by agentlemanloser » Fri Jun 12, 2015 7:35 am
I’m not sure if this has been asked yet, but have you made any alterations to the map generator for expeditions? I seem to recall at least one of your team being as dissatisfied with the biome/river distributions as I am.
Incidentally, do you realize that this is the perfect opportunity to experiment with adding naturally occurring caves to the terrain? First, add the entrance decal to cliffs meeting a certain height/width criteria. Then, model the cavern itself upon a standard mine floor. Procedurally generate the twisting passages. Form the walls from rock that can’t be mined, using a slightly different texture. Have the team’s artist make some stand-in stalagmites and immovable boulders. Populate the cave with old and new forageables: mushrooms of various kinds, salt, certain new inspirationals, etc. Add natural spawn nodes for bats (giant and regular), cougars, bears, and darkness variants where applicable. Here’s the twist: make all cavedwelling animals instantly hostile and murder-capable. Seems like such a system would add some much-needed variety to the terrain. If you like, you could also add an infinitesimal chance that the rare forageables would spawn as well in caves, just to give people a reason to risk it.