Shack Better Paths

The hoe's Pathen and Paved road make smooth paths. Vanilla Pathen leaves the ground as rough as it was, and Paved road flattens everything to one height, so a path up a hill turns into steps. With this mod, each click grades the ground into an even slope from your feet to where you aim.

How it works

• Equip the hoe, pick Pathen (dirt) or Paved road (stone), stand where the path starts and aim where it should go.
• Each click grades a strip from your feet to the aim point:
  • flat from side to side, with an even slope along it;
  • the sides and the far end blend into the ground around them, so there are no ledges or lumps;
  • then it's painted dirt (Pathen) or paved (Paved road), and the grass on it is cleared.
• Nothing behind your feet changes. Walk to the end of the strip you just made and click again: the next strip carries on from exactly where the last one ended, with no step.
• Going across a hillside, the path cuts in flat with sloped banks on either side.
• Hold Shift for the normal vanilla Pathen or Paved road.
• Level ground and the other hoe tools are unchanged.

Paths are ordinary terrain: they stay as they are if the mod is ever removed. Like vanilla terrain edits, the ground can't be moved more than 8 m from its original height.

Cost

• Pathen is free, like vanilla.
• Paved road takes its stone once per 2 m of path, rounded up (a 5 m strip takes 3 stone). If you're short, it tells you how many you need.
• Stamina and hoe wear are the same as vanilla, per click.

Limits

• A click more than 8 m from your feet is refused, for example from a build camera far from your character.
• The whole strip must be outside other players' wards and outside no-build areas (dungeons, boss altars), not just the aim point.

Settings

Set by the server admin in F1 (Shack Better Paths). The server's values apply to everyone.

1 - Tools

• Pathen grades (on) and Paved road grades (on). Off gives that tool its vanilla behaviour.

2 - Shape

• Path width (4 m): width of the flat part. Vanilla Pathen paints 4 m.
• Edge blend (1.5 m): how far past the sides and the end the path fades into the ground. 0 = hard edges.
• Paint margin (0.25 m): how far past each side the dirt or paving goes, so the edges come out clean.
• Max distance from feet (8 m).

3 - Cost

• Paved road meters per stone (2). 0 = one stone per click, like vanilla.

Multiplayer

The server and every player need this mod. A terrain edit is carried out by whichever player's game is looking after that patch of ground, so everyone must know how. Jotunn turns away anyone without it, or with a different 1.0.x version.

Part of The Shack Pack.

Changelog

1.1.0

• Paved road now only paints stone over the ground and never changes its height, so a path graded with Pathen keeps its grade. It paints along the same strip as Pathen, and by default only where the ground is already dirt or paved (new setting "Paved road only on paths"). Shift paints a round patch where you aim. It replaces vanilla Paved road (setting "Paved road paints"; off gives vanilla back).
• Build camera support (Shack Magic Cam): in the camera, each click connects to your previous click instead of starting at your feet. The first click marks the start; a click more than 8 m away, or leaving the camera, starts a new path.
• Stone in nearby chests counts for Paved road (CraftFromContainers), and when you're short it paves as far as your stone covers instead of refusing.
• Paved road's marker shows on the ground where you aim.
• The server and every player need 1.1.x. 1.0.x and 1.1.x can't be mixed, so update both together.

1.0.0

• First release. The hoe's Pathen and Paved road grade an even slope from your feet to where you aim: flat across, blended edges, no steps between clicks. Pathen paints dirt, Paved road paves; the grass is cleared. Shift gives the vanilla tool. Paved road takes 1 stone per 2 m. Settings sync from the server.
• The server and every player need this mod.