Idea for pond distribution

jasonrohrer · 2019-05-01 20:44:21

Just now, I experimented with a noCluster property for ponds, that would prevent them from being candidates for the 10x jackpot (the thing that causes other natural objects to appear in clusters in certain areas).

This, of course, caused ponds to be more spread out, generally.

However, there were still some "lucky spots" where ponds were pretty close (same screen), and other unlucky spots where you had to wander around to find any pond at all.

Also, I'm now questioning the "ponds in swamps" thing. If a pond is necessary as a town-center feature, this forces everyone to build towns in swamps, which is kinda weird feeling. Soil deposits are important too, but they can be moved in batches of 3x using the primitive basket, and 12x with a cart, and people start making their own soil pretty quickly. They always need a pond location to make water. Ponds were stuck in swamps long before you had to build a well on a pond.

So... what if pond locations were completely uniform and fixed? Like a grid of ponds, 100 tiles apart, evenly spaced on the map.

Maybe ponds would at least skip being placed if the grid landed in the desert or arctic, where it wouldn't make sense. But maybe it could be in all other biomes.

Essentially, you need to fine ONE POND to be the center of your town. And you kinda know where to look (walk due N, S, E or W from any pond that you find to locate another one).

By the way, the reason this is under consideration, as opposed to a more general "no two ponds closer than X" type thing, is because of the way the map algorithm works. It's tile-independent and local. We can currently ask a question about any X,Y on the map without knowing anything about any other tiles on the map. What should be at X,Y can currently be computed in isolation. That's a good property (and part of the benefit of fractal algorithms, or Perlin noise, or whatever you want to call it).

If ponds are on a grid, that grid can be part of the algorithm. What's at X,Y? Is it on the grid? If so, then it's a pond.

(This could also be a grid with a wiggle, by the way... is X,Y on the wiggly grid is easy to answer as well).

Booklat1 · 2019-05-01 20:53:39

I would like to see this version you tried before judging better but i dont like the grid idea as it takes all variation away.

Having a water biome isnt so bad but transporting water should be easier/other options could exist, specially in arctic biome.

either this or make ponds rarely spawn in prairies, its the one other biome that'd feel right with ponds

Last edited by Booklat1 (2019-05-01 20:54:48)

Thaulos · 2019-05-01 21:00:00

If you do try that then please make it so that we can upgrade from kerosene newcomen pump to engine pump.

futurebird · 2019-05-01 21:19:50

What if every swamp has at least one pond, but mountains, yellow and green biomes may or may not have them?
Right now kids /die if they see you have only one pond as Eve "not enough water" --if we are going to take the leap and have fewer ponds and you basically have the "town well" (or maybe two town wells) that you tend and upgrade I think the ponds needs a bit more water if we make this change since you can empty two ponds just growing your first berries and carrots. There isn't a problem with when the first stone well gets built, it's later that stagnation occurs.
This makes me nervous, (not change!) but I like the idea of towns being able to work in other biomes more. It would *look* refreshing... I like getting away from that "green blue border at least 4 ponds and 3 soil" rule.
Swamps to have another HUGE advantage they have a ton of trees that you can cut down without worry. Yellow biome is bad for trees, mountains have pines, but not much else. The green biome is still essential, but a camp in a green biome without a swamp for wood could have forest management issues.
hmmm

Tarr · 2019-05-01 21:20:22

You definitely do NOT want to put ponds in the grasslands. The game will become green cities for every city and there will basically be no biome diversity what so ever.

It's definitely an issue that a swamp + grasslands are basically 100% required at all times to make any camp viable (water + soil) which means towns are basically just remixes of other towns with slightly different biomes thrown in on the edges which in turn makes it so towns are incredibly samey. On the flip if you put some level of water scattered around towns can exist in different shapes and forms. Soil as stated can basically be started from gen 2 (or even gen 1 if that's your focus) which means grasslands are only truly required because of branches and things related to fire.

Basically if you want towns to be different you probably need:
-Some other way to make rope/thread such as jungle vines.
-Some sort of other version of the branch trees to allow firemaking to be done somewhere other than grasslands (or longer decay times.)
-Some sort of ponds or different water sources in various other biomes.
-Any sort of reason to NOT only want the classic grassland/swamp/X biome mix.

TL;DR: Water in grassland kills diversity further. The game requires slightly alternative paths or reskins of trees specifically. Need a reason to not want or have the ability for triple biome mixes.

Potjeh · 2019-05-01 21:29:51

Single pond per town would be great as it'd make newcomen and diesel tech actually useful. As long as it's balanced to have enough water in the town's early stages, ofc.

Bob 101 · 2019-05-01 21:59:43

I Dunno what to think of ponds in most biomes. I agree that people would probably setup mostly in green.

BUT swamp still has other essential resources nearby like clay and reed.

But it means we can have outposts in dif biomes like savannas and rock biomes. You just need to import clay and sheep's from the main town.

Last edited by Bob 101 (2019-05-01 22:18:45)

Booklat1 · 2019-05-01 22:16:19

how about finite water sources in prairies? we could also have single-use soil in jugles, so more combos are available early.

Last edited by Booklat1 (2019-05-01 22:16:43)

Booklat1 · 2019-05-01 22:26:54

Also, I'd rather see biomes with tech to skip water short-term than most biomes having it.

People in biomes without water should be able to survive with fire/clothes long enough to migrate, so I think the best might be water in arctic/new water biome.

jasonrohrer · 2019-05-01 22:47:31

This isn't a discussion about how to make other biome tech trees viable, or increase town diversity.

My focus with this particular change is trying to make the current water tech tree essential. Ideally, to keep a town going long-term, you'd need to go shallow, deep, newcomen, kero, diesel. The town should fail eventually if you fail to upgrade in time. Should be impossible to survive forever on deep, for example.

Currently, if you "luck out" with 4 ponds (or more!) right near your town, you're probably done advancing water at shallow wells, at least for a long while.

"The well went dry!" should be a dramatic pinch-point in the rise of every town.

But speaking of start-up diversity, green is still king because of plentiful wild food, milkweed, soil, branchy trees, etc. That won't be changing any time soon. I don't think that's a huge problem. Home biomes vs. venture biomes. Even if I go to great lengths to encourage town location diversity, players are still going to figure out what's best, and stick to that. No sense in fighting that uphill battle, at least not right now,.

Tarr · 2019-05-01 22:57:35

Then the issue goes back how it was before when you seen an Eve setting up in a cold biome when deserts were meta.

Mom trying to setup at a grassland pond instead of the swamp? Suicide for better mother. If the goal is just to nerf water and not try to shake anything up you might as well leave water only in the swamp at that point. Empty swamps essentially just become the same difference as a grassland missing adequate maple trees, or prairies with no rabbits.

Instead of plopping down at just any swamp people will look for jackpot swamp areas or as many possible ponds instead of settling for one or two. Basically all you are doing at this point is changing the Eve checklist instead of any real meaningful change to early game.

Twisted · 2019-05-01 23:23:59

What if water was rarer in swamps, but different (upgradeable) water sources could also spawn in some other biomes as well. Let's say 1/4 as common per biome, without the jackpot chance. Something that would make finding multiple ponds in the same area rare enough that it's not worth specifically looking for, but still possible from time to time.

Swamps would still have goose ponds.
Mountain biomes can have springs that can be upgraded into Shallow Wells once dry, preserving the water tech tree.
Prairies can have seeps that can be upgraded into Shallow Wells once dry, again preserving the water tech tree.
Jungles could have frog ponds that can be upgraded into Shallow Wells once dry, again preserving the water tech tree.
The next biome you add could have a water source as well.

You don't want to have a Grassland water source as that would probably become the de facto only option.

The idea is to keep the amount of water sources on the map about the same (maybe a bit less), but spread them out so you don't get multiple ponds adjacent to one another. Once you drain the natural water source, you upgrade it to a shallow well and the tech tree continues as usual.

futurebird · 2019-05-01 23:28:30

What if dry wells spawned randomly in various biomes? You could use them to found a crazy outpost. Or dry shallow wells even to make it a little less daunting?

Maybe with a slightly different look to indicate they are from some ancient people who went before long long ago...

Tarr · 2019-05-01 23:29:34

Without just limiting stuff specifically how about something like primary biomes and secondary biomes for resources? Instead of ponds only appearing in swamps maybe they have reduced spawns in biomes like badlands or jungle? Scatter different resources at lower quantities through other biomes so you aren't just reskinning trees or adding tech to make each specific biome livable.

Some off the top of my head:
Burdock is found mostly in the grasslands but has some reduced spawns over in the badlands.
Iron found in majority in the badlands but sometimes in desert (but never veins in deserts.)
Ponds that are found mostly in swamps but sometimes in badlands and rarely in jungles.
Soil found mostly in the grasslands but sometimes off in the prairie.

Basically play off the idea that a biome Will have this but Might have that.

futurebird · 2019-05-01 23:39:28

I rather like that Tarr. Call it "biome bleed" we get it now where you may have items spawn on the "wrong" color tile (like iron on a jungle tile) But this would make for a better selection of choices of starting spots.

I do think the change should mostly be:

Reduce number of ponds, increase the water in each for pond stage and shallow well stage. That would help end the towns with 12 deep wells and no pumps. You just can't find 12 ponds. You might be able to find 4. You might find 4 with a dry deep well in the nearby prairie. You might find 2 ponds, and a neat yellow biome with some soil near each other.

It adds some new kinds of "jack pot" but nerfs the fields of ponds.

Spoonwood · 2019-05-02 00:05:45

No clay close enough no clay bowls. No clay bowls no farm. Only clay bowls for farm? No clay plates for crucibles or pies. Even supposing people cut down dead trees or pines instead of cypress and willow trees, that still won't do enough. Anyone smart settles in a swamp not only for the water, but for the clay. There does exist a one well town on server12, but I assure you that player is smart, and I'm pretty sure that s/he imported a bunch of clay. Running for clay early in a large group and farming on one bowl (you need four clay for the kiln and one to make charcoal)? Ugh. Not having a crucible to even make a hammer let alone an axe? Double ugh. No pies in sight? Triple ugh. Players who can live off of wild food might do it, but it certainly won't be pretty (keep fires going on just kindling for a few generations... what?!), and players who settle in the swamp will have much quicker development... if any town without clay even survives, and I suspect many players would suicide in such places.

Booklat1 · 2019-05-02 00:06:48

Spoonwood wrote:

No clay close enough no clay bowls. No clay bowls no farm.

rabbit pouches

Booklat1 · 2019-05-02 00:12:09

jasonrohrer wrote:

This isn't a discussion about how to make other biome tech trees viable, or increase town diversity.

but you started talking about swamps in other biomes

i dont think this should be a concern at first, unless of course we're tackling town diversity. As far as water tech progression goes your idea of making ponds not clusterable should be enough.

jasonrohrer · 2019-05-02 00:19:11

Okay, I have the pond-grid-spreading code in place. This means that you NEVER see two ponds next to each other.

Currently, they appear in all biomes except for Arctic and Desert, but I can change that if there's a really good reason to change it.

The plan is to give ponds 2x water as part of this change.

The question is: how far apart should they be? People can walk 4 tiles per second, so 120 tiles is a 30 second walk. The game will no longer be "searching for a good pond spot," but instead, "Searching for a grid-ish pond that also is near other good stuff." Essentially, a pond survey, trying to find the best pond to start a village around.

I guess having them closer doesn't change much, but gives people more choices and less walking to find those choices. There's gotta be some threshold of walking where it becomes impractical for a town to use two nearby ponds, though... what would that be?

As others have said, it would be pretty painful to build a village very far away from a swamp (no clay). So I don't think the only factor now will be "pond in green, and you're done."

But currently, the location of the well is SO important that most villages have their town center in the swamp. Lemme take a quick VOG survey and answer that. for real.

jasonrohrer · 2019-05-02 00:27:24

Well, I guess I'm a little sleepy. Of course the VOG survey showed every town with its well in a swamp. Duh.

But here's the problem illustrated:

Booklat1 · 2019-05-02 00:33:23

ugh

jasonrohrer · 2019-05-02 00:42:33

Okay, here's a problem that I'm currently having with the grid-based approach.

If the grid is 20 tiles wide, then it's pretty easy to find ponds, but they seem too close together. It wouldn't be too hard to set a town between them and use two wells, or set a pond at one grid point and then use five wells.

If the grid is bigger, like 80 tiles wide, then it becomes REALLY hard to find ponds. You need to get onto the grid lines first, and if you're between, it's very hard to find. If you walk N/S, you stay between ponds, E/W you stay between ponds. Diag walking might also keep you between. I walked around for a long time and found no pond at all.

The thing about swamps and clusters in swamps is that you knew where to look, and it was impossible to walk "through the gap" between ponds for too long, because the gaps are a bunch of different sizes, and there's no regular pattern.

Spoonwood · 2019-05-02 00:43:17

Booklat1 wrote:

Spoonwood wrote:
No clay close enough no clay bowls. No clay bowls no farm.

rabbit pouches

You're right, I forgot about those. But, you need one for the bellows and a second costs more milkweed (and has to if starting from scratch).

antking:]# · 2019-05-02 00:45:33

so why don't have ponds in every biome? make them rare also have each having a unique water storage?

for the grid pattern I think that you should make them very far apart (14400 tiles part maybe ) and then have eves spawn at those ponds (14400 tiles is the max a person could run in one direction for a an entire life (without eating or stopping) so encouraging people to advance in travel tech to reach these ponds before new eves do!

jasonrohrer · 2019-05-02 00:48:33

So... Eve spawns near the pond, and then she's stuck there?

Do your best with this pond, sweetheart, it's all you're ever gonna get!

No more Eve wandering.... but I'll bet there'll be lots of Eve suicide....

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#1 2019-05-01 20:44:21

Idea for pond distribution

#2 2019-05-01 20:53:39

Re: Idea for pond distribution

#3 2019-05-01 21:00:00

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