Salt Flats changes (and addition of two new scripts)

[Nergal]

Hi everyone,

This post is to go into a bit of detail on a couple of additions to the game and one specific instance of its implications.

For a bit of background, it's worth explaining that many animals in the game are tied to a script called "SimDesert". This controls the way they spawn into the game, and repopulate over time. That script inspired me to write a couple of other scripts that will enable us to make the world a more unexpected and less rigid. The main script I wrote is called "SimDesert Object". Like "SimDesert", it allows specified objects to spawn throughout the world or within specific areas, according to certain conditions. It also allows them to move and/or repopulate over time in a similar manner to NPCs. The other script is called "Custom Forage Seeder". It uses a code update by Nessalin to specify a custom forage table in a room and spreads custom forage tables across entire swaths of rooms as specified.

What are the implications of these scripts? Mainly, the positions of things or foraging spots you might have known in the past may change as staff and builders use these scripts to do interesting things with them. While I won't go into the specifics of the ideas we have just yet, these scripts are quite robust and you should expect that they will be used to their fullest extent to inject more variety and flavor into the world.

We've used the Salt Flats as a testing ground for this pair of scripts. This is what a typical salt forager will notice:
- The western salt flats are practically picked clean of salt
- The border of the salt flats has poor salt yields
- Going further east yields better salt and better chances of finding it
- Going further east increases the chances of finding patches of colored salt, which can be dug with a shovel or bare hands to find specific salt types

You may find that the typical means of salt foraging (barely going into the salt flats) are no longer as efficient as they used to be. This is on purpose. Higher risks will yield greater rewards.

Have fun, and look forward to more changes in the near future.

Feel free to discuss these changes here:
http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,51411.msg951957.html#msg951957