Options for Tree & Rock Generation

[QGamer]

Summary:

Add map generation options for trees and rocks.

What?

All resources in the game, water, and enemy bases all have map generation options: frequency, size, and richness (except water doesn't have richness). I believe it would be good to have these same options for trees and rocks, so players could control how they like their forests and how common the huge rocks should be.
The huge rocks are rare and spread out. The "size" option for rocks should generate rocks in clusters, from 1 lonely rock to 3 or 4 clustered together.

Why?

Many forum members express dislike for the huge forests that are tedious to cut down. It would be nice to have options for this, so that forests could be smaller or more spread out or larger and denser, according to the wishes of the player. In the endgame, forests are only useful as pollution blockers, and they simply tend to get in the way
Forests and huge rocks are a resource, just like water, ores, crude oil, etc. Adding options to control those would add a bit of consistency and also give players a bit more control over what they want.

No, really. Why?

The real reason I want this is because I'm creating a custom map where the only wood available is what is given to the player at the start of the scenario. I don't want trees, and when the maps get huge (think 1000 by 1000 or larger) it gets tedious to use the map editor to clear out all the trees. I also want to make sure I don't miss any. I would be super simple and easy to simply set the forests option to "none" and let the map generator take care of the rest.

Related Posts:

Here are some related forum posts:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=47205&p=272521 (disable dense forest starting zone)
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=35530&p=220101 (forest frequency, size, richness)
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=53475#p313124 (early game should require less tree removal from ore patches)
And this mod is a bit similar to what I am proposing, although I haven't actually tried it myself: https://mods.factorio.com/mods/jelmergu/noRocks-redux

[olafthecat]

I would agree with you here, forests are a pain!

[The_Mtn_Dew_Master]

I made a city map in the map editor and clearing out all the trees was a pain and it would just seem right if there was a tree and rock setting.

[Jap2.0]

I think this could be a cool feature - alternatively, it sounds like a "clear all trees and rocks in a [type number here] tile radius" button would work for what you want as well

[olafthecat]

I think this could be a cool feature - alternatively, it sounds like a "clear all trees and rocks in a [type number here] tile radius" button would work for what you want as well

Yeah, I think everyone would appreciate that!

[JD-Plays]

TL;DR

Slider to control the density of rocks on map generation

What ?

On map generation being able to choose how many rocks are on the map available for mining
We already have dropdowns/sliders for ore/trees/water I would just like another one for rocks

Why ?

Some players hate random rocks, some players enjoy them. Sometimes you want your map to have plenty of random rocks because you're using a terrain mod and want everything to look like the surface of the moon

[fienxjox]

Other than the potential to make speedrunning any% just that much more insane, this would be awesome

[Jon8RFC]

An option to disable rocks would be much appreciated, if for no other reason than having a more effective sandbox/map editor scenario without junk in the way.

[slippycheeze]

An option to disable rocks would be much appreciated, if for no other reason than having a more effective sandbox/map editor scenario without junk in the way.

If you disable rocks, Bioluminescence would almost certainly still place decorative entities that are not rocks on your map, and Alien Biomes will place inland shallow water that you probably don't want for the same reason.

I'm not saying this is useless, but I am saying that "trees and rocks" isn't comprehensive enough a definition to make this work beyond vanilla, so "all decoratives" would be a kinder ask. (or, at least, some sort of extensible system akin to ore placements, where a mod can have sliders and checkboxes too.)

[EnigmaticAussie]

"all decoratives"

Trees and rocks are not decorative though, they are technically a resource.

[slippycheeze]

"all decoratives"

Trees and rocks are not decorative though, they are technically a resource.

I keep forgetting that, and it annoys me every time because I don't think the distinction should exist. ...but, uh, for "decoratives" read "lumps of stuff that are tree-ish or rock-ish" -- the Bioluminescence entities are trees, shrubs, and reeds, so definitely look like they *should* be removed by a "no trees today" sign.

[EnigmaticAussie]

"all decoratives"

Trees and rocks are not decorative though, they are technically a resource.

the Bioluminescence entities are trees, shrubs, and reeds

Go tell the mod maker.
This isn't a base issue.

Having options for spawning actual trees and rocks is.

[darkfrei]

"all decoratives"

Trees and rocks are not decorative though, they are technically a resource.

They have types "tree" and "simple-entity", but not resource.

[QGamer]

Trees and rocks are not decorative though, they are technically a resource.

They have types "tree" and "simple-entity", but not resource.

They are resources, since the player can mine them to obtain wood and stone (and sometimes coal from the huge rocks).
Trees also absorb pollution.

[darkfrei]

They are resources, since the player can mine them to obtain wood and stone (and sometimes coal from the huge rocks).
Trees also absorb pollution.

Then I can literally make all entities as resource, you are get recipe ingredients by entity deconstruction. The player can mine entity and get items.

https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Deconstruction

[klugemonkey]

How come there is "trees" autoplace-control and not "rocks" autoplace-control for the simple-entity being generated?
If it's being generated on the map, why is "rocks" not controllable in the GUI under the Terrain tab like "trees".
Seems inconsistent.

[etsaorned]

I have one suggestion that would make the game more enjoyable. There is an option in the mapgenerator (in the terrain category) where i can choose wether i want to include trees and cliffs or not and thats good, i like to challenge myself without having trees. But there is no feature available where i can choose if i want to keep rocks (big rocks and huge rocks) and i would like that to change. Rocks are in my opinion great to have but they can also be annoying. It would be great if you could also add this feature in the mapgenerator so we can decide if we want to have rocks or not in the game. I actually want to play a round where there are no trees, no rocks and no cliffs at all to increase the difficulty in that way, especially in the beginning.

/etsaorned

[Koub]

[Koub] Merged into older threads with similar suggestions

[etsaorned]

Thats what i suggested recently, although now the option to choose wether we want trees or not are now available in the mapgenerator. Rocks though still arent possible to modify or delete in the menu yet. If you can add the feature where we also can remove rocks then it would both be more challenging but also easier to manouver throughout the game, and also we would have more options to choose wether we want to add extra features or not and that would make the game more fun to play. So please fix the feature of adding or removing rocks.

/etsaorned

[Klonan]

We added rocks control in 2.0, so I guess this is complete

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