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Living on a mountain has made me enjoy looking down on the world of wurm.  It all looks so tiny and those huge industrial blights no longer seem so huge.  Wurm was designed to be seen from the sky!

The trouble is flight would be a horribly overpowering mechanic in PvP and probably opposed by "lockdown deeds" as I fondly call them on PvE (people who make a deed and then lock it down like a fortress).  It's a mechanic that would change the way wurm was played.

The biggest opposition was when the enclosure rule was in place, however now that is no longer in place....


Onwards to hot air balloons.

Requiring several high level crafting skills :

Canvas Balloon :- 50 Cloth Tailoring (Cloth squares and cordage rope)

Portable Stove :- 50 Blacksmithing (Steel)
Finely Woven Basket :- 50 Fine Carpentry

When constructed requires all 3 skills to be improved (making maintaining one a team effort or something for skilled players).

Hot air balloons are limited in the weight they can carry (QL of balloon * 3.5 with a person counting as 100 weight, meaning a minimum QL of just under 15 is needed to take off) and are heavily influenced by the winds.

A new mechanic in place for regional winds would provide a way of navigating with a hot air balloon (above a certain height every 1kmx1km area has a different wind direction).  Essentially meaning wurm has 2 wind layers, the lower for boats (consistent and constant) and the higher for balloons (changeable and tricky).  When a balloon enters a new wind zone a message pops up saying "the winds here are different, they seem to be blowing from the <direction>"

Hot air balloons are very tricky to pilot, requiring 30 mind logic.

Hot air balloons can carry up to 1 pilot and 2 passengers (if of sufficient QL).

To take off and maintain height they require fuel.  Can hold 10 units of fuel, each unit gives 10 mins of flight (allowing for 100 mins of constant flight).  Valid fuels include charcoal (1 unit per 0.5 weight) , tar (1 unit per 1 weight) , peat (1 unit per 5 weight), moss (1 unit per 10 weight), wood scraps/branches (1 unit per 10 weight) and olive oil (1 uni per 3 weight).

Material type is cloth.

PvE Only : When flying over deeds fuel is not used and cannot land without permissions.  This is to prevent people being trapped on deeds and to maintain deed privacy.

The PvP Nerf : Can be shot down with arrows, very easy to damage in the air, guard towers automatically shoot arrows at balloons belonging to hostile players.  Since archery is a major PvP skill I can't see many big settlements being easily ballooned into unless they are very careless.

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-1 does not fit in with the game..imo


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I don't mind flying i just don't think this is the answer to it. I would rather see a flying mount like in the dragon sneak peeks something we can capture and train to get them to fly with a lot of skill and work.  


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Shhhh! Quick, delete your post before Rolf sees it!


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Shhhh! Quick, delete your post before Rolf sees it!

Lol yea... he tried to gauge how well we would receive flying a few months ago, put it this way, it wasn't universally acclaimed.   

 

 

I don't mind flying i just don't think this is the answer to it. I would rather see a flying mount like in the dragon sneak peeks something we can capture and train to get them to fly with a lot of skill and work.  

I'm not sure if that dragon was flying, I think it had that wing animation while traveling across water.   A mount like that would be interesting, tbh.   To be able to ride across land and water.   

 

 

 

Anyways, as much as that would be awesome, as for flying in general I don't' think it would fit into Wurm, it just isn't that kind of game.  

 

-1

Edited by Battlepaw
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-1

 

Aetherwalker - the new Protunia :D

 

That said, feel strangely warm towards this suggestion. It's a good one. I can see hot air baloons being both a lot of fun and of great use in this game.

 

I guess the final verdict is whether they would fit our theme. Most people here say that they wouldn't and I have to agree. Still, a part of me wishes to see those things up in the sky :)

 

It could make PvP messy. Or fun.

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while I'd like to see a faster mass transit system or at least a starting town to home portal - I don't think noobs falling outta the sky into my roof would be the answer


 


maybe a magic versus steam punk server same size as xan with Pegasus zeppelins and the like


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I think gliders would fit the game theme more as medieval people did try making gliders to glide from high altitudes to lower ones. Baloons are far too advanced for the game's era sadly. Unless we get steam powered trains, don't see baloons ever existing in Wurm lol. BUT I would love to see some form of cliff gliding to lower regions, maybe even something like a zipline but less complex and able to drop from anywhere taking equal damage to the slope of the drop.


 


idk but I wanna soar off of a high cliff into the water and such in Wurm heh xD just sliding down hills an be boring.


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while I'd like to see a faster mass transit system or at least a starting town to home portal - I don't think noobs falling outta the sky into my roof would be the answer

 

maybe a magic versus steam punk server same size as xan with Pegasus zeppelins and the like

 

Pegasi would actually fit the game theme quite well lol. Don't give Rolf ideas we may end up with flying 5 speed horses LOL

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while I'd like to see a faster mass transit system or at least a starting town to home portal - I don't think noobs falling outta the sky into my roof would be the answer

 

maybe a magic versus steam punk server same size as xan with Pegasus zeppelins and the like

 

Would be interesting, honestly though Steampunk seems to be the new "trend" these days, its a bit refreshing to try and have something a little more down to earth.   

 

That said, no reason why wurm's tech can't improve, we don't need the industrial age, but more "Renaissance" style stuff would be awesome.   Not just the Tudor style buildings, but some of the technology like the printing press, telescope, etc.    

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I think gliders would fit the game theme more as medieval people did try making gliders to glide from high altitudes to lower ones. Baloons are far too advanced for the game's era sadly.

Successful hot air balloons are older than successful gliders. They are older than any other means of flight; they are quite literally the first flying machines capable of carrying humans to have been made (successfully).

Hot air balloons seem like more advanced technology, but the concept of 'hot air rises' was understood (China was making unmanned 'sky lanterns' about two thousand years ago) way before the much more complex ideas of lift, drag, etc. that are involved with a winged vehicle (like a glider).

While it is true people were trying to make gliders hundreds of years ago, they were also killing themselves and breaking their bones in the process. Gliders that weren't guaranteed to cause bodily harm are a modern invention.

That said, despite safe hot air balloon flight coming first, they are still relatively new, with the first unanchored flight not happening until 1783.

There are no medieval flying machines, but hot air balloons are closer than gliders by about one hundred years.

The only flight I would ever want to see in Wurm would be pure fantasy.

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-1 to "unanchored flight"


 


although... wurm PvP.....


 


hindenburg_zeppelin_desktop_3810x2876_wa


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If the only type of fuel which works for it is coal then I think it could be a good idea, as long as it also consumes plenty of it so that the time spend creating the coal + traveling by balloon far exceeds taking a boat or road (so it doesn't make either of those redundant). Or scale down the fuel requirements (still coal, but not as much) and make the balloon totally dependent on wind direction and speed, so you cannot go against the wind at all. Though this would make it a pain to actually use, even worse then boats. So I think the hefty coal requirement would be the best way to balance it.


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Nah, too steampunky for wurm, its way out of period.


Like Kegan, wouldn't say no to flying, but not like this.


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Heh, just as long as flying is not animal based I'll be a happy camper.

Nothing vexes me more on wurm than the damn critters

I mean ye gods, they eat my flowers AND need constant attention.  ;)

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+1 if the baloon was really slow, and only moved in the wind direction. So it didnt compete with any other ride mechanics.


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-1 unless there is a gas management skill which is harder than weaponsmithing  and at 1 skill there is a 99% chance that it explodes an at say 90 skill there is a 98% chance

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I think we should have chinese lanterns to go with our fireworks. This would adequately test flying mechanics without commiting to hot air balloons.


 


Hot air balloons ARE truly ancient technology, it's not too modern (leave out the steel stove, that IS too steampunk). But so is flint-knapping and we don't have that either. The hardest part of ancient ballooning is inflating the thing without causing it to catch fire imo. But you don't get to add more hot air once it's full - your range is limited to how fast your air cools down (don't fly in winter). Move up by losing ballast, and down by venting gas, that's all the control you have. And landings are never gentle.


 


It would hardly be newbies doing this, with such high skill requirements.


 


I DO like the idea of multi-skill improving. We have a way of looking at separate parts of bodies ... I'd like to see that for boats and ships. Improve the hull (SB), improve the oars (FC), improve the sails(CT) and the rigging(replace damaged ropes), all separately to create a collective quality for the vessel. This kind of interface would also let you raise and lower sails imo.


 


Would be nice for carts and wagons too, you could improve and repair the body of the cart or wagon, but you could replace individual wheels and axles when they get worn or break(100 damage). That is, you can only repair and improve wheels when they are not attached to a vehicle. If the axle broke you would have to replace it with a completely new wheel axle, not just add a shaft. We should also be able to add iron ribbons to wheels to give them metal tires and reduce damage rate while moving (as for horseshoes on a mounted horse).


Edited by Drayka

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-1

 

I support this... -1 that is. 

Edited by Ruger

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This post was first published 5 years ago.  Some new comments on the recent thread have liked the idea.

 

If PvP doesn't want it, nothing prevents having it on PvE.

Edited by Titanius

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