Temporal Compass

[Thalius]

A discussion with the community on the Wilderlands server has brought up the topic of whether the current map mechanics are too overpowered for what we desire in our game.  Pretty much all of us wish we could turn off the coordinate feature altogether, and half of those who do also wish they could turn off the entire map/coordinate system.  Even with the coordinate hud turned off on the server though, you can still see the coordinates when you pull up the "m" key map, so they are still there.

Before I say more- I don't want to be misunderstood. I love the way the map and coordinates work. It is a brilliant game feature. I'd rather not have it so overpowered on a multiplayer server though. Less info on the map means greater care traveling and a greater need to work together to explore the map and make the world accessible.

What we want is some sort of middle ground between the current map/coordinate system, and no navigation system at all. The discussion led to a mod suggestion, which resulted in a conversation in the mod forum between myself and l33tmaan, which has led to this suggestion.

We'd like to see a temporal compass added to the game.  Here is how it would work:
 

• Every player would start the game with a broken temporal compass. This compass is represented on screen by the your blue temporal gear, and would be permanently displayed in a box on your character screen that you pull up with the "c" key. 
• The only thing the compass can do at start of game is display temporal stability in a region and tell you what your temporal stability is.
• The temporal compass can be repaired and upgraded by acquiring parts found in ruins or purchased off of traders.
• Upgrading a temporal compass with various parts would give various functions and modes to your compass that you can set and activate as desired.

Some examples of functions I would like to see would include:

• Upgrading the compass to show direction by way of a navigation compass (N,S,E,W). This could render simply by a needle/arrow showing up discreetly above the temporal gear when facing north.
• Upgrading to allow for a temporary waypoint to appear that directs you  to your last place of death. This waypoint only lasts for as long as your item de-spawn counter is set for.
• Upgrade the compass to allow for custom waypoints to be recorded. Once upgraded to allow for this, adding a waypoint would require the use of a temporal gear by taking a temporal gear from your inventory, opening your character screen and clicking your compass with the temporal gear.  Your temporal gear could be upgraded by acquiring additional parts to allow for additional waypoints to be set.
• Other temporal compass related features and settings could be envisioned, I'd imagine....

A player's ability to navigate the game world could still become quite powerful and simplified, but they would have to work for it rather than simply having all that info given to them from the start.

And besides that, it would simply be a lot of fun to explore and hunt down parts for improving your compass' abilities in order to make navigating your world easier and more productive.

Enthusiastically submitted for consideration...

~TH~

And again,  l33tmaan had about as much input on this idea as I did.

[l33tmaan]

Possible upgrades:

• An in-game bestiary that displays enemy stats such as damage and HP. This has little value right now, but would be nice if/when the combat update comes around and possibly multiple damage types are introduced. If you want to go farther, you could have things like a mob's name and HP value not even display until you've acquired enough info about them. This info could be gained through killing them or possibly just observing them for long enough.
• You know the in-game coordinate system now? Make that into two separate upgrades: One for your Y value, or up/down; and one for your X-Z value, or North/South/East/West.
• Enemy radar: While active, enemies above a set level or damage tier or whatever will cause a 'ping' to play when they come within 20-30 blocks of you. Perhaps a separate upgrade causes it to work through walls, or it just does that automatically.
• Ore radar: An auditory version of the propick's Node Search feature, but only searches for one type of ore at a time. Perhaps you insert that ore into the compass to 'set' it to that type, like putting 50 units of copper nuggets. When active, if you come within close range of that ore vein it will making a pinging noise.
• Player tracking: Cut someone with a knife while holding a temporal gear to use it and cause them to always appear on your world map and/or minimap.
• Language translator: Things like tapestries and journal entries feel REALLY rare in this game, so let's compromise by having them appear a LOT more, but you don't get a lore entry on them unless your compass has a translator installed.

Is this pushing the boundaries of what a compass can do? Yes. Do I care? No, it's magic. 

Edited March 27, 2021 by l33tmaan

[Selzyr]

don't take me wrong, I'm all up to make the game more challenging, and I do agree with the fact that "map settings/configs" should be more open to be edited by server owners/players to give the option to people to change settings as they please(this allowing people with different play styles to go about playing the way THEY want, on a MP server ofc, this would come down to the type of server the host/admin/mods/staff is building I guess, and if the players are keen on or not to play with such settings.)

what I mean is, give the options, don't force ideals/ideas/mechanics onto people, we already got quite a lot of people that can't survive the first night coming and going daily(and not touching the game after buying it) because "its too hard." again, let me put this out there, I DO AGREE the map system is to overpowered, but we shouldn't limit, we should ask for options, expand on what we have and bring more to the game, this, would increase the number of players on my point of view because of the different type of servers(on the MP aspect of VS that is) and on the SP aspect, hey, some people don't like extreme hardcore gameplay, but enjoy other aspects of the game *shrugs*

I could see this being a mod in the future tho.

Edited March 26, 2021 by Selzyr
typo

[Thalius]

15 minutes ago, Selzyr said:

what I mean is, give the options, don't force ideals/ideas/mechanics onto people, we already got quite a lot of people that can't survive the first night coming and going daily(and not touching the game after buying it) because "its too hard." again, let me put this out there, I DO AGREE the map system is to overpowered, but we shouldn't limit, we should ask for options, expand on what we have and bring more to the game, this, would increase the number of players on my point of view because of the different type of servers(on the MP aspect of VS that is) and on the SP aspect, hey, some people don't like extreme hardcore gameplay, but enjoy other aspects of the game *shrugs*

As with many things such as this, I feel the setting option should still remain to turn the game map on or off as you like. My suggestion never hinted at removing the map as an option.  Of course, with the map, the temporal compass would have less value in upgrading, but that would be the player and server owner's call to make. 

I'm not for removing such features from the player's list of game options; rather I'm for the idea of building into VS a more immersive world exploration experience and options that enhance that aspect of the game.

Edited March 26, 2021 by Thalius

[Thalius]

23 minutes ago, l33tmaan said:

• Ore radar: An auditory version of the propick's Node Search feature, but only searches for one type of ore at a time. Perhaps you insert that ore into the compass to 'set' it to that type, like putting 50 units of copper nuggets. When active, if you come within close range of that ore vein it will making a pinging noise.

Is this pushing the boundaries of what a compass can do? Yes. Do I care? No, it's magic. 

I think this one suggestion might be pushing it a bit too far and would over-ride the need for and use of the pro pick node search setting.

Then again, a server owner might want to disable the pro pick node search altogether and save this ability to detect specific ores for those who have acquired the tech that allows them to do so.

I'd be in favor of all the other upgrade options without question.

[l33tmaan]

I figured that since the compass can only be 'attuned' to a single ore at a time while the propick will detect anything in its radius would be a decent balancing point, was I wrong?

Also, you could easily have a setting during worldgen to automatically include certain upgrades for all players. You could play like Thalius and make people earn everything, or you could include the coordinate settings and things would be virtually indistinguishable from now, only with more bonus features to search for. This game's good about customization.

Edited March 26, 2021 by l33tmaan

[Thalius]

12 minutes ago, l33tmaan said:

I figured that since the compass can only be 'attuned' to a single ore at a time while the propick will detect anything in its radius would be a decent balancing point, was I wrong?

No, not really. It would sort of downplay the need for the propick node search though, since one could utilize the compass method for finding ore deposits.

13 minutes ago, l33tmaan said:

You could play like Thalius and make people earn everything, or you could include the coordinate settings and things would be virtually indistinguishable from now, only with more bonus features to search for. This game's good about customization.

Exactly. My suggestion does not remove any of the current options from the game. What it does do though is provide the option for a more challenging and immersive mechanic for acquiring and earning the ability to have access to this info in the game world, and more.

[l33tmaan]

Here's another batch of upgrades I thought of:

• Wayfinder - You expend a temporal gear to gain a certain number of Waypoints (which aren't inventory items). Waypoints are glowing balls (or squares) of light that float at roughly head-height. A Waypoint automatically searches for the 2 closest Waypoints within 100 blocks or so that it has line of sight to, and if it finds one, the two are connected by an illuminated beam. Waypoints decay over time, flickering as they lose durability until they eventually fade out for good.
• Distance Measurer - While active, a number appears somewhere on screen that always displays the distance from you to what block your pointer is on. The distance can be displayed in blocks or meters or whatever.
• Animal Locator - You expend meat or honey to 'set' the compass to locate whatever kind of animal is associated with your expenditure (redmeat = sheep and pigs; honey = bees, etc.). An arrow appears on your compass pointing to the nearest animal that matches within a few hundred blocks. Can be adjusted to only detect certain generations.
• Instability Locator - While active, an arrow appears on your compass pointing to the largest source of temporal instability within a few hundred blocks.
• 3D Enhancer - Your compass becomes 3D. Anything that it points to now considers its height elevation relative to you.

Whatever items require expenditures (Ore Radar, Wayfinder, Animal Locator) should only last for a set amount of time. Maybe an in-game week, but it should be adjustable either way.

Edited March 27, 2021 by l33tmaan

[Thalius]

This is something along the lines of what I would envision:

At the top of the arc around the gear there is the pointer showing north.
The yellow, brown and green dots are waypoints. These only render on the compass when I'm within 500 blocks. The yellow waypoint is just showing up on the arc; the tan waypoint is still quite a ways off to my left; and the green waypoint location is very nearby to my right.
The purple diamond is another player on a server that I have tagged with a gear in order to allow them to show when I'm within 500 blocks of them..
The maroon blotch that I'm walking toward is my last death point.

As for how any other info might render on the compass- I'm sure many other symbols or visual effects could be applied simply but effectively.

Edited March 27, 2021 by Thalius

[Thalius]

In another post regarding waypoints, someone suggested server wide waypoint options.

If we had something like the temporal compass such as I've laid out, I'd offer that we also have "Lodestone Devices".

These devices would not be actual stones- they would be devices that were made to interact with temporal compasses.  They could be purchased from traders or very rarely found in ruins, and when placed and activated they show up as a universal waypoint on all temporal compasses within a certain radius of the device.

The device could also be upgraded to have a greater range; so what started out as a device only effecting temporal compasses that come within one or two hundred blocks of it could be expanded to have a range of, say, up to 5k blocks.

Edited March 27, 2021 by Thalius

[Domkrats]

I'm playing on another server usually so maybe my experience would be different. But while reading this suggestion, i also had some ideas regarding maps and exploring. Im not too much into compass thing.

At first my reaction was similar to Selzyr's, but then i though more about how game could become more challenging, yet not too harsh on new players, whom sometimes are struggling already atm without tutorial in this game. Also on servers usually players are suggested not to build so close to each other not to ruin other players experience or not to get all recources around their bases.

So it thought.. How would we still suggest players to play on their own, but keep them closer, forcing to cooperate more?

I think it would be cool to have some type of library or totem, where players could "deposit" some knowledge about areas they have explored and marked or TL's activated. Or maybe you would simply want to share your base coords.
As players come and go, after while it gets too hard to understand which area/cave is explored...and what area could and should still be explored.

For example: I have marked lots of stuff in my map i don't need anymore, but new players would  still want to get - like public copper vein for example.
So i could mark things on map with special marker, that way adding it to knowledge, i would later want to share with the "world" (By choice).
When i deposit that info into library or totem, only those special marked things would show up in map.

Although this suggestion might not seem helping at map being owerpowered, i think that problem is not that map makes game easy. My idea it that  such "library" could be found or  built/placed by admin. It would force players to stick to that one place more if they want to keep up with map exploring. Also that would make more sence to cooperate on trips and adventures. Because now my experience that many players tend to play alone and attempts to make cities usually fail after while, because they don't have the "center" and no need to be together..unless they might lose some valuable information while being alone or some good builders just come together just to build. Also it is not fun to be in area, you thought is undiscovered, yet all caves are already empty of any ores.

In short. I think problem is not that game is easy because of map. In my opinion multiplayer mode has lack of possibility to share information which map could give to all players.

Some small things like trading and selling/buying stuff could alse be made using map, that way anyone could place their store in map or at some special advertisment board. So new player would already know where to head if food is their main concern at start. Or maybe some good player would made hotel for newbies... Ideas come as i am typing, so i better stop.  

Edited March 29, 2021 by Domkrats

[Thalius]

Thanks for the feedback, Domkrats!

Your suggestion is more of a mapping/community map sharing suggestion though.  I'd like to see a true cartography mechanic work its way into the game with an "immersive cartography" setting that can be turned on.  (I've already made a suggestion along those lines.) This would allow a player to basically make their own maps based on where they have been.  Having an ability to make a community map would be a natural and logical expectation as well with an immersive cartography mechanic.  I'd think there should be some sort of map that can be placed on a mapping table where players can return and add to it based on the development of their own personal maps. Players could update their own map there if they please.

My suggestion here is for the addition of a compass so that we can navigate and explore new areas over long distances with more challenge than we have currently with the current map and coordinates system, but not with as much difficulty as we would have with no navigation helps at all.  I want both- an immersive and dynamic mapping and compass system.

[Thalius]

I don't usually bump my own posts, but I am on this one, at least once.
I'd seriously enjoy seeing this or some other similar mechanic make it into the game, either as core content or a mod.

~TH~