landscaping, need more

[Turtlesir]

i thought "Stomp to Dirt" was permanent (wasn't it in legacy?), so i used it to shape my garden because i really liked the slim (in lines) and diamond (in squares) shapes:


but as it turns out it isn't, it's already started to decay, resulting in ugly:


need more options to make nice looking gardens. some kind of permanent "Stomp to Dirt"ing at least would be nice.

here is an excerpt from a book that might help my cause:

Medieval pesticides were all natural products. If processed, the processing was done on the estate or farm. Among the abiotic substances were sulphur, pitch, and ashes, substances still in use today.

we have at least two of these in the game already. you could simply add an option to landscaping called "Treat Soil" that uses ash/tar and stops or slows grass spread on stomped dirt, maybe even on plowed land, if the engine allows for it.

otherwise you could perhaps make more variants of player-made terrain, like pebble-enclosed dirt as seen here:

[Sevenless]

It wasn't permanent in legacy from what I remember? I thought only paving was permanent.

[Turtlesir]

guess i'm remembering that wrong, been a while since i played it.

[Sevenless]

Like, I support the concept. But in the long term, the devs are talking about a self renewing world. That means that permanent creations by humans are a nono, they need to decay in some way after a player leaves the area.

[loftar]

Indeed, stomping to dirt is far too easy for it to be permanent. There's really a case to be made that not even paving should be permanent. It's one thing at this point in the world, I guess, but I always find it ugly when walking year-old worlds and the only thing that remains of settlements is paving.

[Sevenless]

Indeed, stomping to dirt is far too easy for it to be permanent. There's really a case to be made that not even paving should be permanent. It's one thing at this point in the world, I guess, but I always find it ugly when walking year-old worlds and the only thing that remains of settlements is paving.

Is it possible to have terrain decay interact with active claims? This is one potential solution that is "permanent" from the players point of view but not from the world perspective.

Edit: Although it's worth noting I feel the meadow decay from lost trees is just as ugly. To me those are definitely player scars on the world.

[Lunarius_Haberdash]

Indeed, stomping to dirt is far too easy for it to be permanent. There's really a case to be made that not even paving should be permanent. It's one thing at this point in the world, I guess, but I always find it ugly when walking year-old worlds and the only thing that remains of settlements is paving.

Could definitely see unclaimed paving becoming overgrown and disappearing.

That being the case, I think a new curiousity should be 'Lost Roads' and 'Ancient Pottery', found by digging but extremely rarely, and maybe only in certain places.

[Turtlesir]

Indeed, stomping to dirt is far too easy for it to be permanent. There's really a case to be made that not even paving should be permanent. It's one thing at this point in the world, I guess, but I always find it ugly when walking year-old worlds and the only thing that remains of settlements is paving.

i thought this would be your answer. but look, in your latest interview you say you want more unique player settlements, well then you should add more tools for us to make it more unique. adding some player-made terrain types can't be that troublesome? as Sevenless and Lunarius said, now that claims easily decay without use, so could the terrain on it, such as "treated dirt" and pavement, decay without claim.

by the way i agree about the grass scars, natural forests are destroyed within weeks as players move rimwards.

[g1real]

Indeed, stomping to dirt is far too easy for it to be permanent. There's really a case to be made that not even paving should be permanent. It's one thing at this point in the world, I guess, but I always find it ugly when walking year-old worlds and the only thing that remains of settlements is paving.

That's kind of what paving is though, in its permanence. But could you not make paving decay slowly to grass-overgrown pavement and then to grass with the occasional pavement remnants here and there, and those tiles are actually just part of the biome?

Something like giving every tile a low chance to be permanent on decay tick, turning them into one of those grass-with-pavement tiles instead of just grass.

[Granger]

Yes, think about the pixel art..