Game Mechanics Ruler and Mechanical Ruler are Tedious

NizuraHatto

Terrarian
About The Rulers

The Ruler and Mechanical Ruler is a great idea in concept. Allowing players to measure blocks in the game to help make arenas or housing, however, the ruler is not very practical and sometimes is a bit annoying to work with...
It's actually almost always better to use filler blocks (Such as dirt/stone) to do measurements.

The Issue

The problem with the rulers is that it's locked to the player's position, so unless you're good at math and also remembering what tile the ruler was at when you want to approach the tile to place your block on, you're not getting value from the ruler...

Let's say for example you want to make a tower and you want your walls on each side to be the exact same length as each other, should be easy right? Just whip out the ruler and count the tiles... it feels like it's working for a moment then oh no after you're finished you check back and some of the walls seem to be shorter or longer.

Of course, this can be the fault of the player part, but, the ruler is sort of finicky about how it displays, constantly being 1 tile apart for a 2 tile-wide player and sometimes you get these errors.

Here is another example, You want to make a 58-wide platform and a 12-tile wall for an arena, then you want to repeat that. Trying the use the ruler for the platform is pointless as the area is too large that you just have to count and hope you counted without messing up at some point because that can happen to anyone.

The wall is no problem as that's 12 tiles up. The ruler was practically not able to be used because of how large the area was!

Then let's add in the factor you want the space your buffs apart to get maximum benefits from them with the less amount of resources used. You try to use the ruler to space it out, you check the wiki to see how far each buff goes out. You try to measure with the ruler and it's the hardest thing you have done in a while while also being attacked by enemies?

It's almost as if just placing dirt/stone (So you can count each tile without it connecting) is actually just better than the ruler.

But this doesn't have to be the case, the ruler has the potential to be better than placed blocks and I will leave my suggestions and hopefully see more suggestions on the ruler here as well!

TL;DR The Ruler is too finicky with how it's presented on top of the player leading to bad placements and measurements. It is impractical with enemies constantly attacking you making you lose your attention to the numbers you kept in your head to the point that other methods of measurement are just better

The Solution

Rulers need hotkeys, that's really the solution nothing fancy just a couple of hotkeys that do specific actions while not in your inventory.
Here are a few keys I believe are fit for the ruler/mechanical ruler.

  • Shift + Right Clicking
This will make the end of the measurement ruler lock in place on the tile it was originally on. When you move you will see the ruler distance increase off the screen and you use your cursor to place blocks along the line. Do the action again to return the ruler to the cursor position.

ShiftRightClickExample.png


As you can see despite moving away the ruler increased and didn't follow the cursor allowing me
to measure like that; Ideally when off-screen the measurements will still be shown

ShiftRightClickExample2.png


  • Shift + Left Clicking
This will lock the measurement ruler in place from the player and the same applies to the above-mentioned. Move the cursor and it creates a length then, you can perform the same action from above to have a ruler completely separate from you and the cursor. You will now see a measurement line completely independent of where your position is.

ShiftLeftClickExample.png


As you can see here, above I locked the position of the ruler of my character then moved away to create this length with the cursor

ShiftLeftClickExample2.png


Then you can also separate yourself entirely from the ruler by using both hotkeys

SeperationExample.png



With just these 2 changes the rule is already practical and useful.
I have some other suggestions for the mechanical ruler only as well which I will tell you about.

  • Shift + Middle Button
This is a bit far-fetched but generally useful. Doing this will show the length/width of buffing areas such as campfires, heart lanterns, sunflowers, etc. With each having its own unique colour.
Originally I was thinking more of Shift + Middle Button on a specific placed object to show only that object, but, I also think just holding an item, for example, a heart lantern should also show how far the buff range will go, while in your inventory.


MiddleButtonExample.png

For the sake of this suggestion, just imagine that this campfire/heart lantern is the worst campfire/heart lantern in the game with such a small area

As you can see if I were to use, the Shift + Middle Button with the mechanical ruler, I would be shown the area of each of the stations, allowing for easier creation of Arenas by spacing out my buffs.
I am not in the area of the campfire meaning I do not get the Cozy Effect, but, I am in the Heart Lantern which gives me Regeneration.

MiddleButtonPlacementExample.png


In the image above, I am trying to place a sunflower (On a platform like some idiot), I am shown how far this will affect me before placing it. This can negate the need to place then break the station in order to know if I placed it in the right spot for maximum value

Another thing for the Mechanical Ruler is placing multiple rulers down;
Take the idea from the rulers I said way above and just add to it like this.

  • Using Shift + Scroll Wheel
You can create a new ruler placement to add to an already placed ruler with a max of 3-4 not sure how many you would want. This will be more of an advanced thing that will be helpful but not something you need either. It's basically just an addition and also makes the Mechanical Ruler a little more viable.
Each Ruler will have its own unique colours of Pale Blue, Pale Red, Pale Yellow, and Pale Green.


ScrollWhellExample.png

Sorry if this image seems too weird compared to the others, this is as far as I can go with image manipulation

Above you can see that I have made two rulers, I placed the yellow ruler down using the Shift + Right Click and Shift + Left Click and then used the scroll wheel to go into the Blue Ruler.
You should understand what is happening, which would be that you can switch to different rulers and place them down to have multiple measurements to help with building!


And that's all I had to say, hoping to have comments that add to this and maybe touch up on some issues with my idea that they can suggest to make it more viable. Thank you for reading.
 
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I don't personally have any issues with the ruler, but I see where you are coming from with it, and I wouldn't say it's a bad idea to allow players to lock measurements in.
However, you should note that.. none of your attatchments worked. No one can see the files you tried to share.
 
It seems your images are broken, but I do have some in-game solutions to counter the problems you're facing with the Ruler. For marking I like to use the Grand Design and place a wire on where I want to mark. For measuring long distances I either use the Kwad Racer drone or Binoculars, Kwad Racer Drone being the ideal one yet it's locked post-Plantera. I would like for some function to toggle the ruler through a hotkey, either something to bind it in the controls or config.json if necessary.
 
I don't personally have any issues with the ruler, but I see where you are coming from with it, and I wouldn't say it's a bad idea to allow players to lock measurements in.
However, you should note that.. none of your attatchments worked. No one can see the files you tried to share.
Yes, I was told by my friend when I sent it, it is fixed now, also yes if you're good with memory and just generally understand where tiles are you wouldn't really have a problem with the ruler.
The ruler is still useful but sometimes I would get in a bit of trouble because of it making me have to redo measurements which really stings and wastes not too much time but still like 6-8 minutes depending on how large the build was before you realize the error.

This is why I often double check before getting to far in a build to make sure if I see any mistakes before it becomes to large of a problem
 
It seems your images are broken, but I do have some in-game solutions to counter the problems you're facing with the Ruler. For marking I like to use the Grand Design and place a wire on where I want to mark. For measuring long distances I either use the Kwad Racer drone or Binoculars, Kwad Racer Drone being the ideal one yet it's locked post-Plantera. I would like for some function to toggle the ruler through a hotkey, either something to bind it in the controls or config.json if necessary.
It's all fixed now, hopefully, you guys get the idea of what I tried to show, I also never thought of doing what you suggested, if nothing of the ruler is changed I will try that method, I like it a lot
 
This expresses all my frustrations with the current ruler and I need this to be added into the game
An extra suggestion: The ruler should also work in the map
 
I like this idea a lot. It is true that you can just mark with wires or torches or whatever, but still, having this in the game would just make conceptualizing this stuff a lot easier.
 
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