Why is the world so..... bumpy??

[Aldo]

Just fired up a server for me and a friend to play on and looking for a place to build is just MEH...
Everywhere is an elevation.....
We need to build a bustling city eventually but the whole world is so rugged... where are the flat open areas???
Everywhere I go it seems every area has extreme high elevations or a massive canyon right near it.
There is nowhere really compatible to go YEP!!!! Here is where we will build our city.

[SLG-Dennis]

Grasslands are typically as flat is it gets, everything else will need to be terraformed. As admin you can take the fast route with the level command if so desired.

[Aldo]

hmmm...didnt know of that command.. might have to take a look at it.
Thanks for the info!!

[SilverWarior]

What size of the world are you generating for your server?
I play solo and must say that I was dissapointed on how bumpy the Small World size can get. So instead I started creating a Medium sized world that game suggests it sould be suitable for 3 cplayer Co-Op. Of course after generating world I then use Server UI that you can open using command /serverui to change the difficulty settings to No Nolaboration preset.
Generating large worl will make land even more suitable for building large bustling cities but does require a bit stronger computer to handle simulation at decent pace. Unfirtuately my now 10 year old computer is not powerfull for that so I stick to medium sized world instead.

[Aldo]

Thanks, not sure what size my seed is, think its just default.
The main issue is resource collection and using a cart... Cant seem to even get the cart up one tile high which means im spending most my time building ramps.
Terraforming is soooo tedious.
Moving one chunk of dirt at a time.
Not just digging it up but it also has to go somewhere as well.

[SLG-Dennis]

Originally posted by SilverWarior:

What size of the world are you generating for your server?
I play solo and must say that I was dissapointed on how bumpy the Small World size can get. So instead I started creating a Medium sized world that game suggests it sould be suitable for 3 cplayer Co-Op. Of course after generating world I then use Server UI that you can open using command /serverui to change the difficulty settings to No Nolaboration preset.
Generating large worl will make land even more suitable for building large bustling cities but does require a bit stronger computer to handle simulation at decent pace. Unfirtuately my now 10 year old computer is not powerfull for that so I stick to medium sized world instead.

Those settings are for 'difficulty', they don't change the world size as at all. For all single- and coop games we recommend default size, for public servers 1 km² instead of 0.52 km². For the biggest of public servers 2.56 km² is the absolute maximum we can recommend and any size above 4km² is unsupported, so usage at own risk.

Originally posted by Aldo:

Thanks, not sure what size my seed is, think its just default.
The main issue is resource collection and using a cart... Cant seem to even get the cart up one tile high which means im spending most my time building ramps.
Terraforming is soooo tedious.
Moving one chunk of dirt at a time.
Not just digging it up but it also has to go somewhere as well.

Terraforming is something that should be done later with enough progress for heavy machinery. It's not a very basic or easy task to do.

[Aldo]

wait what??? There is heavy machinery later on????
Like bulldozers and stuff???
Thats amazing!!!!!

[SLG-Dennis]

Trucks, Cranes, Excavators and Skid Steers, yes.

[SilverWarior]

Originally posted by SLG-Dennis:

Those settings are for 'difficulty', they don't change the world size as at all. For all single- and coop games we recommend default size, for public servers 1 km² instead of 0.52 km². For the biggest of public servers 2.56 km² is the absolute maximum we can recommend and any size above 4km² is unsupported, so usage at own risk.

Wait was this changed then? I remember from past that if wen creating new game you would have chosen 0-3 Player coop and tick Generate world the game would generate a bit larger world than if you have done this by choosing Solo play.

Originally posted by SLG-Dennis:

Terraforming is something that should be done later with enough progress for heavy machinery. It's not a very basic or easy task to do.

Yes terraforming is intended to be a late game thing. But when you play on such a bumpy world you are basically forced to do some terraforming by hand. Let me give you an example.
Lets say that you start new game and decide to go and build your first house on a fairly flat ground in the middle of the forest. Now since in the beginning your resource production is quite inefficient (no experience and no benefits from modules) you will end up chopping down every tree in the vicinity just to build a basic living house and basic industrial house.
So now in order to get more wood you will need to some further away forests which are most likely in another biome or past another non forested biome that lies in between.
Now this wouldn't be so difficult if there would be small height difference between different biomes. But in reality you often end up with 4 to 10 block height difference between different biomes. Now creating a ramp slope to traverse 4 block height difference requires it to be 32 blocks long since length of each ram is 4 blocks. So you will have to do at least some manual terraforming for this. Oh and for building a ramp slope to traverse 10 block height difference between two biomes your ramp hill would have to be 40 block in length. This already requires you to undertake a massive manual terraforming.

Now I think that the main problem in this lies in the world generator itself. Why? Based on my observation world generator ends up placing different biomes at different predetermined heights. Since these heights seem to be absolute heights above sea level it means that smaller the world is more bumpy it gets as the world generator has no chance to make easy sloped hills between biomes that have different heights.
Now if instead of placing biomes at predetermined absolute height above sea level the world generator would go and place them at relative heights like certain percentage of the world circumference then the size of the world would not be affecting world bumpiness as it does now.

Now another solution would be ability to make shorter ramps. I would really like to see 1 tile long ramps added to game. Yes since the would have much steeper angle they should actually slow down the cart movement on them. I would feel just fine if such ramp would halve the cart speed. At least I wouldn't have to do massive terraforming projects just to be able to get with my cart from point A to point B on the map as you need to do now.

[SilverWarior]

Originally posted by Aldo:

Thanks, not sure what size my seed is, think its just default.
The main issue is resource collection and using a cart... Cant seem to even get the cart up one tile high which means im spending most my time building ramps.
Terraforming is soooo tedious.
Moving one chunk of dirt at a time.
Not just digging it up but it also has to go somewhere as well.

A few advices from another Solo player that has done tons of manual terraforming:
Carts are your best friend. Even if you don't have a dirt road system between the place you are digging dirt from and the place you intent on placing the dirt down the cart can still be of good help. Have you notice that when you dig dirt from the ground you can dig only one dirt at the time, but when you take dirt from the cart it actually takes 10 dirt at the same time.
Make use of that mechanic. Gather dirt in your cart and then pick 10 dirt from the cart at the time and carry to its destination.
Stockpiles can also be very useful. Like carts they allow you to gather more dirt in one place and then pick 10 pieces of it from the stockpile at once to be carried somewhere else. Heck if you place multiple stockpiles close enough to each other you can then transfer large amount of dirt from one stockpile to another using inventory screen.
In one of my playthroughs I used bunch of strategically placed stockpiles to move resource from one location to another.
Well to be honest I was leveling down a smaller mountain that was near my home base in order to gain some farming space. And since this mountain was 8 blocks higher than my home base placing one stockpile on the mountain summit and one on the top allowed me to move stockpile worth of resources at the time from the top of the mountain instead of jumping bunch of times up and down carrying up to 10 dirt or 20 stone. This has probably saved me a few days’ worth of time.
Sure it felt like cheating but since I play solo I felt this was justified as it only saved some some time.

PS: Clay will play important role further in the game so you might want to consider stockpiling it for latter instead of dumping it into every hole that you want to fill. You will need lots of it.

[Aldo]

@silverwarior... I have recently discovered the valuable use of carts however because my world is so BUMPY and I cant pull the cart up even 1 tile... its pointless having one after a bit. Unless I have multiple carts set out along and chain them.

All things aside.. the depth to this game is amazing.. but teraforming and terain is just hurting it.
Hurting.. not killing.
Think I might just need to make a larger seed to make use of potentially larger flat areas.

I tried using the admin flatten command and it just made things worse.. hense why I was given warning when using it.

[SilverWarior]

Originally posted by Aldo:

its pointless having one after a bit. Unless I have multiple carts set out along and chain them.

Don't chain woodcarts. Tey are to expensive for this. Instead use Small Stocpiles since they are much cheaper.

[SLG-Dennis]

Originally posted by SilverWarior:

Wait was this changed then? I remember from past that if wen creating new game you would have chosen 0-3 Player coop and tick Generate world the game would generate a bit larger world than if you have done this by choosing Solo play.

No, it has never worked like this. The seting you mention is only for difficulty.