Game Development: Surveyor's Delight

[Ozzy123]

Is this effectively a complaint that it's hard to make fine adjustments to the level, or am I misunderstanding you? The current setting is that 10 pixels of vertical mouse movement causes a change of one Z unit to the point(s) being dragged. I will admit it never even crossed my mind that this would be too course. Are you using a somewhat bad mouse or something that causes this to be a problem for you? I don't mean that in a rude manner, nor that I couldn't be persuaded to support bad mice, mind you, just trying to figure out what the problem is.

Translation:

[xyzzy57]

Is this effectively a complaint that it's hard to make fine adjustments to the level, or am I misunderstanding you? The current setting is that 10 pixels of vertical mouse movement causes a change of one Z unit to the point(s) being dragged. I will admit it never even crossed my mind that this would be too course. Are you using a somewhat bad mouse or something that causes this to be a problem for you? I don't mean that in a rude manner, mind you, just trying to figure out what the problem is.

I haven't tried the new tool; just looked at the picture at the top of the thread, and saw no UI to set the level at all.

From what you say, the new UI requires rather precise mouse movements, but it is possible to set the level other than to "exactly the same as that thing that already exists", which is what I misunderstood.

I don't know whether I'll have the physical ability to make those movements precise enough. If I can't this would be due to a combination of an aging body and an overloaded computer. (Apple basically killed my comp with their latest software "upgrade"; it's now underpowered for its default load.)

I'm more worried about the aging body - I already have trouble clicking the tiny close button on many of the windows in the Haven client - I use keyboard shortcuts, or larger mouse targets whenever possible, but getting rid of the crafting window can require repeated attempts.

And how do I select a level, if there isn't a handy reference already present?

Did the previous leveling tool provide a handy reference that the new one doesn't? It wasn't the intention to remove anything.

The previous tool had a visible slider.

Maybe the new one does too.

If not though, I find the 3d view on Haven does a much better job of looking cool than of allowing precise actions. It is for example routine to be able to dig Acre clay on tiles that don't look like dirt, and be unable to dig clay on tiles that do. Mountains are, for me, impassable without engaging the "flat" view. There's only one camera option that enables me to successfully hit an archery target, and I don't know whether that view is even available in the default client. If I have to do precise height movements in the 3 d view without any guide beyond the colour of the dots (raise/lower/keep), I expect I'll have trouble figuring out what to do, as well as executing the required motions precisely enough.

On the other hand, I haven't tried it. I'm tired and hangry right now - not the best conditions for trying out anything new.

I'll probably have more constructive things to say once I try out the new UI. And that won't be until after I eat and rest.

[loftar]

getting rid of the crafting window can require repeated attempts.

The trick is to just click anywhere inside it (just to focus it) and the use Esc to close it. Frankly, the reason the made the close button so small is because it's mostly useless given Esc, so no need to have it take up more space than is necessary for people to realize that the window is closable.

[strpk0]

cool update

also please ignore the geriatric moron that "is too weak and old" to figure it out yet clearly expended 20x the required effort to post this on the forums
save those brain cells for something important

[SpacePig]

1. Level the selected area by default to minimum remaining land.
2. Or manually set the leveling amount as a number.
That's all that's needed. Nobody will ever select irregular areas for leveling because it's completely dysfunctional — it provides no advantages in construction or defense and only causes extra problems.

Ideally, the best option would be to auto-level any active claim through an idol since leveling is just a waste of time, and people always do this using multiple windows with bots. If that’s too much of a concession for players—depriving them from spending one day up to a week non-stop digging and catching grasshoppers—it could be made not free but require sacrifices like food/animals' corpses/curio worth some amount. I think everyone would happily collect apples and peaches and feed them to the idol so he can level their village.

[animary]

"Did the previous leveling tool provide a handy reference that the new one doesn't? "

Previously we would drag an area then adjust the slider so the green dot(s) were at the level to which we wanted to dig/fill. Or we could set the level above any of the selected terrain and fill to that height; perhaps I am not reading correctly but it sounds like we must now set to an existing terrain level.

[Zachary09]

If surveys are handled clientside, why not introduce surveys larger than 31x31? There are numerous instances of larger villages being surveyed and unfortunately it's sometimes too difficult to measure the amount of added or removed dirt, so if you're surveying large areas you often end up with not enough dirt or dozens of unnecessary dirt piles.

[loftar]

1. Level the selected area by default to minimum remaining land.
2. Or manually set the leveling amount as a number.
That's all that's needed. Nobody will ever select irregular areas for leveling because it's completely dysfunctional — it provides no advantages in construction or defense and only causes extra problems.

Since eg. slope/hill construction is rather common, this is an abjectly false statement.

Previously we would drag an area then adjust the slider so the green dot(s) were at the level to which we wanted to dig/fill. Or we could set the level above any of the selected terrain and fill to that height; perhaps I am not reading correctly but it sounds like we must now set to an existing terrain level.

This should be just as possible with the new UI.

If surveys are handled clientside, why not introduce surveys larger than 31x31?

It's not the surveys are handled wholly clientside, just that the client is free to set individual target elevations for the tiles in the survey.

[animary]

"There's only one camera option that enables me to successfully hit an archery target, and I don't know whether that view is even available in the default client."

Bring up the grid (cntrl+G) and aim for the tile on which your target sits, works every time for me. And, as I learned through sad experience, you cannot shoot something in an adjacent tile.

[Robben_DuMarsch]

Rip, I had been guessing we were going to get news on the new world any day now. With the release of this patch my new best guess is that it's to tide us over as they need some more time to cook.

Cool sandbox feature though!
Dev stream in a few weeks, perhaps?