MOD IDEA: Wall-placing made easy

[enderstenders]

Every time I set out to make a huge wall, I get so frustrated. Walls are very skinny; therefore, you have to place a TON of them to get a decent sized wall built. Wouldn't it be awesome to make "blueprints" for walls?

 

My idea is that I could right click a wall on a ground, drag it as far as I want, and my character would get to building. While dragging, green ghost walls would appear and remain at every spot that the walls will be placed until its spot has been filled. I have a feeling it would take a decent amount of coding for this, but it's a  good challenge.

 

It would be nice to make this mod work together with architectural geometry as well. For instance if I wanted to place 10 berry bushes down in a rectangle. I would just right-click, drag, and the ghost figures would appear in say a 2x5 perfectly spaced out area. I could see that this feature could be considered cheaty, so it's not as important to me as the walls would be.

 

If anyone manages to make this mod, props to you!!

[user1464576869]

Sorry that I can't be of much help, I just wanted to pop by and say that I am very intrigued by this idea.

Would it work as if you set up a grid by dragging the mouse, and then the player would go and place each wall individually on decided spot? Or would the walls pop up simultaneously on the spot?

[enderstenders]

Oh yes, sorry for not clarifying that. The ghost walls would appear after dragging the grid and the character would place each individual wall.

[Rosten]

This would be a lifesaver, especially if it worked with architectural geometry, now we just need a mod to show the orientation of farms when placing them >.<

[enderstenders]

Please mention if you will make this mod, or if you know anyone that could make this

[Ortorin]

I have another take on this idea that is easier to implement.

 

Craftable Wall Segments.

This is a separate crafting tab, maybe a separate machine with simplex's Sample Tech Branch.

 

You can craft walls that are just a bunch of walls stuck together in a row.

place wallget coord of placementcurrent coord = coordx = 1while x != (length of crafted wall segment)select coord, (current coord x) - (distance to next wall piece)place wallcurrent coord = (current coord x) - (distance to next wall piece)x = x + 1returnend

Or something like that. Artwork would be easy too, just some lines of walls on a background. The recipe for crafting is just the number of walls that are in the segment.

 

I'll elaborate on this if anyone is interested.

Edited December 8, 2013 by Ortorin

[enderstenders]

So the artwork would be a sort of connected texture job?

[Ortorin]

You would only have to make the crafting tab and inventory icons. Some clever little trick to show the length of the walls and the number of these segments you have at the same time.

 

There are no sprites that need to be made because this just uses the vanilla walls.

[enderstenders]

Ok so here's my idea.

 

4 types of section blueprints will be added in the structures tab. They will have the same texture as normal blueprints  . The actual names for each of the four blueprints will be: Hay Wall Section (crafted with Science Machine), Wood Wall Section (Science Machine), Stone Wall Section (Alchemy Engine), and Thulecite Wall Section (Ancient Station). Each will cost 1 papyrus.

 

Whoever makes the mod can decide if the section blueprints have unlimited uses or not, but 20 uses sound like a good minimum amount of uses to me.

 

The section blueprint can be picked up and hovered over the ground and 6 wall ghosts (of the appropriate wall) will appear in a horizontal line. The direction can be changed by simply rotating the camera. Once the section is right-clicked on the ground, (character) will walk to each wall and place it accordingly. The walls will be removed 1 by 1 from the inventory.

 

I believe this is the simplest and most effective way to implement this idea. No new tabs, icons, or textures will be needed, just for the line of ghost walls to be rendered.

 

Ortorin, do you wanna give it a go? Or do you think someone else should do it?

[ziat007]

I would love this!

[Grimtongue]

Unfortunately, there are several limitations for implementing wall placement in the style of Age of Empires (click-and-drag).  I would love to see this feature in every game that uses walls, but I digress.

 

Ortorin summarized the most practical solution; this is basically the approach I am using in my upcoming "Ten-In-A-Row" placement mod.  The purpose of the mod is to place 10 things (walls, twigs, flowers, grass, trees, etc) in a nice and evenly-spaced row.  The ten-versions of things will show up in the structures tab when the mod is done.  The mod uses the exact same resources as the vanilla game - it's only meant to help you make your rows nice and evenly-spaced.  I will post the mod here and on Steam when it is done.

[hotmatrixx]

Unfortunately, there are several limitations for implementing wall placement in the style of Age of Empires (click-and-drag).  I would love to see this feature in every game that uses walls, but I digress.

 

Ortorin summarized the most practical solution; this is basically the approach I am using in my upcoming "Ten-In-A-Row" placement mod.  The purpose of the mod is to place 10 things (walls, twigs, flowers, grass, trees, etc) in a nice and evenly-spaced row.  The ten-versions of things will show up in the structures tab when the mod is done.  The mod uses the exact same resources as the vanilla game - it's only meant to help you make your rows nice and evenly-spaced.  I will post the mod here and on Steam when it is done.

 

yesyesyesyesyeysyesyesyes PLEEAASE?

[Grimtongue]

yesyesyesyesyeysyesyesyes PLEEAASE?

 

After I looked through the relevant game files, I realized that I have to learn how to use a bunch of functions that I'm not familiar with.  It's not just stuff from the game, but also some LUA stuff that I haven't used before.  It's very slow-going, but I believe that making this mod is within my (limited) abilities.

[Starvation]

Gotta love Age of Empires, I still play the 2nd one regularly. Teutons FTW