New Feature Suggestion - Weather and Their Effects.
TheRelicOfOwls
Texas Join Date: 2016-01-06 Member: 211014Members
Texas Join Date: 2016-01-06 Member: 211014Members
First off I'd like to say I love how the world looks thus far. The water is beautiful, ambient lighting between biomes fits well in the color schemes thus far, and the fish are unique and many are just gorgeous. However, the world still needs more depth in both the creatures and just how it functions. My suggestion to bring a little more life to the environment is to include unique weather effects; a sort that would only be seen on this alien world and not just copy cats of earth's own weather.
Specific weather effects I've brainstormed:
-Magnetic storms: This one is my favorite I've thought of. I'd like for some sort of pulsing storm to roll through that causes instant, but temporary, power outages on seabases, seamoths, cyclops, and tools for the duration of the event. There could also be prevention measures taken in the form of upgrades for the various tools and vessels so that they aren't effected at all/as much.
-Roaming whirlpools: This would basically be underwater tornadoes that would likely yank loose resources in the area and toss them elsewhere once they've passed, as well as destroy portions of kelp in kelp forests or the small coal disks in the safe shoals. This sort of natural disaster would only really effect low-depth biomes, and could encourage going to deeper areas. Safe shoals not so safe anymore though lol.
-Acidic Fog: I find this one to be the most debatable, but the idea is that after or during acid rains a myst would gather on the water's surface, and would discourage surfacing. It creates an interesting, but probably frustrating, mechanic in which getting to out of the water and into the escape pod or onto islands would be a little riskier. The issue I find with this one is that there's no real interest in staying above water anyway, therefore something else to discourage surfacing just seems unnecessary, but it came to mind so I decided to humor the idea.
-Biome specific natural events: Things like areas that have a geiser/volcano errupt more frequently and increase the temperature in a large area to unsafe levels, or Mushroom tree biomes let loose spores in certain intervals that make the biome foggier than usual, or blood grass biomes actually "bleed" drawing in more agressive fauna while scaring away passive ones. Biome specific events could be just about anything really. As long as it seems fitting to the concept of the biome and creates more depth to a world that only has looks going for it right now I'd be okay with it.
What are thoughts on the idea of weather, and do you have any unique ideas of your own to put forth? Discuss
Specific weather effects I've brainstormed:
-Magnetic storms: This one is my favorite I've thought of. I'd like for some sort of pulsing storm to roll through that causes instant, but temporary, power outages on seabases, seamoths, cyclops, and tools for the duration of the event. There could also be prevention measures taken in the form of upgrades for the various tools and vessels so that they aren't effected at all/as much.
-Roaming whirlpools: This would basically be underwater tornadoes that would likely yank loose resources in the area and toss them elsewhere once they've passed, as well as destroy portions of kelp in kelp forests or the small coal disks in the safe shoals. This sort of natural disaster would only really effect low-depth biomes, and could encourage going to deeper areas. Safe shoals not so safe anymore though lol.
-Acidic Fog: I find this one to be the most debatable, but the idea is that after or during acid rains a myst would gather on the water's surface, and would discourage surfacing. It creates an interesting, but probably frustrating, mechanic in which getting to out of the water and into the escape pod or onto islands would be a little riskier. The issue I find with this one is that there's no real interest in staying above water anyway, therefore something else to discourage surfacing just seems unnecessary, but it came to mind so I decided to humor the idea.
-Biome specific natural events: Things like areas that have a geiser/volcano errupt more frequently and increase the temperature in a large area to unsafe levels, or Mushroom tree biomes let loose spores in certain intervals that make the biome foggier than usual, or blood grass biomes actually "bleed" drawing in more agressive fauna while scaring away passive ones. Biome specific events could be just about anything really. As long as it seems fitting to the concept of the biome and creates more depth to a world that only has looks going for it right now I'd be okay with it.
What are thoughts on the idea of weather, and do you have any unique ideas of your own to put forth? Discuss
Comments
I'm pretty sure that radiation is affected by wind systems, so perhaps storms could temporarily increase the radius of the radiation zone if you haven't fixed the Aurora's leakages. Or maybe cause radiation damage for the storm's duration unless you're in an adequately shielded location or wearing the radiation suit.
That's an interesting idea, and once again promotes moving from area to area due to whatever danger is occuring, in this case the radiation. Besides the Rad suit really needs to have more use other than the area around the Aurora
These would damage your bases and subs in shallow waters and interfere with stearing your subs forcing you to go deeper for there you would be save.
But the idea of magnetic storms and other under water "weather" is downright brilliant.
They need a lot of consideration and fleshing out though to feel right and not turn of the player.
I'm convinced that the developers have things like this on their to-do-list (and if not not, they need to add it.
They are planing this game with so much detail so far that they probably won't miss something like that. And it would be relativly easy to implement something like that... (compaired with ecosystem-simulation for instance).
All these evemts would contribute to the survivial aspect of the game and make it feel more realistic.
Furthermore you might need to get readings and analysis of these "weatherpatters" to prepair for these events (that could last for some days or even weeks).
That could mean new parts for the bases.
I would like that very much.
Really a great idea!
Now, I'm not sure that this is relevant to what you're talking about here, but the Koosh Zone and its Koosh Bushes are going to emit loud noises that'll scare off fauna in a future update... well, at least according to the wiki I linked. >.>
Either way, I should like to see more hazardous/beneficial events take place in specific biomes. More specifically, I'd like to see events happen at specific times of the day... whether they be nocturnal, diurnal, happen only in the evening or in the height of the afternoon, that would most certainly pique my interest!
That does sound like a brilliant addition in combination with weather actually. Sitting in a base and just studying a storm rolling in on a screen, causing me to run all over the place to prepare would be a fun sort of tension in the game. Probably different tools to deal with each sort of occurrence would be nice to, rather than a cure-all machine that analyzes it all, or even better have a modifiable surveillance device that can have it's abilities expanded into being able to record such events, but only to a certain range due to mod limits (like the 4 slots for a seamoth).
That's actually exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about and it's good to hear they are working on some additions. The depth of each biome should require one to develop a deep understanding of it over time to be successful in it, and small things like that could be the details to lean into that sort of depth.
I could see this being used in a biome such as the deep grand reef.
Exactly.
I think the must loose the gather-survial and build up to a seemingly realistic enviorment that you are thrown in and that is to understand in oder to survive and thrive.
I think to understand and to adapt to the sourroundings could be a really interesting approach on the underlying theme: Man and Nature
I would certainly love that.
Brilliant. Easy to do with a great impact on gameplay.
Nice. Seems like that would be easily doable in the current game too.
To build on your thoughts - Subnautica clearly takes place on a planet with a tropical climate, which suggests moving air masses and the occasional tropical storm. It would be so, so cool if you could build your own weather doppler radar, and have it...
- ... placed on an island
- ... tethered to a balloon or kite
- ... floating on a small platform
Once you have your radar powered up by your local electricity grid and jacked up to your base computers, you would be able to see precipitation in real time within the area covered by the radar (of course, the radar should be able to be upgradeable, with an increased radius for every new tier). Since being caught on land/in air/on the surface in a severe tropical storm with heavy downpour and 10 meter waves would be potentially lethal, survivors may want to keep a close eye on the radar display!