More immersive prelude to temporal storms

[justniek98]

First of all, I like to express how much I love vintage story and how I very much enjoy the new content coming out. 

During my playthroughs I kept thinking the temporal storm warnings were a bit un-immersive, so that got me thinking. What if instead of a text warning, the following would happen:

• Instead of "a light/medium/heavy temporal storm is incoming", it starts to thunder in the distance, and the skybox changes to a more rusted tint. 
• Instead of "a light/medium/heavy temporal storm is imminent", the thunder is more frequent and with every lightningstrike the temporal stability drops a bit and the rusted filter is more intense for a second. 

[idiomcritter]

I like the idea of making some sort of atmospheric hue/change.  A number of times I've been so focused that I miss the text message (until its too late).

[LadyWYT]

I do like the text warnings, as they generally get my attention immediately and give me time to either prepare for battle or get to a safe spot. At the same time, it would be nice to have a more immersive transition.

Maybe instead of the thunder and lightning, those weird metallic clanking noises that come with temporal storms/rifts? I think those noises also start creeping in when your stability meter starts getting low. For a really dastardly approach--put small flickers of movement in the distance, toward the corners of the screen. Faint puffs of rusty particles or ghost drifters; something to provide enough movement to catch the player's attention but not enough to actually identify.

[justniek98]

@LadyWYT Oh I really like the dastardly approach. That can also be combined with maybe those trumpet sounds you hear when walking through rifts, but then in the distance. 

[LadyWYT]

Another thought that crossed my mind--instead of atmospheric changes, what about some sort of temporal clock you could craft to check when the next temporal storm is coming? It could be crafted from temporal gears, a Jonas part or two(like the intricately wound spring), and maybe an electrum plate or some electrum widgets. While it would be one of the late-game tech items, it would give better, more immersive options for planning around temporal storms, while still leaving the early storms as something of a sneaky hazard. It would be especially useful in those save files that haven't been played in a while too.

In regards to the clockmaker class, I'm not sure if they would have any special detail related to the temporal clock or not. It seems like they should, given they specialize in clockwork mechanisms, but making it a craftable exclusive to them seems like it might make them too strong a pick compared to the other classes. If it was an exclusive recipe, other classes could acquire the clock via trading, I suppose, or perhaps rare dungeon loot. Rather than an exclusive recipe though, clockmakers could just be able to craft temporal clocks using fewer temporal gears, or perhaps without needing the blueprint if it's a recipe requiring one.

As a side note, having an item like the temporal clock would give more use to the temporal gears outside of setting spawn points, restoring stability, or the tuning spear and translocators. While they're somewhat of a rare item, it's not too hard to acquire a couple of trunks full by the time you're acquiring steel, and I really hate just throwing them away.

[Maelstrom]

Consider that sometimes temporal storms arrive when in confined spaces like caving, mining ore and quarrying stone.  Whatever immersive queue to an approaching storm would need to work in those situations as well as wondering around the great wide open.

[Doctor Antiquarium]

I like this suggestion, but I agree with this:

On 4/30/2024 at 6:51 PM, Maelstrom said:

Consider that sometimes temporal storms arrive when in confined spaces like caving, mining ore and quarrying stone.  Whatever immersive queue to an approaching storm would need to work in those situations as well as wondering around the great wide open.

 

[AdrianNumbers]

I like the temoral clock idea , but i think it should be an block (maybe multiblock) machine that uses temoral gears not only in its construction but also as fuel.
The time one gear lasts should be based on storm cycles and be an option you can set when creating a world, so for example one gear could last 3 storm cycles, and after that you need to replace it. 
The clock should have some error in its measurments so the closer to the storm you come the less "safe" would it be to plan longer trips out, like the clock would tell you that the storm will hit anywhere in 3 to 7 days for example.

With that we have few ways to add value to clockmakers and making those clocks one of the main machines they would work with:
1. Lower cost of construction , well its a no brainer so moving on.
2. Temoral gears instaled by clockmakers could last longer as fuel so for example +2 cycles.
3. Lowering the error on next cycle with some fine tunning, on servers that would mean clockmakers would be predisposed to something of traveling merchant (i think they already are anyway to be honest).

As for immersive telling sighns of storm i think whatever they are it should be a buildup over many days (how many depending on lenght of storm cycle you chose on world creation) but for most of the buildup it shouldnt be possible to precisely guess how much time is left till the storm hits until the last in game hour or so, it would make the storm something that you still have to be wary of but can prepare for rather easily if you are smart about it.

The sighns i could think of are:
1. Rifts extending tendrill like extentions around them getting longer the closer the storm is, the would just be a local "filter" that would overlay the rusty texture on blocks if you look through them, same overlay as when in storm. This should be the earliest sighn since rifts are the most unstable places on world.
2. Caves getting more unstable , from engine perspective it could be just adjusting the instability modifier depending on y level in dynamic fashion, if im getting right how it works that is. Again the buildup should be slow and in this instance exponential , so at start it wouldnt make any difference but close to storm it would naturally chase players out of undergound, i think it plays nice into stories in lore actually . If im correct about the way to implement this it would also make picking highly stable areas for home even more important.
3. Another thing could be Dave and drifters apearing for a split second in the distance, the closer to storm the more visible (less transparent) and for longer, Dave wouldnt really need any changes but drifters apearing like this shouldnt have any ai, instead they could be in an animation looking as if they were pushing into a wall or an elastic membrane , there should be no way to interact with them in this state (they are not really there yet but due to partition between world getting weaker we can get a glimpse if they push on it with enough force , because of this it would make sense if the stronger drifters started apearing first, this could also show the strength of next storm , based of what drifters apeared and when.).

Im sorry of OP but i think thunder doesnt have any connection to stability and rust world so using it in this way is bit off theme, even more so since we are not really sure if temporal stability isnt really just in seraphs head, i think any sighns if they can have impact on something it should only be us and not anything else.

Edited August 11 by AdrianNumbers