API request for ordinal autoplace modification

[Yehn]

It would be great if we could adjust autoplace "priority" so crowded placement of one item won't stop others from spawning. For example, if we want biter bases to take priority over other items in chunk generation to ensure biter placement isn't suppressed by other entities.

An alternate way to do this might be to have a penalty_on_overlap or similar - a drastic flooring of the noise magnitude when overlapping other autoplace noise that's sufficiently high to result in the placement of entities.

[Boodals]

I'm pretty sure this already exists: order

[Yehn]

I'm pretty sure this already exists: order

The lua API documentation does confirm an "order" field exists of type string, but doesn't explain at all how it works, what input it expects, etc...

Could you elaborate?

Thanks

[Yehn]

So per the discord discussion, I tried modifying the order string - prepending it with "a" and then "z".

This had no effect, ie trees still blocked enemies from spawning during autoplace/chunk generation.

[IronCartographer]

At the very least, it might make sense for the priority of spawning to be changed in the base game: Biters are shown on the map preview, only to disappear in-game.

I have actually had a save "ruined" by this, but I went scouting and discovered the problem early.

[Boodals]

As discussed on discord, autoplace specification has its own order string.

[orzelek]

Are you sure that order will affect biters vs trees?

I had an impression that it's to be used for ores only.