Buildings & Attractions more generous use of existing terrain

ninjadodo · Jan 27, 2019

Your Feature Request / Idea
It would be a lot easier if terrain limitations were not so restrictive. It's fine and understandable that there is limited space within the map, but even areas that seem visually like they would easily fit a given building, the game says NO because of "terrain constraints" "obstructed" etc... Also you often end up having to do repetitive flatten terrain dance where you try to find a level that lines up with adjacent plateaus and which has enough space to fit the building. Since the level of the plateau depends on where you start clicking you often end up having to paint over it several times before you get it right...

All this is especially annoying on Isla Pena where everything is tightly packed and you're often left with spaces that look like they could fit something but cannot, so there's a lot of unecessary wasted space.

I would suggest the following terrain/placement changes:

auto-flatten & smooth terrain around a building so you don't have to do the painting dance just to be able to place something

auto-remove any trees or water that are in the way (lots of things automatically disappear when you place things that override it, why not this?)

make building space requirements more generous so that if it looks like it should fit, it fits.

if an area absolutely cannot be flattened because of existing inclines then put the building on a raised foundation like stilts or concrete blocks or something (ie what everyone building on non-flat terrain does IRL)

This would make placing buildings and adjusting terrain a lot more fun and flexible.

ninjadodo · Jan 30, 2019

For the last point, raised foundations, it should be something like is described here: https://www.firstinarchitecture.co.uk/tips-for-building-on-a-sloped-terrain/

Monolith Minion · Feb 2, 2019

ninjadodo said:
For the last point, raised foundations, it should be something like is described here: https://www.firstinarchitecture.co.uk/tips-for-building-on-a-sloped-terrain/

I defintely agree with the first 2 bullet points. I think every sim builder that I've played auto removes the trees/bushes and sometimes small rocks (which of course I would love in this game...wink wink).

ninjadodo · Apr 8, 2019

Someone pointed out to me in a discussion that letting the player pack buildings more tightly onto the same terrain might affect the balance of the game, making it too easy to deal with constrained areas. That could very well be. They also suggested a good solution: make it extra expensive to use raised foundations. This way you can still be more flexible and make full use of the space available if you have the resources, but it's still better/cheaper to build on flat terrain if you can. I would add this to the feature request.

I really think more flexible terrain and building placement would make for a huuuuge improvement to the game, as this is currently the thing I find the least fun to deal with. It's often unclear why you can't build somewhere and you spend a lot of time doing this tedious dance flattening and reflattening terrain and then nudging your cursor a pixel here or a pixel there waiting for the building to turn blue so you can finally place it. A little more leeway here would make this part much more enjoyable.

Alan_Grady · Apr 8, 2019

ninjadodo said:
Someone pointed out to me in a discussion that letting the player pack buildings more tightly onto the same terrain might affect the balance of the game, making it too easy to deal with constrained areas. That could very well be. They also suggested a good solution: make it extra expensive to use raised foundations. This way you can still be more flexible and make full use of the space available if you have the resources, but it's still better/cheaper to build on flat terrain if you can. I would add this to the feature request.

I really think more flexible terrain and building placement would make for a huuuuge improvement to the game, as this is currently the thing I find the least fun to deal with. It's often unclear why you can't build somewhere and you spend a lot of time doing this tedious dance nudging your cursor a pixel here or a pixel there waiting for the building to turn blue so you can finally place it. A little more leeway here would make this part much more enjoyable.

This. 100% agree, and also with the OP. Building is currently the most frustrating part of the gameplay for me too, aside from the basic dino AI.

If they allowed this at least, along with the option to align all buildings to paths like shops do and also the ability to mirror them (so as, for instance, hotel don't always need to "look" in the same direction) I'd be more than happy to wait longer for new buildings.

khaos526 · Apr 9, 2019

What I'd also like to add is having the option of modifying the terrain outside the current limits. Currently I waste a lot of space trying to make the playable area close to one elevation so I can actually add more buildings in it. This is hard when you are limited to the unmodified terrain outside the zone. In Nublar I wanted to have a large valley for the carnivores. To do this though, meant having these giant hills, along the perimeter that I can't do anything with other than just let dino's walk up hills in enclosures as you can't build anything on them.

But yes I agree that the terrain constraint is way too stingy...

ninjadodo · Apr 9, 2019

khaos526 said:
Currently I waste a lot of space trying to make the playable area close to one elevation so I can actually add more buildings in it. This is hard when you are limited to the unmodified terrain outside the zone.

This issue would be fixed by optional raised foundations, building on stilts and such, as suggested above.

khaos526 · Apr 10, 2019

ninjadodo said:
This issue would be fixed by optional raised foundations, building on stilts and such, as suggested above.

Except you can't expect realism by having large power plants on stilts or raised platforms, among other large buildings. That's where border terrain should be modifiable with the playing area as well as having terrain within the playing area be easier to place...

ninjadodo · Apr 10, 2019

Fair. Maybe you could partially restrict the usage of raised foundations, so that some key buildings like power plants require solid flat ground, while others are more flexible.

khaos526 · Apr 10, 2019

ninjadodo said:
Fair. Maybe you could partially restrict the usage of raised foundations, so that some key buildings like power plants require solid flat ground, while others are more flexible.

No problem there as there are many seaside restaurants that are on pillars due to the water so those smaller buildings make much more sense...