Town Layout

[sanedragon]

I'm poking a bit at the town generation code. Some have said they sometimes restart until they get a good layout, and the goal is to minimize that, while still allowing for each game's town to be different and interesting.

So far what I have (code) is to attempt to keep an east-west street clear in the middle of town, and to also keep clear a path from the stair to the center of town, and to generally have the shop doors face the center, more or less. This seems to be a modest improvement over the current more random placement of stores and rubble.

Maybe more experienced players could speak to what sort of town layouts warrant a rebirth for them, or ideas for improving town generation.

[DrWho42]

here's what i uploaded of the town layout maybe fourteen years ago:

[Pete Mack]

The only thing that makes me start over is lack of some critical item in a store. Since PD and CLW are guarateed in V, this happens very rarely, except for the ranger class, where there is frequently no sling or bow to be had.

[gglibertine]

I'll restart if there's lava right next to the stairs, because I know I'll just end up frying myself eventually.

[Hounded]

The only thing that makes me start over is lack of some critical item in a store. Since PD and CLW are guarateed in V, this happens very rarely, except for the ranger class, where there is frequently no sling or bow to be had.

Heh... I had a hobbit ranger throwing flasks of oil and pebbles until he found his first wand of magic missile recently. Can't say how happy he was to find his first sling.

[sanedragon]

The shooter issue is more of a store thing. A couple always: lines in stores.txt would solve that. It kind of seems to me that the items in any class's standard starting kit should probably be staples in the stores.

Making sure there's no lava right next to the stairs is pretty straightforward.

I remember the old town layout. It was a lot easier to get around the town quickly by running. The new layout has more flavor, but a little more regularity to the layout might make it easier to navigate. It was always kind of weird to me to show up to a shop that was like 60x100 on the map, looking like some big warehouse, and the stock is like 3 things.

Generally my ideas are, try to impose some kind of semi-regular street layout and include some buildings that aren't stores (maybe some of them crumbling and part rubble). The new starburst with lava layout makes me think, like, maybe there was a volcanic eruption that isolated and partly destroyed the town.