Politician Archive
Thread: Just tought of something...................
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CyberFett
Wed Jul 14, 2004 1:36 pm
#1
Sorry if this has been mentioned before. I am not a Politician, and do not frequent these boards, but I am toying with the idea of creating a city. The first problem I have tought of is finding a good location for the city, a nice flat area where I can place structures the way I want them, not how the terrain dictates.
My thought is.............
We have Laser Guns, Hyperdrive and interplanetary space travel. Shouldn't we have Bull Dozers and escavation equipment?
How hard would it be to code? When you place the city hall it makes the area of the city flat? Either the current area of the city and expands as the city grows, or the whole area the city could become (450mradius I believe).
I like the idea of making it as large as the city can become, and make it so no one can place structures in that entire area. You should get the max area when you start the city. Weather a city is a metropolis or not isn't determined by the amount of land it has, it is determined by how many residents it has. Jacksonville Florida is one of (if not) the largest cities in the United states, land wise, but there are 10x more people living in New Youk or Los Angeles and they are a 10th it's size.
If you are going to build anything, including a City, you would have a plan and buy the land you would need for that plan, not buy a portion of it and hope no one else buys the rest you want later when you are ready to expand it. And if you own that land, no one would be able to just come and plop a Harvester or house down on it with out your permission.
Well my main thought was about making the area flat when you drop the city hall but I got off on other things I thought of as I was writting this. I am sure there are 100's of more things that need to be changed to make creating, running, and maintaining a city much better than it is right now and if I decide to do it I will find out first hand. Like I said I had a thought and I am very bored at work so I figured I would Post it.
Message Edited by CyberFett on 07-14-2004 04:39 PM
Joukahainen
Wed Jul 14, 2004 2:15 pm
#2
I think this would require a HUGE code change. Something the dev's would never be interested in trying. I think all the planets have a basic look to them that will not change. When a building is dropped a minor graphical change is made to the location to "fit" the building into place. Other than that, the planets do not actually change. Just my opinion, though, I could be wrong.
CyberFett
Wed Jul 14, 2004 2:19 pm
#3
Why would it be any different than when a spawn appears? It changes the landscape, sometimes tremendously, and when you place a camp on the side of a hill. The code is there, atleast that is what I figured. I could be wrong too. I am not programmer.
Joukahainen wrote:
I think this would require a HUGE code change. Something the dev's would never be interested in trying. I think all the planets have a basic look to them that will not change. When a building is dropped a minor graphical change is made to the location to "fit" the building into place. Other than that, the planets do not actually change. Just my opinion, though, I could be wrong.
Message Edited by CyberFett on 07-14-2004 05:21 PM
Vesobe
Wed Jul 14, 2004 2:39 pm
#4
According to the devs, it would be a massive drain...
the landscape is downloaded from a central server - it's not different for each one.
Apparently, the amount of computing power and bandwidth required would be enourmous.
Laeren
Thu Jul 15, 2004 7:39 am
#5
This has been answered many times in the past few weeks.
Spawns and campsites are temporary flattenings, meaning that they disappear, and aren't permanent alterations to the landscape. Also, they tiny compared to player cities. What you'd be asking for is a much larger terrain flattening, larger than anything else out there currently, and you'd want it for every city on a planet, which would have a huge impact on the terrain engine.
Terrain is only generated about 8m out from every character, and is loaded from a static map. However, if you were running through the city, each 8m you ran the terrain engine would have to recaluate your terrain based on the static map AND the current building locations AND each building's terrain-altering radius. It would have to do this calculation several times while you passed by a house, and many more times while you ran past a guildhall, and thousands of times while you ran through a city.
You can see why they can't and won't do it for cities. It's just too intensive.
Hairy_Wookie
Thu Jul 15, 2004 1:32 pm
#6
even if it was plausible I don't like the idea but i dont hate it either. Agreed having some kind of flattening tool to help with placing down a house would be a great Idea, the idea of having a fully flattened city landscape just sounds plain dull to me. I like my hills but only if I can build on it. I sometimes get frustrated at the fact that there is enough room to build a house there yet I can't place it because of the way the hill is alligned. That really needs to be fixed.
CyberFett
Fri Jul 16, 2004 12:11 am
#7
Well, that answers that. Thanks.
I understand why this is not fesable.
Thanks.
Laeren
Fri Jul 16, 2004 12:16 am
#8
Don't get me wrong, it'd be AWESOME if they could 
Just that the current server technology couldn't handle it 
Just that the current server technology couldn't handle it
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