Ape Apps

I have compiled a list of QOL and Structural improvements to the game that (I believe) would be amazing to have. List is alternately colored for easier reading. Here we go:
When creating a structure, rovers will automatically prioritize building the structure over collecting resources.
Path finding for rovers will prioritize taking pavement over no pavement to their destination.
Optional flashing effects for rovers on their voxels(Could be used to signal authority, or to move colonists out of the way in the future) OPTIONAL
A realistic animation for the lander pad, such as a small space ship landing then departing after colonists are offloaded. Changing the "generation" speed of the building would also be essential to this. This would also open the door for custom building animations!
Why is water a utility but food is not? I suggest either changing water back into a resource or making food a utility too, for organizational sake.
Pavement places between two buildings sometimes doesn't build, and even when it does, it sometimes just vanishes into thin air. Would make an amazing party trick, but not a good game mechanic.
Individual selection for drop-off points for resource collecting rovers(Preferably some sort of selection on the map, maybe highlight possible places in green)
Voxels can be made into the -y axis, allowing for holes in the voxel models, and realistic depth.
Some sort of better construction animation, instead of the building emerging from the ground like the undead.
That about wraps it up! I made this while extremely sleep deprived and after a long day at work, so I'm sorry if i come off a bit demanding/dry, but these are only suggestions! Anyways, thanks for reading!

Thank you for the feedback @Luker124 , I will address your suggestions here!

Luker124 said:When creating a structure, rovers will automatically prioritize building the structure over collecting resources.

Yes, I agree to this. I think it does this in some way in MC1 (don't remember for sure).

Luker124 said:Path finding for rovers will prioritize taking pavement over no pavement to their destination.

Also yes. That is how it is supposed to work anyway, I have just not gotten to it yet :-/

Luker124 said:Optional flashing effects for rovers on their voxels(Could be used to signal authority, or to move colonists out of the way in the future) OPTIONAL

Do you mean like a blinking light? That shouldn't be too difficult. Shouldn't...

Luker124 said:A realistic animation for the lander pad, such as a small space ship landing then departing after colonists are offloaded. Changing the "generation" speed of the building would also be essential to this. This would also open the door for custom building animations!

This is basically planned as well. If you look at the data object in the editor for the Landing Pad for example, you will see it has the Lander set as the "Population Delivery Unit," and the Landing Field lists the Shuttlepod. So this too is in the works!

Luker124 said:Why is water a utility but food is not? I suggest either changing water back into a resource or making food a utility too, for organizational sake.

Here I do not agree with you. The reasoning behind this is that, in a real life city, water is a utility, but food is not. For instance, you don't have a food pipe connected to your house that delivers food on demand for a monthly rate (although come to think of it, that would be pretty sweet).

Luker124 said:Pavement places between two buildings sometimes doesn't build, and even when it does, it sometimes just vanishes into thin air. Would make an amazing party trick, but not a good game mechanic.

This is a bug I did not notice until after publishing this update, but pavements that are 1x1 tile cannot be built and do not show up on the map. I think I know why it is happening, but I will have to verify in the code during the next update.

Luker124 said:Individual selection for drop-off points for resource collecting rovers(Preferably some sort of selection on the map, maybe highlight possible places in green)

Not exactly sure what you mean by this :-/

Luker124 said:Voxels can be made into the -y axis, allowing for holes in the voxel models, and realistic depth.

Maybe. This sort of comes back to the terraforming requests, structures will need to be able to override the world seed while the engine is building the 3d geometry for the ground terrain. It's not insurmountable though, as roads already do this (you can see that pavements are slightly depressed into the terrain)

Luker124 said:Some sort of better construction animation, instead of the building emerging from the ground like the undead.

I thought it would be cool originally to have the buildings go up voxel-by-voxel or row-by-row while being built. In practice it ended up being incredibly RAM expensive as a new 3D model needs to be created by the engine for each step of the build phase. This is a similar problem to having animated buildings, each frame of the animation needs to be its own model, although on an animated building, you can get around that by having the building just being made of multiple models, and one rotates or moves independent of the others. Anyway, I probably will not change this any time soon, but it might come about eventually if I make some sort of performance breakthrough on the Scroll3D engine.

Anyway, that you for all of the suggestions and feedback!