I like the new Alignment system that is place, but i find it a little to cumbersome! there needs to be zones and rotations or its becomes a mess here's an idea.
That could suck for red-green colorblind people (also, your dog). Might I suggest Blue/Yellow/Black? (I'm not actually colorblind, I just took a few Human-Computer Interaction classes.)
The issue with putting a grid on a sphere is that you are trying to put a flat object on a sphere. There has been a butt-ton of debate about this. The best way to sum it up is trying to wrap a piece of printer paper around a tennis ball, seamlessly. Go ahead and try. It's very, very hard to do. My point is that trying to implement an exact grid will pay out less than the work that is put into it. Build a space-efficient base is something you should never really have to do if you're expanding like a proper intergalactic warmongering killbot.
But, catch 22 is that a planet in PA is not a perfectly round object. Have you seen the planet with no texture? It is made up of several flat bits. As for the OP I like that idea. It falls in line with the current building snap that we have. We could have a toggle between the smooth snap that we currently have to a grid snap like you suggest.
OK some of you really make me laugh when you think you know it all, if you look at the models in the first place, they look like there's made in a grid when designed and do you really think the models where rounded in the first place, i dont think! so, that would mean they are made to bend/fit the plant. That would also be the same for the grid overlay I am talking about! The overlay would be no different then a ghost image after all would it not!
Just because the models can be aligned to a grid on a flat surface does not mean a grid can actually be placed on the planet. While not a perfect sphere, the planets are round, and this means that any attempt at putting a grid on it is not possible without there being distortion. This can be trivially seen in-game by pressing F11, and looking at the flow field "grid": These distortions coincide both with the joins between the flatter parts that tontow was talking about (see below, like the sections of a soccer ball - Press '2' after F11), and with the natural curvature of the planet. This kind of distortion is OK at the moment, as there is no way to visibly see it in-game yet (F11 is a debug command, and probably wont be in the final game). But it does mean that a true grid is not possible.
i never said anything about a true grid and arround the hole planet, what i am trying to explain was that all models are projected on to a planet, which at some point where Flat, so having an overlay is probably no different. i know the sphere/curve is over the top, but i hope this clears it up of what iam trying to explain if you can project a model/Placement you can also project a grid!! around it!
Ok! for many of you that quit thinking! if there could be an alternative to this on going question! if its possible to make a grids around placements as an overlay, how about i open my mind even More. is it me, or do people not have imagination this days! :? Alternative Idea interlocking nodes example
perhaps i have OCD lol! no i dont have OCD, but i sure even i am not the only one, that likes a clean base and not a messy one, even with the system which was a very nice improvement BTW its still very easy to go very wrong and all over the place!! perhaps all it needs is a few adjustments to the align tool but i thought i give a few ideas, there is nothing wrong with that, the last time i checked and that whats alpha is all about!
That might be because of supcom as well ! I got used to building my pgens next to my factories, and I'm doing it in PA for some reason... Anyway... I think being able to line up the buildings to a local grid could look nice and would be an interesting way to condense a base, altough I doubt we'll want to have a very dense base when building will deal AoE damage on death ^^
Your example of a curved grid is distorting the building footprints. We don't distort buildings, they remain square / flat but oriented to the ground plane they're placed on.
Guys, planets are several flat surfaces put together. You have to picture and show it as such. There is zero distortion over an edge. The distortion would occur at the corners. The question is: How to handle it at the corners? Do you let the base of the models overlap a negligible amount or do you space the base out a bit and just snap to the flat surface of the planet or do you distort the build grid itself? My vote is to distort the build grid itself. I swear, the next person to call a game planet round....... :x
I think you are all misunderstanding this guy... He doesn't really want a build grid... He wants a way to snap objects together in precise locations. Currently, objects snap to edges, and it's great. What he wants (and what I would like) is for there to be a way to snap objects at centers of edges (or at snap points), that way, you can have perfect rows/columns of buildings.
Its nice to see that some one understood me If i confused so many people i'am sorry, but i honestly thought the examples where straight forward. :? The only reason i started to curve my examples, is confusion about how you engine works so many people (assumed) and told me the planets was a true sphere so i used my imagination.
My question is as to why this would be needed to enjoy the game I'm usually too worried about being drowned in a sea of tanks and bombers, and in the future, dodging asteroids with my flying metal planet and throwing space rocks at my enemy's bases to pay attention to the way my buildings look. Mind you, I'm playing the devil's advocate right now. I know a lot of people want something as extreme as Planetary City Simulator, so this isn't an terribly radical request. I'm just saying that it would be a bit pointless for the devs to spend their expensive time working on a grid system when they could be optimizing the game, making cool new art assets, perfecting the procedural generation or finishing the game. BTW, what program did you use to make those images? I'm a bit curious.
