RELEASED EnhancedTemperature 1.3.2 reup

I still can't understand why Chucklefish scrapped the previous temperature system. That was a terrible decision IMO. I could definitely see disabling it for casual, but beyond that all they did is make Starbound less than whole. Your mods should exist to adjust and expand upon the system, not attempt it's replacement. No offense intended towards either of you of course, but this is the sort of thing that SHOULD be handled by the game engine itself on the C++ side of things for performance reasons. It should be baked in. Obviously Chucklefish disagrees and thus such mods become necessary.

I haven't checked out how this particular mod works in practice yet(pending FU patch). How while we've not been given access to place a hud on screen like the old system utilized, I believe there is the particle system that might substitute. For example it was once used to indicate the need to interact with the tech station, but sourced from the tier0 ship lockers. The object's had this in the JSON.

Code:

"particleEmitter" : {
  "emissionRate" : 1,
  "pixelOrigin" : [164, 27],

  "particle" : {
  "type" : "textured",
  "image" : "/objects/ship/emid.png",
  "size" : 1,
  "color" : [255, 255, 255, 255],
  "fade" : 0.0,
  "initialVelocity" : [0.0, 0],
  "finalVelocity" : [0.0, 0],
  "approach" : [0, 0],
  "timeToLive" : 0.5,
  "layer" : "front",
  "fullbright" : true
  }
  }

That makes me think about making the player a particle emitter using the animation system - as a substitute for proper hud access.



In effect I don't think it would be much different than what we had.

 

I can tell you techs make use of it(all the effects you see). They would use the player's position as the source but no reason you couldn't spawn the particle just north of the player's position. Although I'd expect the status system is a better fit than requiring techs and would work much the same way.

The small downside is multiplayer peeps seeing this particle, but that isn't a big deal IMO. Still that's why a hud would be better if we had it.

 

Will you be adding any insulating clothing with armor value?

 

Here's some suggestions after playing with this a little:

I played it through and I got stuck on the first challenge in the game, gathering Core Fragments near the planet's core. Going down that deep kills the character by way of hyperthermia. Perhaps I missed something, as I headed down straight from the first mine with all the starter gear, and didn't take a break to craft anything. If nothing has been added yet to address this problem, you might still need to introduce something early on to keep characters' alive through that first challenge. Perhaps just adding custom stims to the starter gear in your ship that cools you down temporarily would be enough to make this a little more playable, and still make hyperthermia a early threat. Making them craftable from Core Fragments might be a funny way of balancing the continued "cooling stim" use with acquiring more Core Fragments.

 

I think a lot more people will be looking into this, once the changes are live.
I know I will be.

 

I still haven't used it quite yet but will once I can with FU. I'll be patient until then, even if I am anxious to use it.

And I haven't unpacked to look at your code yet, but in case you're still figuring out how to handle heat sources I have a suggestion. A very basic mockup of putting temperature changes

Code:

function changeTemp(sourceTemp, insulationFactor)
  insulationFactor = insulationFactor or 1.00
  local changeFraction = 100
    --so that it doesn't change the temp too much in a single tick
    --the actual number you'd want to use is something to experiment with
  local diffTemp = sourceTemp - storage.currentTemp
    --in theory if the sourceTemp was colder than storage.currentTemp, you would loose heat instead
  local alteration = (diffTemp * insulationFactor) / changeFraction
    --It will never fully equalize temperature, but larger difference result is larger adjustments.
  storage.currentTemp = storage.currentTemp - alteration
end

It would only make a fraction of the change per function call. So you call it periodically(update paired with a timer) instead for gradual changes. It solves the issue of people wanting to spam lots of heat sources. That just isn't going to work with this implimentation. A single really hot source would, but soon they could overheat instead! That makes it rather realistic.

What's more - a temperature source (which could be ambient air) - would warm if it is warmer than the player, or cool if it is cooler than the player. It isn't something you'd have to think about... it just works naturally.

insulationFactor would be affected by armor(as I believe you're already doing) and probably also could be affected by being immersed in liquids. That in turn makes cold oceans and lava all the more dangerous. And that could REPLACE the burning status effect that lava gives you. Note that insulation would slow warming and cooling equally... which again is realistic.

Possibly you have this all figured out already and/or prefer it your way more so than my suggested method. I won't take offense. Your mod, your way.

Another possible suggestion - you might also take into consideration if a species is supposed to be warm blooded. A relatively small passive raise to temperature. But that would make the warm blooded have an easier time on cold planets, and a harder time on hot planets. You'd just have a species check function, and if it doesn't match a known string then you just default it to one or the other. Different species may also have different "comfort zones" aka a range of temperatures for which they don't suffer damage. And of course you'd need a default range for species not in your list of strings.

edited:even though not needed, after a little rest I realized my formula didn't make sense. This makes more sense. My ocd wouldn't just let it be even if it doesn't matter.

 

I ran through the game with this mod, and it felt pretty good on moderate worlds. I pulled off my gear when I started overheating, and I pulled it all back on when the temperature dropped again. When I reached the frozen planets I started to have problems though. A blizzard came in, so I found shelter and started a fire, but my exposure kept rising regardless. It didn't feel like shelter or a fire was working. The blizzard went away and I got out and got into a fight with someone, then my exposure quickly jumped through the stages until I died of freezing before I got halfway through the fight. The two problems that I can see from this is that getting into a tent or standing by a fire should make the player feel like it's having more of an effect. As well, when exposure does kick in, it should never jump too quikly through the stages. In this case it was faster then it took to get done with combat and bunker down.

If it's possible, I'd suggest pausing exposure during combat. Also, I'd suggest that sleeping and being by a fire not just reduce exposure by some indiscernible amount, but instead neutralize it to some very obvious degree. If you set up camp and sleep in a tent it should feel like you're weathering a storm or getting through a very cold night in relative comfort. Exaggerating the positive effects may not be that balanced for gameplay, but it will be a strong set of signs to make the player know when they're doing the right thing and when they're not.

I hope this feedback helps. It feels like it's getting there, but it may still need some polishing still. This project has come a long way in a short amount of time. Great work so far!