Add shallow water and beach (sand) to mapgen

[mrvn]

TL;DR

Generated maps should have shallow water and beach between land and water.

What ?

An elevation between -x and 0 becomes shallow water and elevation between 0 and x becomes beach (sand). A good value for x should be determined experimentally starting with x=1. This should give just about 1 tile border of shallow water and beach around land on average with the vanilla map generator. Hopefully the existing elevation function would need no change.

This could also have options in the mapgen data and gui so one could widen or shrink the shallow water and beach. Or just an on/off toggle.

Note: the map generator should not fail if the shallow water or beach (sand) tiles are missing in case some mod removes them. Just revert to water and land in that case.

Why ?

Having terrain go directly from grass to water is a bit jarring. It just doesn't look nice. Shallow water also adds something to the game. It prevents building but allows walking across it and allows aliens to cross it. With shallow water one could generate rivers on maps by tweaking the elevation noise function, even rivers with deep and shallow parts. Island that are close enough together could also be connected by shallow water, either naturally already or by tweaking the elevation, allowing one to cross over without the need of a swimming or boat mod.

[FuryoftheStars]

I agree with this, however I would note that the beach/sand shouldn't always generate between the water and land. There are plenty of real world places where it does just drop off like that, and sometimes by only a few inches.

[mrvn]

I agree with this, however I would note that the beach/sand shouldn't always generate between the water and land. There are plenty of real world places where it does just drop off like that, and sometimes by only a few inches.

Then the elevation should go from >x to <-x in one step. I expect the elevation has such jumps already while other places have shallower slops resulting in larger areas of shallow water or beach.

[FuryoftheStars]

Ok, I kind of see what you’re saying, but still, beaches don’t always form in gradual land to water transitions, either. I can’t speak for what you are used to seeing, but I’ve seen plenty with no sand transition, or if there is it’s mere inches. This also sometimes depends on the season, of course, and the current water levels.

All I’m saying is that there shouldn’t always be this grass to sand to water transition, but I do agree that this should exist, possibly even the majority of the time.

[mrvn]

There are many transitions possible:

Code: Select all

land  beach  shallow water
  1     0     -1     -2

land shallow shallow water
  1    -1     -1     -2

land  beach   beach  water
  1     0      0     -2

land  land    water  water
  1     1      2     -2

My hope is that all of these cases already exist with the vanilla elevation. But even if not, a custom elevation function can create them easily.

Currently if one wants shallow water and beaches then one has to catch the on_chunk_generated event and replace the tiles from LUA. Using the elevation would be nicer and faster.

[FuryoftheStars]

Ok. I'm not disagreeing with that point.