Building Shape Coordinates

[Amauros]

In the ae file of any building in LRR, you'll find "Shape" followed by a sequence of numbers. The only exception is the E-Fence and GunStation (which has Shape commented out).

Shape represents the area that a building will take up within a cavern. Shape uses coordinates that represent each tile in reference to what tile the mouse is over. Therefore, 0,0 is understood as the coordinates where the mouse is pointing to. This is also the center location of the building's lwo. That said, 0,0 is an understood coordinate for the Shape. Adding 0,0 to the coordinates can cause crashing.

Step 1, deciding what type of tile you want. There are blue, green, and yellow tiles. Unfortunately, I haven't figured out how to make the blue tiles; it might have to do with the entrance/deposit nulls.

So for now, lets work with green and yellow. Green tiles have single coordinates, e.g. 0,-1 or 0,-2 would both be green. Yellow tiles have dual/duplicate coordinates, e.g. 0,-1:0,-1 or 0,-2:0,-2.

Step 2, deciding where you want your tiles. For example, we'll make the super teleport's Shape (without looking at the code).

0,0 is understood as the default starting coordinate, this will always be a green tile.

0,-1, this is one tile to the left of the starting coordinate and is green (coordinates are in -y,x format, yes it's weird)

1,0:1,0 this is yellow tile directly below or directly in front of the super teleport's main tile

1,-1:1,-1 this is also a yellow tile down and to the left of the center tile.

Step 3, writing the code properly. All coordinates must be separated by colons and have absolutely no spaces! They also must be written in descending order! Remember y's are negative (-y,x format), so descending order is 0, 1, 2, 3, etc, x's are positive and therefore descend 0, -1, -2, -3, etc.

So the above code for the super teleport is 0,1:1,0:1,0:1,-1:1,-1.

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Again, this isn't finished. I haven't figured out the blue tiles yet. Negative values for y and positive values for x tend to cause crashing. Using 0,0 also causes crashing.

I hope this enlightens people a bit, and maybe someone else will figure out the blue tiles. :D

[Lair]

Alright wait wait wait wait.

Wait.

I knew all this about those numbers being tiles... but what do you mean by Blue/Green/Yellow tiles?

Also, The Tile under the building appears to be locked in place. And you can make tiles miles away that are part of the same building (bridge anyone?)

[TheDoctor]

can make tiles miles away that are part of the same building (bridge anyone?)

That sounds like something that would make the game would barf in your face if you tried to do that.

[Amauros]

Alright wait wait wait wait.

Wait.

I knew all this about those numbers being tiles... but what do you mean by Blue/Green/Yellow tiles?

Also, The Tile under the building appears to be locked in place. And you can make tiles miles away that are part of the same building (bridge anyone?)

By blue, green, and yellow, I mean the respective highlights. The blue tiles must go over water, the Docks is the only building with such a highlighted build tile. The green tiles are the respective building tile placements. The yellow tiles are the empty "square" powerpaths that must be placed adjacent to an "octagonal" powerpath.

Yes tiles can be made set apart from each other. Making a bridge however requires that RR's can walk on buildings... which afaik they can't.

[Cirevam]

On 1/1/2011 at 2:48 PM, TheDoctor said:

That sounds like something that would make the game would barf in your face if you tried to do that.

Nope. No vomit. The entire building won't be powered, though.

The Power Station is stock here. The Super Teleport has a separated foundation and the main building can't get power because of that

Edited December 17, 2019 by Slimy Slug

[INB681]

Hmmm... So if all yellow tiles are removed, you can theoretically build more compact bases... And then replace the standard built powerpath with the square foundation one to make it look like foundations are still intact...

I really have to reinstall RR :)

[aLPHA]

Wait, can raiders walk on blue tiles if there were some or do they just not walk into them because that's the building. If you put the building's collision box to something that's nothing at all I'd assume you could get around this. Are there paths that can be placed on lava? I remember seeing something about lava boats in the hard code but I could be wrong.

When I get home I'll see what I can get done in my short time frame. If I can I'll attempt to decompile the exe and look for interesting stuff that's useful. I'll also experiment with the paths if I can. The bridge idea seems promising.

Edit: Blargh INB can you stop necroing topics please?

[Cirevam]

Raiders and vehicles don't like to stand on any building tiles at all, no matter what the color, and regardless of the building's collision radius. I haven't tested to see if raiders that walk on water don't mind being on the Docks' blue tile, but I'd assume that they would not move away from it since vehicles can sit on blue tiles.

Give INB a break. He's been gone for a while.

[Amauros]

@INB, yeah we can turn the entire rockraiders' base into a single building, but there are some limitations, we can't use multiple deposit nulls so everything goes to the same place... so if you want to deposit ore and crystals to different parts of the base, you need different buildings. There's also a variable in the cfg that is used multiple ways by different buildings (FuncCoef or something like that, I'm not on my computer), but if we condense it all into one... well we don't know what would happen lol.

[Lair]

That gives me an idea for an upgrade station. I see potential here.

What bugs me is that deposit null thing. But most nulls do anyways.

Edit: Blargh INB can you stop necroing topics please?

Blarge Hydrogen can you stop complaining about people doing nothing wrong please?

[Anonymouse]

Raiders and vehicles don't like to stand on any building tiles at all, no matter what the color, and regardless of the building's collision radius. I haven't tested to see if raiders that walk on water don't mind being on the Docks' blue tile, but I'd assume that they would not move away from it since vehicles can sit on blue tiles.

Vehicles do move off the blue tile as soon as they can move (in other words, as soon as a rock raider has got in) though, unless docked.

[aLPHA]

Why don't they want to stay on the tile? Can you manually go over it in first person mode?

Better yet, couldn't we make a building that has a huge power path fit over a water river about 1 wide in the map file.

[Anonymouse]

1. Why don't they want to stay on the tile? Can you manually go over it in first person mode?

2. Better yet, couldn't we make a building that has a huge power path fit over a water river about 1 wide in the map file.

1. Same way as they won't stay on the square power paths attached to the tool store etc.

2. Nice idea, but I don't think it would work :(

[INB681]

What I meant was just eliminating the yellow tiles, not actually turning everything into one building, lol.....

I'll try this out and take a screenie when I'm done.

@aLPHA: Since I contributed to the topic (suggesting something) it isn't necroing. Problem?

[Lair]

2. Better yet, couldn't we make a building that has a huge power path fit over a water river about 1 wide in the map file.

2. Nice idea, but I don't think it would work

Why not? It would require a toolstore on both sides, maybe, but there's nothing to say it wouldn't work.

[aLPHA]

@Mouse: They loiter on the square tiles all the time.

[Lair]

@Mouse: They loiter on the square tiles all the time.

Incorrect. Rock Raiders will move off of any building foundation block.

[Amauros]

Raiders and vehicles don't like to stand on any building tiles at all, no matter what the color, and regardless of the building's collision radius. I haven't tested to see if raiders that walk on water don't mind being on the Docks' blue tile, but I'd assume that they would not move away from it since vehicles can sit on blue tiles.

Vehicles do move off the blue tile as soon as they can move (in other words, as soon as a rock raider has got in) though, unless docked.

@Mouse: They loiter on the square tiles all the time.

Incorrect. Rock Raiders will move off of any building foundation block.

@Cirevam, correct me if I'm wrong here about the nulls.

Rock raiders will move off any tile that has a building null on it. All foundation blocks (green) typically have some null on it. The blue tile of the docks has a null on it where vehicles teleport to; so once a sailor is in the boat, the vehicle moves off the tile. All yellow tiles have some null on it as well; this is where all (non-water) vehicles teleport to and where all RR's teleport to (even though the animation shows them teleporting in on the green tile and moving to the yellow). The yellow tiles are also where the nulls are for the upgrade station, support station, power station, and ore refinery.

The only buildings that don't have yellow or blue tiles are the geological center and mining laser turret. The reason is that there is no nulls hovering outside the building model that the RR's interact with.

@H2, I'd like to see a video of your RR's loitering on building tiles.

What I meant was just eliminating the yellow tiles...

I'd like to see what happens. After playing with shapes, I found that the game didn't crash if there were any unnecessary tiles... but I could never make a blue tile (I think it's specific to some line in the docks cfg entry). If I'm not mistaken, the game crashes if there is no shape coordinate for the building, but I don't know what happens if there's less than the "necessary" amount of tiles (like removing all the yellow tiles).

Assuming the game doesn't crash, I'd like to know whether or not the RR's will "loiter" on the powerpaths placed where the yellow tiles would have been.... and whether or not the RR's will interact with the buildings properly. It'd be good to check if vehicles will teleport as well.

[Cirevam]

@Cirevam, correct me if I'm wrong here about the nulls.

The only buildings that don't have yellow or blue tiles are the geological center and mining laser turret. The reason is that there is no nulls hovering outside the building model that the RR's interact with.

If I'm not mistaken, the game crashes if there is no shape coordinate for the building, but I don't know what happens if there's less than the "necessary" amount of tiles (like removing all the yellow tiles).

1. Okay, I will. Also, my username isn't @Cirevam. It's Cirevam (this ain't Twitter, ya twit ).

2. Exception: mobile buildings. If the nulls move away and a raider stands on the building tile, he'll try to move away too. Even then, I think when we were testing how the Shape formatting worked I saw raiders running off of square powerpaths that weren't even connected to the main part of the building.

3. Shape is commented out for the Mining Laser, so I don't think it matters if it's there at all. Also, changing all yellow tiles to green tiles should only affect two things. One, the building barriers go around all green tiles, so the entire foundation would be surrounded by barriers when building. Two, raiders don't get a speed boost over green tiles; they only go fast over yellow ones.

[aLPHA]

I'll burn RR onto a CD and try to mod the thingy of a building (blar I'm tired) and see if a raider will run over a power path over water if I go into FPS mode.

[Tracker]

I might also like to point out that ALL types, including water, transmit power. I have also noticed that the paths that come with the buidings cannot be destroyed directly, which lead me to build the bases that I build. Mabye we can make new "Transmission Hub" and "Underwater Cable (pin this to the docks)" buildings to really exploit these facts.

[Cirevam]

It's no secret that foundations can't be destroyed by monsters. Don't act like you just figured this out today. Plus, they're defined as Power Paths, yet you seem surprised that they transmit power...

Anyways, underwater cables seem like a good idea, but I'm not sure how they would be implemented effectively. Since we can't construct buildings that are completely in the water without a raider that can walk into the water, you might as well stick to Power Paths unless the cable has a component that must be built on land. That might work the best, and depending on the distance you could connect it to the other side of a river, put a Tool Store down, and completely negate the need for a Dock.

[Amauros]

1. Paths can't be built on water

2. "Blue tiles" only designate where water vehicles teleport to for the docks (I've never successfully manipulated that blue tile)

3. No one has proved that power transfers through blue tiles, therefore your statement that power is transferred through water tiles is invalid.

If you want to prove that you can build on water and provide power from one side of a body of water to another, be my guest.

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For further explanation, by blue tile, I mean the blue highlight you see when placing the location you want your docks built. I inferred Tracker means that power transfers through every tile listed in shapes coordinates which does include the blue tile.

Now if by chance, Tracker, what you said had nothing to do with shape coordinates, then you've got some 'splaining to do for why you necro'd a 4 month old topic.

[Cirevam]

Blue tiles do transfer power. Here is the proof:

For those of you unfamilar with this biome, green glow means powered building foundation, blue glow means powered power path, and no glow means unpowered of either path.

[Amauros]

I see... well that still leaves the bit about how to manipulate where blue tiles appear.

And I really should get back to that biome and hit the rubble next.