Feature Discussion - Ghost/Blueprinted Buildings for City Planning

[Graycor]

So after enjoying the new scenarios and playing Endless mode for a while. I was feeling like a more efficient way to plan and deploy the city design I had in my mind whenever I started a new scenario/map.

If anyone is familiar with Factorio, I was thinking of something similar to it's blueprint system; where you can allocate a spot with a future building, a ghost of some description, but with no cost to resources, just a placeholder.

I feel this would really be beneficial in Frostpunk as you could really plan out your city zones, medical, food, resources, housing and roads as you please, but only spend resources on the what you need immediately. Potentially having an additional UI button that turns a ghost into an actual construction.

I don't enjoy having to demolish a huge number of buildings and rebuild parts of the city later on in the game when I have consolidated more resources to be more space/heat efficient.

What are people's thoughts on a city planner/ghost building/blueprint like feature? What would a effective way to implement it? Are there any quirks that could be foreseen? E.g. having ghost roads that could automatically turn into real roads (at cost, possibly requiring unemployed people and the required road resources) if a disconnected building is detected?

[☆TheDough]

You can currently place the buildings and pause construction, which might work the same. You could then cancel the construction at a later date if so deemed necessary.

[Graycor]

Originally posted by TheDough:

You can currently place the buildings and pause construction, which might work the same. You could then cancel the construction at a later date if so deemed necessary.

That's possible yes but at the cost of resources. If you wanted to build an area with a number of industrial hothouses for example, let's say 4, you'd need 8 steam cores to place the buildings, at that stage you may as well build them and yield the food.

The selling point of what I described is at no cost to resources to place a ghost/placeholder structure.

[robin2u]

The pit does not cost resources and will work for "ghosting" the small buildings.

[Graycor]

Originally posted by robin2u:

The pit does not cost resources and will work for "ghosting" the small buildings.

I've never used the pit, is it like the cemetry where it's limited to a single instance?