[Suggestion] Atmospheres

[QuQuasar]

The header artwork for the DLC release thread shows what appears to be an asteroid with a natural atmosphere. That sort of light scattering in the sky isn't possible on an atmosphere-less body.

Of course, this might just be a gradient effect to make the art look better (Klei's artists have done that before), but it could also be an absolutely amazing gameplay mechanic, especially now that we can visit multiple asteroids in a single game. Imagine exploring hot, high-pressure chlorine worlds with balm lilys scattered across the surface, or a polluted forest world with thick vegetation and slimelung in the atmosphere, or a thin cold oxygen atmosphere inhabited by dense pufts and wheezeworts.

Here's my suggestion for how it could be implemented:

'Atmosphere tiles' spawn the same as space tiles, but instead of straightforwardly deleting gas they absorb and store it in a hidden 'atmospheric reserve'. Then, whenever the pressure on an atmosphere tile is less than atmospheric pressure (proportional to the amount of gas in the reserve), the tile spawns in gas from the reserve. Gas from the reserve would only be deleted once it's capacity was exceeded: small asteroids would top out with a thin atmosphere, while large ones would support higher atmospheric pressures.

Natural atmospheres would be a large but ultimately-finite resource pool, and the more of it you harvest, the more atmospheric pressure will drop and the less cost-effective it will be to pump it into pipes. This also presents a potential long-term goal for players: got an excess of oxygen? Terraform the surface!

Equal parts threat and opportunity, I think something like this could be a lot of fun. What do you think?

[Sasza22]

I was theorizing about that before. I think it would be a nice idea to try. It could provide a nice explaination for no meteors but at the same time reduce the efficiency of solar panels by blocking a portion of the light. I`d like to see how it plays out. A lot of interesting interactions could happen with an atmosphere.

[blash365]

Well, if you argue that the color of the light indicates an atmosphere because of physics, then you also must include that an astral body usually needs a certain size to maintain an atmosphere.

Let's just assume that it is the gradient effect, you were talking about.;)

 

Regarding the gameplay aspects, i think that the game is already heading in that direction.

But having all those resources accessable on the surface of the planet might be a bit too easy to gather.

 

[Slvrsrfr]

some trace gases, tiny packets, should 'blow-in' from the sides, i feel. the brown outline at the top is strange.

[blash365]

12 hours ago, Slvrsrfr said:

some trace gases, tiny packets, should 'blow-in' from the sides, i feel. the brown outline at the top is strange.

That is actually a good point. Come to think of it, the asteroids do already have some kind of fleeting atmosphere, by having a small area that is already unobstructed right below the space biome. That way it will be filled with gases (that are eventually escaping into the vacuum of space) for most of the time.

[Xenologist]

Perhaps a pressure barrier for different maps, sure may add an additional month or two to separate the different asteroids in order to enable multi-threading and asteroid specific gravity (Hence forth, atmospheres) and perhaps even critters that work differently on different asteroids.

[Pulstar]

This is something I really would have liked to see. The issue would be how to treat gasses other than atmospheric that get into the atmosphere. Maybe slowly delete non-atmospheric gasses from atmospheric tiles to abstract diffusion into part of the planetoid that are not accessible*?

Imagine if we could have all the weird and hostile destinations from the base game as playable (not necessarily survivable) maps we could land on. So much cool stuff there, satellites, ice giants with methane ice, gas giants, organic masses.

*Or is the antfarm slice of the planetoid we see some weird spatial projection/representation of a circular space rock turned into a rectangle? Probably overthinking this.