[A18] Tornado Rework (e.g. simplified EF scale)

[XeoNovaDan]

Tornadoes in Alpha 18 need a bit of a rework, because right now, they're just an arbitrary 'oh hey i'm going to destroy a bunch of crap olololol'.

My proposition is simple: as I hinted in the title, there should be some simplified implementation of the Enhanced Fujita scale with RimWorld tornadoes, of course leading to varying damage degrees. Here's a rough outline:

Weak Tornadoes, equivalent to EF0 - does little damage to objects with a fillpercent of less than 0.25, and pawns with a body size of 0.55 or less. 65% chance of spawning.

Moderate Tornadoes, equivalent to EF2 - does moderate damage to objects with a fillpercent of 0.4 or less, and pawns with a body size of 1 or less. Also does minor damage to structures such as walls, and can remove 50% of thin-roofed tiles that it passes over. 25% chance of spawning.

Strong Tornadoes, equivalent to EF4 - Basically what the current tornadoes are. Removes all thin-roofed tiles that it passes over. 10% chance of spawning.

It'd also be nice to, just like real life, only have tornadoes occasionally spawn only when there's a thunderstorm of some sort going on.

I hope this gets considered!

[Edit: Suggested spawn rates tweaked].

[Crow_T]

Sounds like good ideas to me, having them spawn only during storms is also a good way to give players a way to be on alert.

[Aerial]

Since the low-end tornados would no longer cause much damage, you could potentially add a rare high-end tornado swarm that drops several tornados during the same storm. 

[XeoNovaDan]

Yes, that'd also not be a bad shout, since there are cases like that.

Weak tornadoes may not be much threat to infrastructure or trees, but they can still tear up exposed crop fields

[Dingo]

Good idea. I haven't tested A18 much other than updating mods but it would not be intuitive to have only one type of tornado. I agree with Aerial, too.

If you have relatively harmless tornadoes there should also be some rare ones with more AoE which cause a lot of damage to crops, buildings (including stuff like turrents/sandbags) and people/animals.

[O Negative]

The only problem I see with this solution is that, while incredibly rare, you're still going to find yourself in a situation with a really powerful tornado spawning on top of something valuable and the player has nothing they can do about it.

I think it'd be interesting to see a natural disaster detection system. Realistically you'd need more than one type per natural disaster, but I feel like you could get away with a single building offering warnings to players about Tornadoes and other potential disasters to be added in the future.

Basically, the event triggers with a delay and two potential letter warnings. If the player has built a natural disaster detector, the first letter triggers and is simply a warning of an incoming [insert disaster here]. This letter points to where the disaster is going to strike. This gives the player ample time to minify/move anything and anyone of significant value from that spot.

If the player hasn't built the detector, however, that first letter doesn't trigger. Instead, the player unwittingly continues playing normally through the delay period, and the disaster strikes with the second "warning" letter which is the one we're currently getting in the game.



The problem I've found with setting multiple magnitudes of an event* is balance and feedback. We're talking about balancing potentially 4 separate magnitudes of the same natural disaster, and that just seems like more work than it's worth. It's not that I'm not a fan of the idea. I have personal mods that alter how cold snap and heat wave events work (different temperature offsets depending on severity). I just don't know that it's the right solution.

As far as general balance is concerned, I think tornadoes should heavily damage/destroy wooden structures, but they should only moderately damage anything higher tier than that. That's just my 2¢.

[Vlad0mi3r]

Tornadoes have been tweaked already and I am sure they will be adjusted again. Even to just allow some player agency in protecting things.

My biggest issue is actually the graphics. When I got my first one I was all excited "yay I get to see this thing in action" but it didn't seem to fit. Its all very smooth and neat just did not feel RimWorld.

[Sbilko]

Sounds good, it would make tornadoes less annoying.

+1

[Modo44]

There needs to be a way to properly roof areas to resist tornadoes. Reinforced concrete is really not rocket science, and it has a 100% chance of resisting any wind.