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[happydog23]

Req515, CONSTRUCTION BUILDING PLACEMENT, (Future): You shouldn't have to place construction squares one by one, and you shouldn't have to wait for constructions to be finished to place further pending constructions.

I think that I'd like to see a system that supports this where you choose what to construct (wall, floor, stairs, etc) and then what to make it out of (obsidian blocks, whatever) and then basically get a cursor like the designations cursor for mining and cutting tress where you can then designate where to build whatever... or use the left mouse like for mining.

I feel like this would definitely help out with megaproject constructing.

[Saint]

YES!
Also with floors.
And the ability to designate floors the same way.

[Derakon]

I'd actually rather that you be able to pick a material, and then designate walls, floors, stairs, whatever, repeatedly. As it stands (which is a damned sight better than the old "one at a time" system we used to have) you designate a stretch of 10 wall units, then pick a material for them, then you designate a stretch of 10 wall units, then pick a material for them...

The cursor could simply turn red and disallow further placement if you lack sufficient materials. No need yet to add the ability to designate constructions that you can't make yet.

[Fossaman]

Oh wow. Yes please. Given the way that a material's location in the selection list changes as you get further away from the stockpile, this would speed up construction designations a lot. And I wouldn't have to worry about using the wrong color on accident.

[LegoLord]

Can't we already do this?  You use the ukhm keys to change the dimensions of a segment of construction you want built, the max being 10x10.  Use shift+enter to select one type of material for all the tiles in the segment.

I'm not quite sure how any of the previously suggested is much different, save the OP's actual suggestion.  The actual Req as described there seems to be in already.

[jfs]

Isn't this also being able to designate areas that aren't yet reachable? Like picking a material, then designating an entire 10 story tower right away, and then your dwarves figure out the best order to build things in so it will still work out.

[Derakon]

LegoLord: as I see it, there are two major improvements that can be made to the current construction system:

1) Being able to designate constructions in arbitrary rectangles, not limited to 10x10, using something like the mine/chop trees/gather plants designation system.
1) Select materials first, then designate, instead of the other way around. Typically players will want a given construction to all be made from the same materials, so this saves keystrokes in the common use case.

[Shaostoul]

A more or less dig designation based construction system. Where you select your material and are allowed to designate unreachable areas as well. It's vastly improve the speed of things...

However, the more you allow yourself to build, the more chance you run into dwarfs getting stuck.

[Kilo24]

With this, I'd also want to be able to specify "Black Stone" or "The Closest Object Available" to make the constructions out of instead of just "Obsidian rocks" or "Marble blocks".  It would pick the closest object available that matched the requirement to make up each tile.  Any thoughts on that?

[lucusLoC]

this dovetails nicely with my template thread:

http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=39304.0

does it sound like i am really harping on that? yes? maybe because i *really want building templates*

anyway, now for something more on topic.

with regard to dorfs building themselves into a corner. for one off constructions (any construction you would want to repeat should be a template. . .) how about something like this:

you enter the build mode, select a mat, place constructions, select another mat, place more constructions then hit a "build order key" that lets you select the constructions that you want to build first, hit the "next step" key and select the constructions you want to build second etc. any constructions that are not selects in the build order are built last, or when no other ordered constructions are accessible. there should also be a key that lets you cycle through build priorities and let you edit them, in case you made a mistake.

this would allow you to:

1. designate a stone tower
2. designate all floor constructions with a priority 1
3. designate all corner wall constructions with a priority 2
4. designate all non corner wall constructions with a priority 3
5. all stair constructions are undesignated

the construction behavior would be thus:
1st floor built, 1st floor wall corners built, 1st floor walls built, 1st floor stairs built (no other prioritized constructions reachable), 2nd floor floor built (it is priority 1, but was inaccessible till the stairs were built), 2nd floor corner walls built, 2nd floor walls built, 2nd floor stairs built (other constructions had precedent, so these were not built) etc.

vola! tower built with no stuck dorfs and a minimum of designating. keep in mind that this system would accommodate any future designating tools, such as a circle builder or hollow rectangle or whatever, as all the building prioritization is done in a separate step (the prioritization tool could also use any designation tools as well). ideally the whole thing would be done with the mouse so there would be as little scrolling around as possible, and you could just click on designation that should be done on that step.

i also imagine that the template placement would be the exact same thing, just with pre-prioritized designations. if there was an explicit building mode there may even be a way to save a template of what you just designated. . . .

also, prioritization should probably be expanded to any build/dig designation. . . elegant way to do this?

improvements to the idea anyone?

[Derakon]

You're getting pretty far afield from the original suggestion, which was much simpler and easier to implement. I didn't read it very carefully, but it seems like a decent approach to constructions -- just, much more involved.

[lucusLoC]

perhaps, but i view it more as "building upon" the idea.

and i have been thinking again, and while i am sure this has been suggested before i think it merits mention here.

when you select a material to build with, you do not care which individual stone is used, so why should the game? you should be able to cue up granite walls to your hearts content, regardless of if you have granite or not. the wall segments would act as a single job workshop, and when a dorf starts construction on that wall segment it tasks the nearest available stone. if the dorf stops en route the stone is un-tasked (just like with workshops). this way your haulers can still move stone around with out having a bunch of stone tied up unable to be moved, and would solve the problem of a bunch of tasked stone blocking other construction projects. you could also designate an entire structure and it would get built as the stone (or other material) becomes available.