Questions for Map Editing

[Slywyn]

1) I know it was probably covered somewhere in the update notes but I unfortunately couldn't find it, but how do you:

a) find a heightmap(for example if I wanted a heightmap of New York without all the buildings, how would I do that? Or if I wanted a heightmap of the East Coast of the US, for example)

b) How would you convert to the correct file and/or load it into the map editor?

2) Cities all start out at 1 population in the editor no matter how big you make them. Can you manually add buildings and things will be fine? If you click 'enlarge' does the city automatically generate more people? How does this work?

3) Are there any other player-generated maps(as in not the few that come with the update) that are out yet or have none really been made so far? I would like to see an example if possible.

4) How do you see buildings/intrastructure that won't generate until a later era? Is there no way to add them? If you do add them will they still generate on their own? How does this work?

5) Not necessarily a question but if people want I can add my map(or a link to it) here after it's finished. How would people want it? A dropbox file or something? I'm not actually sure how to share.

[Avantgarde]

1a) The News article suggests terrain.party which is really good if you want to make a very zoomed in map and is probably the easiest to use. (Precision: 1" or 3" arc-seconds per pixel)

For larger maps I like to use this heightmap from NASA, which has a scale of 30" arc-seconds per pixel:
https://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view.php?id=73934
(Use the eight smaller files. The one with the entire earth has only a scale of 60"/px)
This will be good enough for maps with at least the size of Ireland or the lower peninsula of Michigan at max resolution for a 512x512 map. (4°16')
For a 256x256 map (2°8') you can even go down to e.g. the island of Sicily.

Should you want even smaller maps, there's also this website with heightmaps at a scale of 15"/px:
http://viewfinderpanoramas.org/dem3.html
It also has 3"/px data but that is in HGT format which can only be opened by programs like QGIS.

Please keep in mind that all these heightmaps are in equi-rectangular projection (WGS84) and therefore highly distorted at high latitudes.

1b) I simply use an image processing program like GIMP or Photoshop. Mashinky will only use the red channel for heightmaps but a greyscale image works just as fine. For use in-game put the 24bit bmp file in the heightmap folder at Steam\steamapps\common\Mashinky\heightmaps

2) There's no difference if you manually add buildings to a city or if you click enlarge. (But there seems to be a visual bug sometimes that only shows the correct population after reloading the map)

3 and 5) For map sharing you can use the #maps channel at the Mashinky discord server until the steam workshop is implemented. There are already a few maps out there. I personally made a map of France. I would love it if you take a look at it.

4) In the editor you can see all industries from all eras, but they get hidden when you start a new game. Should you build over their position, the game will look for a new position in a 20 block radius. If there is still no viable position it will put it randomly somewhere on the map.
Also: If you place no building of a certain kind of industry, the game will randomly generate them like in a non custom map. (It even uses the density option in the generated map tab of the new game screen)

[Slywyn]

Thank you very much for your helpful answers!