Return of Waves

[ADM]

The new menu has a great vibe. It brought me back that very idealized thought I had back then of SW waves making their return in DST.

Just to be clear a plain copy of their effects and spawning would be a clear "no", they're not adapted. But a light version would definitively bring a lot more life to the ocean and extra dynamism to sailing. We're only on the lookout for Sea Stacks and the destination, otherwise it's all very monotonous. I'm to the kind that usually tune up the ocean fish shoals config so that more things appear, I also like to split the mainland into more islands to create more variety and patches of ocean depth around the map instead of a singular long shore, swallow, etc...

A lot of little things can make the blue horizon so much more exciting and I think interactive waves can play a good part in this. Now when I said that they aren't adapted this is probably the tweaks they could use :

• Less waves. Of course SW boats were very simplified so to make this a threat there had to be plenty. They had that nice dynamic spawning method that account for depth, season and the moon cycle, please keep this. Let's even account lunar rifts in this !
   
  • I don't know if the shoreline should ever be getting waves, but I'm not against it, I don't have a problem about revisiting the way us players would need to defend and park our boats, always set the anchor before leaving, stay put between docks, or use wave breaking mechanism like sea walls ( or you know, maybe we could grow our own sea stacks *cough* )
    But sure they'd need to be sparse.
     
• Considering the current rare waves of DST (Gnarwail, Malbatross...) doesn't do boat damage, it wouldn't be a bad idea to actually have the deepest part of the ocean to have a funky amount of waves to really set preferable routes to not be pushed off-tracks, or instead risk it all or take advantage of today's direction.
  On a side note it would be nice if bumpers had kind of a negating effect on waves push, it isn't the case currently so these things really feel helpless against so many things. Right, Crab King ?
   
• Crashing waves should increase wetness a lot more, survivors don't really have a need to be properly geared up for sailing atm but considering wetness protection could become the norm on the ocean, I'm here for it.

For the most I'd say this makes for a great sailing QoL. It's not making anything easier, barely harder, but definitively enhance the way we live the sea. One of my favorite DST mod has always been the Ocean Currents because of how much presence this single feature has.