Natural Diversity

[Paeng]

19 minutes ago, stiles said:




this would be like unravelling christmas lights or knots from a ball of yarn

Well, but it needs to be done if you want to use those xmas lights again.




I'm aware that there would be a lot of code-digging involved, though it seems that many things (specially the food items) are not essential to production chains...




 




As for "Banished for Idiots" - meh. Nobody talks about "over-simplifying", but about being sensible.  [img]<fileStore.core_Emoticons>/emoticons/smile.png[/img]/emoticons/smile@2x.png 2x" title=":)" width="20" />



 

[stiles]

ancient chinease man said"be careful what you wish for" . if you upset the wizards, you will find yourself knee deep in piles of papers and codes. it will be worse than staying after school writing on the blackboard 10,000 times "I WILL NOT UPSET THE WIZARD" while all the other students claw their fingernails across the slate.after which draining swamps full of allligators will sound like fun.

[Bartender]

4 hours ago, Paeng said:




Thanks!




I hope you did not feel my comment was directed at the "Natural Diversity" project, far from it... [img]<fileStore.core_Emoticons>/emoticons/smile.png[/img]/emoticons/smile@2x.png 2x" title=":)" width="20" />

Not at all ;)!




I do think recoding all the existing mods would be a terrible work.. As for my mod, I'll have a look at what the consensus is and try to not do anything potentially game-breaking.

[elemental]

A simple food override mod should be possible but it would be a huge job.




If you don't make these foods or buy these foods they won't show up in your town hall list. For traders, just tell them to bring only a small number of foods that you actually want. You do have to wade through the long list once for each food trader to select what you want, but after that you never have to worry about them again unless you change your mind and want to order something different.

 




Personally I like the food variety. I do agree that we don't need 10 different types of cider or 10 different types of jam. But I do like having all the different raw ingredients such as all the berries. I wouldn't want all berry crops to grow generic berries. For the purposes of this natural diversity mod though, generic mushrooms and herbs is fine. Making the forest look more interesting is what's important. I'm very much looking forward to this to being released. [img]<fileStore.core_Emoticons>/emoticons/smile.png[/img]/emoticons/smile@2x.png 2x" title=":)" width="20" />



I guess what it all boils down to is that there are a number of different ways to play Banished. Survival game, medieval city builder, or town life simulator. If you are aiming for huge cities then details like 6 different egg recipes will just be annoying. If you enjoy growing fresh food and feeding your people hearty recipes then foodmania mods are almost essential.

[Bartender]

^ I couldn't have said it better myself. All indeed depends on what your reason is to play the game. One option I'm concidering is to create two separate versions of the mod; one that is only a visual update without any gameplay changes, and one that would include new resources and the likes.




To steer the discussion back to Natural Diversity (I have enjoyed the conversation so far, though perhaps if we want it to continue it would deserve it's own thread), I have finished the Herbiversity part of the mod (for now at least, new ideas might pop up like flowers in spring).




[img]<fileStore.core_Attachment>/monthly_2017_03/HerbiversityFinal.png.0e2647801135b8a4d272e7302145edaa.png[/img]



These are the herbs that made the final cut. Each again with three meshes, and the ones with flowers will have those wilt in winter.




I'm not yet sure what the next part of the mod is going to be. I have been playing around a bit with some Alternative Rocks, but the recent discussion has also given me ideas for some Berryation. I'm also not sure on when to release the first version of the mod. Is it common to release partial mods and update them regularly, or would people find it annoying to have to redownload it every few weeks?

[elemental]

If you want to release now just put a note saying more to come, will be updated soon. But on second thoughts, will the update be save game compatible? You can't delete all herbs to clear the way for a mod update in the same way that you can delete a building. If you are simply adding more new stuff to the mod and not changing any of the old stuff then it probably would be save game compatible, but I'm no expert so that's just a guess.




The herbs look great. I've never really been a fan of the vanilla herbs. They don't look like anything much at all.




One question - I play with the Cold Realism mod which makes herbs and forest food plants die in winter (just like crops). Will your mod be compatible with Cold Realism?

[Ketchup]

to be compatible , it needs to have the vanilla one still there in the game... and then it will be fine [img]<fileStore.core_Emoticons>/emoticons/smile.png[/img]/emoticons/smile@2x.png 2x" title=":)" width="20" /> the new meshes will appear each time a new spawn will grow.

[Bartender]

I will do some testing for the save game compatibility, but I don't expect any problems there. as <a contenteditable="false" data-ipshover="" data-ipshover-target="<___base_url___>/index.php?/profile/3183-ketchup/&do=hovercard" data-mentionid="3183" href="<___base_url___>/index.php?/profile/3183-ketchup/">@Ketchup</a> correctly points out, the new herb meshes should just slowly replace the old one as they die and regrow.




<a contenteditable="false" data-ipshover="" data-ipshover-target="<___base_url___>/index.php?/profile/2413-elemental/&do=hovercard" data-mentionid="2413" href="<___base_url___>/index.php?/profile/2413-elemental/">@elemental</a> as for compatibility with the Cold Realism mod, I think that is very unlikely unfortunately. It also seems that the original developer of that mod has stopped working on it a long time ago, so asking him for help in making a compatible version would not be possible.




One thing I could do however, is to add a similar mechanic to Natural Diversity (this is one of the reasons why I'm thinking about 2 versions of the mod). One thing I personally didn't like about the Cold Realism mod is that it kills all plants regardless of wether they would normally survive the winter or not (e.g. it's actually not that realistic). The herbs I've made so far are all perennials, meaning that they would survive most winters in real life. If I would add some annual herbs, which would die each winter, I think this could create a pretty interesting mechanic. The annual herbs would for example die as soon as the temperature goes below 0C, but the perennials would only die if the temperature drops below -10C. This would mean that in mosts winters you would be left with only half the herbs available, while a very cold winter would leave you with none at all. How often the latter occurs then ofcourse depends on your climate setting. I would then add a similar mechanic to all organic resources, depending on what's realistic. Mushrooms for example would always disappear in winter, while most berry bushes would only die under very extreme conditions.

[Ketchup]

1 hour ago, Bartender said:




I will do some testing for the save game compatibility, but I don't expect any problems there. as <a contenteditable="false" data-ipshover="" data-ipshover-target="<___base_url___>/index.php?/profile/3183-ketchup/&do=hovercard" data-mentionid="3183" href="<___base_url___>/index.php?/profile/3183-ketchup/">@Ketchup</a> correctly points out, the new herb meshes should just slowly replace the old one as they die and regrow.




 

what ever we can do .... probably the original herb mesh will still always exists in the game files [img]<fileStore.core_Emoticons>/emoticons/smile.png[/img]/emoticons/smile@2x.png 2x" title=":)" width="20" />



so this is ALL GOOD [img]<fileStore.core_Emoticons>/emoticons/smile.png[/img]/emoticons/smile@2x.png 2x" title=":)" width="20" />

[despo20]

<a contenteditable="false" data-ipshover="" data-ipshover-target="<___base_url___>/index.php?/profile/11115-bartender/&do=hovercard" data-mentionid="11115" href="<___base_url___>/index.php?/profile/11115-bartender/">@Bartender</a> I love your herbs! [img]<fileStore.core_Emoticons>/emoticons/biggrin.png[/img]/emoticons/biggrin@2x.png 2x" title=":D" width="20" />



And I'm very interested in a new boosted "Cold Realism mod", with the features that you mean [img]<fileStore.core_Emoticons>/emoticons/58462f70003fe_EmojisApplebyKawaiiDarkToxic553.png[/img]