[A16]Better Terrain

[blackhalo]

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------------------------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

[O Negative]

VERY nice, indeed! I don't like to use mods made by others too often, but I'm definitely adding this to my next playthrough.

I guess my latest colony burning down was a blessing in disguise

[Darkmark8910]

Beautiful! Now to test to see if this works with CK's plant/animal additions to the tropical biome as well This looks astounding!

[Qwynn]

Oh, wow! Looking good!

Temperate Biomes absolutely need some river love as well. I'm super excited to see what you can do!

[ajaviide]

screens look awesome!
ill deff try it when i start new colony.

bookmarked

[b4d]

must.. resist.. restarting a new colony.. 

those preview images looks dope!

[drakulux]

I will be eagerly anticipating this for desert biomes

[blackhalo]

<--- eagerly anticipating for desrt biomes.

Any suggestions, gameplay wise, for what you want there?

Deserts seemed the toughest to really overhaul since, well, there isn't much to work with.

[Zxypher]

<--- eagerly anticipating for desrt biomes.

Any suggestions, gameplay wise, for what you want there?

Deserts seemed the toughest to really overhaul since, well, there isn't much to work with.

Deserts are kinda tough. Maybe just some small creeks & maybe oasis? The mountain changes alone should make desert more interesting.

[Darkmark8910]

Erosion effects (for example, having lots of exposed stone behind the west side of a hill & sand buildup on the east side) and/or an oasis? For deserts!

... or steal desserts from one of the food mods out there and just spawn in desserts....

"LET THERE BE ICE CREAM"

[blackhalo]

Deserts are kinda tough. Maybe just some small creeks & maybe oasis? The mountain changes alone should make desert more interesting.

Yeah oasis's are ez pz, I can pretty much copy pasta Temperate Forests and just tweak the XML file.  That was my plan all along.  Graphically though, not sure it will look much different, maybe I can actually make most of the map long expanses of... well... desert, with occasional mountainy/watery/soily areas.  I dunno.

Erosion effects (for example, having lots of exposed stone behind the west side of a hill & sand buildup on the east side) and/or an oasis? For deserts!
"LET THERE BE ICE CREAM"

Man thats almost too tempting.  Just fill all the desert with a chocolate fudge floor and of course the occasional peanut-butter ribbon...asg;as;glhags;ags...

Anyways, sand buildup? what would that look like?  would it be like a U shaped mountain with normal terrain tucked inside, with sand on the outside?

[Qwynn]

I'm patiently waiting for you to finish before my next game. The work looks amazing thus far. I'm very excited to see what you do with my favourite biome, boreal. As a Canadian may I suggest dense forests and large lakes? Gameplay wise it could be the child of temperate and tropical.

A quick question, actually. if I start a new game now on one of the modified biomes, will future updates affect the terrain generation of that same world for maps I haven't visited (such as starting a second colony or camping with a caravan)?

[blackhalo]

A quick question, actually. if I start a new game now on one of the modified biomes, will future updates affect the terrain generation of that same world for maps I haven't visited (such as starting a second colony or camping with a caravan)?

This mod mainly replaces 3 of the gensteps which are called at new map creation, so I would think so.
I've never tested it to find out, but I probably should.

And boreal forests, any particular colors, should trees be in autumn? should the ground be more yellowy, stoney or brown? should lakes just be generic blue?  any type of flowers/shrubery that would spice it up? Should there be some ice?? I'm kinda hungry for ideas xD

[danielee]

The mod looks great! Looking forward to boreal forest.

[Qwynn]

Alright, prepare for some geekiness on my part regarding boreal forests and their stylisation. I'm so sorry.

But, no -- not really autumn colours.

Boreal forests are actually a very vibrant green year round since they tend to be thick with evergreens. Seeing the work on temperate and the more brown scheme you went with, I'd lean towards going heavy with the foliage and heavy with a blueish, dark green. Give it a cold but living feeling. Rivers are a key feature, but that might make it too similar to your work on the tropical forests. With that in mind, perhaps emphasizing large, long lakes (rather than roundish) would be a better idea. I'd say a majority of evergreen trees with some birch and oak/maple thrown in (while as temperate would be a majority of oak/maple with some evergreens).

Since you went heavy with marshland in tropical, you could consider giving the terrain in boreal a more stony quality, especially around the lakes. I'd really suggest taking some inspiration from the forests near the base of the Rockies in British Colombia and Alberta.

I hope that helps!

(Here are some images I pulled up from various National Parks in Canada. The last two are flatland boreals, for examples).

Moraine Lake
The Rockies
Lake O'hara
Emerald Lake
Ontario Forest
Another Ontario Forest