Game Development: I was a Highwayman

[Erhen]

I want spar buoy to be added too.. Because my char is seaman (river-man) and viking... And landscaping is boring after all, water traveling is funnier.

[KoE]

Well if the topic title is any indication the next updates should be sailing, dam-building, and starships.
I'm having too much fun with that title reference.

Anyway, I've finally gotten around to playing with this after someone pointed out I should just build my path along the mountainside instead of carting stuff out to the boulder-less area to our west (which would have required one of our temporarily-absent-due-to-finals village members with a key to that gate).

A few observations, some of which may have been made previously:

Ugh, pathing straight to the little pillar is annoying. Especially cartwise. I'm not sure how to remedy this from a design level; if it could somehow be set to identify roadways, that'd be awesome. I'll try out the temporary 'fix' of placing milestones on each side so hopefully the cart won't get stuck on any one in particular later.

You can't place milestones on mountain terrain. This vexes me because I don't want to deface my mountain any more than I have to. (Not really a big deal unless you're finicky like me).

I really want to see dirt roads, both for aesthetic reasons and because I can easily imagine a plow-like interface for creating them. I don't know if this would out-mode stone roads or not, assuming they get no advantages other than the decreased stamina drain and the disadvantage of 'the paving interface sucks' remains.

The pricing mildly concerns me but I think it's about right overall, especially if you're building an actual road to follow the path at the same time.

[dcastello79]

Well if the topic title is any indication the next updates should be sailing, dam-building, and starships.
I'm having too much fun with that title reference.

Anyway, I've finally gotten around to playing with this after someone pointed out I should just build my path along the mountainside instead of carting stuff out to the boulder-less area to our west (which would have required one of our temporarily-absent-due-to-finals village members with a key to that gate).

A few observations, some of which may have been made previously:

Ugh, pathing straight to the little pillar is annoying. Especially cartwise. I'm not sure how to remedy this from a design level; if it could somehow be set to identify roadways, that'd be awesome. I'll try out the temporary 'fix' of placing milestones on each side so hopefully the cart won't get stuck on any one in particular later.

You can't place milestones on mountain terrain. This vexes me because I don't want to deface my mountain any more than I have to. (Not really a big deal unless you're finicky like me).

I really want to see dirt roads, both for aesthetic reasons and because I can easily imagine a plow-like interface for creating them. I don't know if this would out-mode stone roads or not, assuming they get no advantages other than the decreased stamina drain and the disadvantage of 'the paving interface sucks' remains.

The pricing mildly concerns me but I think it's about right overall, especially if you're building an actual road to follow the path at the same time.

Dirt roads could, conceivably, could enable players the ability to walk instead of being able to run (like stone roads allow for). Plus, another process that takes more stamina to create this dirt roads, such as 'clearing the area' like processes, could balance the two out.

[Jackard]

Dirt is already in game and has its own properties. It allows running like grassland and pulling carts at walk speed.

The ability to make dirt "roads" using Dig was from the first world. This was how players collected clay, long before resource hotspots and shallow water clay was implemented.

[KoE]

I need to learn to balance between being concise and being clear.

Yeah, I would like to see the return of dirt roads, which were basically creatable mudflats. (I had forgotten carts could be pulled at walk speed on them, though). It should probably be harder than the old 'dig up the grass' lest people just tear up other people's areas for the lulz. Perhaps simply plowing and an option to... somehow terraform it into mudflat terrain that just eats some stamina. That way, stone road building = needs stone, dirt road building = just cut out the last step.

Of course somehow decreasing the number of clicks should be looked at, too.

The primary difference between the two would be 'carts at run speed' vs effort invested which seems appropriate to me.

[ThirdEmperor]

Maybe the current milestone could be replaced by some kind of gate? One with enough room for a cart to pass through?

[sabinati]

should be some kind of non-colliding object, imo (the little ones i mean, i'm fine with the big one having collision)

[KoE]

The main problem I have with that is the aesthetics, but overall it's probably the simplest solution to the issue. Perhaps if it were some sort of tile (at least in appearance, not necessarily in properties) that was fairly distinguishable on all (or most) terrain without being terribly ugly. Then you just plop those in the center of the road (or anywhere if it's just a forest trail), and squadala, we're off.

[Zirikana]

Is there any argument against making the current milepost object non-colliding? Is it a programming thing, or what? Seems to me doing that would be the most sensible idea. I agree about the gate idea being aesthetically iffy. Milemarkers and signposts are such a natural, easily recognized thing. You never see "gate" structures used for directing or identifying roads outside of modern highways.

I wonder if there's any plans to make the signs that get hung up part of the mileposts graphically? i.e. make different sprites for 1, 2, 3, etc. signs. A really popular crossroads could have a whole mess of arrows poking off of it

As to KoE's idea, that would be pretty good as well. I'd recommend some kind of stone colored sundial-looking image for a marker stone. On a paved road, it would blend right in. On a forest path, it would stand out more.

Basically, i'm cool with anything as long as the whole cart issue is cleared up eventually

[Jackard]

The main problem I have with that is the aesthetics, but overall it's probably the simplest solution to the issue. Perhaps if it were some sort of tile (at least in appearance, not necessarily in properties) that was fairly distinguishable on all (or most) terrain without being terribly ugly. Then you just plop those in the center of the road (or anywhere if it's just a forest trail), and squadala, we're off.

just make it a raised stone with no bounding box