WIP: Natural Diversity

[tanypredator]

We cannot build much on hills, but what about hill plants? There was a mod, making trees to grow there, but as for me, it didn't look good. I was thinking on what specific plant could look good on hills, but nothing came to my mind. Dwarf trees? Now I think that maybe you can let your grass to grow higher, to cover small hills, maybe, herbs too?

[Paeng]

Unfortunately most buildings cannot be built on hills

Nice, some flat top hills will definitely improve the landscape... 

As for building on top - well, in time it might be possible to apply some techniques like Red's second/third floor buildings or Kid's tree Houses... keep an access point at the foot of the hill and the building on top will be "usable" 

Also some (ghosted?) ground plants as Tany suggested should become possible... probably depends how exact one can measure the height levels...

More cool beans... 

[QueryEverything]

With a small hill like you have, plus the ghosted 2/3/4 floor buildings, you could certainly make a hilltop building, couldn't You? 

Imagine creating a pond with the new resources, then surrounding 1/2 side with a raised hill, pine trees scattered around, and peeking out from the top of the hill, overlooking the pond, glistening with sun sparkles and little riffles, a beautiful tall house, filled with a family of Bannies, at home eating their hard earned fish & chips, after labouring all day in the local forest encampments ...  ahhh .... bliss ...

There is hope for our Bannies yet.
Cool beans, indeed.

[Bartender]

@brads3 I will do some tests to see how high they can get .

@tanypredator I've been playing around with this idea a bit, it would work similar to the rocks that I made spawn on the riverbed. One complication is that bannies can only harvest things up to a height of 2.0, and most hills and especially the mountains are much higher than that. Anything grown above that would have to be entirely decorational, but then there would need to be a clear distinction between what can be harvested and what cannot. For the water rocks this is not a problem as the waterline makes this distinction. I will have to do some more testing to see if I can achieve some natural looking behaviour for the hills and mountains that doesn't result in confusing gameplay.

As for what to grow there, I have been testing it with pinetrees, as OwlChemist did in his old mod. Ideally I would want a combination of different resource types though, for a proper natural look.

@QueryEverything @Paeng Since what I'm using to make the hills is technically a building, it would indeed be possible to make custom buildings on them . I'm not sure if I'm going to have the time to follow up on all these new ideas though, unless I quit my job and start modding full time . What I'll do is to share my knowledge, so that other modders can use these new tricks as well. That way we can revolutionize the game together!

[QueryEverything]

@brads3 I will do some tests to see how high they can get .

@tanypredator I've been playing around with this idea a bit, it would work similar to the rocks that I made spawn on the riverbed. One complication is that bannies can only harvest things up to a height of 2.0, and most hills and especially the mountains are much higher than that. Anything grown above that would have to be entirely decorational, but then there would need to be a clear distinction between what can be harvested and what cannot. For the water rocks this is not a problem as the waterline makes this distinction. I will have to do some more testing to see if I can achieve some natural looking behaviour for the hills and mountains that doesn't result in confusing gameplay.

As for what to grow there, I have been testing it with pinetrees, as OwlChemist did in his old mod. Ideally I would want a combination of different resource types though, for a proper natural look.

@QueryEverything @Paeng Since what I'm using to make the hills is technically a building, it would indeed be possible to make custom buildings on them . I'm not sure if I'm going to have the time to follow up on all these new ideas though, unless I quit my job and start modding full time . What I'll do is to share my knowledge, so that other modders can use these new tricks as well. That way we can revolutionize the game together!

I completely understand about time pressures @Bartender, but just the fact that this might now be possible!!!  WOW!

Re the hills & growing items - Kralyerg wrote a mod for those of us who have trouble with Bannies not being able to reach (not tall enough) trees on hillsides, therefore making it unsuitable to build into (some of the mines had this issue), so the growing of new items, I think it would need to be height dependant, or at least be optional OR, at the very least be compatible with Kral's mod, so that those of us who have short Bannies can still work the mines. 

Not to throw a spanner in your works - at all, just that I know that there is a problem with that and a work around was made for it.

[Necora]

We can't build on hills? We can do loads on hills! Simply add the word 'walkable' to the create place part of the pasture, cemetery, orchard, and crop field and they can all be built and work on any height a banie can walk. This would look awesome.

We can't (yet) build roads on hills, but as far as building we can of course do that too. The reason I've not made any hill houses or barns for example is because what height do you make them? The slopes on the map are so variable placement is limited. However if we had a hill tool that made to a known height (like this) it would be very easy to float a collection of buildings at that height and have them build on hills the same as we build on water.

[Paeng]

what height do you make them?

Yeah, that's what I meant about "height measurements"... we'll have to see if Bartender's "Hill Tool" can raise stuff to  (known) levels, numbers that modders can work with, to raise their models to a specific height... 

[Bartender]

Re the hills & growing items - Kralyerg wrote a mod for those of us who have trouble with Bannies not being able to reach (not tall enough) trees on hillsides, therefore making it unsuitable to build into (some of the mines had this issue), so the growing of new items, I think it would need to be height dependant, or at least be optional OR, at the very least be compatible with Kral's mod, so that those of us who have short Bannies can still work the mines. 

Not to throw a spanner in your works - at all, just that I know that there is a problem with that and a work around was made for it.

No problem, I'm always happy to receive constructive feedback like this . I'm aware of this issue with the mod for this that was included in CC, I think that was OwlChemists mod. The mod that Kralyerg made was basically a removal tool for them right? I had a similar problem with the water rocks, but I managed to solve it by making them work similarly to the ghost decorations. As you can see in the screenshot, the bridges just get built over them, without even removing the rocks underneath. I applied the same technique to the hill plants, so this shouldn't be an issue .

We can't build on hills? We can do loads on hills! Simply add the word 'walkable' to the create place part of the pasture, cemetery, orchard, and crop field and they can all be built and work on any height a banie can walk. This would look awesome.

We can't (yet) build roads on hills, but as far as building we can of course do that too. The reason I've not made any hill houses or barns for example is because what height do you make them? The slopes on the map are so variable placement is limited. However if we had a hill tool that made to a known height (like this) it would be very easy to float a collection of buildings at that height and have them build on hills the same as we build on water.

You are totally right ofcourse . What I meant was that the vanilla buildings don't like hills, but we as modders can do lots of things to fix that.

Yeah, that's what I meant about "height measurements"... we'll have to see if Bartender's "Hill Tool" can raise stuff to  (known) levels, numbers that modders can work with, to raise their models to a specific height... 

I can definitely do that! I can literally control the height of the hill by just changing a number in the template .

[brads3]

wonder what other goodies are hiding from us in all these codes.

[Tom Sawyer]

Great find @Bartender! I tried something like this month ago adding lake materials to an object but could not make it work.

[QueryEverything]

Thanks so much for the answers @Bartender   I really do miss my trees on the hills, but not being able to place mines was annoying, hahaha.    Glad to read that there is a middle ground, around the corner

[Bartender]

 A new week has started, which means that it is time to look back on the last in Sneak Peek #4!

As the fourth week of development on Natural Diversity v1.1 has passed by, the main body of the update is slowly starting to take shape. So far you have seen the new berry bushes (to finish the gathering resources overhaul), and a beautification of the natural waters with reeds and rocks. This past week, we have worked hard on laying the foundation for a production chain for grasses and reeds.

I say we, and that is not me referring to myself in majestic plural. It implies that the development of this mod is no longer in my hands alone. Some time ago the wonderfully talented Mr. @despo_20 has kindly offered to aid me by designing the buildings required for this production chain, and I have accepted his offer gratefully. His architectural skills are far beyond my capabilities, and are already proving to be of great value for the quality of this mod. Though the rough division is that I will remain responsible for improvements to the natural environment and that Despo will take responsibility for the buildings, decisions on either are taken in mutual agreement.  What you see of this mod may thus from now on be considered a team effort .

The grasses and reeds production chain


While developing the production chain, our main goal was to lay a foundation that would provide enough use for the introduced resources on one hand, and enough space for future expansion on the other.

Currently the chain has two levels, shown vertically. The first level consists of the two production buildings, the Reaper's Shed for harvesting grasses, and a Reed Farm to harvest reeds. Harvesting grasses produces 'grass bales', a raw material that can be processed by buildings of the second level. Harvesting reeds produces 'reed bundles', which can be either processed or used as a construction material directly. These will also be compatible with the reeds introduced in CC.

The second level includes two processing buildings and another production building. The first processing building is the Thresher, where wild cereals and other edible plant parts are separated from the grass bales. It will produce 'Wild Cereals' and 'Wild Salad', both foods.

The second building in this level is the familiar Thatcher, which produces 'Thatch' from grass bales or reeds. This thatch can then be used as a construction material for buildings with thatched roofs.

The third and final building of the basic chain is the fish trap. It will require reeds to be built, and will be placeable on small rivers. As the name suggests, it produces fish. This offers a way to gather food with a building that does not require thatch,  while also introducing a use for the small rivers on the map.

That's it for this week!  As always any feedback and suggestions are more than welcome ! To conclude, we would like to share some screenshots of the first two buildings; the Reaper's Shed and the Thresher. Both buildings were made by the amazing @despo_20 !

[embx61]

Wow

Very impressive.

All looks very nice but that Tresher building is just so awesome.

[kid1293]

I think I put my money on the right horse when I decided that this mod
is an alltime must-have !!

Fantastic models and I am very impressed with the clear, simple product chain!

[tanypredator]

Great news and nice illustrations Will grass or reeds be used as fuel?