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Linaelie

Terraforming - Request For Ideas

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Hello fellow Wurmians!

I have a small request, while I'm not entirely new to the game I am rather new to terraforming. Currently I'm working on flatraising tiles out of the water in front of my deed to expand my space, to do so I've been taking some dirt from the hill behind me, but I realized by the time I was done the hill would look rather ugly.

I've been staring at it for a couple of days now, and outside of a terracing it, I'm coming up short on ideas for what to do with it to make it either "natural" looking with the rest of the hill, or how to terraform it to go with my deed. The most frustrating part about it is the hill actually slopes diagonally compared to the way my deed sits.

As such, I'm asking for ideas/help from fellow players, if you had this hill behind your deed, what would you do with it?

The furthest back corner that's been dug is where my deed ends.

wurm201302200127_zps60cf781a.jpg

wurm201302200128_zpsda9c39d1.jpg

wurm201302200127_1_zps0c6d119b.jpg

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a watching outpost? or tower?;) your view could be great from there^^

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Getting it to look 'natural' again is quite easy. it's all about leveling the slopes out to match the rest. This can either be done with digging from high end of slope and dumping at low end, or if you're up to it with the flatraising command.

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a watching outpost? or tower? ;) your view could be great from there^^

True! Though the idea is I'm taking dirt from that hill and moving it to flatraise the tiles in the water, so eventually the "cut" will be down to ground level, not sure my carpentry is high enough to bring a tower up that high. That's a really great idea though, and I may consider getting a friend to plan it out for me!

Getting it to look 'natural' again is quite easy. it's all about leveling the slopes out to match the rest. This can either be done with digging from high end of slope and dumping at low end, or if you're up to it with the flatraising command.

I guess I hadn't thought about it that way, I was trying to figure out ways to find more dirt without paying a ton for it to fill in the scar, but if I slowly take down the rest of the hill I could get it lower, but natural looking. Thanks Guruen! If I can't figure out anything else for it then I'll definitely take it back to just looking like natural landscape. :D

Edited by Linaelie

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if you desperately need dirt you could also dig down the rest of the hill also until you hit water and make a little lake there ;) I also have alot of smaller and bigger insane seeming projects, but they are worth it in the end XD so the lake could be used for reed farming then or simply for the looks or even as shipyard ;)

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Hi, I am personally a huge fan of the terraced look and use it extensively on my deed. However If you wanted to keep the natural look without buying in tons of dirt, I have been using a method I like to call the "Flatraise Mexican Wave"

bHePhj3.jpg

If you flatraise at the red point, then move a tile towards the start circle and flatraise again, you'll be pulling dirt from the start circle area (I assume is the summit of a small hill) and would keep the natural look of the deed.

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You do not need to terrace it with flatraising, you just use flatraising to slope it. This is simply done by stopping the flattening of the steep digouts before it is flat. Stand on a corner and use your shovel (or examine) to monitor the slopes until they are similar then escape to stop the flatten.

If needed to move dirt down hill then do like you would build a road, flatten all the way down hill, doing the next tile down will restore the flatten up hill to a natural slope. Then do the same on the strip next to it, maybe do this repeatedly horizontal and vertical since it is on a diagonal.

It will not be restored since much dirt is missing (unless you import dirt), but it will be a natural slope that you can plant grass and trees on. It is because flattening affects 9 tiles that this method works, since digging manually only affects one corner. Use digging to fine tune only. To use flattening you will have to log it so save sprouts (in your inventory not the buggy bsb), which is not necessary with digging. That means it gets uglier, but that is only temporary.

So in Lennys drawing start flattening that slope marked with the black circle and stop the flatten and go down hill in both directions when you think it looks natural. I see similar digouts in the woods all the time from noobs thinking it is a good shack spot only to realize shacks need flatland, and farms need nearly flatland, so they move on for flatter areas they have skill to terraform. Once sloped and replanted with local trees you cannot tell it was every terraformed.

Farms can be slope of 8, so you could also make functional use and still keep the hills, and of course grazers could care less about the slope as long as there is grass between the trees. So open range your livestock on the grassy hills that remain, fencing the perimeter.

So its done like terracing, but to get terraces to stay flat you would have to flatten every other tile. For sloping you just progressively flatten every tile.

Edited by yarnevk

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I wouldn't use the flattening command at all in this situation. Just go back to that high spot and continue to dig that line of tiles down flat in each sideways direction. Keep digging down until the tiles in front of those lines slope up 20 and then dig those lines of tiles down flat equal to the first line of tiles behind them along the hill. Keep doing this and you will have the whole hillside dug down flat equal to the level of your house. All this will most likely give you more dirt than you can use to fill in your dock area as well as filling in that area next to your house where the rowboat is.

This all looks like purely a *dig* project to me with no use for *flatten* other than perhaps out at your dock area where it drops down into steeper that 40 slopes as you drop more dirt along there. You should have some decent digging skill by the end of all this as well. Have fun.

=Ayes=

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I'd pull the ondeed area to "ground" level, then do the "mexican" thing described above.to mask the cut .Although, cliff walls do occur naturally,

My take on slope flatraising is like this:

Start from top to bottom:

Make the top most tile flat,

Move two tiles downward (ie: skip the tile directly below the already flat one)

Flatten

Repeat until you're at the lowest level,

Now, from bottom to top:

Flatten the skipped tiles, and cancel the action when you get the desired slope/look.

How it works: when you flatten the action will remove dirt from highest to lowest, corners and keep doing it like that until its flat.

Since the highest and lowest corners are at the same height respectively, the action should produce a regular slope, from original inclination to 0 (flat). Which allows you to produce a regular slope by canceling the action at the right time.

Please bear in mind, that it goes corner by corner, so if you cancel out of time, you'll need to displace some dirt to make it perfect, but that's easily done.

I usually use this method to make roads, but should work for your purpose, just remember to skip a tile sideways as well as top to bottom.

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How is skipping tiles going down then getting them on the way back up different then not skipping tiles when going down?

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I would simply keep that terrace you already made there, flatten it and build a tower, then cut the sides towards your deed further, just keeping a road up to the tower.

Keep in mind that if your try to lower the entire corner of the deed down to main deed level you could easily stumble on rock.

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All of these ideas are really new to me, so I definitely am going to try all of them out while terraforming to see which ones work for me and do my own experimentation, thanks all!

I would simply keep that terrace you already made there, flatten it and build a tower, then cut the sides towards your deed further, just keeping a road up to the tower.

Keep in mind that if your try to lower the entire corner of the deed down to main deed level you could easily stumble on rock.

Stumbling on rock is my secret hope actually, I'd love to have a mine entrance on my deed. But I also realize I'm rarely ever that lucky, so I was debating on what to do with it once I've got all the dirt I need for my expansion into the water.

I think I have a few ideas in mind now, I think I am going to go with the terrace idea, but I'll put a building (maybe something church like? Or even an inn) on the top level with a small belltower/viewing platform on the top, with a road that goes up to it on both side of the hill, and various trees/plants and decorations planted on the lower terraces. Will have to mess around with the details in my head, but I think at least for now that's the overall idea I'll go with.

I really appreciate everyone's inputs, thank you so much! If you still have other ideas feel free to post them, I'm always open to suggestions/changes. :D

  • Like 1

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While i like flattened areas, i do love living next to natural land. We have a perimeter large enough to try and protect our hillside. If you could do some before and after shots with whatever you decide to take, lots of people don't do before/after shots, but they can really make you think 'wow!' no matter how small of a project it is.

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If you do not have a deed mine it is worth expanding to cover potential hills you can dig into. That should be your first step is exploration holes to find the rock layer, diggind down and dropping dirt to refill test holes is easier than landscape terraforming, but living without an iron mine you control can make Wurm life harder so is worth it, and you can attempt to blend the mine entrance into the landscape.

Edited by yarnevk

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See, something like that, I'd dig straight down to make the sheerest edges I could until I'd reached the level of the rest of the flat land, then I'd build something inset against the resulting cliff. Think wizard-like castle with maybe the top roof(s) coming up to the top of the cliff.

I'm not big on natural :P

<-- hill -->

________

| xxxxxxxxx |

| xxxxxxxxx | more hill

| xxxxxxxxx |

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You said - Currently I'm working on flatraising tiles out of the water in front of my deed to expand my space

You can, if you wish, forget about digging the hill - use a rowboat and dreadge to get dirt from below the water line.

I think its a good way to make a port/warf area a bit deeper while your getting dirt for the raising bit.

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Exactly what lawurm said, you can get all the dirt you need with minimum enviromental impact, if you get a dredge and dig the dirt from under the water, just be careful not to dredge from too close to your expanding-over-water zone, and keep the coastline more or less walkable. It sucks to be out of stamine in the water, and running into a slope that you need to CLIMB to get out of water.

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Oh I agree, and actually at the same time I have a villager who's working on dredging out a marina on one side of the deed. I personally have a really hard time with dredging, I find it completely frustrating and far too slow when I can shape the hill behind me instead. In fact I think my villager described it perfectly "Dredge, dredge, dredge is full, drop two dirt, dredge, dredge, dredge is full...". It drives me crazy. Some people have the patience for that kind of thing, unfortunately I don't.

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What I would like to see (but haven't yet in wurm) is a relatively simple idea - a small crest in the land to mark the edge of a deed. only has to be 1 flat tile wide raised half a person's height above the rest of the ground level, but would have a nice effect similar to those old ruins of castles/forts where you can see hints of where there used to be ditches and small walls :)

... probably doesn't apply to the corner in that picture, but something to consider

Edited by Wraithglow

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