Dirt/Grass Block

So I would like to suggest to implement the possibility to place Dirt blocks or grass blocks. I thought of this when I removed one of my buildings and where the floor for the building was originally at, there is now a 1 block deep by 20 block wide hole… And all I can replace it with is wood, stone, or clay bricks… Thank you I am loving the game!!!

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@Cavalier1109 This is an awesome idea :slight_smile: I think this has been mentioned somewhere else (I can’t remember where), and I think it’s a pretty common thing that players have noticed.

Now I can’t confirm this AT ALL so please don’t take my word for it, but I could have SWORN I saw something in another post or livestream or something that the lovely people at Radiant are planning on implementing this.

Again, I can’t confirm that at the moment but I seem to remember seeing it somewhere…

Also, I was JUST thinking yesterday that I would be interested in making a simple mod for something like this until it is fully implemented :slight_smile:

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I feel this suggestions has been made more times than this game has versions. @8bitCrab, correct me if I’m wrong. And I’m sorry if I seem rude, as that’s not my intent.

Geomancer. Waiting on the Geomancer…

Could have sworn one of the main Radiant guys made a mod like this…

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wrong about…?

if you mean it waiting on the geomancer, then you’re correct there. awhile back the question was asked in a live stream and Tony (at least i think it was a wednesday stream) said that he liked the idea and would be a good thing for the geomancer… however he didn’t promise that, just proposed the idea.

though she’s not from TR, @Relyss made the lovely terrain slabs mod,

not sure if it works with the current version though…

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Suggesting dirt blocks.

ah, i dont actually know the numbers on this so dont quote me, but the dirt/grass block is probably the second most requested feature, maybe only surpassed by the archer…

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You’re absolutely right @SirAstrix

Like I said, I remembered seeing it somewhere, I just couldn’t remember where so I couldn’t link to the evidence (and didn’t want to be giving false information without proof).

That I didn’t know about, but good to know :slight_smile: I may still make a mod like it (adding some features that people want to see, but will probably be developed later, just so we can play with them and see how they might look). People have done that with a lot of other games like Kerbal Space Program and Minecraft (players have made mods that were eventually implemented as core game mechanics).

Also, that is in NO way to say that the Radiant guys aren’t doing good work. They’re doing AMAZING work (heck, what I wouldn’t give to work on a team like this, wish Radiant was hiring devs/interns :blush: ) I’m just saying that it takes much longer to implement big features into stable builds than it does for modders to whip up rudimentary game mechanics.

(Side note, this also sometimes helps the dev teams, if mods are extensive enough, because people have essentially done some of the testing and whatnot for them. When I’ve made games in the past, I’ve been in situations where people requested features fervently, but I never had to spend weeks making those features because modders had implemented them, and it turned out people didn’t like them so the requests for that feature stopped).

Sorry for the long reply, and

not rude at all :slight_smile: I hope I didn’t come off rude either! :slight_smile:

The archer (and other ranged units) are something I am greatly looking forward to :smiley:

But I also understand (as I made a small game similar to this for a contest a year or so ago) that ranged units introduce a WHOLE separate mechanic that complicates things quite a bit. You have to take into account the physics, combat logic (which is still a little buggy, which they’re working on), and tons of other stuff.

I had an idea though, for a mod I’m working on. I was basically thinking of adding a “Mage” class that could attack at range, simply by extending the range of their weapon drastically in the JSON for that entity. And then I would just make the staff or wand or whatever have a particle effect when a ranged attack was “cast” (that’s the part I’m currently stuck on) :stuck_out_tongue:

Whatdya think @8BitCrab @SirAstrix ?

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sadly just extending the range can cause problems, as @Drotten and i discovered awhile back when i was attempting to do that exact thing for a mage class… but the game has changed a lot since then, so maybe it will work now…

but we’re derailing the thread, so lets keep any further discussion on the topic of a mage mod in a new thread please :slightly_smiling:

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True, sorry about that :stuck_out_tongue:

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Totally off topic but… welcome to the discourse! :slightly_smiling:

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I had a thought about this last week that I don’t think I’ve seen before. I know placing dirt has been requested lots of times and I assume that the only reason Radiant haven’t implemented it yet is because mining dirt and having it as a resource would cause a lot of clutter and performance loss for a resource that is rarely used and not worth anything in trade.
So I was thinking, what if dirt blocks (as a resource) only spawns if you started building something that requires dirt and stops spawning as soon as there is enough. This could cause trouble if the dirt spawns in the wrong place, like far away, so an alternative could be that you select the building that requires dirt and from there assign a mining area (either an existing one or make a new one) that will spawn dirt.
It won’t solve the problem with getting grass back, but maybe the farmer could have the option to grow grass.
Anyway. Just a thought.

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@Agon I like that idea a lot!

Maybe because it’s so abundant and not really worth anything, we wouldn’t have to collect it? There could just be a “Fill” option in the build menu or something that you could select an area and the hearthlings could just fill it with “ghost” dirt or grass?

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Do you mean you pretty much have endless dirt at your disposal? Because then you could build walls out of dirt or make a defensive plateau for your city without any cost.

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Also a good point… :stuck_out_tongue:

Maybe it could only be placed in voxels that you’ve already mined?

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They will probably have the geomancer have some way to create or move dirt/grass/stone/water in the world. I can just hope that he won’t wave his hands and magically moves the earth like in his artwork. I rather would like the more realistic and earlier accessible variant of my workers do basic terraforming and throw away this magic approaches.

Or have a dirt counter in the inventory menu but not represented in the world. It gets added to as they mine. Probably without them having to carry it to a stock pile. Might be a bit weird if the hearthlings can build without any resource in their backpack, so I guess they should at least have to go to a stock pile/contains and pick dirt up (even though you wont see any dirt in the stock pile/container and it would just get drawn from the global dirt count).
Yes, I know, it’s inconsistent that they don’t have to carry the dirt to the stockpile, only from, but they will probably do more mining than building with dirt and it could get quite annoying if they have to run to the stockpile all the time with a resource that you might never use.

Hm…
dirt blocks blocking my progress by filling the inventory to cap.
geomancer comes into game in a far away future version.
“Ghost dirt”

doesn’t strike me as obvious.

How about this approach:

  • Dirt is a block like anything else but each hearthling can not put it in his/her backpack but it occupies thier hands. so every worker can carry only one dirt at a time. The geomancer might magically be able to move more later so there is some difference in classes.

  • Dirt gets its own stockpile type which counts internally but does not count towards the towns inventory cap.
    These stockpiles can get placed near building places and can be moved later on.
    From these "only dirt holding stockpiles (or short: “dirtpiles”) workers can grab dirt and place it anywhere the player wants them to:

  • So some gobling dug out his private nest and you threw him out? Fill the gap with dirt again.

  • So you wanna build some farming grounds on the 2nd floor terrace of your castle or up in the mountains? Move some dirt up there!

  • The dirtpile itself is some type of crate which costs one wooden block and can be created by any worker. It has the shape of a decent heap of earth regardless of the amount of dirt stockpiled there and can hold an unbelievable mass of 512 blocks. It cannot be moved or destroyed until all the dirt and grass blocks inside are moved elsewhere (not like the crate which can get moved with the items inside).
    This way dirt does not clog up the inventory and you can fill gaps or build your first walls out of it if you don’t mind that it takes fairly long (moving one block at a time instead of working with wood!) and leaves some not-so-beautiful brown holes in your town.

This solution provides you with the posibillity of moving dirt/grass with finite resources (no ghost dirt!), does not increase the game’s workload / calculations through the roof (mined dirt blocks don’t have to be displayed! only an integer in the stockpile :slight_smile: ) and gives some perspective to future applications (geomancer).

It’s no exploit towards early wall building either because of the slow building speed and the visual scars it leaves on the surroundings. It could actually become an addition to wall building as the “moving dirt”-option might encourage some players to build “earth walls with a stockade” .

It’s just a suggestion though. :wink: