Day/Night Cycle Suggestion/Comment/Observation

Suggestions
1

Hi Guys, first of all I want to say I am a new user to the site, but have been following you from the beginning and wanted to thank you for all of your hard work, and to let you know the game is progressing incredibly well! (Finally decided to purchase beta)

Anyway on to my suggestion/comment/observation. I have been watching the most recent developer videos and I have heard mention about the game having seasons. I think this is awesome, but one thing to keep in mind (if you have not already thought about it) is that your day/night cycle needs to change with the seasons if you are sticking to forms of realism.

While watching the archives(Coding some UI in HTML and JS (10 days ago)) I was looking at the original progress meter, and noticed that at 6pm the meter switched to night. Now I know you have moved away from the meter idea, but I wanted to just suggest that whatever you guys decide to go with you should make the cycle work with the current month.

For example, it gets dark around 4pm in the winter, but stays light outside till around 9 in the summer months. So I just wanted to present this observation, and hope you guys have plans for implementing this suggestion.

Again, thanks for all of your hard work. I will continue to provide suggestions if you guys find them useful.

  • Dan Whitehouse
1 Like
2

Unless you live on the equator, in which case it’s pretty standard despite the seasons :wink:

But seriously now, this is a valid point and hopefully unless they’ve already implemented it, @Tom @Ponder or @sdee will see this and make the appropriate changes. :smile:

3

@Smokestacks lol, true. Living on the equator would change things :smile: And thanks for tagging the developers. I didn’t know I could do this. :blush:

4

No problem, it’s a valid point and I, like you, would like to see it in the game :smile:

1 Like
5

welcome aboard @danwhitehouse! :smile:

based on your comments, its sounds like you’ve watched the most recent stream? i am almost certain that @Tom responds to a random question from the chat about this very thing (that the cycles should adjust according to the seasons), saying (major paraphrase pending) that it was a good question, and something they would consider…

6

Yea, I was talking about the most recent video. I don’t remember him saying that but it’s very possible he did. (I’m going to rewatch it now, lol) If he did, I must have missed that. But either way thanks for getting back to me. :smiley:

Keep up the good work guys!

7

i like the idea but would it be better for the central between the equator and the pole would be a better time to base it on sense it does not get as dark as fast in the winters and the summers still get dark later than the winter but its a mild change unlike the gets dark at 4pm

Now mind this is not making fun or saying anything mean bout where you live but if you wake up at 6am(saying that’s the time they start it) and go to bed at 4pm not much time to do much. while where i live it is 6am to bout 6pm. while the summer here is 6am to 9pm and spring 6am to 8pm. Remember 6am does not change because its an example

8

@Tom , @Ponder, @sdee
I was also thinking, while rewatching the video, you talked about the day/night icon and how you would like the clouds to be animated. I also would like to suggest that if you are including weather, it might be cool to have the icon also show the weather. So for example, if its cloudy, have the clouds animated, or if it was raining/snowing you could have raindrops/snowflakes falling, etc… :smiley:

@SteveAdamo
I just rewatched the video, and didn’t hear him mention it. It is possible I missed it again lol. The video had a lot of questions about animation for the models, and at the end of the video there are questions about exploration, and if you have to micromanage the units, or what parts of the game are coded in. Then there was a question about the number of classes the game had. and then it ended with a picture @Froggy made. If you happen to know where it is, I would appreciate you letting me know. I hate suggesting things that have already been suggested. lol

@blackArcher52 I know what you mean. And I take no offense. I live in the US, and in the east coast. So for me, when winter comes, around 4pm it starts to get dark.

But anyway, I don’t necessarily mean that all of your people should go to sleep at 4pm. I just mean that as the seasons change, the time in which it gets dark should change. All of the units should still roughly go to bed around the same time (lets just say 9pm for example), but it would be interesting during the winter if it starts to get dark at 4pm, and instead of everyone going to sleep at 6pm, they would have to be awake in the dark for the remaining 3 hours. Which could lead to more encounters with mobs/monsters.

My guess is that they plan utilizing all of the seasons, which in turn would most likely make the location along the mid-latitude regions of the planet. So, if that is the case, the time in which it starts to get dark should/would need to change with the seasons.

Again, thanks for the feedback everyone. :smiley:

9

my apologies… perhaps it wasnt in that particular video… but i am positive i’ve heard him respond to the general idea…

i am unable to access twitch from work, but i’ll try and give it a go this evening… :wink:

10

I seem to recall this being mentioned as well, but I think it was mentioned in the surprise Day/Night Cycle live-stream and not the official one.

1 Like
11

now here’s an idea that will have to maybe come after beta, what if they made like earth in the way that where you pick as your starting point would change how long each season last. The more at the equator the more summer and the higher north or south more winter and in the mid-latitude regions and mix of all the seasons

12

This will be pretty easy to mod I think.

13

@twip That would explain why it lol

@blackArcher52 That is an awesome idea!

@Miturion I am a software developer for an education company. Did they say the mods are made in LUA? I don’t know that language, but I might start looking into it.

14

@danwhitehouse Yes, mods will be written in Lua. They say it is quite easy. Should be even easier for you.

15

Awesome. I look forward seeing what api they are offering.

16

it will be extremely robust, as this is one of the key design decisions they made when dreaming up SH… everything will be moddable from top to bottom… :+1: