Bridges

[niltrias]

citation needed

American Civil War, Grant being an example of the first, McClellan of the second. Not that I am taking sides on the bridge thing.

[Lothaudus]

Drawbridges. Way easier to code.

Not appropriate for the tech level and setting

Nonsense! Drawbridges were fairly standard tech on Castles. Given the Plate Armour and similar, I've been assuming a medieval period setting (and long for the day I may build a sweet, sweet Castle ).

I can understand bridges would be difficult to code though but I think a lot of the basics are already in place.

Loftorb can correct me if I'm mistaken, but the game works on a 2d grid, and two tiles can't exist at the same point on said point on the grid (such as having a bridge tile, and a water tile underneath.)

A boat (as an object) can be drawn on top of the water. Along with a person being drawn on top of that boat. You can even have a person, in a boat, on top of the water, behind a tree. So sprites already overlay other sprites (trees hide things, several trees can exist with various bits of themselves on top of each other, you can walk behind houses, walk on top of farm fields) and we already have special invisible stuff like scents and claims which also overlay on top of each other and everything else (village claims, individual claims and scents all seem to be able to exist on top of each other).

in addition the engine doesn't have the support to have multiple layers of objects all moving around at the same 2d coordinates. It would take extreme hacking of the engine to get it so that players could walk on a surface that boats go under, and even more to make it so that players don't collide with boats under the bridge, while boats collide with boats, and players collide with players.

The collision detection code already exists. It's just a matter of working out whether someone is "going under" or "going over" the bridge, then working out who else is in that area and also going under / going over that bridge.

I'd imagine a bridge would have some kind of special claim associated with it that defines its area. The bridge would exist on the map at a certain point (edges of the river, where you can't walk under it) and a sprite would be drawn across / on top of the water (much like a boat with a person in it is). Some kind of invisible "bridge" claim would be created. Then if you're on a boat / in the water and passing through a bridge claim, you go underneath the bridge (cue collision code dealing with people / objects in the water). If you're not swimming or in a boat, you go over and are blocked from walking off by the bridge's edge (cue collision code dealing with people and things on top of the bridge).

The two people existing at the same point (x,y) would be handled based on whether they were "going under" or "going over" the bridge. The graphics code seems to be able to draw objects on top of each other so can't see too many issues there, however I always imagined someone underneath the bridge would be hidden by the bridge, while somebody on top of the bridge would be on top of the bridge.

It's never a good thing to program something to work in a way that it is not intended to work, which is why the concept of bridges is so difficult, if not impossible without changing the way the engine works, to implement in a way people imagine seeing.

In addition, "just change the engine" is never something someone should suggest, unless they know exactly what they are talking about, because they can suggest something that seems logical in the real world, but is completely horribly illogical in the specific instance of code, if not within the entirety of programing itself.

I agree that changing the engine is asking for a beating but I think the engine is already capable of most of the things that are essentially required. That is, drawing the bridge on top of everything else and the collision code to deal with people running into each other. The only issue left in that case appears to be determing whether someone or something is "over" or "under" the bridge.

Obviously I'm not aware of how this game is coded though and given jorb (or loftar) is the one who's job it would be, if they can't figure it out, I figure it's not happening until they do.

Anyway, it's interesting to speculate.

[Laremere]

As far as I can tell, the game draws things in this order: Tiles, then objects front to back. When things are draw they cover up was in front of them. Bridges would require changing this.

At any rate bridges would require a huge amount of coding work, which may also slow the game down due to many special exceptions it would have to work with. I like the idea of cable ferrys, at least for now.

[Jackard]

covered barges (walkspeed boats with a cabinlike room) are better than ferries

[Fluffy]

Drawbridges > All. It would require some strength to raise or lower, a shitton of matierials but it would be somewhat of a solution.

[Jackard]

draw bridges are dumb. they can only be lowered from one side and can be used to wall off rivers

[sabinati]

As far as I can tell, the game draws things in this order: Tiles, then objects front to back. When things are draw they cover up was in front of them. Bridges would require changing this.

At any rate bridges would require a huge amount of coding work, which may also slow the game down due to many special exceptions it would have to work with. I like the idea of cable ferrys, at least for now.

why would bridges change the draw order?

why would it be different with cable ferrys? and what would make the coding of a mobile platform easier than a nonmobile one?

[Jackard]

cable ferries are dumb because they dont add anything you couldnt already do in game with crossroads and beer filled vendor stalls

[Caradon]

draw bridges are dumb. they can only be lowered from one side and can be used to wall off rivers

When and if irrigation and even moats are craftable a drawbridge would be very viable. Of course, it would become easy to just chop the map up with rivers everywhere. Could get awfully annoying. But would be fun if possible.

[Jaltos]

pardon me to barge in this thread uninvited, but I'd like to point out something most of you seems to have forgotten:

You can get out of your boat, lift it over your head, and place it back in a river without it taking ages. Sure it's slow you to a crawl, but hey, you're not stuck somewhere because you're in a boat!

It's impossible to wall off rivers because boats remember it's ownership somehow.