Deverezieaux's POIs now as a modlet!

[Deverezieaux]

Hi all, not sure if I should post this here or in the general modification discussions section.

 

When I start my next POI, I was considering doing a long-build video covering POI creation from start to finish. Not like a quick tutorial, but the process of creating an entire detailed, dungeon-pathed, optimized POI start to finish. I wonder if anyone would be interested in this as there would be lot of long and possibly repetitive sections? Basically, it may be very dull. I wouldn't want to edit it down too much though, because the point would be to show as much as possible. Just a thought, maybe it's not worth it if no one would be interested.

[ate0ate]

I'd be interested in seeing something like that. I looked at the prefab editor today for the first time and found it a bit overwhelming lol. I think it would be useful to have a video like you proposed as a reference.

[Deverezieaux]

On 2/2/2022 at 5:25 PM, ate0ate said:

I'd be interested in seeing something like that. I looked at the prefab editor today for the first time and found it a bit overwhelming lol. I think it would be useful to have a video like you proposed as a reference.

Thanks @ate0ate, I also posted the question in discussions, but there was no other interest. My next POI will either be a resort hotel or downtown hospital, but I probably won't record it. We'll see.

[ate0ate]

No problem, you certainly do not have to record the process. Either one of those POIs you mentioned would be amazing to see in-game. Now that you bring up a downtown hospital I find it odd that I never noticed the curious lack of medical facilities before. Seems like something that would definitely offer an opportunity for a high-level dungeon crawl and really decent medical loot. I mean, what place would possibly be more overrun with zeds than a hospital?

[Deverezieaux]

The new 42x42 hospital is coming along well, but I have a minor head-scratcher. I would like to keep a drive through for the emergency room, however downtown tiles do not have driveway exits. I'd like this to work in both Country Town and Downtown tiles, but it looks silly to have a drive through that opens onto a sidewalk. Some downtown tiles actually have walls or planters and other objects that would block a drive and make it look even sillier. I don't want to build a custom tile every time I build a new POI, so I'm trying to think of a workaround short of dropping the driveway, or limiting it to Country Town. 

 

One possible workaround could be tagging it as commercial. The commercial tiles have parking lots and drives and with a minor tweak it would work very well. The current vanilla big hospital is tagged as downtown and commercial. Thoughts on this approach?

 

[Laz Man]

12 minutes ago, Deverezieaux said:

The new 42x42 hospital is coming along well, but I have a minor head-scratcher. I would like to keep a drive through for the emergency room, however downtown tiles do not have driveway exits. I'd like this to work in both Country Town and Downtown tiles, but it looks silly to have a drive through that opens onto a sidewalk. Some downtown tiles actually have walls or planters and other objects that would block a drive and make it look even sillier. I don't want to build a custom tile every time I build a new POI, so I'm trying to think of a workaround short of dropping the driveway, or limiting it to Country Town. 

 

One possible workaround could be tagging it as commercial. The commercial tiles have parking lots and drives and with a minor tweak it would work very well. The current vanilla big hospital is tagged as downtown and commercial. Thoughts on this approach?

 

 

42x42 downtown POIS have a small alleyway (6m wide from back edge?) In the back which all downtown tiles are designed to work with.  You could rotate your POI so your driveway is in the back but then you would also have to shrink it down some as well. (Or at least adjust driveway entry)

 

Commercial 42x42s POIs don't use any driveway parts but do require an asphalt connection from the front if you want an access way that wraps around back.

Edited March 13, 2022 by Laz Man (see edit history)

[Deverezieaux]

Thanks Laz. I've experimented since my post spawning it in maps designating it as commercial, and it actually works pretty well. The parking lots for commercial 42x42 seem to work out with the placement of the drive. I made the drive-through a loop so it enters and exits from the facing side. I did spend some time looking at the downtown tiles, and noticed the alley might work. I'll have to experiment with the tags and generating various worlds to see how it spawns.

[zztong]

17 hours ago, Laz Man said:

42x42 downtown POIS have a small alleyway (6m wide from back edge?) In the back which all downtown tiles are designed to work with.  You could rotate your POI so your driveway is in the back but then you would also have to shrink it down some as well. (Or at least adjust driveway entry)

 

Hmm, suddenly the Parking Garages make more sense. Custom tiles aren't allowing for the alleys, so I end up with Parking Garages with vehicle entrance alleys smashed up against other POIs or Tile content with no access to a road. I've never seen a parking garage where the vehicle entrances are around back. I had been thinking the Parking Garages had the wrong facing.

Edited March 14, 2022 by zztong (see edit history)

[Deverezieaux]

I'm going to stick with using commercial tags for the POI. I did add a narrow road in front, and could change the facing, but looking at it in the downtown tiles using the alley it doesn't always look "logical." In the commercial tiles however it looks great, and often spawns in a tile adjacent to a downtown tile so it fits in, and the parking areas in commercial tiles, at least in my tests, look really great.

 

Unfortunately I changed something that made the POI stop spawning in my test maps, either that or I'm just getting really unlucky random gen. Not sure if there's anything special about the commercial tiles that's causing a problem.

 

EDIT: Figured out the spawn issue, it was a size problem. There were some flat blocks I didn't notice that actually made it 42x43. Looks really good in the commercial tiles.

Edited March 15, 2022 by Deverezieaux (see edit history)

[Deverezieaux]

To give a comparison, here's what it looks like rotated to fit in the downtown tiles. It's pretty cramped.

[stallionsden]

48 minutes ago, Deverezieaux said:

To give a comparison, here's what it looks like rotated to fit in the downtown tiles. It's pretty cramped.

Definitely looks better in the commercial I agree. 

 

The openness of the commercial in the pic compared to downtown is more suited.. great work 👏 

[Deverezieaux]

The Downtown Hospital is now done, pathed, optimized and tested. The links is here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rYZl-zTz1rcnxayV2rTU9cIwvIlr4F8W/view?usp=sharing

 

It is a tier 5, I could've bumped down the zombie count and made it tier 4, but it was right on the edge. Let me know if anyone comes across any issues.

[stallionsden]

1 hour ago, Deverezieaux said:

The Downtown Hospital is now done, pathed, optimized and tested. The links is here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rYZl-zTz1rcnxayV2rTU9cIwvIlr4F8W/view?usp=sharing

 

It is a tier 5, I could've bumped down the zombie count and made it tier 4, but it was right on the edge. Let me know if anyone comes across any issues.

another fine poi 🙂 to look forward to going thru 🙂 

[Deverezieaux]

Thanks! It’s the first POI I’ve done with a restore power quest. For those that don’t know restore power turns off all of the light fixtures in a POI, so I added torches, candles, lanterns, and flashlights to help with the pathfinding in this quest. Not sure that’s how TFP does them. I’ve played a bunch of restore power quests in vanilla POIs, but this is the first time I had to work through it in my POI design. I always test nighttime pathfinding without using a helmet light and felt adding some standalone lights would help. I’d appreciate everyone’s thoughts on this approach. 

[Deverezieaux]

Hi all, just a note that I made some minor edits to the hospital and updated the file at the existing link. Please re-download for the latest version.

[Deverezieaux]

Hi all, it's that time again. Thinking of what type of POI to do next, and looking for ideas. I always try to think of "what do we need more of?" in terms of types of POIs. I don't want to do anything too big this time. I'd appreciate everyone's thoughts!

[zztong]

On 3/24/2022 at 12:46 PM, Deverezieaux said:

Hi all, it's that time again. Thinking of what type of POI to do next, and looking for ideas. I always try to think of "what do we need more of?" in terms of types of POIs. I don't want to do anything too big this time. I'd appreciate everyone's thoughts!

 

Just thoughts...

 

There's a vanilla tile (rwg_tile_downtown_t) that has a Medium POI marker with a special tag (tdowntowntile). There are only 3 vailla POIs with that tag, so they are the only things that can land there: church_01, coursehouse_med_01, and remnant_church_01. Maybe you've got an idea for something that fits that spot.

 

There's lots of T5 content for inside of cities and towns and very little late game reason to go out into the wilderness. Maybe you've got an idea for a T5 wilderness POI?

[Deverezieaux]

I like that idea and that tile. I looked at a few tiles when I was trying to figure out how to make my custom tiles for the Government Skyscraper and University Campus. I also like the POIs that currently go in there, and another would be great. It's only 60x60 so not too big.

 

I'd stay away from a tier 5 for that, make something a bit shorter and more open like the few that currently go there. Probably end up with a tier 3 or 4. The Courthouse and Church are tier 4, but the remnant church is tier 1. I also have a map where large_park_01 spawned there and that's tier 0. I wouldn't want to do another church or government building like a courthouse. That tile seems to me to be designed around the idea of a town center. I'm thinking a retrofitted multiplex theater, though I know we have a few theaters in both vanilla and custom. I'll think some more on it.

 

I was thinking about a tier 5 wilderness POI when I came back from vacation. Specifically a resort hotel. I'd probably do 150x150 so I could include a private lake as part of the POI. I need a break from tier 5's for a little bit, so I probably will do that after this one.

[zztong]

20 hours ago, Deverezieaux said:

I was thinking about a tier 5 wilderness POI when I came back from vacation. Specifically a resort hotel. I'd probably do 150x150 so I could include a private lake as part of the POI. I need a break from tier 5's for a little bit, so I probably will do that after this one

 

You could go larger than 150x150 in the wilderness, but it does tend to decimate things like mountains. That's the common problem I run into with a wilderness idea is that I want lots of room because there's not as much reason to build up.

 

I've partly thought about using "settlement" options to make for a "wilderness-like" experience made up of a number of POIs. I'd turn off the Trader, like the Western Town does. I think it needs TFP to implement custom Gateway Tiles to be viable. Plus, it becomes another really large project as you'd make a number of Tiles and a number of POIs.

 

I understand needing a break from T5's. I've got one on my workbench now and a larger goal that I'm excited about, but larger projects can be so draining. I recognize there's a lot of player demand for T5's for late-game content. I also recognize there's a need for more POI diversity because folks crave that "new POI" experience and because folks want to push the boundaries of current map limits (bigger maps, bigger cities) which then must reuse content.

[Deverezieaux]

Looks like I'm going with the theater idea. Wanted to make sure I could build a good looking but structurally stable marquee first. I guess I could.

[Deverezieaux]

This is really coming along. I may make it a tier 4.

[Deverezieaux]

I always (well, usually) save an un-dungeonized, undamaged version of my POIs. This is the "clean" version of the theater if anyone wants to take a look.

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xaOaktAlQXGJpgY3SdTJtrynbeX15J17/view?usp=sharing

[Deverezieaux]

Here is the fully dungeonized, optimized, pathed, etc. downtown theatre for the t-intersection tile. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CTIBexJNxSMXwMcWmauzWrTga4ETVG2E/view?usp=sharing

 

It's tier 4, though not terribly long, I've included many zombie rushes. I've playtested it and tested it in random gen, though every POI can always use more testing.

 

[Deverezieaux]

I was going to make a tier 5 wilderness POI, a resort hotel by a lake, but I took a look at the chart mplogue put together on Discord showing the lack of Rural tier 3 medium 60x60 POIs. I could do a tier 3 resort hotel tagged rural, but given that rural is primarily farmland it may be a bit out of place, though I'm not sure. With the size limitations in I could do another motel, which would be more suitable for a rural setting, but I feel like there are enough motels. I'll think on this some more and as always suggestions are welcome.

[stallionsden]

7 hours ago, Deverezieaux said:

I was going to make a tier 5 wilderness POI, a resort hotel by a lake, but I took a look at the chart mplogue put together on Discord showing the lack of Rural tier 3 medium 60x60 POIs. I could do a tier 3 resort hotel tagged rural, but given that rural is primarily farmland it may be a bit out of place, though I'm not sure. With the size limitations in I could do another motel, which would be more suitable for a rural setting, but I feel like there are enough motels. I'll think on this some more and as always suggestions are welcome.

Build what ever you like I say, your prefabs are awesome.