Retaining Walls

[Mebourne 13]

Would be nice to see retaining walls added to the game to allow for slopes larger than 40. This would help immensely in terracing type terraforming which we are doing on a steep island. The retaining wall would need to be built in-place first and then dirt could be dug/dropped in the related tiles allowing for a straight up tile height distance. Retaining wall could be made of stone or clay bricks. This would reduce wasted tiles just to maintain slope and add a unique architectural and functional improvement to the game.

Coding wise, the map would have to allow non-connecting tile points if it finds that a retaining wall is in place allowing point a to be at Z reference 0 and point B to be at Z reference 40 per say. In this diagram the retaining wall would be along line AB-AB.

A-----AB-----B

| | | |

| | | |

A-----AB-----B

Edited December 19, 2012 by Mebourne

[alaskanbob 225]

I approve

Edited December 19, 2012 by alaskanbob

[Sir Arowhun 473]

I thought of this idea before +1

[Ayes 3,715]

I made this suggestion over a year ago. People just said use flatraising but I still would like to see retaining walls implimented in game. Not going to spend any time repeating my previous statements about what materials could be used or the advantages to using them though. Good luck with that.

=Ayes=

[belthize 438]

I made this suggestion over a year ago. People just said use flatraising but I still would like to see retaining walls implimented in game. Not going to spend any time repeating my previous statements about what materials could be used or the advantages to using them though. Good luck with that.

=Ayes=

I remember that, I'd tossed it into another thread about erosion control as well. Someday I'd like to see a more dynamic world but don't have much hopes for it in the short term. Retaining walls are something that could happen sooner, erosion needs them they don't need erosion.

[Wraithglow 787]

Coding wise, the map would have to allow non-connecting tile points if it finds that a retaining wall is in place allowing point a to be at Z reference 0 and point B to be at Z reference 40 per say.

This is the only issue I see. The overall idea I love, but I have absolutely know idea how simple it would be to implement (probably not very with rolf's "spaghetti code" and the fact that digging/mining/flattening affect tile corners)

If it can be done, +1. If it's not even remotely straightforward, I won't really miss it.

[Mebourne 13]

Without seeing Wurm's actual code, this seems like a reasonably standard item to code, similar to many other suggestions. There will be a few calculations required for the tile connections at the corners at to the wall, but the thought would provide alot more flexibility than flat raising, especially when you are dealing with a close proximity rock layer on a steep mountain area.

[Wraithglow 787]

There are more issues though. for example if you build a house, which height does it use for the walls? or can you build two walls at different heights on the same tile? I don't think it would be straightforward...

[Mebourne 13]

To simplify things I would imagine that the retaining wall would need to take the length of a tile edge similar to current wall and that they should be a uniform height, say 40. This would allow a single tile step difference from flat to 40 degrees without wasting a tile for the slope between the two. In addition, you would not be able to build a house encompassing a retaining wall, but one that uses the retaining wall as a edge would be acceptable. Just some more thoughts to add to the discussion

Edited December 20, 2012 by Mebourne

[Miretta 1,415]

why use walls? why not simple wooden structures that are always 40 slope and those make the area for the house above the same height? you could only add 1 tile over a cliff that way.

[Mebourne 13]

Here is what I want to do in Wurm on a larger scale

[KunAlt 844]

Don´t get me wrong, i like the idea, and i love to have this in game, but i think this is not trivial to implement in the current system.

You need to remember that the terrain in wurm is not realy 3D, and every tile have a fixed X-Y size, While tiles can be estreched a lot in the Z axis, they reatain is X-Y size, and also every tile is hard linked to the next tile, a 90 degree in Z axis tile means that the upper corners need to be unlinked from the parent corners in the next tile.

Think about the terrain like a rubber blanket, in wich if you want a trully 90 degree retainin wall, you need to actually cut at least 2 corners and 2 borders, and if you go farter and want to raise an individual tile with four retaining walls , then you are creating 4 new tiles and at the same time messing with the uniformity of the mesh.

I do my best with my poor english to try to explain a somewhat not obvious concept, but the terrain in wurm is not a true 3D, thats why wen you enter in a cave you actually swich layers, and why while you stand in the entrance of a cave can´t take or reach an object in a non-cave tile next to you.

Not 100% sure, but i think that while we have a new degree of liberty in houses, the terrain is still using the same code of pseudo 3D

Edited December 21, 2012 by KunAlt

[WolfeNailo 6]

I approve.