Maximum height

[Korneluk]

Is there any real chance that this will/can be changed in the future or are we stuck with roof-less 3 story dwellings. I was fooled, I know not intentionally, by the fact that the Z coordinate could be raised well past 20, but in fact can only be saved at a max of 16, it seems.
I wish I had noticed this sooner...
What say the Exult bosses?

[Malignant Manor]

It currently only saves object placements of 0-15 at Z coordinates. I think the prior limit was 0-8. The game currently can have up to 255 in game but not save them. Saving more might would require using some unknown saved data.


The following is from before the improvements were made. I can't find any of the other relevant information other than the change logs.

Quote from DrCode:

it's 15 tiles in height. U7 only provides 4 bits for storing the z-coord in its savefiles, with the other 4 bits in the byte representing something else (which Exult has always ignored). Because of U7's limitation, though, we've assumed a max of 15 in various places throughout the code.

[Korneluk]

Ahh, thanks Malignant. I had hoped to hear otherwise. I've been trying to patch together a work-around where a wall is anchored/based at 15 Z but extends above that. It's really only useful as a backdrop of sorts since it can't be interacted with, ie. doesn't occlude, objects would pass through it. Still, it can give the illusion.
I am going to pray to the gods of Exult every night, and perhaps offer a fingertip or toe so they'll figure out how to increase that limit...

[Scythifuge]

This will still be an issue for mountains and Nauhautla pyramids in Savage Empire. I won't know for sure until I start playing around with alpha versions of maps.

[Corpsecrank]

You run into other problems regardless of a height restriction. If you had more than 15 z and you actually used it and made a building say 6 floors tall because of the view this game uses that building would block a large portion of viewing space and would end up being problematic.

This same issue is present in pretty much every ultima game except 9 because it is 3d.

[Korneluk]

The loss of viewing space doesn't have to be a problem. Sure, you might be limited to where you'd want to place these taller structures, but plan accordingly.

[Corpsecrank]

Well yeah but I am just saying in general it begins to become a problem as far as space it obstructs. If this game has the same problem as some of the other ones then once your character reaches a certain height it can no longer move. There is also a common problem of no longer being able to see things below you once you hit the limit as well.

Basically the game was never meant to have this situation happen so odd things begin to crop up when you push it past that limitation.

This is also the reason a lot of these games have dungeon floors spread out and you simply teleport from floor to floor as you go up and down level so that it appears you actually moving up or down but in reality your being moved from one place to another on the same Z level. If they were to actually stack floors you would see a lot of odd problems like stuff showing through the floor etc. This would also limit dungeons to 3 floors due to the height restriction.

Anyhow not impossible just highly problematic.

[Scythifuge]

I remember that there was discussion of the coding possibility that objects wouldn't appear if the PC was under a certain height, but made to appear when level to a certain height. If this could be made to happen, then extending the maximum height would work.

[Corpsecrank]

Yes if objects can be made to appear while withing a certain z level it may work as long as there are no issues with character movement at that level.

Like I said it can be done sure but certainly not easily.

I always thought it would be nice to mod the game an allow dungeons to be stacked several levels high allowing for a lot more room to expand the game on.

If all dungeons were places along the upper edge of the map and stacked you would be able to use all of the other area for other things.

[Scythifuge]

I wish that there was a way to expand the available map by x amount of sectors, in addition to increasing the maximum height. I also wish that I knew how to code so that I could try to aid in these things...