can't play it yet)

Well it's nice to see some of you liking it... maybe some of you have also ideas to add to my concept?

[garg1]

sry, but i need to "bump" before the thread is lost in the endless nethers of the suggestion forum : /
I really hope to read Tynans opinion about that.

[Leird]

I like the idea behind this, maybe make it a little more random, but apart from that, i would love to see more types of weather (in the video's of the game, as i won't have my copy for a couple of weeks).

[garg1]

Well, I proposed this thread for the List of All Suggested Features.
Don't understand why not more people are responding to this one : /

[Galileus]

People usually jump to post on quick dirty ideas like "hey? what if we would have a yellow carpet too? GENIUS!"

But yeah, it's a really nice idea. I would agree with Raufgar that less information is more - with 100% ability to know what weather will hit, it actually cheapens the whole thing. So I would say very broad same and next day prediction (with a system build in, so it's rather easy to mistake cloudy weather for a thunderstorm but harder to mistake sunny for thunderstorm - in general, if they think there will be colouds it's likely there will be some clouds - just maybe not the ones they expected); ability to spot catastrophic events with +/- 3h advance for lvl 2 (some of thunderstorms, sadndstorms, maybe catastrophic wildfires if we have new firefighting mechanics, blizzards, seismic activity) with a chance it won't come or they won't see it coming; and finally lvl 3 with +/-5h advance forecast for big events (again under chances), more accurate report for next day (still not perfect) and lvl1 report for the day after tomorrow.

The "chance to miss" mechanic could be even more fun than blindly stumbling upon such events. If you don't see them coming - it hits you harder, because you are somewhat used to some level of warning. If a catastrophe misses you - you will be jolly as all hells, or angry like hell if you really wanted this blizzard to sort out your fires. When you see something coming your way - you'll be on your toes trying to prepare everything. The same mechanic could produce a much wider variety of responses from player.

As for "in advance" mechanic it should work like overbudget/breakthrough chance in SotS' research. You start off with a certain chance (Cassie The Sadist plans a planetary collision, timer ticks at 6h, your chance of discovery is 10%), and then the chance rises slowly as time passes (at T-5h you have 11% if you failed first test, at T-4h it's 12.5% and through 14.5%, 17% until T-1h with 20% and T-0.1h with 2(T-1) chance (40%) to have a "CATASTROPHE IMMINENT!" warning message). As the game knows the chances up-front, it can be done with one dice roll, to avoid save/load abuse.

This would also allow for a whole new host of events aimed at these chances:"Your scientists successfully identified weather fronts around your location. Their prognosis will be much more accurate for next few days" or "It seems this planet entered a specific season, in witch weather phenomenons are seemingly random, puzzling our best people. Our prognosis will be a wishful thinking at best until it clears up"

[theSovietConnection]

I really like this idea, could add a lot to the game if executed right. This has my support.

[maxthebeast11]

brilliant

[Sacarathe]

Question, what happens if you dont bother with the weather station, would you be ruined by new events?

I like this idea, but i think by having it you should be able to avoid certain hazards such as shorts in the rain, but covering or with sheets that represents as automatic disabling of electronics that might short out.

[garg1]

I like Galileus' input on that, the system's reliability is very important as feature of a game like Rimworld. I take it a Step further, you can raise/lower that reliability by needing a colonist to invest time on the weatherstation.

If he/she is a Scientist, great! +10%
If he/she is too dumb, not so great! -20%
or so...

Maybe invest 2h-3h for a day-report? hmmmm

I like this idea, but i think by having it you should be able to avoid certain hazards such as shorts in the rain, but covering or with sheets that represents as automatic disabling of electronics that might short out.

That's an interesting option.
Maybe it's possible to do this with the batteries like some kind of "buff" which runs out after 2 or 3 hours, that really would bring another option to react on weather-reports. The hook: it needs time (because the "Buffer" needs to make sure the sheets are tight and waterproof)
You're able to command the Colonists to Apply the buff. Oh Crap, 66% chance for rain in 1h, i won't be able to cover ALL outdoor-batteries, which should i get covered and for which i take the risk?

The "covering sheet's"-buff in general is a great idea! :-)


Also thanks a lot for the positive Feedback :-) maybe i'll try to mod this when the game is out and if Tynan won't make that feature.

[Galileus]

I like the idea of timetables for colonists anyway. My ideal would be to manually decide which group gets how much work-hours and free-hours a day, and with that you could add "need to monitor" mechanics like the weat her station. This gives new meaning to colonists too - you'll much easier remember that oh! This guy is that weather scientist! This guy? The gun maintenance guy. The "need to monitor" jobs certain colonists take would go miles in flushing out their part of the story in the narrative.

I was thinking about the complication of coding it, too. I thought we need to have a proper time-table for weather and build the prognosis on that. Well, I was wrong You can just make the prognosis and build your weather on that. Prognosis said there's 20% chance of rain? AI rolls the dice with 20% chance of rain when the times comes to change the weather!

[Morrigi]

I support this as well. It could add a lot if it's implemented well.