Directional assist for autorun

[Gazz]

The issue:

This is a "strict" voxel game (no terrain smoothing or such shenanigans) so if you build roads, they always go in a perfectly straight line.
The obvious use case for using those roads is for the player to travel in a likewise straight line... but mouse sensitivity and screen resolution makes that an impossibility. You're always that little fraction of a degree off no matter how hard you try.

The suggestion:
If the player is moving forward and his heading is within 2-3° of the 8 main directions (0°, 45°, 90°, etc.) then the game will slowly micro-adjust the heading to exactly match the value of this main direction.

There would be no UI, nothing to know, nothing to operate. It just "works better".

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Maybe I'm unlucky with resource spawns in my world but there sure is a lot of walking involved in getting all the things.

 

[Hussar]

This would be a nice quality of life addition. I find myself making lots of roads.

Gazz, how do you build your diagonal roads?  I can't figure out how without using double resources, because it's hard to stay on a diagonal path.  I usually build them straight N,S,E,W and sometimes cut off a corner when running them because it's slightly faster.

[junawood]

20 hours ago, Gazz said:

so if you build roads, they always go in a perfectly straight line

I haven't build a single completely straight road in this game yet, and I am not sure if I ever will.

And automatically messing with where I am heading and where my mouse it pointing, would be absolutely horrible.

Sorry, but that's my point of view.

[Hussar]

I guess I must be part Roman--I built a dead straight road over 3,000 spaces long! (With a few stairs here and there, but often going straight through hills and mountains and over lakes.)

[Gazz]

On 8/24/2020 at 11:35 PM, Hussar said:

This would be a nice quality of life addition. I find myself making lots of roads.

Gazz, how do you build your diagonal roads?  I can't figure out how without using double resources, because it's hard to stay on a diagonal path.  I usually build them straight N,S,E,W and sometimes cut off a corner when running them because it's slightly faster.

Well, yeah. It is 2x the resources but you cover 1.4x the distance so it's not "double the resources". It's 142%.
Not such a bad deal because you cut down on travel time, which is the whole purpose.

3 hours ago, Hussar said:

I guess I must be part Roman--I built a dead straight road over 3,000 spaces long! (With a few stairs here and there, but often going straight through hills and mountains and over lakes.)

Dito. If a mountain just happens to be too tall and get in the way - say hello to my little friend, the pickaxe.

 

Now if someone does not build straight roads and is in constant manual control of the avatar, this system will have no discernible effect at all. /shrug

[Feone Varen]

I'm unsure how an automatic adjustment would feel, I don't think I've played games that do this. Having my view moved doesn't sound pleasant.

Maybe a snap-to-grid style function for your viewing angle? Press button to allign your view, with 8 possible directions per axis?

[Gazz]

Well, I was talking about micro adjustments, not a visible movement.
If your "aim" is 1 or 2 pixels off - and it's kinda obvious that you are trying to move in a cardinal direction - the game would move the avatar heading by maybe 0.3°/s to "perfect" that aim.

While in active control, that would be impossible to even notice, especially if you're moving - which is the only time when this would kick in.