Roof View

[2rok]

After seeing the stairs in the Small Walls 1.5 mod, I thought how cool would it be if Rimworld had a second floor view. I know that multiple levels (like in Dwarf Fortress) will probably never be implemented, but I thought maybe it would be enough to have a switch in game that would simply show the roofs of all buildings and maybe enable the player to build things like defenses on top of the roofs. Then make the Colonists disappear from the players view when they walk on a roof while in "first level view" and reappear when they leave the roof.



Some may now say: "Why stop at one level, why not have several stories and layers and make it a huge, complex mess that no one will enjoy! It's a bad idea to implement just one additional layer to the game and it's too much to add several!"

I agree but I think it would be cool to be able to make things like walkable walls, watchtowers and sun roofs. I think just a simple mode (not a whole new world layer) where roofs would be visible would be enough for this.



So what do you guys think? Has this been proposed before? Would it be impossible to make? Could it maybe be made with a mod?

[StorymasterQ]

Okay, but how would the turrets on the roof calculate its firing probabilities at a raider/tribal/mechanoid? And them at the turrets?

This is a resurfacing of the z-level discussion. The biggest concern is the massive recoding and recalculation required on just that one thing I mentioned above, not to mention other stuff. It's just not feasible in the short run, not without breaking open the current code and rewriting a lot of stuff.

Maybe. Maybe for RimWorld 2, or even RimWorld 3(D). But not for Rimworld, especially the Alpha builds.

[keylocke]

yea, this was discussed before in the old z-level thread way back when.. i believe it went something like this :

- for combat, hit and miss apparently seems to be calculated by percentage : so probably just add hit/range penalties when shooting from below then hit/range bonus when shooting from above or something

- as for pathfinding : i'm not entirely sure what pathfinding algorithm tynan uses. but i think A* pathfinding can function on multiple levels (i think). however, adding more z-levels is probably gonna add more lagspike chokepoints in the late game as well.. so perhaps it was too much hassle to implement or something.

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despite that, if rimworld had z-levels like DF,gnomoria, towns, castlestory, etc.. we'd have more interesting base designs than we do now. right now we're all just stuck in 1 z-level, so there's really not much innovation going on.

[taruser12]

It would be awesome to have more than 1 z-level,we could make things like magma pits,more traps,we could throw prisoners off a ledge,more advanced colonies,we could dig deep into terrain and find caverns,abandoned bunkers,and much more

[TrashMan]

For pathfinding, tiles can have a property that describes if they allow access to a higher/lower level or not.

The algorithm then tries to find a path to such a tile and then when the pawn switches level, does a normal calculation again (remembering the desired destination x,y).

It shouldn't be that complex. Many other games have done it. the issue is how efficient you can make the algorithm.

[2rok]

You can already place things on top of others like when you are in god mode and place a wall over an item, the item isn't deleted but just hidden by the wall (at least i think so). So there is already some sort of layering. Couldn't there be "roof materials" that are on top of other things but are hidden unless you press a button?