Map cropping

[Yoshida Keiji]

Cropping is a term common in image editing applications, like when you take a screenshot but you want to "cut out" the borders. With this notion, I think the maps should allow the player to "crop" and "center" the area where we want to play. For instance if you want to play a default map size if 250x250, give the player an initial 275x275 and allow the player to crop within.

I always get this feeling as why not "move" the map's center 5 tiles in one direction and leave out the other 5 tiles of the opposite direction. The way maps are generated are somehow odd, specially when looking for Steam Geysers and most or all of them appear at the map borders, same for mountains, rivers and roads.

[sick puppy]

why not just play on the largest map? those maps are so huge you barely if ever visit the sides anyway, so if your base isnt perfectly in the middle, you wouldnt even notice the difference. from an old post of yours i remember you stating that you play on those...but i guess for people that dont have a pc strong enough for that kind of maps it would be a nice idea. some tiny maps really are weird. once had a shore map where literally 70% or more was water...(but i am not entirely sure if it was an encounter map or not...or if the water was shallow or not...but still)

[Calahan]

why not just play on the largest map?

Keep in mind that the larger/largest maps can break the game. And not in a performance sense (although that is an issue as well). Here's a recent post by Tynan (on Reddit) giving some examples of the problems it can cause.
https://www.reddit.com/r/RimWorld/comments/7zcrnk/building_a_conputer_and_i_want_to_be_able_to/dun2x1w/


"Just an example, in winter if you release a prisoner he might just die before he gets to the map edge.

People take a long time from the edge of the map to the colony, so the AI can end up running out of food or energy before he gets from edge to center or vice versa.

You effectively can't do things like mine across the map because it takes absurdly long to walk there and back.

Colonists get tired and decide to go for food but they have to walk so far they get really pissed off before they arrive.

Colonists won't understand the concept if you try to make two separated bases and will waste a ton of time shuttling between them.

All this is really exacerbated with slow pawns and winter conditions.

These are just examples."

[Yoshida Keiji]

Is Calahan a psychic? He hit it.

I was having a conversation in Discord with other RSG players in which I was sharing the opinion that:

"There is almost no difficulty difference between Rough level and Intense level."

To what somebody else replied that my own experience might have something to do with the facts that I always had been playing in 400x400 maps and that I should go back to 250x250 in order to notice more the difference between game difficulties.

One of my statements was that: Infestations can be left to expand without any negative impact. That happened to me because in one of my Intense difficulty games, I had built my base at the Western side which also had a coast, and an Infestation spawned at the Eastern map border because I was double layering an Ancient Shrine nearby. And that Infestation ended up handling 75% of the raids. In that game, I couldn't go to deal with the Infestation when it just started because I had no intellectual character with "Interest" or "Passion" so my technological research was still far away from gunpowder weaponry and all my ranged were low skilled as well. This is partly because I don't "randomize" my starting pawns and I just play with the first 5 that appear on screen.

(I still have the save file if you want to see it yourself, Insectoids would run halfway the map and then return to their hive at any attack against them, but because of the 400x400 map size, they still couldn't reach my base.)

So...of course..., when I decided to play default map size again... and the map generated...I had this wish of moving the "playable" area 5 tiles to one side and came up with cropping.

I just loved to play 400x400 maps this far because I could get 3 Ancient Shrines, but my experiences weren't proper arguments to discuss game balance aspects.

BUT

At the same time, I had none of the problems mentioned by Tynan in that reddit post...except maybe for...PATHING...

I was noticing that "released" prisoners would make even a full circle around the map borders instead of just exiting towards the closer edge and that some of the released enemies would even "return" back inside my base...and with the long journey in circles...then yes, some would just get self-downed...but again...that is more Tynan's fault than the player.

I really hope Version 1.0 will be fixing Pathing, removing Auto-Undraft and leaving Tornado as it is instead of a super weapon...and bringing back "Repair" to the Work Tab.

[Bozobub]

Pathing has been a bugaboo of RimWorld for a long time, now.  there's at least one mod that apparently helps, although I don't recall the name, sadly.