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Instead of an auto-decay timer for structures let natural disasters destroy them


Pojoaque

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My idea is to replace the cold mechanical auto-decay timer with a dynamic system with special effects and an element of chance.

 

Frequency   Disaster       Can Destroy             Common Biomes               Effects

High             Typhoons     Thatch                       Beaches                           Wind, Rain

Medium        Wild Fires     Thatch and Wood     Forests                              Fire, Wind, Wild creatures flee

Low              Earthquakes  Stone                       Harvestable Nodes          Shaking, Creature behavior set to passive flee

Rare             Volcanos        Anything                  Mountains                         Shaking, Smoke, Fire, Lightning, wild creatures flee

 

This would be a better game design because it would prevent maps from getting clogged up with superfluous structures and put players to work repairing and prioritizing structures.

Player spawn areas and rare resource node areas could have higher rates of disasters that would do-away with the need to pillar areas. The random nature of disasters would add an element of surprise that would keep the experience fresh rather than mechanically logging in just to render bases to keep them from auto-decaying. 

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This would be incredibly annoying in PVP. It's probably good for PVE but definitely doesn't belong in PVP unless they introduced a system where each tribe had a "home base" flag that they could put down which have a radius around it giving it unique bonuses. Anything built outside that would be subject to auto decay/unique disasters etc.

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Having a base flag is actually a great idea.  One per tribe, which eliminates the "need" for pillar spam by allowing people to build on any area not flagged as a home base.  Maybe require a tribe to build a certain amount before it can be declared a home base, so the really pretty bases will still get built and dominate the sky but if two noobs want to build thatch huts right next to each other they can.

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On 5/20/2022 at 11:45 PM, MadCow said:

Having a base flag is actually a great idea.  One per tribe, which eliminates the "need" for pillar spam by allowing people to build on any area not flagged as a home base.  Maybe require a tribe to build a certain amount before it can be declared a home base, so the really pretty bases will still get built and dominate the sky but if two noobs want to build thatch huts right next to each other they can.

Keep in mind the game Atlas tried this whole flag thing, but could never get it to work well (in my opinion). Many feel like Atlas was just ARK with ships, so a pretty good test that a flag for a base sounds like a good idea but for some reason doesn't actually work in practice. I had high hopes for it, but it just didn't work well. It also becomes a type of spam, similar to foundations.

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On 5/19/2022 at 1:58 AM, ForzaProiettile said:

This would be incredibly annoying in PVP. It's probably good for PVE but definitely doesn't belong in PVP unless they introduced a system where each tribe had a "home base" flag that they could put down which have a radius around it giving it unique bonuses. Anything built outside that would be subject to auto decay/unique disasters etc.

Well us PvE players also don't like our bases being destroyed by disasters. Most PvE players invest a lot of time in their base. Many play PvE largely because their base will not be destroyed in PvE

Disasters are part of hard core survival games, and really, ARK is pretty soft on the survival aspect. They threw in a few hard core aspects like deceases, but really, you can avoid those if you want. 

ARK is a sandbox type of game, where you really can create whatever you want from it (especially if you add in mods). It is extremely configurable. I suppose I'd have no problem with them adding disasters if there was a switch to just turn them off. I only play on dedicated servers that are modded. I would have no problem finding one or making my own that has the disaster thing turned off.

Seems like a waste of time though to add a feature I'm guessing most PvE servers would just turn off. I mean if you want disasters, you would just play on the official servers that have it.

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The issue with spam is that is does not need any maintenance, other than just be in render.
To change the time based decay system to a more formulaic damage-over-time system that needs actual upkeep would force players to gather recources in balance to their buildings.
The task of maintenance could be perfectly done by a cute monkey, as long as he's provided with the mats to do it. Give the monkey a bench or cage where you store the mats for it and it will work as long as you feed it.


The damage could be like a wear & tear percentual factor and a decay constant. I've played around a bit and based on the current health of foundations to me it seems it roughly equals the current timers when decay damage is calculated per hour:

Damage = Actual Health x W(ear)% + D(ecay)

With health as is and settings for W/D as follows:
Thatch 4/2 has 98 hours
Wood 3/2, 180 hours
Stone 2/1, 284 hours
Metal 1/2, 433 hours
Tek 1/1, 501 hours

This way the initial maintenance will be high, more reason not to spam resource area's to death. It also reasembles the nature of the materials in a better way: In lowest tier wear and rot is high, in mid-tier metal wears off less than stone but rusts away.

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