Topics

I'm about 1/3 way through and just handicapped by my artistic talent, I mean I can make ok stuff after a fashion, it just takes a long while since this is my first time doing it.

Since this mod is ambitious I could use all the help I can get!!!
Imgs so far: http://imgur.com/a/YE4WX
mod page: https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=30203.msg307394#msg307394
This game also has a pretty good modding community, with allot of very good artists, for anyone who is newer at it but interested in learning how to art.

I haven't started 3 biomes yet so there's allot of freedom in style and color in whats left to do.  Most the work is going to be updating existing sprites and adding flare to the Biomes.  I've done some good work with the assemblies so far so there is allot of freedom in where sprites go, how they are scattered and in what quantities (like half sunken trees in the water, or mushrooms making a small field).

At this moment I'm in the middle of updating the jungle.  I've redone the Crecopia tree to give a nifty cannopy feel and have an ok underbrush going on but I still need more splashes of color another tree type and some marsh life.

[------------------------OVERVIEW------------------------]

<!--LOOKING FOR ANYONE WILLING TO HELP MAKE ART ASSETS, YOU'DE BE MY SAVIOR--!>
<!--Taking a break for a couple days--!>

<!--a shout out to you people debugging and giving feedback, you guys are great.  Qwynn you've done a ton--!>
<!--Djnar the savior of my github, the man the myth the legend!!! (who is gonna be making some schwifty caves for the mountains too)--!>

------------------------OVERVIEW------------------------
Mod is in constant updates (which means occasional bugs too) so if your looking to start a 10~ year campaign with this mod I'd recommend waiting a few weeks.

A rock formation, ground placement, biome beautification mod.
More interesting mountain placements and they flow better with the terrain.  There can be rivers, lakes, puddles, fertile patches near water, plains, forests... all in the same map.  Allot of aesthetic touch ups (rock chunks painted behind trees, better sprite coloring and clumping, exc).

imgs: http://imgur.com/a/YE4WX
Each screen cap is maybe 1/6 of a 350*350 map, so there is allot I couldn't show.
----------------------LAST PATCH-------------------------------
0.065
   -First release of smoother terrain transition.  Still will be fiddling to see if i can find any other ways to improve this.
   -Slightly less mountains (occasionally causing bugs, because tooo many)
   -Better grass shape and color
   -Temperate forests are buffed to 75% of the typical precious metal amount (up from 0-50~).  Deserts are down to 65%.  Tundras/shrublands/boreal forests raised to 140, 130, 115 respectively.
0.064
   -Tweaking the look and spread of grass to be mildly more visually appealing while not providing large overlap with growing zone plants.
   -Increased overall density of trees a little.
   -Made plant density change across the map (some areas have very dense patches, others less so)
   -Edited some plants to be more easily clicked on
0.063
   -Removed 'hard rocks'.  Going to rehash the idea and probably add it as an optional test-side-mod in the next version.
   -Mountainous tiles, now with 30% more mountain.
   -Updated Rock Chunk art (not final art, just sick of looking at vanilla rock chunks).
0.062
   -The mod shouldn't be red in the modlist.
   -Fixed a lil bit of the clipping in the tropical forest, gotta still test elephants though.
0.060 is up.  Big patch!!!
   -Rock chunks will not be floating above a 30ft tree.  They now get painted behind!!
   -Testing if people and animals walking behind trees looks good too.
   -Tropical forest art is getting closer to done, so its up for testing.  Forests so thick you might lose track of your colonists!
   -Cleaned up other biomes so they are at least more beautiful than vanilla (not that that says much).

-Incompatibilites.
For a few patches, till I clean it up, this mod will conflict with animal stat changing mods.  Unfortunate but the only easy way to get animals drawn behind trees while I test if its a good change.

-------------------------Progress-----------------------------
Art...
I'm sorry I can't make art for every biome myself, I don't have the time, so it might never happen.

Temperate Forest... 90% done
Tropical Forest... 40% done
Others... 5% ? done

Eventual Goals
-Make the beachmaker good.  Right now shores are a mess, especially if you're map tries to have any sort of interesting terrain (very jarring transitions).
-Something for better mountain interaction, whether thats caves or more rock types... I don't know.
-World peace?

------------------Download--------------------
recommended to load this mod late if not last.
IF UPDATING VERSIONS BE SURE TO DELETE THE OLD ONE!!!

download: https://www.dropbox.com/s/9su8pasyeidzto7/Better%20Terrain_0.065.rar?dl=0
----
Edits..
Defs:Biomes, BasicMapGenerator, Terrain, Plants_Wild_Temperate/Arid/Tropical (edited to use my plant imgs)
Assemblies:GenStep_ElevationFertility, GenStep_Plants, GenStep_RocksFromGrid, GenStep_Terrain, BeachMaker
techy stuff: https://github.com/tenbom/BetterTerrain

This is a few large tweaks to the formulas RimWorld uses to place terrain and mountains, along with a few custom made terrain imgs.

I wasn't intending this to be a mod, but after I stumbled upon a few code tweaks that ended with fiiiiine looking land... I figured I'd take it the full hog, so in the mean time I'm upload what I've finished so far.

The mod generates terrain much differently causing smoother transitions and different focuses for different parts of the map.  One side of the map can be dry and mountainy, while the other is lush.

The Tropical Forest was made to make it feel like a brazilian rain forest.  That means tons of rivers, tons of dense slow-to-traverse forests, little good farm land and few open areas.
The Temperate Forest was made to draw more on the 'cradle of civilizations' idea.  The good farm land is near water.


-----
github: https://github.com/tenbom/BetterTerrain
imgs: http://imgur.com/a/YE4WX

A fun game, props to devs.  But something has been slowly eating away at me.  It just feels like this game is so close to something utterly addicting.  I started thinking that a few more events and some tweaked defensive structures could do it.  I messed around modding some stuff but it just wasn't there.  I'm not pretending to know what the game needs, but instead I'm rambling out a few ideas in an attempt to show what I'm feeling its missing.

'you can only see where your colonists can see, everything else is dimmed'.  The goal of something like that is to bring excitement even to simple AI and repetitive events.  Especially if stuff like small raids (2-4 people) and whatnot didn't always have a notification pop up.  On the side, it would introduce a new time sink, guarding and new weapons like binoculars/looking-glass to increase sight range.   Bandits that just try to steal stuff could cause problems and hunting won't just be point and click on an animal, you'd have to wonder around and find them.  It'd soak up allot of man hours, possibly giving room to open up a more lenient hauling system (adding carts or sleds or whatnot)

If you built more camps, had multiple site locations across the map.  It'd mean being beaten back in a raid isn't akin to losing everything.  Actually promoting that playstyle might be tough, maybe if resources were more segmented around the map and there were ways to transport, at least colonists, or possible safehouses (a 1 or 2*2 structure that is VERY STRONG that you can hide your most important stuff or people in)  Maybe if gathering wood and mining had a 2nd step, you chopped the tree and then had to lumber it in a building, like you do with stone chunks it could help that too.

Make pros and cons to different shelter areas.  If you had to relly on different defenses when surviving in the open forest verse in a mountain, it could add allot more replay value to the game.  I mainly do medieval games, so if one of the main traps was only buildable on diggable ground or if fire was a more valid defense tool... like if you could build deliberate 'traps' that are just very flammable and walk-over-able... I've been messing around with using fire as a defense tool and I see allot of potential.  Especially if you make stone walls somewhat flammable and building rubble flammable too.

Aaanyways, well done, keep it up the good work