91 lines
3.3 KiB
Markdown
91 lines
3.3 KiB
Markdown
# Movement And Time Scale Baseline
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Date: 2026-05-15
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## Decision
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Agrarian should keep physical movement close to real-world human pace. The MVP
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calendar can remain compressed at `4 real hours = 1 in-game day`, but walking,
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running, swimming, climbing, animal movement, and vehicles should be measured in
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real distance per real second.
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Do not multiply player movement speed by the calendar time scale.
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## Why
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The world is built around real terrain and real distances. If a tile is 1 km by
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1 km, the player should experience that kilometer as a real distance, not as a
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distance that changes when the calendar scale changes.
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Calendar compression is for crop growth, weather passage, day/night rhythm,
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sleep, hunger pressure, and long-term life simulation. Movement speed is for
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the feel of a body moving through terrain.
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If we scale movement with the day length, travel will stop feeling grounded.
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Players will cross valleys, fields, roads, and forests at speeds that do not
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match what they see on screen.
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## MVP Baseline Walking Speed
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Baseline adult walking speed:
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- `1.4 meters per second`
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- `140 Unreal units per second`
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- about `5.0 kilometers per hour`
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- about `12 minutes` to walk across a flat 1 km tile edge-to-edge
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MVP tuning allowance:
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- The default playable walking speed may be tuned up to about
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`1.6 meters per second` if the first playable build feels too sluggish.
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- That tuning should still be treated as a brisk real walk, not a hidden travel
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multiplier.
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- Terrain, injury, hunger, thirst, carried weight, weather, age, and endurance
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can reduce this baseline later.
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## Relationship To The 4-Hour Day
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With a 4-hour day, one in-game hour lasts 10 real minutes. If a player walks for
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10 real minutes, the world clock advances about one in-game hour.
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That is acceptable for the MVP. It creates survival pressure without making the
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player physically move at unrealistic speed.
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The tradeoff is that long travel consumes meaningful daylight. That is a design
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feature for Agrarian, because planning, shelter, food, water, roads, mounts,
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boats, vehicles, and eventually settlements should matter.
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## What We Should Not Do
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- Do not make walking 4x faster to compensate for a compressed day.
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- Do not make early-game walking feel like jogging.
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- Do not solve long-distance travel by hiding scale changes in character speed.
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- Do not make one real day equal one game day for the MVP just to make walking
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math feel cleaner.
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## How To Keep The Game From Dragging
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Use systems that make sense in the world:
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- Start the MVP in a dense 1 km Ground Zero tile with meaningful nearby goals.
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- Keep early tasks local so the player is not walking across empty space.
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- Let paths, roads, tools, backpacks, carts, mounts, boats, and vehicles improve
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travel over time.
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- Use sleep/rest, shelter, storage, and camp placement so time pressure becomes
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part of strategy.
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- Tune hunger, thirst, weather exposure, and stamina around real seconds and the
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4-hour day instead of inflating movement speed.
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## Open Follow-Up
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The next roadmap item should define baseline running speed. That pass should
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replace the current temporary sprint tuning with a realistic run/sprint model
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that separates:
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- normal walking;
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- brisk walking;
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- sustainable jogging/running;
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- short sprinting;
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- stamina cost and recovery;
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- injury/load/terrain modifiers.
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