Food for thought; 3D Rimworld.

[Anduin1357]

[The OP is a rant, I know.]
Have you ever wondered what would change with Rimworld if it was created with the next dimension up? What do you think it might have looked? Would it be similar to playing top-down Arma RTS-Tactical Simulator?
[OP Wall of discussion text]
My idea with this goes...
Playing with actual Fog of War, with accuracy being determined no longer as a triangle but as a cone? Where bullets are so small, it isn't rendered except in an ammo cartridge. Where water can be simulated and made underground aquifers that either flood your base or supply you the gift of hydration. Where raiders no longer walk all around mountains and hills but walk on them, dig into them and fall into your base as a large nuisance. Piles of resources no longer pile up in 75 stacks but in solid volume, no longer does the tyranny of 20x gold volume plague us, 1cm^3 is good enough, thank you.

Having traps in 3 dimensions,  gaping infinite-like holes falling for 100 metres built by prisoners, entire forts built in mountains of granite and ancient titanium steel able to withstand, for reasons unknown, nuclear assault just to defeat that 600 strong army of raiding whomever you offended with just all but 40 or so colonists surviving on hydroponics and a Geohydrothermoelectric generator straining to get 8k power for your colony. It truly can be epic.
[Rant stop]
Perhaps, by then, we would have escaped to version A20 of Rimworld by the time A1 of 3D Rimworld is complete...

[BetaSpectre]

My computer probably couldn't take the awesome.

[Goo Poni]

If Rimworld is incredibly successful, then maybe Rimworld 2 can go 3d, similar to how SPAZ went 3d or at least 2.5d. The main thing I'd want out of a 3d Rimworld is just the ability to stack rooms on each other so I can make interior apartments like prison cells (though more roomy, obviously) and to have sniping look-out towers/bunkers watching over the main entrance to my Rimworld impersonation of a Vault. With murder holes and dim lighting inside so all the raiders see is the muzzle flash of snipers, at least until one smartass raider gets close enough to let fly with a rocket. Stacked hydroponics bays so instead of troughs, it's a greenhouse with rows and rows of green like some nature science experiment gone wrong. A central living area with various recreational things and a kitchen in the back while stairs lead up to everyone's quarters like a dorm. That'd be nice.

The problem with 3d tile/voxel based worlds where you do not have direct control over how you shape it (like Minecraft) then you have the potential to end up like Towns which is absolutely nightmarish in it's implementation of 3d buildings.

[milon]

Let me google that for you   
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=site%3Aludeon.com+tynan+z+levels

[scyth]

Suggested at least once a week.

Outside the scope of the game. It would require a major rewrite to many systems such as pathfinding and level building.

[SSS]

To those referring to Z-levels, that's not what the OP is talking about.

He's talking about rendering the game in three dimensions rather than two, which doesn't necessarily require Z-levels, though requests for them would probably be even more through the roof than they are now if that happened.

[Coenmcj]

Making something that is 2D into a 3D game without the 3rd part of the co-ordinate system is next to impossible

Let me google that for you   
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=site%3Aludeon.com+tynan+z+levels

That was a good laugh, Cheers. I forgot that that site existed.

[Anduin1357]

I'm thinking a seamless, 3D world that is not defined by blocks but a huge mesh of a world.
An example of such a world would be the Sims.

Basically, this game, rendered sims style.
Kinda hard to describe If I contradict myself, forgive my hard-to-portray thinking.
You would need a z-level, yes, but it needn't snap to a block form.

I'm just giving the idea of this, not asking that this be the case. This is food for thought, not a suggestion for z-levels.
To re-iterate, "what would change with Rimworld if it was created with the next dimension up?"

[milon]

Ah, I misunderstood. My bad.

I think a 3D version might actually be possible via a HUGE amount of mod work.  The mood would have access to the map data the game uses to plot all the sprites/effects. It would have to supply its own z-values for everything.  Then it's just a small matter of generating appropriate 3D meshes for literally everything, rendering it all, applying lighting effects, HUD, etc.

That's a very interesting question - what would change? How would the mechanics differ?

[akiceabear]

I think there is a chance of this happening one day, but admittedly it is quite low and would require the enormous devotion of time from a very talented modder (or team of modders). I do agree that it would be great to see, but I certainly am not the one to do it, so until then I'll just patiently hope and enjoy the already great game

AFAIK Dwarf Fortress did not initially have Z-levels, and even now modders are playing a lot with changing the visualization of the vanilla experience, which is very bland. Even if z-levels are not specifically added at some point, I think we can all look forward a lot of wealth of new content (utility, game mechanics, and content/skins for existing mechanics, etc) from the already great modding community, which is likely to only grow as the game develops further.

For an idea of how big a difference modders can make, take a look at videos of vanilla DF, one with Stonesense (across a range of skins, which are numerous), and the under development Armok Vision.

[Anduin1357]

I think that modding of the game's executable would serve such a mod better and that we would make a 3D version of the Core and make a subforum for 3D mods.

[ja7833]

I don't believe 3D would add anything of substance to the game; Z-levels absolutely but with a significant increase to overall colony management/micromangent.  As a player I think I would rather see the time invested elsewhere (better trading system, water utilities, etc.).

[UMK]

I don't believe 3D would add anything of substance to the game; Z-levels absolutely but with a significant increase to overall colony management/micromangent.  As a player I think I would rather see the time invested elsewhere (better trading system, water utilities, etc.).

There are some non-planar schemes that can't be built on one z-level (like good old puzzle about 3 houses and 3 wells), but enough to introduce at least one additional z-level to make all non-planar schemes buildable. If you had played flat version of DF you would understand how better it became when came to 3D.
Having new z-level underground will allow to avoid roof issues, aiming to other levels issues, temperature transfer and such, and it's not hard to improve pathing to handle multiple levels. On the other hand more than one additional z-level is redundant in my opinion.
There is no adequate way to mod such thing (as well as water mechanics) into the game.

[Anduin1357]

This is not particularly about modding, it aims to ask the question on what would happen if Tynan had made Rimworld 3D from the outset. If I was asking about mod viability, this would be in the modding forums.
Again, this is a discussion on what if Tynan made the game differently kind of scenario, I hope this clears things up.

Please try to keep to the OP topic.


Having more than one Z level or any Z level is irrelevant, this is about full 3D with models like going away from a grid format to a freeform game. Pathing would only need to calculate collision meshes with all simplicity.


Points to anyone who can figure out how might area based commands such as dig be adapted into volume based commands...
clue: You might need a toggle key...


What aspects of a 3D Rimworld would you expect to find which may make your gameplay experience better?
I look forward to seeing 3D animations and getting 3D animation mods to install, after all, it's all about the aesthetic, is it not?