Large environmental hazard

[Umbrella]

Hello,

 

I have the feeling the game could exploit world persistence much more. Sure, you can build bases (that zombies will destroy), build bridges (boring after a few days), mines, have POIs destroyed...

 

What if we had huge environmental events that completely altered the map ? Is it a direction for TFP ? I really see this as a huge step to leverage world persistence, which too few games really have.

 

I have in mind the following events:

 

a) Flood : creates many water blocks on a large area / near rivers

Dryness : removes/reduces water blocks

b) Hearthquake : creates chasms on/under a large area

c) Fire rain: randomly throws molotovs in an area

d) Acid rain: deals damages, destroys trees

e) Land slide / surface slip / snow or sand avalanche : how to trigger the collapse of a structurally sound structure ?

f) Volcano / geyser : can we make a mountain appear ? Can we add a new lava block that would behave like water (+ damages ofc)

g) Zombie rain: they drop from the sky

h) Hell gate: an underground zombie generator. They could either make their way up, or destroy the map's basement

i) Living Nature : cactuses would constantly appear around you

j) Toxic emanation. Some air-like block that would be suffocating (no oxygen), or could turn into fire/explosion when the player uses a torch or a gun in it.

 

I wonder about the feasibility of these events with modding, and maybe also the performance hit:

1) How can you trigger such events ? How can you localize them in a decent size area ?

2) How do you affect huge areas of the map, in a possibly structured way ? Can we create a chasm by importing a prefab ? Make mountains collapse or create new ones ...

3) How to manage the dynamic of it : can we make a new mountain continuously growing ?

4) I guess we also need some slow regeneration of the biomes. I want persistency, but I don't want the snow biome to become all flat because all the snow has avalanched.

[Umbrella]

I am disappointed not to have any reactions on this one

 

Do you have an example of dynamic add/remove blocks from the game. Some unity script maybe ?

[Ragsy 2145]

Most things are feasable with mods , xml mods xpath and SDX.

 

Performance aspects would be the major reason some things have not been incorperated in mods yet, you have to cater for the lower end PC market also.

 

A few of the things listed are in other games already.

[Umbrella]

Thanks Ragsy,

 

I want to give it a try, but wouldn't know where to start with. I have good skills in general programming, and understand xml and xpath.

 

I guess the simpler would be the zombie rain. Where could I find examples of mods using scripts that repeatedly generate entities or affect blocks in an area ?

[Ragsy 2145]

Well spawning.xml and the biomes.xml would be the places to start ....

 

Blocks and entities can be spawned into biomes, such as Guppys vehicle madness SDX overhaul allows spawning of vehicles in different states into area's , perhaps look at his methods.

 

 

Found this in biomes.xml if it helps ..

<!-- Weather definitions here -->
<weather>
<property class="Foggy">
	<property name="Spectrum" value="foggy"/>
	<property name="Temperature" value="-5"/>
	<property name="AmbientSound" value="..."/>
	<property name="ParticleEffect" value="..."/></property>
<property class="Rainy">
	<property name="Spectrum" value="rainy"/>
	<property name="Temperature" value="-10"/>
	<property name="AmbientSound" value="..."/>
	<property name="ParticleEffect" value="..."/></property>
</weather>

 

Guppycur-s-Vehicle-Madness-Overhaul

 

 

You may find answers to some of the other things in your lists here also in the main mods forum by downloading and examining other mods and modlets

[Guppycur]

There is an earthquake mod somewhere...