Area radiation instead of hot tiles?

[TooDAMNMuch]

i’m honestly not sure if the current way radiation typically works is intended or just waiting on more polish, but in my experiences rolling around in nuclear waste in the cataclysm it seems to always be random single tiles that have radiation dosing going on.

i suppose, if we assume that there is some (probably microscopic in a lot of cases) radioactive particle left there emitting the radiation then this makes a lot more sense, but i’ve always thought personally that radiation in cataclysm could be improved through one or two approaches:

1. blanket radiation, for areas that are intended to be highly radioactive i would think the most simple and sense making way to represent it would be the entire building emits radiation constantly as well as bleeding out of the structure into a few tiles of standard grass or whatever type of terrain that would extend past the boundary in all directions.

2. more radiant point radiation, i feel that most if not all radiation sources should accurately be an Area of Effect of some size or another, for something emitting lots of rads in an area that’s mostly clean, like a vial of plutonium in or whatever a few tiles near the source depending on intensity would also emit radiation at a reduced ratio to the source.

additionally, in cases where it would make sense, maybe the cleaner robots should actually be able to sanitize a certain tile of radiation, not sure if that would really be doable to give terrain tiles a true/false flag whether or not they’re radioactive at all and to be fair it would probably be somewhat unwanted by at least some players as well - if i find FREE radiation, i’m GOING to take some, believe me, it’s a valuable resource in my eyes - so maybe the cleaners could produce a container of some sort that would let you take it to contaminate another area if you so choose.

[kevin.granade]

Tying radiation to tiles instead of areas is mostly an issue of it being a better way to implement the effect in code, area effects are extremely expensive to process, and really you just bake whatever area effects you want into the code that applies the radiation in the first place and you get the same effect, with the sole exception of powerful dynamic radiation sources, which we don’t have.

The effects you’re asking for could easily be implimented by just adjusting mapgen, and feel free to do so.

I see no benefit to adding features to bottle up and move around radiation, it’s not a remotely sensible thing to do.

[TooDAMNMuch]

not sure i’d really know where to begin on mapgen adjustments, what exactly does that entail to work with?

the only real reason i dislike it being tied to specific tiles is it’s easier to misunderstand that way honestly, some tiles seem arbitrarily chosen to be more dangerous than others so it might scare people off investigating more thoroughly.

[TooDAMNMuch]

Is it possible to make the points count down from whatever value instead of up to that value? Like instead of saying 704 of 1000. It would show 296 points remaining.

your amount of radiation taken, you mean? like have 0 equal dead? i’m honestly not sure there is a maximum dosage of radiation the character can take, very well might be wrong though.

[nick0010]

Generally anything over 500 is lethal, though ive survived with 1500 before by the grace of RNGesus. Though survived may be a bit of an overstatement. 30 bandages, a ton of aquarium fertilizer and prussian blue,a few bottles of disinfectant, and 10 first aid kits and i still broke both my arms both my legs and had less than a 20 health for my head and torso. Was not a fun time.

[TooDAMNMuch]

Generally anything over 500 is lethal, though ive survived with 1500 before by the grace of RNGesus. Though survived may be a bit of an overstatement. 30 bandages, a ton of aquarium fertilizer and prussian blue,a few bottles of disinfectant, and 10 first aid kits and i still broke both my arms both my legs and had less than a 20 health for my head and torso. Was not a fun time.

the worst radiation sickness i’ve ever had in game reduced every body part to single digit levels of HP, the only reason i lived was because i got the fuck out as soon as that happened and switched 100% of my effort to survival and recovery immediately, i’m fairly certain i had to make multiple trips back for my gear as well due to the stat reductions, they get severe after a bit.

i’m fairly positive i’ve been past 1500 quite a few times and survived, makes me wish i kept better records to be honest, but at some point in my quest for mutations i stop having any use at all of radiation badges as the amount of radiation turns them black nearly instantly and my character is still able to take controlled doses and live.

actually… how many rads does a badge take to turn black? probably 500 i guess? weird as it is, i actually require a geiger counter before long to accurately track it though.

[kevin.granade]

actually… how many rads does a badge take to turn black? probably 500 i guess? weird as it is, i actually require a geiger counter before long to accurately track it though.

That’s intentional, rad badges are intended to let you know when you’ve been irradiated, not accurately track exposure over long timespans.

[TooDAMNMuch]

That’s intentional, rad badges are intended to let you know when you’ve been irradiated, not accurately track exposure over long timespans.

i kinda figured as much, yeah, good to know for sure though.
to be fair, anyone who seriously spends a lot time being irradiated without a geiger counter is doing it in the most suicidal way possible anyway.