Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Variance]

So, I got this idea after reading this: http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=28781.msg366982#msg366982

There's a game called Falling Sand (Specifically Opiette's version), which many of you might know of, that is another freeware game with raw-like files for easy modding, kind of like MS Paint, but with explosions. It's obviously not nearly as awesome as DF, but the one thing which I wish DF had was the way that you could program in shapes to automatically generate by programming in ASCII art into the code, and attaching the art to an element on your palette.

If we had something like this in worldgen, DF could make all kinds of absurdly cool shapes, like Sir Honey Badger's idea for petrified trees of solid petrified wood, or could even make giant live trees that are "mineable", with wood as a stone variant, and full channels of water flowing in their trunks (or sap). The same thing could be used to make any cool 3D shapes you program in, because you could edit the shapes or make new shapes in the raws.

Here's what it looks like in Falling Sand when you code in a flower to automatically generate on the "plant" element you can draw:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

element FlowerBorderUncolored 255   255   255   0.000000   0.000000   1.000000   0.000000   0
neighbor 1.0   Fire   FlowerBorderUncolored   1.0   Fire      Fire

#A pretty flower
item Flower 1
FlowerBorderUncolored . FlowerPetalUncolored +
"      .......... ....    ",
"     ..++++++.........   ",
"     ...+++++++..+++...  ",
"      ...++++++..++++... ",
"  ........+++++..+++++.. ",
"  ..++++..++++++++++++.. ",
"  .+++++++++++++++++...  ",
"  .++++++++++++++++...   ",
"  .++++++++++++++....    ",
"  .....++++++++++...     ",
"   .....+++++++++.....   ",
"  ...+++++++++++++++.... ",
"  ..++++++++++++++++++...",
"  ..+++++++++++++++++++..",
"  ..+++++++++++++++++++..",
"  ..+++.+++++++..++++++..",
"  ......+++++++....+.....",
"   .....++++++.. ....... ",
"       ..++++...         ",
"       ........          ",
"         ....            ",

If you're wondering, the line about "Fire" is making it so the flower is flammable, and the 255 numbers describe the RGB color. All the 1.00000 and 0.00000 numbers describe physics, which DF doesn't need to pay as much attention to.

[Warlord255]

I can see this eventually being opened up; human towns, for example, use a very thin series of building types (hovels, apartments of varying height, temples, inns) and Dark Fortresses have maybe five different templates that get re-used.

While it's likely unfeasible to ask for now, it could be worked in; you'd just have to be able to mark things as terrain features (petrified trees) or as buildings (which would require opening up the site-types in the RAWS).

[Duke 2.0]

 Pish, Burning Sand is where the cool kids play.

 But yes, I can see towns being built this way. Or mayhaps even subdivisions, so for example...

 Cortex command. You don't just choose from a selection of bunkers, you choose from a selection of bunker modules which can be arranged in many different ways.

 

[Variance]

Pish, Burning Sand is where the cool kids play.

I feel no anger against you, only sadness.

[Draco18s]

Cortex command. You don't just choose from a selection of bunkers, you choose from a selection of bunker modules which can be arranged in many different ways.

You Win The Internet.

Or maybe just a copy of build 22.

[Duke 2.0]

Pish, Burning Sand is where the cool kids play.

I feel no anger against you, only sadness.

 wxSand, while having temperature and other goodies, just isn't as fast as Burning Sand. Sure some people can live with their sand particles taking 15 seconds to filter to the ground, but not me. Also, their water works better.

But how do I win the internet for making a comparison between DF and CC? Seriously, people are handing out internets like it's unlimited.
 The Internet, stockpile it today!

 Although I WOULD like a license seeing as I had to scissor my credit card.

 Edit: Whoops, wrong acronym.

[Variance]

Pish, Burning Sand is where the cool kids play.

I feel no anger against you, only sadness.

 wxSand, while having temperature and other goodies, just isn't as fast as Burning Sand. Sure some people can live with their sand particles taking 15 seconds to filter to the ground, but not me. Also, their water works better.

But how do I win the internet for making a comparison between DC and CC? Seriously, people are handing out internets like it's unlimited.
 The Internet, stockpile it today!

 Although I WOULD like a license seeing as I had to scissor my credit card.

I lost you around comparing DC and CC, but honestly, I've never played Burning Sand before; my experience with Falling Sand is very limited, I've only played it a bit, enough to notice that the code allows for pre-programmed shapes. I couldn't be a fanboy of either Wx or Burning if I wanted to be, so I can't argue for either side. I was just playfully defending the only thing I've played before.

Therefore, PYROSAND FTW!

[Neoskel]

Powder Game is better. 

[SirHoneyBadger]

All sand games are equally gritty. Personally, I like building sand castles on the beach, but then I cry when the waves knock them over. Stupid waves.

Thinking a little more macroscopically (but hopefully OnT): How about if we could determine the overall shape of the entire *world*?

Possibilities:
Flatworld=An infinite plane that spreads in all directions. If you somehow reach the edge of a given map, a new map generates itself, ad infinium (or atleast ad-your-computer's-limits). This world might only be 15 Z levels thick, meaning when you dig through the last one, you come out the other side, to another (different) infinite plane. Magma is rare.

As an alternative: Metaphysical Vanceian Flatworld=as above, but dig down deep enough, and you might find an entrance to the Underworld, home of the undead, demons, monsters, what have you. Climb high enough, and you might find a way into the Overworld, home of angelic beings. Dwarfs and other creatures who die on the middle plane, resurrect in either the Underworld or Overworld, and can even possibly find their way back to the land of the living.

HollowWorld=Standard Wellsian vision, dig 15 Z levels down, and find yourself in an entirely new, traditionally prehistoric (with a twist) environment.
Magma, again, is rare, and demons rule the savage lands.

RealEarthWorld=The spherical Earth-type standard. Magma is everywhere, if you dig down deep enough, and new Z levels are generated after 15. Walk, or sail, over enough maps, in one direction, and come back around to where you started.

TreeWorld=Norse Myth personified. Everything exists in several different small worlds (1 map wide, each), which are interconnected by an enormous World Tree. The World Tree (aka Yggdrasl) is mineable, but beware the giant insects, and even bigger animals, living on, or in, it.



Budong-World=An alternative Norseish version of the world, where the Earth is just a titanic corpse (or living body) of some ubergodly creature, floating in space. Mineable and finite, magma exists as the world-being's bloodstream. Bone can be mined. Dwarfs and other creatures are just what amounts to parasites, viruses, bacteria, fungi. Watch out for the immune system!

[Silverionmox]

Hey, great. What about the classic world on the back of a giant turtle? Everything under 15 z-levels is turtle shell.

Or a finite flat world where waterfalls run down the edges into the abyss.

[SirHoneyBadger]

Yep! I totally forgot about Discworld, excellent suggestion, but ofcourse that is something that is really more likely to be modded in, than actually hardcoded, for copyright reasons.

[SolarShado]

on a related note (i think): here's another world gen idea:

the ability to paint part of the map to be something specific, but randomize the rest of the map, so for example, you could make a mountain in the middle of a desert, but the rest of the world is randomly gen'd as usual

[Duke 2.0]

on a related note (i think): here's another world gen idea:

the ability to paint part of the map to be something specific, but randomize the rest of the map, so for example, you could make a mountain in the middle of a desert, but the rest of the world is randomly gen'd as usual

 Yes. Freakin'. Yes.

 I cannot tell you the number of worlds I have made looking for one-tile islands. I know I can make a world with only one tile islands, but no civ's would pop up. This would be very handy.

[SirHoneyBadger]

Is it currently possible to set extreme environments for a world, but otherwise have it randomly generate?

If it is, or became so, you could have Athas-like desert worlds (Sorry, but Dark Sun is the one D&D setting I'm really fond of), worlds caught in the grip of an ice age, with little pockets of civilization between and under the continent sized-glaciers, or even hellworlds that are mostly evil/haunted/cursed.
 
Not that it's entirely on topic, but concerning extreme environments: I wonder if it'll ever become possible for our dwarfs to build underwater cities out of glass, by digging up under oceans and then slowly expanding? There's a lot of mineral wealth, not to mention treasure, in them thar seas.

[Warlord255]

On the subject of mountains in a desert; Intersparsing certain terrains inside other ones randomly - such as a nine-tile mountain in a desert, or a small negative-oasis of badlands in a forest - would be interesting. This can happen infrequently and it's often quite dandy, but it's all too rare.