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WIP: Natural Diversity

Started by Bartender, April 11, 2017, 01:14:52 AM

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Bartender

Hello everyone! Some of you may know me and have followed the development of my Natural Diversity mod over at BL. For those of you who do not frequent those forums, or for those who frequent them less frequently, I will also present my works here from now on. My mod is currently in beta, so I will start with a short introduction to its contents.

Natural Diversity Mod: Beta
The Natural Diversity v1.0 Beta can be found here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/yzyf10vmffrnd4l/NatDiv.pkm?dl=0

Natural Diversity is my attempt to make the world of banished resemble real nature more closely. I try to achieve this by increasing the realism of existing elements of the game, and by introducing new elements that I feel are lacking. This first version of the mod is only the start, and deals only with some aspects of the game's natural environment. My plan is to continue development, and cover the other parts in future updates.

As this is a beta, things are not perfect. There will be bugs. There will be conflicts with other mods. There will be hard drive failures. I'm joking about one of these.

Furthermore, as this is a beta, any feedback and/or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Anything you have to say about it is welcome, though I'm specifically looking for feedback on spawn rates of the natural resources, aesthetic appeal of the new models and gameplay potential of the mod as a whole.

Usage details
- This mod will require a new game in order to work.
- Load this mod above any other mods that alter start conditions, such as CC (more info on load orders will follow after Beta)
- Currently this mod is likely not to be compatible with any alternative starting conditions introduced by other mods. Doing so might lead to severe gameplay restrictions, such as the inability to construct many of the game's core buildings.

Content

Meadows
The most impactful addition of this mod is the addition of a new biome in addition to the forest that is already present: the meadow. Meadows will spawn naturally in the world from the start of the game. They mainly consist of 'grass', which gives 'thatch' as a material when harvested by the citizens. A 'Collect Grass' option is added to the menu for this. Thatch is needed to construct buildings with thatched roofs, such as the 'Storage Barn' or 'Wooden House'.

Furthermore, the meadows will spawn herbs, roots and onions. The latter two no longer spawn in the forest, as this is not their natural habitat.


Thatcher's Shed and Thatcher profession
To be able to let citizens harvest and replant grasses automatically, the 'Thatcher's Shed' is added to the game. It employs a maximum of two 'Thatchers', and has a work radius of 20.


Seasonality for natural resources
In unmodded Banished, all natural resources are treated as if they would not be affected by low temperatures, while in reality some of them would. With this mod, all Mushrooms, half the Herbs and half the Roots will die as soon as the temperature drops below 0 C (32F).

Though the other resources will not die, their appearance will change according to the season. In Spring, herbs and onions will grow flowers. In Autumn, their flowers will wilt again.

Many new models for herbs, onions, roots and mushrooms
One of my biggest points of critique for the base game is the lack of attention that was given to the models for the natural resources. Not only are some of them completely unrealistic (onions do not grow lying in bundles on the forest floor!), it is also rather boring to see the same model many times over. Therefore this mod introduces 24 new models for herbs, 6 new onions, 18 root variants and 12 mushrooms. These will replace the old models.

The mushrooms will grow naturally in the forest, and die if the temperature drops below 0 C (32F).


These herbs will grow naturally in the forest or in the meadows. The annual herbs die in cold temperatures, the others only lose their flowers (or decolour) in Autumn.


The onions will grow in the meadows, and lose their flowers in autumn.


The roots will grow in the meadows, and the annual ones will die in winter.


Future plans
As mentioned before, I intend to continue development on this mod, reworking other aspects of banished's natural world and introducing more variety. Some ideas for this include reeds growing on the river banks, and an update to rocks and ores. Other suggestions are always welcome!

Discrepancy

Brilliant :)

I decided to start a game with it, and the varied (natural diversity) forests look excellent, as it should be. You have created an awesome mod already. Well done.

kid1293


:D  You make me happy!


I had started to think of all these things and was about to start sketching
for a mod. Came home from shopping and there it was, already a WIP!


I think all aspects you have presented makes sense and the models are
so good!


Tanypredator was about to expand on her New Flora but she is absent now.
Would it be to much work to add a few new resources? I mean berry bushes.
You already have the start conditions. People love diversity.

Gatherer

Functional and at the same time eye candy.

Excellent!
There's never enough deco stuff!!!
Fiat panis.

Discrepancy

sorry I'm probably not going to be great to check balancing with the vanilla buildings, but

I have a bit more to add:

Wow!, to me it actually feels like a different game. I'm using my small gather with basket spots and I have them set in different parts of the maps, some in forests, others in meadows and some bordering both.

The full meadow ones are only ever harvesting onions and a small amount of mushrooms and roots, while the forest ones will collect berries mostly, plus mushrooms and just a few onions.

Out in the forests I can see many mushrooms, but by the time my gatherer gets there many are gone, I like this. You have made a really remarkable mod.



the 'look' and 'feel' has been dramatically changed from the dominating vanilla forests, the small meadows break it up and really make it lifelike.
Haha, a dilemma, why would I want to build upon this beautiful land:



some might be interested in this map seed, it's a good one:
652208702 | Valleys | Medium size | Mild climate | Disasters Off | Medium start

kid1293

One small obstacle.
I have a 'gather food' button which I use now and then when there is a food crisis.
To make it work, the vanilla blueberry, mushroom, onion and roots must have this line:

//   Profession _requiredHarvestProfession = "Game/Profession/Profession.rsc:gatherer";

commented out. Else the workers just clear the food away. Poof...

So if you could comment that line out it would be great.
I can not put my file above yours since you probably need the changes for your mod.
This should have no other impact than - when using 'clear resources' you get to keep the food.
Gatherer works as before.


Paeng

Quote from: kid1293 on April 11, 2017, 03:43:51 AMElse the workers just clear the food away. Poof...

True, that destruction has annoyed me since day 1...  :)
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Necora

@kid1293 that is very annoying, when you make a new building/profession/resource and all of the new things get harvested into... nothing.

If you delete that code from all of the resources, does that mean that anyone will be able to pick them up regardless of profession? If so I might do so for all of my stuff.

kid1293

#8
@Necora - Do so, but test first with/without to see for yourself.

Here's what I did.

edit - Just a side note. Isn't the third mushroom a death cap?

Tom Sawyer

Wow, these herbs are pretty nice @Bartender. It's even possible to identify the species from your models. May I guess?^^ I can see dandelion, echinacea, thistle, chamomile and poppy on the meadow and in the forest stinging-nettle and huh... hard.. another nettle or stachys and pulsatilla? Your mushrooms are great too. Only the red one I would not eat. ;D

Unfortunately it does not work in the North because you define thatch as building requirement (which is a cool idea) but no thatch can be harvested because it needs your start conditions. So we cannot use it there. My suggestion would be to make another mod where you offer only the model overwrite for visuals and without thatch and all other things. They are already temperature dependent in the North or by the cold realism mod. Also the statusbar and townhall UI as well as the environment.rsc are actually not necessary here and just make conflicts. Separate from that it could be a highly recommended addition also to Nordic games. Either way it is a great work!

Bartender

#10
Thank you for all the kind words and feedback everyone ;D! I will try to answer all the questions.

Quote from: kid1293 on April 11, 2017, 02:01:39 AM
Tanypredator was about to expand on her New Flora but she is absent now.
Would it be to much work to add a few new resources? I mean berry bushes.
You already have the start conditions. People love diversity.
I have been thinking about adding some berry bushes indeed, or at least an overhaul of the current one. I'm also concidering splitting the roots into different types based on their meshes (I have carrots, turnips and radishes), to make it more consistent with the other foods.

Quote from: Discrepancy on April 11, 2017, 02:58:25 AM
Wow!, to me it actually feels like a different game. I'm using my small gather with basket spots and I have them set in different parts of the maps, some in forests, others in meadows and some bordering both.

The full meadow ones are only ever harvesting onions and a small amount of mushrooms and roots, while the forest ones will collect berries mostly, plus mushrooms and just a few onions.
If you want to make your gatherers fully compatible, the new templates I used are 'NaturalResourceHerbGrass.rsc' and 'NaturalResourceHerbAnn.rsc' for the meadow herbs, and 'NaturalResourceRootAnn.rsc' for the roots that die in winter.

As for the views, there's one thing that got me really excited as I was testing the mod. I was observing a meadow in close view, when a group of deer came out of the forest, and started feeding in the meadows. It looked like they were eating the grasses and herbs, and it just seemed so real ;D.

Quote from: kid1293 on April 11, 2017, 03:43:51 AM
One small obstacle.
I have a 'gather food' button which I use now and then when there is a food crisis.
To make it work, the vanilla blueberry, mushroom, onion and roots must have this line:

//   Profession _requiredHarvestProfession = "Game/Profession/Profession.rsc:gatherer";

commented out. Else the workers just clear the food away. Poof...
This is a good suggestion, I will change this for the full release! If you'd like to make one that is fully compatible, see my comment above.

Quote from: kid1293 on April 11, 2017, 06:15:57 AM
Just a side note. Isn't the third mushroom a death cap?
It is an Amanita muscaria, or fly amanita in english. Though they are indeed known as poisonous, they are edible when cooked correctly ;).

Quote from: Tom Sawyer on April 11, 2017, 06:43:31 AM
Wow, these herbs are pretty nice @Bartender. It's even possible to identify the species from your models. May I guess?^^ I can see dandelion, echinacea, thistle, chamomile and poppy on the meadow and in the forest stinging-nettle and huh... hard.. another nettle or stachys and pulsatilla? Your mushrooms are great too. Only the red one I would not eat. ;D
You are right about almost all of them! I'm a biologist so I wanted them to be real plants, I'm glad they are recognizable :). The last two forest herbs are in the Lamiaceae family, a mint and an oregano.

Quote from: Tom Sawyer on April 11, 2017, 06:43:31 AMUnfortunately it does not work in the North because you define thatch as building requirement (which is a cool idea) but no thatch can be harvested because it needs your start conditions. So we cannot use it there. My suggestion would be to make another mod where you offer only the model overwrite for visuals and without thatch and all other things. They are already temperature dependent in the North or by the cold realism mod. Also the statusbar and townhall UI as well as the environment.rsc are actually not necessary here and just make conflicts. Separate from that it could be a highly recommended addition also to Nordic games. Either way it is a great work!
I am indeed planning to also make a 'visuals-only' version, which only updates the models without making any gameplay changes. That version should be compatible with everything. Aside from that I'm always open to seeing if it's possible to make a compatible version of the full mod somehow.

Paeng

#11
Neat mod, the plants look so good  :)

Here are some notes from my first play-through...

I have this issue where I set a footprint, but some bundles of thatch are left behind that nobody will pick up (so the structure cannot be built), see attach 1 and 2...

Another thing is the regular forester - within his circle thatch will spawn (does it? - no thatcher's hut nearby)... I need to observe this a while longer, but this may impact on the forester's performance(?)... see attach 3.

Also - is it possible to make the thatcher's circle even smaller? Though he's not that productive, he needs a lot of "real estate"... but still clogs up storage really fast... that will probably change if/when more buildings use thatch - but it would be good to find another use as well...  :)
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Necora

Quote from: Paeng on April 11, 2017, 10:03:50 AM
but it would be good to find another use as well...  :)

Perhaps as a fuel bundle?

brads3

if you change "roots" to carrots,radishes,etc, remember we still need "roots" to make  our rootbeer.

calli74

Testing this out today and I really like it. I have however discovered that there is a crash problem if you have Necora's Maritimes Pine set enabled at the same time as this mod. Perhaps you and Necora can get together and figure out what is happening. The crash happens the moment the bani's begin with gathering trees and thatch.