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[Vactor]

I started in on an Airland's ability to sort it's own tiles, the first addition is adjusting all owned tiles to snap to the airlands own internal grid.  The tile collecting game is starting to take shape, and a bit of fun can be had tooling around trying to pick up all the tiles on your Z-level.  inter-Z-level travel is still a lost magic, nothing but whispers in the alleys and sewers of yet to be built cities. 

It is still effectively impossible to fill any open square bordered by 3 tiles, as when trying to slot it in you inevitably hit one of the corners first.  One thought is to be a bit more forgiving about what part of the tile needs to touch for a connection, or to try to write in the sorter for it to figure out when tiles should be slid in.

Its all very snappy right now, which can be abrupt to the eye, but that should be able to be easily smoothed with some motion/time code instead of the instant fix.

I also threw in some slightly more pleasing textures to test out alpha transparencies, and they all seem to be working smoothly:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Areyar]

You were going for a tetris like mechanism, for this mini-game of landgrab, right?
I'd suggest ignoring diagonals for the touching mechanism and count only touching sides, or faces is it is truly 3D.
Alternatively, have the clump settle into what would become hollow spaces, by temporarily disabling adhesion amongst the clump tiles for the moment of contact.

[Astral]

The upload link for the most recent version doesn't appear to be working.

[Virex]

You can always make the bounding box/bounding rectangle slightly smaller then a square. That way you get a bit of leeway on how precise the fit has to be.

[Vactor]

You can always make the bounding box/bounding rectangle slightly smaller then a square. That way you get a bit of leeway on how precise the fit has to be.

this is exactly what I did, working well now, you have 1/10 of a tile width to play with which is enough to easily slide one in if you're concentrating on doing it.

The upload link for the most recent version doesn't appear to be working.

thats actually the link from 2 years ago, the first time i tried putting this game together, i struck it out on the first post

[Thendash]

This looks very interesting, but once you implement z-level movement, how are you planning on dealing with collisions from above and below? Destroying everything on an enemy's airland by falling onto them doesn't seem very fair in a persistent multiplayer game, unless there's a way to protect from it.

[The Doctor]

Presumably there would be a magical shield over the top of the Airland, but it only works as far as the edge -1 tile, thereby letting crunching from the sides.
For some reason. >_>

[Vactor]

This looks very interesting, but once you implement z-level movement, how are you planning on dealing with collisions from above and below? Destroying everything on an enemy's airland by falling onto them doesn't seem very fair in a persistent multiplayer game, unless there's a way to protect from it.

you'll either bounce off it, back up a z level, or you'll push whats below you to the next lower z level, probably dependent on mass

[Virex]

This looks very interesting, but once you implement z-level movement, how are you planning on dealing with collisions from above and below? Destroying everything on an enemy's airland by falling onto them doesn't seem very fair in a persistent multiplayer game, unless there's a way to protect from it.

you'll either bounce off it, back up a z level, or you'll push whats below you to the next lower z level, probably dependent on mass

Correction, the land underneath you is going to go the hell downwards because some maniac IS TRYING TO DROP AN ISLAND ON IT!! I think that's enough motivation to get out of the way

[PTTG??]

Alternatively, it is entirely reasonable that an island can accelate laterally far faster than vertically, since boyancy, while changable, is less variable than simply directional thrust.

As such, trying to drop onto someone is far more difficult than simply trying to drive into them, especially if you are of a similar or larger size.

Anyway, ramming should be discouraged as just as damaging to yourself as to the subject anyway, since it isn't exactly fun to have your carefully designed island smashed into by somebody who just put mountains around the edge.

[Neonivek]

Or the damage could be temporary at best. I doubt you would want anything important on the outer edges.

Though personally I never pictured this game having combat by using the peices of your continent as weapons.

[Cajoes]

Or the damage could be temporary at best. I doubt you would want anything important on the outer edges.

Though personally I never pictured this game having combat by using the peices of your continent as weapons.

A classic case of Awesome Yet Impractical use of  your resources, since, unless prepared for it, the initial ramming would probably hurt your island as much as your target, it might simply be easier to deploy strike teams to the opposing landmass and steal chunks from him (however that would work. Huge anchors maybe) either by landbridges, parking up next to them, or deploying primitive airships.

[Vactor]

Spent the evening adding a few different things, inter-z-level movement is in, but without collision detections yet.  I also added in a handful of texture layers, so now a particular tile can convey 4 different layers of information via texture including, original terrain, any vegetation that exists there, any roads, and any construction.  I also made clumps generate as a type, so you have entire clumps of sand and entire clumps of grass, this will eventually be able to be turned into something more varied, where grassland clumps would have mostly grass, with a few hills and possibly a mountain tile, or they could be more plains, where its mostly flat grassland.  I'm feeling pretty comfortable with the movement and collection of tiles at this point, so I might start working on the gameplay of the airland management itself before long. 

Floating around collecting tiles feels like a freeform tetris, and its actually pretty easy to space out and realize you just spent 10 minutes collecting tiles.  I'll probably add in a way for you to cut loose a tile you don't wish to have.  One of the things that I need to consider with this is the idea of someone throwing out a tile that is completely encased within their airland.  I've thought of just always having loose chunks float to the z level above, which would get rid of most issues.  I'm also thinking of having a toggle that the player can turn off their airland's stickiness, so that when managing their affairs, passing clumps will bounce off rather than collect on the perimeter.

[The Doctor]

I thought of a way you can make people able to disconnect tiles, but prevent them from just doing it willy nilly (if you want to)

Have them need to detonate/destroy any tiles connected to the tiles you want to get rid of.

[Areyar]

For tile removal:
how about
-blow tiles up into dust/sand/gravel particulates as a low-cost/low development option to removing an unwanted tile, covering nearby tiles in crap and with a possibility of collateral damage.
-levitate/manipulate a single tile (or a clump at linear cost increase) at a higher cost and/or requiring specific resources, be it a mechanical tool or magical spell / energy.

edit: just realised this is already what was mentioned earlier...