PROJECT ICARUS:
BUILDING THE PERFECT SKY KEEP
PART 1
Yes, this is about Mad Island and not some other game called Project Icarus LOL.
So following my
first experiment at building a three-floored base, I wanted to see how high I could reach. But before I could do that, I needed to consider the main drawback which can have a serious effect on gameplay.
If you look at the screenshot I previously posted you'll notice the upper levels cast a shadow on the ground. Now, if I go down there, to the north of my base, the upper levels start blocking the view. I figured the higher my base gets and the more it'll get in the way when I'm exploring the island.
There's an easy workaround, though: build above water. But not to the south, or you'd have the same problem when moving north. So you'd have to aim for the coasts either up North, to the East or to the West.
I decided to avoid the North for a couple of reasons. First, that's where you'll find the highest level natives. Second, it looks like the game will end there and I don't want to build something that could conflict with upcoming updates.
Which leaves either East or West. I decided to go to the Eastern coast, at the bottom corner of the island.
Now there's something else to consider. If you build layers upon layers, one on top of the other, you'll still run into that same issue when you're moving around the northern parts of your base, with the upper floors blocking your view. Which means you need to spread the levels out, they can't be on top of each other, at least not directly. Once you're much higher up, it won't affect the lower levels anymore.
On a side note, for more comfort, I use three stairs (one on top of the other) at max height to separate each floor.
With that said, to the question "how high up can I go?" the answer is...
I have no clue!
I mean, I built 14 (!) levels before I gave up. It was getting ridiculous. And honestly, I'm starting to wonder if there is even a limit. I mean heck, it even allowed me to go off-map!
If you've done the mermaid quest, you might have noticed that when you reach the southern edge of the map, you can't go further. It's like that all around the island...
except when you're high enough in the air! At that point, it seems like all bets are off. It does get pretty freaky though as you don't see the sky anymore, it's all black around you. I call it The Void
Some things I noticed is that the game glitches a bit when you get higher up and I started getting some lag while placing the platforms. Overall it wasn't too serious, though I suspect it'd get worse if you went higher.
Oh, also! Once you're in the sky (even on the first platform), you don't get any raids anymore! At least not if you're wearing the decoy charm as I was. I'm guessing the reason is that with the charm on the natives are going to always target you, but if you're not touching the ground it's like they can't find you anymore? I got several messages from the game stating "Raid did not occur" which seem to confirm this. Probably if I took the charm off my NPCs would get targeted. But I figured I'd keep it this way for now so I could build in peace LOL. It's a nice change.
Anyway. I'm gonna keep building this, I like it, but I'll dismantle the upper levels. I'll probably keep up to the 6th level though as the 5th and 6th have IMHO the most scenic views, I like them
I'll keep you posted on my progress. I especially need to figure out how to make walls around the edges. And I'd rather avoid using those wooden pillars, as it'd take forever!
Oh, and to answer
martelor's question... If you take a look at the MI5 screenshot below, you'll see I have two red flags that almost touch each other in the South-East. Those are levels 1 and 7. Then I have another flag to the far right, off the map, which is level 14. I didn't do this on purpose, but it worked out really well since 7 is right smack at mid-height between the two, but 14 is much further away if we're talking straight line. I suspected this type of distance was the only one that mattered in terms of travel cost with height being ignored, and my experiment seems to confirm this.
Teleport from #1 to #7: 3 food
Teleport from #7 to #14: 14 food
Teleport from #14 to #1: 17 food
Note that all my levels are about three man-heights apart. So assuming Man is of average size... well, those stairs are slightly higher than him, so let's round that up to 6 feet multiplied by 3 stairs per level makes 18. So that means about 126 feet between levels 1 and 7 and 252 feet between 1 and 14. That's only counting height, of course, as I'm not sure how to calculate linear distance in this game.
Attached images:
MI1: My Man is standing on level 5, but you can see levels 4 and 3 underneath, and also (bottom left) an edge of level 6. See how I built them so that they are not directly on top of each other? This is to avoid the problem I mentioned above. Also notice how you can already see The Void in the background.
MI2: Those stairs in the middle with the red flag is level 5 again. Here you can see more of level 6 above, level 3 way below and a bit of level 4 behind the stairs. Note that we start to see glitches here (the black spot on the right where we should be seeing the mountain).
MI3: Here you can see levels 10 and 11. The Void is much more obvious now.
MI4: Level 13 with 12 right underneath and, to the right, stairs leading to 14--the last level I built. We're completely off the map now, in the midst of The Void!
MI5: In this snippet of the map, the 13 flags most to the right are all in this new base, one flag per platform. There should be 14 BTW, so I'm thinking I probably placed one on top of another--I'll have to double check this. Now notice how two flags are off the map limits (levels 13 and 14). Also, nearest to the coast, the two flags that touch each other are levels 1 and 7. Those two floors are pretty much on top of each other, but because of the height the upper one does not block the view in the lower one.
If you're curious to see this, I also posted a video on YouTube where you can watch me running through the whole complex, from the ground all the way up to 14. Note that the place is empty, I haven't put anything in there yet, not even decorations, as this was just to test the height thing at this stage. There's still much work to be done.
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