NizuraHatto
Terrarian
About The Rulers.
The ruler and the mechanical ruler are 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.
TL;DR The rulers are too finicky with how it's presented on top of the player leading to bad placements and measurements. It is impractical with the threat of enemies 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.
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.
As you can see here, above I locked the position of the ruler at my character then the image below shows that I moved my cursor away to follow the last locked position where I initially stood. This creates a length that will always follow my cursor.
Then you can also separate yourself entirely from the ruler by using both hotkeys
With just these 2 changes the ruler is already practical and useful.
I have some other suggestions for the mechanical ruler as well!
Originally, I was thinking more of Shift + Middle Button on a specific placed object to show selected objects, 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. (It then dawned on me that the area is far too large and would end up off screen...)
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.
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.
Each Ruler will have its own unique colours of Pale Blue, Pale Red, Pale Yellow, and Pale Green.
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 access the blue ruler.
You should understand what is happening here now. Switching to different rulers and placing them down to have multiple measurements to assist 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. Thank you for reading.
The ruler and the mechanical ruler are 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 great memory for what tile the ruler was last at when you begin 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 for 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 more problematic example. You want to make a 158-wide platform and a 76-tile wall for an arena. Trying the use the ruler for the platform is pointless as the area is too large that you just have to count in intervals! You must also add to the fact you must follow the initial block with your cursor as you approach and hope you counted without messing up at some point because that can happen to anyone.
Now typically you could carry the exact blocks and it's all fine. Small problem mitigated, but now I want to add my buffs. You have to start counting like that again placing blocks to measure for the buff ranges.
You do this so you can space the buffs apart to get maximum benefits from each with fewest resources used. You can attempt to use the ruler to space it out, you check the wiki to see how far each buff goes out. Then it dawns on you that measuring with the ruler is one of the most challenging things you have done in a while. So, it is back to block placing or give up spacing and wing it.
To further add to the stress, enemies are still spawning knocking you back if you do not have knockback resistance or forcing you to move your cursor you were measuring with to defend yourself.
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!
Let's say for example you want to make a tower, and you for 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 more problematic example. You want to make a 158-wide platform and a 76-tile wall for an arena. Trying the use the ruler for the platform is pointless as the area is too large that you just have to count in intervals! You must also add to the fact you must follow the initial block with your cursor as you approach and hope you counted without messing up at some point because that can happen to anyone.
Now typically you could carry the exact blocks and it's all fine. Small problem mitigated, but now I want to add my buffs. You have to start counting like that again placing blocks to measure for the buff ranges.
You do this so you can space the buffs apart to get maximum benefits from each with fewest resources used. You can attempt to use the ruler to space it out, you check the wiki to see how far each buff goes out. Then it dawns on you that measuring with the ruler is one of the most challenging things you have done in a while. So, it is back to block placing or give up spacing and wing it.
To further add to the stress, enemies are still spawning knocking you back if you do not have knockback resistance or forcing you to move your cursor you were measuring with to defend yourself.
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 rulers are too finicky with how it's presented on top of the player leading to bad placements and measurements. It is impractical with the threat of enemies 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
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.
- Shift + Left Clicking
As you can see here, above I locked the position of the ruler at my character then the image below shows that I moved my cursor away to follow the last locked position where I initially stood. This creates a length that will always follow my cursor.
Then you can also separate yourself entirely from the ruler by using both hotkeys
With just these 2 changes the ruler is already practical and useful.
I have some other suggestions for the mechanical ruler as well!
- Shift + Middle Button
Originally, I was thinking more of Shift + Middle Button on a specific placed object to show selected objects, 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. (It then dawned on me that the area is far too large and would end up off screen...)
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.
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
Each Ruler will have its own unique colours of Pale Blue, Pale Red, Pale Yellow, and Pale Green.
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 access the blue ruler.
You should understand what is happening here now. Switching to different rulers and placing them down to have multiple measurements to assist 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. Thank you for reading.
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