PC A17 How Long Would You Wait For A Pre-Generated Map to Build?
- Thread starter SylenThunder
- Start date
I am not sure why map size can't be a simple slider that defaults to some reasonable size. 4X games have been doing scalable maps for a long time, with a lot of success. Impatient people can do a small map, patient people can do a large one.
I wouldn't mind, while one is at it, being able to do something about sizes of towns and building clusters. I rather liked the old days where there were only a few really big cities and mostly otherwise you had small clusters of stores and houses at a crossroads.
I wouldn't mind, while one is at it, being able to do something about sizes of towns and building clusters. I rather liked the old days where there were only a few really big cities and mostly otherwise you had small clusters of stores and houses at a crossroads.
That's way too sweeping and broadstated imo. While everyone is entitled to their views I don't like statements like this - it really misinforms dev's.
I digressed slightly so in italics for those who wanna skip the ramble.
After the 'privateer' / wing commander / (or the still excellent Freespace 2) noone made a half decent space sim anymore because 'thats what not like people wanted' - only to have the new yield gobbled up like cookies when they fiinally came (and star citizen - whatever your opinion of the development raising 150M in kickstarter money). The same for Turn/Tile based RPG -> we only got might and magic X legacy after god knows how long we waited cause no-one wanted it anymore (X wasn't all that great really, but some of my best gaming memories are 'world of Xeen' might and magic, not the heroes of mind you. The original rpg of wich heroes was a spinoff.)
If they released one now with 'somewhat modern' graphics and as great a story and a huge exansive area now i'd buy it.
(I still remember one of the very late game grotto/dungeons - you'd run into warning signs and the last one was "now you've done it, gone to deep. Your bones will lie in a rotting heap -> the sense of (justified) dread....)
In modern time - I might reroll a large world with long history more then a dozen times to get what i want for dwarf fortress world gen - takes several hours per)
Ofcourse you have your entitles screaming 16 years olds - and they are very visible. But ^^ like the polls prove there is a big amount of players out there that will invest time in getting stuff 'just right'. It shouldn't be hard to please both with what they got now. You have your navezgane for want to jump in immediately. You could even have the dev's or community ring up a few pre-RGW als alternatives to load up they in general liked very much by alpha 18 or even now if they are there already (edit: well ronald had the idea to - just on the page after the one I responded too - that either is stating the obvious then or great mind thinking alike - I'll leave Roland to pick which one
) Then you have your ready in 15 mins for people with a little more attention span then half a MTV clip. And then the option to go big for server, people who like expansive maps etc etc.If we still do the seed thing properly I'd run up a 8x8 or whatever first that could finish in 15 mins and have a first look of 'the center' - pick the 2 or 3 most promising and have them gen overnight for 20 or 30 k and pick the best one from that to play in. If i'm gonna spend a lot of time in a map like that I'm wanting a good map.
edit: before i get jumped: I know as a single player i'm not gonna 'use' all of that. But I really like the idea of having a world around and picking my favourite spot instead of going to 'this this bestest one on this map' feeling. They way i play now often has me taking over a poi on the edge or near a town i make defesible for abotu the first 7 weeks. I get my ♥♥♥♥ together and build up reserves (if all goes well) and by then I usually found a 'nice' place scouting and go for a more elaborate fully player build base there. It just the feeling of not being on a railroad, doing what everyone would do.
So explicitly i;m not saying their aren't impatient players and they should at least be given the option to get to know the game before their patience runs out (as in not to lose client base) but having the options for us with time, patience, ocd whatever have the option seems wonderful and I want the dev's to know that.
they are putting in distant trees - removes one of my main immersion breakers so a island in a lake or a cliff based base becomes a nice option. Now if only they found a way to distant-render an "just about" version of player build (or adapted) bases too that would finish things up visually for me mostly. Meme's aside - the new lighting also did look nice for the most part.
edit: Just read they are making the building process threaded too. Even better - make a 'quick pick' based on some small renders then let the long one run from that seed even during daytime while you do work / watch a movie whatever (I work from home mostly
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That does seem awesome, gets me really excited. I understand RGW is hard, but for some reason whenever I settle down then close after the point of no return (at least for 40 days or so) I find this weird road/path that either has a height drop or a weird slant or stuff. Thats ok if I pass it once while exploring, but in my home area I would be tempted to fix it (for instance in my current game the path toward the lakeside trader i leave near is very steep slanted while an only slightly longer road could graciously curve around the lump in the way and look pretty natural. Last bit also has path at such a slant you'd drop off riding it (its ok in places, the apocalypse after all but near a trader you'd expect that 'maintained')I guess I should step in and mention that the entire system is programmed with a Size variable and the code for generation scales.
8k is indeed the baseline as Roland put it. 8k is a good test to optimize as it is just a bit bigger than nav and I want it to take less than 10 minutes.
Generating larger sizes will work, will load, and will play. The variable for this will be exposed when you get a17. I'm doing testing on how long it takes things and putting together a semi-accurate timer so you know how long it's going to take total. The map generation is fully threaded aside from exporting to disk so you will be able to read messages on what is happening and how long is left, it will not lock up the game while generating. For dedi owners it will prevent joining until the map is generated and loaded.
So, 20k obviously takes a very long time to generate, the time goes up exponentially as the total km size does but the only technical limitation would be the hardware generating the map.
The reason we don't just load you in then generate as you go is that when making roads, placing towns, and generating other things; a lot of data has to exist. The map is put together in layers and that's done on a world level. It's not something that can be skipped around and is slower when done in such a manner. Now rwg maps run as fast as navezgane as far as chunk load times and that is something we've wanted for a long time. No special code during run time for random maps is a good thing.
The depth of editing that can be done to a randomly generated map after the fact now is awesome. You can change player spawns, move POIs, add new pois, add new roads, remove roads, edit the height map, etc. All things in rwg are accessible in the world folder just like with nav.
I wouldn't take away the ability to have large maps, that's something I also love. RWG is my baby after all. Don't panic and rest well in the fact that you won't be hard limited to 8k and that I've actually added more moddability with this change.
then followed by this weird bump 3 block up for the actual POI. It would be wonderful to be able to fix that ♥♥♥♥ with map edits - at least near places youll visit frequently like homebase and trader.
so question: is this only in 'generate mode' or can it be done later?
Any clue/hint on how to do that? I haven't really looked at xml edits or file structures yet. - Elaborate please if/when you can
Picking your spawn place sounds kewl too. Get dropped in weird stupid places on spawn too often. I play dead is dead SP usually so to give me at least a fighting chance dropping myself NOT on the edge of wasteland and being run down by a pack of dogs in the first 10 minutes would be great.
Couldn't they ship experimental with a half dozen pre-generated maps?
It might possibly alleviate the rage from some folks upset with generation times should it even be an issue.
Aditionally they could be test-only maps.
If folks want to report bugs they must be using one of these maps. Change the maps for every patch to force a new save which is also a problem every patch.
Basically force the folks who wanna actually be useful to follow the testing rules and let everyone else do their thing with the consequence of having no legit ability to complain.
That was way more than i intended.
In Pimps We Trust
It might possibly alleviate the rage from some folks upset with generation times should it even be an issue.
Aditionally they could be test-only maps.
If folks want to report bugs they must be using one of these maps. Change the maps for every patch to force a new save which is also a problem every patch.
Basically force the folks who wanna actually be useful to follow the testing rules and let everyone else do their thing with the consequence of having no legit ability to complain.
That was way more than i intended.
In Pimps We Trust
bloom_meister
Banned
What Viktor said.
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Alphado-Jaki
New member
new random gen world seeds for ALPHA 17 thread may distributes seed_name with pre-generated world data. 
Menace312
New member
I was just thinking that!new random gen world seeds for ALPHA 17 thread may distributes seed_name with pre-generated world data.
For me it's not really an issue if it took 1hour to generate a new map. I rarely restart, and if it means smoother gameplay, I'm all for it.
I do see how this would be an annoyance for those, that restart a lot. And perhaps server owners.
TheStoryteller01
New member
I wouldn't mind longer map building times as long as the preview stays as fast as now.
For purposes of testing prefabs, biomes and RPG mixer stuff I have a clone of the game installed where literally NOTHING spawns, except for the things I test
For purposes of testing prefabs, biomes and RPG mixer stuff I have a clone of the game installed where literally NOTHING spawns, except for the things I test
TheProphet
New member
I dont mind it to be as big as possible, i would wait, but i would hate map wipes often, so try to not force wipes on servers with newer updates unless 100% necessary, also try to mainain compatibility.
TheProphet
New member
I hope admins don't start ruining the vanilla experience now with their annoying tendency to overbuild stuff.
TheProphet
New member
Can someone tell me if client side you will need to wait ages too, or only the person that hosts the server has to wait?We're totally fine with that! Since Admins can generate the map before letting everyone join!
Thank you and have a nice day!
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Interesting Ideas Ladarian!
For example let's say I make an huge 24-hour-generation map, and host the server.
New players will need to wait 24 hours? Because obviously, this is a failure and nobody will play. Not even 10 minutes of wait, no one will wait 10 minutes except hardcore gamers.
I assumed only the person generating the map has to wait, then once it's generated, players join as usual.
Btw, wouldn't it be better that the map gets generated as you join? If you join and you are 0,0, then what's the problem with inmediately joining and then as you play around 0,0 since you just started and you'll be slow, the map is generating around you. Or this would be too laggy for the player?
Wamplet
New member
How large is an 8kx8k map in hard drive space?
Does generating the map produce all of the regions on the hard drive?
As an example, I had a 16.4 map with 2 players with 240 regions and it uses about 1.6gb. I'm not sure how many regions there are in total, but from what it looks like, it generates region data when i travel to a new region in the map.
Just wondering if that will change and if generating the map makes a certain region size count of data for the map or if it loads all of it on the hard drive.
Does generating the map produce all of the regions on the hard drive?
As an example, I had a 16.4 map with 2 players with 240 regions and it uses about 1.6gb. I'm not sure how many regions there are in total, but from what it looks like, it generates region data when i travel to a new region in the map.
Just wondering if that will change and if generating the map makes a certain region size count of data for the map or if it loads all of it on the hard drive.
SylenThunder
Community Moderator / IT Guru
For a fully explored map on a clean generation with the current default 10k radius circle, the region files are about 11.4GB. This will vary some based on city density in the seeds.
I have had maps on servers run as high as 30GB after a lot of player activity.
I could do some calculations based on that if you want. Right now I still need a cup of coffee in order to do maths.
Looking at the poll, it's interesting that only one person so far has selected a map size similar to the current default.
I have had maps on servers run as high as 30GB after a lot of player activity.
I could do some calculations based on that if you want. Right now I still need a cup of coffee in order to do maths.
Looking at the poll, it's interesting that only one person so far has selected a map size similar to the current default.
I'm sure the generating is done completely on the server, like it is done in A16 too. I.e. whether dynamically generated or pregenerated, everything is done on the server.
The game generated slightly different maps on linux than on windows in A16, probably because of small differences in the floating point number implementation (i.e. rounding). Now if each client did its own map generation, these differences would make a multiplayer game with mixed linux- and windows-machines show discrepancies I haven't observed at all.
Yes, should have been possible to have a background job that slowly but continually generates the map in the background, even for area that isn't just discovered. Like the command some server owners use, only that the command works at top speed which leads to lag. No idea why they didn't do this. Maybe they wanted to completely remove those corner cases where the server needs to generate area for the players as they move simultaneously into new terrain leading to lag spikes.
Spectral Force
New member
I'm not keen on the new way to "preview" a map. I check out seeds before creating them on my dedi, so now instead of waiting just a few minutes for a size 5 preview, I have to wait an hour and generate the world twice? We still need some kind of previewer that's not generating the world. I can't think I'm the only one who does this.
Alphado-Jaki
New member
Navezgane, whose size is approximately 4kx4k, is about 500MB, so I assume pregen-map is 4 times of it, 2GB.