Weather and other Ideas for game

Time scale - Originally I was thinking of having a turn be a day or even a week, but I am now reconsidering that idea. I has playing around last night and thinking that maybe 4 turns per day would allow for interesting stories. The turns would be Dawn, Noon, Dusk, and Night. I thought this would allow for interesting weather patterns to develop as well as make for exciting moments of trying to get a crippled ship back to safety or just get a ship out of a storm and to a Bay.

Now this has lead to a problem. How to create a weather system that changes but changes in a somewhat predictable manner. I was thinking every turn to draw a weather card. This would allow weather to develop over the day but how to create a system that would allow the earlier cards to influence later weather cards (how to make dark clouds on the horizon at noon turn into rain at night). How to change weather without wild fluctuations?

In someways I would like to have a seasonal weather card. Which would say something to the effect of Cold Spring, Wet Summer, mild Winter, etc... which would have an influence on all weather cards. Ideally there would also be regional weather. Which could actually be symbols on the board. For example when crossing a straight it may have a fog icon on it amplifying any fog effect. And then as I described above a quad daily weather change. So Seasonal weather modifier, Regional weather modifier, plus the daily weather changes.

I was also thinking there should be a wave height scale that moves up and down. Probably 1-10 meters. Weather cards can change the wave height. Either increase or decrease the counter on the scale or reset the wave height to a number.

I like the idea of trying to get somewhere and the region you have to cross my have a regional start wave height of 3 meters (which would be rolling seas but nothing most boats shouldn't be able to handle) then the weather takes a turn for the worst. Now the seas are angry and the waves are now 6 meters high. The boat crest over the wave and for a moment you only see sky before the boat tips down and comes slamming down. As the boat begins to level out another wave smashes into and breaks over the bow. The boat shutters and creaks against the force of the wave. The boat takes "1 point" of water damage to the bow. Now the captain has to make a call. Try and push through to their objective or turn around and get the boat to safety. The weather could get worse, better, or stay the same. It may make for some drama.

I also like the idea of boats slowly sinking. So maybe it takes a day (4 turns) for it to sink or maybe longer if the pumps are helping but not enough. This could allow other players to try and move in and rescue the captain. The idea of dangerous rescues in angry seas is part of the romance of maritime lore.

So trying to find ways to make this all work together. One way to solve this is perhaps have everyone on the same boat and play more of a forum game so that it could have more of a role playing element. We could just make a map with basic info on it, like waves or foggy areas, as well as the obvious ports, etc...Upload more detailed maps to the forum and let the characters decide what to do and allows for more improvization on the fly. This however removes some of the fun of making a ship and equipping it with various components and making a compendium of ship stories over several games.

I've always thought your basic ideas for weather are pretty solid and this write-up lays-out what you've discussed before. The 'Dawn, Noon, Dusk, Night' is new and would create a very fine level of turn detail, but I'm still inclined to use it.

I suspect going through the Car Wars material will only deepen the desire for building your own mix'n'match boats. Car Wars used to have a water vehicle supplement, I think it was just called "Boat Wars"... maybe we could borrow some ideas from that.

If you can make it up for xmas, I say we set the goal of launching a boat on this forum before you leave. We'll just set sail with a few basic rules and make the rest up as we go along. The memories of my time in NL is still pretty vivid in my head .

https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/ocean/surface/currents/orthographic=-57.08,28.50,425

So I have been playing around with my Excel weather maker program and making good progress. Now this has lead me to am idea for the game. How about pressures that go well out of the range we normally experience? I thought it might be cool to have really high pressure systems roll in that would cause crippling headaches without protection. Or super lows that may be equivalent to being at high altitude. Super high pressures could maybe decrease wave height while super lows could increase it?

The highest recorded pressure on land was 1,083.8 hpa/32.00 inHg.
I'm not sure of the effect this would have on a human. How quickly the pressure moves in might be important if the pressures in diving are any guide.

The lowest atmospheric pressure was 870 hPa/25.69 inHg.
To get altitude sickness you would still likely need to drop another 200 hPa using the pressure of 10,000 ft as 'high altitude' (10.11 psi, 696.81 hPa, 20.584 inHg).


Here is some info from a site on experiencing pressure changes:

some site wrote: I found information which confirms the bodies ability to detect and react to barometric pressure. Studies (conducted on airmen/flight crews) show that decreased barometric pressure induces the tendency/desire to sleep (Effects of Mild Hypobaric Hypoxia on Oxygen Saturation During Sleep). As barometric pressure is reduced, the air around us carries less oxygen. Our body needs oxygen in order to work and operate at peak effeciency. Reducing the amount of oxygen in our blood reduces the bodies ability to do work. Reduction in available oxygen (induced by reduction in atmospheric pressure) brings about 'symptoms' associated with sleepiness.

As the atmospheric pressure drops, these fluids and gasses expand. As the fluids and gasses in the joint expand, they press against nerves around my joints. This is translated into pain by my brain. It hurts. The only real relief I get when this happens, is from massaging my muscles, or cracking my joints. The feeling is strongest in the joints of my toes and hands. I have no idea why my calves would ache when this happens, but they ache as well.
https://www.robsworld.org/barometer.html