Cave height limit should be removed now we can build underground

[Substr 74]

Since underground buildings have now been added, I'd like to suggest that the current height limit of (I believe) 256 between ceiling and floor inside caves is a bug, leftover from before this feature was added, and could be removed so that we can truly create our large underground cities - as it stands now it really creates limitations if you want to create huge open cave areas with multiple levels and buildings.

 

Currently when trying to mine past this you get the message "Lowering the floor further would make the cavern unstable".

[Yaga 2,887]

+1

 

I agree. The limit probably is a leftover from the pre-cave-dwelling times - it should be removed (or at least increased considerably) to allow for impressive underground halls.

 

<whistles: "In the Hall of the Mountain King">

[Tich 1,389]

its because the height between floor and ceiling is held in a byte.

 

e.g. not a bug.

[Yaga 2,887]

Maybe this should go to "Suggestions" then.

[Substr 74]

17 minutes ago, Tich said:

its because the height between floor and ceiling is held in a byte.

 

e.g. not a bug.

 

Can that not be changed?

[Sila 339]

 no need at all  for me....    you can first mine cellings then go down on floors       and you get realy big caves anyway

[taskmaster 59]

2 hours ago, Tich said:

its because the height between floor and ceiling is held in a byte.

 

e.g. not a bug.

Surely in this day and age we can have things larger than a byte, no?

[Yaga 2,887]

27 minutes ago, Sila said:

 no need at all  for me....    you can first mine cellings then go down on floors       and you get realy big caves anyway

 

It makes no difference, you'll still hit the limit of 256!

[JakeRivers 2,921]

Lets make those bytes bigger then!

 

[Ostentatio 1,970]

Yes. Make bytes bigger.

 

I'll start designing the new CPU architecture!

[Tallios 307]

so if i understand

 

33 dirt for first floor, and then (256-33= 223/30 =7.43)  

 

You want underground structures bigger than 8 stories tall?  I don't personally find a great need for it.  

 

16 floors  is the largest anyone can build above ground, and you're unhappy with where underground building is currently at?

[Karrde 336]

byte is the data type for that variable... Java coding stuff.

 

Its one of eight primitive data types Java possesses (last I checked, more might have been added since over the years). Its an 8-bit signed two's complement integer. It has a minimum value of -128 and a maximum value of 127.

 

Granted the data type could be changed in theory; though, no idea offhand just how much rewriting and debugging that would create (haven't seen the extent of the codebase. I really should fork out the money for WU >.<).

 

Let alone increasing memory usage and etc.

 

The other seven are boolean, byte, char, short, int, long, float, and double.

 

EDIT: Personally I'm all for increasing ceiling height, especially as roofs let one "reach" higher.

Edited June 30, 2016 by Karrde

[Jaz 2,663]

Height is fine for me. But add means of scaffolding please ...

[deKeep 0]

Well 256 slopes are very few for making interessting caves. For example I made a small cave in form of a quare - just five times five tiles. I used about 4k concrete to make a pretty nice dome at the ceiling and than I mined it down to the ground - or nearly the ground, because the center tile is  three or four tiles higher than the rest...

 

This is just a very small cave and I have plans for bigger caves with a dome or other stuctures grather than that, but here I get the problem dome needs the half of the diameter for its heigth - plus these few tiles for the smallest cave wall you need under the dome...

 

I know about the complexity of changing the data type of a variable and how many time it takes in a very long source code, but think of the results you can get with it. Often there is a group of player making a big project, spending many time and silver in it and than it is finished... Normaly it just take a few weeks or even months with many players... for very large caves you will need years... they will have  a breaktaking view and maybe you can tie players for a longe time in this world. So you can raise the average time of your clients and you will have more players at the same time in this world. I guess than means normaly more money per month...

 

Why are players leaving this world? Sure there are some personal reasons like family or jobs, but normaly it is getting boring or other games are getting more interessting - and it is getting boring if you have nothing to do or again your group is getting dissolved after the erea is done... Yyou do not need so many time at the surface - and that is the difference between humans und dwarfs! I am pretty sure you like to have more dwarfs, because of their longer span of life.

 

Well just think about it - and nobody is getting angry if you change your denial about this pretty nice wish of your players. Perhaps it is interessting enough to think a little bit longer about it. And of course I have no idea what features are planed for the future, maybe you are still working at a new 3D world under the mountain, but in that case please remember for the relaunch that higher ceilings are better - I prefer a value higher than the highest mountain - so you will be limited just by the surface outside...

 

In any case thank you for reading it and maybe one fine day I start Wurm after an update and than it is possible?

 

Have a nice Wurm day,

 

deKeep!

Edited August 31, 2016 by deKeep

[Steveleeb 1,067]

I have a very tall passage that i had to stop making 2 yrs ago because some nugget created a bunch of caverns near the end, at the top of the mountain. (seen through clipping)
the sudden increase in ceiling height, at that level, was disallowed.. i had everything under control until i hit that pocket.
I've covered it up now but it really was quite grand.

Despite work done, i'd love a revamp of the mining system.
maybe a way to migrate the main cave canals of the servers.
at the end of the day i believe most of us want `3D mines`

anyway.   +1

Edited September 3, 2016 by Steveleeb

[Retrograde 12,013]

Given that it's not tied to skill It's highly unlikely to change.

[Cunk 45]

I was disappointed when I discovered this limit but after making a 240 high cavern I'm fine with it.  Instead put effort towards bridges in mines and eventually 3d mines (good luck with the latter).

[Steveleeb 1,067]

adapt and overcome!
yeah, it's not so much of an issue, just a hopeless desire. one of many lol

there's been so much work put into the existing infrastructures, it'd be a crime to wipe it.
The first time i saw Kinoss Canal i had to blink.

at least we have strongwall to turn to if we miscalculate or fail to see disaster coming.

Edited September 3, 2016 by Steveleeb

[bdew 2,462]

On 6/30/2016 at 2:26 AM, taskmaster said:

Surely in this day and age we can have things larger than a byte, no?

 

Not when you need to hold a huge map in memory. Currently wurm uses 5 "layers" for the map, each holding a 32 bit (4 byte) value for a total of 20 bytes per tile. That's ~1.3GB of RAM for a xanadu-sized server, and that's before any overhead.

 

There are a couple unused bytes in that, but they are probably reserved for some other future use (like dynamic water level, if that ever becomes a thing).

[Nadroj 3,554]

Bump for this one. Working on a lovely cave system myself that basically will require collapsing an entire cave network to build because of this limit. Let us have awesome huge caverns and get rid of the horrors of finding out your project is impossible unless you cast strongwall 500 times!

[Makarus 458]

On 06/30/2016 at 1:56 AM, Jaz said:

Height is fine for me. But add means of scaffolding please ...

Yess.

 

Big caves!

seven +1s and six ribs from lunch.

 

 

[polarbear 283]

This was unlimited for height 6 or so months ago, but then "someone".... in the server code got bored and changed it because they thought it needed to be changed for some ungodly reason. (I don't know this someone)[ofc, it was a dev, or rolf] I really don't even see the point of a dev going, ooh i need to change this major feature, "should I ask the big boss Rolf, or the players... nah... " story of wurm.  

Edited December 11, 2016 by polarbear

[Nadroj 3,554]

Is there any actual reason for it? I really can't understand the necessity.

I thought i'd seen larger caves in the past, guess polarbear has explained that one away for me.

[Makarus 458]

On 09/04/2016 at 0:40 AM, bdew said:

 

Not when you need to hold a huge map in memory. Currently wurm uses 5 "layers" for the map, each holding a 32 bit (4 byte) value for a total of 20 bytes per tile. That's ~1.3GB of RAM for a xanadu-sized server, and that's before any overhead.

 

There are a couple unused bytes in that, but they are probably reserved for some other future use (like dynamic water level, if that ever becomes a thing).

 

 

MORE POWER

 

 

 

(Add ram.)

[Steveleeb 1,067]

bump