Indicate roads on discovered parts of map

[devout peak]

The parts of the world which are already discovered should show where roads are. Water ways are shown, and showing also the road infrastructure will allow easier navigation on the main map

[slender salmon]

I agree, maybe not show every single-tile mud squiggle, but when there is a stretch of road that is averaging like 5 tiles wide at least, and at least 50 tiles long (I think that's close to half a chunk), then that should really show on the map. Maybe not at all zoom levels, but when you zoom in a bit, like the way the towns show as you zoom into the map a bit.

[fiery trail]

OMG let there not be 5-tile wide roads. If roads are to be mapped, the criterion could just be some degree of paved-hexes connectivity (but do we want to see paved areas in claims too?) -- no, we should not have a pre-defined criterion for road mapping other than perhaps frequency of use - which admittedly would become a self-reinforcing measure - but that is OK. five-tile wide roads are no more passable than one-tile wide roads, they just eliminate five times as much of what makes the game attractive - the natural looking biomes.

[slender salmon]

paved tiles that are not in a Claimed Area? That would probably be a good criteria.

It does make sense that the roads that show at a certain zoom are the "major roads", that's why I say tile width. A road can be 5 tiles wide and still look good. And smaller roads showing in a closer zoom wouldn't be a bad thing.

[fiery trail]

anything that encourages people to make wide roads is going to cause me more work digging them up, which I naturally wish to avoid

. . . at least I don't have to haul away the dug up materials though, that saves a lot of work

[slender salmon]

😿 But what if the road is pretty and integrates nicely with the biome?

[fiery trail]

I have seen roads that are pretty and nicely integrated in the biome, and sometimes a road can even achieve these, however briefly, with a five-tile-width. But if five-tile-width, for example, became a criterion for gaining map-placement; then there would tend to be a lot more five-tile-width roads being built and I am pretty sure many of them would not be pretty.

[slender salmon]

I guess that's where you set different criteria for "Highways", "Roads", and "Trails" visibility in maps. 5 tiles wide is basically a Highway, 3 tiles wide can be a Road, and single tiles can be consider Trails. You'd need to zoom in more to see Roads and even more for Trails. Although I can imagine people using the paving to write stuff on the map if they can do single tile squiggles, which is why I feel those shoudln't be mapped.

[fiery trail]

I just don't see the reason for wide roads. Things traveling on roads can go right through other things; there is no need for lanes. Road witdth is a bad criterion for mapping because some people will decide a two-tile width road meets their needs for commerce between perhaps-large areas of commerce, while another group decides to invite the wrath of Murgatroyd by making an eight tile plaza inscribed with five different colors of pavements or who knows what.

[gleaming bluff]

I want to suggest something:
Ask the devs to give us a special type of road to lay, different from normal paving.
A dedicated road that appears on the map (when the area is explored and zoomed in).
It would only load when you're in the grid, so it wouldn't be too heavy.

Because if we're using a width/length system and the server has to check connections or record traffic, then recognize where is wide and lenght. it'll overload everything, and if the server have to check if people walk there, it mean , server need a db on when player walk on that route, and if there is a route. Server will overload 4 000 000 000% sure .

So we might as well create a paving dedicated to trade routes, visually large enough, with perhaps a speed bonus when you drive over it with a cart.

I have a trade route project, and I met a player (Vordmor) who's working on the same thing. This kind of paving would be perfect, and the buff speed will be the cherry on the cake.

[devout peak]

I'd simply use the criterion "hex is mostly coverd by pavement" to include that as road tile - irrespective whether in settlement claim or not. It does not need to be live data, but it would suffice if the map images (or road overlay images) distributed are updated ever so often

[fiery trail]

@devout peak a large hex is seven tiles. mostly covered is at least four tiles. A road two-tiles wide could be three-tiles on one large hex and two on another in some cases, but more commonly there would be frequent hexes at least, with four or more tiles - that seems like a good criterion, imho. I guess I can see mapping pavement inside claims - it is a measure of "urbanization", and could show the size and thus the relative prosperity of claims.

[devout peak]

I'm aware. The exact mechanics can be adjusted indeed, possibly like you suggest. Avoiding to show roads inside settlements IMHO would be bad. Some might have a road directly through their settlement on purpose - so keeping that is good. And indeed it would be some aspect of showing urbanization, too (where's the pain in showing a town as road tiles; it's mostly hidden beneath the town symbol anyway).

[slender salmon]

The only reason is aesthetics. I can understand you prefer aesthatics that don't include wide roads. In the end it's a design choice, and both sides have valid arguments to them. Ultimately it depends on what the devs want the world to look like. Wide roads can allow for future decorative buildings to be placed on them, like a nice bench in a scenic spot, or water fountains, and so on.

The natural beauty of biomes is definitely one of the things I enjoy most about the game, and I love more untouched areas of the world too, but I don't think that excludes the possibility of adapting public infrastructure that might make things convenient for players to traverse the world, and maybe stop and relax in pretty spots.

I also don't think there is not a reason for a group who builds a road that they want to be more "monumental" to not be able to do so. I don't think the world will get fully paved over with absurdly wide roads, if there is the potential for that, then I guess it falls to the devs to figure out how to set things up so it's maybe more expensive to pave a tile if there are 2 tiles around it, and so on.

The world is very big, and I imagine there will be areas of the world that different players will like better than others.

[devout peak]

If paving the world ever becomes a problem, roads will need maintenance or decay into nothingness after some time of no maintenance. Problem solved 🙂 (outside claims)

[slender salmon]

There's also been talk about Specialized Settlements, so maybe to pave tiles you need the tiles to be inside Claimed Area, be it from a normal Writ, or from a Construction-skill based Settlement (which could have different costs, different restrictions).

Road decay based on frequency of use is an idea that's been thrown around as well. So it decays, but if someone walks on it, then it "repairs" that tile and maybe a 1, 2 or 3 tile radius around it.

[grave tendon]

I think road width and material has a lot of potential for subtle communication. A wide road made of expensive materials and dotted with light sources implies that it's builders hail from an affluent claim. Its more likely that these highways will be a safe route to somewhere important, compared to a tiny dirt path that could fizzle out in the middle of nowhere

[devout peak]

That should be motivation to build a 6-lane highway into the green hell 😉

(or maybe better white or desert hell)

[grave tendon]

I have a feeling that if a large highway to nowhere did get built it wouldn't stay "nowhere" for very long. Safe routes to different biomes are valuable even without a specific destination and it wouldn't be long until claims sprout up

[devout peak]

I agree 🙂 It will be a welcome gift to prospective settlers

[fiery trail]

Looking for Group: "The Roadless" - preserving Bitcraft's wild beauty. I am liking the concept of mapping where the roads are spring up more and more . . .

[grave tendon]

If a group goes around ripping up the infrastructure others spent time and resources building, the mods better find a hard stance on what constitutes griefing outside of claims quick before the retaliation escalates

[fiery trail]

if a group goes around defacing the natural habitats of the game, that is griefing and the devs have already built in means to deal with it: it is easier to undo griefing than to do it: it is easier to tear up a road than to put it down. I think road builders have the onus to be particularly sensitive to the game aesthetic if they choose to build in open areas of the game.

aah, but I am not speaking for Paisen in this matter. I am only playing with Paisen in the demo. This thread has helped me to discover my true calling, I think.

[grave tendon]

What counts as "defacing" is purely subjective, but the devs have made it pretty clear that infrastructure projects and trade routes are something they want players to engage with. If they took a completely neutral stance then even the widely accepted good looking roads would be on the chopping block, not to mention nothing stopping people from covering your backyard in T1 dirt path spam every day. I have a feeling they will take a harder stance on this stuff if troublemakers start rocking the boat

[pulsar hill]

(didn't read the conversation) we need special, harder to make roads which will be visible on the world map

[grave tendon]

Eventually we will be able to change the material of entire hexes with the terraforming site, which could function as a more permanent pavement type

Taking up the entire hex makes tracking it on the map pretty simple too

[slender salmon]

The thing that is easier to undo than to do is the terraforming, two different things. And it's not because Terraforming = Griefing, just to mitigate the potential for griefing. The devs absolutely like roads, otherwise they wouldn't let us pave outside of claims in the first place.

[slender salmon]

If by "new calling" you mean actively disrupting other people's gameplay, then that might not be such a good idea. However, you COULD organize a group to make "Natural Parks", and make claims as big as possible in different biomes, or even chains of claims covering certain areas with the purpose of preservation. You'd need to supply them to keep them alive, but if you organize and make them into places that people might support and like, maybe you can find enough other players that the whole project is sustainable.

[fiery trail]

here is a place where a group has created a very broad paving project in Royaume de France at N 3641, E 3220. This is the sort of construction that, in my humble opinion, seems destructive. I recognize that the players who made it think it is quite lovely. So now it is left to us to discover ways to collaborate.

[silk sun]

I think the smallest hex tiles that show on the map are terrain pillars, which have 7 hex tiles on them. so you could do something like "if at least 6 tiles on a terrain pillar are paved, then show it as a road tile on the map"

but each paving tile is implemented as separate game objects that just get placed on the ground like structures do. so the terrain tiles don't know what objects are placed on them, and the map system doesn't know where individual objects are placed (except for a few things that show icons on the maps like claim totems, ruined towns, npc travellers, etc)

I hope the paving system gets changed so it's not object based, but gets set as a property on the terrain pillars with dynamic textures. that would fix the issues with paving objects floating over the sides of terrain pillars/not updating when you change the height of a terrain pillar. and it could allow for you to pave on the corners of terrain pillars at different elevations

which would make paved slopes and borders look a lot better

[slender salmon]

Actually, the hexagons on the map are a lot larger, each Chunk if you use the grid (F2) looks to be 10 hexagons across, but if you use the Pillar tool (F4) you can count 32 pillars across. So for every hexagon in the map, you're looking at closer to 10 pillars on the ground. a road that is 5 tiles wide would show on the map as a small line through the middle of one of the hexagons.

The hexagons in the map seem to be exactly 10 small tiles side to side and 13 top to bottom,

[unkempt dew]

Didn't read any of the comments in the post, but the map should show 3 wide roads that connect between settlements.

[pulsar hill]

"highway" paving made of brick slabs to be visible on the map

[fiery trail]

maybe a better option could be a super-hex dynamic traffic heat-map; not showing the roads per se, but showing where people travel the most. Maybe show a heat map of total transits as a percentage of the maximum transit for any super-hex in each region. Maybe use a two- or three-day running total? Area around large settlements will have more traffic of course, and if a road is heavily used then the super-hexes it transits will also show on the heat-map. Foragers and hunters could benefit from such a map also; sailor could easily see popular routes. And all of these players could also perhaps benefit from knowing where people have NOT been going lately.