How is stability determined?

[Thorfinn]

I'm not asking for any top secret algorithm. Just if I climb to the top of a ridge, is there some rule of thumb that the valley I see will be good or bad? Quite often anything close to the shoreline is garbage. But not always. If I'm in the middle of a broad, flat plain, the gear might be turning slowly. Climb one hillock, the gear speeds up, climb another a few dozen blocks away and it will turn the other way. I'm just not able to come up with any patterns. Or was that the idea? You have to go there to find out?

 

Thanks!

Edited December 5, 2021 by Stephan Jerde

[Philtre]

Aside from being affected by depth below the surface when in caves, I think the variation in temporal stability between different areas is largely random. So you just have to keep an eye on your wheel; or you can turn the whole mechanic off if it bugs you too much (you can do this at world creation, or using server commands in an existing world).

[Maelstrom]

Temporal stability is random, but tends to increase as you descend in caves.  Sometimes that gear spins wildly counter-clockwise (CCW) just below the surface, sometimes it's barely creeping CCW as you approach the deepest depths of a cave.

Apart from that there's no indicator whether an area will be stable or not.  

[Hal13]

i think the only reliable thing is: the deeper you are the more unstable it is and the higher up you are the more stable it is. I haven't encountered unstable mountain tops.

Areas around ruins seem to be unstable more often than not. Large swamps and plains seem to have some unstable regions reliably. Large bodies of water are handled as a reference point for depth hence it's not too surprising that around coasts the area is unstable with a higher probability.

 

Some indicator would be nice (even if only sounds would be slightly off near, maybe closer than 50m to such a region), but not having any indicator is one reason why i believe it's not actually a physical occurence in the world.

I usually turn off the mechanic nowadays as, as it is now, it doesn't give me anything, would be nice to be able to still have the occassional temporal storm though, i mean as long as one doesn't turn them off too. If the mechanic wouldn't just be more or less randomly something like a health drain or if there were ways to stabilize an area it would be more interesting, but it often just prevents me from building in nice spots (and i'm not really into terraforming other areas into such spots)...

[Thorfinn]

Thanks, all. That's kind of the conclusion I reached, too.

@Hal13, interesting. Never even thought to look to see how deep the water was. Quite possible that a deep cave right offshore explains the difference. Starting to wonder if it might not have something to do with the number of non-solid nodes in the columns around you? Like if you are atop a large cavern, that's more unstable? Which is why somewhere with mountains is inherently more stable, with many nodes above sea level being solid? That would at least be useful.

If it's just random, I'm not sure it's worth leaving on. Way too much terraforming for too little benefit.

[Hal13]

43 minutes ago, Stephan Jerde said:

thought to look to see how deep the water was.

You misunderstood. larger bodies of generated water with skylight access count as sealevel which the algorythm uses to determine on which y level ores should spawn, which might mean that stability is dependent on that too. if so the stability on sealevel might be random and the game goes towards more unstable downwards and more stable upwards from it.

It looks to me as if solid/non-solid blocks don't make any difference.

Maybe some modder would like to give us a tool to get more useful data on the matter? idk, stability goggles or something, tinting the landscape more sepia the more unstable it is?

Edited December 7, 2021 by Hal13

[Maelstrom]

I like the idea of a sephia tint when entering unstable areas.  Fits in with the game nicely.

[Hal13]

19 hours ago, Maelstrom said:

when entering unstable areas

actually i thought when looking at an unstable area, not just when entering it. kinda like a visible fog in that area.

atm it is like radiation or like co2 totally invisible but potentially deadly, but unlike both we have no tools to measure the danger before entering the area.

[Sparkle Kitti]

I found that being near ruins tends to be negative and especially around rifts. I wonder if you took all the blocks from the ruin, including any that might be buried, would that fix it? I doubt it be interesting thought.