Planetary rotation/Sun/moon effects

[DarkChiron]

Originally Posted by SatansReject

Well i'm not talking about phases per say, i'm talking about if they will maybe actually do a functional Moon like they have a functioning sun that moves and orbits.

I should have elaborated, I assumed what I wrote was enough.

Their plan is to have moon phases/sun motion affect the weather system. Like how they affect real world weather patterns.

Beyond that, it's all just visual fluff that doesn't matter, and while cool, is in the end not that important to me.

[Fizzgig]

Going along these lines, it would be cool if the moon affected tides, like ours does on Earth. It would be quite fun having a part of the map only accessible at certain times due to the time of day etc.

[Littleman]

Originally Posted by Fizzgig

Going along these lines, it would be cool if the moon affected tides, like ours does on Earth. It would be quite fun having a part of the map only accessible at certain times due to the time of day etc.

Mmm... rising and receding tides of water are a different algorithmic beast altogether.

The moon lights up the night. Including phases at some point in the future would serve to indicate how well lit the landscape is under the moon's light. New moons, naturally, wouldn't be offering much. Thunderstorms during the twilight hours wouldn't help either.

Basically, there's one thing we need to remember regarding why things are the way they are in Planetside 2: combat. Day fighting and night fighting should be two completely different atmospheres, each encouraging their own strategies. Even the time of day has an influence. One example is to fight with the sun at your back, and in the eyes of your enemy.

To that end, fierce thunderstorms, blizzards and sandstorms would hamper visibility and likely vehicle control in some way. I'm not saying lightning strikes shutting down your tank, maybe knocking out an aircraft (though that's a cheap, uncool and totally random death really,) but mostly tanks wouldn't want to be driving through a sea of mud, nor would aircraft and light assault troops want to maneuver in the wind. Rain/sand/snow probably gives cloakers away big time.

The moon would play a small part in Planetside, not directly effecting the weather per se, that's unnecessarily complicated, but probably influencing how well lit our night battles might be. Little reason to bring a flash light if I can clearly see across an entire field every night!

[Xaine]

I'd like to see it too, but i believe they have more important stuff to do at the moment.

(Like sending ME a beta invite)

[SatansReject]

Originally Posted by Littleman

Mmm... rising and receding tides of water are a different algorithmic beast altogether.

The moon lights up the night. Including phases at some point in the future would serve to indicate how well lit the landscape is under the moon's light. New moons, naturally, wouldn't be offering much. Thunderstorms during the twilight hours wouldn't help either.

Basically, there's one thing we need to remember regarding why things are the way they are in Planetside 2: combat. Day fighting and night fighting should be two completely different atmospheres, each encouraging their own strategies. Even the time of day has an influence. One example is to fight with the sun at your back, and in the eyes of your enemy.

To that end, fierce thunderstorms, blizzards and sandstorms would hamper visibility and likely vehicle control in some way. I'm not saying lightning strikes shutting down your tank, maybe knocking out an aircraft (though that's a cheap, uncool and totally random death really,) but mostly tanks wouldn't want to be driving through a sea of mud, nor would aircraft and light assault troops want to maneuver in the wind. Rain/sand/snow probably gives cloakers away big time.

The moon would play a small part in Planetside, not directly effecting the weather per se, that's unnecessarily complicated, but probably influencing how well lit our night battles might be. Little reason to bring a flash light if I can clearly see across an entire field every night!

I am just getting at a very small portion of what is maybe coming later on, but you have covered all of my other bases, and I thank you for that. You brought up a good idea, how different types of weather may affect aircraft or even cloaked aircraft. Also another good idea would be, when there is a blizzard going on you could actually see the frost build it on the craft or tanks or something like that.

Originally Posted by Xaine

I'd like to see it too, but i believe they have more important stuff to do at the moment.

(Like sending ME a beta invite)

I totally agree, I was trying entertain the thought of a functional working moon, like the sun.

[drennam]

sun, moons, and their pathing, also constellations and stuffs.

its all already in.
watch the vids some more, or take a look around the forums for some more recent vids

[Kezz]

Originally Posted by drennam

sun, moons, and their pathing, also constellations and stuffs.

its all already in.
watch the vids some more, or take a look around the forums for some more recent vids

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I saw the planetary bodies fair scootin' across the sky during one of the "fast ingame clock" sections.

An important question is how long the day/night cycle is going to be in-game and will it vary depending on where you are, once there are more planets? Making the day/night cycle match that of any given point on earth would mean that players with regular playtime slots would normally be fighting under the same illumination conditions. Some dawn-to-dawn period that doesn't divide neatly into 24 would be good, in some respects, because it would mean that any given hour IRL could be any "sun-time" in game. It'd make organising dawn raids or making sure an assault is conducted at night time more difficult to arrange.

Having "First Dawn" at 00h00 in whatever reference timezone the servers use (which should be GMT/UTC/Zulu time), and "First Dusk" 90 minutes later would probably mean any play period that's worth worrying about would have a range of lighting.