Super Energy Metropolis Prototype 3

#1

So, I'm proud to show off Prototype #3!

Prototype 3 : Dynamic Pollution So, after prototype 2, we learned that we were going to have to deal with pollution in a more dynamic way, not only for accuracy's sake but also because there still was no incentive to build roads.

As you can see, people will now turn into little cars whenever they touch a highway square. They will then move significantly faster than a person moving on dirt, but the downside is they will start leaving little trails of pollution down behind them. This pollution is a very small amount, but if a lot of cars travel over the same area, it will quickly build up.

More details and the playable prototype link after the jump :)

So, a quick list of all the changes:

  • People now turn into cars when traveling on roads (modeling people getting into their cars to drive on the freeway). Seems like a nice way to abstract that. If you build roads, people will buy cars and use those roads.
  • When a person has transformed into a car, they will produce smog so long as they are still in "car" mode.
  • When a person puts in a man-hour of work in a factory, it produces a small bit of pollution. (Still haven't modeled an expanded radius of pollution for factories). This is different from prototype 2 where factories produced a static amount of pollution for the duration they sat there.
  • Basically, pollution is now produced by cars and factories rather than just being plopped down on the map with them. Pollution dissipates over time, and also stacks if it is produced by multiple overlapping sources. If the production rate is higher than the dissipation rate, it builds up, otherwise, it fades away.
Health, productivity, etc, all work the way they did in version 2, as does the little priority menu. Just so people know, it's just a quick and dirty system I threw together (though I suppose now is a good time to prototype interface as well). "Build" means "Construct new buildings", and "Produce" means "Make some more product by working in a factory." If one is set higher than the other, then they will favor the other when choosing between jobs, with some minor glitches in the AI. It's not perfect, but the intended effect works - when you put Build on hi priority and Produce on lo priority, people tend to work on construction jobs before going to the factory, which fixes the "factory as labor thief" problem from prototype 1.

At any rate, the main changes to this version are dynamic pollution. I'm thinking it works pretty much the way I intended it to, but I'll see what you guys think before posting my final analysis, now that we have a decent crew of regular commenters :)

Here's it is! Click on the image below to play!

Click here to play prototype 3!
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at http://www.fortressofdoors.com/super-energy-metropolis-prototype-3/