World geography and geophysics

[heu3becteh]

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I appreciate about Kenshi that, while not being realistic, the world is being reasonable from geographical point if view: there are rivers with water flowing down until the sea, many landscapes are seemingly based on some real world prototypes, and nothing is more plausible than reality.
There are some things you could overanalyse and nitpick obviously, but generally I think that map is fine as it is, you can speculate the most things genesis with exotic nature and anthropogenic influence combined.

1. But the map would gain by being larger, so that different landscapes would not change too fast, when you can see several biomes ahead and run through them relatively fast.

At least in my opinion the game would gain ambient-wise if there would be more places where you can not see other biome until horizon. And generally with beautiful consonant scenery until horizon to look at.
I dunno if the map for Kenshi 2 is based on the Kenshi map and will not have much changes?

Having a world not flat can help a little too, but is likely not worth the effort.

Horizontal visibility (now the air is always very clean, when there is no dust storm) can be of some use too. Different concentrations and optical/color properties of particulate matter in the air can be set in different regions.

2. I did some observations and there are some problems on planetary scale though. I assume they are related to the world being flat.

So I observed that:
a) Sun rises at around 5:00;
b) Sun sets at around 23:00;
c) At noon (14:00 local time, Kenshi uses +2 hour summer time https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time) the height of the sun is around 45° (culmination).

The first thing that can not be is the sun rising and setting precisely at east and at west. That happens when the day and night duration is similar, while in Kenshi the day is much longer.

Based on the a, b and c observations and the Sunrise equation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunrise_equation) I did conclude that the area is located at 64° north latitude with 19° sun declination.

Based on that you can calculate the visible location of the sun during given time.
I have a table with azimuth-height during different time with 15 minute step (‘sun_position_table_20200118.txt’ in attachment) and equation for these calculations to provide. So the sun should set/rise around 50° from the north to the east/west with the current day duration and sun culmination height. The night in conditions like that is not very dark, and stars are not seen so clear, but that is not important, I guess… Night in Kenshi is really not so dark and very short.

3. As there are no seasonal changes (I suppose?) 19° sun declination means that planet obliquity is 19° with north pole always turned towards the sun (axis rotates together with planet around the sun). That make that planet more problematic from the point of night sky though…
But I guess that easily could be simplified towards constant planetary axis direction (north pole points to the relatively same part of the night sky all the time). So there could be some pole star at the height of latitude (64° above horizon) around which other stars will rotate.
Now the night sky is rotated around some out-of-sight points below horizon at north-east and south-west, which is not realistic.

4. As far as I can say, it is not possible in any way to maintain such a geostationary orbit (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geostationary_orbit) as planetes (moons?) at the north. It could be a very unique but possible occurrence if they would be located at the south (above equator) at least...

5. Weather situation as now exists in point as parameter to display rain, clouds and everything weather-related over the screen. It would be great to see the rain above some area from the other point (that would be mostly the effect on horizontal visibility with some grayish color), to see some spatial distribution of the clouds over the sky, and not appearing and dissipating everywhere around camera (even over the point where no clouds observed at all) simultaneously when camera reaches point with weather=rain.

6. Some very simple but realistic weather assumptions may be made. Climatology may be somewhat similar to Iceland (around 64° north latitude) with significantly higher temperatures and endless summer. Maybe even some frontal-analysis-based (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_weather_analysis) weather conditions can be brought to the game in very simplified way, which will influence wind speed and direction, precipitation and maybe even temperature in some way. And of course some micro- and meso- climatology will have great role.
I can make some suggestions on that topic if that can really be implemented.

Summary
1. If worth the effort, map may be extended spatially to have a larger area for each type of scenery, to have more places where another biome is not seen around the corner. Horizontal visibility parametrization and distant mountain silhouettes can help to get more “scenic” look.
2. The area in game seems to be located at 64°N. Sun position on the sky can be set in a way reasonable from the geophysical point of view. I have made some calculations and can provide them in a convenient way.
3. Night sky would be more realistic with stars rotating around pole star at 64° above horizon.
4. Moons would be more realistic at the south.
5. It would be great to see weather not as screen filters depending on the camera location, but as varied situation in different points of space.
6. Some simplified parametrization of weather conditions could be made.

Best regards.