this post is copied from post 838, page 42, of main SotM mod forum.

my later posts in this thread will try to parse this material for development work.

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plans for meteorite damage??? . . .
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About barbarians....Hopefully they will be removed soon and replaced by meteorites or impact debris. Or at least lessened. They do come in waves.



I am curious how you plan to implement meteorite damage or debris. on the real Luna this is big concern due to a total lack of atmosphere to disintegrate them. hence real Luna colonies would no doubt go underground as soon as possible.

maybe you have in mind road damage due to meteorites???

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BTW, in researching the geological history of the moon I found out that both the maria (flat "sea") areas and non-maria areas of the moon are ancient, ie over 3 billion years old.

since the maria areas are much less heavily cratered the obvious inference is that the really big meteorites all but vanished after the maria were no longer molten.

hence the smaller size of meteorites currently hitting the moon do not usually create huge impact craters.

this post is copied from post 847, page 43, of main SotM mod forum.

my later posts in this thread will try to parse this material for development work.

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are there any goody huts? . . .
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I think if you created a new type of Goody_Hut, which I think is possible with pure XML, or possibly XML+Python. Just skin up something interesting, and bada bing bada doom, you've got a relic to hunt for.

goody huts only appear as "debris" when playing a Moon map based version of the game.

in that so many folks are playing non Moon map versions of the game (usually like myself by accident), I would suggest adding debris to such non Moon maps as well adding all the other missing resources such as titanium and plutonium (that do correctly appear on Moon based maps).

this post is copied from post 855, page 43, of main SotM mod forum.

my later posts in this thread will try to parse this material for development work.

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suggestions for terrain improvement options . . .
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Most terrain squares cannot be improved and only a few improvement types are possible. So its just buildings and a few units.



currently only floodplains and resource tiles (plus hill tiles in a non Moon-map version of the game) have any production value greater than an engineer specialist (2 hammers).


anyone implementing the Genetic Screening special civic can make all of his workers eng spec if he wants to starting with year one.


all flatlands can be "improved" by a worker action of building a road facilitating movement.

custom outposts and glasshouses (the latter are only available for Moon-map based versions of SotM 0.23) are improvements that help all of the other tile types except crater rims and dust seas.

crater rims are worthless tiles regarding production or locating a city there (the latter fact not currently noted in the Civilopedia). crater rim tiles only usefulness currently is to provide a defense bonus to units located there.

===========================

suggestions

1) crater rims could be treated as Civ 3 mountains, ie they can be mined but yield less hammers than hills.

2) cities should be allowed to be built on crater rim tiles since "hills" are currently not implemented in Moon-map based versions of SotM.

3) flatlands can have a +1 food improvement that comes about later in the game. (the E-M Shielding tech currently makes possible the Ion Shield improvement that boosts food production in dust seas located on a non Moon-based map.)

however the above improvements would radically change the game and make the moon much less bleak a productive landscape than it is actually is.

===========================

speaking of terrain, forests, jungles, and rivers as moon terrain "features" are ludicrous, yet are created on non Moon-based maps for SotM.

if the desire is to have more hammers or more defense, these features could instead be a smaller type of crater, mineral rich maria, or something else more moonlike on non Moon-based maps for SotM. :hammer2:

this post is copied from post 878, page 44, of main SotM mod forum.

my later posts in this thread will try to parse this material for development work.

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http://forums.civfanatics.com/images/icons/icon2.gif nice to know someone else is playtesting this mod . . .

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#2. Dustseas. Its been mentioned elsewhere I think, but while dustseas are a good idea originally, something needs to be provided later to allow units to cross them. I completely dominated the map, but was unable to capture a couple remaining civ's cities due to them being on, or surrounded by, dustsea... and culture wars are too slow and unfeasible.



to get a feel for how the naval units (skimmers) currently operate play a SotM game with a land-based map which has "oceans." (I used a fractal continent map myself for a land-based map.)

it is counter-intuitive, but for some reason all three skimmer units work fine on a land-based map whereas they do not work at all on a Moon-based map.

as you noted, on a Moon-based map island or archipelago states potentially will remain isolated unless a nearby city's cultural borders allows a series of roads across dust sea tiles to create a path to nearby coastal islands.

on the Moon-based map in the game I played virtually EVERY tile in the whole grid (Moon) could be reached using the above technique since all coasts had nearby islands that could serve as a bridge to get ever deeper into a nearby dust sea/dust ocean.

did you try this technique?

the only case "island-hopping" did not work in the game I played was when I tried to attack a civ on an island with an area of only one tile. in that case amphibious attack was disallowed by the mod and hence the civ could never be NEVER be attacked or conquered. :eek: :eek: :eek:

My view on terrain on the moon:
- Get rid of the dustseas. All of it, it doesn't exist and never will IRL.
- Brink back hills and peaks, Lunar topology is alot more distinct then Earth's.
- Surface ice is a big nono, the only waterice pockets on the moon would be subterrean, so would better be used as a resource.

To be continued...

My view on terrain on the moon:
- Get rid of the dustseas. All of it, it doesn't exist and never will IRL.


I presume the dust seas were introduced into the mod in order to make the built-in naval units and all their properties moddable to the different terrain of the moon.

if the starting era is a Disaster World ("see Tech tree and Game era thread", post # 8)

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=215026

this to me implies that all non maria based roads on the moon would be underground to escape both radiation and meteors.

we could keep special movement units on maria tiles to improve the variety of the game. we could call these units Lunar Rovers rather than naming them after a naval unit.

=========================

behind this discussion of dust seas is a consideration of whether units on the moon should initially be isolated by some sort of terrain before a tech is learned to overcome this. instead of maria the isolation tiles could be crater rims or crater valleys. the question then is how much liberty can we take with the actual terrain fo the moon in creating vast grids of such tiles?

I know maria tiles are not "really" navigable (except by Lunar Rovers), but the actual moon does have large sections of dust seas. my gut instinct is to keep maria tiles reserved for special navigation of some sort.


- Brink back hills and peaks, Lunar topology is alot more distinct then Earth's.

hills is a terrain feature already part of vanilla Civ 4. to do justice to the moon we need a corresponding valley tile with equally difficult unit movement cost.

unlike the hill, the valley (or rift) would hurt unit defense, not help it.

in Civ cities can be built on hills but not on mountains. in the current SotM cities cannot be built on craters. are we then to interpret craters as the moon's equivalent of Terran mountains?

mountains are also impassable in Civ 4 and in default Civ 3. craters are currently passable in SotM mod. shall we change this?

mountains occur in ranges on earth. craters are randomly placed on the moon. hence if craters were impassible it would hardly hinder overall movement on the moon. hence my initial inclination is to leave craters as being passable in the SotM mod.

speaking of craters, current size is a 2 x 2 tile grid. the user should have the option on larger maps of also having 3 x 3 or 4 x 4 craters.

Whoops, wanted to post in the Barbarians thread, sorry.

P.S. I like the terrain as it is now.

I presume the dust seas were introduced into the mod in order to make the built-in naval units and all their properties moddable to the different terrain of the moon.

There's no need for "naval units" on a sealess satellite.
I think they will be enough variation with infantry units, transport landunits, armored units, "space" units and the inevitable rocketship transporters.

There's no need for "naval units" on a sealess satellite.
I think they will be enough variation with infantry units, transport landunits, armored units, "space" units and the inevitable rocketship transporters.

are you also rejecting the idea that units at the start of the game have trouble traversing certain types of tiles yielding a certain degree of isolation between civs? this after all is the net effect of enabling naval-like units.

No, why should I? large amounts of mountainous (unwalkable) terrain would do an even better job.
But about difficulties having easy contact between factions on a lunar body:
- Moons are rather small.
- I can't imagine there wouldn't be comm satellites around it once people lived on it.
- I also have difficulties imagining the few base leaders wouldn't have been in contact with one another before they became on their own.

But I better do something of the tasks Woodelf gave me instead of discussing. ;)

Are we planning on hovercrafts for unwalkable terrain?

Are we planning on hovercrafts for unwalkable terrain?

the amount of potential unit damage that occurs in the starting Disaster World era would imply how we should handle each type of terrain in a ground up revision of the mod.

the proposal I currently have on the table is that all non maria tiles would have subways as roads due to the ongoing meteorite, solar flare, etc. damage.

in addition maria tiles would still be navigable, but by Lunar Rovers, not Skimmers.

I am also proposing we dump attrition as a source of unit health damage.

=============================


there has yet to be a full discussion of impassable terrain. I currently favor crater rims as impassable and hills as passable and able to build cities in.

the mod currently does not have hills and crater rims are passable, but cities cannot be founded in them.

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hovercraft would not be sturdy enough to cross moon craters (mountains) anymore than they would be sturdy enough to cross an earth mountain.

=============================

your question does suggest an idea for a new unit however. currently aircraft are not implemented. given the moon's lack of atmosphere this is not surprising. however there could be a low orbit vehicle for going say 10 to 20 tiles away, including over otherwise impassable terrain.

When I get some python knowledge or help attrition is gone. It can be turned off in the start-up of the game though.

Are we planning on hovercrafts for unwalkable terrain?

Hovercrafts are simply impossible on a vacuum worldlet. They suck in air (atmosphere) to stay afloat.

When I get some python knowledge or help attrition is gone. It can be turned off in the start-up of the game though.

I agree. Last night, I simply put a scout on "heal" somewhere outside my territory, and it would never auto-activate for further play.

Hovercrafts are simply impossible on a vacuum worldlet. They suck in air (atmosphere) to stay afloat.

What can we use to traverse dust seas then?

Well, since in the downloadable version roads can be created on it, there's not even a need for special units to traverse them.
Infact, I still think of this feature as redundant... but at least it gives me a save handle to switch to hilly terrain once I can figure out the moonmap python file. :D

Maybe we'll have skiffs and sloops have transport ability and larger movements to make them useful for now...

Well, since in the downloadable version roads can be created on it, there's not even a need for special units to traverse them.
Infact, I still think of this feature as redundant... but at least it gives me a safe handle to switch to hilly terrain once I can figure out the moonmap python file. :D
dust seas can have roads built only when a civs cultural boundaries enclose a maria tile.

the way the mod currently works is that a civ can culturally grow into a dust sea, create roads to a nearby island in the dust sea, build a new city, and thus eventually build a road across an entire dust sea as long as there are enough islands in it.

the naval units would also accomplish the task of crossing a dust sea and do so in a much more rapid manner, but naval units are NOT currently enabled for a Moon based map.

This stuff wasn't touched after matthewv made the terrain and mapscript. It definitely needs work.

Okay. So here's the key question now: does the naval part of dust "seas" stays in, or will dust tiles be used as a temporary barrier until units can cross it safely?

The former gives a sh*tload of extra graphics work, the latter keeps it more simplier and closer to reality.

Vote now, peeps. ;)

Simpler for now. We have enough to worry about. ;)

I was thinking that nearly half of the map should be in darkness - representing the half of the moon that doesnt see the sun - and only allow this portion of the map to open when the civs reach a tech level that provides protection from intense cold and some sort of ultra efficient luminescent system.

Following this idea - I dont know what you're going to do in terms of farming/mining and all of those neat improvements we had in Vanilla, but I was going to suggest having solar energy plants be the new mine as it harnesses the constant sunlight on that side of the moon...

If any of this was already mentioned I apologize

I was thinking that nearly half of the map should be in darkness - representing the half of the moon that doesnt see the sun - and only allow this portion of the map to open when the civs reach a tech level that provides protection from intense cold and some sort of ultra efficient luminescent system.

Following this idea - I dont know what you're going to do in terms of farming/mining and all of those neat improvements we had in Vanilla, but I was going to suggest having solar energy plants be the new mine as it harnesses the constant sunlight on that side of the moon...

If any of this was already mentioned I apologize

Sorry to break your bubble, but more then 99% of the moonsurface receives sunlight. While the moon revolves around the Earth, either side (the one which faces Earth at all times and the one that is invisible to us) each in turn have about 2 weeks of continuous sunlight.

sorry about that, I was thinking in perspective to the earth and the dark side of the moon... my apologies

No problem and no apologies needed. :)

Woodelf, do you know why the same terrain type is twice or even 3 times put in the terrainInfos file? Some Python reason or what?
It's not like all of them will randomly be choosen by the moonmap generator.

I think that in the beginning no one wanted to delete stuff from XML so they renamed old stuff after copy/pasting it. I've never mucked around with that. I'll have to at some point. :eek:

Well, I'll just make copies and delete the excess terrain types.
Checking now which ones appear on a random map.

Are you bychance comfortable with the idea of whatever terrain producing NOTHING without improvement?
I think this would make the player more inclined to use specialists.

Sounds good. I'll bet resources are the same.

Units are the same way. :sad:

Luckily when zipped up excess XML don't eat much space.

Units are the same way. :sad:

Sorry, what you meant with that?

Tons of vanilla extra crap in XML.

Oh, that.
Just cleaned out the TerrainInfo files. Not to shabby after a quick test.
Starting on the resources now...

Don't get to the units though since I'm in there right now. :)

And before you head to bed can you upload your changes somewhere? Not the techs, but everything else.

Will do. Won't be in my bed too soon tho. Still the day off tomorrow. ;)

Mmm, just had a CTD.

Not cool. Any idea why?

If you want to stop making changes and wait I'll be done soon, maybe...

In the last sec I saw a huge amount of turns appear in my city production label. Might be totally unrelated to my changes thus.
I'll try to load from an autosave.

Nah, the "turn amount" was a huge score instead.
Might have been me keying a wrong key-combo. My IE popped up on it's own too after the CTD, and it is not set to do so.

Okay, no yields from terrain seem to go well. One unexpected problem: resources still give a yield prior to an improvement on them. Not what I wanted but will do for the moment. :(

I PM'd you a link with my modified files, Woodelf.

BonusInfo and TerrainInfo.

Have a test at it, I put all the terrain yields at zero, switched in the resources all :food: to :commerce:, and added a :hammers: whereever there was one in the yield to negate the loss of :hammers: on the terrain.

I think I might manage to decrease the yield of terrain AND resources to zero in unimproved terrain, but have to check first in another file to be sure. I'm a bit too dizzy now to think clearly.

Thanks. Once I get 6 more units added I'm going to test this baby out.

Okay, that completes the testing.

The moment I put 0 or -1 :food: on every single (used) terraintype in the mod, I got a huge score from turn 1, and will have a CTD for sure when I reach the edge of the map. And since mosttimes the first base is founded near the edge, this could be when I press "end turn". :(

Any response from Kael yet, Woodelf?
PS: the only way around it I can see is if we manage to put the focus on hammers (or commerce) instead of food. For whatever reason the game needs at least a single plot yield output of food.

Okay, that completes the testing.

The moment I put 0 or -1 :food: on every single (used) terraintype in the mod, I got a huge score from turn 1, and will have a CTD for sure when I reach the edge of the map. And since mosttimes the first base is founded near the edge, this could be when I press "end turn". :(

Not good.

Any response from Kael yet, Woodelf?

Nope, but his BtS expansion deadline is soon.

Nope, but his BtS expansion deadline is soon.

What's this supposed to mean? He can't respond on mod issues as long as his involvement with Firaxis on BtS is running? :p

If it is completely impossible to have a food yield of 0, I guess I'll read up on experimental ways to what field laboratory can do (representing the 'worked' plot hut) with mere moonrocks.
Btw, this is good to know for the SMAC mod too.

Back to topic:

Sofar, I adjusted the terrain yields a bit.

Maria Basalt has 1 :hammers:, 1 :commerce:. The underlying reason is that this terrain type is supposed to hold at least half of the He³ supply of the moon and extracting it would be a side-effect from ore-extraction from the regolith (read: soil).
Polar terrain got 1 :food:. I *have* to give at least one terrain type a food yield, otherwise the game crashes after a short while. Polar seemed the closest to a food producing tile I could think of. I think I will limit glasshouses to this type of terrain at first.
Dust Plains seem the best plot to put solar panels on, in a fashion. This because of its natural electrostatic charge. So 1 :commerce: and as improvement a solar panel.
Crater Rims have 2 :hammers: for starters. Best chance to find a higher ore-content in these rocks.
Cratered will receive a 1 :hammers: output. Same as Crater Rims, but from a lesser quality because the craters are smaller. ;)
The remaining terrain types are left blank. Bare rock, dust lake -and sea thus.


The underlying reasoning for these starting yields is that if a citizen "works" a moonplot, in reality it is a bunch of scientists conducting experiments and putting a test-facility online.

Those changes sound good to me Geo. We can do lots of later tech modifications as well if we need to.

I wanted to pose the posibility of adding more terrain features into the moon map. If craters were made into a feature instead of another base type I think it would make the map more interesting.
See attached screenshot for quick craters feature version:

This might be an idea for the BtS version, as making the graphics look good will take time, as would balancing the new feature and modifying the mapscript to use it.

Use octogon, it will be better !

For any version I would make for actual use I would vary the number of polygons for the size of the crater. So the smallest might have as few as four sides while large craters could have 20. And I'd spend more than five minutes texturing it as well.

Ah, OK ! I'm sure it will be good. As always with a solid plan.

Also, if you plan to go for making craters a feature (good suggestion by the way), there should be more variation. It's a bit dull having the same craters show over and over again...

I agree, I think we can hijack the Ice terrain feature or the forests from vanilla(neither of which we use) to allow variation between tiles similar to that which forests have.

I agree, I think we can hijack the Ice terrain feature or the forests from vanilla(neither of which we use) to allow variation between tiles similar to that which forests have.

Mmm, better hijack the jungle feature. Who knows some smartass will come up with the splendid idea of growing forests under domes. ;)
And I've been thinking of keeping the ice feature xml-wise but replacing the graphic with a greyed version to show proper moon terrain in the global view ingame.

The ice visible only in the globe view (worldcap) is different than the ice feature that exists in the polar oceans on earth maps (icepack); so we can change one without changing the other.

The reason i wasn't sure if the forests or jungles would work is that in game they are swaying in the wind and since we can't modify that part of the code (afaik) any craters replacing them might sway too!

The ice visible only in the globe view (worldcap) is different than the ice feature that exists in the polar oceans on earth maps (icepack); so we can change one without changing the other.

I prefer to cover the mapedges with "ice" again, for the better look of the mapedges. Therefore the greying of ice feature.

The reason i wasn't sure if the forests or jungles would work is that in game they are swaying in the wind and since we can't modify that part of the code (afaik) any craters replacing them might sway too!

Well, as long as there's no .kfm files linked I don't see how they would be swaying?

Mmm, better hijack the jungle feature. Who knows some smartass will come up with the splendid idea of growing forests under domes. ;)
And I've been thinking of keeping the ice feature xml-wise but replacing the graphic with a greyed version to show proper moon terrain in the global view ingame.

Forests under domes you say? might be possible to do graphically.

I knew it would come up. :D

I prefer to cover the mapedges with "ice" again, for the better look of the mapedges. Therefore the greying of ice feature.

Well, as long as there's no .kfm files linked I don't see how they would be swaying?

The trees are swaying but we don't see a kfm for them either. It's in the .exe file somewhere that we can't change.

Never seen it, but that might be because I have only a 32 meg videocard.
Btw, your screenshot shows you're having graphic issues as well with trees: their trunks are in the ground.

Yeah, on the computer I'm at right now all of my trees are under the ground, even in plain old Vanilla. The jungles are even worse.

The trees don't sway on this machine either, but I have seen it on other, newer graphics cards, such as my home gaming PC.

I suppose a simple renaming of the feature could avoid it?

Nope. In the vanilla XML the features don't call any .nif files. That info is stored in the unalterable .exe files as well.

Any additional features will only be able to use a single file for every repetition of the feature, thus it would look really boring.


Sometime when I'm at a computer that displays the trees properly I will test to see if i can get the craters to not sway. then we will know if it will work to replace jungle or not.

Maybe using the ice feature isn't that bad at all. It could be used to depict the north -and southpole as cratered terrain + as an overlay as you intend.

In the immortal words of Sgt Schultz "I know nothing, nothing!"

matthewv did the terrain 14 months ago and it's been the same ever since.

Sgt Schultz from stalag 13 ?

Hogan's Heroes, tv show. Is Stalag 13 the movie name? I used to watch that as an 8-10 year old since Bob Crane came from about 40 minutes from where my grandma lived.

That's the name. Stalag 13 ( at least in french version ) is the name of the particular building where they live. Did you notice what was the production of Schultz's enterprise (he was even the owner) prior to the war ?

Well, since in the downloadable version roads can be created on it, there's not even a need for special units to traverse them.
Infact, I still think of this feature as redundant... but at least it gives me a save handle to switch to hilly terrain once I can figure out the moonmap python file.
This stuff wasn't touched after matthewv made the terrain and mapscript. It definitely needs work.
yaha, you'll never be able to figure out the moonmap python file because I wrote it in such a way that only I will be able to understand it :p Just Joking.
If I remember correctly the main reason I cut hill out of the terrain was because I couldn't texture them to look good on the moon.

Okay, that completes the testing.

The moment I put 0 or -1 on every single (used) terraintype in the mod, I got a huge score from turn 1, and will have a CTD for sure when I reach the edge of the map. And since mosttimes the first base is founded near the edge, this could be when I press "end turn".

Any response from Kael yet, Woodelf?
PS: the only way around it I can see is if we manage to put the focus on hammers (or commerce) instead of food. For whatever reason the game needs at least a single plot yield output of food.
One year later and that same problem comes up again. I remember when we originally had it, it took us weeks to figure out what was going on.(we never really figured out why this bug occurred but we managed to make a workaround. There is a reason why we had the terrain xml file the way we did even though it may look odd to you guys now)

matthewv did the terrain 14 months ago and it's been the same ever since.
Nobody dares to touch it:crazyeye:

yaha, you'll never be able to figure out the moonmap python file because I wrote it in such a way that only I will be able to understand it :p Just Joking.
If I remember correctly the main reason I cut hill out of the terrain was because I couldn't texture them to look good on the moon.


One year later and that same problem comes up again. I remember when we originally had it, it took us weeks to figure out what was going on.(we never really figured out why this bug occurred but we managed to make a workaround. There is a reason why we had the terrain xml file the way we did even though it may look odd to you guys now)


Nobody dares to touch it:crazyeye:

I figured out a workaround. :p
Simply put one one plottype a :food: yield, and the CTD seems solved.
I experimented a bit with the terrain file, but there's quite a number of errors popping up when I delete the original terrain entries. Too much references to other xml files I guess.

I figured out a workaround.
Simply put one one plottype a yield, and the CTD seems solved. lol, ya that defiantly works.
I experimented a bit with the terrain file, but there's quite a number of errors popping up when I delete the original terrain entries. Too much references to other xml files I guess.
ya, I remember trying to do that before. If I remember correctly I managed to delete/change all the reference to the old terrain in the other xml files but their are also a number of references in the python coding.(you should be able to tell for sure by the type of error your getting. Does it mention an xml file/files in the error? If it does it is just an xml problem and can easily be fixed by searching that xml file for the terrian references and changing them)

I just played a game of ver 0.24 and noticed the AI was building cities at twice the rate I was. the lack of an effective means of transport across a vast empire is the primary reason I did not grow so many cities.

I highly suggest maglev as the moon's version of terran railroads finally be implemented if the intent if for the civs to spread out across the entire map. some of the tile improvements currently mention maglev as giving further commerce, but this boost also has never been coded.

A maglev might have to wait for the BtS version, but I definitely want one.

A maglev might have to wait for the BtS version, but I definitely want one.

you had originally mentioned you wanted the new versions of this mod to make the moon a much harsher mistress.

was this just for pre isolation event time, or for the entire game?

as currently coded, nothing is stopping the AI from spreading out with fifteen cities by 162 AD. (I only had seven cites as that time.)

I'm surprised the AI is expanding that much. Because we have no water almost 100% of the land is usable. That makes for a large land grab. I suggest adding civs to any map size you chose or this will happen until we have the new mapscript.

I'm surprised the AI is expanding that much. Because we have no water almost 100% of the land is usable. That makes for a large land grab. I suggest adding civs to any map size you chose or this will happen until we have the new mapscript.

I selected low dust sea level because I knew the naval craft are not coded, nor are ever likely to be coded.

I was playing with a standard size map with one civ killed off fairly early on by myself.

strangely enough my own first city tile had good nearby resources, but was entirely surrounded by eight dust sea tiles.

A maglev might have to wait for the BtS version, but I definitely want one.

I had been looking into doing a maglev with 3d graphics but there are problems with it so if we want one it will have to be flat like roads and railroad or it will look strange. it seems to use different rules for displaying those nifs. the route nifs are always displayed behind other terrain and game elements such as rivers, bonuses, improvements, and units. that makes he look very strange, especially in well developed areas.

So any maglev will need to be 2D.

2D might not be too bad AA. Maybe a white road or something? Or a clear glassy material?

I had been looking into doing a maglev with 3d graphics but there are problems with it so if we want one it will have to be flat like roads and railroad or it will look strange. it seems to use different rules for displaying those nifs. the route nifs are always displayed behind other terrain and game elements such as rivers, bonuses, improvements, and units. that makes he look very strange, especially in well developed areas.

So any maglev will need to be 2D.

I Know a secret that will fix this problem and enable us to have 3d maglevs:D ;)

I Know a secret that will fix this problem and enable us to have 3d maglevs:D ;)

By all means. :cool:

I Know a secret that will fix this problem and enable us to have 3d maglevs:D ;)

Share the secret man!

Yeah, post the secret and I can apply it to the 3d tube graphic I've already made!

:lol:

matthewv's master plan of asking for a raise is working. :p

He better makes a move on or he'll get a golden bullet instead of a lead one for a raise. :doitnow!:

Patience my friends. I have yet to test it myself. (will do so tonight)

:lol:

matthewv's master plan of asking for a raise is working. :p
mm.. ya about that....

Okay... how about a double mention in the credits list? Once in the Graphics section and another in the xml section? :mischief:

Okay... how about a double mention in the credits list? Once in the Graphics section and another in the xml section? :mischief:

Don't forget the one in the python section;)

. :lol:

Don't forget the one in the python section;)

That one we keep in reserve in case you're getting greedy. :trouble:

That one we keep in reserve in case you're getting greedy. :trouble:

No map script for you.:p :deal: :shifty:

:cry: :sniper:

Patience my friends. I have yet to test it myself. (will do so tonight)
Sorry guys but I am still working on it. I was a little tired last to do do to much work on it.

I have noticed some weird things though that might mean my hunch may not work. :scared:

Your hunch being?

okay i let you guys in on my hunch.

In order to get 3d railroads and roads to work we need to make sure no building and the railroad are drawn in the same spot.
The CIV4PlotLSystem.xml controls were building are ploted on the map an insures there are no conflicts. By insuring all of our buildings are listed properly in this file we should be able to prevent conflicts with roads and railroads.

I am currently trying to figure out exactly how this file works. I have figured out the basics but there are a number of things that are still confusing me.

The thing that worries me is that by looking a screen shot from vanilla civs there seems to be the odd buildings on the road which shouldn't be there.

All the more reason to have more empty spots in the city and also not have too many buildings represented graphically. Would this help?

All the more reason to have more empty spots in the city and also not have too many buildings represented graphically. Would this help?

Yes, that probably would help, though cities uses the CIV4CityLSystem.xml file which is structured a little differently. I am hoping I can do cities similar to none city plots though I have other ideas if I can't get cities to cooperate.

Maybe when the maglev encounters a building it could be made to rise up over it? :p

Or cottages nif can be made with a maglev station and oriented perhaps.

That's a good thought snipper. Right now there is a building in the center of the solar panels. Maybe the maglev could always go over that small building or we could graphically incorporate it as a brace?

Maybe when the maglev encounters a building it could be made to rise up over it? :p
If Civ would draw them correctly we could easily have it be high enough to go over all the buildings. Unfortunatly civ is stubbern and it won't let us do that.

Why not doing it the other way around? There's a maglev model laying around in the database. It is a cubicle with "pipes" going underground. How about letting the maglev graphic go underground too when it reaches a baseplot?

I forgot about that model. That's a good idea too if possible.

You're full of good ideas today Geo. :eek:

Nah, you guys just happen to trigger my memory today. ;)

I like that idea :cool:

Yeah, post the secret and I can apply it to the 3d tube graphic I've already made!

Okay, after many long hours of testing the CIV4PlotLSystem.xml file I discovered that through the RegionTest attribute we can somewhat ensure that no buildings are placed in route areas.

Unfortunately, for some reason the RegionTest did not bring perfect results and thus some buildings would still overlap the route. Test result example:
153287
Since this will be a rare occurrence in game I think we should add the 3d maglev anyway.

AlazkanAssassin- can you please add your 3d maglev tube graphic to the mod and send the changed files so that I can do some further testing?

Wow, talking about a throughly indept test.
Aren't the results different with realistic sized improvements/structures on the plots?

Yes, with larger sized buildings, the conflicts will be all less. There are also ways we should be able to eliminate conflicts altogether. For example, we could very easily make the CIV4PlotLSystem.xml file think the building is larger that it actually is and thus hopefully avoid all conflicts between the maglev and the buildings. For example:
153291
We can make a 2x2 size building (green square) appear to be like a 4x4 building(blue square) in CIV4PlotLSystem.xml and thus will not be shown built across the track.

Yeah, that's simply a case of or decreasing the scale from a given graphic, or loading the graphic in a larger leaf. Well, simply... ;)

Glad you found a solution.

Yup, you got the idea.

Great work.

Do you guys need another moonscript?

Do you guys need another moonscript?

matt made a new mapscript recently, but there's always a need for different scripts for differing gameplay.

OK, I think I just need to keep being interested in it and maybe eventually I will make something :)
Well it seems so far I was not so lucky:

http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/9148/civ4screenshot0054pt7.th.jpg (http://img211.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot0054pt7.jpg)

EDIT: Heh, I know this message is invisible to players who are not python programmers, so I keep playing (tried this mod long time ago, now checking out it again)

OK, I think I just need to keep being interested in it and maybe eventually I will make something :)
Well it seems so far I was not so lucky:

http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/9148/civ4screenshot0054pt7.th.jpg (http://img211.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot0054pt7.jpg)

EDIT: Heh, I know this message is invisible to players who are not python programmers, so I keep playing (tried this mod long time ago, now checking out it again)

It seems your still playing a old version of the mod since that error comes from python code that has been cut from the mod.

Matt - Are we going to leave terrain the way it is now by leaving it vanilla and simply renaming it to lunar terms? If that works I'm fine with it, but I need terrain and features names for Events.

The terrain will have the proper terrain type names (the vanilla ones can be removed).

most of Feature types are hard coded and thus need to have vanilla feature types (as they are now).

Terrain Features (forests, jungles, ice, floodplains) are no longer hard coded in BtS, they can be renamed and added as desired.

plot types (flat/hills/peaks) are still hard coded however.

I guess I don't know what of those features we're using in the mapscript and don't have that with me right now.

Terrain Features (forests, jungles, ice, floodplains) are no longer hard coded in BtS, they can be renamed and added as desired.

plot types (flat/hills/peaks) are still hard coded however.

In that case I would like to change those to proper feature type names as well. That way we don't have to keep trake of what feature type represents what feature.

You might have to wait till tomorrow before doing the events pretaining to terrains and features. I will be messing around with terrains and features a bit tonight.

In that case I would like to change those to proper feature type names as well. That way we don't have to keep trake of what feature type represents what feature.

You might have to wait till tomorrow before doing the events pretaining to terrains and features. I will be messing around with terrains and features a bit tonight.

I set most to not needing either and gave them future tech. I'll be able to add the correct lines in as we come up with events.

The new terrain is growing on me. My main gripes are:

1 - The basic hill terrain is too bumpy. New buildings and such are showing up buried, which might be realistic, but it looks crappy.
2 - The craters are definitely unfinished and too tall, but I like the wall they look on the mapview.

matt - How easy is it to lower the hills?

The new terrain is growing on me. My main gripes are:

You can't mean the artwork. I can't stand looking at it myself. (I should have spent more time at at but I just wanted something that I could do quickly)


1 - The basic hill terrain is too bumpy. New buildings and such are showing up buried, which might be realistic, but it looks crappy.
2 - The craters are definitely unfinished and too tall, but I like the wall they look on the mapview.

matt - How easy is it to lower the hills?

lowering the hills shouldn't be to difficult. You just have to darken all the high maps (or is it lighten?) Don't expect me to do it anytime soon though.

I really liked the crater winddelay made and it would work well for crater rims. I am also hoping winddelay will make some models for the cratered terrain as well. (with varing models the way forests are done)

You can't mean the artwork. I can't stand looking at it myself. (I should have spent more time at at but I just wanted something that I could do quickly)

The shapes and layout, not the texture. :)

lowering the hills shouldn't be to difficult. You just have to darken all the high maps (or is it lighten?) Don't expect me to do it anytime soon though.

I really liked the crater winddelay made and it would work well for crater rims. I am also hoping winddelay will make some models for the cratered terrain as well. (with varing models the way forests are done)

I hope AA or winddelay can handle that then. I don't know much about height maps.

Matt, I can do that, If I can find the time... Sounds like fun, so I'll put it high on my list. I'm starting to put most of my other projects to bed.

woodelf, I need you to pm me the link to the current build...

Well, I'll send you the Master build, but Geo has an additional file somewhere in the updates or XML thread. I also have an additional file, but need to remove the buggy ArtDefines change I made.