[Suggestion] Space Weather Forecast

[blash365]

There are a few voices in the forum already who are missing the meteor showers. I dont necessarily miss them tbh, but i expect them to be back in some form at some point (maybe you are planning some asteroids who are constantly showered by meteors).

I want to suggest a different system that might be more dynamic, scalable, interactive and would give the good old telescopes a long-term purpose:

Space Weather

There can be certain space weather effects on the space grid that can span over multiple tiles and will move into weighted directions around some centerpoint in the galaxy.

The size, speed, distance from center, effect scale, etc. can be depending on the type of cloud.

Some effects could also disappear or reappear in different intervals, others could be persistent (but moving).

 

Possible effects are:

• meteor shower (obviously), but maybe different types
• emp cloud (all machinery will malfunction when connected to a too large powergrid)
• lightning storm (charging & damaging your electric buildings)
• frog rain (new critters)
• rain (ice/liquid)
• dust cloud (reduces sight, leaves small amounts of sand/debris)
• tornado (reduced walking speed on surface)
• sunflare (sunburn, blinds dupes, increases solar panel effect)
• eclipse (darkness, scared effect, unless dupes use telescope to look at it)
• radioactive cloud (inflicts radiation effects on surface and upper levels of asteroid, leaves radioactive materials in its wake) (credit to @Pulstar)

 

To predict the events from happenings dupes could watch the sky and depending on their skill, we could see the path for the next X steps of the weather movement on the map. If it is forecast to hit our asteroid, we will get an automated warning, otherwise the weather effect will appear without warning (unless you follow the spacemap).

 

Some planets might be circled by weather effects, while others (e.g. the start planet) are relatively safe. Start options can enable/disable certain weather effects and increase/decrease the rate, size and effect of them.

 

What do you guys think? Any nice effects that i missed?

 

[Pulstar]

Combined with that other suggestion about atmosphere this is something that really could be interesting. I kind of don't see how a space tornado would look like, even if ONI is quite deep into weird science territory already in some areas (mostly the with critter diets).

Imagine a world with thunderstorms, where you harvest raw power with lightning rods.

Also we could get a radioactive cloud for free nuclear materials, whenever nuclear stuff gets added.

[blash365]

23 minutes ago, Pulstar said:

Combined with that other suggestion about atmosphere this is something that really could be interesting. I kind of don't see how a space tornado would look like, even if ONI is quite deep into weird science territory already in some areas (mostly the with critter diets).

Imagine a world with thunderstorms, where you harvest raw power with lightning rods.

Also we could get a radioactive cloud for free nuclear materials, whenever nuclear stuff gets added.

Yeah, the tornados are not such a good fit. But i wanted to have as many examples as possible.

I will add your radioactive cloud to the list. Cant believe, i missed that.

[AddTheJuice98]

Not worth it, you just gonna keep bunker doors shuttered all the time.

[blash365]

13 minutes ago, AddTheJuice98 said:

Not worth it, you just gonna keep bunker doors shuttered all the time.

That depends on the weather effects. And on whether bunker doors are the right reaction to the weather effect.

[AddTheJuice98]

Just now, blash365 said:

That depends on the weather effects. And on whether bunker doors are the right reaction to the weather effect.

Ok, most of the time.