Not sure if this has been suggested already or not, but a simple search led me nowhere.
It would be a real nice QoL feature if trees and foliage would cease to regenerate when a surface plot is claimed. This would be an awesome feature for roads around towns. The idea is that all the “air” plots above a claimed plot would stop regenerating only if the top most surface plot is claimed. That way the foliage and tree branches of trees cut down to make way for roads and builds won’t suddenly reappear and save folks from having to claim empty air space plots above their builds.
I have thought of this as my home in under a canopy of trees (with one trunk trying to grow into one of my towers). If you search failed then there is probably nothing here yet. I don’t know how they could easily implement this without negating the world regeneration. Perhaps if there was a special beacon like block or emitter of some sort that would say “do not regen tree/leaves 1 plot away” which would still allow the earth/stone to regen. I like this suggestion.
But the other side is that this happens a lot when building around trees, into hills/mountains and around or on top of water. I literally have plots just so I can add a non-natural earth wall to my builds. Early on you may not want to spend your few plots but later on (barring you didn’t waste you cubits) you will have a lot. A suggestion to solve this would be to use an alt to use his claims on trivial things like anti-tree barriers, bridges and filler. My alt is my road maker. (Just make sure you use your alts cubits to first get you a new character slot before you waste the rest of them)
I’m thinking larger scale - city scale where hundreds of plots get potentially wasted on air plots over roads, parks, and other lower elevation builds. It’s simple programming really just an if-then statement. Certainly they could add a toggle for people who want the trees to regenerate, but if the person wanted the tree there they probably wouldn’t cut it down to begin with.
It wasn’t about “how” they would implement the mechanics but rather doing so without defeating the structure and purpose of world regeneration. How would you stop this from being exploitable to a point someone deforests a planet in this way? How would you go about determining what is a fair distance you can claim in this way without disrupting the world when everyone can do this? Why not simply let us plot 16x16x16 or 32x32x32 then? I cannot support this. 8x8x8 is just the right size to prevent excessive griefing and resource domination.
One of the devs said in another thread that trees already regen from the roots up. If it works like I think then it would be as simple as only allowing a tree block to regen if it has a neighbor that is already regenned (root blocks excepted) So to stop the canopy from regenning you would only need to plot over the entire trunk and cut it down once.
Edit: I guess there might be some tree prefabs with disconnected leaf blocks, which my rule wouldn’t work for. But I bet a similar rule would work.
This is a change that will come to the regeneration and it’s only this way because taken blocks are returning from down to up while placed blocks will be taken from up to down. I think that the prefabs are not “prefabs” in the worlds anymore but “saved” as all other blocks, so it may be that the engine is not able to recognize where a tree is grown compared to a place where a natural stone collum (not prefab but biomic structure) stood.
Would be great if this could happen, but the question is how to handle then when for example someone built underground. Will then the trees also not regenerate above? (if not seen as prefabs bay the engine anymore)
Personally i love and depend on stuff including trees regenning above and below my builds. Treehouse in the middle of a huge trunk? Someone could grapple over my plot and munch a big hole in the tree, that i now have to rebuild… Same goes for a shaded pathway, or my skydeck on the top branches of our “observatree”.
As for leaves growing back in cities - free starberries for anyone!
I am all for trying to find a way to fix this issue, I don’t know would be the best way to go about it but having to waste plots just to make sure leaves don’t spawn in the sky is kind of ridiculous, especially when the leaves are 1 or 2 blocks higher than your plot. This wouldn’t be nearly as big of a problem, just cut them down, but the world regeneration is so good that it comes back every 4 hours. Again I don’t know what to do about it, but I would love to try and figure something out.
Add a root block for trees. If you remove it then the tree does not regen, if you leave it any parts outside of plotted areas will regen. This might allow people to “plant” trees in the future.
The trees do regenerate from the ground up, but missing blocks do not prevent the blocks from regenerating so if the top of the tree is out the top of the beacon then it will still regenerate even though it’s trunk isn’t there.
Currently the system considers all blocks to be the same, and having regeneration stop above the plots doesn’t sound appropriate. If you imagine someone making an underground deep base inside a hill, it would be odd if the trees and resources on the top of the hill would stop regenerating.
Is it wrong to have to plot all areas that you don’t want to change? Would a special case for trees feel right? What about rock formations and other surface prefabs? I worry that the system would get complicated and more confusing if we start trying to make more rules for it.
I personally think it should be left the way it is …If trees are a problem for someone’s build then just look for a different spot or build something that takes up all the space of where the tree used to be …If regeneration stopped above plots then underground bases will cause a problem for everything above.
Not if there is a detection for the sky, which is why I suggested that regen only stop if the top most surface plot is beaconed. But the “root” idea is better - plot the tree’s base, chop it down, no more regen from that tree sounds like a great way to accomplish this.
I thought of an issue using the root block and I was one of the people pushing it. If you have an area with trees around your build and someone comes in a gathers all the wood and the root block, they will not regenerate. I may have wanted the trees, but not even a regen bomb will help if we require a root block.
We may have to leave it as is. Might have to use plots like in the old universe to keep tree tops from regening.
But what’s stopping us being able to craft root blocks and planting them again if we wanted to? If you wanted a forest near your build then you will have to plot the area and plant your root blocks.
The half trees are annoying and pretty much relies on plot owners using extra plots to stop it, not much use if plots are just left abandoned or undeveloped and it just makes things ugly.
All this is totally moot anyway, devs have basically said things won’t change so we are where we are.
Lets try this. . so now we can create root blocks. Actually not a bad idea to plant trees in a city. it might not be exactly the same tree if used in an unplotted area but based on the block could grow to a size based on the block (small, med and large as well as ancient, twisted and lustrous). Of course, now if you put them in unplotted areas people will come and take them to use in their own builds. So I think it would help with cities but not with natural areas around cities.
You never know over the long term. If we can think of something that is not too complex to implement they might change their minds. Now should we focus all our time on coming up with alternatives. . probably not.
ok that was simple and I did not think of that. . must be early. Ok so if an area is unplotted the root block regens then the tree would regen. If the area (containing) the root block is plotted and the root block has been removed the root block cannot regen therefore the tree cannot regen. So it does a check on plotted versus unplotted which it must be doing now anyway. Can you put a root block into a plotted area on purpose or is that making it more complicated?
But if root plot is unplotted, and it branches through plotted area above your blocks into unplotted area… We’re back to square one. Solution may have be complex, but they can’t be complicated, because then their hard to implement, and even harder to maintain. Many if-else branches of solution is an indication of complicated solution. And root block seems like a complicated solution.