Potential Buildings

[Grackle]

Can you set the mobs that spawn inside these buildings? The Waste Sarcophagus, or anything that would make a highly desirable base, should have much tougher creatures inside.

[Soron]

Given that buildings sit on square tiles, I don’t see why we even need those hardcoded rotations, rather than doing them on the fly. Guess we’ll see if anyone feels like coding around that issue, though.

[acidia]

Ya, the sarcophagus is still getting fleshed out. Hazmat robots and high radiation levels will deter low level players from setting up a home inside.

Rotations are only a pain on multi-zone (?) buildings. For buildings like the mansion, hospital, or fema camp it defines the entrance and all other blocks are semi-randomized from a list. I like hard coding buildings because it makes them a bit more logical. So to make a game that feels randomized, a large variety of hard coded buildings are needed.

Here is my shot at the coffee/doughnut shop. I shifted to the ‘L’ shape because a diner (another idea) would be more likely to use a straight store front.

You’ll notice that the parking lot doesn’t connect to a street… eventually I’ll (or someone else) get around to updating the road code to draw a connecting path from the street to any pavement that is on the rim of city buildings.

I’m kinda curious when .5 is going to come out… I don’t want to dump a bunch of rough buildings into the repository right before the release.

[The_Darkling_Wolf]

0.5 isn’t likely to be out for a fair while, and if you have anything to flesh out, tell me and I’ll hold off.

[Grackle]

The computers in the office will hold an internal memo from the director of the EPA/CDC detailing a potential hazardous chemical/organism that could be in the vault. The last set of orders are to rig the sarcophagus with c-4 and standby to detonate/seal everything inside.

I can hack out some e-mails and memos if you want.

[acidia]

Please do, here is what I thought up. I’ve read the lore before but I’m a little hazy, we don’t need a lot of facts but speculation and internal workings are good. I like flavor material. Add some more e-mails and feel free to do the first one.

[spoiler]CDC: Internal Memo, Outbreak 2918024
We are tracking a potential outbreak in your region… (fill me in)

---

EPA: Report All Potential Containment Breaches 3873643
All hazardous waste dumps and sarcouphagi must submit three samples from each operational leache system
to the following addresses:

CDC Bioterrism Lab
Building 10
Corporate Square Boulevard
Atlanta, GA 30329

EPA Region 8 Laboratory
16194 W. 45th
Drive Golden, Colorado 80403

These samples must be accurate and any attempts to cover incompetencies will resault in charges of Federal Corrution
and potentially Treason.

Director of the EPA,
Robert Shane

CDC: Internal Memo, Standby 2918115
Your site along with many others has been found to be contaminated with what we will now refer to as [redracted].
It is vital that you standby for further orders. We are currently awaiting the President to decide our course of
action in this national crisis. You will proceed with fail-safe procedures and rig the sarcouphagus with c-4 as outlined
in Publication 4423. We will send you orders to either detonate and seal the sarcouphagus or remove the charges. It is
of upmost importance that the facility is sealed immediatly when the orders are given, we have been alerted by Homeland
Security that there are potential terrorist suspects that are being detained in connection with the recent national crisis.

Director of the CDC,
Ellen Grimes
[/spoiler]

[Soron]

Pretty sweet seeing the variety of buildings that are being added, acidia :).

0.5 isn’t likely to be out for a fair while, and if you have anything to flesh out, tell me and I’ll hold off.

You might wanna change the wording on the front page of the website, then? It makes it sound like a prerelease might drop at any time.

[The_Darkling_Wolf]

I’m referring to 0.5 proper, prereleases will continue on their normal schedule of ‘whenever I feel like it and you can load the game without it crashing’

[Slax]

So, any generation going on or will every building be the same? As in rooms, not items.

[acidia]

For the smaller buildings or ones with unique walls it is simply easier to create multiple versions. Like for the church, I have two other potential lay outs that vary architecturally from the one that was already submitted. So even if you do end up with two churches in one town, it is unlikely that they will be the same building.

The doctor’s office could be randomized but the general ratio of one office, two exam rooms, and a medical storage room is what makes sense… The cubical office will eventually get randomized cubicals but that will be a while yet, we’ll need the code anyways for the larger corporate buildings where you encounter multiple map tiles (horizontally or vertically) of cubical farms. I wanted to make the classrooms a bit more randomized (one reason they are all nearly identical in size) but getting randomized rooms split between map squares may not be possible without rewriting parts of the map handling code.

So, pretty much at the moment for the new buildings interiors aren’t randomized.

[Slax]

Alright. Thanks for the detailed response.

Think I’ll suggest both gyms and dojos for the to-do list. Dumbbells, water, other drinks, bars, mats, springs, martial arts gloves and practice helmets… lots of neat stuff to find in a gym. (Maybe even a boxing ring? COME AT ME, ZOMBIES!) Could of course also be a place to potentially up your stats in some fashion. Dojos could have much of the same but if you’re lucky, there might be some more exotic weapons around. Ceremonial swords (neat looking but not great for combat), bokken (wooden katana, used for practice), nunchucks, sai, good ol’ katanas… the works. And of course, the extensively rare HANZO STEEEEEEEEEL!

[acidia]

After posting I figured might as well knock out another low hanging fruit…

The Gothic Church, the ideal church compared to the New England/country style (18th -20 century single steeple, white, low windows, first one added) and the more modern styles (elongated rectangular sanctuary, with Sunday school classes/offices attached, sanctuary isn’t the only real room of interest). This thing is a bit of a castle at the moment, stained glass windows are elevated so they cannot be smashed through traditionally but they also don’t allow sight out. Ideas? (Yellow railings aren’t very pretty but, meh)

This is the style I’m planning for the cathedral but there I’ll really have room to play with. I thought about adding a “Mega-Church” but then I realized it would more or less just be a giant theater…

[kilozombie]

Well, mansions (which are multi-tile buildings) actually have a lot of random gen going on.

I’m pretty sure each section chooses from a variety of possibilities (or at least the corners do) instead of there being 2-3 different complete changes. Instead, things like pools and libraries and storage closets just click together.

From experience, of course. I’m sure it doesn’t work exactly like that.

[acidia]

Yup, out of necessity the mall will end up working in a similar fashion. I have entrance tiles, shops/venue tiles, and path way tiles. What I dislike about it is that you may end up in a mall like:

SSSSS
EPPPE
SSSPS
SES

S - venue
E - entrance
P - path/hall

Where three of the shops are movie theaters alone… doesn’t really make sense. Similar to the mansions which can have 4 rooms full of pool tables and 6 dining rooms… ??? It’s just a personal preference to favor having buildings that aren’t so visibly clunked together from giant squares.

Any ideas for mall venues? I currently have sketches of:
1 entrance tile
3 path/hall tiles
1 maintenance/security/administrative
6 venues
-clothing store
-fast food window (seating in front)
-fast food inverted (seating in-between two shops)
-sit down restaurant
-movie theater
-bank

Planned:
-sports/outdoors
-alternate clothing

On hold:
-large department stores, currently all venues are 1x1 so this will have to wait for mall v2.0

Edit/Update: The school is being an absolute bugger to get rotation working on. The map defines an area as
sSs
sss
sss

where the big S is the entrance and all other squares are simply “school” blocks. So you can define the top left block by asking it if it is next to the entrance. Same with the top right. Center is always easy because you simply ask if it is touching entrance or school blocks on all sides. I’m running into problems determining the East, West, and South school tiles. You can ask a tile what kind of terrain is to its North, South, East, or West but it doesn’t store a pointer to reference that tile. If it did you could simply ask for the center block and and the center block where the entrance is.

So if you are the southern center block all you see is,
s
sss
.
making it impossible to tell which side of the building (with respect to the original rotation) you are on.
I’m not exactly sure how you could call for your map coordinates and ask the map what kind of terrain is at (x,y-2).
Arg, I hate you C… why can’t we use python

[kilozombie]

I’m not a coder, but couldn’t you add a script within the generation of the mall to prevent more than one or two of the same type of map tile appearing? It would check if there is a theater and if there is remove that from the current list. Or is this not actually feasible?

[acidia]

From what I’ve seen, getting the script working would require more work than building the mall would. It is simply easier to add another half dozen shops and allow probability to decrease the chances of having too many repeats.

[kilozombie]

For venues in the mall, then, maybe a toy store with demented demon toys that come to life or something? Would be an interesting surprise your first time looting in there.

[Tilion]

Well, this has made me stop lurking & register so I can post. These are some great buildings I can’t wait to loot/take over/charge out of/cower in/crash through at 150mph in my latest uncontrollable death-machine.

I have a few extra shop ideas to pad out the probabilities that Cata’s RNG is throwing at you for mall creation, and maybe you’ll like a couple of 'em in their own right.

First off and to round out the restaurants is the coffee house, previously mentioned by DinoCat (with some additions from me…) all the usual accoutrements of tables/chairs/counters plus a couple of coffee machines - Deconstruct them to get a couple of heating elements each, sundry electric items and a chance of a metal tank or several pieces of scrap. There should also be a fridge or two with the other drinks/snack foods/cake - and a big stash of coffee in the counter (maybe some tea too?). In addition to a store itself, this could have an alternate ‘island’ setup where you can use it to replace one of the path/hall tiles?

Two other additions to the mall are regular building analogues you haven’t included in the list - an electronics store and a book store - they might not have the same range as the regular elec. store and library - focusing more on consumer goods for the elec. store and novels with a smattering of skill books for the book store.

Of the other two stores I could think off easily, one would be a cook shop: chock-a-block with crockery & glassware but having great sections for those all important pots & pans and the sharp-stuff (along with obligatory sporks & foons, no doubt). There could be a kitchen demo area still with a chance to be stocked with food.

The other shop is a shoe shop - yes, you get an occasional pair in clothing stores but a shoe shop could have a wider range (even if the store is still packed out with the standard sneakers, dress shoes & heels of course). One possible bonus (though I don’t know how hard it would be to code) would have any footwear from the shoe shop be fitting with a -1 to encumberance (due to being able to root through the piles 'til you find a pair in your size). Just a thought.

None of those mall add-on ideas were what I thought of first. There’s not much in the way of civic buildings in Cata’s towns yet beyond the police station and library, there’s the hospital in-game and your school and churches to come, and while any eventual offices might be designated a town hall, a specific place with council chambers/meeting rooms/public hall would be better, along with a fire station - fire engine/water cannon vehicle build anybody? Still those were not what my mind wondered to originally:

Public Works Depot.
Ideally situated on the edge of town:
A small front entry, reception/office corridor, couple of offices & bathroom with the usual detritus;
Through the office corridor to a large crew room fitted out with tables/chairs/fridge/sink/counter/microwave/toaster/tv/pool table adjoining a central corridor and main, side entry out to the parking lot & store yard.
On the other side to the crew room, shower/locker rooms with general clothing but a preponderance of boots/jeans/sweatshirts/hoodies/hard hats along with utility vests/belt rigs and a chance of pocket knives/flashlights;
Adjacent to the locker room, a locked, alarmed tool store with mainly construction tools but a chance of a jackhammer/chainsaw & rare chance of a related CBM - Int. Toolset/Hyd. Muscles or similar.
Fenced store yard should have an abundance of construction materials, a shed with a small supply of tools/nails/batteries/duct tape and an area with a few still-intact panes of glass.
Out in the parking lot, chance of a flatbed truck or one of several new vehicle types: pickup/van/gritter/ride-on mower or bulldozer.

So, whadda ya reckon? Possibilities? Flaws? Anyhoo - I’m happy to humbly offer my building (and complementary vehicle) ideas and hope one or two of 'em might eventually make it…

[Grackle]

I don’t know if this stuff is even useable/includeable yet, but here it is for when you need it. You can change any names or details or whatever, b/c I was just wingin it.

http://www.cataclysmdda.com/smf/index.php?topic=1028.msg12113#msg12113

[LazyCat]

[quote=“acidia, post:1, topic:913”]Howdy, this thread is dedicated to new buildings. We hope to get all the feedback we can so please feel free to critique.

-Near Completion-[/quote]

That’s great. I included your buildings in my latest build, which supports above ground z-levels, so I was wondering if you would be interested to make higher levels for some of those buildings? At least churches should have a tower with a bell. Gothic church is kind of too bright inside, needs darker floor. I plan to put lit candles in some of them, all around, and/or lit torches/flashlights embedded in the wall, and see if that will give them some more atmosphere. Speaking of which, there also should also be a cemetery. And how about large houses with a pool and/or garage, and 2-3 level apartment complexes, or skyscrapers?

By the way, would you be interested to re-create Shadow Moses from Metal Gear Solid? If you could draw the levels we could re-make the whole game. It would be marvellous and amazingly super-fantastic. We already have almost everything to recreate every stage, even the Metal Gear! All except level design, a tank and a chopper. You like Metal Gear games?