KingGen = magic???

[Archie]

FIrst of all, i want to thank from the bottom of my heart to the genius chaps who made it. 7D2D is one of the games i always wanted to buy a PC for, and now that my dream has finally come true thank God, i bought the game as soon as i could. And things were really exciting... Until the game literally took half an hour to generate the game world!

Holy crap, i have never played any sandbox game who took that long to make a map. As a roguelite player (death is permanent, and i have to start on a new map everytime), this was incredibly disheartening for me... So i went around the internet looking for possible solutions.

Downloaded NitroGen and KingGen. Went with the former first, as it is an older mod, and the results were equally disheartening... I stopped halfway through because it was clear it'd take as much time as the vanilla game, possibly even more. On my last hopes, i decided to give KingGen a try... And man, what a lifesaver that was! A full-blown 16K map (it's like, ultra big!!!) only took 4 minutes MAX, but it usually takes around 3-2 minutes. Like, damn son.

Anyways, i wanted to know exactly what kind of magic does KingGen uses to achieve such a feat, and i'm also curious what are people's thoughts about it overall. I also want to know how mod-friendly it is, since it's very clear to me now that i'll never play this game without it. And if anyone else is having the same problem that i did, download KingGen without hesitation, it truly is a wonderful feat of engineering done for this game :D

[Shurenai]

Among other things, Nitrogen(Which is obsolete and outdated at this point, developer of it hasnt been active iirc) skips a lot of polishing steps the main game's engine takes care with in favor of getting a faster generation time. Like, There are a lot of old long-fixed bugs in the RWG that nitrogen just allows because fixing those issues makes generation take a lot longer.

I'm assuming KingGen does something similar; Shortcuts, "Close enough"'s and acceptance of imperfection in return for a much faster generation time.


Also don't be so quick to think you won't use vanilla RWG again... A20 RWG is a HUGE change and should generate significantly faster than A19.x rwg.

[Archie]

Originally posted by Shurenai:

Among other things, Nitrogen(Which is obsolete and outdated at this point, developer of it hasnt been active iirc) skips a lot of polishing steps the main game's engine takes care with in favor of getting a faster generation time. Like, There are a lot of old long-fixed bugs in the RWG that nitrogen just allows because fixing those issues makes generation take a lot longer.

I'm assuming KingGen does something similar; Shortcuts, "Close enough"'s and acceptance of imperfection in return for a much faster generation time.


Also don't be so quick to think you won't use vanilla RWG again... A20 RWG is a HUGE change and should generate significantly faster than A19.x rwg.

If A20 significantly improves map generation time, i'll gladly use it again, I just really don't want to be stuck waiting 30 minutes for the game to generate a map... I'm normally a patient person, but that's a bit too much for me lol.

So, until A20 comes around (and significantly improved upon), guess i'll have to stick with KingGen. I just found out it is fully compatible with RavenHearst, which seems to be quite a huge mod, so that's another big plus. I just really hope A20 can do some magic like KingGen did, since apparently it MIGHT be coming with a procedural underground/sewer system which i find really interesting.

Also, i can't help but find it a little odd that KingGen might do things similarly to NitroGen, yet it generates things like 10x faster. Maybe it's because NitroGen is obsolete, as you said it yourself. In any case, i am really happy i bought this game after KingGen came out - if i had bought it earlier, i might have refunded it and be depressed about it :(

[Shurenai]

Originally posted by Rafael_Knight_93:

Originally posted by Shurenai:

Among other things, Nitrogen(Which is obsolete and outdated at this point, developer of it hasnt been active iirc) skips a lot of polishing steps the main game's engine takes care with in favor of getting a faster generation time. Like, There are a lot of old long-fixed bugs in the RWG that nitrogen just allows because fixing those issues makes generation take a lot longer.

I'm assuming KingGen does something similar; Shortcuts, "Close enough"'s and acceptance of imperfection in return for a much faster generation time.


Also don't be so quick to think you won't use vanilla RWG again... A20 RWG is a HUGE change and should generate significantly faster than A19.x rwg.

If A20 significantly improves map generation time, i'll gladly use it again, I just really don't want to be stuck waiting 30 minutes for the game to generate a map... I'm normally a patient person, but that's a bit too much for me lol.

So, until A20 comes around (and significantly improved upon), guess i'll have to stick with KingGen. I just found out it is fully compatible with RavenHearst, which seems to be quite a huge mod, so that's another big plus. I just really hope A20 can do some magic like KingGen did, since apparently it MIGHT be coming with a procedural underground/sewer system which i find really interesting.

Also, i can't help but find it a little odd that KingGen might do things similarly to NitroGen, yet it generates things like 10x faster. Maybe it's because NitroGen is obsolete, as you said it yourself. In any case, i am really happy i bought this game after KingGen came out - if i had bought it earlier, i might have refunded it and be depressed about it :(

When nitrogen was current and functional, It'd generate 16k maps in maybe 5-10 mins tops; And that's in my potato.. So yeah, it's likely that it's just out of date/unmaintained... May also just be having issues working in your specific environment.

https://www.twitch.tv/fubar_prime There's a dev livestream atm on A20; They started off talking about and showing RWG changes, so once the stream ends you could go to the VOD and watch the first 30-40 mins to check in on some of the A20 RWG stuff.

[Archie]

Originally posted by Shurenai:

Originally posted by Rafael_Knight_93:

If A20 significantly improves map generation time, i'll gladly use it again, I just really don't want to be stuck waiting 30 minutes for the game to generate a map... I'm normally a patient person, but that's a bit too much for me lol.

So, until A20 comes around (and significantly improved upon), guess i'll have to stick with KingGen. I just found out it is fully compatible with RavenHearst, which seems to be quite a huge mod, so that's another big plus. I just really hope A20 can do some magic like KingGen did, since apparently it MIGHT be coming with a procedural underground/sewer system which i find really interesting.

Also, i can't help but find it a little odd that KingGen might do things similarly to NitroGen, yet it generates things like 10x faster. Maybe it's because NitroGen is obsolete, as you said it yourself. In any case, i am really happy i bought this game after KingGen came out - if i had bought it earlier, i might have refunded it and be depressed about it :(

When nitrogen was current and functional, It'd generate 16k maps in maybe 5-10 mins tops; And that's in my potato.. So yeah, it's likely that it's just out of date/unmaintained... May also just be having issues working in your specific environment. :winter2019happyyul:

https://www.twitch.tv/fubar_prime There's a dev livestream atm on A20; They started off talking about and showing RWG changes, so once the stream ends you could go to the VOD and watch the first 30-40 mins to check in on some of the A20 RWG stuff.

So that must be why. It's shame too, because NitroGen actually has a neat function that generates highways into the game. I wanted to try NitroGen out specifically for this one feature, as i vastly prefer KingGen overall not only for it's much faster generation time, but for it's map generation settings as well (even though NitroGen goes a bit more in-depth about certain aspects). But, having to spend half an hour+ just to see one or two feature is not worth it in the end, so i'm just sticking with King at least until A20 comes out.

And thank you very much for your input, and for that link in your last post. I'll gladly check it out! ^^

[Wabbit Gone Bad]

I have been Using king _gen and love the speed, but can see the flaws. I have played many maps with vanilla and i do not see as many deep cuts made by the POI and roads. Vanilla does some odd stuff like a giant elevation change in middle of road so it goes up 10 feet, But you dont see a road cut into the ground with POI all way above it around it. I don't feel its a problem as the fast generation is a bigger plus then odd cuts it makes. The real difference is the Larger cites seem more regular with King Gen then Vanilla to me, and yes that does make the game easier (or harder depending on how you look at it). Map gen is the least of the problems, trying to get a Beaker to drop.. day 39 and none, and none on vendors. But to be fair I'm using Darkness falls, maybe its the mod?

[Archie]

Originally posted by Wabbit Gone Bad:

I have been Using king _gen and love the speed, but can see the flaws. I have played many maps with vanilla and i do not see as many deep cuts made by the POI and roads. Vanilla does some odd stuff like a giant elevation change in middle of road so it goes up 10 feet, But you dont see a road cut into the ground with POI all way above it around it. I don't feel its a problem as the fast generation is a bigger plus then odd cuts it makes. The real difference is the Larger cites seem more regular with King Gen then Vanilla to me, and yes that does make the game easier (or harder depending on how you look at it). Map gen is the least of the problems, trying to get a Beaker to drop.. day 39 and none, and none on vendors. But to be fair I'm using Darkness falls, maybe its the mod?

My game is 100% vanilla at the moment, so yeah, it could be your mod. Also, i'm aware that KingGen may not be perfect (even though so far i haven't encountered anything odd, but then again i barely played the game), but there's no way i'm going back to vanilla maps and their 30-minute generation time, unless A20 drastically decreases that number. As of now, KingGen is the only way i can even remotely play the game, so whatever imperfections it may have, i'll just have to learn to deal with them

Oh and yes, i absolutely LOVE how KinGen can spawn these mega cities that covers half of the map. Watching all those skycrapers in the horizon or all around you when you are inside the city is quite a unique feeling *^*

[horse sized nut]

Try letting Dwarf Fortress gen for longer than the default settings on a weak computer or with specific params; you'll sometimes never finish. Complex world gen takes time

[CatPerson]

Oh and yes, i absolutely LOVE how KinGen can spawn these mega cities that covers half of the map.

Beyond generation speed, this is one of the things I love about King's generator as well. I like creating 6kx6k maps with "one giant city" that's usually located somewhere towards the middle-ish. Yeah, sure, it's overkill and makes POI repeats and hunting too easy but I love the visual look and feel of it while exploring/walking around. lol. Reminds me of the center 0,0 Cities of old, only more extreme maybe, I suppose.

The other thing I like about it is that the biome generation is quite different - more mixed in terms of placement (by default - I don't use any special added terrain maps or whatever they're called during creation). I haven't really liked the "forest is always in the middle" with the other biomes randomly in a "pie circle" around that, which vanilla game generator currently does - it makes most maps feel too alike. I prefer mixed vs. the sectioned off method.

But it's true that (last time I made/played a map with it) the more isolated POI's have a much higher tendency to not be blended, height-map wise, to surrounding terrain well, or at all and it makes for some funny terrain issues.

[Archie]

After i heard how samey the vanilla generator is, i'm even happier to be using KingGen now. Imagine spending 30 minutes to make maps, only for them to be kinda similar to each other... Unless A20 makes some considerable quality changes to the algorithm and generation time, i'll be sticking with KingGen.

And yes, i absolutely love the "mega city in the middle", it's always the way my maps are. All of my maps are set to "just one" city, "very few" towns and "few" villages. For most of my games, the map ends up being perfectly distributed between nature and city areas, kinda like 50/50, which i really like. Another thing i love is that sometimes, the cities, towns and villages can all blend together, making one huge city that can go from one side of the map to the other. My first map, for example, had a huge X-shaped city that touched all 4 corners of the map, it was ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ amazing.

The biome generation is truly something else as well. In my first map, about 70% of the entire map was desert, with a small burnt forest/wasteland congregation near the center, and a few snowy peaks at the very edges of the map. My next map was more balanced = half desert, half forest, and half of the forest area was comprised of two large circles of burnt forest with a snowy peak on the very center of each circle (honestly it was pretty neat, i'm kinda regretful that i didn't screenshot it now). The wasteland biome was encroached to a tiny little area right on the edge of one of the burnt forests.

The last map i played was vastly different from the previous ones, half forest, half burn forest, with large swathes of wasteland dotted around the central regions of the map. Only a small patch of desert in the norhtwestern corner of the map. No snow as far as i remember. It is also worth noting that all 3 maps were dotted with lakes of varying sizes all across the map, they were never too big but there were hundreds of them everywhere.

So, in addition to lowering generation time, A20 must also have a procedural generation either similar to KingGen or better, otherwise i'll be just sticking with the latter :T

[MortVent]

I love it, due to my system's hardware it runs into issues trying to use vanilia world gen (I get the comb style ridges and a lot of other issues since it's an older rig) but kinggen works and lets me tweak it a bit to suit me