Labyrinth vault design question

[nicolae]

The .des file for Labyrinth specifies in a couple places that "one layer of floor space *must* surround the minivault, or the player could be trapped in the labyrinth". I assume this is because the vault-placer doesn't check to see if it's overlaying on top of the path from start to finish, and having a border of empty spaces ensures connectivity between all locations around the outside.

Even though it doesn't have a full border of floor space, the following vault layout is still connected around all places on the border, since every square around it is still connected to all the other squares. (The corners aren't, but the labyrinth doesn't make diagonal-only passages anyway.) The player can still get from point A to point B, even if the points marked with cs are wall, because every spot around the edge is still adjacent to a floor square.

  Code:

ccAc
x.x.x
.....
x.x.x
.....c
x.x.xB
     c


Would a vault along these lines be acceptable, or does the border of floor space around the outside have other purposes besides simple connectivity, like aesthetics?

[neil]

The upper-left corner could still cause connectivity problems. Imagine that, before placing your vault, the map has:

  Code:

xxxx@x
xxxx.x
@....x
xxxxxx


Now your vault is placed:

  Code:

xxxx@x
xxxx.x
@..cc.c
xxxx.x.x
   .....


And the two @s are cut off from one another.

To answer your question, I believe connectivity is the big concern: Surrounding vaults with passable floor as we recommend IMO kind of goes against the Lab aesthetic, but connectivity is far more important.

[nicolae]

The upper-left corner could still cause connectivity problems. Imagine that, before placing your vault, the map has:

  Code:

xxxx@x
xxxx.x
@....x
xxxxxx


Now your vault is placed:

  Code:

xxxx@x
xxxx.x
@..cc.c
xxxx.x.x
   .....


And the two @s are cut off from one another.

To answer your question, I believe connectivity is the big concern: Surrounding vaults with passable floor as we recommend IMO kind of goes against the Lab aesthetic, but connectivity is far more important.

The c's in the graph were supposed to indicate potential wall outside the vault, but I wasn't very clear on that. The actual vault was supposed to be just

  Code:

x.x.x
.....
x.x.x
.....
x.x.x


with the A, B, and c marking points outside the vault along its borders. If the upper left corner of the vault were placed in your example, it should just be:

  Code:


xxxx@x
xxxx.x
@..x.x.x
xxx.....
   x.x.x


which is traversible. Would that vault, then, be okay?

(I notice that the labyrinth_fake_exit vault isn't completely surrounded, either.)

[neil]

I think that looks fine, then.