Temporal storm

A screenshot taken during a heavy temporal storm.

Temporal storms are periodic events that (assuming default settings of Standard playstyle ) occur roughly every 10 days. During these storms, the player experiences visual distortions similar to those seen when their temporal stability is low. Additionally, drifters are able to spawn anywhere around the player, basing their ability to spawn solely on the potential for the spawning collision check to fit within the space. In other words, drifters can spawn on top of rocks or slabs placed in the lower half of a block, when normally such placement might block the spawning behavior.

Occurrence

By default, temporal storms occur once every ten days. Players will get an early warning about an oncoming temporal storm through the chatbox. This warning will be issued in two phases:

• "A light/medium/heavy temporal storm is approaching" - once this warning is issued, the temporal storm is 8h24min ingame time away - or 35% of a full day.
• "A light/medium/heavy temporal storm is imminent" - once this warning is issued, the temporal storm is 43min ingame time away - or 2.99% of a full day.

The duration of temporal storms will increase over time, by default it can last between 2.4h and 4.8h maximum.

Protip: Keep in mind that all time related information is offered as they would be in a default world. Changing the length of days or the frequency of temporal storms will affect the numbers presented above.

Effects

During a temporal storm, the player's vision will be severely obscured due to the high winds, rust-colored fog, dust storms, and visual effects such as warping. Players will see visions of turning cogs and skeletal creatures and hear loud storm effects.

Light, medium and heavy temporal storms all have the same duration, but differ in intensity of visual and audio effects.

In a temporal storm, drifters can spawn on the surface around the player even in bright indoor areas and in places occupied by slabs or rocks, so long as space for their spawning collision box exists. More powerful varieties of drifters that normally only spawn underground can also be spawned on the surface during a temporal storm - notably, the double-headed drifter can only spawn during a temporal storm, and can spawn on the surface.

During a storm, the player's temporal stability drops rapidly.

By default, players cannot sleep through temporal storms.

Surviving a temporal storm

There are a few different ways to survive a temporal storm if you are not ready to fight your way through one. These strategies can be combined depending on the player's comfort level and access to resources.

The simplest way to survive a temporal storm is to sleep through it if this option is enabled.

Preparation

Players should ensure adequate access to food , healing items such as poultices and weaponry for the duration of the storm. Ideally the player should also have access to tier 2 or better armor , though the hardest-hitting drifters that spawn during the storm are Tier 4 damage dealers.

Ranged weapons are advised to provide the player with breathing room in the fight, especially since players are likely to face multiple enemies at once. Therefore, a stockpile of spears and arrow is advised.

Safe room

The most basic types of safe room are a lit-up enclosed space. However, drifter spawns can not be blocked by using slab floors, or by placing down a rock on unoccupied empty spaces, so there exists a risk of one spawning in the room with the player. If there is insufficient room to safely fight the drifter, the room may make the fight more difficult, though it will still keep any drifters outside of the room from entering the fight.

More advanced safe rooms provide an ideal location for fighting the enemies spawned by the storm. The most simple "kill box" designed involve a long 1-tile wide corridor, funneling drifters one by one towards the players. This ensures players only have to face one enemy at a time. More complex kill boxes may incorporate the traps mentioned below. Care must be made that any place the player is standing in has a means of escaping any drifters that spawn next to the player.

Ideally these safe rooms should be located in an area with high temporal stability, although killing drifters should restore temporal stability as well. Players may also use the temporal gears dropped by enemies to restore any lost temporal stability, though at the cost of hit points.

Traps and pillaring

The player can stack many blocks together to form a tall, 4+ block high column and stand on top. This is known as "pillaring". The height of the pillar prevents drifters from being able to reach the player and should also be outside of rock-throwing range, which could knock the player off this pillar. From this vantage point players can attack drifters below or simply wait out the storm, though this method does not allow easy escape routes, and a drifter can spawn on the top of the pillar with the player, if enough space exists.

Another form of drifter trap is a two-block deep dry moat, generally combined with a central pillar. The moat should be covered with opened trapdoors, since drifters will not path over a two-block deep gap. However, they are confused by trapdoors even when open and will walk over them. Since drifters can only climb up one block, such a moat should prevent them from accessing the player.

Configuration

The interval between temporal storms can be changed during world generation , or by using the world configuration commands below.

• /worldconfig temporalStorms [off|veryrare|rare|sometimes|often|veryoften] changes the frequency of storms. By default it is set on "sometimes"
• /worldconfig tempstormDurationMul [value] changes the duration of storms
• /worldconfig temporalStormSleeping [0|1] controls whether or not players can sleep through storms, where 0 disables sleep during storms and 1 enables it.

See also

• Temporal stability