Improve integration of fertilizer depot on non-US based maps

[pierreloiret10-jpg]

What problem does this solve?

The style of the fertilizer depot is really american based. The integration on European maps looks weird. I enclose some examples on a French map bellow. The style of the depot does not match with the rest of the map.

In addition, some maps already have pre-built selling station in which the player could easily fit fertilizer depot functionality. No buildings are actualy needed. What is really necessary are triggers.

First example of selling station on THE MECHET. I would in-game place the fertilizer depot trigger in front of the left white building door

The US-styled building doesn't match with the rest of the building of the map

Another exemple of built-in station on the same map. This would be fully integrated with fertilizer depot mod with only triggers

Proposed Solution

Add an alternative to fertilizer depot with only the trigger and not the building.
This will perfectly integrate to already built in stations.

Keep the base game building alternative for players who wants a building :)

Alternatives Considered

Add differenty building styles for fertilizer depot. This would considerably increase the work on your side + it will lead to an heavier mod + there will be request to add it to numerous buildings in each country style.

Which part of the mod does this relate to?

Other

Anything Else?

THank you fo the whole work on Realistic farming in global <3

[TheCodingDad-TisonK]

This is a good request and the screenshots make the case better than the words do. You are right that the depot building reads as American, and dropping it next to that Mechet farmyard does look wrong.

Confirmed what the mod ships today, so we are working from facts: three placeables, depotPlaceable, siloPlaceable and depotPickupPlaceable. There is no building free variant, so what you are asking for does not exist rather than being hidden somewhere.

I am not going to build it off the back of this issue, though, and I want to be clear about why rather than leave you guessing. A trigger only depot is not a reskin, it is a different placement model. It means the depot's function stops being tied to a building we control and starts being attached to whatever the player points it at, which raises real questions about where the storage lives, what happens on a map with no suitable building, and how it reads in multiplayer. That is a design decision, and around here those go to the design side before anyone writes code.

So it is going over as written, with your screenshots, and with your own argument for why this is better than shipping more building styles. For what it is worth I think that argument is the strongest part of the request. Adding a French barn, then a German one, then a Polish one is a treadmill with no end, and a trigger sidesteps the whole thing.

Labelled enhancement and needs-design. I will bring the answer back here either way, including if the answer is no.

Merci pour le retour et pour les captures, elles aident beaucoup.

[sasha-rf]

Design answer is back, and it is better news than a plain yes.

Your request is not new work. It is something already designed and deliberately parked, and you have just given it the outside reason to come off the shelf.

There is an internal design called the Co-Op Home Ladder, written on 10 July, for how a system finds its "home" placeable. Four rungs, tried in order, and it falls through to the next when one is absent:

1. a dedicated placeable
2. the Fertilizer Depot's own depot placeable
3. a trigger the player positions and then designates as the home
4. a menu-only fallback so it can never get stuck

Rung 3 is exactly what you asked for. It was deferred for scope, not because anyone doubted it.

Two things from the design worth telling you, because they shape what you would actually get:

• The argument you made is the argument the design already makes. Shipping a French barn, then a German one, then a Polish one is a treadmill with no end. The point of the ladder is that the home is detected rather than required.
• It is cheaper than it looks. All three physical homes are placeables, so it is one priority-ordered check rather than three bespoke integrations. The host we would attach to already exists, confirmed in the Workplace Triggers mod.

What I am not going to do is pretend it is imminent. Being straight with you about where it actually stands:

• The ladder itself is not implemented yet in the mod that owns it, so rung 3 has nothing to be a rung of right now.
• There is one open design question, sitting unanswered since the ladder was written: if you designate a trigger as a depot, is it only a depot now, or is it still also a workplace? Your case inherits that question exactly. It wants answering before anyone writes the surface, because it changes what the designation means.

Both of those are on the design side, and I have pushed for the answer rather than leaving it to drift again.

So: labelled and tracked against the existing design rather than as a fresh request, which means it is in the queue that gets built rather than the pile that gets forgotten. I will post here when the ladder lands and when rung 3 has a date, and I will not post a "soon" in between.

Merci encore pour les captures. Elles ont rendu l'argument beaucoup plus facile a defendre.