Vintage Story 1.20 E31 My Understanding Of The Landcover & Upheaval Balance

[@console.writeline6262]

I never touched that setting, since I didn't understand it. Thank you for explaining it so clearly.

[@Ashantin3]

@@console.writeline6262 Thank you.

[@FullCircleStories]

Great video idea Ashantin, making good oceans is quite important to really enjoy all the intricate boat mechanics the dev team has added in. I've been struggling and experimenting with this for literal days, making world after world trying to understand the settings and how they work. So far, what I've settled on is: - Landcover: 70-80% (personal preference, most people prefer 50%) - Landcover scale: 300-400% - Landform scale: 100% (I like the vanilla generation of snowcapped mountains, higher landform scale often gets rid of them) - Extra mods: either Rivers, or RiverGen. This is to give more use to boats (and opportunities to build nice bridges) I hadn't really considered upheaval until recently, and your video has encouraged me to look at it further. Higher landform scale might also solve your prolem with smoother transition from land to lake/sea. One thing I strongly recommend doing, extremely helpful and very educational, was to make a new world on a new seed on default, and then make new worlds on the same seed, but changing different settings. Go into creative each time, fly around for a few minutes to reveal some map, take a screenshot, then make the next world. On the same seed, the differences in the settings and their combinations really shine. If I had the hardware to handle it I'd make a video myself doing this.

[@Ashantin3]

@@FullCircleStories Hood ideas here! Thanks.

[@quartzar]

I must have spent a good 12 hours or more experimenting with worldgen settings and trying different seeds while trying to find 'the' world for my 1.20 playthrough, and I learnt a lot about how each setting affects the world generation. Previously, I had used Plains and Valleys mod, but it really lacks the awe that the vanilla worldgen can provide, in my opinion. -Upheavel: I wasn't sure how it worked either, so I did a lot of testing and regenerating chunks with different settings. EDIT: KZbin keeps deleting this comment, I presume because of the link to some images.... basically upheavel just pushes the ground up everywhere, it doesn't care about mountains it just pushes it all up. ORIGINAL: [[Here are 2 screenshots taken in the exact same spot, with one being 50% upheavel, and the other being 100% upheavel: (the screenshot with the more elevated land is the one with 100% upheavel). As you can see (and as you note in your video) - higher upheavel means the ground gets pushed up more and more frequently. 100% is of course an extreme value, but I think those screenshots demonstrate the difference very well.]] -Landcover: Somewhat simple at first glance, though as you note it can lead to unexpected results at some values. Worth mentioning - 1.20 has a strange thing happen a lot, which is that it will spawn you on a tiny island half the time! Seeds also seem to have a noticeable variation in their world generation too with the exact same settings. I tend to go for 70-80% landcover, personally. The big oceans doesn't come from this setting though... -Landcover scale: Imagine you create a world with the default 100% landcover scale, and you spawn on an island that is 50x50 blocks, with an ocean around it, and 100 blocks North you reach more land. If you recreated the world using the exact same seed and the exact same worldgen settings - but this time using 200% landcover scale - the island you previously spawned on would now be 100x100 blocks, and you'd now have 200 blocks of ocean to the North before reaching land. Those numbers aren't exact, I think it scales more than just linearly - but that's the general principle. Landcover scale is simply how 'zoomed in' the entire world is. 50% landcover scale with 60% landcover would give you an archipelago-style world, numerous small islands separated by only small ocean distances. 200% landcover scale with 60% landcover would give you large islands/small continents, with large oceans separating them. -Landform scale: This is an interesting one, and is sorely misunderstood. Certainly isn't helped by the somewhat confusing help text. The easiest way to think about this one is with the following example: at 80% landform scale, you would see lot's of very spiky, tall, thin mountains. They would be mostly difficult to climb, but are ideal for finding ores and for seeing the rock strata of the area. At 200% landform scale, you would see less 'distinct' mountains, but the mountains you would see would occupy a much greater area, and importantly - their slopes would be MUCH more gradual and easier to climb. The landscape would look more akin to that of the Plains and Valleys mod. But you also get less variation in the immediate surrounding terrain, because the landforms (which includes mountains and lakes) are much wider/larger, and therefore occur less frequently. THIS is the setting for people who want large scale, more 'realistic' mountains. Upheavel is good for lessening the stark contrast between the tall mountains sticking out of an otherwise very flat landscape - but landform scale is the one to increase if you want more gradual slopes for mountains, and a more 'realistic' terrain. You will also get larger lakes. Be careful with upheavel, as it can actually make traversal more difficult, and also eliminate flat areas that are well suited to larger scale builds and complexes. Also worth noting is that I found the difference between 100% landform scale and 80% landform scale to be quite pronounced, with 100% creating less frequently occurring but much larger, steep 'tabletop' mountain blocks, and 80% creating my preferred more frequently occurring, smaller 'spiky' mountains. I just love the look of them, and I still get awesome flat areas and mountain ranges. -My Settings: With all of that said, these are the settings I finally settled on for my 1.20 world: Landcover: 80% Landcover scale: 200% Upheavel rate: 50% Landform scale: 80% Worldheight: 320 Lovely video, as always:))

[@Ashantin3]

@@quartzar That’s fantastic info. I’m going to have to read that several times. Thank you so much!

[@thomasparker7305]

Thank you for the information, I struggle with this each time I make a world.

[@Ashantin3]

@ I think we all do!

[@Marc83Aus]

My understanding is the upheaval is a random noise that adds elevation changes around the map, this is in addition to the regular landforms which still do their own thing but then the upheaval comes along and can add some more uplift in areas. The ocean generator seems to be the opposite of the upheval system, noise going downwards in places instead of upwards. Tyron hasnt explained it in much detail but I believe some people who have dug through the code have a much better understanding than I do.

[@Ashantin3]

Then my understanding might be too simplistic! That’s very interesting. Thank you. I don’t read code so it’s helpful if others can.

[@Marc83Aus]

@@Ashantin3 I'm mostly going off the rare times Tyron has mentioned the upheaval system. I really havent touched it either so I have no experience with how it actually affects worldgen. World height I have played around with a lot and there is a point where things jus get really weird if its cranked far past 500

[@Ashantin3]

@ I’m sure my explanation is too simple, but if the devs see the video they might clarify what it is. However it works, the world I generated with 60% landcover and 40% upheaval was very nice. I tend not to change the world height. It can get really weird when it’s too high.

[@pardotkynes1]

That was am amazingly useful video. I have never known how to balance the world gen variables. But now I use Terra Prety, so I can't mess anything up and the world looks like a postcard almost everywhere.

[@Ashantin3]

@@pardotkynes1 Good recommendation- thanks.

[@Nephelangelo]

Can’t hear because I’m on the subway but basically, Landcover is how much of your world is land vs ocean. 80% Landcover will be 80% land and 20% ocean. Upheaval basically just bends the terrain upward over a large area, like your cat crawling under a rug.

[@Ashantin3]

@@Nephelangelo I love that analogy.

[@jasmynite2547]

Very helpful, thank you. :)

[@Ashantin3]

@@jasmynite2547 I’m glad if it helps.

[@dkoiop]

I wish I watched this video before making my world now 😭

[@Ashantin3]

@@dkoiop Maybe it will help with the next one, if it’s correct. It’s only my understanding.

[@rowly6798]

yer its pain trying t find a nice balance between the gradient of terrain and ocean size i like the 60 40 i just wish there was more fine tuning in world creation I.E.. a setting that smooths out inclines too x %

[@Ashantin3]

@@rowly6798 I think just trying 60 40 and seeing the difference in the world persuaded me.

[@RandomOnTheInternetube]

Hey just gonna say that your link on the teleporter redirects you to youtube studio! Not to the video Keep it going! I love hearing your commentary on the game

[@RandomOnTheInternetube]

Also could you make a little video just going on creative flying through different kinds of worlds? Just to se a little bit of the generation ?

[@Ashantin3]

@@RandomOnTheInternetube Thanks for the heads up!

[@Ashantin3]

@@RandomOnTheInternetube I’ll give it a try.