Prison Architect Weather?

[Gabriel10010]

The question is...

Is it possible?

Possible to pit in "Weather" such as-- RAIN! ;D

[Brento666]

I have ponded and contemplated weather systems... I was thinking far ahead to snow...

I foresee trouble with the default shadow added to objects on most 'z-index' layers... I've been meaning to further test the default behavior for a way around the mandatory shadows.

But am busy with other mods atm.,, In short; maybe, but you would need
- above average scripting skills to manage cloud cover, rainy patches and puddles forming and dissipating...
- great artistic skills to draw/animate everything smoothly.
- great dedication to test and test and test again and again.

-on top of that, I think you need a fully formed plan for added game mechanics. -> Or it will not be more then a layer of smudge overlayed on an unaffected game (!)

I'll certainly try it ..
...if I'm still modding this game further on! I am currently limited, as everyone else playing PA with mods is, in space to effectively run multiple mods..
-So I might have to (temporarily) stop modding PA if and when my mods total up to the limit(!)


Anyway, any further ideas attached to said weather?
-> Umbrella's in the rain to help lower an instantly-added 'dry-ness' need or something?
-> Umbrella's shielding prisoners from further added dryness need...?
-> Getting guards with umbrella's would be tougher, they have no needs. Setting their equipment with the script api is quite 'hacky' currently; done with (shifty) numbers...but doable...

I'd like my guys to be affected and run inside! But I fear scripting it all will amount to a heavy load on systems and, very possibly, instability problems with the game because too many sprites / script... I'd also like reeeaaly sunny days

[aubergine18]

Outdoor generators exploding when wet

Problem is, we can't script proper water at the moment. A meteor shower might be do-able though lol.

[Trixi]

just my thoughts:

We can find out what outdoor and what indoor and what a wall is.

If we go through all x and y coordinates with can find out with getmaterial(x,y) or how the function is called, which is indoor and which is an outdoor fields, as outdoor and indoor has complete different materials. and then we can spawn items at those fields or water . And if we give those items a velocity and give them a velocy, it would look like rain

But it sounds laggy to me

[Brento666]

just my thoughts:
We can find out what outdoor and what indoor and what a wall is.
...
But it sounds laggy to me

Hey Trixi,
getting the materials is definitely in my plans! Snow/puddles should definitely not be inside prisons, but having snow on outer walls would be cool!

It may still be weeks/months before I get to it, but thinking ahead;
-I will do trails first; I'll use simple semi-transparent colored sprites to clearly analyze behavior and performance...
-Then lag will decide if I continue any further...

Having played escape mode a bit again yesterday and setting the entire place on fire; Huge lag!

I plan to minimize lag by having weather effects cover several units at once;
-So a cloud would maybe be ~10x10. (I will stretch a sprite, maybe a 2x2 sprite)
-Rain/Snow fall would maybe be ~3x3.

May be a while still... Things always have to be perfected and tested to sh.t before I release them, my current mods are again being held back by ME

-But today seems like a good day to at least finally release my 0kb-gfx-expansion to {Paint, Upgrade,...}; {Mini, Upgrade}
-And hopefully a little later on still, but still today; {Crime, Upgrade} will follow! (-rebranded/fixed/hugely expanded version of 'New Crime Spree') (-this is a collab between myself and baseball lover!)

Perhaps in few weeks I'll set up a repository, so we can all collaborate, but will do initial testing for feasibility myself, before getting people involved in a laggy mess

[aubergine18]

It would be super useful to start a github repo - would make referring to code samples from the API wiki much easier.

[Brento666]

It would be super useful to start a github repo - would make referring to code samples from the API wiki much easier.

Agreed! The docs could be more insightful with some code examples or a big examples project...

Are you wanting small scripts to demonstrate portions at a time? Or a bigger script that can be referenced for more complex examples?
Or both?

I'm a bit swamped still, but will join git before weeks end I promise!
(edit:) If you need me to start a bare and a few basic projects there, I can do that over the weekend prob..

ps Finally got my capture software working, but hesitant to tease Surgery to the public atm.. It may still be a while before I finish it!
I might tease it to my FB friends though. If ya still want to see I'll drop you a link a little later
(Aiming to have an initial release at least before Christmas!)

[Brento666]

just my thoughts:

We can find out what outdoor and what indoor and what a wall is.

If we go through all x and y coordinates with can find out with getmaterial(x,y) or how the function is called, which is indoor and which is an outdoor fields, as outdoor and indoor has complete different materials. and then we can spawn items at those fields or water . And if we give those items a velocity and give them a velocy, it would look like rain

But it sounds laggy to me

I actually do exactly what you describe... Before I only checked room limits in 4 directions...
-Now I use a similar technique to find out if inside or outside and it works (quite) well !

I am busy on an update that does funny business with lights.. but the trick doesn't work outside so my script reverts to spawning a normal light if outside..
-But the script only has to run one for every item placed, doing it on large scale (for weather) would get problems I'm afraid(!)