Hey everyone!
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As you might have noticed over the course of the past few streams, we have been adding some new and experimental options to the random event pool. These events happen in the game either as a result of community voting, thanks to the stream integration or at random if the integration is not active. Today we’re going to take a look at some of them, both old and new, and explain their purpose in The Riftbreaker’s gameplay.
The Riftbreaker takes place on Galatea 37 - an exoplanet that bears a lot of similarity to Earth. Our protagonist, Ashley, has to make use of all the natural resources available to her in order to support her newly established base. All the factories, mines and laboratories require a stable power source to operate. Maintaining a power grid that is able to support all vital buildings is one of the necessities for survival and success. Luckily, there are plenty of energy sources all around, the wind being one of them.
Several climate zones can be found on the surface of Galatea 37. The differences in temperature, precipitation, and wind result in unique conditions in each of those zones. As a result, life forms, terrain formations, and available resource deposits are going to vary. However, wind is a common factor among them. In the temperate climate zones the wind is strong enough to provide the base with electricity all day long thanks to the use of wind turbines.
There are also places like the desert, where there is very little air movement. Building a wind farm in such a place would only be a waste of precious building resources. Other forms of energy production are necessary here. One of the simplest alternatives to wind power is solar power. The main downside of this technology is the fact that solar energy can’t be generated through the night - Ashley must build energy storages in order to power all the vital systems from dusk till dawn.
Galatean weather can be hard to predict and change rapidly. Periods of decreased wind speed may happen from time to time. It is not a very big issue if you are working with a lot of storage and solar panels, but if you are caught at night, with just enough power to get by until the morning, you might be in for a nasty surprise. On the other hand, rain and thunderstorms are usually accompanied by an increase in wind speed. The advances in wind power technology have managed to minimize the risk of a turbine failure if the wind is too strong, so their output is increased at no additional cost. This makes up for the interruption of solar power for the duration of rain and can fill your power reserves pretty quickly. Make sure to always have more storage than you need.
The weather can be quite violent at times, resulting in a tornado. They are usually much smaller and last shorter than those experienced on Earth, but their destructive force is to be reckoned with. A tornado will shred everything on its path to pieces. Increased power generation coming from the turbines might look good on paper, but if the tornado makes a sudden turn and goes for your energy storage, you might regret building all those batteries next to each other.
These events can happen as a random element during gameplay, but they can also be voted into existence by the community through our stream integration system. If you stream The Riftbreaker to Twitch or Mixer, your chat can vote on the events in the game through the use of the chatbot or the MixPlay interface, respectively. This introduces a ‘force of nature’ aspect to the game, that you have to be mindful of. After an event is over, the wind will go back to its original strength set for the biome.
Naturally, we can’t let the wind just be a number on the hud. The vegetation system is dynamic and it reacts in real-time to the strength of the air movements. Tufts of grass, trees, cacti, mushrooms - they all ‘dance’ in the wind. Each prop in the game has its properties set individually - we control how much it can bend, how fast it will bounce back to the original position and which part will serve as the base. We also set the breaking point, at which the object is destroyed. We want our game world to be as immersive and realistic as possible.
That's all for today! As always, remember to join us during our streams on Mixer and Twitch and to join our Discord! See you next time!
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