little terraforming device

[Wredi]

Hi,

just a small add to the game would make building so much easier. it should be possible to remore some tiles of water. that way the building would be much easier. i hate irregularities, although they are a challenge to build. but i like my regular and standard forms better. that one water tile on a giant plain area of land is some kind of silly.

if blueprints are introduced into the game, that would be much more needed as well.

of course it should cost something too, you could just let it cost some sort of energy and time, for example placing one tile takes 10 minutes and the device demands 100 W per minute (or whatever ingame time is used). or it demands an ore which builds the new land, so it is wasted.

Regards,
Wredi

[Avarant]

For the current game, I actually like the challenge of terrain because there's only 2 types: buildable and water. Taking away water would make everything really flat and boring.

From the screenshots of the future terrain changes though, there's large rock structures that will also get in your way. I think that terrain modification like you suggested will become much more desirable then.

But even still, I personally wouldn't use it much because I like the need for expansion, land-choosing, planning. It adds a layer of complexity and strategy. I wouldn't be opposed to a Terraformer that had pretty expensive costs associated however, as that would retain the strategy.

[ficolas]

I guess piles of stone can be mined as trees, but water... I like to keep water as it is, maybe with bridges, but not with terrafirming.

[FreeER]

I think this would actually fit quite well with the late game, at that point you shouldn't really need to work around the land and you'd have energy production that you could afford an expensive filler for small periods of time. I mean, come on dumping some dirt into a hole to get rid of water is a pretty basic idea, and what you are really working on is upgrading and redesigning your factory to be as efficient as possible, having to move (potentially large) portions of your factory over a few tiles (or more) because you didn't design well for expansion hours earlier is a bit annoying Though yes, you should design for expansion, even the best planners occasionally make mistakes.
That being said, I'd rather have bridges implemented first

[Wredi]

Hi,

first of all, thanks for the responses .

i know it would overthorow the current challenge of building and designing the factory. but i am NOT talking about whole oceans and seas, just small tiles which can randomly appear anyway as i remember of many restarts of a new game. just the 1-5 water tiles everywhere, those i want to be removed.

as of bridges, i think that would be awesome too.

Regards,
Wredi

[malokin]

This would be really nice for the endgame. I imagine the products of underground mining could give the player the resources for terraforming.

Mining underground in an area with no real resources could yield DIRT! Useful for terraforming water into flat terrain.

Salt could be used to remove huge forests from an area.

A "well" could mine into the water-table the way underground mines do for gathering unlimited sources of water like we do in real life. Useful, of course, for making lakes or ponds and (wishful thinking) moats or rivers. If that ever makes it into the game, a transportation barge (mod probably) would be a logical and realistic alternative to train based long distance logistics.

Uranium could be used in a terraforming device to purposely cause radiation to grow forests with the added problem of temporary (very long cooldown time) radioactivity which would rip the player to shreds, and cause electricity and radar to not function in those areas. The "fallout" function could transfer over to nuclear weapons when the devs finally get that far.

[Hazard]

Terraforming would require that biters become able to traverse water, even if it slows them down tremendously. Otherwise you can just create some channels between biter bases and exterminate everything that's on the newly made island and be secure until you need to expand again.

[Ardagan]

Terraforming would be really nice. Just thought of it a min ago and found this thread.

As an option for walls and bugs (those crawly ones), to make it even harder for developers:

walls can have height, terrain can have height. you can move terrain from one place to another (like dig, put on transporter, output in another place, no storing in chests possible).

Bugs: when they die, they increase terrain height for some amount for some time (corpses disspate). Basically, huge amounts of bugs can climb on corpses and overrun walls/terraformed terrain. They can suicide-fall leaving corpse.

Then it will be possible to add logic for clearing paths in front of walls...

*sounds stupid and hard when I wrote it*

[FreeER]

walls can have height, terrain can have height. you can move terrain from one place to another (like dig, put on transporter, output in another place, no storing in chests possible).
Bugs: when they die, they increase terrain height for some amount for some time (corpses disspate).
[...]
*sounds stupid and hard when I wrote it*

Actually I like this idea, though I don't know how much work it would be to add a height to terrain (and temporary due to corpses), though if the corpse increase happened I'd rather see a need to remove the corpses rather than simply disappearing (flamethrower, bots?) and as a side effect of decomp the terrain would become more fertile (desert->grass->forest->dense forest)

[Ardagan]

Well, this point comes from the fact that we have only crawlers. That will make it more fun to defend. I don't know why, but at this point I see the game as pure strategy and even more -- as pure defense game. All this stuff with running around with bots is really annoying imho. Ideally I want to automate everything with no direct influence on events. Something like Majesty, but with all that factory stuff.

[malokin]

I didnt think water/moats were an issue because if you let the pollution get crazy the bugs will simple hop their bases over the water. I always imagined the spores of the aliens to be microscopic and near indestructible, able to float across water, float in the wind, travel through the underground water table, etc. etc.

Did they nerf the bugs ability to set up bases beyond a body of water? or am I right to assume the bugs can just hop over the moat with a new worm base if I block myself in and let the pollution role.

Maybe when the AI cant find a path into a players base, they could start evolving flying locusts, or if water is the obstacle, maybe the dreaded, FANGED WATER STRIDER

Just pretend it says "venom glands" somewhere in that chart.

edit:added new image

pondskaterofdoom.jpg (43.66 KiB) Viewed 9135 times

before anyone whines barbed penises are really common in nature, it haunts my dreams

[ssilk]

Hehe, I think this little detail will remain as game secret, because we can see it only from top.
Or will they have it on their back? Hmmm. A world, where the females come from behind and sit on .... No, no, noooooo...

[Garm]

While it is indeed common in nature it not as common in insect world. insects opt to have needle-like aedeagus to literally stab their partner sometimes. Not to mention same strategy female insects use with their ovipositors to lay eggs inside other creatures.

[ssilk]

Barbed ovipositors?

[Nova]

First I thought: "Why did he post the same image again?", but then: lol.

We need to make one thing clear: We still need to have a water border to be a safe place (or safer than normal terrain). These "water strider" could maybe have inferior armor and be no danger for a defended base.

[Garm]

No, most common variation of barbed ovipositor is the stinger of a drone bee. Due to its barbs it use is usually lethal for the bee because after stab it isn't going anywhere.

Queen bees and many wasps have smooth stingers allowing them to stab multiple times.

[Nova]

Do we really argue about barbed penises of insects in a forum about a futuristic building game (without any kind of erotic game play)?

[malokin]

heh, i think all big cats have barbed penises. I am 100% certain that male lions have barbed penises. It occurs in other mammals i can't name without wikipedia (do your own penis research)

Don't fuck with lions. For alot of reasons.

[malokin]

First I thought: "Why did he post the same image again?", but then: lol.

We need to make one thing clear: We still need to have a water border to be a safe place (or safer than normal terrain). These "water strider" could maybe have inferior armor and be no danger for a defended base.

My idea is that water striders would spawn only when the pathing of ground bugs fails to find a way into a player's pollution zone.

edit: this forum needs that plugin that merges doubleposts into a single post