One of the most interesting "features" of the housing tool is the ability to, through some creative use of the tool, create corner and spiral staircases. This is done by a mish-mosh of placing tiles, placing stairs, erasing tiles, placing more stairs, and so forth. Of course, the ability to create these unique and unusual staircases is limited by how close you are to the edge of the house plot.
In consideration of this, and to promote an easier interface, this evening, I drew up an idea for a new stairs menu which would give access to all of the stair pieces in a particular set, platform pieces, and allow the creation of unusual stairs without any additional effort on the part of the creator.
Now some of this would require some simple recoding, as we know the individual stair columns exist (because otherwise, the stairs trick wouldn't work in the first place). The rest would require some additional coding -- specifically, giving access to the additional stairs pieces.
So, my first suggestion is that much like walls and roofs, the stairs menu becomes a "main menu" of stairs types:
Upon clicking a stair type, you would be taken to a sub-menu that would first present to you all of the available exterior stairs for that set (ie: the ones for the south edge of the house).
You'll notice that I added in, on this wooden set, two new stairs pieces because they would fit with the other ones, and allow more unique pieces to be used on the front end. My goal, truly, is to allow for all or most of the pieces to be used in a set, though obviously, south edge property entrance stairs must logically fit.
If you then click the "next" or "->" button, you are taken to a Interior Full Staircases. These are four staircases in the cardinal directions that function exactly like every staircase currently presented in the "Interior Staircases" portion of a stairs set. A full set of stairs that for those not looking to do anything fancy, is already pre-built and ready to go in.
The next four menus are where it gets fun:
What I propose is that you are given the ability to build a staircase in individual pieces. This would allow you to put in a staircase any way you desired. Additionally, by including the "flat" or "block" piece, you'd be able to put in appropriate corner pieces that wouldn't require a goza. The other benefit is that you would be able to create platforms at various heights.
This, of course, leads to one additional suggestion... height 1 stairs and platforms should not require an open floor piece above them. If you consider that stairs increment a +5 on the z-axis (thus stair 1 = +5, stair 2 = +10, et cetera), and the average person is slightly less or equal to 15 height on the z-axis, they aren't bumping their head on the ceiling at +5. You can test this by setting up gozas in your house that lead to a +5 by the house tool... you can still walk around fine. The reason for this suggestion is that platforms created at +5 (or height 1) would currently eat into the floor above, without any real reason to. Now, clearly, anything higher than height 1 should require an open space above it, as I'm certainly not going to be so ambitious as to suggest varying height floor tiles -- that would take a complete redesign of the housing system itself. What I present here, I firmly believe is a minor upgrade of the housing tool that, while taking some coding time, would not be beyond possibility, and would use existing code with a few modifications.
On a side note... the gargoyle staircases with the brown edging to them need to be looked at and fixed. Here's why:
If you'll notice, in points A, there is gray stair sticking out beyond the edge of the brown border, which is not visible on the other facing. This is because of the way they stack the stairs on bricks below them, and because the brown border apparently does not flush over the top of it. I'm not sure the simple solution, except for creating a brick for those particular facings that has part of itself shaved off, and then using that to build the stairs... it just looks unfinished to have them look the way they do now.
Additionally, in points B, you'll notice that one set of stairs uses a brown back, while the other set uses a gray back. Because of the edging, it is logical for them to use the brown back to be complete. This also means that the gray stairs (point C) would need to have a gray back on them in the rising to the east position so that they don't stand out the way they do currently.
Well, that's all I've got for now, but I hope the Dev Team will consider this kind of improvement, because I suspect house owners would enjoy the ability to easily place corner stairs, and the introduction of easy, goza-less platforms would be nice too.
In consideration of this, and to promote an easier interface, this evening, I drew up an idea for a new stairs menu which would give access to all of the stair pieces in a particular set, platform pieces, and allow the creation of unusual stairs without any additional effort on the part of the creator.
Now some of this would require some simple recoding, as we know the individual stair columns exist (because otherwise, the stairs trick wouldn't work in the first place). The rest would require some additional coding -- specifically, giving access to the additional stairs pieces.
So, my first suggestion is that much like walls and roofs, the stairs menu becomes a "main menu" of stairs types:
Upon clicking a stair type, you would be taken to a sub-menu that would first present to you all of the available exterior stairs for that set (ie: the ones for the south edge of the house).
You'll notice that I added in, on this wooden set, two new stairs pieces because they would fit with the other ones, and allow more unique pieces to be used on the front end. My goal, truly, is to allow for all or most of the pieces to be used in a set, though obviously, south edge property entrance stairs must logically fit.
If you then click the "next" or "->" button, you are taken to a Interior Full Staircases. These are four staircases in the cardinal directions that function exactly like every staircase currently presented in the "Interior Staircases" portion of a stairs set. A full set of stairs that for those not looking to do anything fancy, is already pre-built and ready to go in.
The next four menus are where it gets fun:
What I propose is that you are given the ability to build a staircase in individual pieces. This would allow you to put in a staircase any way you desired. Additionally, by including the "flat" or "block" piece, you'd be able to put in appropriate corner pieces that wouldn't require a goza. The other benefit is that you would be able to create platforms at various heights.
This, of course, leads to one additional suggestion... height 1 stairs and platforms should not require an open floor piece above them. If you consider that stairs increment a +5 on the z-axis (thus stair 1 = +5, stair 2 = +10, et cetera), and the average person is slightly less or equal to 15 height on the z-axis, they aren't bumping their head on the ceiling at +5. You can test this by setting up gozas in your house that lead to a +5 by the house tool... you can still walk around fine. The reason for this suggestion is that platforms created at +5 (or height 1) would currently eat into the floor above, without any real reason to. Now, clearly, anything higher than height 1 should require an open space above it, as I'm certainly not going to be so ambitious as to suggest varying height floor tiles -- that would take a complete redesign of the housing system itself. What I present here, I firmly believe is a minor upgrade of the housing tool that, while taking some coding time, would not be beyond possibility, and would use existing code with a few modifications.
On a side note... the gargoyle staircases with the brown edging to them need to be looked at and fixed. Here's why:
If you'll notice, in points A, there is gray stair sticking out beyond the edge of the brown border, which is not visible on the other facing. This is because of the way they stack the stairs on bricks below them, and because the brown border apparently does not flush over the top of it. I'm not sure the simple solution, except for creating a brick for those particular facings that has part of itself shaved off, and then using that to build the stairs... it just looks unfinished to have them look the way they do now.
Additionally, in points B, you'll notice that one set of stairs uses a brown back, while the other set uses a gray back. Because of the edging, it is logical for them to use the brown back to be complete. This also means that the gray stairs (point C) would need to have a gray back on them in the rising to the east position so that they don't stand out the way they do currently.
Well, that's all I've got for now, but I hope the Dev Team will consider this kind of improvement, because I suspect house owners would enjoy the ability to easily place corner stairs, and the introduction of easy, goza-less platforms would be nice too.
