Lightning, rods and how I don't want my cabin to burn down

[DiamondArms]

So, recently I've been squatting in my lovely wooden house with a nice 3high lightning rod and watching the thunderstorm going on outside.

Short while later, I see a lightning bolt hit the pavement a short distance from my door. Freaky.

I kinda need an explanation of how lightning rods work and how to protect my wooden buildings from the wrath of RNG lightning.
Just spent two weekends putting up a wooden bridge over swampland. The nice, kinda artistic kind that takes lots of materials, all of which are flammable.

[FlowerChild]

RNG lightning.

Because lightning is of course entirely predictable in its behavior in the really real world :)

I think RnG has become my new overused pet-peeve turn in gaming circles ;)

[Gilberreke]

People just like to blame someone. Some developer told them "it's just random, sorry, there's no one to blame", so now they blame the RNG.

[FlowerChild]

People just like to blame someone. Some developer told them "it's just random, sorry, there's no one to blame", so now they blame the RNG.

Yeah, it's just the combination of what I'm used to as a fairly technical term being used by people that likely often don't understand it, in combination with whining about stuff that can't possibly be resolved deterministically in many cases that grates on my nerves.

Games have always had a huge random element to resolve things that can't possibly be simulated (and you probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference anyways), and that's pretty much a necessity. Yes, it can be pushed too far (like what I view to be the excessively random element being one of the biggest downsides to FTL), but the way it's being talked about these days, it's almost as if gamers are beginning to think *any* random element is somehow wrong.

I also find it amusing that people will say get so into background world simulation in stuff like Dwarf Fortress as providing justification for what happens in their games, when all I see there is a longer sequence of random numbers and the end result would have been the same as "10% chance of goblin invasion" ;)

Don't get me wrong...love Dwarf Fortress, just REALLY don't understand the appeal of the background stuff.

[DiamondArms]

So, I can't stop lightning from hitting my buildings?

[FlowerChild]

So, I can't stop lightning from hitting my buildings?

Yup, use a lightning rod :)

[DiamondArms]

Yup, use a lightning rod :)

I invested(borrowed) 4 steel bars for a 3 high rod, but it seems to be ineffective. Does it need to be higher?

[DaveYanakov]

In the real world the taller the rod, the better chance you have of intercepting the corona before it hits the ground. In BTW I just use multiple rods in several locations around my basein order to skew the chances as heavily into my favor as possible. One per building and then a couple around the wall

[DiamondArms]

In the real world the taller the rod, the better chance you have of intercepting the corona before it hits the ground. In BTW I just use multiple rods in several locations around my basein order to skew the chances as heavily into my favor as possible. One per building and then a couple around the wall

Hm. Do you have a average height preference for each rod? I might end up spiking all my bridge support towers with lightning rods.

[DaveYanakov]

I build them as tall as looks good to me in the location I'm putting it