Atmosphere and Microbes

[Eastwardrope91]

I was wondering if there was a way to change how gases worked so they were more realistic so lighting a fire doesn’t just warm an area it heats up gas in its time which spreads to other warming the whole base rather than just a few tiles around it. Also would it be possible to add microbes to the gases so that you could be infected by breathing infected gases (this would buff poison gases from enemies as well as the Mycus but only marginally) and have it so that these microbes would have a half life and every X time that passes they would decay/grow by a certain amount like every turn it decays/grows by 5 microbes. Along with gases would it be difficult/too resource intensive to make a realistic gas system and parts to that. That is adding carbon dioxide/monoxide and ventilation systems that could be built and oxygen so if you enter a cave or the deep earth you wouldn’t have that much oxygen and likewise with great heights increasing the strain on your body and vise versa with high oxygen concentrations.

TLDR
Is it easy to add a atmospheric simulation in game or does it need to be done all from scratch?
Would it be resource intensive for weaker computers?
And would it be possible to add realistic microbes both good and bad?

[joxer]

modeling local temperature would actually be swell, heating in the winter, cooling in the summer…
Would it be as simple as adding dispersion to ‘heat’ sources ( perhaps as long as they exist ) i wonder

gases just seem like pointless complication, why simulate something you can barely use?

[Eastwardrope91]

I am asking about that as its part of a larger project but might be interesting to make a standard MOD for. The microbes also would work with the atmosphere simulation as some gases make microbes thrive and others sterilize them and would be useful to some what Nerf using fire in a cave base without ventilation systems and would make it a little more difficult but in reality all you need for that is a hole in the ceiling leading to fresh air it would also make having a large corpse room less friendly as corpses produce bacteria and toxic gases such as sulfur and methane and you could have it so gases burn as well as solids and it would make gasoline more dangerous. In short It’d be like Cataclysm hardcore as gasoline would become a hazard if left in the open as well as making a few other things more difficult but would add alot of benefits as well such as making tear gas less potent as it would disperse fast in the air outside due to wind and the layers above it so it would fade and disappear fast outside and be even worse inside.

[joxer]

Yeah that sounds, slightly more resource intensive…
Consider the ‘reality bubble’ concept, whereby there’s a given amount of tiles actually being simulated and all the others are in suspension, getting loaded when approached.
calculating gas accumulation such gasoline vapour or methane from corpses… and their dispersion. may cost too much for what they’re worth.

[Eastwardrope91]

This maybe true. I might have to scale it back some or make it like fire how it burns forever if it leaves the bubble and will continue when you return. But do you think it would be easy to convert the systems in place now for gas changing it from a field to an actual gas system or would I need to gut it and start from scratch? I know how to do it from scratch I am just not sure how to convert BYOND coding into JSON or C++
Byond Space Station 13 Space Station 13 has a perfect atmospheric simulation in fact that’s what it started as and I know where the code is for that and it’s all open source (also completely community run).

[joxer]

convert coding into JSON I’m sorry I had to.

space station 13 has been on my ‘must get around to’ list for quite some time, thanks for reminding me.
Well, good luck. start simple m8, small easy goals mean steady progress.
Also I’m curious, How is pressure modeled in space station 13?

[Eastwardrope91]

It’s like real life but it’s in a box you can modify the pressure via the air alarms and atmospherics pipes. It’s really fun but be prepared to be murdered and greifed alot but it’s really fun and addicting. You will need to download it. But back on topic. I have this as a small goal for a larger project to make a new game based off of cataclysm. The New direction for Cata I had. The space station 13 is the primary one I am working on the other one I have the want to do but not the time for an entire new game.

[mr_sep]

Heat propagation from fires already works as explained in both ways, by direct heat radiation and propagation of hot air. Hot air is invisible so you are excused for not seeing it. Also unless you make a fire inside the confined space the hot air will dissipate quickly and will not propagate much. If you know coding a bit check fields.cpp file in source files. You can even make hot air visible if you want. If not, light a fire in a brazier in a building. Check temperature with a thermometer before and after in different parts of the room, even in far corridors.

Doing the same with microbes would be too resource intensive for the desired effects. Coding is like magic tricks, mostly smoke and mirrors, so you don’t need exact representation in many cases to achieve convincing effects.

[kevin.granade]

Is it easy to add a atmospheric simulation in game or does it need to be done all from scratch?

There is already a minimal amount of thermal diffusion modelling happening, but it’s an extremely expensive thing to maintain, so we don’t anticipate making it significantly more in-depth.

Would it be resource intensive for weaker computers?

Yes

And would it be possible to add realistic microbes both good and bad?

Your outline isn’t detailed enough to answer the question. You need to be more specific about what you’re trying to accomplish.

Space Station 13 has a perfect atmospheric simulation

After a quick glance through some SS13 wikis, I’m very sceptical of this assertion. SS13 looks like it’s very much optimized for modelling a closed system, and making things intentionally complex in order to increase !!FUN!! Those are both probably perfect for SS13, but terrible for DDA.

It looks like a SS13 map is in the vicinity of 500x500 tiles, the DDA reality bubble is about 121x121x21 tiles.
This might look like it means it would be easier to track gas composition and pressures in DDA, but the reality bubble does not represent the entirety of the game. A given enclosed area can have a completely arbitrary volume, meaning there’s no way to bound how much computation you have to do to keep an atmospheric simulation consistent.

As for the complexity, unlike in SS13 these atmospheric effects would be the exception rather than the rule, which limits the value of making this system more complex.

[Eastwardrope91]

I’ve tried that but rooms stay the same temperature despite the 450 plus Fahrenheit fire burning in a closed room this being a LMOE Shelter it didn’t change that much from what I could tell. I have looked at it and it didn’t change it from what I could tell (I had a fire with several log placed on it and it did little to warm the shelter) it warmed it near the fire for a few tiles but did little else. But if you look at space station 13’s atmospheric simulation that’s the sort of level I’d like to make. And the microbes are also inspired by it but increased in level of detail.

[joxer]

Wait, If this system is in place have any cooling solutions been considered?

[Eastwardrope91]

I should probably elaborate on the microbes then.

I want to make it so surfaces and gases have a certain amount of bacteria which either propagates or dies out over time like that spear you used to clear a whole town is covered in decaying matter and bacteria and would make a bad tool for cooking as it would transfer some to the time being cooked. In the air it would reproduce or die out like the common cold would spread out and die after X time. If one food it would spread on it and make it contaminated and would speed up rotting. It would also make the cold infect other NPCs around you. Basically a infection model.

[mr_sep]

If you’d like to code for example a leaking tank of supercooled liquid gas that drastically cools down the environment via propagation of cold air, then yes it is achievable via existing mechanics, without the need of creating a new one from scratch.

[mr_sep]

That did little or it did nothing? Small fires propagate warm air, just few degrees hotter then ambient, and it needs time to move around to fill distant parts of the building. Closing doors and windows also play a role.
Depending on conditions, time, etc it can be barely noticeable, but equipped with a thermometer, it should still be noticeable especially in comparison to outside temperature.

[kevin.granade]

I’m not clear how this has any relationship to a gas model. You could just set an “infected” flag on the spear with some chance per attack against an infected target, then have it apply that to food if it’s used for cooking. Something is going to decide how viable that infection on the spear remains over time, but a gas model has little to nothing to do with it.

Even then though, it’s not a really compelling feature, since you just have a separate cooking tool, which is trivial.

At a larger scope, an atmospheric model isn’t going to be as worthwhile in dda because there’s very limited opportunity to interact with it.