Futher weather development

JohnTheBlindMilkman shared this feedback 3 years ago
Submitted

The new weather feature added to the game in Sparks of the Future update has opened a new plethora of ideas. I do understand that the feature is still "fresh" while I'm writing this and that this suggestion may not be relevant in the nearest future. That having said here it goes.

I do enjoy new weather feature and the challange provided for the player and I think You (KSH) could really "go to town" with this feature. Making it effectively a threat to the player, showing him the true power of elements.

I'd love to see a strong gusts of wind lifting small rovers and ships into the air and violently shaking the big ones. A strom reminescent of the weather on Kamino in Star Wars, where one would think twice before going outside.


An important not is that even though such velocity of wind or endless downpour may not seem "realistic", beacuse we do not encounter it on our planet, we do find them on other planets in the Solar System. However I do not know to what degree would it be possible to implement to the game, as applying external forces to every entity on a planet is asking for much from a game dev standpoint.

On a side note: would it be possible to see rain droplets "hit" the block surface (glass especially)? I'd imagine it would be incredibly immersive seeing and hearing the rain ring, personally I love that sound.

Replies (2)

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I also feel like it should have been fleshed out more before release. It's an awesome feature that makes planets more "alive" but it feels like it's half-finished. Weather effects also limit visibility inside your stations and ships and it's very strange to fly from clear skies into sudden fog (is there really no way to show weather from a distance through volumetric clouds or even just some particles at least). Lightning is also a little underwhelming, I'm missing actual light effects and it doesn't feel as heavy as lightning should.

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I'd love to see further development on the weather too, it added much more thinking and challenge to otherwise solitary gameplay, at least for singleplayer.


My personal observations, ordered by importance:


  1. Pressurized environments should not have fog, rain, snow, or any weather effect (I like how the official SE streamer said "I keep forgetting to close the pressurized door" to dissimulate that problem LOL).
  2. I'm glad that you allowed the weather to fade as you go deeper into a cave/hole in voxels or as you move far away, yet I should still be able to see the weather even from inside a cave or from a distance.
  3. As you did with drill ore yields you should think about rebalancing some blocks efficiency considered that now is harder to get power, I'm on triton, and personally I think the main source of energy should be from hydrogen, yet hydrogen engines are really inefficient, especially if you think about the effort to collect and process ice. So, why not make HYDROGEN ENGINES MORE EFFICIENT?


Can't stop promoting the WIP "living planets" mod, which seems to be a very good one to be inspired by in order to improve the weather system.

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