Weather in Wilderness Combat?

[Uatu]

Apparently, Treasures of the Savage Frontier (one of the later Gold Box games) had weather in wilderness combat, and resulting effects.

FRUA was released after Treasures of the Savage Frontier... so does that mean that FRUA has weather, too?

Of course what I mean to ask is, will DC have this as well? (Not first tier priority, of course, but just a nice thing to have, someday )

[Dinonykos]

I do not know the game you are refering to, but couldn't weather be simulated with friendly/hostile monsters (depending on what you want to achieve)?

[Uatu]

Hmm - rain or snow?

We would have to have a LOT of rain/snow "monsters" running around the field...

[manikus]

FRUA does not have weather in outdoor combats.

I have that GB game, but I never got very far in it, and certainly don't remember weather. Would you describe in is as great a detail as you can how weather was implemented?

Just off the top of my head, if graphics weren't involved, you could probably simulate rain or snow. It would require a script that would do something like lowering the THAC0 of all by 1 or something. I believe this will be quite possible in the version of DC.
[I know that at times, it must seem like my answer to everything is, "in the new version", but here's what I was thinking:
There is a special ability (SA) called "Rain THAC0". if it is determined that the combat is affected by rain, all combatants are given the SA "Rain THAC0" for the duration of the combat and have the SA removed at the end of combat, all of which will be quite doable in the new version of DC. ]

[Uatu]

Sorry, I haven't played this one myself - I just read about it in Wikipedia

I guess I would love to have weather implemented with graphics, if implementation was going to happen (In that case, we could also implement spells like Weather Summoning and so on as a result.)

But of course, this is not high priority, as I mentioned...

[manikus]

Well, theoretically and off the top of my head, why couldn't we create a spell now that did this? The overlay graphic would be the rain or snow coming down, we could easily use the spell editor to lower the THAC0 (or whatever) and the duration would be set to last for a long time if desired. I'm not really familiar with the weather spells, so I'm not much more help than this.

Good ol' Wikipedia. It seems odd to me that only one GoldBox game would have weather in it's outdoor combats and that the game would not be Pools of Darkness (the last one made which did have some graphics improvements). Many of the changes for PoD made it into FRUA though, as it was still the engine used to create all of the GB (including Buck Rogers) games.

Maybe one of the FRUA folks knows...you might ask over in the FRUA community forums for a a more definitive answer.

[nologgie]

It's been a while, but as I recall, the palette for the overland maps shifted to track the changing of the seasons. Also, movement rates were reduced if it was raining or snowing. I never noticed any thac0 adjustment, but it's kind of hard to tell sometimes.

I remember one game gave out damage if you were out in a blizzard or hail storm, but I don't think it was this one. Probably not even from SSI.

[manikus]

I think we should be able to do the movement reduction, but maybe not in .914.

It would be cool if we could choose graphics, but of course we can for the wilderness and then a set of four combats, each firing only during a certain season (using the same kind of Logic Block event as used for tracking the phase of the moon).

Maybe we're a lot closer to weather in DC combats than anyone thought...

[SilentThief]

Ok, here's another request that can add headache

Lets say you get out your bow and shoot at a target with no wind. No prob, mebbe a little off, but you are out of practice and you don't do too bad.

Now add to that a crosswind gusting up to 12 miles an hour.

Can we reduce ranges on ranged items via script? I know we can impose a penalty easily enough. Come to think of it, are the penalties for range (short/medium/long) in place now?

ST

[manikus]

Originally Posted by SilentThief Ok, here's another request that can add headache Lets say you get out your bow and shoot at a target with no wind. No prob, mebbe a little off, but you are out of practice and you don't do too bad. Now add to that a crosswind gusting up to 12 miles an hour. Can we reduce ranges on ranged items via script? I know we can impose a penalty easily enough. Come to think of it, are the penalties for range (short/medium/long) in place now? ST

The penalties for range are not in place now. But, an enterprising individual will be able to add them to DC. The new special ability system will allow you to give bonuses or penalties based upon any number of factors.