Testing 240: Compactness and Shopping API!

I tried making a beacon, 3 wide, once it hit 105 plots used, 35 plots long, I could not continue anymore.

My beacon which connects all my settlements (regen farms and main settlement) on Trung is over 600 plots, 1 wide, 2 high. I went with 2 high as to take up a lower amount of plot columns on purpose for the people around it, or around in the future, but apparently I should have gone with 2 wide instead since it would allow it to at least reach a little further.

What is going to happen to the greater settlement, will that still generate footfall or only the beacon affected will not?

Also, I actually spend money on getting the plots for this one beacon.
It’s on my Steam account simply because back then I did have Deluxe for it and it was not yet available on PS4, I now feel like I wasted my money by doing so. :frowning_face:

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@james

There are a couple of things I want to know when there is a beacon in your settlement that has negative compactness:

  • does that one beacon not generate footfall, or is it the entire settlement that does not generate ff?
  • the beacon will count as 0 prestige, so there will be a prestige loss but will the system still see all the connected beacons as one settlement?
  • and will the prestige of all the connected settlements by such a beacon still count towards the total prestige of the settlement?
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I just checked & we’ve got some areas that will be trouble too…I spent irl $ to buy the plots and we used some $$$$ AOE hammers to dig out the land and place brick for the roads. :expressionless:

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Yeah am not sure what to think of this. I am most certainly not going to be spending more money to solve this and it has been an utter waste of money and time.

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this new approach does seem to go way beyond finding a solution to the original stated concerns of using snaking plots to reserve large amounts of land.
I’m really trying not to have a knee jerk reaction as this is a work in progress but it’s hard…if the game doesn’t want me then so be it but I’ll wait it out…might not build much though as seems a waste of time.

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a more well thought out and succinct post from another thread

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This is because the game has stopped you from making a prohibited beacon shape. As the game stops you then you keep your prestige, etc. If removing a plot or adding a plot would tip the beacon negative it’s not allowed.

If a beacon does have prohibited compactness on Live then the plotting restrictions are lifted to give you free control to correct the beacon. This is because we found that some shapes were extremely difficult to correct if we only allowed changes that improved compactness. So we concluded it was best to give players freedom to correct the beacon at the temporary cost of their prestige.

Prestige is not part of the compactness analysis. The system only cares about shapes that the beacon makes on the map in relation to other beacons.


If the settlement is linked by a beacon that gets 0 prestige then it will be removed from the settlement and your settlement will split into 2. You will still get prestige for the 2 now independent settlement.

Beacons with 0 prestige will not split a Settlement.

You still have the plots. The plots still have their value.

But as my original post about banning reservation abuse stated - this change is attempting to make the process of plotting fairer for everyone. It’s also attempting to put the rules of plotting into the plotting system rather than relying on players being good citizens and accommodating others. Players can’t be expected to just know what considerate rules are. It’s best that the game enforces this. Plots / roads that meander across the landscape have always been a problem and complained about.

The beacon that has a prohibited shape will have its prestige set to 0. Beacons with 0 prestige don’t generate footfall.
All the other beacons in the settlement (assuming the settlement is still connected) will continue to earn footfall.

Understood. But say a player spends real money to buy thousands of plots and then spams them around the world blocking players in - is that ok? Clearly not. Earned plots vs purchased plots need to follow the same rules.


The game wants you and other players having fun. But we’ve learned that there needs to be some additional plotting restrictions so that everyone can inhabit the worlds together. We can’t have the rules only applying to some people.

The vast vast majority of the settlements are compact (including the settlements including the people commenting on this thread). These are clearly playing the game in a considerate way.

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I’m really curious how this also effects peoples cities. I love to play the game with prestige in mind. I know it’s silly to some but I love science and mathematics. I love friendly competition. My project is many things and I play it many ways. I have reduced over 1500 plots and many beacons over the last few months and would hate to be penalized. I think I’ll be ok given James’s statement about how it works. I took many hits on prestige before due to fairness changes.

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So from what I gather from this is that creativity is stifled and the idea of building large is now frowned upon. Claiming what you plan to use is out the window and the irl money spent is now practically worthless.

Just waiting for the update that says that if you have plots that aren’t built on then you’re in violation.

The game keeps going down hill in my eyes.

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Oh goodie, that means Nova Golda will be split in like 6 smaller ones! There goes my Great City status and with it the amount of footfall I receive!

Would it be possible to check in any way if my Roads beacon will get a bad compact rating ??

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I’m just curious here, howcome footfall matters to someone who has 15 million coin anyway?

I get the great city status being lost and the settlement splitting is a bad thing, but why care about the footfall?

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Why care about who cares about how they like to play? Future proofing is what the devs are trying to accomplish here. So are their life force … the players.

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If your settlement is broken into smaller towns, I believe everyone that settled in/created the larger city would now receive less footfall.

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Why care about someone caring about who cares about how someone cares about how they care about playing?

Ok but seriously I can understand the need to futureproof, but if the change is going to result in a loss of longtime players then I think it should be revised.

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Can’t you just code in a grandfather. What I mean like when you represtiged Marble why couldn’t you keep the same values for what was already down? If it was broken and replaced the new value would apply. Is this not possible? Perhaps you can not have this affect current builds? I’m probably way out of my league here and am aware this just is not possible.

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I have always tried to be considerate and pull back/adapt when requested. I also have (had…) ambitions to build a settlement that is creative but not contained to one area.
I have one current main build that then has various paths (mostly underground) leading to areas I would like to develop with a thosand ideas.
I find this proposed update and official responses tone deaf which doesn’t bode well for the future…is the future boundless? Apparently not.

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I agree. I just don’t get your comment about players who have coin. Coin goes fast in this game. I’ve had 15 mil, spent it in a few days buying mats from people… community served. Rinse and repeat.

As I said, I was just curious. That is all

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Incorrect.

Building large beacons and large settlements is still allowed. And additionally the larger your beacon is the more it can expand and extrude.

I will take a look.

But it’s the current builds that are abusing reservations that are the issue. These need to be corrected.

We could continuously moderate our way through this - continuously contacting players asking them to correct their beacons. But how did they know that their beacon pattern was “against the rules”. What rules? These are the rules. And they’re built into the game so that they’re consistent for everyone.

But as I clearly said - please give us feedback on the balance so that we can make sure that the rules are a reasonable balance.

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Ahh ok. I can answer then. When I’m beat from the hustle FF is a good way to earn coin if you have a thriving city. It can take the edge off providing for the 400k every week I shell out for my maxed out guilds buffs. So it definitely helps.

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