Simcountry is a multiplayer Internet game in which you are the president, commander in chief, and industrial leader. You have to make the tough decisions about cutting or raising taxes, how to allocate the federal budget, what kind of infrastructure you want, etc..
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New types of disasters for more realism

Topics: Suggestions: New types of disasters for more realism

Marshal Trumm

Sunday, May 6, 2012 - 12:28 am Click here to edit this post
How many natural disaster types are there in SC? Just earthquakes, right? That's the only type I know of. We should add more types. I am not talking about increasing the frequency of disasters, only adding some variety to the disasters that happen.

For example, maybe there could also be tornadoes and hurricanes. Or perhaps an earthquake could also trigger a tsunami.

Another thing that came to my mind was special disasters that require certain circumstances, like nuclear accidents. Here's how it could work:
Your country has a nuclear power corporation that loses a lot of money. As a result, the company has to make cuts in staffing, laying off some employees, and reducing safety measures. When this happens, the chance, or probability, of a nuclear disaster happening increases dramatically until one month that the game randomly chooses, there is an accident; the reactor goes critical, and there is now a radiation leak in the surrounding area.
Now, being the a science major in college, I happen to know from chemistry that a nuclear reactor can never actually explode like a bomb, because the reaction is moderated and controlled (even if you turned all the safeties off and put it on full throttle, it would definitely overheat, but it still wouldn't explode because of the heavy water medium that slows the reaction). Anyway, when the reactor overheats, let's say your population experiences the same radiological effects as if a nuclear bomb had went off, but not the earthquake or mass casualties that are associated with a bomb. I will also point out that these disasters would only happen if your country is playing the disaster game, just like any other disaster.

That was just an example.

My idea is, the odds of a disaster would stay the same as they are now. If the game has randomly selected your country to be hit with a disaster, it would just randomly select the disaster to hit you with, and there would be different types.

Marshal Trumm

Sunday, May 6, 2012 - 08:30 pm Click here to edit this post
Wow. Nobody has said anything.

marshal.ney

Sunday, May 6, 2012 - 10:11 pm Click here to edit this post
Tornadoes and hurricanes would be situational - depending on the location of the country. The same with the tsunami.

Nuclear accidents/spills is a good idea I think. As well as other industrial accidents. Having a train full of ammonium nitrate derailing and exploding in a city would certainly be of the same scope as a major earthquake.

So, to sum up - no increased frequency, just a random type of disaster. If there is no different requirements to recover from it, what would be the difference in stating it was an "x" disaster instead of an earthquake, and removing the earthquake, and stating your country has been hit with a disaster? And leaving it up to the player to state what it is for role-playing purposes?

I think I'd like different requirements to recover from different ones. No increased frequency, 1 was enough in my first few days of playing. Just a random type as well - but that could cause problems. Being hit with a tsunami in a land locked country doesn't make too much sense. Sounds like a lot of coding, for little gain.

Marshal Trumm

Sunday, May 6, 2012 - 10:37 pm Click here to edit this post
Yes, Ney (I'm going to call you Ney, since we are both Marshal lol). No increased frequency, just different disasters.

I meant to imply that the different disasters would require different recovery measures. For example, you would not use building units to recover from a nuclear accident, you would use nuclear cleanup resources.

maclean

Monday, May 7, 2012 - 02:38 pm Click here to edit this post
If disasters were tied to nuclear power, no one would build any more corps, unless the price of nuke power went way up, to compensate. This would negate the purpose of nuke power, which is to offset and supplement normal electric power. Having said that, I would tentatively agree with your suggestion, if it didn't increase the amount of disasters total. You mentioned realism. I will endorse new suggestions once there is a realistic solution to the GC problem.

marshal.ney

Monday, May 7, 2012 - 09:44 pm Click here to edit this post
Add droughts and famines to the list? As well as epidemics. Varying those relief units up could prove interesting.

GC problem?

Marshal Trumm

Monday, May 7, 2012 - 09:51 pm Click here to edit this post
That's why the disasters would only happen if you are playing the disaster game, maclean.

Kitsune

Monday, May 7, 2012 - 11:40 pm Click here to edit this post
what is the disaster game?

Variety as far as disaster names and cleanup requirements go is fine, but I would also prefer not to see anything related to nuclear power. Nuclear power corps are already largely unprofitable to operate, so additional penalties are not needed.

Marshal Trumm

Tuesday, May 8, 2012 - 04:14 pm Click here to edit this post
Fair enough. I was only using it as an example.

Gunther Shamus

Wednesday, May 9, 2012 - 02:19 am Click here to edit this post
yah nuclear is not needed but tornadoes and the train idea are cool

Crafty

Wednesday, May 9, 2012 - 10:28 pm Click here to edit this post
Trains? Trains???

Where are the goddam trains!!!

Gunther Shamus

Thursday, May 10, 2012 - 04:25 am Click here to edit this post
Indeed I wonder why the gm didn't have train crashes right when the game was first made they have to make a way to punish those with low transportation indexs


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