Using overmap variables (urbanity esp) to influence om special spawns

[I-am-Erk]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

#69912 and #70002 added two new overmap parameters, "urbanity" and "forestosity". Urbanity currently increases towards the East and South, putting you towards areas with ever larger cities as you travel. Both of these variables could, and should, be able to be referenced somehow in overmap special definitions to influence special spawning in a few ways, allowing us to restrict specials to just areas where the cities are larger or the forest is thicker.

Solution you would like.

We could really use the following attributes. I recommend we limit them to text inputs rather than demanding contributors figure out the arbitrary numbers these variables wound up coming to.

• "urbanity": (string)
• "forestosity": (string)

For these two:

• the default value 0 means we don't care and ignore this field.
• "v_low" means we only spawn this special if the variable is less than 25% the maximum defined by "OVERMAP_MAXIMUM_URBANITY" or "OVERMAP_FOREST_LIMIT" in game_balance.json.
• "low" means we only spawn the special if the associated variable is under 50% the maximum
• "medium" means the special only spawns between 25% and 75% the defined limit.
• "high" means the special only spawns at over 50% of the maximum
• "v_high" means the special only spawns at the 75% or more of the maximum value.

---

Another option, either complimentary or alternative, is:

• "urban_bias": (int)
• "forest_bias": (int)

At 0, default, we ignore these values.

• determine the current percent of maximum urbanity or forestosity is at in this overmap. For example if max urbanity is 5 and this overmap is 4, we're at 80% maximum
• Adjust spawn rate for this special by bias/100 * the above percent. So, if bias is 100, this OMS will spawn 80% more often in an area of 100% urbanosity.
• If the bias is negative this still works, in the above scenario then we reduce spawning by 80% if the bias is -100.

TK: I'd like to add a list of some common specials that should be biased in this way

Describe alternatives you have considered.

I am getting tired and I am sure there are better ways to do this math, so I am posting this for someone to offer feedback and suggestions

Additional context

No, forestosity is not a word. No, I won't stop saying it. You're not my real dad.

[kevingranade]

Arborescence

[I-am-Erk]

Arborescence

I accept this alternative

[Procyonae]

What buildings would you suggest using these with over city_size/city_distance?

[I-am-Erk]

City size/distance don't really work all that well in the current set up, where even max sized cities are pretty small. This determines more how close we are to a megacity. City_distance in particular could potentially be used in a similar way though, I suppose, since city distance falls as urbanosity increased. If we have the ability to limit spawns by that setting at all.

Bias works quite differently though, and should be useful for things like, say, specialty stores which could spawn in a small town but are far more likely to spawn in a city.

[Procyonae]

This determines more how close we are to a megacity

I mean it doesn't tho it determines how east/south you are unless we're planning on making it less simple than that. Locking specials behind latitude and longitude would be really weird.

If we have the ability to limit spawns by that setting at all

Yes both are used extensively...?

Bias works quite differently though, and should be useful for things like, say, specialty stores which could spawn in a small town but are far more likely to spawn in a city.

I agree that scaling with biases would be good but don't see why it should scale with urbanity instead of city size, a small city to the south and east shouldn't have more speciality stores than a larger city to the north and east. Potentially both could be combined but I don't see any real benefit given urbanity is already making city_size tend to roll higher.

The big issue as per usual is our cities are all tiny so any differentiation is at a very weird scale and we also have a distinct lack of same purpose maps that represent different density buildings which would ideally coexist across areas of large cities in a more developed/reimagined way of how it currently places houses/shops/parks (I previously discussed this here #72795)