Just to add, an Island near me seems to be yellow when all they have done is plot the surface of an island, but this changes at 0.22.
My plot on the other hand does not change till 0.08, which is pretty bleak if your going to set it at 0.25… I am not trying to grab land, i have just again built over islands, and built bridges between, do i need to plot all the water to correct this?
Portal cost depends on size not distance. if you want a large pretty portal to the other side of your build you still have to pay for a portal that can reach the furthest planets.
Oh I see, good to know in case I get crazy at my own place one day haha. Thanks
Updated OP with details of an alternative compactness evaluation function.
Correct, both default values does not do anything for me 
This one shows me all blue at default settings:
In the old one my border road is yellow:
‘reservations’ needs to go down to .2 in the old method before I turn blue and if ‘faces’ goes up to .47 on the new method I’m yellow again.
But, since Nova Golda, as of today, now looks like this:
I am kinda hoping we get new maps soon!
Also, I am not done yet…
Naughty aenea lol. Some old fashioned plot/land boosting in the old 
Edit: btw I literally have no idea about the new system but I suspect the 1500 unclaimed plots inside my mountain are going to come an bite me in the rear
But in a rather compact way!
Okay, lets see for Circarpous Waterhamsterfarm and Event Horizon.
The Old Method with default values:
New Method with default values:
(Yeah, the ugly Footfallslide goes compact 
)
New Method at faces 0.35 - the thin street goes Compact:
New Method at faces 0.32 - Waterhamster is going compact:
New Method at faces 0.25 - even the big area with much holes in it goes compact:
New Method at faces 0.24 - my streets are compact too
yes indeedy!
new eval does seem a bit more forgiving…which is good
My interpretation is that the new method seems to favor roads going way from a settlement or surrounding a settlement in exchange for flagging sections of settlements that are relatively tight but seem to have gaps that passed in under the old method. For what it is worth I favor the old method.
I think its a great tool for a human admin to use to determine if a player is operating “out of bounds”. As part of the program itself, a big NO! Yes, its addressing the issue of “spiderweb” plotting; however, it does nothing for the flip side. I see many large compact areas on planets where a substantial part of the plotted area is empty, basically plotted just to prevent others from using it. For example, Seginiakai. There is a huge area in the north of the map where, as far as I can tell, only 15% (if even that) is actually built upon. To me, this is just as much a “griefing” as the “spiderweb” plotting, and is certainly creating a “pay to win” type of situation as not everyone can afford to buy huge amounts of cubits in the shop.
If you destroy all the spiderwebs, the flies will swarm 
.
That was supposed to be a joke but now I’m seeing a nice analogy in it. Half (arbitrary fraction) of the game’s settlement owners accused unwanted plotters of griefing… they got beacon protections… half of them abused beacon protections… they got restrictions placed on everyone… half of casual plotters like the restrictions… half will plot in settlements that had been abusing reservations… all will be accused of griefing by those settlement owners…
Where will it go from there? Perfect compactness rating gives you four rows of reserved plots? Then every planet is covered with massive squares with perfect compactness ratings and they’re only building in one section. Thousands of wasted plots, thousands of empty reserved plots, thousands of mobs spawning between adjacent beacons. Forum posts complaining about bigger expanses of empty plots than ever before. New system to assign a rating for how developed a beacon is. People burying all their silk yellow prestige mats. Forum posts complaining about large, empty-looking beacons having obscene levels of prestige. New system, new system, new system. Suddenly it’s a single player game but we’re allowed to go look at other peoples builds and take screenshots.
The beacon system was at its peak on day 1. Perfect solution to Minecraft trolls being able to destroy everyone’s builds. Our builds are safe. The more play or pay, both of which support the game in an equally important way, the more you’re able to plot. It’s a wrap.
Think of the way building will have to be described to potential players now:
“Build however you want, but…”
/sarcasm
Other games are like: here’s blocks and decor, build with them -or- here’s your area, build whatever you’d like 
/end sarcasm
And other games suuuck compared to Boundless!
My brother has done exactly this for this reason. He has built a detailed “Manor” on the corner of a lake on a hill with beautiful views of the sunrise. He plotted lots of the lake to protect his view. (plotted every plot in between) Why is that wrong? Because it prevent’s other from building there?
The bigger issue at hand would be the limiting space the universe provides. We may have a small player base, but the longer the game persists without adding more planets, the less available room there is. The game is full of loyal veterans, who keep expanding at a rate higher than that of plots being abandoned. Its a sandbox game inherently meant to allow creativity, and we find ourselves running out of space for our creativity. -Yes, there’s lots of unused space out there. probably like 10% of the universe is plotted… But all the perfect spots are taken…and when you find that spot you were looking for to create your cool build, and then somebody comes and plots next to you, it’s agravating but part of the game.
edit: not making a push for new planets… unless…but trying to point out that this game may not have pvp, but does have competition. Space is limited, and we all want space, and more people to want the space.
boundless is just becoming one of those ‘‘other games’’ that suuuck
Exactly. Who is right and who is wrong? It’s impossible to answer that with one umbrella judgment. This imminent system is why I finally went from indifferent about private worlds to fully behind them. Not because I want a private world (I’d likely get one though), but for people who want private worlds to have them. Then the main planetary network could be more laissez-faire capitalistic style and we wouldn’t need so many rules.
That’s all I want… Why is that so hard? lol
/
