How to make the HOT biomes feel complete ?

[LordMunchkin]

The problem is that water would be such a massive addition to the game, between inclusion in health needs, buildings, tileset, and another dynamic change to the game map (rain, flood, drought, where is the deep part?  Pools?  Underground river?) that it's presently being handwaved, and even addressed in the "stop suggesting this" post pinned at the top of the suggestion forums.

It's not that Tynan's oblivious to water, it's that he's tactically ignoring it for the time being, as there are bigger problems that need taking care of, such as memory leaks and other bugs.

Well this is a thread discussing ways to make desert biomes more unique. As it stands, water is the elephant in the room when it comes to that. There's simply no way around it; if you wanna make desert biomes feel unique, water needs to addressed. 

However, there are also smaller things that could be done; sunburns and dust storms for example.

On a sidenote, how complicated would adding a water need be? There's already a couple mods that add hygiene needs.

[forestfey]

I don't think that's a matter of complexity, but allocating the priorized time for it compared to other more pressing matters... As already stated above.

Sandstorms could be a thing to start with easily? Not so much added, but quite for an effect. The suggested temperature-changes (unroofed areas really hot, hotter daytime hours) could possibly make it a bit more challenging before you get Dusters (but after that?^^)...
Or how about a dustbowl-incident, that combines sandstorm and eclipse or something like that?

And there could be more sand, agreed. But only a little! I wouldn't say ONLY sand, because the Sahara is not only a sandy desert, too. There's rocky and gravely areas as well?
And even if it doesn't there rain often, it's not like a dead zone for vegetation all over the place... at least in the spots where there's less sand^^
So...
Maybe more desert-plants that don't look like cacti? Some of them able to only grow on sand or something, and doing this very slowly and perhaps turning veeeery old (like Welwitschia)...
Oh, and of course: Shortly lasting vegetation explosion after rain! I don't think water as a resource would be needed for that?

And extreme deserts could be a lot hotter, yeah. If we actually had a water-mechanic at some point, we could make sure extreme desert is REALLY dry like the Atacama desert...

[Grishnerf]

more poisonous animals with more deadly infections. (scorpions, Spiders, hyenas with venom bite etc)
Spiders and scorpions would spawn out of thin air when there is sand, but wouldnt be aggro.
but they would sting everything that runs over them/pass by them.

to Counter this obvious using floors or having some predator animals that roam your base that will eventually hunt them automatically.

i even think this would be easily modable.

[b0rsuk]

Food should spoil 2x or 3x faster in hot biomes. The opposite of refrigeration. But maybe it should be linked to air humidity ? Meat would dry rather in the desert but rot in rainforest ?

[Jarwy]

-Faster heatstroke.  With sirocco winds and reflective heat from sun bouncing off the light-colored sand, the speed at which heatstroke points are acquired while wandering about outside should be doubled. 

As someone who mostly plays tribes, no thanks. Early heat waves are especially damning.

[Hans Lemurson]

Do high temperatures cause any problems (work speed, rest need, appetite, move speed...) besides heat-stroke?

Is there any difference between sun and shade, or is it purely a matter of ambient temperature?

[forestfey]

As someone who mostly plays tribes, no thanks. Early heat waves are especially damning.

I totally hear you! But that could be mitigated (and is the reason why i chose to installl FashionRIMsta) if tribals had more clothing options in vanilla, too, like in "reality".
A Kaftan or similar isn't really a COMPLEX thing to craft, regarding seams and sewing pattern... and the Inuit have crafted their "sealed" clothing made from furs and thick leathers with primitive tools like Ulu-knives and BONE-needles for thousands of years... (And I dare to say this clothing is better adapted to the challenges of an Ice-Sheet or Tundra or Sea-Ice than  most of the modern stuff made from synthetic fabrics, already just because you can find materials for repair more easily in the wilderness...)

Tribals could get some more love in general, I think, but that's a different topic

[Shurp]

Introducing water with the complexity of Dwarf Fortress or Gnomoria would be difficult, sure.  But a simplified version of water would work and would be easy to implement.  Simply assign a "hydration" value to every square.  Each soil type can absorb a certain amount of water when it rains, then gets drained when stuff grows in it.  When it hits zero, nothing else grows in it.  No pools, no runoff, nothing *difficult* to code or CPU intensive.

The only downside of something like this is that growing inside becomes more challenging.  You have to open up the roof when it rains, close and grow until the crops are complete, then open again.  One rainstorm would have to provide enough saturation to support a few harvests or else cold climates would become impossible.

And extreme desert?  You'll be living off meat until you get hydroponics.

[forestfey]

^These are all suggestions I would second (phrasing...?)!!
I had a similar idea regarding soil hydration since my last post... Isn't it funny how similarly guided (or prompted), creative cognitive processes so often lead to similar outcomes?

[Sirportalez]

Since we have no water feature:
It needs to get really hot, f.e. everything outside burns down or a big solar beam wanders around and changes sand or dirt to glass and destroys everything in its way.

[Shurp]

The prison planet in Chronicles of Riddick comes to mind. Sun comes up, temp outdoors soars to 500 degrees. Fwooosh!

[b0rsuk]

How about traveling dunes ? After each sandstorm gravel patches have a bit different shape. Some plants are completely covered in sand and irrevocably lost.

Burrowing animals and ambushes. Sandworms like in Dune might be a bit of overkill. But why not make megascarabs burrow ?

The above features would make sand feel less solid.

[Ace_livion]

make it possible to grow things like spices easy to grow but require a high temperature. (not really eatable but sell for high value)
making desert biomes more reliant on trade/caravans for survival.
balancing less grow able spots whit more value to trade whit.

[LordMunchkin]

Do plants die when it gets too hot? If not, that is something which should change.

Introducing water with the complexity of Dwarf Fortress or Gnomoria would be difficult, sure.  But a simplified version of water would work and would be easy to implement.  Simply assign a "hydration" value to every square.  Each soil type can absorb a certain amount of water when it rains, then gets drained when stuff grows in it.  When it hits zero, nothing else grows in it.  No pools, no runoff, nothing *difficult* to code or CPU intensive.

The only downside of something like this is that growing inside becomes more challenging.  You have to open up the roof when it rains, close and grow until the crops are complete, then open again.  One rainstorm would have to provide enough saturation to support a few harvests or else cold climates would become impossible.

And extreme desert?  You'll be living off meat until you get hydroponics.

I honestly think a simple water need along with several sources of water would be easier to implement than adding a hydration value to everything.