#Desire Paths

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signal lantern
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From Wikipedia's Desire path article:

A desire path ... is an unplanned small trail created as a consequence of mechanical erosion caused by human or animal traffic. The path usually represents the shortest or the most easily navigated route between an origin and destination, and the width and severity of its surface erosion are often indicators of the traffic level it receives.

Basically, a desire path is a natural road.

Let's, for now, assume that PlanetSmith will have the equivalent of the following Minecraft blocks: grass, dirt, coarse dirt, and path. My suggestion is that as players/mobs step on these blocks there is a random chance these blocks will spontaneously change into the next block on the list. So grass will turn to dirt, dirt will turn to coarse dirt, and coarse dirt will turn to path. Thus, as players and mobs navigate the world, paths between important locations will naturally emerge without the player having to explicitly do anything. Walking speed could also be progressively increased along each subsequent block to encourage the use of these desire paths.

NOTE: Random chance is used instead of a fixed count of steps to avoid having to keep stateful information for a large number of blocks in the world. The random chance can be tuned up or down to give the desired expected number of steps before a block transitions. Naturally, the higher the chance the "faster" the transitions will occur, and the lower the chance the "slower" the transitions will occur.

For example, if you want to know what probability to use so that there's a 50% chance a block will transition after N steps you can use the equation: P=1-(1/2)^(1/N). So if you want a transition to occur approximately every 10 steps you get a P of ~6.7%, but if you want a transition to occur approximately every 50 steps you get a P of ~1.4%, etc.

Desire_path_-_52849400711.jpg
hexed smelt
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So basically animal crossing

lapis loom
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Its like that mc mod

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sounds cool

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but like hell for builders

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It should be possible to activate and deactivate from settings

hexed smelt
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Builders can fix it if they want, and so can survival players

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You could have an option to deactivate it in case you want to build without it bothering you but itd be a nice mechanic to have on by default

lapis loom
serene glade
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Like game trails in thick woods and prairie?

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Sounds like interesting natural structures

hexed smelt
keen sluice
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I mean, technically neat but what purpose does it serve? Is it meant to make the player take similar paths?

serene glade
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I think it's just so that the world looks lived in

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And just serving as a cool thing to find while exploring

keen sluice
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Well, that sounds more like a naturally generating thing then. Because I doubt mobs will be loaded on the other side of the map

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And having mobs pathfind based on these paths seems a little complicated

serene glade
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I feel like mobs would naturally pathfind the closest paths

keen sluice
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I just feel like it's too much effort for something very minor that doesn't really serve much purpose besides looking cool

signal lantern
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The point is that players will naturally take similar paths anyway, so rather than having players go through the tedium of having to manually create these paths, they'll naturally emerge over time. (I also suggested giving a bonus to walking speed, which roads/paths in a lot of games do as a matter of course except in... Minecraft). Besides, it's extremely little effort, like literally less than half an hour to implement effort since there is no persistent state to handle.

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Also, when dealing with a sandbox game, "looking cool" in and of itself is as good a justification as any.

keen sluice
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Mhhh, I see your point

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With the complexity I was mostly just referring to people's idea that these paths could be stumbled upon because they were generated by mobs.

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I'm still against it. I believe the player should build these paths themselves, given it's a game about building.

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Having the game create the paths for you is convenient yeah, but it takes away an opportunity for the player to be creative and make it themselves

signal lantern
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I wouldn't want this to be the only way to create paths; players should of course be able to create paths themselves however they want. And, if vehicles other than rockets ever become a thing then there will probably be types of paths that will never naturally emerge.

opaque swanBOT
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GG @signal lantern, you just advanced to level 1!

keen sluice
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Yeah I'm just saying that if they emerge naturally, there's less incentive for players to make their own. Similar to how villages in Minecraft disincentivize building your own house.

signal lantern
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Fair enough

elder drift
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To be fair, many people would still prefer cobblestone or roads made out of other materials over dirt paths. And due to the random aspect, the paths would be pretty irregular. Both mean that players that see value in having proper paths will still have an incentive to put in the effort to build them properly, and those that don't wouldn't have done so anyway.

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What I don't like about this idea is that any singular place, even if visited only once, would have a low chance of having a dirt path placed there, which means they would eventually be present in quite a lot of random places. I would prefer it if the grass on them randomly grew back, meaning they could only stay if the paths are actually travelled on a lot. Then again, that would probably also not be trivial to implement.

hexed smelt
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Animal crossing does this btw

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The goal is that the world looks lived in

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Look up animal crossing grass deterioration

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Since i cant send links

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I remember having it in my own world, eventually after a few days the world had dirt paths leading to places and we started following those paths instead of stepping on the grass

hexed smelt
restive ether
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I saw gameplay of a Minecraft mod very similar to this idea once, the people playing this mod lived in a small staircase in the ground and as time went on paths surrounded this hole (because they walked all around it) and if I remember correctly there was the beginnings of paths leading out to the nearby oak forest and a nearby river (they had a thirst mod on aswell and none of them had a bucket just yet, so they had to go to the river) , but main point was, it was very fascinating watching this path grow and develop from grass, to dirt, to actual path block and eventually it turned into cobblestone, but personally I wouldint make this the case if I was to make this mod from scratch , besides the point I think if this was in planetsmith it would make for a pretty unique feature

marble vigil
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Hmm. Depending on the passive mob pathfinding (say, searching heights, caves, and water sources instead of Minecraft's total randomness), a grass block turning into a path block every 10 minutes and reverting in 20 minutes (on average using random ticks, so that no extra memory is needed) would be a cool way for paths to form. Like going through the woods and seeing game trails, or the buffalo trails used in the 1800s. The reverting would also mean unused trails (like if the player no longer goes that way, or if mobs leave/are killed off) eventually disappear.

If this happens to the player every 5 minutes (still only reverting every 20 minutes, and still using random ticks) then the player trails develop faster, helping them keep track of their own paths.

If these paths have higher pathfinding values, then animals are more likely to use them, and a different value could be given to each animal so that buffalos have well defined paths (maybe every 2 minutes on average) whereas chickens only do if they are in large numbers (maybe every 25 minutes on average)

opaque swanBOT
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GG @marble vigil, you just advanced to level 3!

glossy thistle
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Added achievement: 'If it bleeds, then we can kill it.'