Regarding the randomness on the mapgenerator

Started by Berownie, August 30, 2016, 06:29:21 AM

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Berownie

TL;DR: only read bold text

Greetings Readers,

As every other player I've started a new save due to the incompatibility with the new patch. What I've done different to propably most players is, that I've choosen a worldseed and location I already know. Just a quick game to check out the new features while having to worry less about where to setup my colony.

Now what I've noticed is that marsh, shallow water and deep water are generated randomly. That confused me in the first moment and made think.

How much randomness should there be when choosing the same location on the same worldseed?

The impact of water bodies in the current state of the game is big. They bear no ressources. You are unable to build on them. Walking over them either reduces the travelspeed or you are unable to do it at all.
Yes, you can terraform it. But that isn't a reasonable answer due to shear amount of time you have to invest. Even more so when you play a Tribe scenario.

Due to the random generation of water bodies I see no benefit in using the same worldseed and location in biomes that have big water bodies.

Lets be honest and not act like it is a bigger deal than it is. The amount of people who are affected by this are very few. Realistically close to unnoticeable.
Yet this locks me out fo some quality of life advantages. I'm a veteran player with several hundreds hours of gameplay. I've spent around two weeks of my life playing RimWorld. Mentioning this I hope to appeal to other longtime players with the same view on this topic.

I've remembered some worldseed and locations for different scenarios. While the water bodies are not the reason I play on those maps I now have to reconsider each time wether or not the location fits the scenario.

Shouldn't the same worldseed and location help to play very specific scenarios that are only playable when certain conditions are met?

For example I've done a custom scenario as a tribe in tundra with no growing period. There is a big enough patch of fertile soil so that you are able to grow enough potatoes and harvest them the evening before they freeze to death in the following night.
I am unable to do this very specific scenario if the patch of fertile soil is obstructed in any way.

Now let us take this thought further. What if fertility gets randomized? On one hand it adds to the variety of map generation. On the other hand you rely more on random generated values when you try to hit certain conditions.

Some people might ask me why I don't just deal with how the map is generated. Let me tell you that I've already had enough fun with that. I've played so many games that I don't want to make a custom challenge on a map that I know it's not possible. My save file folder was several gigabytes big from abandoned permadeath games.

Let us come to a solution. Is it possible to add a seed to the map generator as there is a seed to the world generator?

I don't want to tell anyone they have to change how the map generator should work. Also I don't want to keep anyone from adding new values to it.

I'd just like to be able to reuse a map with little differences when I realize it would be perfect for a customized challenge.