Overview

TCoM utilizes a soft time based day/night cycle consisting of several phases that impact weather, charater routines, event availability, and lighting.

Phases

Each day is a 24-hour cycle split into 5 non-uniform phases. Minutes advance by increments of 15 and have no effect on routines other than to display when hourly changes are close. Routines and weather rolls revolve around these phases.

• Early Morning (4 Hours)

  • 3:00am - 7:00am (12-Hour)
  • 03:00 - 07:00 (24-Hour)
  • Low indoor / outdoor activity

• Morning (5 Hours)

  • 7:00am - 12:00am (12-Hour)
  • 07:00 - 12:00 (24-Hour)
  • Highest NPC spawn rate hours, balanced indoor / outdoor activity

• Afternoon (5 Hours)

  • 12:00am - 5:00pm (12-Hour)
  • 12:00 - 17:00 (24-Hour)
  • High outdoor activity, low indoor activity

• Evening (4 Hours)

  • 5:00pm - 9:00pm (12-Hour)
  • 17:00 - 21:00 (24-Hour)
  • Calm social period with balanced indoor / outdoor activity

• Night (6 Hours)

  • 9:00pm - 3:00am (12-Hour)
  • 21:00 - 03:00 (24-Hour)
  • High indoor activity, low outdoor activity

Weather

Weather rolls occur at each phase transition. Rolls consider:

• Previous weather
• Seasonal bias
• Current-temperature threshold
• Story requirements

Weather Influences

Weather affects:

• Lighting
• Ambient soundscape
• NPC routines
  • Workers leave jobs early during heavy rain
  • Some events cancel or relocate indoors
  • Certain NPCs avoid or seek particular weather
• Shops
  • May close early/late
  • May unlock weather-only interactions
• Outfits
• Events
  • Weather-dependent scenes always force a guaranteed roll for that day and will remain until the event has concluded

NPC Schedules

NPCs follow a multi-layer scheduling system

• Micro Schedule (Daily)
  • Their default actions and movement patterns throughout a day
• Macro Schedule (Weekly)
  • Which days they have days off, special errands, or unique routines
• Special Schedule (Seasonal / Annual)
  • Special events such as Harvest Cycles will override both the micro and macro schedules with special schedules.

Schedules adapt dynamically based on:

• Weather
• Player story progression
• Global reputation
• Global events
• Time of day
• Personality profile
• Physical needs

Personality Models

NPCs either Spawn with a randomly generated personality or use preset archetypes with variations. (Part of Stats & Skills)

Personality affects:

• Preferred locations
• Time spent indoors vs outdoors
• Who they like to interact with
• Where they go during free time
• Whether they avoid the player or seek them out
• Reaction to weather

Behavior Blocks

Schedules are built out of modular instructions (behavior blocks) that tell an NPC how to act under specific conditions.

Traveling

NPC selects a destination and pathfinds using a method of travel dependent on personality, weather, and distance.

• When distance is low, energy is high, or when weather is favorable:
  • will prefer to walk over other methods of traveling

• When distance is high, energy is low, or when weather is stormy:

  • will prefer to use the tram or vehicles (if applicable) over walking
  • NPCs will need to calculate which stations to get on / off at and will walk to / wait at required stations

• NPCs will set checkpoint based paths and will check if their method of travel needs to change as conditions change

Traveling ends when the NPC reaches their destination.

Work

NPC performs occupation-related tasks during work hours.

Examples:

• Dock workers

  • loading crates
  • tying ropes
  • checking manifests

• Shopkeepers

  • behind counter
  • cleaning
  • stocking shelves

• Wood workers

  • chopping
  • gathering
  • clearing debris

• Street sellers

  • roaming inside of their lot
  • calling to any passerby
  • trading with patrons

Work blocks may contain idle loops (animations + roaming) as well as interrupts (player / NPC interaction, routine changes, special events) Part of 3_Activities

Free Time

NPC chooses an activity based on:

• Personality
• Physical needs
• Weather
• Nearby characters
• Proximity to preferred locations

Examples:

• Going to a café
• Sitting on a bench
• Browsing a shop
• Talking with another NPC
• Reading under a tree
• Feeding animals
• Visiting town center
• Relaxing at home

Part of 3_Activities

Roaming

Used when NPCs don’t have a specific goal

• Wander streets or forests
• Change direction randomly
• Pause to observe things
• Interact with environmental props
• Switch between “roam” and “free time” blocks

Interior Behavior

NPCs follow special logic indoors:

• Move between interior “action nodes” (counters, shelves, kitchen stations)
• Sit at tables
• Idle with tasks (cleaning, reading, writing, eating)
• Light interaction with home objects
• Characters may react to certain noise cues

Social Behavior

Social behavior is dependent on an NPCs social skills. (Part of Stats & Skills)

NPCs may:

• Talk to each other
• Exchange gossip
• Ask for help
• Comment on weather
• React to ongoing events
• Form small clusters in public areas

If the player approaches:

• NPC may stop conversation
• Greet with personality-appropriate tone
• Carry on visibly in background
• Invite or dismiss the player depending on global reputation

NPC Outfits

NPC outfits are chosen once per day, on waking.

Outfits are influenced by:

• Weather
• Temperature
• Time of day
• Seasonal events
• Fashion bias

A character has:

• 1–2 signature outfits (Protagonists or named side characters)
• 1+ favored upper clothing item
• 1+ favored lower clothing item
• 2+ favored accessories

Favored clothing items are generated at random at the start of each game save. When rolling for an outfit, favored clothing items have higher weight to be selected. Protagonist characters have predefined signature outfits that have the highest chances of being selected each day.

Special event outfits are either predefined per character (protagonist characters), or are also randomly selected from an outfit pool. NPCs will not have a favored special event outfit table.