Alpha 47 Tell Me What You Hate About The Building And Module Creator

Discussion in 'Clockwork Empires General' started by Nicholas, Jan 19, 2016.

  1. Nicholas

    Nicholas Technology Director Staff Member

    I'm rewriting these this month, and will also be revisiting the line placer and the placer for [REDACTED]. This is going to be the last rewrite of this code, and its' going to be the version we ultimately end up shipping. So! What do you like about the current scheme, and what don't you like about it?

    (I make no guarantee that your commentary will be used, BTW; I just want a sense of where we are.)

    EDIT: By popular request, I'm moving the list of things that are done, will be done, are being considered and won't be done up here:

    (Some lists):

    LISTS OF THINGS I HAVE ALREADY FIXED IN THE REWRITE:

    - Selection is now per tile rather than per vertex (this was previously Kind Of Done, but not for zones)
    - Removal of spaces in floorplan mode (hold down SHIFT-)
    - Rotation of building in floorplan mode
    - Dimensions of square currently being dragged out is now a mouse tooltip
    - "Courtyards"
    - Modules now rotate around their center of mass (and snap as close as possible to that center of mass)
    - Module access points disappearing after module is placed and removed
    - Module snapping. Simply put, we're just getting rid of it.

    LISTS OF THINGS I WILL FIX OR THAT ARE ALREADY ON MY LIST OF THINGS TO FIX:

    - a bunch of the bugs where module footprints simply won't render correctly
    - The @#$@ module placement crash
    - Modules being placed on top of other modules.
    - Doors leaving holes in buildings after movement or deletion; doors and window cuts not getting generated correctly
    - Deletion of module footprints after a module is removed (ditto)
    - Module orphaning
    - Multiple module creation lag
    - Module footprint alignment for inside/outside modules
    - Module selection accuracy
    - Gabion placement with lines
    - Cancelling a building in progress leaves the module indicators up
    - Various things disappearing after save/load
    - Perimeter material costs don't work
    - Buildings adjacent to each other
    - Outlines not showing up on AMD cards
    - Unify standalone module placer and building module placer

    LIST OF THINGS THAT IT WOULD BE NICE TO GET IN HERE BUT WE'LL SEE

    - Double-click to start a rectangle as opposed to click+drag. (I'll have to think about how best to do this one, but I agree it would be better for tablets and trackpads)
    - some visual polish on the build stage

    LIST OF THINGS I'M NOT CERTAIN ABOUT DOING BECAUSE UGH

    - Being able to edit the floorplan after the floorplan is designated. This is like this for Reasons, and I haven't decided what I'm going to do about it.
    - ditto non-contiguous floorplans. We always assume you have a well-guaranteed "outer" footprint
     
    Last edited: Jan 26, 2016
  2. Alavaria

    Alavaria Member

    Occasionally windows like to just "snap" to the air instead of the wall. Also I've noted the windows (of course mostly with wooden one) clearly show the wall underneath them. Glass ones just have glass so it's not visible. (Could windows be made to follow transparency of walls they are attached to?
    Occasionally windows get built but the planks are left there on the ground, I don't think you can do anything with the planks.

    Doors as well, it's hard to change the facing of a door if you're putting it in a square where it could face more than one way into a building.

    And on the side, sometimes when you are trying to be clever with your placement, the modules will endlessly stick, especially in smaller buildings, to be sure... but when floors start burning I think massive buildings will be less common.
     
    Last edited: Jan 19, 2016
  3. Mikel

    Mikel Waiting On Paperwork From The Ministry. Forever.

    I dislike that I cannot rotate the screen when I am in floorplan mode. It is annoying to have to cancel the build, rotate the camera, and restart.

    I dislike that I cannot remove spaces in floorplan mode. Luckily I stick to very simple shapes, but it is still a pain to have to cancel and restart if I misclick.

    Sometimes I cannot make an item 'click' into place no matter how often I try.

    It can be difficult to select the correct module when removing/moving a model that is near another one. Once the wrong one is selected, I sometimes have problems making it click into place. I would appreciate the ability to cancel a move attempt.

    It is possible to build a farm over the blueprint footprint of an oven.
     
    Milena Machado likes this.
  4. Alavaria

    Alavaria Member

    Ah yes, some tricks I remember.

    If you have already built the door& windows, you can then build stockpile right under them (but you cannot place a door if stockpile is against the wall).

    You can also sometimes create a stockpile and drag it out over a farm. No issues that I've seen, plants grow and things get stored normally.


    You can also layer graveyards on top of one another (but you must start any new graveyard in clear space). Might help if you were for some reason worried about that. Seems every graveyard can be filled individually leading to high density gravestones (and I think stones also stacked on top of one another)
     
  5. Mikel

    Mikel Waiting On Paperwork From The Ministry. Forever.

    The footprint issue became a problem for me when I tried to add ovens next to the existing ones and could not do so because the farm blocked it.. And heaven help me if I tried to move the oven that was overlapped...
     
  6. Alavaria

    Alavaria Member

    reminds me, the module space indicator is messed up for modules that are both inside and outside (like ovens) BUT it shouldn't cause any functional problems, you just have to remember that an oven is 1-inside and 1-outside
     
  7. Mikel

    Mikel Waiting On Paperwork From The Ministry. Forever.

    It actually takes two outside to place an oven.
     
  8. Alephred

    Alephred Royal Archivist for Queen And Empire

    You can still rotate the view in blueprint mode, but you have to do so with the keyboard (Q and E), as mouse rotation is disabled in blueprint mode.

    Things I hate: very occasionally (and unpredictably), while drawing a line of gabions, the game will draw a huge line instead of the 3 or 4 I want, and they never get built, and cannot be cancelled.

    Having modules snap to the proper orientation seems to be working mostly as intended. But it's super difficult to place an oven in the last wall slot that is also a corner, beside other ovens - it seems to require finding the exact precise pixel.
     
    Last edited: Jan 19, 2016
    Mikel likes this.
  9. Mikel

    Mikel Waiting On Paperwork From The Ministry. Forever.

    You are a Scholar and a Gentleman, no matter what Nicholas says about you.
     
  10. Alavaria

    Alavaria Member

    No, I took a look, and it is 1-inside and 1-outside.

    This is similar with the Stone Smelting Crucible, Stone Ceramics/Charcoal Kiln.
     
    Last edited: Jan 21, 2016
  11. Mikel

    Mikel Waiting On Paperwork From The Ministry. Forever.

    then you remember much more than I do... Ovens stuck in my head because of the time I messed myself up with a farm too close to my kitchen... I'd be lost if I had to recite the footprint of any other inside/outside model.
     
  12. mailersmate

    mailersmate Member

    - visual accuracy of selecting placed modules for moving or deleting needs looking at. In crowded buildings it's very easy to select the thing behind what you are trying to change. Also I personnelly think the move/delete buttons could use being somewhat larger.

    - moving doors after construction leaves holes in the wall that are never repaired

    - as stated by Alephred, garbion placement is sometimes very problematic. My experience of this is that huge lines of gabions are caused because we expect clicking menu items (particularly in the bottom left) to drop us out of construction mode, when what actually happens is the game integrates this as a place gabions command.
     
  13. Rentahamster

    Rentahamster Member

    I hate the slowdown that rapid module placement causes.

    I hate that in areas of crowded or overlapping modules, I have no idea which module I'm selecting if I want to move or delete it.

    I hate how if I cancel a building in progress that has module blueprints set in it, the icon indicating what ingredients the module needs to be built stays on the screen.

    I hate how slow it is to create large buildings.

    I hate how weird deleting or moving doors can be.

    I hate how there is no way to add more tiles to a building as an extension later. If I want to make my workshop slightly bigger, for example, I have to delete the building and build it all over again.

    I hate how deleting a module that sticks out of a building (e.g. stone oven, iron oven, mineshaft) leaves a footprint sticking out of the building.

    I wish there was an indicator that shows me, in blueprint mode, the dimensions of the building area that I'm currently making with my mouse.

    I hate how sometimes there are leftover planks or bricks or stone or other ingredients that don't disappear completely when a building is finished constructing.
     
  14. Kaidelong

    Kaidelong Member

    Cursorover should highlight the tile where placement will start for zone and floor plan placement.

    Two clicks should be used instead of a drag, dragging is difficult without a mouse.

    Don't rotate modules automatically after the player has tried to rotate them manually, you can get stuck in loops where context sensitive rotation prevents you from placing the module over and over again.
     
    mailersmate likes this.
  15. Wolg

    Wolg Member

    • Freestanding modules like carpentry benches changing rotation if the mouse slightly leaves the floor area or touches a wall is an irritant
    • There is a crash possible in module placement:
      • Drag out a 5x5 kitchen
      • Put a loading bay door on one side, its edge touching the building corner
      • Put a LC door on the side adjacent to the bay door, one space away from touching the bay door corner
      • Place an open window decor module in the corner such that it touches both doors
      • Collect crash dump file
    • It would be nice if building design wasn't strictly one way linear -- it we could switch back and forward between footprint and module mode, for those times you haven't quite made the building as wide as needed for the intended module set.
    • For trickier building shapes, it would be nice if the requirement that floorplan is contiguous be relaxed slightly; allow areas to be designated that don't touch the rest of the footprint, but don't allow approving or switching to module mode until the player joins the footprints up (this will need a UI hint, of course).
    • Module orphaning, where a placed then moved module (usually a door or oven or something that is part inside, part out) gets stuck to the mouse and can't be placed down again, and escaping out of the placer leaves the module sitting wherever it happened to be on the grid at the time -- permanently.
     
    Mikel likes this.
  16. Nicholas

    Nicholas Technology Director Staff Member

    (Some lists):

    LISTS OF THINGS I HAVE ALREADY FIXED IN THE REWRITE:

    - Selection is now per tile rather than per vertex (this was previously Kind Of Done, but not for zones)
    - Removal of spaces in floorplan mode (hold down SHIFT-)
    - Rotation of building in floorplan mode
    - Dimensions of square currently being dragged out is now a mouse tooltip
    - "Courtyards"
    - Modules now rotate around their center of mass (and snap as close as possible to that center of mass)
    - Module access points disappearing after module is placed and removed
    - Module snapping. Simply put, we're just getting rid of it.

    LISTS OF THINGS I WILL FIX OR THAT ARE ALREADY ON MY LIST OF THINGS TO FIX:

    - a bunch of the bugs where module footprints simply won't render correctly
    - The @#$@ module placement crash
    - Modules being placed on top of other modules.
    - Doors leaving holes in buildings after movement or deletion; doors and window cuts not getting generated correctly
    - Deletion of module footprints after a module is removed (ditto)
    - Module orphaning
    - Multiple module creation lag
    - Module footprint alignment for inside/outside modules
    - Module selection accuracy
    - Gabion placement with lines
    - Cancelling a building in progress leaves the module indicators up
    - Various things disappearing after save/load
    - Perimeter material costs don't work
    - Buildings adjacent to each other
    - Outlines not showing up on AMD cards
    - Unify standalone module placer and building module placer

    LIST OF THINGS THAT IT WOULD BE NICE TO GET IN HERE BUT WE'LL SEE

    - Double-click to start a rectangle as opposed to click+drag. (I'll have to think about how best to do this one, but I agree it would be better for tablets and trackpads)
    - some visual polish on the build stage

    LIST OF THINGS I'M NOT CERTAIN ABOUT DOING BECAUSE UGH

    - Being able to edit the floorplan after the floorplan is designated. This is like this for Reasons, and I haven't decided what I'm going to do about it.
    - ditto non-contiguous floorplans. We always assume you have a well-guaranteed "outer" footprint
     
    Last edited: Jan 22, 2016
  17. Mikel

    Mikel Waiting On Paperwork From The Ministry. Forever.

    I don't see anything in the last two groups I cannot live without. :)
     
  18. I would not at all mind a number popping up somewhere while I'm drawing the footprint out for buildings, fields and such letting me know the dimensions of the footprint. A lot of the time I sit there and count and recount to make sure I'm actually making something the exact size I intended to. Would this be something that would be prohibitively difficult to add?
     
  19. Mikel

    Mikel Waiting On Paperwork From The Ministry. Forever.

    That would perhaps be item 4 in the list of things he has already completed in the rewrite.
     
  20. Sethiusdraven

    Sethiusdraven Member

    I'm sure most of my first part is being worked on:
    having things like 2 types of the same stained glass window to build, but they are identical;
    having exterior lamp being only 1 available to build but there's 4 types available to place (even if the one will build any of the 4 others)
    having many of the modules saying "boxed module" but not from where they are made
    when making modules in workshops, if one is being made, the other workers don't recognize it and the other's will make one as well leaving you with 3 of something when you ordered one
    **possible side option / side fix of selecting made box and adding option of "disassemble" along with "make trade/forbid"

    but here's my other side of things:
    I believe that some of the modules such as stone charcoal, stone smelting ovens, and brewing vats(maybe) should not be a boxed module product. I believe that basic module necessities should be built as they were before and as the stone ovens in kitchens have maintained. same could be said of workbenches/chem workbenches. I believe boxed Upgraded 'work' modules are a good thing being created to be placed, as well as beds and such.
    I would like to see lamps being moved from metalworks to ceramics shops as they are glass based.
    wouldn't mind seeing an option on say a stone oven that has the option (after built) of "upgrade to iron oven" ... wrong place for this, next:
    my thoughts are that the boxed modules were a good idea, just happened that a few too many things were tossed into the fray when they were implemented.
    that and still a bit bummed at not being able to place buildings if there's no initial starting materials. Perhaps have them grey as they are now but when selected you can still lay down the building on the map, but when selecting a window pops up saying "you don't have brick for this building, are you sure you still wish to build this"