Why make bigger maps? Just make seperate zones.

[LT Alter]

I think the game could profit from utilizing a zone based system, this would not require much extra load or cause performance issues.  It would allow for things like enemy bases or even entirely separate colonies (Possibly from other survivors from your ship crash)

By zone based system I mean where you can move from zone to zone, of entirely new maps.  Leaving your old zone so it no longer has to be rendered or run by the system.  Using a simple calculation system to govern what is happening in the other zone without using any performance to produce graphics and such. 

Thoughts on this?

[Semmy]

I'm not completely sure but im 99% sure that tynan said something about the game having to keep running so zoning out wouldnt really work.

Let me try and find it.

[Dewburry]

I really like this idea: I have no trouble with a relatively small area for my own base, but it would be cool to have an idea of what's beyond the next hill. Perhaps, if there couldn't be wholly rendered separate zones, RimWorld could at least have an over world map that would show the locations of whatever else might be out there with you.

[nomadseifer]

This has been brought up numerous times.  There seems to be confusion about what is the limiting factor: GPU or CPU.  In this case, it is the CPU.  The Graphics are not a problem.  So 'unloading' just the graphics of a zone would not represent any reduction in performance.  The CPU has to calculate what is going on in each tile/colonist/etc, every 'tick'.  That is what eats up the CPU.  So whether or not the player is 'in' a zone, it still has to run through all those calculations to maintain a persistent world.  Adding a zone (and doubling the world size) would double those number of calculations and thus make the game run slower.  Tynan has said he plans optimizations in the future that would potentially enable larger map sizes but a 'zone system', how you describe it, is not possible. 

[British]

Oh my, poor, poor Search function and Read Me First thread, always getting the cold shoulder, even though you have so much to give...

Makes a sad panda out of me

[Semmy]

Oh my, poor, poor Search function and Read Me First thread, always getting the cold shoulder, even though you have so much to give...

Makes a sad panda out of me

Dont be sad british have some sugercane.

And the last 2 links british posted are the once i was looking for but i bumped into a bug in rimworld wich needed reporting

[nomadseifer]

And, to directly quote British's second link.  Tynan said:

You probably won't be going off the map just because it strikes me as inelegant game design. The game is about your colony and the area surrounding it; how you've build the place up and customized it, and the history of events that have occured nearby. We've invested a huge amount of designer and player effort in making that an interesting space with meaning in it. And the AI makes all sorts of assumptions about the game that would break if you took away the base. Sending you off-map throws that all away.

Also, it creates technical/logical problems. Loading into and out of multiple maps is a bit of a headache. Plus, you'd have to tick the original map while you were looking at another one (otherwise it would be frozen in time), which creates a huge performance hit. And you'd have to create new systems for handling needs like eating and sleeping, because they wouldn't be able to go to their beds or a nutrient dispenser.

I'd rather just have a bigger map that you can discover over time, with targets for optional offensive ops scattered around.

[Semmy]

Closed. Use the provided links to continue this discussion.