Erosion over time

[Wurmhole 3,650]

I'd love to see erosion happen in the game.  Currently the map gen programs have erosion and it tends to alter the biomes a little (I run it over and over and see some tar spots vanish, if dirt slides over them), but if we could lock down certain biome types, like clay & tar, then also lock down any buildings & pavement tiles, I could probably just do a weekly erosion to the map manually.

 

I find it very appealing to travel the land and see the environment change over time, like we get to enjoy with trees spreading, or seasons.

 

I grew up on a hill top and it was always trying to guess when the next neighbor house (built on the cliffs) would lose another 5 feet of their back yard.

 

 

So I guess my request would be to consider the protected tiles options above and then automate the process, choosing how much to erode and how often.

Edited November 10, 2015 by Wurmhole

[yarnevk 257]

I had a  dirt dropping algorithm done in Unity that I have not applied to my  WU map generator.    Reason is it is a very time consuming algorithm it made a lot more sense to model reality and distribute it over time, so every frame I would pick a slope and cut/drop a dirt.  60fps is 60 dirts, there are 4194304 nodes on a 2k map and a day has 5184000 frames in it, so within a day you would at least visit every node and move a dirt if it needed it.   After a year your 365 dirt cliff would be eroded, but maybe you want to account for time scale and accomplish that in 1.5 months by doing 8 nodes a frame if the game can handle that rate without lag.

 

run the existing dirt flow on dirt drop algorithm already in the game on one of those slopes every tick.   Slow enough that you could dig out a home plot with little chance of collapse, but over time the decayed deed would slowly collapse back to natural state.  Do roads and paved slopes decay the pavers before dirt dropping or does triggered dirt drops also kill the pavers to realistically model the damage that mudslides can do?  Deeds would give you some protection just like they keep your fences repaired and lights on.  Looks very weird to see flat forested land wogic result- so it was long enough to grow a forest but not long enough to collapse the steep slopes?   

 

Not much of a problem if for every resource node that gets covered another one gets uncovered.  Makes the game more dynamic.  It also makes even more sense to move the mod to Wurm Online at some point, less need for a new map if the existing maps would do a better job of natural recovery that accounts for the very high attrition rate.  Many people want virgin forest to start with without having to terraform something back to forest, so instead they just go play something else when they see deed ruins.

Edited November 10, 2015 by yarnevk

[Outlaw 697]

People would probably complain that their 'hard work' was ruined or you could end up with weird artifacts...like if dirt didn't slide and destroy fences or onto roads/deeds, you would end up with dirt walls being built slowly over time beside lots of deeds/structures.

 

Would be cool though.

 

Maybe have some global wurming (had to), where the water level rises and falls throughout the year

[yarnevk 257]

There is no basis for complaint in WU don't use it on your server or don't play on a server that has it if you hate it.   Or do and discover it can very easily be balanced to not destroy hardwork that is still ongoing.  If accelerated day cycles are implemented it would be easy to setup a test erosion server then fly around looking for coding problems, just like you could do a creature migration or flora propagation server test.

 

Servers have limited space so if you are not playing the game then you give up your claim on that space, that principle already exists in Wurm with decay and reforestation so the idea is just extending that to the terrain so that the decay looks more natural and less artificial .  Even roads eventually decay if never used.

 

Don't see the deed  blocking as a problem, the pile would just slide along the edges of the deed somewhat unnaturally (easily explained away as the spirit guard shoveling it along the fence).  The entire point of erosion algorithms is that eventually everything becomes smooth and the piles go away.  Pretty much same as water flow algorithms just in very slow motion.

Edited November 10, 2015 by yarnevk