Bestia uses a sophisticated temperature and environment system to drive weather simulation and the overall effects on the player’s environment.

These simulations should be based on certain basic values that are determined location-dependently during world creation in so-called biomes, but can be changed by interaction with the players later during the game. However, biomes can change. If local player interactions lead to a temperature increase, the rain amount can be reduced and a forest biome can turn into a desert, for example. The client must be informed about adjusted environment areas and update its visuals accordingly.

Bestia Masters enter the current world from another, not further specified, dimension. During each incarnation a name for this world is generated, and in each cycle all Bestia Masters entering the game will have this world name persisted in their account data to keep a permanent record.

Temperature link

Each Bestia species has its own comfort window of tolerable temperature, taken from the biomes it lives in. A Bestia Master always has the window -6 °C to 34 °C. Vitality, Willpower, skills and status effects widen the window. How the window works and what happens outside of it is described in Weather and Bestia.

For items and structures this calculation is a bit different. Usually these items have some threshold above or below which they will start to malfunction (or perhaps even catch fire!).

Weather link

The weather system in Bestia plays a crucial role. It also affects visibility as well as the behavior of NPCs and mobs. Depending on the weather, the NPCs and the player character will need improved shelter or equipment to avoid a loss of stamina.

The weather also influences the temperature, which will in turn decide if and how much stamina an entity regenerates or loses. See Weather and Bestia.

The weather will also play a role in which crops and plants grow. If the player decides to plant salad in the desert, this won’t work quite well.

Rain link

A rain effect, controllable in strength, should overlay the entire viewport. The rain’s blowing direction should correlate with the wind direction (which will be more or less random). During rain the ground will show a wet effect and view distance is reduced. It also reduces the effectiveness of fires and might extinguish them. Fire attacks and earth attacks will only deal 50% damage while ice or wind attacks deal 150% damage in a wet environment. These environmental modifiers feed into the ELEMENT_MOD term of the damage calculation.

Fog link

Clouds of fog will move slowly over the map, reducing the sight of AI entities. It will also get harder for a player to see.

Night link

During night time the player will need light sources in order to improve the visibility of enemies or terrain. There will be certain items (e.g. torches, candles etc.) as well as spells to make light.

Light Sources link

A master has a special light source equipment slot next to the regular gear. A torch or lamp worn there lights itself as soon as it gets dark and goes out again at dawn. No click is needed. “Dark” means less than half of the daylight is left, so the light already burns through late dusk and early dawn, not only in full night.

• The light is cast around the master and every player nearby sees it.
• The server decides when the light burns, because it is also the one that burns the item down.
• A torch burns for about one real hour. It does not burn during the day.
• When the worn torch burns out, the next torch from the bag is lit at once: a partly burnt one first, then a fresh one from the pile. When none is left, the player is told so.
• Every new master starts with 5 torches in the bag. One has to be put into the slot once, after that the slot refills itself.

How a torch can be stackable and still burn down is explained in stackable gear.

Sky and Moon link

The sky follows the time of day and the weather. Clouds cover as much of the sky as the weather says. Storms turn them into a dark, heavy deck. They drift with the wind, together with their shadows on the ground.

The moon goes through one full cycle of phases per Bestia month. The server’s calendar sets the month length; today that is 30 Bestia days, about 10 real days. A full moon rises at sunset. A new moon stands next to the sun and cannot be seen. How bright the night is depends on the phase and on how high the moon is. Even on a moonless night, 40% of the full-moon light remains, so the terrain stays readable.

The sky can also take on a mood that tints the sky and its light. This is meant for doomsday events, for example a red sky when the end of the world approaches.

Mana Concentration link

The system regularly evaluates mana emitters (bestia, spell usage, items) and sinks and calculates a mana density. Depending on the density of mana in a certain region, this increases the probability of rift events which spawn powerful bestia, or of other devastating events like mana storms. It can also have a negative effect on the health of Bestia Masters, while bestia are usually unaffected by high mana density, as they are born from it.

In-Game Time link

The time in the Bestia game is faster than the real-world time. When we refer to the faster in-game time we will call it Bestia time, if we refer to the normal time we call it real-time.

Changing seasons should lead to an impression of the changeability of the world. You have to adapt to a periodically changing environment. Things that work in summer may not be possible in winter. But so that the players don’t have to wait for a real year, time in Bestia flies faster.

The Bestia-Time starts at the creation of the Bestia world. It is basically three times faster than the usual time. This means that the normal bestia day has 8 hours in real-time.

It also means that a bestia year is 4 months in real time.

• Bestia year: 4 months
• Bestia season: spring, summer, fall, winter: each 1 month
• Bestia day: 8 hours (2 hours night, 6 hours daytime)

The asymmetric day-night cycle allows the player to be more productive during the day while still getting a decent amount of night time in which, for example, special bestias can be hunted. It also allows the player to experience multiple day-night cycles within a single real-time day.

This calculation results in the following example timespans:

Bestia Time Converter link

A small helper tool to quickly convert between real time values and bestia time.