[A17] Rainbeau's Fertile Fields

[dburgdorf]

Unless you've fixed this recently, I think the removing sand near shallow water is not properly giving piles of sand.

That was fixed four updates ago, back on June 4.

[morgredblack]

Why doesn't the create compost from corpse work?

[dburgdorf]

Why doesn't the create compost from corpse work?

It seems to be working just fine.... What exactly is the problem you're encountering? Are you not seeing the "cremate for compost" recipe?

[Canute]

You have 2 times "packed dirt"
- packed dirt terraform
- packed dirt floor.

I think you shold rename the packed dirt floor into smooth dirt/terrain. So people don't think they could terraform the packed dirt floor into Soil.

[dburgdorf]

You have 2 times "packed dirt"

I'm afraid I have no idea what you mean. There's only one "packed dirt" terrain in the game. It's one of the new "road" surfaces. "Fertile Fields" adds the ability to turn packed dirt into usable soil, or vice versa.

[Canute]

Damn, yeah you right the packed dirt floor is part part of the tropical mod. I will suggest that at the other thread.

[MisterVertigo]

I've been playing with this mod for a while now, and I'm far enough along in my colony that I've really used it a lot.

I was initially concerned with how I was going to get enough "rotted" food and things to make compost, until I realized I can turn dead raiders and other animals into compost with the crematorium. That worked really well, and since I don't turn dead raiders into hats, I now I have a use for all those dead raiders!

I made one mistake though. I was trying to place marsh in my killbox, and I accidentally used the farming tab and put "Fertile Soil" over some smooth stone, thinking I could then turn it into marsh. However, I was wrong as marsh only works on regular soil. So, I had to turn the rough granite into gravel, and then gravel into soil, and then soil into marsh. It worked out well though, and for the first time I was able to place marsh all throughout my killbox without having to use the admin tools!

Now I'm working on getting enough fertilizer to eventually get all my farmland maxed out with fertility!

Overall I think this is mod is balanced pretty well. If you want to transform the land to something else, it's possible but it does take a lot of work by your colonists. It's nice that you have to get resources like dirt, gravel, or sand to transform the terrain. There is a crafting process for making fertilizer too that I like. It's not too easy to get, so you can't just use it everywhere.

My only complaint is something that I'm not sure you can fix. It is slightly confusing with the number of icons on the Terraforming menu. I realize there are so many because there are lots of different types of terrain, but sometimes it takes a few minutes to figure out exactly what I need to place in order to get to where I want. Like I said before, to turn rough granite into marsh, I had to first turn it to gravel, and then to soil, and then finally marsh. So, I needed some crushed rocks, some fertilizer, and some dirt. I wish I could help you come up with an idea as to how to make it less confusing, but I'm not sure how. I'm only throwing this out there because it's something I encountered, but it's certainly not enough to keep me from using the mod.

Anyway, I just wanted to say thank you for making this! I'm really enjoying using it and keep up the good work!

[kaptain_kavern]

Damn, yeah you right the packed dirt floor is part of the tropical mod. I will suggest that in the other thread.

Yep, it's from mine. I needed something to make my floor/path so I looked into Core. As dburgdorf It seems .
I will look into naming this otherwise in my mod (don't change anything for me, dburgdorf)...

But wait I'm thinking about something. dburgdorf could you correct me if I'm wrong, please ?
If I rename my modded floor to be called exactly like yours and mention to load your mod last; there is a way for me to make something like you did for yours and VG, in terms of integration?

[dburgdorf]

It is slightly confusing with the number of icons on the Terraforming menu.

First, thanks for the kind words! Second, yeah, I'm not entirely happy with the menu, myself, but haven't really come up with a better option.

Shortly before a17 came out, I briefly toyed with the idea of replacing the current set of icons with icons based on what was being added or removed from a tile (for example, "add fertilizer" or "remove gravel" or whatever). But while that would have reduced the number of menu icons, though not necessarily by all that much when all was said and done, it would have ended up being substantially less intuitive.

The "obvious" way to simplify the menu would be to have just one icon for each soil type (for example, one icon that, when placed, produces soil from whatever was there before).  Unfortunately, that's not really workable, since each icon has to be attached to a specific action. I can't have just a single menu icon to turn a variety of different terrain types to dirt, as each of those conversions is a distinct action (technically a distinct "building" as far as the code is concerned), with its own cost, work amount, etc.

All that said, I am certainly open to suggestions, if anyone can come up with an alternative I haven't considered yet, or can point out a better and/or more flexible way to code things.

If I rename my modded floor to be called exactly like yours and mention to load your mod last; there is a way for me to make something like you did for yours and VG, in terms of integration?

I haven't actually created a new floor; the "packed dirt" in "Fertile Fields" is the same "packed dirt" used in vanilla for dirt roads. All I've done is add ways to create and destroy it.

Depending upon exactly what you've done with your floor, though, I'm sure we can come up with a way to make sure the mods integrate well.

[wwWraith]

Regarding menu icons: maybe looking on right click options with them in Allow Tool (https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=17218) could give you some ideas... Like one icon for every type of terrain that you want to get, then right click to choose its "source". Or vice versa.
Or maybe also one icon for wanted terrain but actually put "hidden" actions depending on the source. Maybe even automatically put next step designations when job finished (probably in a way similar to Quality Builder - https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=25188).

[DariusWolfe]

Are context-sensitive buttons possible?

[MisterVertigo]

Regarding menu icons: maybe looking on right click options with them in Allow Tool (https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=17218) could give you some ideas... Like one icon for every type of terrain that you want to get, then right click to choose its "source". Or vice versa.

Would be be kind of like building a workbench like the butcher table, where you can right-click the icon and choose what you want to make it out of (or place it on in this case). You could click on "Soil" and choose that you want to place it on, like Gravel, Sand, Marsh, etc. It would then create the blueprint that requires whatever is needed to build it.

[dburgdorf]

Regarding menu icons: maybe looking on right click options with them

I like that idea. I like it a lot. I'll see what I can do about actually implementing it. 

[notfood]

I suggest you take a look into Architect Sense

https://github.com/FluffierThanThou/RW_ArchitectSense

It shows multiple building icons grouped under a designator.

[dburgdorf]

I suggest you take a look into Architect Sense

Thank you! That will work perfectly!

And perhaps the best thing about it is that it doesn't even create a mandatory dependency. The XML defs for the subcategories -- like the "Seeds Please!" defs to create seeds -- are simply ignored if "Architect Sense" isn't installed.

So if a player has "Architect Sense" installed, they'll see a "Terraform" menu with a few icons representing target terrain types, with subcategories to select what terrain is to be converted.  But if they don't, they'll see the same menu that exists now.