"Oh yes," said Slartibartfast. "Did you ever go to a place... I think it was called Norway?"
"No," said Arthur, "no, I didn't."
"Pity," said Slartibartfast, "that was one of mine. Won an award you know. Lovely crinkly edges. I was most upset to hear about its destruction."
Thats... very... opensource of you?That sums up my rationale for not having a default
MapOptions.lua that would let you change the SMD/
SM3 properties on any map (I had that discussion
with quantum).
Oh wait. No. Its the exact opposite of that.
Mappers have been modifying mods with typemaps, crazy wind/metal maps, and even new units (speedball, duck) for ages. Nobody complains (other than that it makes bad maps). Hell, they even modify the artistic content of your model by changing the lighting on the map!
A modder must make his mod with the BA slope tolerances in mind, because thats what most maps are made to- kbot and vehicle slope tolerances. Good mappers often texture the kbot-passable and vech-passable slopes differently specifically so that you can tell where one stops and the other begins. In CA, i want to have a wider range of slope tolerances, from units that prefer the very flat to a robust selection of all-terrain units. Specifically, i made hovercraft have sub-vehicle slope tolerances, so that they are useful specifically on perfectly flat terrain as well as just on water.
But all maps have insanely steep beaches that the shores are 'sculpted by hand' with (rotate the camera down and look at SSB's 'beach' coasts, some look almost vertical). For this same reason, amphibious vehicles must have the slope tolerance of Kbots.
The balance of our game, our available options, are dictated to us by mappers. Everything from the economy to passable areas, and the map file can include any kind of mod data that takes precedence over the mods mod data. I think mods should have the right to edit maps, too.
Truth is, i can do whatever i like to someones map in CA. Why? Terraform. With enough time and effort i can flood or flatten the whole map. I can create huge ugly square channels for my ships, and great tall blocks. Its a great gameplay feature. Hell, even in BA commanders (you start the game with these... they're gonna leave holes) and nukes can totally change the landscape, making new seas or obstacles, and destroying the lovely crinkly edges on your coasts.
Hell, i can even gobble up all your lovely trees and rocks (But wait- thats why you put them there. For me to do that).
The very NATURE of the mappers artistic medium is malleable. When a mapper 'sculpts shores' they should do it with the implicit understanding that this is a playpen which is going to be trashed by the players during the course of the game. In fact they should do it specifically with that understanding, the increased softness on Castles sand is a good example of incorporating the malleable nature of the map into the nature of the map. Meltyheck is another uh.. interesting example.
I think its not much to ask for a wet version of maps, and barring them due to 'artistic integrity of the original work' is just prima-donnaism at its most absurd and goes against the opensource underpinnings of this community.
From Neddies 'understanding that the permission to distribute is implicit', the permission to modify in-game is also implicit (unless, perhaps, the map is given a very high hardness value).
There is no specific limit on how much the map can be terraformed, blown up, shifted, moved, sunk, or raised and the permission to modify it is given, because the act of PLAYING the map, IS the act of modifying the map.
