Building Design View - QOL change.

[itworkss]

In building design view, there should be a way to save materials to specific slots.

For example, if a building has three colors that correspond to blocks, then you could slot a pinewood for the primary color, spruce for secondary, and larch for tertiary. Then when looking at the building in design view, it would show the color scheme saved.

This is purely a quality of life addition, but I think many people would find it helpful in designing aesthetically pleasing buildings. Sometimes it can be hard to picture how colors would go together when just seeing one at a time.

A rough draft of what this could look like (I made this in two minutes, forgive me.)




Thanks.

[LadyV]

Having thought of this for a while my conclusion is I would rather just have a basic structure and then we have the ability to add design/art features to the buildings. This way we get exactly the color and patterns we want where we want rather than having to do exact calculations on materials.

[Sevenless]

Having thought of this for a while my conclusion is I would rather just have a basic structure and then we have the ability to add design/art features to the buildings. This way we get exactly the color and patterns we want where we want rather than having to do exact calculations on materials.

While I agree that system would be more flexible, it's a lot more work considering we already have a passable system that could be made more functional with minor UI changes.

[itworkss]

Having thought of this for a while my conclusion is I would rather just have a basic structure and then we have the ability to add design/art features to the buildings. This way we get exactly the color and patterns we want where we want rather than having to do exact calculations on materials.

I imagine you're talking about just being able to create paint, and designing our color schemes from that?

Not a terrible idea, but using the natural resources as colors should still be a base of the game. I think the feature I am talking about would be easily implemented.

[aikidragon]

Good base idea. I'd like to expand. Instead of having additional slots which would mean an additional window for each category of materials, I propose the following:
Since we can already inspect the output design by hovering the selected material over the required material part of the window, a visual differentiation between the different materials it uses would be beneficial.

I've attached a photoshoped image to make it clear. The stone part is the only modified thing in here.
One would be able to assign a material type to a slot by holding it in hand and right clicking the slot. After that, when hovering the mouse over the slot, the visual representation of the building's part with the custom material would show up.
In the left, the stone symbol remains to show that it's for stone. In order to counteract the fact that one may want to use other stone while building, even tho that would destroy the whole concept of planning, a "Design" button should appear near the "Build" in order to switch to designing mode, thus these individual material sections would appear.

State your opinions.

[Granger]

I think the building should always show the design preview when you have the sign open, reflecting the variable materials by what has already been built into the structure. Highlighting (with an item hovering over the slot) should stay as-is but only modify the selected slot (so all other areas will reflect built in materials), hovering the cursor over a build slot without an item on the cursor should show the current variable material types in that slot as a tooltip.

Then one could add a few items of each type to test a design combination, in case it works out one can build the rest in.
Possibly give us the ability to bash freshly built structures (made within the last few minutes) back to a building sign (without requirement for str and just destroying the last item built in) and the ability to target 'destroy' on the build slots (in the sign window) to selectively remove built in items by type.

[MagicManICT]

Either right clicking a material on one of the buttons like in the first example (FP*) or having stockpiles nearby and showing what will be used with a display in aikidragon's post would be good, too, and maybe preferable if it isn't much harder to program in. It could incorporate what Granger suggests, as well, as it would also account for what's already been built into the structure.


*FP--first post; OP for "opening post" is too ambiguous with gamer culture.

[itworkss]

Good base idea. I'd like to expand. Instead of having additional slots which would mean an additional window for each category of materials, I propose the following:
Since we can already inspect the output design by hovering the selected material over the required material part of the window, a visual differentiation between the different materials it uses would be beneficial.

Good job, yours looks much better than mine. I like your addition of the amount of resource needed for each stage.

Anything similar to this layout I think would be sufficient.

I think the building should always show the design preview when you have the sign open, reflecting the variable materials by what has already been built into the structure. Highlighting (with an item hovering over the slot) should stay as-is but only modify the selected slot (so all other areas will reflect built in materials), hovering the cursor over a build slot without an item on the cursor should show the current variable material types in that slot as a tooltip.

This would be a great work around, if for some reason Jorb wants to keep a certain level of difficulty in planning buildings, which I suppose would be justified to some.

[Granger]

Well, in case you want to go the easy route: build your stuff from whatever is around (with complete disregard for looks), then make a quick trip through the Store to buy a bunch of sketches and use one single object per slot to make the suff look nice...

[itworkss]

Well, in case you want to go the easy route: build your stuff from whatever is around (with complete disregard for looks), then make a quick trip through the Store to buy a bunch of sketches and use one single object per slot to make the suff look nice...

doh! considering this is an option, this suggestion will probably never see light of day.

not to say I don't think people should support the game, I love haven.