So I was musing about it and there's still some people who seem to miss the temperature bar a bit. On one hand one of the big issues with it was that though there were plenty of ways to mechanically make the environment "warmer" to stave off the cold.... eventually there was little mean or ideas on how to figure -other- hazards to protect oneself. Plus, the fact one could just spam campfires everywhere even on the coldest worlds meant that one often would just entirely forego the "cold protection outfits" in favor of purely just spamming as much campfires/etc as they wanted. This eventually was sacked, and for a while there was no weather effects that I know of except for airless worlds. Eventually, environment difficulty was brought back in the basic form of radioactive/frozen/burning climates and the appropriate "nanoskins" protection that, in stacking unlocks, gradually "unlocked" higher "climate tiers' in a way not too unlike the sector system. Recently I was seeing someone discuss the idea of "localized environment protection stations" to protect EPP-lacking players in their area of effect so someone who has unlocked higher tiers of planets could still invite those who lacked appropriate EPP gear. I liked the idea, even if it's one where current implementation of EPP meant their use would be very situational and quickly outlived as soon as everyone upgraded to proper EPP. But then I got myself thinking "You know, placing environment shields stations is KIND of like placing campfires as we did back in the original days of the temperature bar". So here is the thought I had: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Global Hazard Exposure Bar": Bringing back the concept of the old temperature bar, now updated to cover the multiple environments that have long since popped in the game. Not only that, but with the concept I was musing with... it would even be possible to support "dual extreme climates" such as "radioactive frozen planets" or "radioactive burning planets" among others concepts such as a more "granular"(yet not to the same degree than the old "temperature bar" system) experience "extreme conditions" that may require the player to give more thought about the challenges of exploring worlds with "extreme climates". How this would work is in a couple of ways: 1-Extreme Climate categories: Would remain basically the same for simplicity: Radioactive Frozen Burning However the effect would be that, unless you carry gear that -sufficiently- cancel out their effect(more on that next), they would cause your "extreme hazard exposure" bar to fill up until you start taking damage and automatically die from... well, over exposure to an extreme climate. One of the aspect of this is you could thus have the possibility to feature "dual conditions" such as "radioactive frozen worlds" where even if you are protected against one element... the presence of the second still causes you to suffer from the other. And not being protected to either means that, obviously, the "exposure damage" from the stacked debuffs would rack up faster than if you were visiting a planet with just the basic level of a single extreme condition(which is what I'm coming to next). 2-You reintroduces separate levels of "Extreme conditions" rather than them being limited to just condition type. Basically, under the old temperature system you had cold and frozen planet.... the later causing your temperature to obviously drop faster than the other thus presenting more of a challenge. The switch to the new system sadly meant we lost the "nuance" once found in planets of similar conditions. At the same time... it was a bit of a false nuance because it could just be overcome by spamming cheap campfires, as said before(I will come soon on how to not fall into that trap again). What you could thus get is something like: Notable(I)/Dangerous(II)/Deadly(III) Radioactivity. Notable(I)/Dangerous(II)/Deadly(III) Extreme Cold Notable/Dangerous/Deadly Extreme Heat The effect of this is that "notable" radioactivity(or other effect) could fill your "hazard exposure" at a certain rate, but still do so slowly enough that an average player may likely be able to actually be able to do a fair amount of exploration before they would have to return to their ship even without wearing protections. In comparison, going to a "deadly extreme conditions" planet without protection would mean you could barely move any respectable distance before you die or would find yourself forced to beam back to your ship. Which bring us to the next talking point... 3-By expanding EPPs' augments' system, you can now reintroduce the concept of granular protection in a simplified way: Basically, instead of the linear upgrade system where we upgrades EPP in this way: Breathing EPP->Radioactivity EPP->Heating EPP->Cooling EPP... We now find ourselves a new ways of reusing existing EPP into a less linear system; You can start by crafting a basic "Breathing EPP" as before however now with two slots. Because ontop of existing Augments chips... you would be able to introduces new craftable(or purchaseable at a new special Outpost shop)"EP Upgrades"(for environment Protection) chips for each of the existing extreme conditions; Thus someone's basic breathing EPP may be slotted with one "Heat Protect I" Augment and one "Bonus Health" Augment allowing it some basic heat protection while exploring worlds with extreme heat conditions while getting basic EPP(breathing) functionality ontop of some bonus health. Existing EPP would continue to exists however, as upgraded versions of the breathing EPP which would, by default, negate not one but two tiers of their affiliated conditions. Thus, EPP crafting and upgrade would look something like this: >>Radioactive EPP(2 Slots, protect against 2tiers of radiation) Breathing EPP(2 Slots, no innate protection)>>Heating EPP(2 Slots, protect against 2tiers of extreme cold) >>Cooling EPP(2 Slots, protect against 2tiers of extreme heat) & Radioactive Protection Augment (protect against 1 tier of radioactivity, effects stacks with other instances of this augment in an EPP) Cold Protection Augment (protect against 1 tier of extreme cold, effects stacks with other instances of this augment in an EPP) Heat Protection Augment (protect against 1 tier of extreme heat, effects stacks with other instances of this augment in an EPP) With such a system, you bring back the concept of "gearing up" not just to protect yourself against monsters, but the environment itself without sacrificing a player's ability to fight monsters. Someone making a "Heating EPP" with Cold Protection Augment may not have to worry about cold planets ever.... but will still need to think their gear for cold planets. However, rather than just difficulty tiering planets under more tiers because you can now support dual Radioactive+Heat/Cold planets which means that your upgraded Heating EPP with cold upgrade will still be inadequate the day the player encounter a "Dangerous(III) Extreme Cold & Notable(I) Radioactivity" planet. And by simplifying it under a I-II-III tier system of severity, you make it very easy to read and understand when it comes to With such a variety of planets now, it also brings another possible effects: 4-Planet Difficulty doesn't has to be tied to environment anymore: Or rather.... though planets with extreme conditions could be prone to develop lifeforms that are appropriately "thoughened up", the fact that environment conditions now present such a difficulty in itself mean you have more freedom to reintroduces more difficulty variation between planets without it being tied to the environment. Or rather... monster difficulty in itself could become a new factor separate from climate. Thus it could be perfectly possible to find a planet that would be listed as: "This "Toxic Ocean planet suffer from DEADLY(III) levels of RADIOACTIVITY, nonetheless the local life forms are of relatively LOW THREAT(1) and generally of weak constitution" while another could be listed that way: "This arid and deserted planet is generally safe to travel to, however the local lifeforms are ferocious and extremely dangerous, the results of survival of the fittest pushed to it's extreme. Consider all local lifeforms to be of INIMAGINABLE THREAT(10) level." Meanwhile, it could still be interesting to go to planets with more extreme conditions because they still would feature the possibility to see items and constructions that wouldn't spawn anywhere else(for example the "Foundry" minibiome found on some of the updated Volcanic planets in the Nightly) Not only that, but it also offer yet another possibility for planet generation: 5-You open the possibility for new "extreme weathers" effects: Basically, if "extreme conditions" are something that can be numbered on a tier basis it offers a new possibility: "Extreme Weathers" effects that carry some of those exposure effect. For example, you're in a "Dangerous"(Tier 2 Extreme Heat) Scorched biomes planet and you carry a Cooling EPP with Bonus Health and Light II Augments. You're travelling around without issues because your Cooling EPP will cancel out two tiers of Extreme Heat conditions anyway. However, suddenly a red tinged wind starts to flare up... and literally so. There's even minor fires bursting out here and there where the surface of things are exposed because that "Scorching Wind" is that hot.... and suddenly you realize your "Extreme Hazard Exposure" bar is filling up because of of the effect of "Scorching Wind" is that it "raises local "Extreme Heat Conditions" by one Tier". So suddenly your Cooling EPP doesn't suffices because it only protects against two tiers of Heat and suddenly you're facing -three- tiers of extreme heat. Sure, since you still negate two of these tiers, the bar is not feeling -that- fast... but you'll eventually need to find some cover... or perhaps the umbrella of another protective item(which I'm finally getting into). Thu 6-With such variations in climates, and the possible investment required by each, you open a new possibility: Localized EnviroProtection Stations! Now if it was all about fighting this with just EPP, all we'd be facing would be nothing more than a somewhat more complex version of the current system where everything would be based around your EPP. Now, however, part of the old temperature system's charm is that you could fight off the cold by... well, simply building a campfire to warm yourself up. In other words, gear was not just your only option to fight extreme conditions, you could fight off local conditions by affecting the local ground itself. However, it was sadly defeated by the fact that campfires were also an extremely cheap item that was easy to spam everywhere around. However, since we're -not- reproducing the old system we can reproduces the experience in a less easily exploited way: By introducing new EnviroProtection Stations. The way these would function would be very simple: Within a very large circular area of effect(the outlines of which might even be delineated by a faint "Shield" effect), perhaps even large enough to build a small outpost inside, the player receive the equivalent of Tier 3 protection against the appropriates extreme conditions. So, unlike the old campfires there would be no guessworking how much "heat" is needed to fight the cold... a single such station would be enough to fight off even the most extreme conditions. In return... they individually would be likely take more resources to craft than a campfire. Being larger than specialized EPP packs, however, they might ironically be able to be cheaper than a mobile EPP; If EPP backpacks are the finely tuned high tech that is trying to produces a strong environmental protection shield around a mobile person and thus require advanced materials to produces such effect; Localized Enviroprotection Stations are the more primitive, yet very efficient, "brute force" solution that can be built out of more basic materials thanks to the economy of their larger scale. However, once placed they might be only able to be destroyed(like personal teleporters purchased from the 2-stop teleshop) The advantage of this are twofold: First you're bringing back the concept of protecting not just yourself, but your environment. Individually they are cheaper than a regular EPP backpack, yet more efficient. You could land on even the most scorched of planet, drop one of these in the viscinity of your landing zone, and be able to go freely without even a protective backpack... however you would still be limited by the limits of it's area of effect... unless you dropped another Thus, second, making them a clearly high tech object, however, you're able to justify a notable production cost for them. Maybe you could even asks the likes of advanced materials such as AA batteries or the larger batteries in their recipe, stuff that can be either crafted or purchased from the Infinity Express(for still less than the investment in a teleporter) if one hasn't unlocked the proper crafting station tier to make them. Basically the ideal is that it would be very easy to place one, even two such stations on a planet to create "safe zones" no matter what the conditions are or even start a colony on even the harshest of planets.... but it would still require a truly heavy investment from the player to full "protect" ALL of a planet from local extreme conditions.... yet such would remain possible to do given the investment from a player dedicated enough(however, it might realistically cover only the surface whereas the skies and undergrounds would still remain much unprotected). Enviroprotection Stations progression could go something like that: Oxygen EP Station(Basic EP Station tier, available early in the game. provides Air in area of effect, for construction on asteroids and other airless worlds. Likely build with tungsten+living roots. Basically very cheap.) ----- Radioactive EP Station Heating EP Station Cooling EP Stations (built concurently in nonlinear order leaving the player to pick and choose what they want to focus on. All provides 3 tiers of protections against their appropriate element. Likely to be made from titanium and the appropriate "core" item) ------- Universal EP Station(should be made of more costly material. Provides 3 tiers of protection against ALL existing extreme conditions.... their use would thus be for planets which features dual extreme conditions such as Radioactivity+Cold or Radioactivity+Heat. As a result they should be fairly expensive(likely durasteel) but would allow even the colonization of such worlds). --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Closing note: I do not expect a concept like this to ever make it into 1.0. This is why I'm making this thread not to discuss it's implementation into 1.0, but instead as something to discuss the potential of for content updates AFTER 1.0. I don't expect this to make it into "official" versions of the game either thus this is why the thread title also cover this subject as not just a suggestion for the official game, but as one discussing this subject on the level of modding if it is decided that this idea would not fit with even the future planned structure of the game after 1.0 After all, there's many reasons why even such a system might be potentially considered excellent for modding yet not fit with the design goals for official gameplay. To close this, here are the Pros and Cons I'd imagine to such a system: PROS: -It would free up exploration as a matter of personal rather than difficulty progression goals. Rather than environmental conditions being tied to a "unlockable difficulty tier", it would make extreme conditions become just that; Extreme conditions found on different worlds for different reasons. Thus exploration would become less a matter of "What environment difficulty is next" but rather "what are the local conditions and what worlds do I want to explore next". It means that even ores would not be as much tied to the local conditions that they might just be the general "difficulty" of the planet which would be freed up from being tied to a specific environment... on the other hand, planets with more extreme conditions may simply find themselves with a greater quantity and variety of resources(for example, a mineral rich volcanic planet would spawn ore in much bigger veins even on the surface than what you would find on a "safer" planet) -It brings back more of a challenge with the environment: by introducing extreme conditions tiers, you introduces the possibility of "tier increasing" weathers effects that forces you to rethink your playstyle. You may have a Cooling EPP on a Tier II Extreme Heat planet... but the local weather also features scorching winds which can momentarily bring up the local conditions from Tier II hazard to a Tier III one... will you try to tough it up in the hope the winds end soon? Try to find shelter in a cave protected from the wind's debuff? Or would you instead plonk down a Cooling EP Station that you can later use as a "safe zone" you can run back to the next time the wind rise up(and thus maybe even start building a small base or outpost inside the new safe zone)? -It avoid the traps of the old temperature system: By making EP stations a potent and affordable yet still demanding structure to build, it both provides the concept of "localized environment shields" against even the most extreme of conditions... but avoid the trap of making "localized protections" options that are so cheap they can be placed everywhere for next to no costs. -It also open up the possibility for more types of environment than currently possible thank to supporting the idea of worlds featuring -two- separate extreme conditions to protect one's self from. Thus we could see biomes and weathers such as something like this: -Nuclear Winter(Cold I, Radioactivity II ): A world covered with ruins carpeted by snow and eternally cloudy, battered by dangerous radioactive fallout from a past nuclear war. Like a Scorched world, most survivors are either mutants living in ramshackles ruins and shacks of scavenged materials trying to warm themselves up around what makeshift heat generators they produced... or they living in undergound and well protected vaults. Generally dangerous mutated creatures and abandoned weapons of war can basically be found everywhere... some of which might still be up for the taking for the enterprising unscrupulous treasure hunter. -Radioactive Winds: Winds ladded with the fallout of past radioactive incident batter the landscape, bringing up local radioactivity hazard levels by one tier unless one can find appropriate shelters. The weather effect could not just be found on radioactive worlds, but also places like Scorched biomes which normally have no radioactivity effect by might still see lingering trace in such occasional winds. CONS: -It's still more complex than the current system. Even if the current system is more linear... it is also much more streamlined and thus VERY easy to understand for pretty much anyone. -Potentially TOO much difficulty with such things as hazards tiers-raising weathers and the possibility of dual conditions making it potentially "too much grind" for those who'd wishes to explore everything with as little limits as possible. -May conflict with plans of a more ordered progression of tiers/difficulty that may be preferred by the devs. An advantage of the old system is that it very much offer a -very- clear system of progression in regard to star systems; Gentle stars are the easiest difficulty, Eccentric Stars are more difficult than Gentle, Radioactive stars are more difficult than Eccentric, Frozen stars are harder than Radioactive ones and finally Burning Stars are harden than Frozen stars. It is a very simple and direct system of progression that is very streamlined, and a more complex system may prove to be needless confusing or frustrating, especially if the difficulty of monsters and creatures is not clearly identified between one world and another. May also see players wondering why one should bother with "extreme conditions" planets if they can get the same ores and materials from safer environments... or why they should need to deal with so much grinding to safely access such worlds if not. All of this said, I'd very much like to hear people's thoughts on this, either as a suggestion of something to look as a possible post 1.0 development or instead talk about it's potential(let alone feasibility) as a players-made mod which could thus implement this as content separate from the official version. Meanwhile, I'm actually pondering the thought of creating something like an illustrated sheet/model that could more rapidly describe and showcase some of the ideas listed here to give a potentially better idea of how this could play out inside the actual game, as well as possible mock-ups or concepts of what stuff like stations and all could look like.
honestly i love this idea, and would be an amazing mod in fact I've been tempted to work on something like this as well as adding a sleep derivation system along with other similar ideas (canning food to help keep it preserved) along with more survival aspects to the game... the main issue I see is with the biggest mod out there... FrackinUniverse Most people who play modded starbound have this mod and well I'm pretty sure adding the environmental hazards like that you would have to either have it: 1) Be a total overhaul and conflict with FU (in which case most would ignore it) 2) Just focus on the vanilla + the planets added purely from this mod causing a discrepancy when using FU (which would cause some people to ignore it unless it fell under catagory 4 as well) 3) Focus on a different aspect rather than the planets them selves (my idea was more based around the old system with a few extra features) or 4) Be an add-on to FrackinUniverse witch is a huge undertaking How ever I am not trying to say this shouldn't be done, I'd love to see more survival aspects in this game and was tempted to add my own at a later date (I just don't trust my modding skill quite yet as I'm still learning Lua) but I would love to see more things like this. I'm just stating when in the modding world keep other mods in mind.
I'm fairly aware this would be a ungodly complex affair. This is why I only ever see something like this happening only well after 1.0 be it through a mod or official development. Thanks for the context of FrackinUniverse players though, btw! I personally I did feel it would be a good way of bringing back concepts of the old temperature system, but updated to all the new extreme environment types that make up the current categories of extreme environment(namely Radioactive/Cold/Heat) thanks to a global "hazard bar" which every debuffs from radioactive/cold/heat would contribute to filling up unless counter-acted with a new tiered system of protections... which more gradual system could thus better introduce the possibility of weathers that themselves(like the snowstorms of old) could produces light degree of radioactive/cold/heat hazard. Which I think is perhaps the only thing really "lost" from the old temperature bar in that you lose the nuance between "mild" and "extreme" conditions. Like how the snow planet of old could see you be able to travel without too much difficulties until a snowstorm arrived to add another layer of cold effect suddenly beginning to act up against your temperature bar unless you covered yourself better(in this case, with an upgraded EPP) or found cover(by building a small shelter able to block out the wind. Technically, by using tiered debuffs, such a system might even better support the ability to be a "character setting" like hunger, because you could set it so that Tier2 and Tier 3 of hazards effect could only influences characters of survival difficulty and over leaving casual player able to simply craft the appropriate EPP for basic tier protection to go in any appropriate environments without worrying about the specific hazard's tier of it(since everything would be treated as Tier 1 climate at the worst). Which would fit well with what seem to be the design for casual characters who do not have to worry about going hungry or crafting personal teleporters all that much(except for linking colonies directly together to save on time when teleporting) when they can beam back up even from the deepest caverns(thus negating, for them, the only core disadvantage of flags as teleportation beacons). This said, even as a mod(and even moreso as a potential official feature update) I do not expect this to be something that would even be "possible" until well after 1.0.
1. I feel compelled to say this... Black text? Why? Why can't people leave text colors alone? I use the dark theme because it is easier on my eyes, and in the light theme, the text is already black, so WHY do people feel the need to alter text color like that? 2. Most of this is possible. Would take a crap ton of work, but possible. *qualification: Probably not exactly as you would like it, but perhaps with workarounds.
yeah it is possible though I don't think it'll ever be part of the main game, I thought it was part of Tiy's AMA but it must have been somewhere else where the Devs were talking about it but apparently they can't add in a heat mechanic with out people not seeming to understand it (their testers couldn't figure out why they were dying until they were told) it's just not something they plan on adding to the core game for reasons such as this. It helps keep a wider audience while still allowing modders to add it in if they want it. As for the blackness well I copied and pasted things and well it seems this form likes to keep settings like color and the like and I can barely tell a difference between dark grey and black on a white background, though I find a lot of people still use white text which is annoying for me as well... we should all just have that really ugly green background that no one uses for anything (other than transparencies) so we all see all the colors
Thanks for the reply! I feel bad for asking that question again in the other thread as I missed your reply here ^^; Also, if the black text is on my end, I apologizes! I use the light theme by default so I totally never noticed if I might have accidentally switched the text color.
Its all good. As for your question in the other thread, I don't know how they got it working, I never looked into it because it had its share of problems. That is understandable. Just sometimes it seems like some people are consistent in their use of colored text and it irritates me.
Instead of tiering the things give them numerical values. Each race gets a survivable temperature range. (Humans 20°C to 100°C, etc.) Each planet gets a day temp and a (usually) lower night temp. Each race gets a body temp (Humans 30°C) A characters temperature starts at their body temp and moves 1% closer to the planet's temperature each second (or game tick) Each star gets a radiation value Each planets gets a magnetic field value The planets radiation value is equal to the stars radiation value minus the distance to the star minus the magnetic field value. This value must be equal to or greater than 0. The players rads increase by the planets radiation value per second (or game tick) A player with a temperature outside of their survivable temperature range gets appropriate debuffs based on the intensity of the temperature. A player with rads above their survivable rads will get appropriate damage per second with intensity, but even players close to that level will be taking damage Radiation SLOWLY decreases from a character. VERY slowly. Clothing gets a temperature modifier that affects the characters body temp Clothing gets a radiation modifier that decreases rads per second. (Think lead or special packs) And that is how it should be. This will be my mod if I ever make one!
