DD/Buildsystem/Building streets
From Unknown Horizons
This page is part of the Unknown Horizons design document. Please discuss everything concerning this topic on the "discussion" tab of this page. If you´re not sure whether your ideas are fitting the Unknown Horizons style, either use the discussion page, talk to us, or edit the "Questions" section of this page, but please don´t directly edit the other parts.
Proposal
Summary
Streets are very important to the infrastructure in Unknown Horizons, therefore building them should be as easy and intuitive as possible.
Implementation related note
The time a good needs to be delivered from building A to building B is measured by the length of the shortest road connecting those buildings.
Workings
If the player decides to build a road, he has to click with the left mouse button on the point where he wants the street to start first and then hold the button until the process is finished. If the button is released, the road planning is immediately considered done. He then moves the pointer to the place where it shall end. If these two points are not in a direct line, there are two possibilities how the road can go: Either clockwise or counterclockwise (see the picture). The user can easily switch between those two options by pressing the right mouse button. The setting the player last used is saved as initial option when he builds the next street. If there is no such setting saved, the behaviour defaults to counterclockwise.
Graphical content
For every kind of street there has to be a set of images featuring 8 directions with turns, crossroads and possibly gateways for buildings.
The most likely streets are (contingently build from different materials?!):
- trails
- roads
- streets
- avenues
The 8 directions are (clockwise):
- north
- northeast
- east
- southeast
- south
- southwest
- west
- northwest
Open questions
| Open question: Instead of 4 directions for roads we should use the common 8 directions because distance dependent time for delivering goods is an important feature and with 4 directions only it's pretty difficult to create roads over the shortest possible distance. Questions or annotations anyone? --dauerflucher 18:10, 9 November 2007 (CET) |
| Suggestion: Seconded. --Phiker 18:47, 9 November 2007 (CET) |
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| Open question: I've read that it should be possible to change the direction of the street with RMB. That's a problem because usually you cancel the building process with RMB. Probably we should use the MMB (scroll wheel klick) or find a good solution with a special key for that. --Andre 20:20, 27 March 2008 (UTC) |
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| Suggestion: This problem is meanwhile solved by an superior code for building streets. --dauerflucher 01:46, 9 August 2008 (UTC) |
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| Open question: Could a small routine be helpful which detects the best course (IF building-sea-w/e blocks parts THEN choose other rotational direction)? Need to discuss to which point it tells the player what to do then, for example if both possible ways are blocked... The RMB did not work for me by the way. |
Phasing
General
This feature is already implemented to a certain degree.
