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AllenWL

Water Currents. Stopping swimming across oceans

13 posts in this topic

As it stands, water travel is really well, off.

You can swim across entire oceans, and drowning really never happens. And that tiny boat can carry you across miles and miles of ocean without a single problem. Not to mention that you rarely lose course in the sea. As long as you know where to go, you will get there without having to alter course, and there is absolutely no danger of getting off course and landing somewhere you didn't mean to go.

 

I think adding water currents will help make water travel better.

I'll be honest with you when I say I really just have an outline of an idea.

 

I have no idea how water currents should be made, or what direction they should go, but I do have an idea on how they should act.

 

Water currents would effect animals and players more then boats. And there should be currents that pull you down as well, making drowning while swimming a very real possibility. Trying to swim across water currents should use up lots of energy, meaning that trying to swim across large bodies of water will be dangerous, and most likely require a boat.

 

Water currents under water would be quite chaotic, making a underwater swimmer get tossed around, and making it hard to move underwater.

Surface currents should move in more or less one direction, making it possible to utilize water currents to travel much faster than on land

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Pretty complicated. Perhaps counter intuitive to enjoyment if over done. I do like the idea's of rivers generating with a current, and always felt it was missing. Even if weak. It would be a good step towards industry. Typically they would flow towards the ocean, but that depends on the tide... Rivers flow to the sea during the day, and from the sea during the night? Given how chunks generate it might be pretty hard getting this to work. Giving energy to water mills, but only during the day period they're set up for. Or tidal generators.

 

Ocean currents are based on land structure (inc. water depth), environmental temperatures, salt content (water density).. Getting them functional in game would require making them pretty simple. Maybe as two 'sub boimes' of the Ocean. That flow like a river. One is the warm climate current that flows towards the equator. The other cold climate current that flows away from the  equator. Zig zagging and curving as unpredictable as a river. Allowing players to access other climates quicker and even make trade routes if they find a good continuous current chain. A lot of work will be required to get them working predictably with world gen.

 

Cool things could come of this. If there is meeting point between currents. Players could set up a trade station (think like an oceanic oil rig) in the centre. Sea faring warriors could use their knowledge of the ocean  currents to launch attacks on distant empires in PvP servers. From relative safety.

 

Currents that pull you down are normaly rip currents. Which are based on land structure. So again, hard to program. Swimming underwater, especially in the ocean is normally quite safe. This isn't Finding Nemo :D.

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This would require a few other suggestions to be properly implemented: ships and mechanical power.

 

However the currents could spawn on chunk gen, much like ore. A spot across x number of chunks would have a consistent "flow" of current. Possibly with a few landscape/ seascape tells as to what is going on in an area.

 

Rivers would always have a particular flow and be decided on direction at world gen.

 

 

This wouldn't be as realistic as possible but would be fairly easier to code than modeling real life currents.

 

 

But without having larger ships (not necessarily galleon style ships), having any amount of sea based trade or combat is but a pipedream

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I would also like this ideas but rivers should have this same feature.

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Rivers would always have a particular flow and be decided on direction at world gen.

I think that's the best idea, but what if the current is north to south, and the river goes east to west?

For rivers to have a one-way current, the rivers would need to go one way as well

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As I said, base it on world gen, if the river turns north or south have the current change accordingly. not have all rivers run one direction.

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Flowing Rivers! What a nice idea :)

 

But I think, it would look very weird when the river turns - how would world gen know the right direction when the river does NOT run north-south or east-west? Would there even be a "right" direction in such a case? One water block this way, the next the other? I could imagine that'd look quite funny ...

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Well visually I think the water should look "still", as massive amounts of flowing water is lethal for servers and clients, (thus the Achilles heel for Atlantis cities- cant be too big or they become a lag well) but a "flowing" effect would be used. By pushing the player and objects along its assigned path. The current would be destroyed if a player removed the water, but if water is replaced it will take the current only if connected blocks are already "flowing".

 

 

Plus this could be  chance to overhaul river gen in worlds, and stop with the randomly loopy rivers

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As I said, base it on world gen, if the river turns north or south have the current change accordingly. not have all rivers run one direction.

 

Well, I was more worried that a river that goes east-west meets a river that goes north south, and this happens 

 I

 I

V<-------

 

It doesn't matter if you can see it or not(although I agree it should look 'still'), it would be awkward, to say the least, as the boating along a river like this would end up making you sudden;y stall, at best, and make you run aground, at worst

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River currents would probably be more difficult than ocean currents. Ocean currents are actually a bit easy, they predominantly follow set paths when given the chance, which can be mapped on a globe, diverging when there are landmasses in the way. You don't have to store any data by block, just do chunk-by-chunk checking. With rivers of course, they have to flow in meandering paths, and with no "source" per se, as they flow ocean-to-ocean, it's a bit difficult.

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River currents would probably be more difficult than ocean currents. Ocean currents are actually a bit easy, they predominantly follow set paths when given the chance, which can be mapped on a globe, diverging when there are landmasses in the way. You don't have to store any data by block, just do chunk-by-chunk checking. With rivers of course, they have to flow in meandering paths, and with no "source" per se, as they flow ocean-to-ocean, it's a bit difficult.

How does river look generation-wise? Is it just a curvy line or can it have a "sleeping" object that serves as river gen seed? If latter, we can use this to get small-ish river to work pretty real-like.

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How does river look generation-wise? Is it just a curvy line or can it have a "sleeping" object that serves as river gen seed? If latter, we can use this to get small-ish river to work pretty real-like.

 

rivers currently and always have been nothing more than the boundary between two biomes.

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rivers currently and always have been nothing more than the boundary between two biomes.

If you where to implement water currents,

Would it be better to make a river current mechanic that fits the river generation as it is now,

Or would it be better to change river gen altogether to fit a river current mechanic?

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