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Did the time of day cycle change?

Discussion in 'Release 54 Feedback Forum' started by Elwyn, Jun 8, 2018.

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  1. Elwyn

    Elwyn Avatar

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    I harvested some nightshade at ~10 after the hour and got 1x 1x 1x... that's odd, it shouldn't do that until past :15 after the hour (earth time). Then I looked up to the compass bar and saw it was "Morning". Previously it would have been Late Night from :07:30 to :15:00. This lasted until about :20 to :24 after the hour when it became Midday, which is usually :30:00 to :37:30.

    Was there a change to the day cycle? I never saw anything mentioning that this had been or would be changed. Not that I didn't have problems with the cycle as it was (the sun already being up at the end of Late Night just seemed wrong), but this has taken me by surprise. Now I have to go to the work again of figuring out when each day phase begins and ends.

    It also means that I need to make changes to my clock webapp.
     
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  2. 2112Starman

    2112Starman Avatar

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    Maybe they did, I seem to remember them talking recently on a video about how night starting at the start of an hour is disruptive to public events.
     
  3. Elwyn

    Elwyn Avatar

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    I guess my main problem is that this was done without documenting it (if it's in the release notes, I don't know what word to search for), and it seems to have affected the harvest window for nightshade (and probably black pearl as well).

    It's only been one full hour that I've been watching so far, and it looks like they've changed from an 8 phase day to a 6 phase day. I'll bet nightshade harvesting was just looking at what the current phase was. It used to be 3/8 phases and if now it's 2/6 phases, that will be a decrease from 22.5 minutes per hour to 20 minutes per hour. EDIT: now it looks like now the phases are different lengths, which may be even worse for nightshade harvesting

    The problem with public events was when the skybox was dark, not the names of the phases or how many there were, so why would they change that? The sky was decently bright 10 minutes after the hour anyhow, so it's not like they couldn't just wait another 5-10 minutes for people to arrive.
     
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  4. Elwyn

    Elwyn Avatar

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    Here's my first rough cut of the old vs new timing. It's a lot harder to be certain of the times without actually seeing the change happen, because they are no longer of equal length. The only ones I've witnessed so far are Midnight 00:00 and Midday ~27:25 (minutes after the hour Earth time). Some of these new ones don't seem to align to an even hour in game time.

    00:00 - 07:30 | 00:00 - 04:00 (4.0m) | Midnight
    07:30 - 15:00 | 04:00 - 07:30 (3.5m) | Late Night
    15:00 - 22:30 | 07:30 - 12:30 (5m) | Dawn
    22:30 - 30:00 | 12:30 - 27:25 (15m) | Morning
    30:00 - 37:30 | 27:25 - 32:30 (5m) | Midday
    37:30 - 45:00 | 32:30 - 46:15 (13.75m) | Afternoon
    45:00 - 52:30 | 46:15 - 52:30 (6.25m) | Dusk
    52:30 - 00:00 | 52:30 - 00:00 (7.5m) | Evening
    (all the old phases were 7.5 min earth time / 3 hours game time)

    Nightshade / Black Pearl harvesting seems to be tied to the phases of Evening + Midnight + Late Night. So instead of 22.5 minutes (37.8%) of an hour, now it is 7.5+4+3.5 or 15m (25%) of an hour, 7.5 minutes less per hour. I have a feeling that when this change was made, whoever made it did not know about how "night time" was calculated for things like this.

    So basically, we've lost a third of the time when nightshade and black pearl can be harvested, and that makes me unhappy.

    If Dusk were added, the time would be shifted about 6.5 minutes earlier, but have almost the same percentage of the day. I could be okay with that.

    EDIT: @Chris is there something that can be done about this? It's basically a nerf for those of us who like to harvest our own reagents.
     
    Last edited: Jun 8, 2018
  5. Steevodeevo

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    Interesting stuff. Also may I ask, how do innates, such as Sun Eater (extending day length) hours influence this?
     
  6. Alley Oop

    Alley Oop Bug Hunter Bug Moderator

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    they don't. that applies to how long the sun is above the horizon, not what they call it when it is.
     
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  7. Lexie

    Lexie Bear Queen Emeritus

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    The same with the moon. It can technically be day time and the moon will be up. That will still give you the dex boost if you have it unlocked.
     
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  8. Undone

    Undone Trap Master Moderator SOTA Developer

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    This was actually a bug fix. Since our day/night cycle is not even (night is far shorter than day) the period of day reflected on the compass was frequently incorrect. Previously the 8 periods were divided equally which led to "Dawn" showing on the compass when it was actually morning etc. These times were adjusted to match the sky dome and more accurately reflect the time of day; which yielded periods that are no longer equally partitioned but are more accurate to the actual time.

    tldr: night time is shorter than day time in sota
     
  9. deRoque

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    So, @Undone, I'm all for the shorter evening blackness, heheh, but can we add dusk to the harvesting bonus for the nighttshade, black pearl, and garlic reagents?
     
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  10. Lord Tachys al`Fahn

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  11. Uncle Sven

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    Which of the eight moons is the one moon we need to worry about?
     
  12. Alley Oop

    Alley Oop Bug Hunter Bug Moderator

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    there's only one moon. the rest are planets. (yes, the system is not heliocentric.)
     
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  13. Uncle Sven

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  14. Elwyn

    Elwyn Avatar

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    Right, and I'm all for that, but while the change is mostly cosmetic in the form of a display string, there was a game system that had a dependency upon it. That affected foraging for two reagents, reducing the window in each hour by a third.

    It also bothers my OCD a bit in that some of the exact times between the phases don't seem to be aligned to an in-game time of day in terms of hours or half-hours. (though I haven't nailed down most of them yet)
     
  15. Elwyn

    Elwyn Avatar

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    Garlic doesn't do this, just nightshade and black pearl. I'm not sure what if anything else in the game is/was dependent upon "night" as based on the day phases.
     
  16. Undone

    Undone Trap Master Moderator SOTA Developer

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    I'll bring it up but at this point it is unlikely.

    The change in foraging time was considered and intended.
     
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