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Don't know whether this has been brought up or not but i thought what would be really cool? If by a random chance that during a heavy storm or thunder storm that maybe,just maybe every now and then randomly Lightning strikes a tree or a house Resulting in it burning into a crisp and starting a fire or just instant crisp(with a tree or a wall frame or you know what i'm getting to) Also make like a lightning effect like how it is on the main menu. Would add to the apocalyptic feel and the im scared,alone and about to jump outta my pants feeling for some.

(And yes i know i spelled Lightning wrong in the title haha very tired and running on little sleep)

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That's really a once in a lifetime happening. I don't think many of us have actually seen a lightning hit the ground let alone lighting something on fire. I've heard a story once about lightning hitting a tree on our family cottage in the 50's or something, but that's as close as I've been to an actual lightning hitting the ground. :P

 

My opinion, it's too rare to be realistic and worthwile at the same time.

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I'm leaning for thunderstorms making the lights flicker. As in lightning flashes, thunder rumbles, and lights blinking in and out before stabilizing.

 

or ever coming back on at all?

 

What if a storm had a random % chance of knocking out the power permanently?

 

It would also be cool (not very realistic) that every time the power died it was because of an issue somewhere in the game world. Powerlines knocked down due to the storm, a transformer blew because of a lightning strike, etc. A player who has found certain manuals or books could repair the damage and get the power back on.

 

Something similar for the water?

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That's really a once in a lifetime happening. I don't think many of us have actually seen a lightning hit the ground let alone lighting something on fire. I've heard a story once about lightning hitting a tree on our family cottage in the 50's or something, but that's as close as I've been to an actual lightning hitting the ground. :P

 

My opinion, it's too rare to be realistic and worthwile at the same time.

I've seen plenty of lightning strikes in person. When i lived at the farm i saw the lightning strike the fence numerous times,ive seen trees being striked to. Also power failures tend to happen more often than not.

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I've seen plenty of lightning strikes in person. When i lived at the farm i saw the lightning strike the fence numerous times,ive seen trees being striked to. Also power failures tend to happen more often than not.

 

Cool! But how often have you seen them? Is it a yearly event, because I very much doubt it. I can agree with the power outage part, but I don't see them lighting forests often enough to be seen worth implementing.

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I've seen plenty of lightning strikes in person. When i lived at the farm i saw the lightning strike the fence numerous times,ive seen trees being striked to. Also power failures tend to happen more often than not.

 

Cool! But how often have you seen them? Is it a yearly event, because I very much doubt it. I can agree with the power outage part, but I don't see them lighting forests often enough to be seen worth implementing.

 

Actually the likely hood of lightning to strike a tree in a forest compared to a Electric pole,or a house is even more rare. Lighting tends to strike houses that aren't grounded or has dishes or metal fences running along it. Like the one next to Kate and Baldspots new location in Muldraugh. Plus it would be a cool little effect when after a storm brews over and the player goes to roam a neighboring neighborhood or goes a few over to find a house burning or struck and burnt to a crisp in a spot. Would add to the effects of the game. Also would make players online or on singleplayer take in consideration of locationing their safehouse near a Wired fence. I mean i don't know where y'all live but i've seen a bunch of lightning strikes happen in many counties here. I saw lightning strike a fence 3 times in one storm. I 've seen my grandmas old place be struck also. The odds of it striking the player, Extremely Rare. The odds of striking a House,Rare. The odds of striking a Tree,Normal. The odds of striking Fences,Common. Should be a Sandbox option also for people who don't want this effect to take place. Kinda like how people play using a George Romero type of zombie or others use more of a World War Z approach to the apocalypse. Everybody plays different. Me i just want to see Realistic gameplay. Now when they integrate Louisville in the game. I wouldn't expect many buildings to be struck there. Unless they don't have a grounding box located on the taller buildings ;) Just makes the game more realistic. Goes with the erosion mod hand in hand.

Actually correction. Houses being strike rate low,as long as lets say the houses are grounded right. But trailers and cabins along with warehouses and stuff that wouldn't be grounded would be struck more often. Also running in the rain and near water makes the chances of striking the player more often. 

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I think this could be a thing that depends a lot on where you live. I live in Finland and large thunderstorms happen maybe once a year or every other year. And as I said I've never seen one hit the ground, tree, fence or anything. But you didn't answer my question as to how often have you seen this. 'Often' isn't very describing. Once/twice a year once every other year? How many times have you seen this altogether compared to your age. What I'm getting at is the same realism you are, but what also matters is the dev time versus the added gameplay value.

 

Just note that I'm not trying to trump your idea, I'm just interested in the facts.

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based on a 15 year study by NOAA of lightning flashes, Cloud to Ground, Kentucky gets quite a bit of lightning

http://www.lightningsafety.noaa.gov/stats/Table-Flashes_by_State_1997-2011.pdf

 

in 2011 they had 730,443 flashes.

the average during the 15 year study was 550,397 flashes.

 

so with an average of over 1500 flashes per day in that time period, lightning would certainly be reasonable to hope for

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based on a 15 year study by NOAA of lightning flashes, Cloud to Ground, Kentucky gets quite a bit of lightning

http://www.lightningsafety.noaa.gov/stats/Table-Flashes_by_State_1997-2011.pdf

 

in 2011 they had 730,443 flashes.

the average during the 15 year study was 550,397 flashes.

 

so with an average of over 1500 flashes per day in that time period, lightning would certainly be reasonable to hope for

 

Normalizing by area, that would be about 13.7 flashes per square mile per year (5.3 per square kilometer per year). I think it's harder to figure what the effects should be - the only lightning strikes I can remember hearing of in real life involved trees being killed, not fires that actually spread.

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based on a 15 year study by NOAA of lightning flashes, Cloud to Ground, Kentucky gets quite a bit of lightning

http://www.lightningsafety.noaa.gov/stats/Table-Flashes_by_State_1997-2011.pdf

 

in 2011 they had 730,443 flashes.

the average during the 15 year study was 550,397 flashes.

 

so with an average of over 1500 flashes per day in that time period, lightning would certainly be reasonable to hope for

 

Normalizing by area, that would be about 13.7 flashes per square mile per year (5.3 per square kilometer per year). I think it's harder to figure what the effects should be - the only lightning strikes I can remember hearing of in real life involved trees being killed, not fires that actually spread.

 

 

Climate can play a major factor with the effects of lightning strikes. How dry is the environment that the strike hit? Was it after a long period of rain? Or has there been a drought?

 

Lightning causes 5.5 million acres to burn annually in the US and strikes 4,400 homes causing $283 million in damages.

 

http://www.lightningsafety.noaa.gov/fire.htm

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based on a 15 year study by NOAA of lightning flashes, Cloud to Ground, Kentucky gets quite a bit of lightning

http://www.lightningsafety.noaa.gov/stats/Table-Flashes_by_State_1997-2011.pdf

 

in 2011 they had 730,443 flashes.

the average during the 15 year study was 550,397 flashes.

 

so with an average of over 1500 flashes per day in that time period, lightning would certainly be reasonable to hope for

 

Normalizing by area, that would be about 13.7 flashes per square mile per year (5.3 per square kilometer per year). I think it's harder to figure what the effects should be - the only lightning strikes I can remember hearing of in real life involved trees being killed, not fires that actually spread.

 

 

Climate can play a major factor with the effects of lightning strikes. How dry is the environment that the strike hit? Was it after a long period of rain? Or has there been a drought?

 

Lightning causes 5.5 million acres to burn annually in the US and strikes 4,400 homes causing $283 million in damages.

 

http://www.lightningsafety.noaa.gov/fire.htm

 

as the link i provided does not delve into any of that type of info, i can not really answer that.

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Lightning is the leading cause of bushfires where I live. I'm still a little circumspect on the idea of fires randomly being started by lightning in game. I can see it having the potential to cause a great deal of chaos with no player agency whatsoever, which in my opinion is not a good thing. The player should get screwed over when they make a mistake, not when the game randomly decides to set stuff on fire.

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based on a 15 year study by NOAA of lightning flashes, Cloud to Ground, Kentucky gets quite a bit of lightning

http://www.lightningsafety.noaa.gov/stats/Table-Flashes_by_State_1997-2011.pdf

 

in 2011 they had 730,443 flashes.

the average during the 15 year study was 550,397 flashes.

 

so with an average of over 1500 flashes per day in that time period, lightning would certainly be reasonable to hope for

Thank you for getting the statistics to back up my statement(s) i made :)

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Okay, found a USGS map with options to show estimated historical (i.e. pre-human-intervention) fire frequencies. Playing around with the different data layers, and with the caveat that I'm not an expert on the subject or on using this particular tool, I think a good first approximation is "the Muldraugh area burned down every 5 years or less, the West Point area every 70 years or more". (The real-life railroad seems to go along a ridgeline or something; the bowl north of it, starting somewhere west of the trailer park pulloff between Muldraugh and West Point, is much less fire-prone.) What that implies about the current situation I have no idea.

 

Provided the devs implemented some kind of sort-of-science-based lightning strike model plus fire ignition and spread models to avoid making feel like a random 'screw-you' system, I don't think it would be outside the realm of OFLGBKYBYGT to drive survivors (and, presumably, wildlife and zombies) towards West Point with fire.

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