Cities: Skylines - Natural Disasters - Dev Diary 5: Earthquakes, Sinkholes and Early Warning Systems

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Co_Karoliina

Developer
Oct 1, 2010
548
753
www.colossalorder.fi
Just having disasters destroy your city can be fun a couple of times, but being challenged and saving your city when it’s faced with a disaster is fun for a longer time. That’s why Natural Disasters has many systems that help you mitigate the damage, save citizens, repair damages and give you more time to react. For more time to react, you need the early warning systems. There are two kinds of systems: some with a range and others that handle the whole map area.

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A space radar

The very efficient ones that cover the whole map are the Space Radar and Weather Radar. The Space Radar scans the space, trying to find meteors that might land in the city area. When a city has a Space Radar, it not only has more time to prepare for a meteor strike, but also the radar gives you as estimate of where the meteor will land. The Weather Radar scouts the skies for extreme weather phenomenons and thunderstorms.

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An earthquake sensor

Other systems are the Earthquake Sensors and Tsunami Buoys. The sensors are placed on ground and have a range around them. Within that range they detect tremors that predict earthquakes and sinkholes forming. The buoys are much the same but on water, as they alert when the water levels change drastically, telling of an approaching tsunami wave.

All early warning systems both make the warning phase of a disaster longer, so there’s more time to react, and give an estimate of the area affected. This can help evacuate citizens from just certain areas, relocate service buildings, build more services to help with the coming disaster, and so forth. It’s your choice.

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An earthquake has hit the city

Earthquakes are fairly straightforward. The ground shivers and shakes, causing some building to collapse and the surface of the earth to crack. Buildings and roads on top of the cracks are destroyed. Depending on the severity of the earthquake the affected area can be anything from very small to a huge part of the city. If you have Earthquake Sensors in the area the earthquake is about to strike, you will be able to see where it will hit. If not, you only know one is coming, but not where.

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A sinkhole

Sinkholes are a bit more specific. They are large holes that appear on the ground when water has eaten away the ground beneath the surface. There’s a warning phase, when the ground begins to feels unstable, but the sinkhole dropping is an instant event. Anything on top of the dropping ground is destroyed. Sinkholes can be landscaped away, just left as they are, bridges can be built over them or you can even fill them with water to make the most of the situation. Who wouldn’t want a nice little pond in their neighbourhood?


Cheers,
Karoliina
 
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Amazing, I cant wait to get the DLC.

Quick question, I saw in one of the streams that there is a cooldown between events. is this just for random in game disasters, or is it for player spawned ones as well. I would just like to know if im able to spam meteor strikes and have 3 or 4 hit relatively at once? like in SimCity4 how you could create complete chaos by having tens of disasters at onece.
 
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It would be amazing if the DLC added water pumps that allow us to fill the sinkholes and earthquake holes.
 
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It would be amazing if the DLC added water pumps that allow us to fill the sinkholes and earthquake holes.
Filling in sinkholes with water is said in the last sentence of this dev diary, so maybe there will be
 
It's all lovely <3
But I'm kind of worried that they still look like random stuff made with the terrain tool and have no "damage edges" or special textures like rubble and such.... Like the roads affected just get transformed into a 'curve' with a sidewalk instead of looking damaged, destroyed and interrupted :(

I hope this is because most of the technical part is being worked and soon we'll have more flair and aesthetics worked out xD
Also, it's not uncommon for earthquakes or sinkholes to cause a few fires and such (because of leaking gas and all that) so that would be cool too :)
 
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It's all lovely <3
But I'm kind of worried that they still look like random stuff made with the terrain tool and have no "damage edges" or special textures like rubble and such.... Like the roads affected just get transformed into a 'curve' with a sidewalk instead of looking damaged, destroyed and interrupted :(

I hope this is because most of the technical part is being worked and soon we'll have more flair and aesthetics worked out xD
Also, it's not uncommon for earthquakes or sinkholes to cause a few fires and such (because of leaking gas and all that) so that would be cool too :)
it's already been stated that road damage is still being worked on
 
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Will there be an option (without mods) to place water-spawners - like in the map editor ? o_O Or can the sinkholes filled with water only with "healthy, nature like sewage-poo" :D ?

You can use new Fresh Water Outlet to release extra water your city produces to the ground.

Amazing, I cant wait to get the DLC.

Quick question, I saw in one of the streams that there is a cooldown between events. is this just for random in game disasters, or is it for player spawned ones as well. I would just like to know if im able to spam meteor strikes and have 3 or 4 hit relatively at once? like in SimCity4 how you could create complete chaos by having tens of disasters at onece.

You will be able to put meteor strikes happen almost at the same time.
 
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You can use new Fresh Water Outlet to release extra water your city produces to the ground.

does this mean we have to worry about flood control? or will the holes/cracks just fill to ground level?
 
What is the difference between early warnings and no early warnings?
i mean, if i can pause the game, i have more time to build something for evacuation...
(of course the people still need time to get there)
 
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You can use new Fresh Water Outlet to release extra water your city produces to the ground.
Would be better to be able to add water in game to get real new fresh water. I thought this when you released canals and I do again in here.

Your solution means polluted water can be, because that water has to use pipes...

It would also be great if that earth could reduce noise as it is in real life while building hills (with terraforming option).

How does alert to population work ? Is it automatic in-game or do we push a button in UI for the people to move to safe place ?

Of course, I cannot wait for that DLC to come out! :D

Edit : now en Français / French : http://cities-skylines-france.blogspot.fr/2016/11/natural-disasters-carnet-5.html
 
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All early warning systems both make the warning phase of a disaster longer, so there’s more time to react, and give an estimate of the area affected. This can help evacuate citizens from just certain areas, relocate service buildings, build more services to help with the coming disaster, and so forth. It’s your choice.
When a Early Warning System detects a danger, the game should reduce game speed to 1x. Or at least it should be an option in the game options. If not, this is what happens (watch from 13'10''):
 
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we can wait for the Volcano, coz it will be a good one especially if the volcano is a perfect cone like in the PH Bicol Mt. Mayon Volcano. Keep up the Good and Hard Work :)
 
You can use new Fresh Water Outlet to release extra water your city produces to the ground.
That's awesome :D
But PLEASE make them fairly forgivable to place. I really want to add one to my Canals, as i'm having trouble getting my city-wide canals properly filled with water (they fill in from the sea or a river, but the water refuses to travel far enough, so the middle of the canal is always empty even if both ends has water flowing in).
Being able to place a fresh water outlet in the middle could really help fill it with water, could then be turned off or deleted once the water is there and stable.
So please, let it snap to canals, without being blocked by collision, thanks.