Mapping for dummies

I'd love to know this as well.

I only mapped for a brief period of time while working on FO13. However, from a beginner's perspective, I can offer some insight.

It's bullshit.

There's a huge database of items that you have to search through if you want to put something down that isn't already on the map. However, fortunately you can copy/paste from different parts of the map. Unfortunately, if you're making a new department with stuff that isn't on map yet, you're gonna be spending a lot of time looking through the archive for what you want.

Second... the controls are ass. I dunno how else to put it. You will have a learning curve while getting used to the controls in Dream Maker. They are unlike anything I've worked with before, personally.

Third... It's rewarding. You feel like a god. When you make a good map and everyone loves it, it makes the hassle worthwhile. But it's a fuckin' hassle. There is no guide, you just have to apprentice to someone who already makes maps and ask them to show you their secrets.

Fourth... it's something you have to approach from a game designer's perspective. You have to actually think about things like player desire, OOC goals, and how to make those two things work together. Making a good map is *hard*.

Good luck!

I recommend designing some kind of blueprint of your map before you attempt to create it in Dream Maker. Because the controls are prohibitive and time-consuming, you'll save yourself a whole lot of heartache if you do all of the second-guessing and theoretical work ahead of the actual implementation. In my experience, pixel art is a good way of doing this since everything is tile-based.

I suppose we can write up a mechanical guide to it for the Github wiki.

TG has a guide

A good portion of it ye. Not all of it, though.

Learn it by doing it. Make small changes to the map, like mismatched tags. Then move on to larger things.

Also, the map editor is awful. It's slow, runs everything on the UI thread, and is horribly clunky to use. Sometimes it might corrupt your your map. FastDMM might get there sometime, but it's not there yet.