Calling all disasters

Aren't there lakes that contain large amounts of dissolved carbon monoxide or something (I'm sure I read about them somewhere...)? They could kill off any oxygen breathing life there.

Hurrah! C02 in lakes leads to Carbonic acid, (The lakes with it are Lake Nyos, Monoun, and Kivu in the Congo - they're situated on top of a magma pocket. Nothing lives in them, and if disturbed they can blanket the countryside with gas, killing everything that breathes oxygen.)

similar to those lakes, tar pits

jmc-24 wrote:

similar to those lakes, tar pits

Microbiomes, just like geothermal features (geysers, hot springs, fumaroles, mud pots) will be.

Mysterious_Calligrapher wrote:

jmc-24 wrote:

similar to those lakes, tar pits

Microbiomes, just like geothermal features (geysers, hot springs, fumaroles, mud pots) will be.

Ah okay, would quicksand fit into that aswell then?

jmc-24 wrote:

Mysterious_Calligrapher wrote:

jmc-24 wrote:

similar to those lakes, tar pits

Microbiomes, just like geothermal features (geysers, hot springs, fumaroles, mud pots) will be.

Ah okay, would quicksand fit into that aswell then?

Probably that or a randomly allocated resource spot (even though I have no idea what one would use it for...)

Old topic? Yes

Old enough to be considered necroposting? NOT QUITE.

Anyway, I thought of disasters that occur on a planetary scale:

1. Planet falling out of orbit:

Very unlikely (One to ten thousand for the chances?), the planet falls out of orbit from its solar system. Not really sure what terrain it would leave, though.

2. Planetary collision:

Once again, very unlikely (same chances as planet falling out of orbit) but this time it would cause a bunch of asteroids. (I now have a new biome idea.)

3. Supernova:

The chances of this happening are one to one hundred thousand. Doesn't really leave any terrain behind.

4. Galactic collision:

The chances of this happening are one to five hundred thousand. Not really sure about terrain.

5. The big crunch:

The players universe collapses into one area until the universe is gone. No terrain. One to one million chances.

6. The big freeze:

The players universe expands so much it becomes to cold to sustain life. Not sure about terrain. One to one million chances.

7. the big rip:

Every bit of matter is torn apart. No terrain. One to one million chances.

Orygandian2 wrote:

Old topic? Yes

Old enough to be considered necroposting? NOT QUITE.

Anyway, I thought of disasters that occur on a planetary scale:

1. Planet falling out of orbit: Seems fun but I suppose no one will have to invent terrain as anything living on that planet is, to put it politely, toast.

Very unlikely (One to ten thousand for the chances?), the planet falls out of orbit from its solar system. Not really sure what terrain it would leave, though.

2. Planetary collision:

Once again, very unlikely (same chances as planet falling out of orbit) but this time it would cause a bunch of asteroids. (I now have a new biome idea.)

If you don't see anything else on this thread about asteroid/meteor impact sites, count yourself as the first to propose this.

3. Supernova:

The chances of this happening are one to one hundred thousand. Doesn't really leave any terrain behind. Or anything else. This is actually a certainty at the end of the correct type of star's life: the odds of life evolving near a star that close to it's natural death or surviving long enough to try and outlive their star are infinitesimal.

4. Galactic collision:

The chances of this happening are one to five hundred thousand. Not really sure about terrain.
I believe that you have astronomy on the brain. I'm also going to go with this as a "game ends, try again" disaster, much like the orbit failure and supernova. Also, we have no idea (to my admittedly limited knowledge of astronomy) of what would happen if this occurs.

5. The big crunch:

The players universe collapses into one area until the universe is gone. No terrain. One to one million chances.

6. The big freeze:

The players universe expands so much it becomes to cold to sustain life. Not sure about terrain. One to one million chances.

7. the big rip:

Every bit of matter is torn apart. No terrain. One to one million chances.

On that note, I'm fairly uncomfortable with modeling the last three universe-ending disasters and assigning random chances (especially comparatively good chances with no qualifications about whether it happens to one in a million universes or after one in a million generic disaster rolls: the first is kind of un-doable, the second is way, way too common: your world rolling for a disaster would happen multiple times a generation, you might get a universe death after ten hours of gameplay,) to them, because they're currently all just theories, and by the time anyone is in a position to prove them, no one will be in a position to care. None of them really apply to making disturbed terrains either. The asteroid one is useful, and all of the physics is fun, just not necessarily useful for this topic. Still, thanks for resuscitating the thread!

Just doing my civic duties!

Orygandian2 wrote:

Old topic? Yes

Old enough to be considered necroposting? NOT QUITE.

Anyway, I thought of disasters that occur on a planetary scale:

1. Planet falling out of orbit:

Very unlikely (One to ten thousand for the chances?), the planet falls out of orbit from its solar system. Not really sure what terrain it would leave, though.

2. Planetary collision:

Once again, very unlikely (same chances as planet falling out of orbit) but this time it would cause a bunch of asteroids. (I now have a new biome idea.)

3. Supernova:

The chances of this happening are one to one hundred thousand. Doesn't really leave any terrain behind.

4. Galactic collision:

The chances of this happening are one to five hundred thousand. Not really sure about terrain.

5. The big crunch:

The players universe collapses into one area until the universe is gone. No terrain. One to one million chances.

6. The big freeze:

The players universe expands so much it becomes to cold to sustain life. Not sure about terrain. One to one million chances.

7. the big rip:

Every bit of matter is torn apart. No terrain. One to one million chances.

What about plantery diasters like an earthquake or tidal wave?

GAMMA RAYS:
This occurs after a nearby star goes supernova. If the rays hit the planet pretty much all life on the planet except for deep sea life and borrowers would go extinct. Creates a planetwide desert. Besides the oceans though.
SUPERVOLCANO:
Think of this like the yellowstone volcano. If it were to go off everything within 100 miles would die off. Wastelands would be created as well as scorched ground and boiling water.
GLOBAL WARMING:
A result of climate change or fossil fuels. This would melt the polar caps and start raising the sea level. This make continents and other landmasses smaller than they were before due to an increased sea level flooding all the coasts.
HURRICANE:
Large waves and destroyed beaches/ buildings. Trees knocked down litter the landscape.
TORNADO:
Depending on which way it goes a trail of dirt with nothing on it will be on the trail due to the tornado ripping things up.

PerfectOrganismil wrote:

GAMMA RAYS:
This occurs after a nearby star goes supernova. If the rays hit the planet pretty much all life on the planet except for deep sea life and borrowers would go extinct. Creates a planetwide desert. Besides the oceans though.
SUPERVOLCANO:
Think of this like the yellowstone volcano. If it were to go off everything within 100 miles would die off. Wastelands would be created as well as scorched ground and boiling water.
GLOBAL WARMING:
A result of climate change or fossil fuels. This would melt the polar caps and start raising the sea level. This make continents and other landmasses smaller than they were before due to an increased sea level flooding all the coasts.
HURRICANE:
Large waves and destroyed beaches/ buildings. Trees knocked down litter the landscape.
TORNADO:
Depending on which way it goes a trail of dirt with nothing on it will be on the trail due to the tornado ripping things up.

I like the Gamma ray super volcano and global warming idea. :D 

How about destructive terraforming like from war of the worlds or warhammer 40k

Destructive terraforming
Stronger alien race terraforming the selected planet
may or may not kill the race already living on the planet and may result in galaxy war
Of course I may or may not just described all the events in this forum but the adding of new lifeforms landing of troops, of course it probably could be done peacefully.Probably

Okay, how about the opposite of the global warming, the Ice Age.

The Ice Age is a cooling of the global temperature, ice caps expand and air becomes dryer as snow starts falling closer and closer to the equator. It would be a race of evolution to adapt to the colder temperatures, evolving thicker fur or blubber.

To take it to an extreme, what I call the Deep Freeze. This is an extreme drop in the global temperatures where deep snows cover the planet and the oceans themselves freeze, creating a snowball planet. Only a sapient species could hope to survive this happening through evacuation or adapting their cities and tech to the cold. Could be preceded by an Ice Age or be brought upon at random.

If this has already been brought up, then I apologize for my laziness.

For all these disasters, I think they should only occur if it is possible for the player to adapt and survive. Therses no point just killing off the player. These should only occur to make unusual exciting gameplay and to challenge the player, not to just kill the game because its possible in the real world.

Inca wrote:

For all these disasters, I think they should only occur if it is possible for the player to adapt and survive. Therses no point just killing off the player. These should only occur to make unusual exciting gameplay and to challenge the player, not to just kill the game because its possible in the real world.

Actually, thats something we alredy agreed on. Just killing the player without any chance of survival is rude.

Yeah, that probably goes without saying anyway.

That's why these disasters have warning signs in nature, the sea retreats from shore before a tsunami, and a tornado is preceded by a strong storm.

Yeah that would be really good if you see the warning signs and then can prepare for it.

But some disasters are unavoidable. If a star goes supernova, it doesn't matter how many giant neon signs there are warning you of the impending doom, you will go extinct.

There are some disasters which would not be escapable until much later in the game, after interstellar flight. (The "sun" going supernova, for example.) Since these would be an automatic game-over during the early phases, my vote is that we do not include them until the stage in the game where they can be researched, predicted, and escaped. Fortunately, most of the cataclysmic, automatic end-of-the-world scenarios are enormously rare, and the chances that they happen will be programmed accordingly.

That said, things like supervolcanoes, which might cause mass extinctions but will not end all life on the planet, are still on the table as far as I am concerned. They will cause massive fatalities, but unless you are playing a species with an enormously restricted range, which is actually incapable of movement (who here besides me wants to play a rare tree?) they should not automatically cause extinction of the player species, or indeed any other species which has the capability to get away, or at least a population that is sufficiently far from the epicenter of the disaster. This would force accelerated adaptation and evolution, which is not necessarily a bad thing.

As for galaxy-crushing disasters, my vote is that we don't include them, because the chances are extremely low, especially accounting for the random disaster timer, which would roll the chances of a disaster every set amount of game play time. So if the chances of our galaxy being sideswiped by another 100,000,000,000 years from now are one in ten, that's really one in 10 to the power of 100,000,000,000, which is a stupid-large number for us to be carrying about in our computers when we have more common disasters.

I'm officially open to the discussion of generating common disasters, in sandbox mode at least, but let's not forget that Sim City's Godzilla invasion is not a natural disaster.8) 

Ok so basically everything apart from unavoidable disasters are fair game?

Inca wrote:

Ok so basically everything apart from unavoidable disasters are fair game?

During discussion/brainstorming, yes. We can narrow down what is actually likely or programmable later.

I think it was decided that the rate and type of disasters would be based on difficulty. In easy mode, there'll be no species-destroying disasters and low likelihood of less destructive ones. Medium or normal mode will have species-destroying disasters when you can do something about it, such as a supernova when you have the technology to escape. Hard mode may have a much higher chance of smaller and medium sized disasters, and in extreme/hardcore mode, there will be a chance that your star could go supernova without you knowing anything about it beforehand and not having a chance to react.

Oliveriver wrote:

I think it was decided that the rate and type of disasters would be based on difficulty. In easy mode, there'll be no species-destroying disasters and low likelihood of less destructive ones. Medium or normal mode will have species-destroying disasters when you can do something about it, such as a supernova when you have the technology to escape. Hard mode may have a much higher chance of smaller and medium sized disasters, and in extreme/hardcore mode, there will be a chance that your star could go supernova without you knowing anything about it beforehand and not having a chance to react.

*Checks*
Thank you for the update.

However, knowing the frequency of disasters so we can do a basic random-chance is still important. In Medium/Normal mode, we won't have, say, supernovas pre-spaceflight or the collision of the galaxy with another. Things that have a 1 in 100 chance of happening are still a higher priority for brainstorming, at least to my mind, than things with a probability of 1 in 10 e 100,000,000,000. That said, we'll file whatever people come up with.