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Author Topic: Construction placement like designate menu  (Read 1016 times)

Hinaichigo

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Construction placement like designate menu
« on: February 18, 2017, 01:33:58 pm »

Building a large structure out of constructions requires many keystrokes and you can only build in rectangles at most 10x10 in size. So if you want to build an 11x11 building it is a bit tedious.
I think instead it should function like the designate menu. So you could select a material (eg. mango wood logs - the material selection menu would show all of the available materials and their quantities) and a construction type (eg. wall) and then paint like the designate menu allows with digging, etc. And you could use the mouse like the designate menu. This would make building things out of constructions easier.

To clarify, something like this:

Now designating: mango wood fortifications.
54 mango wood logs available
[m]: change material
[t]: change construction type

When you'd press [m]:

Select material:
(54) mango wood logs
(314) limestone blocks
(82) walnut logs
(72) forgotten beast soap
...

When you press [t]:
Select construction type:
walls
fortifications
up/down stairs
up stairs
down stairs
...

And your cursor would be the same as with the current designate menu.
It might also be possible to designate constructions without access the material in question, ie. some material that you don't currently have. Then your dwarves would select the specific building material and attempt to build the designated construction as it becomes available.
« Last Edit: March 14, 2017, 07:06:38 pm by Hinaichigo »
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MrWiggles

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Re: Construction placement like designate menu
« Reply #1 on: February 22, 2017, 11:25:33 pm »

This is great until you want make a wall out of different materials, or have different construction elements along a wall. This is great until you didnt have enough of that material and the wall never gets done.
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Hinaichigo

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Re: Construction placement like designate menu
« Reply #2 on: February 23, 2017, 03:54:20 am »

This suggestion would actually be beneficial to what you described. If you want to make a wall of different materials, or make a fortification instead, you'd simply press m for material or something and change what you painted, or press t for type and change to fortifications, etc. It would be more efficient than the current system. And the not having enough materials thing isn't really a downside because if you don't have enough materials then you can't build a wall no matter what the interface is.
« Last Edit: March 14, 2017, 08:45:47 pm by Hinaichigo »
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SuicideJunkie

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Re: Construction placement like designate menu
« Reply #3 on: March 08, 2017, 10:48:37 pm »

The current system does inform you immediately that you don't have enough material, since you can't order the construction without having a very specific lump of building material in mind for each position.

I'd prefer the option to not care about specific items, and be able to request construction from just any obsidian, or any wood, or any non-economically restricted material.

You'd be able to lay out whole swaths of palisade, structure, or megaproject without interruption.
When the miners, woodcutters, or obsidian farmers make their next harvest, the construction would then resume automatically.
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lethosor

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Re: Construction placement like designate menu
« Reply #4 on: March 13, 2017, 11:24:33 am »

This suggestion would actually be beneficial to what you described. If you want to make a wall of different materials, or make a fortification instead, you'd simply press m for material or something and change what you painted, or press t for type and change to fortifications, etc. It would be more efficient than the current system. And the not having enough materials thing isn't really a downside because if you don't have enough materials then you can't build a wall no matter what the interface is.

Perhaps you've confused yourself?
It wasn't clear to me from the original suggestion that it would be possible to change all (or part) of the originally-designated constructions without removing them (since it isn't currently possible to do that).
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Azerty

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Re: Construction placement like designate menu
« Reply #5 on: March 14, 2017, 07:25:25 am »

The current system does inform you immediately that you don't have enough material, since you can't order the construction without having a very specific lump of building material in mind for each position.

I'd prefer the option to not care about specific items, and be able to request construction from just any obsidian, or any wood, or any non-economically restricted material.

You'd be able to lay out whole swaths of palisade, structure, or megaproject without interruption.
When the miners, woodcutters, or obsidian farmers make their next harvest, the construction would then resume automatically.

Like the cathedrals of old?
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