Trees should regenerate health (or have hidden HP bars) ☸

[GewaltSam]

Just another small suggestion: it would be great if trees regenerate their hp. Most people prefer clearing trees out of the way by shooting them with some weapon (shotgun for example). You hit a lot of trees on the sides that aren't completely destroyed with this method, and they have health bars from then on to kingdom come. That doesn't look very nice, and all it would take is for them to regenerate health like biter bases do.

Thanks for reading.

[BurnHard]

+1

[Garm]

Agreed

[FreeER]

Oh this suggestion is nice! +1

aside: I attempted a quick mod that would do this by adding healing_per_tick = 0.01 to tree entities and it didn't work I'm going to guess that it's because trees are not 'active' entities (at least the wiki says it only works for "active entities (todo explain)", and it didn't work so...conclusion trees~=active)

[Alfdaur]

Yeah, this would help the OCD people out there. I also find it anoying that threes get those little bars of health and don't lose them. So I would love for this to be implemented!

[ssilk]

Hm. How would it be, if the trees lose health due to pollution?

THAT could be the reason, why the biters want to destroy the source of pollution. Because that destroys their food!

Destroyed wood: No more biters, which collect the wood. The biter nest will starve. No eggs are produced. After a while nothing in range of pollution will survive. Till then total war.

[FreeER]

Hm. How would it be, if the trees lose health due to pollution?

I like the idea, but um, this isn't really the thread to discuss biter psychology (aka why they are attacking), there are others for that (with many other good ideas in them). The topic here is very specific "trees should regenerate health"

[BurnHard]

Also offtopic: Biters - as they are now - are extremly stupid and simple creatures. Don't think they have ANY kind of intelligence (aka "that alien with the machines is destroying our environment) but more instinct driven and only reacting to the nearest factors. Running stupidly into defensive structures, just walking around their spawners. Brings them to the level of maybe slugs, worms or insects.

Even very intelligent creatures on our earth like apes, would never think: "These humans are destroying our forests, lets make a plan to unite all other apes to attack their villages..." As long as the ingame enemies are "biters" and "worms" don't expect any intelligent actions.

And as said, the pollution we produce at the moment is more of acoustic nature (except boilers and burner-furnaces).

[Teurlinx]

Hm. How would it be, if the trees lose health due to pollution?

THAT could be the reason, why the biters want to destroy the source of pollution. Because that destroys their food!

Destroyed wood: No more biters, which collect the wood. The biter nest will starve. No eggs are produced. After a while nothing in range of pollution will survive. Till then total war.

Not sure about the biter tie-in, but anything that kills trees is good in my book

[murillokb]

I had the very same idea for the same reason. +1
Also it is intuitive in most games that organic things like trees and spawners regenerate health

[Kazuar]

I do like the idea of not having to see random bars of uninteresting information.

An alternative to polling the status of gigabajilions of trees for the need to regenerate, sixty times a second each (and let's be honest, Factorios forests are dense), might be to just not display a health bar for what's basically a terrain feature, if performance is a concern (I'm also actively disinterested in the structural integrity of random rocks in the desert )

[rampelstinskin]

An alternative to polling the status of gigabajilions of trees for the need to regenerate, sixty times a second each (and let's be honest, Factorios forests are dense),

Not a problem. Just add tree to collection of damaged trees when tree damaged. And remove when completely healed.

[murillokb]

I do like the idea of not having to see random bars of uninteresting information.

An alternative to polling the status of gigabajilions of trees for the need to regenerate, sixty times a second each (and let's be honest, Factorios forests are dense), might be to just not display a health bar for what's basically a terrain feature, if performance is a concern (I'm also actively disinterested in the structural integrity of random rocks in the desert )

I agree with this even more! Showing tree's health bars is kinda pointless

[djvanryan]

Great Idea, do it!

+1

[Kazuar]

An alternative to polling the status of gigabajilions of trees for the need to regenerate, sixty times a second each (and let's be honest, Factorios forests are dense),

Not a problem. Just add tree to collection of damaged trees when tree damaged. And remove when completely healed.

This is actually an ingenious solution that goes to show why such considerations should be made by actual professionals.

In spite of this statement, though, I still stand by my opinions that:
a) I still think omitting the operations that cause them to change their behaviour into displaying health in the first place, could be wiser than adding ongoing operations that cause them to revert their behaviour later, and that
b) the concern (display of only tangentially interesting information) is not distinctivly unique to trees, but rather general for all terrain doodads.

[GewaltSam]

Sure, why not. Simply not showing tree HP bars would have nearly the same effect, and if that works better for the programmers, i.e. it's a lot easier to change, that's fine also.

[Khalysto]

!!Greetings Programs!!

I propose trees either:

1. Degrade over time and disappear if damaged
2. Regenerate to a full health bar and health bar disappears if damaged

Why? Because of this:



Now I'm not a hardcore perfectionist like some of the Factorians I've seen, but I do dislike riding the Spiff Train or the Spiff Mobile across the country side and seeing a bunch of health bars hanging around. I'd prefer not to clear cut every forest in my way and create a barren wasteland either. I just want to remove what is necessary. Thoughts?

[FishSandwich]

It would make sense. In real life, trees would heal over time or die if too badly damaged, so I think both 1 and 2 should be implemented.

[SHiRKiT]

Both of them requires tree to having a tick operation. Unless they throw into a single controller, which could help reduce the performance impact.

[ssilk]

I remember that they once planned to degenerate the forrest by pollution...

But yes, either it dies or regains full health.