In my relative ignorance, might I suggest a layered editor for a future version?florian wrote: I've started preliminary work on that now. Still gathering ideas/requirements and working out a good concept for an editor that does not devolve into placing each tile separately.
A layer editor would compile new maps based upon layer information. Information such as:
- altitude (left mouse = lower, right mouse click = raise - same user interface of game can be used to house specific tools - cliffs can be auto-calculated based on altitude difference between adjacent tiles (flat, shallow incline, moderate incline, steep incline, cliff face - depending on how precise you want the map altitudes and gradients to be))
- roads/ tracks (based upon vector lines across the map - which can less or more developed, and less or more broad in size)
- special natural terrain - types of forests, shrubs, where applicable.
- special urban terrain - placement of structures on map, including those associated with bases.
- special other terrain - definition of special points and effects (for instance, oil resource with range of zero, lava points with range of 1, mysterious magnetic field with a range of 5 squares (ok so its not part of the game - but possibilities are everywhere).
- blanket conditions - weather and climate - and setting sea level and precipitation level could result in calculation of what is under water, both at sea level and above sea-level basins (based on altitude of terrain (if whole map is a basin with edges above sea level then it calculates on precipitation and evaporation if so desired) - faulting along the map (quake damage), etc.
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Just ideas - a layer compiler would be able to flatten information and speed up map development in comparison to tile-by-tile development.
