Editor Rework

[hazy crag]

Hello!
I have been playing the game since Day 1 and have tested both the Mapping portion of the editor and the Asset portion of the editor several times throughout the last year and a half and I have a few things to say about their functionality and usability.

General critiques of the Editor's functionality:
File management is a huge pain because while there IS a file browser, you cannot actually open the folder you are looking at in explorer making the process take longer than necessary. On top of this, the game sometimes marks a file it is currently using as "Being used by another process" and requires a game restart to fix. I should not need to restart the game in order to use an updated version of a file, especially considering how long it takes to start the game up. And to top it all off, a lot of the documentation is lacking on what we should be specifically avoiding doing with stuff like climate editing and asset creation.

This will need to be broken up into multiple parts...

Map Editor:
Improvements to this have been steady but I still feel as though it is not very user friendly. With CS1, to be able to edit maps you just needed to be able to play the game itself and the skills translated over, but with the CS2 editor that is not the case. On the surface it looks pretty similar, but placing down things like roads and trees becomes a tedious process that requires you to scroll through a tiny list of assets which is absolutely not user friendly. I imagine that this will eventually be fixed in the future, but considering how important modding is to keeping this game interesting I feel like making the UI match the actual in game UI a bit more would go a long way towards increasing the accessibility for the wider public.
In addition to this, I feel like the climate editor needs a lot of work still. When I first tried using it early last year it was completely broken and would not save even though it was visible, and when it was partially implemented earlier this year it was only slightly better. Being able to edit the curves quickly and easily in the window would be huge. See my note on documentation above.

Asset Editor:
I attempted to create a quick mockup asset in Blender and bring it into the editor, but the import process is both tedious and unintuitive. I have attempted to import meshes several times and each time I want to open an asset, I try to select the FBX I want to use and it shows me the asset's config which is not what I am looking for. I then have to close out of that for it to show me the file manager view again so I can actually begin the import process. Once I do this, I then have to mess around with the dropdowns in order to even get a basic view of just the mesh I have been trying to import and it turns out rotated and scaled strangely. This goes back to the documentation issue not showing what things I should avoid doing or what I am doing wrong that can result in a certain problem.

I understand that all of these features are in Beta at the moment, but I feel like this criticism and feedback is critical for making sure these problems are rectified before it is considered complete. I very much hope that the new team's commitment to listening to feedback and implementing the improvements and changes is seen on our end, especially considering how simple a few of these things could be to implement (specifically the opening folder in Explorer functionality). Every small step in accessibility means that the bar to create content is lowered, in turn making the game far more engaging and replayable.

I have yet to experiment further with the editors in the latest version, so I will return to this later with some more feedback, but these are my biggest pain points as of right now.

[digital mortar]

Still in Beta; I have no problem making several maps and enjoy the improvements the devs have done to the Map Editor. Whereas the Asset Editor needs more love.

I would like to create my own parks, and import from Blender two train stations, police and fire stations. I would also like to redo existing Vanilla assets as I feel these need improvements.

Why did CO start with similarities of C:S1? I get it, because it was successful; for it's time. Since then the bar has been raised and expectations have increased. That is why the community forums gets quite overheated to the extent that I try to keep my distance.

I love CS2, and know its flaws, Iceflake have a massive amount of work to do. Sorry, but that's the reality.

Point is, C:S2 should have been far more advanced and innovative; Surface Tools and Road Builder are good examples. Learn from that.

C:S2 should've included essential asset editing tools, including essential property settings all available directly in-game;

Therefore, not having to close the game and open the asset editor create then save, then reopen game to see uh oh, the train station isn't quite right? Close game and try again, repeat.

C:S2 is labor-intensive and, in some ways, more complicated than C:S1. The focus should be on innovation and simplicity; Putting creativity within reach of anyone, including those with minimal experience, to create entirely new assets in-game derived from existing optimized content, without the need for Maya or Blender and having to spend at least two years learning how to use them.

How? Either procedural or construction kits and kit pieces; these would replace DLC's. These kits would include fully functional assets but allow players to easily modify or entirely create new assets derived from those kits. Pair that with smart snapping options, global grid with 1mm precision, better guides and familiar tools such as, select point or marquee, move xyz, rotate, resize, copy, paste, delete, color palette and option to change material. You see, Move it and Bulldozer MODs are not required. Most of the essential tools you find in the most basic Windows apps such as Note Pad should be available in C:S2.

Another quirk that needs attention; Overlapping! This game should allow 'Layering' and therefore, Anarchy would not be required. In fact, CS2 is too heavily reliant on MODs, this needs to change. And I usually don't like using MODs in the editors. Everything runs a lot snappier and stable without them.

As I explained above, CS2 needs a lot more love, Iceflake has a massive task ahead. Wish them all the very best.

[mighty shuttle]

i also suggested this to many things are greyed out for no reason and its just uselessly complicated compared to cs1