Guess cover tile to use when no cover tile is set yet

[Stringweasel]

Created as suggested by Lou: viewtopic.php?p=674092#p674092

Currently force building will fail on non-buildable tiles if you haven't placed a cover tile before on that specific non-buildable tile. This means that you need to first manually place a cover tile on every type of non-buildable tile before a force-build will work anywhere. It would be really great if the engine could make a guess as to what cover tile to use instead of failing. And failing can be frustrating to the player because it usually "just works".

An example (from here). Two different saves with the same conditions, but in one no cover tile has been placed before.

06-11-2025, 21-57-11.png (129.4 KiB) Viewed 437 times

Deciding which cover tile to use (when no default_cover_tile is set?) is a tricky question though that I don't have a good answer to. Could be for example

• Just the first coverable tile it finds. Possibly using the "order" field? Probably good enough regardless. If mod doesn't like it it should set the default_cover_tile.
• The cheapest tile in terms of raw resources. But would need to find the cheapest recipe to make that tile, which is also not really possible. What's cheaper, 5 stone or 5 iron?
• Something else?

[TheSmiddy]

this seems like a no-brainer to set concrete as the default cover tile for all Aquilo surfaces as it gets overwritten by the user when they choose anyway. What would be the negative outcome of not having a default set which is the current behaviour?

At the moment the lack of a default definitely presents itself in a manner indistinguishable from a bug to the user who is landing on Aquilo and placing a blueprint for the first time.


Current scenarios:
User wants to use concrete as a cover tile:
- they arrive at Aquilo
- place blueprint
- it errors with an ambiguous un-user-friendly error
- they manually place concrete everywhere
- replace blueprint

User wants to use hazard concrete as a cover tile:
- they arrive at Aquilo
- place blueprint
- it errors with an ambiguous un-user-friendly error
- they manually place hazard concrete everywhere
- replace blueprint


With concrete as a default:
User wants to use concrete as a cover tile:
- they arrive at Aquilo
- place blueprint

User wants to use hazard concrete as a cover tile:
- they arrive at Aquilo
- place blueprint
- it places with concrete instead of hazard concrete
- user repaints blueprint area with hazard concrete


both scenarios feel better and have a better experience than the current system.