Salt Flats and Star Dunes

[nauta]

I think I brought this up once before in a different discussion, but what if...

Each room in the salt flats operated like the top of the star dune does.

That is, you can see movement in each direction.  This still wouldn't 'solve' the conundrum of not being able to see in the ordinal directions (northeast and friends), but it would ameliorate it a bit, and (at least how I visualize the salt flats as being really flat) seeing movement in both cardinal and ordinal directions would make a lot of sense.  (NB: You could still get ROFLMAO-stomped by mekillots if they aren't moving.)

In other parts of the known, granted there are dunes and rocks and so on, I don't see too much of a problem with our ordinal-blindsight -- but the salt flats are really flat.

Perhaps the eastern grasslands of Gol Krathu could also operate like this, although the room descriptions do say there are rocks here and there which could account for ordinal-blindsight.

[Lizzie]

This would make it agonizing if you were following a Byn party, or a hunting crew, or honestly anything more than 1 mob. You would see:

From the west, the tall obese figure in the dark hooded cloak rides east on a dark brown inix.
From the west, the green-eyed short guy rides east on a green inix.
From the west, the short stumpy stump in a dark hooded cloak rides east on a war beetle.
From the west, the tall ugly elf runs east.

The tall obese figure in the dark hooded cloak has arrived from the west on a dark brown inix.
The green-eyed short guy has arrived from the west on a dark brown inix.
The short stumpy stump in a dark hooded cloak has arrived from the west on a war beetle.
The tall ugly elf has arrived from the west.


FOR EVERY SINGLE ROOM DURING YOUR ENTIRE STALKING EXPEDITION.

No. Thanks, but no.

[Majikal]

What it adds would be very little and you'd still get blindsided by mek's which rarely move around. Also, spam would be HUGE.

Personally I like the bonus location views that tend to come with high ground and lookout perches, not area-wide like suggest above. Entire biomes where distractions like foraging or unpacking doesn't affect a raiders ability approach you cause of a free watch in every direction. No thanks.

[Bahliker]

Simple fix for movement spam. You only get the arrival echoes, except when someone leaves your current room or leaves a room you can see to one you can't, then you get the departure echo.
Even better, the echo from distant rooms only shows groups moving together as a unit type object for the purpose of the echo. "a pair of riders arrives from the north" "a large group of riders with a few on foot arrives from the south". When they arrive in your room they echo normally, when you look in a direction you get the same information as you normally do.
Sneak would work against this and watching the direction could negate the message, giving you the full detail instead.

There's really no reason to have redundant echoes anywhere in the game.

[Armaddict]

There's really no reason to have redundant echoes anywhere in the game.

Aside from massive blocks of conditional code.

[Bahliker]

To change every instance of room-to room observation redundancies, yeah I bet that would be work. Work: not a reason to keep a project off a wish list. Im not saying I'd want to be the guy tasked with chasing down all the different functions that do similar things and I'd be the last guy to blame a coder for putting it way down on their honey do, behind a pantsing command.

[evilcabbage]

it's a flag not with a specific room but a type of room i believe, so it would be very doable if you just transformed one "type" of room (i.e. Salt Flats) into a room where you could see movement in a north-east-south-west directional.

[Lizzie]

I wouldn't like it. I'm not all that fond of the spots that already exist where you can auto-see every direction. We have the "watch" command; you can already "watch" in any single direction, and this makes total sense, given the vastness of the outdoors. It doesn't make sense to me that you can be heading west, and see what's coming up to from the east, UNLESS you are intentionally focusing your attention over your shoulder. And if you are, then it makes no sense that you can see what you're about to fall into, or be attacked by, toward the west.

Even if you're on the top of something, you are still facing one direction or another, it doesn't make sense that you would magickally know what's approaching from all sides at the same time.

[Malifaxis]

As someone who knows what kind of effort would have to go in to this, I hope it doesn't happen.  The gain would be an unbelievably low amount.  This would potentially take days of editing to implement, and would add zilch to the game.

Also, I invite people who support this to visit a salt flats during a very hot month.  MIrages are totally no joke, and have fun telling north from south with absolutely no mountains or features to navigate from.

No, no, and more no.

[gotdamnmiracle]

On the reverse of this, does being on the top of a star-dune break hide or sneak due to skylining?

This is rhetoric. I doubt it does.

[Cabooze]

This would be a great idea, and it could function in the same way that large corpses can be seen from several rooms away. If the object is large enough (Halfgiants, Mekillots, Saltworms, Argosy/Wagons), you can see it moving across the salt flats.

[BrokenRomance]

This would be a great idea, and it could function in the same way that large corpses can be seen from several rooms away. If the object is large enough (Halfgiants, Mekillots, Saltworms, Argosy/Wagons), you can see it moving across the salt flats.

Yes, but could you see if behind you?

I agree with Lizzie on this, it makes little to no sense being able to see all directions at one time unless you have hawkeyes and can spin very fast without getting incredibly dizzy.

Not to mention the other good point that this is probably a pain to code.

Over-all, from my own non-borrowed viewpoint I don't really see what it would add to the game, while detracting the fun of a surprise. I'm sure many people are bothered immensely by the death of their character by nature or murder, and I am often too, but it is also an inherent feature of the game and making it easier to avoid it just seems like chiselling a chunk off the danger that makes it so captivating.

[Bahliker]

I'll concede that this wouldn't add much, for the cost of effort.

To say you need to be spinning fast to look in all directions, or have eyes in the back of your head, or be magickal, is silly. Remember that each outdoors room is a vast stretch of land but they only take seconds to walk across. Hell, I can run to Red Storm faster than I can go upstairs in my house. There's an IMMENSE time differential to consider when we decide which activities should be single-use commands and which ones should be toggles. You have a great deal of time in each room to do noncommand things like take steps, scratch your ass, breathe and blink, and I think glancing around your general vicinity to know when large things are approaching over HOURS of distance falls into that category of actions.

I like what Mal said about mirages on the flats. That to me is a more legit reason not to have 360 degree watch always on.

[nauta]

I like what Mal said about mirages on the flats. That to me is a more legit reason not to have 360 degree watch always on.

Yeah, this is bigly helpful for me too.  I like to find reasons to make things make sense inside the character.  (I also think Lizzie's point about spam in groups is legit too.)