Stacking houses is cheaty and BROKEN

[heydonno]

So inventive people found out you can stack houses. Good work on their part to find such a creative exploit but now that it has been found its time to patch it out of the game. Why? Because if you are going to allow houses to stack it renders the AOE of the market buildings completely pointless.

I assume the initial requirement for multiple houses was to provide a logistical challenge to laying out a village and constricting pathways for delivery. Stacking all your houses on a single 3x3 space renders that game play element moot. You might as well not have multiple houses at all at this point and just have a single apartment building that you just upgrade into infinity.

Plus it just looks out of place to have all these houses and scaffolds stacked on top of each other...

So I think either stacking needs to go or the entire market AOE+multiple house building needs to be rethought as it doesn't make sense anymore.

[OrlandoKev]

Everyone is certainly entitled to their own opinion, personally i dont share your opinion that its cheaty and broken, i actually like it and the way it looks.

[Erik Asmussen]

I like the creative solution of skyscrapers, but also they are a bit OP right now in the 'meta'.

I think what I will do later is encourage good paths to houses, so they can be delivered their desired goods in an efficient way. But I won't restrict the building of skyscrapers, if people choose that layout.

[Crazy9000.Eps]

Originally posted by Erik Asmussen:

I like the creative solution of skyscrapers, but also they are a bit OP right now in the 'meta'.

I think what I will do later is encourage good paths to houses, so they can be delivered their desired goods in an efficient way. But I won't restrict the building of skyscrapers, if people choose that layout.

In the end that won't really change anything. You'd just need an extra square or two to have a walkway wrapping around the outside.

I think the best balance would be if you could restrict the height they are built at, and maybe make it so they can't be built directly against another house. This would allow "apartment complex" style buildings, but ban small skyscrapers.

[Genius Isme]

You can also make it so that clearance above chimney is required. Stacking is still allowed but needs to be more creative.

[Erik Asmussen]

Originally posted by Genius Isme:

You can also make it so that clearance above chimney is required. Stacking is still allowed but needs to be more creative.

oh that's really interesting - have to find a way to pipe the smoke or waste products away!

[Roadie]

It seems like one of the key issues here is markets having infinite height areas... So what about making them cover a sphere instead of a cylinder? Then you can't have a "skyscraper" without also building logistics to bring goods up to midair markets, too.

Also, I really wish there were versions of buildings with square tops, to make it easier to stack them.

Originally posted by Erik Asmussen:

Originally posted by Genius Isme:

You can also make it so that clearance above chimney is required. Stacking is still allowed but needs to be more creative.

oh that's really interesting - have to find a way to pipe the smoke or waste products away!

Another need that comes to mind would be laundry, to give another interesting logistic puzzle where you have to get clothes from houses, run them through a laundry building, and send clothes back (either the cleaned clothes, or replaced with new clothes for certain gimmick builds).

[Erik Asmussen]

Sure! and delivering mail too has been something in the back of my mind.

Ideally, these systems will be addable via mods, will try and use them as test cases.

[Thryden]

Originally posted by Roadie:

It seems like one of the key issues here is markets having infinite height areas... So what about making them cover a sphere instead of a cylinder? Then you can't have a "skyscraper" without also building logistics to bring goods up to midair markets, too.

This seems like the best solution to this issue. I like stacking my houses at least 2-3 height, it looks cool to me. But the unlimited height power of the market is a bit OP. And perhaps have it encompass a cube, not a sphere? I thought it kinda odd that everything is built in a grid but the market buildings have a circle radius.

[No Reason]

another solution could be to slow down delivery based on the distance from the market (as in magnitude of a 3d vector). That way you can still build skyscrapers, but the higher the buildings get, the slow they get fed resources to simulate the extra effort of sending goods uphill or out from the market. Honestly, with this approach, you could get rid of the market AOE altogether. Build a sprawling city, fine, just pay the price in speed and efficiency.

[Xuhybrid]

They're not necessary and they look ugly af. If you want to ruin the aesthetic of your town. Go right ahead...

[Thryden]

Originally posted by Xuhybrid:

They're not necessary and they look ugly af. If you want to ruin the aesthetic of your town. Go right ahead...

They're only ugly if you don't spend the time to make them pleasing. Honestly what I do is forget about looks until I have everything unlocked, then work to make it nice looking. I'm sure someone could make a cool looking skyscraper

[Dr. Tran]

I think there are a few ways to help temper the use of skyscrapers which would be good to implement:

1. Restrict vertical delivery of markets etc. to be in line with the 2D radius. Either a sphere, cube, or constrained cylinder could limit skyscrapers.
   
2. Require a viable worker path from the markets to the houses to acquire resources. Either via a ramp spiraling around the skyscraper or a new elevator structure. (Access to any side of the house would still suffice. But, if you can't leave your house and the delivery person can't make it, you can't buy stuff.
   
3. Rework structural blocks to tier access to vertical builds and bridging.

I feel pretty strongly about the third point and would like to see new iron and magic tiers of the structural blocks to facilitate this. I do enjoy some of the craziness that is allowed at the moment, but it feels ridiculously cheap to be able to pull some things right out of the gate. Thus, by creating more structural block tiers we can gradually allow access to said craziness.

With regards to vertical builds:

• Stone structural blocks would be able to support up to 6-steps over ground level.
  
• Wood structural blocks would be able to support up to 12-steps over ground level.
  
• Iron structural blocks would be able to support up to 18-steps over ground level.
  
• Magic structural blocks would provide unlimited height. (Because magic)

This would allow stone structural blocks to create 2-level apartment type layouts, while creating an interest in further tech and a reason to use better materials. These heights would be relative to the grounded base support block.

With regards to bridging:

• Stone structural blocks would be able to support 3 spaces radially from a grounded point.
  
• Wood structural blocks would be able to support 6 spaces radially from a grounded point.
  
• Iron structural blocks would be able to support 9 spaces radially from a grounded point.
  
• Magic structural blocks would provide unlimited bridging. (Because magic)

This would allow stone to bridge 6 spaces between supports which I think is pretty generous (and is also the minimum for previously stated apartment housing). Wooden structural blocks would still allow for long conveyor belt traverses.

These changes would also require a change which recognizes when someone is trying to remove a supporting structural block which currently results in free-floating structures. Instead, it would need checks similar to when a building is on a structural block and mark them as obstructed/occupied.

Magic structural blocks would have the option of being exempt from these rules and could function as structural blocks do now. But, this creates a threshold so floating blocks would be achievable late game using magic materials.

[Vieux Chat]

I thought of something : shadows. Maybe a house under the shadow of something (be it another house or rails or whatever) would divide the happiness by 2. I thought about that about farms at first : farm plants under shadow shouldn't let crop regrow.

[Erik Asmussen]

Good ideas, thanks! Noted.

[Erik Asmussen]

The darkness / shadow effect would be a neat thing for a possible day/night cycle too. Maybe houses and/or production buildings are unhappy if left in the dark, so you need to put lamps by them? But lamps burn fuel, so you would need to either manually toggle them or use a light sensor to auto-disable them to avoid wasting fuel during the day? (just spitballing, lots of kinks to work out there)