A17 Brainstorming - How to Name Yearly Quarters?

[DariusWolfe]

Also, how is Secundus any less informational than Quadrum? Lol

Let me put your question in context.

"How is January any less informational than month?"

[Rimrue]

That's my point. Neither is anymore informational than the other. It's all about context. Also read my comments in the other thread and you will see why I was teasing Tynan about it. Lol

[Nelrea]

Im fine with Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter.

Personally i think its the easest to read and understand.

[O Negative]

Something interesting I just realised about my own personal playthroughs is that I almost never rotate the planet to select a southern hemisphere tile to play on. The only time I ever end up in the southern hemisphere is when I play a random landing spot playthrough.

The only reason I bring this up is because I think it's is the only reason I never noticed the flipped seasons thing Tynan is trying to address here.

I'll try to keep track of all of the new suggestions I can, but there's only so much I can do on my work breaks, haha.

[ymc]

I did not figure out the reasoning for Aprimay/Jugust, and realised I too mostly play northern stuff. You can always assign a colonist to throw molotovs light wood on fire to keep warm in a solar flare/coldsnap/volcanic winter, but a solar flare/heatwave combo can spell unavoidable doom for an established colony "just because" you didn't have camelhair dusters for 70°C (yes, I am aware of passive coolers).

[Sjaa]

I'd be fine with Quarter 1, Quarter 2, etc. As long as I can tell the cold months from the warm months (tooltip or whatever), that's all I need.

Some languages just literally number the months, so "Aprimay" would just translate to "4-5" unless the translator themself wants to come up with clever names.

[The Man with No Name]

Jafema (Janfebma)
Apmaju
Jugsep (Julaugsep / Jugusept / Jugusep)
Ocnodec (Octnovdec / Ocnod)

[ymc]

Or every 5 days have a full moon, and then ... haha just kidding.

What if, and I am serious on this, only tribals had access to the calendar at start? New Arrivals would start with just a days since arrived counter and the year.

Then, when you meet your first visitors or trade caravan, they explain the whatever-day calendar system for the planet (a different version for permanent condition: climate cycle), fill you in on the seasons and timezone of the region you're in, and then you get a countdown to next seasonal change in your hover-tooltip with emphasis on growing period. You know, similar to how you don't have a faction or colony name until one of your pawns suggests it via popup.

This would allow months to actually be different per planet, while explaining the emphasis on the local tile season, and allow the devs to throw a variety of random month names in there.

Could allow some humorous or challenging events:

• Trade ships bringing the wrong supplies for your local season (parkas right as winter ends?)
• Daylight or darkness seasons depending on extreme poles.
• Caravan informing you that eclipses are on a schedule, giving you a countdown hover tooltip. Maybe an extra large manhunter pack happens because you've been warned.
• Caravans coming through in Happy-New-Year-party mode that differs from when you landed.
• Misleading month names like Frostmourn, Harvestia, or Budshoot that really don't apply to your zone.

[Hans Lemurson]

I think RimWorld should just adopt the French Republican Calendar and Decimal time system. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Republican_Calendar

It's about 3:82 (Paris Time) on the 18th of Floreal.

The only problem I can foresee with this is that the Jacobin months are all blatantly Northern in their naming convention, since Thermidor is not the hot month for everybody.  But you can at least differentiate between month names and seasons.

Then again, what we really need are good names for the 4 equal divisions of the year.

The real fun begins if you try to make a system that takes into account the Eccentricity of an elliptical orbit and its alignment relative to the Axial Tilt.  Did you know that on earth, the Solstices and Equinoxes are not evenly spaced? 

.................
Oh! What about names based on Roman Fractions?

1st Quarter: Quadrans
2nd Quarter: Semis
3rd Quarter: Dodrans
4th Quarter: Completus

.................
The more I think about various naming schemes, the better I come to like Decembary/Aprimay/Jugust/Septober.

Quirky half-assed names that highlight the struggle of our colonists to make sense of this new world.

.................
Or maybe take a page from Dwarf Fortress and name the seasons after stones and minerals?

Wood
Stone
Metal
Plasteel

"On the 7th day of Plasteel, we were attacked by a maddened swarm of Boomrats."

[Neotic]

I second the use of naming the seasons their Latin counterparts

vêr                   spring
aestâs           summer
autumnum   fall
hiems           winter

[Hans Lemurson]

I second the use of naming the seasons their Latin counterparts

vêr                   spring
aestâs           summer
autumnum   fall
hiems           winter

This would make "Autumnun" Springtime in the southern hemisphere.  I think the idea was to find names that are hemisphere-neutral.

[Wanderer_joins]

Going on on Hans Lemurson's note about eccentricity, it would be fun to have this parameter in the planet generation besides "overall low or high temperature".

The quarters would depend on eccentricity ( http://www-mars.lmd.jussieu.fr/mars/time/solar_longitude.html ) and you could have short scorching hot summmers and long freezing winters.

Gameplay wise climate cycles do the job, sort of, but it's not natural.

[The Man with No Name]

Borealis is Latin for northern and australis is Latin for southern, so Borealis and Australis could potentially be the names for the seasons corresponding to northern hemisphere summer and southern hemisphere summer.

[ymc]

Well hey now, if that doesn't sound completely awesome and simultaneously solve the hemisphere issue ...

Secundus Borealis would spell summer for the north, while southern folks would see Secundus Australis being their winter.

[Limdood]

Aprimay has a definite connotation that anyone on earth already understands...northern hemisphere folks intrinsically understand "spring" and southern intrinsically understand "fall"

"April", "May", "Aprimay", and "Maypril" all work just fine.  EVERYONE understands that they're referring to the times of year corresponding to april and may on earth.  Earthlike planets would have conditions similar to earth at that time.

"1st quarter", "Primus", or "Gobbledyguck" don't have that intrinsic understanding built in.

I argue that the comfort and familiarity is a big help for the "Aprimay" system.  I ALSO argue that the possibility of "Aprimay" to be jarringly wrong (you settled in the southern hemisphere of an earthlike planet while you live in earth's northern hemisphere IRL, so spring is fall now) HELPS enrich the game, and gives you that moment of "Oh! i get it now! thats cool!"

I would be fine with Tynan keeping Aprimay, or changing it to April or May, but would be disappointed to see the quadrums receive nonsense names or names with no current real world association that naturally comes to mind (the impersonal "1st quarter...")