Water life

[Kamekono]

Hello!
I'd like to focus your attention on ways to improve the appeal of lakes and rivers, to make water tiles more useful and not just a spot to collect a few resources.

1st. Stilt Houses. It would be neat if you could build some small structures on shallow water (or swamps). The easiest option would be to just add a custom house (like a TimberHouse-sized building) that can only be built in shallow water.
The better option, but a bit harder to implement, would be to allow any small building to be built on a raised wooden structure in the water. This would mean having a wooden structure (let's call it SUPPORT) that needs to be built on water, which then allows you to get on top of and construct a building on it.
Let's say Supports are 2x2. You want to build a Timber House on water, so you have to build a 6x6 square made of 2x2 supports, plus a little extra by the door to be able to access it. There should be a way to build some kind of ramp or stairs, to allow you to carry lifted items to and from said supports (no climbing).
This kind of system would allow to build some kind of "fisherman's village" entirely on water. Personally I would only allow some structures to be built on said supports: no bricks (ovens, smelters...), no large houses (anything bigger than a Stonestead. Or even a TimberHouse), no tar kilns or mine holes, no palisades or brick walls. I would allow small structures, like cisterns, drying rack, Log Cabins and Timber Houses, Coops and Hutch...

2nd. If Stilt houses become a thing, with the support system especially, some kind of defence would be needed. Two special kinds of water-fences would be required: a weak fence-style structure, and a stronger palisade-like "dam". This second kind would also require a special water-siege weapon, or to allow people to use siege weapons on rafts (which would be awesome).

3rd. Water farms. Even without a real on-water village, people on shorelines could benefit from this kind of farms. There should be multiple kinds, depending on what you're farming:
- Fish farms. Something between fishing nets and chicken coops. You drop them in deep waters, put a few fishes of the same kind inside, and fill it with fodder. After a while, fishes spawn eggs (caviar!) which will turn into more fishes soon enough. This would allow players to farm a specific kind of fish, and improve its quality.
- Mussel farms. Build directly in shallow waters, would generate mussels until full. Could work similar to a compost bin, where you put stuff inside, which will turn into mussels after a while, allowing for better quality.
- Algae farms. Built directly in shallow waters, would allow you to plant different kinds of algae (we only have kelp right now), for first aid and food. Algae should work like crops.
- Crabs farm. Built directly in shallow waters, would work similar to chicken coops, but with crabs. Put fodder in (maybe fish?) and a few grown crabs, and they multiply. This would require a safer way to handle ((or at least to kill) crabs, or it would be super bad for players.

4th. Buoys. Simply a trail system for boats. To prevent the waters to become impossible to cross, buoys shouldn't be an obstacle (unlike road signs), so that boats can go through it instead of bump into it. You would need some kind of boat to use them. Boat Building should be a prerequisite to place them.

5th. More aquatic animals, and aquatic only creatures. We already have animals living by the water, like ducks, seals, beavers and so on. It would be neat to have aquatic-only animals too (other than the cave-anglerfish).
Critters, like ducks, could be turtles, rays, jellyfish (requiring gloves to pick safely?), and octopodes.
Docile animals could be stuff like dolphins, manatee, manta rays, even whales.
Hostile animals could be water snakes, crocodiles (in swamps too?), or sharks.

Given the amount of large bodies of water already present in the map, including large areas of shallow water, I believe this kind of addition would greatly improve the gameplay extending the play-style options a player has.

Any suggestion or contribution will be gladly accepted.

[Aceb]

Problem with that is, that it would only be practical inside closed water bodies, which You can wall off from the land side. Else it will end in two ways:
Please blocking water routes for fun, creating un-passable bridges or generally be a big pain in the ass.

But I would like a fisherman village in closed space.

For example:
Even if You can, there's no point in building smelter if anybody with thief can go in and steal any valuable metal You're trying to produce or just simply bash down any useful structures, houses and other stuff. While being able to build on water could lead to almost un-siegeable places.

[uudon]

Cool ideas. +1

[OtsukiYorauzo]

Crocodiles don't love the cold, so its not possible to have them in the game.
The game is based on germanic/slavic myths and legends, and as far as I know crocodiles are not native to Europe.

But adding krakens would be a good thing.
Just imagine fishing and you get swallowed by the god of the depths.

[zebratul]

Crocodiles don't love the cold, so its not possible to have them in the game.
The game is based on germanic/slavic myths and legends, and as far as I know crocodiles are not native to Europe.

But adding krakens would be a good thing.
Just imagine fishing and you get swallowed by the god of the depths.

Yet still there are pumpkins, tobacco, olives and much much more plants and animals not native not only to germany, but to old world as well. Some things are made for fun, not 100% historical or geographical accuracy.

[OtsukiYorauzo]

Crocodiles don't love the cold, so its not possible to have them in the game.
The game is based on germanic/slavic myths and legends, and as far as I know crocodiles are not native to Europe.

But adding krakens would be a good thing.
Just imagine fishing and you get swallowed by the god of the depths.

Yet still there are pumpkins, tobacco, olives and much much more plants and animals not native not only to germany, but to old world as well. Some things are made for fun, not 100% historical or geographical accuracy.

Well when I asked for monkeys I also got dumped.

[CaddoPuma]

I am sorry to pile on with the negativity. I actually love your idea of stilt houses, having lived more than 1/2 my life in an area where houses "on stilts" were the norm. However, with the current game engine, "object controlled objects" are not possible. The devs had said they are working on creating such a system. Maybe in the future houses on stilts will be possible.

[zebratul]

Back to the topic of water building — i love those ideas, current worldgen has way to many giant lakes with nothing going on there.
I'm hoping one day we will get a modular house system and (hopefully) a full water terraforming a-la wurm. It's great.

[Kamekono]

I believe it would be quite easy to implement something to prevent blocking waterways. Maybe add a buffer zone between those kinds of buildings, or make it so everything only goes in shallow waters... I'm sure they can come up with something.

That being said, while Stilt Houses are the first suggestion, I do realise it's something we might see in the far future. Much easier would be the other suggestions: aquatic animals and critters are super easy to add. A water-trail system doesn't seem hard either. And even water farms if made like fishing nets would only require little work.

[Mr_Bober]

3rd. Water farms. Even without a real on-water village, people on shorelines could benefit from this kind of farms. There should be multiple kinds, depending on what you're farming:
- Fish farms. Something between fishing nets and chicken coops. You drop them in deep waters, put a few fishes of the same kind inside, and fill it with fodder. After a while, fishes spawn eggs (caviar!) which will turn into more fishes soon enough. This would allow players to farm a specific kind of fish, and improve its quality.
- Mussel farms. Build directly in shallow waters, would generate mussels until full. Could work similar to a compost bin, where you put stuff inside, which will turn into mussels after a while, allowing for better quality.
- Algae farms. Built directly in shallow waters, would allow you to plant different kinds of algae (we only have kelp right now), for first aid and food. Algae should work like crops.
- Crabs farm. Built directly in shallow waters, would work similar to chicken coops, but with crabs. Put fodder in (maybe fish?) and a few grown crabs, and they multiply. This would require a safer way to handle ((or at least to kill) crabs, or it would be super bad for players.

Was going to suggest something similar, then I found this thread. With the introduction of oceans, these would be great to have!

5th. More aquatic animals, and aquatic only creatures. We already have animals living by the water, like ducks, seals, beavers and so on. It would be neat to have aquatic-only animals too (other than the cave-anglerfish).
Critters, like ducks, could be turtles, rays, jellyfish (requiring gloves to pick safely?), and octopodes.
Docile animals could be stuff like dolphins, manatee, manta rays, even whales.
Hostile animals could be water snakes, crocodiles (in swamps too?), or sharks.

These would be nice too! We already have jellyfish and whales, but some hostile water animals would make oceans a bit more dangerous, requiring you to pay more attention (no more shift-click and go afk)