[Development]: Settlements

[northwesttreesgaming]

BUILDING SYSTEM

• Settlement Building System

BUILDING ITEMS

The settlement system can be summarized by crafting special items that can plot out structure placement for special buildings.

PLACEMENT

The land must be flat to place these markers.

PLANNING

The building will place down marker blocks which the building will be built if the player wants the location to be there.
Markers will show windows, doors, and walls, and each will have an assigned colour.
White for doors, blue for windows, and green for doors.

PANNING ROTATION

The building can be rotated using a special tool to rotate when right-click or left-click.
Right-clicking will rotate right whereas left-clicking will rotate left.

REMOVING BUILDINGS

If the player decides to move the location they can break any one of those markers to remove them all.

CONFIRMING PLACEMENT

If the player is happy with the location of the building they can add resources to the buildings container to start the building process.

BUILDING DEVELOPMENT STAGES

The building process will go through a few stages. Each stage will take one day to complete.

WORK SYSTEM

• Settlement Work System

ARRIVAL OF WORKERS

After a while, an entity will appear at the structure and offer to work at the building for you.

WORKER QUESTS

The entity then will provide some quests each season that can be done to improve the building.

WORKER PRODUCTION

The entity also provides the building with production which can help to automate tasks such as crafting items and making money.

NPC SYSTEM

• Settlement NPC System

RANDOM NPCs

In some cases, random entities may appear at the location of seats or other parts of the build.

NPC PATHFINDING

AI pathfinding can be used to make the system more life-like allowing them to move to different nodes which are hidden in the building.

BUILDING DESIGNS

The building needs to be designed in a way that entities can figure out path-finding relativity easily but still offer an appealing design. Custom blocks like signs tables and items can also improve the look and feel of the building.

BULLDOZE SYSTEM

• Settlement Bulldoze System

REMOVING INTERACTION

Players should also be able to remove the building by talking to the entity and telling them they wish to bulldoze the building. They will then say sure boss and then the next season will remove the structure and despawn the entity at dawn.

REMOVING STAGES

The building will slowly deconstruct starting with upgrades and then the main building. This can take a few days to do.

EXPANSION SYSTEM

• Settlement Expansion System

EXPAND THE STRUCTURE

Players should also be able to expand the structure into new parts, for example, a tavern may start with a smaller building with 3 or so tables but expanding it could allow for rooms NPCs can sleep in, a kitchen, and more seating and table and living area for the worker of the building.

AMBIENT SYSTEM

• Settlement Ambient System

SETTLEMENT NPC LIFE

Entities and NPCs will also be affected by the time of day, most buildings will be alive during the day but some nights life like taverns will be active from late day to midnight.

AMBIENT SOUNDS

The building will have unique sounds when active coming from the worker NPC and other interactions around the settlement.
Sounds can be obtained through FreeSound as long as they have an attribution licence and proper credits.

AMBIENT EFFECTS

Some custom effects such as particles for NPCs working such as a blacksmith hamering at a workstation showing sparks fly or NPCs drinking give off a green-yellow particle to show intoxication, another example would be dirt particles for farmers when tilling crop fields and such. These minor effects will bring more life to the settlement ecosystem.

DYNAMIC LIGHTS

Special lights will turn on during the night at random intervals.
This can give a nice effect if the lights don't all turn on at the same time as this can cause a bit of lag even on a beefy computer. Using random game ticks it could be possible to allow them to turn on automatically at random times if conditions are met.
Condition for lights should also support different types of buildings for example a tavern will have its lights on later at night than something like a blacksmith, also some lights should be on throughout the night eg street torches and brazers