Foundation

The block of cells the object stands on, chosen from a fixed set of named sizes.

Structure footprint

Specification — Structure footprint

Applies to

BuildingType

File

art.ini

Section

[<Image ID>]Image ID: Image= value; ObjectType ID when omitted

Value

BSizeType

When omitted

1x1

Parse behavior

read first from the Image= art entry, then from the building's own art entry; the second read overrides only when it resolves to something other than 1x1, so a 1x1 or an unrecognized value there cannot replace the footprint the image entry gave

The value is one of 22 fixed size names, matched without regard to case. Twenty-one are WxH spellings — 1x1, 2x1, 1x2, 2x2, 2x3, 3x2, 3x3, 3x5, 4x2, 1x3, 3x1, 4x3, 1x4, 1x5, 2x6, 2x5, 5x3, 4x4, 3x4, 6x4 and 0x0 — and the twenty-second is 3x3Refinery. Anything else is not a size at all and resolves to 1x1.

The name is the only thing that fixes a structure’s shape on the map. From it come the list of cells the structure occupies and marks as its own, the ring of cells a finished object is sent out to, the width and height every other rule asks for, and the diamond the structure is stamped as on the radar.

art.ini

[MYWEAP] ; example war factory, drawn from its own Image ID
Foundation=4x3

The width and height are the plain dimensions of the name, and 3x3Refinery counts as three by three. Base adjacency covers how far that footprint reaches for placement, and Bib=yes covers why it does not grow when a structure is bibbed.

The irregular sizes

3x3Refinery is three cells by three but stands on eight of the nine, leaving the cell two east and one south of its top-left corner open. Its exit ring is a single cell — its own top-left corner — so anything it produces is put down inside it.

0x0 stands on no cells at all, has no exit ring, and reports a width and height of zero, so a structure given it marks nothing on the map and has nowhere to put a finished object.

6x4 is the one plain name whose block is not a rectangle: it stands on 21 cells, its bottom row being three cells wide and starting one east. Its exit ring is a single cell, two east and one north of its top-left corner, and a structure six or more cells wide is drawn without the shared Z shape, so ZShapePointMove has nothing to move.

The second reading

The size is read twice, and the two readings are not equivalent. The first is from the structure’s [<Image ID>] art entry; the second is from the art entry named after the BuildingType itself, and it replaces the first only when it resolves to something other than 1x1.

The type’s own entry cannot shrink a footprint to one cell

Because the override is skipped whenever the second reading comes out as 1x1, writing Foundation=1x1 in the type’s own art entry leaves a larger size taken from the image entry standing. An unrecognized name written there is skipped for the same reason, where the same name in the image entry would have reset the footprint to one cell.

Terrain footprint

Specification — Terrain footprint

Applies to

TerrainType

File

art.ini

Section

[<Image ID>]Image ID: Image= value; ObjectType ID when omitted

Value

BSizeType

When omitted

1x1

The value is one of the same 22 size names a structure uses, matched without regard to case, and anything else resolves to 1x1. It picks the list of cells the terrain object stands on, which is what a vehicle tests before it may drive over the ground the object covers.

Terrain objects have their own table of footprints, and it is filled in only as far as the eighth name.

A terrain object may not use a footprint past the eighth name

Only 1x1, 2x1, 1x2, 2x2, 2x3, 3x2, 3x3 and 3x5 have cell lists. Every larger name selects a row the table never fills in. Those rows hold nothing but zeros and no end marker, so a terrain object given one claims its own top-left cell over and over — a hundred and forty times and more — and the scan then runs off the end of the table and reads memory that is not a cell list at all. The game normally crashes there.

On a terrain object 3x5 is a four-by-two block

The eighth row holds four cells by two rather than the three by five its name promises, so a TerrainType given Foundation=3x5 stands on a block of that shape instead.

See also — Bib, BibShape, Adjacent, base-adjacency, production

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