[428] Project "Storm Armor" (Work In Progress)

Hello all.I want to warn you that the research Im going to describe is not finished;Moreover I want your help in finishing it.

Most of you had this situation : you are in your fresh,made-five-minutes-ago,shining tower of glory and you are getting assaulted by a catapult.Even worse,the catapult is inside opposing tower which is a lot higher than yours - and perhaps unreachable for your archers or your own catapult.

So you have a few choices : abandon structure,hope for cata's rocks to run out or to constantly run back and forth repairing your tower while risking "dying under rocks".

I've decided to design an element of structure that would be able to resist catapult's fire.The obvious choice here is gravel,since it is the only natural block that can be done artificially without editor or exploits.

Example of what seems to be a common structure :


After 500+ rock ammunition shot from different angles:


Gravel can be done by simply dropping stone block from a height of 2+ blocks on almost any blocks.
Here is the way to maximize gravel production for your roof:


and then drop the row of blocks on this roof.


After 500+ rocks crashtest:

Despite structure looking torn apart,none of the backwalls under roof got damaged.

Each stone block will make 3 gravel blocks.Dropping all blocks will create " /\/\/\ " wall of defence against catapults.Cover the roof on top with stone;cover gravel inside building with wood,so your allies won't break it.Sure,a single catapulted knight will dance on your roof and destroy cover,but who knows,maybe your structure is in the blind zone,so the builder on the opposing team will continue wasting rock while you are safe inside?

Why work in progress: I can't get the grasp on which height/under what circumstances gravel spawns when block is dropped : it seems completely random and based on how close you are to the edge of the map.Any info on this subject would be helpful.

Bring the info on how gravel works.Stone generators,glitches,ideas - time to make an answer for those damn catas.

Edit,info by Wyeth :


In Fig.1: I drew up several (coloured) gravel outlines that may be possible (from what we have experienced).
Brown: This is exactly aligned with the "ground" (basically the 0 point is almost consistently on the main height of height of the ground). This one is in fact a straight line. I am not sure if this even exists, but probably.

Yellow: (Hard to see) its a straight line but its above the ground. This can be really high up, or just say 1 block higher than the ground level. This is the most consistent one. Basically consistent gravel creation everywhere! (We noticed this on 200x200, it may be connected to the Wang Tile Map Generator?).

Green: Below ground level. This is kinda dumb. It means gravel creation is borked and you will probably have none in this game, except if you dig down a few blocks (2-3 mostly). It mostly alignes with the lowest point of the map (so in Fig.1 the little holes to the left and right).

Blue: The most probable outline as far as we've seen. It is not consistent and jumps randomly up and down in some areas (NOT symmetrical). We couldn't find any system in these jumps. It simply goes on like the brown outline and then suddenly drops 3-4 blocks and comes up again somewhere else.

One of these will be present in any map, but there is one special scenario which I will now explain with the help of Fig.2:
In maps with a middle mountain the gravel outline may mimic this mountain 2 times in the left and right area (red line). If you were to shovel enough gravel on it it would create the EXACT shape of the middle mountain. The outline is thus the shape of the mountain 3 times next to each other.

So general rules for gravel generation:
- Stone needs to fall 2 blocks.
- Stone needs to touch the gravel outline first (doesn't work if there is a different type of block underneath that "blocks" it).
- Stone needs to hit the gravel outline (0) or below.
- As a rule of thumb, the main ground level will be the gravel line.

/Edit.

 

The way I understand it is there is a "spawn line" for gravel on generated maps that is really wonky and is not symmetrical to the map. However on Wang maps, there is no gravel spawn line and it will appear everywhere. BLU did some research into this but most of it is unfinished.

See Wyeth's post here.

One of the problems with gravel like this is archers firing arrows at the stone walls will destroy the gravel through the stone with the arrow glitch. This creates a huge problem because when the gravel 'explodes' it will actually damage your wall . . . :(

 

Hm.Well,you could make 2 layers on top of roof : one out of wood and the upper out of stone to prevent arrow glitching.It becomes resource hungry defence when you look at it...Maybe it should be used to cover most opened and important parts of the structure only?Right on top of the shops for example.

For what it seems you can use it anywhere on Wang Maps - now thats a start :D

 

I approve.
Innovation ftw!

 

Quite awesome, but I doubt people will be using it often at all, due to the complicated matter of creating the gravel. As well as the temptation to destroy the gravel after enemies have catapulted it...

However, it may be very beneficial in clan wars due to the team work and communication.

 

Mind=blown. How did you figure this out?