Flooding and Droughts

[alex RABYBUCK]

I've been playing the game for a while now and really enjoy the game play loop and tackaling the adverse weather esspecially in winter. I think that the added challange of spring, summer and autum weather challanges would really add an extra dimension to the game. I'd love the worry of having a bad year and having to rely on last years supplies to get through the winter. 

Having looked at some of other post on this forum the idea of massive storms, tornados and hurricanes sound really fun but I havn't seen many people mention droughts and I don't believe anyone has mentioned flooding. 

These events could range massivly in severity from minor inconviences such as having your pit kilns made inoperable for a few days to massive issues like dammaging submerged areas or washing animals and blocks away. 

I imagen that implimenting a feature like this might be quite hard as though the game does a fantastic job simulating localised weather I don't think it is simulating evaperation as part of that. I know that tilled earth for crops has a water saturation level so I don't know if this could be applied universally to simulate how much water a block could hold before puddles/ floods began forming. 

Might be completely possible to impliment but I just think it would be cool to be even more worried when you see a big storm cloud rolling in over the horizon.

[LadyWYT]

Welcome to the forums!

5 hours ago, alex RABYBUCK said:

I havn't seen many people mention droughts and I don't believe anyone has mentioned flooding. 

 

5 hours ago, alex RABYBUCK said:

These events could range massivly in severity from minor inconviences such as having your pit kilns made inoperable for a few days to massive issues like dammaging submerged areas or washing animals and blocks away. 

This is probably why you haven't seen anyone mention it--getting your progress wiped due to circumstances you couldn't prevent isn't fun for most. Flooding also poses the issue of...how do you simulate that level of water physics, while still having a game that runs well on older hardware?

Droughts I would say are already in the game, somewhat. Areas have their own chances of rainfall; some get more than others. And sometimes you can go for quite a while without any rain at all, even in an area with high rainfall. It's not really a problem though, since it's rather easy to irrigate your farms so they always have water.

5 hours ago, alex RABYBUCK said:

puddles

I am definitely in favor of adding puddles though. It would be really fun to go splash in them after a big storm.

[Echo Weaver]

8 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

This is probably why you haven't seen anyone mention it--getting your progress wiped due to circumstances you couldn't prevent isn't fun for most.

Well, we do have lightning, so natural disasters aren't unheard of. 

This wouldn't be my priority on the huge list of features on the roadmap, but it's another hazard you'd need to mitigate, and that can be fun.

[Entaris]

This is probably an idea for after the river rework.

Can't have seasonal flooding without proper floodplains.

[Tabbot95]

I mean there's the problem of the world being 1 meter increments too;

 

if it were in 1/2 meter increments (idk sub-blocks;) it would be slightly easier as you could have a more gradual "flooding" going on; where even a slight rise in the water table results in your sunk-floor hut getting wet.. but regardless..

[Teh Pizza Lady]

A meter of water is not a light flood. A light flood is a few cm of standing water, no less than 30cm give or take.

Anything over that would warrant a significant natural disaster that would affect more than just the floor of your hut getting wet. Your farmlands would be completely submerged for starters and your plants would die. This isn't a good idea for the base game. Best for a mod, tho!

[LadyWYT]

56 minutes ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

A meter of water is not a light flood. A light flood is a few cm of standing water, no less than 30cm give or take.

Anything over that would warrant a significant natural disaster that would affect more than just the floor of your hut getting wet. Your farmlands would be completely submerged for starters and your plants would die. This isn't a good idea for the base game. Best for a mod, tho!

Actually, that gives me an idea of how the concept could work, but it hinges on rivers being added to the game. Basically, if rivers are added, then add swaths of blocks along the shore and designate them as "floodplain", similar to how forests utilize forest floor instead of the typical dirt/grass blocks. Floodplain blocks, of course, get submerged in a thin layer of water when it rains, and are more likely to be found in warmer climates. If tilled, crops such as rice receive a major boost to their growth, making it profitable to turn floodplain into rice paddies.

When wet, floodplain behaves similar to a water block, in that players will get wet, sink down, and have slowed movement when traversing it. Floodplain blocks are only one layer deep, and can be dug up for medium/high fertility soil. Replacing floodplain blocks with other dirt blocks will not create more floodplain. Likewise, building on top of flood plain will fill the interior of the building's lower floors with one block deep water whenever it floods, assuming the building is built at ground level and isn't built on a dock-type structure.