Teragon - Random Map Generator

[Riamus]

Teragon v0.51.7 is now available.  It includes a new Flood Basins command that will fill in depressions on your map with water, no matter what elevation they are located at.  It includes a variety of parameters to allow you to control the size of a depression that you want to fill so you aren't filling a depression that's only a few meters in size or one that is 1km in size (unless you want to).  This can add lakes on mountains and hills, as long as there is some kind of depression there.  A couple other new features from v0.51.6 include being able to change the biome around a location or POI using Create Biome At Locations if you want a POI or location to have a specific biome, and you can set roads to connect any location or POI to a gateway using Create Extra Roads.  The new road command can even let you make it look like a road is exiting the edge of the map and can allow you to connect a main road to a given POI if you want.

Note that the Flood Basins command will receive an update soon as there are instances when water can overflow, so until the next update, if you use it, be aware that it might overflow depending on your parameters.  This may also be connected to using Enhance Shoreline after running Flood Basins.

(Already fixed)

Here is a quick example of using Flood Basins with default values.  As you can see, there are some very large lakes and you may not want that as it limits towns.  With some adjustments to the values, you can avoid the larger lakes while still getting those smaller lakes that you see.  You can also adjust the amount of depressions on your map by changing the values in the Depressions section (Subtract Height Map section) of your preset.



This next image shows the 3D Preview.  If you look closely, you can see how the lake on the left is a higher elevation than the lake on the right.  And although you can't really tell here, both lakes in the front are higher elevation than the lake in the back where the ship is.

 

[bobrpggamer]

I know these maps need  lot more work on them, but I may not get to them so I am uploading the on onedrive If you like them they can be used as a template. Know though that they are very easy maps, as these are 70% forests and 20% water, there is very little wasteland, Desert or Snow. But again they can be edited.

I had plans to do a lot more with then but as usual I got sidetracked and they now they have just sat om my hard drive for about 2-3 months with no work being done one them.

Here are a couple of the 12K maps:

12K landscape 1 with large cities:

Landscape 2 large cities:

Landscape 1 less cities:

I think this is a 14K Map:

The onedrive link has been screwed up by Microsoft, so I am going to remove it and If anyone wants a map just let me know. I can make a basic mp 12K with whatever you want in it. Again just let me knowm

 

[bobrpggamer]

Well I decided to get back into teragon. I have not played 7 Days To Die for over a year and I think I will create a cool 14K map to start playing again.

I figured out a way to force bridges where you want them. If you want a bridge to cross a river (at least close the area you want). You could create a town mask in a image editor, which would force only 2 towns right across a body of water such as a river but nowhere else. This should create the bridge.  Then you copy ONLY the <decoration rotation="2" name="bridge_end" type="model" position="934,112,1235"/> and so on in prefabs.xml into a text editor like Notepad ++. You do this for each bridge you create and add them to the dummy Prefab.xml.

Now in the prefab.xml for your finished map, you copy and paste the bridge's that were added to the dummy.xml at the top of the new created prafabs.xml for your final map

I will try this soon.

 

[EvilPolygons]

I haven't used Teragon since 2023. Was support for country (highway) tiles and desert mesas ever added?

 

[bobrpggamer]

I haven't used Teragon since 2023. Was support for country (highway) tiles and desert mesas ever added?

Could you elaborate a bit on what you want. Also this tread is a bit dead you should use the discord channel.

You can make your own roads and there is no reason why you could not add a patch of desert and force a town on it with a mask, for both things.

 

[EvilPolygons]

Could you elaborate a bit on what you want. Also this tread is a bit dead you should use the discord channel.

You can make your own roads and there is no reason why you could not add a patch of desert and force a town on it with a mask, for both things.

A "country" tile is a single, lone streettile that can spawn along main roads in the wilderness between towns, with multiple highway entrances/exits. Vanilla uses them for wilderness highway intersections, rest stops, etc. The feature was added to 7dtd in A20 or A21. When I last used Teragon back in 2023, Pille hadn't yet added support for them.

Mesas are terrain formations unique to the desert in vanilla 7dtd RWG. In vanilla, they are created via stamps.
 

 

[bobrpggamer]

A "country" tile is a single, lone streettile that can spawn along main roads in the wilderness between towns, with multiple highway entrances/exits. Vanilla uses them for wilderness highway intersections, rest stops, etc. The feature was added to 7dtd in A20 or A21. When I last used Teragon back in 2023, Pille hadn't yet added support for them.

Mesas are terrain formations unique to the desert in vanilla 7dtd RWG. In vanilla, they are created via stamps.
 

OK, I see. 

Personally I am thinking of adding an interstate to my map. Instead of 2 lanes I am going to add 4 or more lanes between the largest cities. The program is really customizable to add just about everything you could want in your map.

I also like the idea of building a custom road completely around the edge of the map as well. Too bad the old Photoshop I have has terrible support for transparency. I tried to get the Splat 3 in my old Photoshop and it seemed impossible to do. Even Gimp seems to accept a .PNG with an alpha channel.

 

[EvilPolygons]

This is the best I was able to come up with, working around Teragon's limitations. The highway tile on left more or less spawned properly, the tile on the right obviously did not:



A highway tile should only spawn BETWEEN towns in wilderness areas where all its road connections can be drawn to either towns or other highway tiles. Here, Teragon simply treats these as 1-tile towns consisting only of a gateway, meaning a straight gateway tile can end up with an entrance road but no exit. Dead ends, in other words.

Straight tiles such as those above fail about as often as they succeed. I generated 3 maps and was never able to get a single T- or 4-way intersection to spawn as anything other than a dead end.

 

[Riamus]

I haven't used Teragon since 2023. Was support for country (highway) tiles and desert mesas ever added?

Country tiles are not available.  You can create mesas if you want to.  World Generator 5 does so.  But there isn't a specific command for it, and it will take a lot of time and isn't easy to set up.  But take a look at the desert section of that preset if you want to try to figure it out.

 

[EvilPolygons]

Country tiles are not available.  You can create mesas if you want to.  World Generator 5 does so.  But there isn't a specific command for it, and it will take a lot of time and isn't easy to set up.  But take a look at the desert section of that preset if you want to try to figure it out.

I care a lot more about country tiles than mesas, honestly. I tried getting creative and getting lone streettiles to spawn in the wilderness, with very limited success, but of course Teragon doesn't really know where/how to properly place them since it lacks any logic for that specific usage.

What's frustrating is that the foundation for country tile handling really already exists, as country tiles are essentially just one-tile "towns" with  pure main road connections instead of having outskirts. Teragon can already be made to spawn lone streettiles like this (see my screenshot posted previously), but there's no way to tell the program "hey, I'm a country tile so force road exit connections only!" Doing it this way currently, without support, sort of works, but results in lots of dead ends and illogical placements.

What's mostly needed is the logic to determine where best to place country tiles on main roads between towns. I suspect Pille's algorithm for handling road-to-bridge connections over rivers was faaaar more complex than simply determining mid-way spots between towns for logical country tile locations.

Anyway, don't get me wrong - Teragon is an amazing tool and handles terrain/biome generation MUCH more realistically and intelligently than the vanilla RWG. But 2 years is a long time to wait lol. I could be mistaken, but it feels like country tiles are the only RWG feature since A20/A21 that Pille never added support for.

 

[Riamus]

I care a lot more about country tiles than mesas, honestly. I tried getting creative and getting lone streettiles to spawn in the wilderness, with very limited success, but of course Teragon doesn't really know where/how to properly place them since it lacks any logic for that specific usage.

What's frustrating is that the foundation for country tile handling really already exists, as country tiles are essentially just one-tile "towns" with  pure main road connections instead of having outskirts. Teragon can already be made to spawn lone streettiles like this (see my screenshot posted previously), but there's no way to tell the program "hey, I'm a country tile so force road exit connections only!" Doing it this way currently, without support, sort of works, but results in lots of dead ends and illogical placements.

What's mostly needed is the logic to determine where best to place country tiles on main roads between towns. I suspect Pille's algorithm for handling road-to-bridge connections over rivers was faaaar more complex than simply determining mid-way spots between towns for logical country tile locations.

Anyway, don't get me wrong - Teragon is an amazing tool and handles terrain/biome generation MUCH more realistically and intelligently than the vanilla RWG. But 2 years is a long time to wait lol. I could be mistaken, but it feels like country tiles are the only RWG feature since A20/A21 that Pille never added support for.

Keep in mind that "country tiles" aren't regular town tiles.  They are gateway tiles.  Only gateway tiles are set up to connect to main roads.  If you place a gateway tile, you'll get your roads to connect as you expect them to.

 

[EvilPolygons]

Keep in mind that "country tiles" aren't regular town tiles.  They are gateway tiles.  Only gateway tiles are set up to connect to main roads.  If you place a gateway tile, you'll get your roads to connect as you expect them to.

Yes, I know what a gateway tile is. As my screenshot above clearly shows, you definitely will NOT get your roads to connect as expected. Teragon has no idea how to place them logically. Dead ends are common and the tile placements generally make no sense because Teragon doesn't know that these specific tiles are coded in rwgmixer.xml to be used solely as highway POIs out in the wilderness between towns.

The BEST result you can get currently has Teragon treating them as one-tile towns -- when Teragon places one on the map, it doesn't care if it puts the tile where it can't fully connect all its roadexits or not. Just look at the screenshot (or try the experiment for yourself) and you'll see what I mean. Straight road tiles fail as often as not at connecting both their road exits. T- and 4-way intersections nearly always result in dead ends, with one road coming in, and none (or 1 at most) road exiting properly.

 

[Riamus]

Yes, I know what a gateway tile is. As my screenshot above clearly shows, you definitely will NOT get your roads to connect as expected. Teragon has no idea how to place them logically. Dead ends are common and the tile placements generally make no sense because Teragon doesn't know that these specific tiles are coded in rwgmixer.xml to be used solely as highway POIs out in the wilderness between towns.

The BEST result you can get currently has Teragon treating them as one-tile towns -- when Teragon places one on the map, it doesn't care if it puts the tile where it can't fully connect all its roadexits or not. Just look at the screenshot (or try the experiment for yourself) and you'll see what I mean. Straight road tiles fail as often as not at connecting both their road exits. T- and 4-way intersections nearly always result in dead ends, with one road coming in, and none (or 1 at most) road exiting properly.

Ah, you mean you want multiple road connections.  Yes, that is entirely random, based on where Teragon thinks a road should connect.  Sometimes you'll connect multiple roads and sometimes you won't.  You'll have more success with a tile that has 2 connections than one with 3 or 4, but it'll still be hit or miss.  That will eventually be addressed when roads get another improvement pass, but it's not a high priority right now.

To be clear, Teragon does know where all of the road exits are located.  However, it doesn't require a connection for every road.  Towns are designed to have one road connection per town, though you occasionally do get multiple to the same gateway tile.  This is also true for wilderness POI... one road connection, even if there are multiple driveways.  Again, this will eventually get an update.

Regarding "country tiles," those are still a relatively new idea and I'm not even sure if RWG will end up maintaining them or removing them down the road.  They offer a little interest in the wilderness but lead to poor questing options if you have a trader there, which a lot of people were complaining about when they were introduced.  Some people like them and some don't.  In the end, Teragon may choose to go its own way with "country tiles" and do things differently to improve their usefulness for people.  But that'll be down the road.

 

[EvilPolygons]

Ah, you mean you want multiple road connections.  Yes, that is entirely random, based on where Teragon thinks a road should connect.  Sometimes you'll connect multiple roads and sometimes you won't.  You'll have more success with a tile that has 2 connections than one with 3 or 4, but it'll still be hit or miss.  That will eventually be addressed when roads get another improvement pass, but it's not a high priority right now.

To be clear, Teragon does know where all of the road exits are located.  However, it doesn't require a connection for every road.  Towns are designed to have one road connection per town, though you occasionally do get multiple to the same gateway tile.  This is also true for wilderness POI... one road connection, even if there are multiple driveways.  Again, this will eventually get an update.

Regarding "country tiles," those are still a relatively new idea and I'm not even sure if RWG will end up maintaining them or removing them down the road.  They offer a little interest in the wilderness but lead to poor questing options if you have a trader there, which a lot of people were complaining about when they were introduced.  Some people like them and some don't.  In the end, Teragon may choose to go its own way with "country tiles" and do things differently to improve their usefulness for people.  But that'll be down the road.

Yes, exactly. Even without logic written specifically for their placement as specialized highway junctions, Teragon could decently (more or less) emulate vanilla RWG's usage of these tiles IF the road connections were a bit more reliable.

As for the trader issue, I don't think it's possible for traders to spawn on these particular tiles now. There's a comment about that in the rwgmixer.xml file above the (very small) handful of streettiles that can spawn in the wilderness. There are maybe three(?) of them and I'm not absolutely certain but I don't think those tiles have trader spots at all.

 

[spud42]

made a few maps in the latest teragon yesterday. 

loaded one in the 1.3 update and spawned in the wasteland!! got out of there real quick and found pine forrest.

starting quest didnt show but as i completed them i got the final reward. 

4.6 Km to the trader!!! this is going to be fun...lol 

this is the first teragon map i have played since 1.0 was released. 

 

[Riamus]

made a few maps in the latest teragon yesterday. 

loaded one in the 1.3 update and spawned in the wasteland!! got out of there real quick and found pine forrest.

starting quest didnt show but as i completed them i got the final reward. 

4.6 Km to the trader!!! this is going to be fun...lol 

this is the first teragon map i have played since 1.0 was released. 

You know you can set the spawn point generation to only spawn in the forest, right?  I don't know what you mean about the quest not showing and still getting a reward.  You can't complete a quest if you don't have a quest.

 

[spud42]

the steps were not announced.  the next part of the starting quest was not shown. 

pressed Y to get to challenge  pages and the quests were in green=completed. redeemed them all and got the announcement of the trader location. 

so no craft armor, no craft blocks no update block no make a club no make a bow no make arrows. doubt its a teragon thing .

if i didnt know what i was supposed to do at the start i might not have got my 4 starter points. 

as for spawn point generation i thought 7DTD limited it to pine or burnt forrest? this is the first time on any teragon map that i have not spawned in the correct biome.

it was a cool start slowed down the first 3 days trying to get to the trader trying to loot a pot and grill.... wasnt until 7 th day at the traders i finally got to build a forge and made my own!  

 

[Riamus]

the steps were not announced.  the next part of the starting quest was not shown. 

pressed Y to get to challenge  pages and the quests were in green=completed. redeemed them all and got the announcement of the trader location. 

so no craft armor, no craft blocks no update block no make a club no make a bow no make arrows. doubt its a teragon thing .

if i didnt know what i was supposed to do at the start i might not have got my 4 starter points. 

as for spawn point generation i thought 7DTD limited it to pine or burnt forrest? this is the first time on any teragon map that i have not spawned in the correct biome.

it was a cool start slowed down the first 3 days trying to get to the trader trying to loot a pot and grill.... wasnt until 7 th day at the traders i finally got to build a forge and made my own!  

Those are no longer quests.  They are challenges.  They will only show you information if you choose to track them.  You should normally get the tracking information initially, but if you track something else, like a crafting recipe, the tracking on the challenge goes away unless you track it again.  In any case, that's unrelated to it being a Teragon map.  It's just how challenges work.

Spawning is limited only in RWG.  If you use Teragon, you can spawn anywhere you want.  The command to set spawn points can be set to limit where you spawn, if you choose, but that's just an option.  If people want to spawn in the wasteland, they can do so.

 

[spud42]

i did  say it wasnt a teragon thing.. 

 

[Riamus]

i did  say it wasnt a teragon thing.. 

Yeah, I was just clarifying that it wasn't since you said doubted it was, so it sounded like you weren't sure.