[GeoRealism] Dynamic Ice

primem0ver

primem0ver

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As I was working on methods to initialize current data I realized something.

Maps with polar ice often have lone ice plots. Any ice that is not part of the polar ice cap (these lone ice plots) should drift slowly with the currents. When they encounter warm currents (such as the north atlantic gulf stream), they should melt. If they encounter cold currents, they should increase in size.

This would allow ice that is not attached to the main cap to move over time (with the passage of turns). Some ice may melt and disappear (especially when it encounters coasts). Some floating ice could get larger (no bigger than 2 plots).

Some new ice may be formed in regions where cold currents are slow.

So I ask the questions:
  1. Is this feasible knowing what we do about the DLL?
  2. What do you all think of this idea?
  3. If we decide not to incorporate this idea, should we get rid of lone ice plots altogether?
 
Hydromancerx said:
Also what about "glaciation"? Such the formation and melting of glaciers on land.
Click to expand...

Change in glacier size (or formation of new glaciers) would be dependent on climate change since glaciers are stationary with respect to position. (Except when climate change causes them to get bigger or smaller).

One other thing that would affect glacier size (but only with highland glaciers) would be denudation (the lowering of land elevation due to erosion over time)

So far we haven't decided whether or not we want to do these things.
 
I like the idea. I was wondering about icebergs. (Titanic). But I am playing my first game and have only just entered Classical era. So was waiting to see what transpired.
 
primem0ver said:
As I was working on methods to initialize current data I realized something.

Maps with polar ice often have lone ice plots. Any ice that is not part of the polar ice cap (these lone ice plots) should drift slowly with the currents. When they encounter warm currents (such as the north atlantic gulf stream), they should melt. If they encounter cold currents, they should increase in size.

This would allow ice that is not attached to the main cap to move over time (with the passage of turns). Some ice may melt and disappear (especially when it encounters coasts). Some floating ice could get larger (no bigger than 2 plots).

Some new ice may be formed in regions where cold currents are slow.

So I ask the questions:
  1. Is this feasible knowing what we do about the DLL?
  2. What do you all think of this idea?
  3. If we decide not to incorporate this idea, should we get rid of lone ice plots altogether?
Click to expand...

Yes it can be done, in either the dll or python

The problem will be with pathing of ships over multiple turns it ice can move into the path of the ships. Most should be avoidable, especially if the "collision" is many turns away.

We would really need to get rid of the date calendar before this is done.
 
Dancing Hoskuld said:
The problem will be with pathing of ships over multiple turns it ice can move into the path of the ships. Most should be avoidable, especially if the "collision" is many turns away.
Click to expand...

Well I have two suggestions for this.
  1. Movement is really slow so depending on how much time passes per turn, the iceberg may or may not move on a specific turn.
  2. Titanic comes to mind...LOL. If a ship is hit by an iceberg, it sinks.
 
Icebergs are better served as a random event. It doesn't make sense for "floating ice" when for that vast majority of the game the average length of a 'turn' is multiple years. Loose ocean ice not connect to a permanent polar ice cover, or attached to land, might as well 'not be there'.

However growing and shrinking the polar ice cap or large land glacier ranges are ok, to represent variations in climate from turn to turn.

A very cheap way of doing this without any extra worth is to use the Growth and decay tag that already exist in the FeatureInfo xml. the growth tag is normally how forests expand. Make the growth and decay like 50% (and make sure they are equal) and you will get random shrinkage and growth of the ice cover from turn to turn. Its effect is interesting.
 
0100010 said:
Icebergs are better served as a random event. It doesn't make sense for "floating ice" when for that vast majority of the game the average length of a 'turn' is multiple years. Loose ocean ice not connect to a permanent polar ice cover, or attached to land, might as well 'not be there'.

However growing and shrinking the polar ice cap or large land glacier ranges are ok, to represent variations in climate from turn to turn.

A very cheap way of doing this without any extra worth is to use the Growth and decay tag that already exist in the FeatureInfo xml. the growth tag is normally how forests expand. Make the growth and decay like 50% (and make sure they are equal) and you will get random shrinkage and growth of the ice cover from turn to turn. Its effect is interesting.
Click to expand...

I think you are missing the point entirely. Have you read any of the other threads about the GeoRealism engine? You may want to read up on the other GeoRealism threads before commenting here. Tags are completely unnecessary. because the recent GeoRealism threads (and the first post in this thread) mention how this is all an effect of currents and moving water which must be calculated in order for the climate engine to work. Hence, the implications of this thread:

  1. The Icebergs ARE there ALREADY. We are not talking about events or making something up. I am talking about the loose random impassable icebergs that dot the poles which are not connected to the main ice mass.
  2. The fact that turns take multiple years is fine. That is the way it is supposed to be. These things would move VERY slowly in the currents that push them but their movement is not random.
  3. Growth would occur in very cold currents in the north (this would be somewhat random... but the location would not be).
  4. Shrinkage would not be random since it would take place in warm currents.

Perhaps a picture will help. I will post a picture of what I have so far in my next post so that this is more easily understood.
 
The following picture represents the work I have done so far on the current simulator. Keep in mind that this is ONLY the beginning. There are several vectors (forces) that affect the direction of the moving water that have not been implemented yet. I also have not dealt with temperature yet since that relies on accurate, fairly continuous currents to simulate. With that in mind, take a look at this to help understand what I am proposing here:

attachment.php


Region A will be an area of very cold water. Here is a location where icebergs would form at random.

Region B is still cold (likely colder than A) so this iceberg would continue to "grow" though it would be unlikely to get bigger visually with such a short passage of sea until we get to region C. It is just as likely for new icebergs to form here as at A. Perhaps even more so.

When the currents are more complete/accurate, the upward turn you see at the bottom will flow diagonally and upward across the picture. This will also be a warm current that slowly cools as it enters the arctic area.

The iceberg in region C will not be growing or shrinking since it is in intermediate waters and about to cross into the warm flow (if the southeastern drag doesn't pull it into waters that are warmer simply because of their location). It could potentially cross into warmer waters in a few turns.

Iceberg D is right in the path of where the warm water will reach the polar region. This iceberg may melt away completely (depending on the speed of the current...).

As turns grow shorter in years, the movement of these icebergs would happen much less often (turn-wise) since the time it takes to move these beasts is considerable.
 

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I have read the thread, and I do understand it and all the concepts present. I just don't necessarily agree with all of them. The representation of icebergs being one of those things. I know there are independent loose "icebergs" I don't like them now, I wont like them later. IMO ice should be attach to the caps, land or other ice, and not free floating like that.

The reasons why I hold that opinion are 1) which I stated before, I don't think their "movement" around the sea is realistic for the given turn length. And this is given already knowing how slow they move IRL.

The other reason, which I didn't state, is IMO the "size" of a tile is way too large to represent any realistic iceberg. Before you start citing the chucks broken off the Antarctica shelf bigger than Rhode island, yes I know there are big ones that exist, but even Rhode island is probably too small to represent a tile on nearly all maps. Furthermore, the only time they are likely to be "tile size" is when they are still so close to the land/polar ice they detached from that the gaps in between them are in no way large enough represent having an entire "tile size" worth of space in between them.

Therefore I stand by what I said. IMO events are better way in which to handle icebergs interacting with ocean traffic. Otherwise your just taking up extra turn processing time to figure out where to move all the "icebergs", for what kind of gain?

You have alot of ideas in georealism I like. I am all for making a more accurate map, but remember its just a model. When the primary map generator is done, it should be done, and have minimal impact on turn processing after the fact when possible.

Editing the growth/decay flags in Feature info for ice is just s neat little trick anyone can use right now to see how they like ice that grows and shrinks over time.

Now a completely separate question for you. Are you planning to try and integrate your geo-realism map generator into the existing map scripts and/dll or use a separate program to generate a random scenario file paired with a custom data file for all your other static data (winds, currents, geo-strata, etc) that the DLL will have to be altered to read in and store?
 
I do have a ship stuck in ice graphic I want to use with the event as a special goody hut. If not part f the ice pack it would need to drift or sink. I have a sunken ship graphic (both from ffh, I think) to use as well. Yet another small project which is on the back burner.
 
Hydromancerx said:
@primem0ver

Well for a long time (like back with RoM/AND) I have wanted to have sea currents and wind direction. Here is the old topic on it ...

C2C - Sea Currents and Wind Direction
Click to expand...

Yeah, I just noticed that thread before reading the latest posts here. The global wind system is already in place. It is one of the components which influence currents that I have done. I will post a picture in your thread.
 
0100010 said:
The reasons why I hold that opinion are 1) which I stated before, I don't think their "movement" around the sea is realistic for the given turn length. And this is given already knowing how slow they move IRL.
Click to expand...

I disagree. Turn length can be accommodated for. However...

0100010 said:
The other reason, which I didn't state, is IMO the "size" of a tile is way too large to represent any realistic iceberg. Before you start citing the chucks broken off the Antarctica shelf bigger than Rhode island, yes I know there are big ones that exist, but even Rhode island is probably too small to represent a tile on nearly all maps. Furthermore, the only time they are likely to be "tile size" is when they are still so close to the land/polar ice they detached from that the gaps in between them are in no way large enough represent having an entire "tile size" worth of space in between them.
Click to expand...

This I agree with. I had already thought about this. My only reasoning for considering it anyway is that in the polar regions, the globe in reality is significantly smaller, which means that the tiles should theoretically represent a smaller size. However... that distortion is inconsistent with many other things about the game (though I do take this into account in the ocean merging methods in the water body generator).

So I assume we have at least one vote for getting rid of "free ice" altogether.
 
I think this is an awesome idea even if not completely realistic because of the size. If you do decide to make this though I would definitely use it.
 
I'd like to see:

1)Ice grow and recede based on global temperatures and recovering from ice removal from ship missions over time.

2)I like the idea of some drifting large masses of ice but it would be cool if they would join the main mass when they connect and stay fixed there and melt if they go too far south. They'd move slowly and would spawn:

3)Icebergs which should be features in motion that move along currents - again slowly and again moving too far south they melt and if they move into the main body of ice they are re-absorbed. Otherwise they'd act like reefs do now... terrain damage for boats - except that they might just move ONTO your boat.

BTW: icebergs don't really hit a ship so much as the ship hits an iceberg - and that's where it becomes a problem. Perhaps damage from this feature should be random from -200% to 200% with a minimum of 0 and ships should have a developable ability to navigate through them that obviously would become much more powerful on more advanced ships.

That gets back to the ship's Oceanworthy ability which is a project I'd love to do somewhat soon.
 
I'd like to see:

1)Ice grow and recede based on global temperatures and recovering from ice removal from ship missions over time.

2)I like the idea of some drifting large masses of ice but it would be cool if they would join the main mass when they connect and stay fixed there and melt if they go too far south. They'd move slowly and would spawn:

3)Icebergs which should be features in motion that move along currents - again slowly and again moving too far south they melt and if they move into the main body of ice they are re-absorbed. Otherwise they'd act like reefs do now... terrain damage for boats - except that they might just move ONTO your boat.

BTW: icebergs don't really hit a ship so much as the ship hits an iceberg - and that's where it becomes a problem. Perhaps damage from this feature should be random from -200% to 200% with a minimum of 0 and ships should have a developable ability to navigate through them that obviously would become much more powerful on more advanced ships.

That gets back to the ship's Oceanworthy ability which is a project I'd love to do somewhat soon.
 
I'd like to see:

1)Ice grow and recede based on global temperatures and recovering from ice removal from ship missions over time.

2)I like the idea of some drifting large masses of ice but it would be cool if they would join the main mass when they connect and stay fixed there and melt if they go too far south. They'd move slowly and would spawn:

3)Icebergs which should be features in motion that move along currents - again slowly and again moving too far south they melt and if they move into the main body of ice they are re-absorbed. Otherwise they'd act like reefs do now... terrain damage for boats - except that they might just move ONTO your boat.

BTW: icebergs don't really hit a ship so much as the ship hits an iceberg - and that's where it becomes a problem. Perhaps damage from this feature should be random from -200% to 200% with a minimum of 0 and ships should have a developable ability to navigate through them that obviously would become much more powerful on more advanced ships.

That gets back to the ship's Oceanworthy ability which is a project I'd love to do somewhat soon.
 
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