Themes and Outpost designs discussion

Discussion in 'Frontier and Player Outposts' started by kevmeup, May 8, 2015.

  1. I'm curious how others feel about design themes or design rules at an outpost. Do you like them? Do you have them? Are they too constricting? If you do have a theme you use, share, I'd love to hear what other outpost are doing.

    I know some outposts are just a collection of cobble farms. Some are highly organized cities with skyscrapers and street signs. Others have a mix. It seems that some have a theme for the town but on a plot you can do anything.

    I'd love to hear your thoughts.
  2. Back in my Golden Age, cities were my favourite personally.
    kevmeup likes this.
  3. Back in the Golden Age, how did you prefer to handle farms? Like golem farms. Did you move them outside the city or did you make them into sky scrapers?
    NetherSpecter likes this.
  4. Farms?

    I admittedly just bought everything from town.

    Iron... I got from Pazzo. Only thing I got from "out there".
  5. I'll give my thoughts, see if it draws in some more conversation.

    I think since we have such a great town structure in EMC already, that going a bit further with a theme is nice in the wild. A little consistency can bring the town together.

    I think unless you have a strong design sense at first, most outpost may just want to start with design rules and evolve a theme over time. Some rules that are important to me are:
    No cobble. It can be used in a specific design like temple ruins but never as a default block out of laziness.
    No pillaring.
    No step mining (use ladders).
    No floating structures in town (hard one for some farms).
    Use stone or wood as main building material above ground.

    I think choosing main materials and a few no-nos is plenty to prepare an outpost for a theme in the future.

    Anyone else have rules like that? Or ones you'd recommend?
  6. With my wild towns (that are now dead </3 but Sia is kinda active), there are some basic rules. Make buildings look good, no buildings that are too big (aka too tall or wide), must be realistic (no floating off a cliff) and any farms such as iron farms must be moved to a set area away from the town unless it can be incorporated nicely.
    kevmeup likes this.
  7. The outpost I have planned for Sometime in the future will be something like a castle built into a mountain or a valley.
    kevmeup likes this.
  8. I agree with these points, though we didn't implement design rules in Carthaga (but are always looking for architects and builder ;) ). The iron farm was indeed transformed to a skyscraper and looks much better now.
    Not sure if this is part of design, but another important factor might be lag. So don't put animal farms right in the centre.
    kevmeup likes this.
  9. It's a delicate balance, dealing with /entc and lag issues, while also making areas more useful.

    In Regen we have a iron farm that looks like a Mayan temple (3 actually), a large roman fountain, a giant tree and part of a house. Even if you don't have sky scrapers, a single iron farm here and there is great for a town. Glad to help if anyone wants tips on non standard designs.