OS Weather report system/ Day and night meter.

[Ned Loe]

Just had an idea and decided to share it

 

OS Weather report system is a visual tool that could give players better control over long OS journeys and train them to chart the best and fastest routes to final destinations. 

 

Think of Icon indication system similar to shoals. Shoals indicator will let you know if you are near shallow area, so you change your direction and go around it. Same idea with weather system. Wind/weather Icons can show players what weather it is right now and suggest next possible weather and wind change at given direction. So, if I am sailing west I will see my weather icon is 'cloudy' wind behind my back and possibility of wind shift is 15 degrees to the right in next 5 mi. or 5 mins and if I turn (change direction) and sail south I will get a different prediction for next 5mi or 5 mins.  

 

Benefits:

 

This system can let players plan their routes ahead and let them chart fastest sail before wind change. Example:  If system suggests bad wind in next 5 mi. Player could take another angle with better prediction, sail and then change direction again for better wind and weather and so on. 

 

Also, I would like to suggest day and night meter. Clean visual tool to let players know when day/night will be over.

 

Please discuss. 

 

[Tief N Tote]

maybe those are features that can be unlocked if you have a good astronomer in crew, not sure some rookie in a skiff should have the same re[port

[_Masterviolin]

This picture makes me wish I could use good graphics ;_;

[maturin]

Age of Sail: iPad widget edition

[Johny Reb]

If the weather systems were more complicated than maybe I'd consider this idea but as it stands all those icons are not needed because you can see it in game. The wind always shifts the same direction on a predictable time frame. You can look at the position of the sun and know exactly how much daylight you have left. You can see storms on the horizon and there is no other weather in the game. At most a barometer would be the only thing you need if you need that at all.

[Prater]

A barometer might be cool.  It could tell us if there is a storm nearby that is out of viewing distance.

 

Also, any kind of UI like this must be able to be individually disabled.  I hate an overabundance of UI and I like to enable the UI that I want enabled and disable that which I don't.  The Assassin's Creed series is masters of this.  Each individual thing I can disable if I want.  It wouldn't be hard either.  Code in the UI option screen, set each option to true or false, and then the ui logic is something like this:

 

If barometer

    display barometer

if weatherReport

   display weatherReport

if time

  displayTime

 

etc.

 

Minimalisit UI or the ability to disable and enable each individual UI element is the way to go.  And I'm not talking about ctrl h, because that disables it all.  Sometimes you only want a few UI elements disabled and the others to still appear.

[Henrik]

I like it OP! +1