Lairs - purchasing and construction

[Mithras Shiningstorm]

I don't know if this suggestion has been posted or not, but my quick search yielded nothing - so here goes!

My little hatchie is just about ready to begin his Helian RoP, so I've been looking around for prospective Lairs to call my own - particularly in the cold north. I figure once I ascend I'll want a homestead to call my own and really become part of Istaria.

I was looking around at all these lairs - ranging from Brist to Mahagra and I noticed the dimensions vary greatly based on the topography of the land (temperate lands favor larger, cubic lairs and icy regions favor narrow, deep lairs). I found a lovely Lair just north of Blizzard's Reach - the view is magnificent, resources are close...but I'm unable to see how the space actually lays to see if it's good for building an efficient lair (in my eyes anyways).

Talking with my elders in the NPA and the Dragon channels - I also saw that construction was no less of a headache. Lairs, by design, are three dimensional - the current system in place doesn't appear to allow the player to view their construction blueprint in 3D, instead they work floor by floor and try to build around structures that descend anywhere from 2-4 floors and attempt to carefully match up doorways to make these rooms accessible and usable.

I personally think it would be easier, both for purchasing and construction reasons - if we were able to view the space in a three dimensional manner. Even if it were something like a pane to view top/left/right/bottom with appropriate gridding in which to view multiple levels would be wonderful. Being realistic and perhaps for an easier fix - I noticed that the (?) button did nothing when pressed in the plot survey screen - perhaps a tutorial addition could be made?

As I understand it those who've built their Lairs use anything from an online grid to leggos to assist in the planning process.

[Dragonboy]

As far as I can tell the only 2 real annoyances in lair design that I encountered was lag while playing with the online grid and location of the entrance.

However I do believe it would be nice to have a 3rd party or Owners created program in which you can pre-plan your entire dragon lair OR biped plot offline, which does allow information to be uploaded only when plot or lair is completely empty.

I think a program like that would make planning a lot easier and would allow possible re-planning of dragon lair or biped plot before everything has been broken down. If created correctly maybe a nice 3D would be possible, maybe even with all lair and community locations inserted in the program so that you are working with the correct size and shape for each plot.

However until that program arrives I won’t hold my breath and share the method I used for my lairshaping designing:

20*20 pixel squars = per level 15*15 squares in which 3*3 squars equals 1*1 in the lair (for example corridors, T2 library)

It might take a little getting used to in the beginning, but it works perfectly for me.

[Drakarr]

Leggos!!!!!

[Nyoko]

Okay, Dragonboy, I have to ask since I am having a devil of a time designing he first level of my lair (it's never perfect )) how did you fit a t6 lair on that first level? Is you lair location something to do with it?

[Guaran]

Legos sounds like a good way to visualize the space. When planning, you can walk thru the lair as it will be when completed. Be warned it simply takes time to plan one out the way you like. I spent 8 hours trying various layouts and starting over before I settled on one. The level with the entrance, level 0, often has terrain occlusion and is considered a "free" extra level worth of space. Not all rooms will always fit on level 0 in all lairs due to the land that may not allow it (because of collision with the terrain above). Make a slope or spiral down one level, then its guaranteed any room will fit as long as there is space.

A bit of planning advice: Don't necessarily try to use every bit of space on each level. That tends to make for a rougher flowing feel to the layout, which ends in a confusing and "I'm always lost in my" lair.

[Shian]

Even with that program, there's always the eventuality that whatever you've planned mysteriously won't fit because of low walls or celings

It took me 5 days to properly plan my lair. Each.

I'm a firm believer of the plan with the excel document of all the lair shapes (so you know where the openings are), walk through to get a feel of flow, then start hitting build buttons.

[Steelclaw]

Graph paper, a pencil and an eraser are your friends when doing lair planning. In general, lair chambers are built around a grid of 24x24x24m cubes. Using a list of chamber outlines (sorry, I don't have any URLs handy... maybe someone else does), plan your lair out on paper first.

I'm not sure how a 3d interface would work. Back when lairs were being developed, they would sometimes get rendered above the terrain. The result looked like a giant turd with bits of colored chunks in it. I'd imagine that a 3d rendering of a lair plan would look similar.

Example graph paper layout: http://wyvernweb.com/ranq/rans-scree...s-lair-2_2.jpg

Explanation:
- The double lines indicate an attach point (passage between chambers).
- A number like "1/2" in a chamber means "chamber floor 1 of 2", and a line over a vertical connecting chamber (like S with a line on it) is a shorthand for saying "top floor of a spiral".
- I've used similar shorthand for common chambers: "T" for 3-way, "X" for 4-way, and a circle for a silo (with tier and faction design inside).

Note: this does not reflect my current lair design on Chaos. I've modified the plan with the introduction of a right-angle spiral and didn't scan in the new one.