Flattening Terrain automatically

[Bartholome Mitre]

I spend an awful lot of time flattening terrain. Not exactly a fun thing to do, even if you use multiple construction offices full of bulldozers. Klicking, waiting and watching little yellow lines getting shorter ... or maybe they don't, sometimes I can't tell... Rocks can be a ♥♥♥♥♥ and take a lot of time to be flattened.

Would it be possible to implement a feature to zone a certain terrain, select the hight you want and then let the bulldozers do their magic, while you take care of other things?

[gusgblaw]

I think there is a feature for that on the roadmap, like a DO but for terraforming. Not sure they'll get around to it. I'd be very disapointed if it ever become 'free' of all cost/trouble but being able to delegate somewhat would be nice.

[Bartholome Mitre]

Yeah I do like the terraforming concept in SR, where you can't magically turn everything into flat lands in just one second, like in all the other games. I just want to get rid of doing it manually myself.

[VladyF]

I know it is not realistic but neither I am willing to spend my free time looking at bulldozers terra-forming for free, only slowly. So if you opted in for the latest beta version of the game:

Press left CTRL+C+H+E for cheat mode
go to Settings
General debug/cheat mode
activate Landscape editor mode
Modify the map how you want it, fast!

[emmy swiff]

I agree with this. Having to sit around and wait in real time with a mouse button pressed is quite annoying.

An option for the 'pay with rubles/dollars' mode would be to have it just be really quick.

[MrKrabs]

I would like to do vice versa. Do the planing with the mouse, and then tell the CO's to do the job. Find a place to store the ground or dump it to the sea. Same goes for if you place ground. Got to get it somewhere from.

[kelvin34501]

Current mechanism is unfriendly to player's mouse.

[Lami]

I remember in Life is feudal: Forest village, working on terrain creates a building site. Wouldn't it be nice if you just set the parameters of the desired Terrain in a planning overlay, such as for example the planning of roads work in W&R:SR, click on build and a (Huge) building side appears you can connect with roads n stuff. Making it easier to deploy far away Construction offices as well.

Bonus points for collected ressources such as Wood and raw stone / gravel. I can even imaginate an optional train connection to move all these large quantites.

[MG83]

Originally posted by Bartholome Mitre:

I spend an awful lot of time flattening terrain. Not exactly a fun thing to do, even if you use multiple construction offices full of bulldozers. Klicking, waiting and watching little yellow lines getting shorter ... or maybe they don't, sometimes I can't tell... Rocks can be a ♥♥♥♥♥ and take a lot of time to be flattened.

Would it be possible to implement a feature to zone a certain terrain, select the hight you want and then let the bulldozers do their magic, while you take care of other things?

i have over 1.8k hours of play. some 500 hour was probably spended to terraforming lol ! . i even wrote a macro for terraforming so my mouse would terraform while i sleep :P

[Fiend]

Have you considered playing without flattening large areas? I find that an interesting challenge, and it leads to more realistic looking cities in the end.

[MG83]

Originally posted by Fiend:

Have you considered playing without flattening large areas? I find that an interesting challenge, and it leads to more realistic looking cities in the end.

i have 4x automobile factory that constantly produces excavators and 2x refinery constatly produces fuel . soooooo.....

I LL FLATTENT THE MOUNTAINS ! :D

[Fiend]

LOL!

[barry.zandstra]

There are flatter maps available in the workshop.

Flattening as a separate construction job sounds interesting. Logging trucks can drive offroad, so why not bulldozers and excavators? It would make landscaping part of the gameplay, rather than part of the struggle with the UI. It should not necessarily be quicker or cheaper, just less of a hassle for the player.

[nweiss85]

Originally posted by kelvin34501:

Current mechanism is unfriendly to player's mouse.

+1

the idea is sound, (terrain is hella curvalicious irl) the implementation needs a little tweaking imo

[nweiss85]

Originally posted by Fiend:

Have you considered playing without flattening large areas? I find that an interesting challenge, and it leads to more realistic looking cities in the end.

I try and do that as much as possible, but find myself frustrated at the lack of tools to do so. I'm hoping for an update with more tools/information to do so.

[erdobelli]

This has been an issue when the game first launched almost two years ago. It is still not being addressed by the developers properly just like many other QoL issues and improvements on the UI.

As you can see from the discussion thread below, people like me stopped playing the game, because it was nearly impossible to design something large and connected as there was no button to level the terrain (only average terrain tool was available) back then and people, including me, literally used large buildings' footprints to level the terrain.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/784150/discussions/0/1814296273136488879/?ctp=3

Again you will also note that there was very vocal, strange and hostile group of fans of this game that dismiss and downplay any criticism about any of its shortcomings as if they are defending Stalingrad against the nazis. Obviously, they use the word "realism", "realistic" a lot in their arguments although there is nothing realistic about the current system where you mindlessly spend hours pressing a button while bulldozers from the nearest road depot teleport and dance around your pointer. Again, we made suggestions, similar to yours, that terrain alteration should be a mechansim performed by construction offices. Some of these fans boldly and strangely went further and claimed that the developer designed the game in a way that we can only build our designs on an uneven terrain. But then if you visit the community pages of this game, you will note that in every nice looking screenshot taken by the players, the designs are made on a terrain as flat as your dining table. It is a limitation of the game engine that you have to build on flat terrain if you want to build compact, efficient and nice looking cities and industrial complex.

In the meantime, "against their design philosophy", the developers introduced a proper level terrain tool but it was still slow as hell so I stopped playing.

When I came to revisit the game after being absent for nearly two years, I find it funny see threads like this. Almost immediately I noticed that, most of those "loyal" fans back then have already abandoned the game or the forums (a small minority make themselves community managers so kudos to them). But it appears that the problem persists so kudos to the developers for managing to stay oblivious.

The reason I am still playing is due to mods called "nuclear bulldozer" and "nuclear excavator" which are godsend. They are expensive so I cheat for money at the beginning. If you do not want to cheat , maybe you can ask for the mod maker to release a version where they are cheaper or free.