Squares

The map is divided into a discrete grid of 8x8 elmo squares. Most terrain-related things (heightmap, parts of pathing, resource map aka metalmap, typemap, building masks, radar coverage…) work on these squares. Some of those are discretized further into 16x16 elmo squares, i.e. a 2x2 box of basic game squares. In particular, unit footprints are defined in big squares (also called a footprint square for that reason).

Footprint

Buildings and mobile units have their footprint (in other words, size on the building grid) defined differently. Mobile units define it in their move def, and it has to be a square. In theory you can define a footprint in the unit def, but this is just used for construction.

Buildings define it in their unit def. This can be a rectangle, and you can define parts of the footprint to allow pathing (useful for factory exit yards), buildable (for when a building doesn’t occupy the whole square), change meaning when the unit activates (for some sort of opening animation) or require a geothermal vent underneath. Such definition is called a yardmap, and consists of a string arranged visually to depict the building, with characters conveying some meaning as listed in the table at the bottom.

For example, consider the following yardmap. The o depicts the actual body area, while y is open space, and it corresponds to a diamond shape within the 5x5 footprint:

yyoyy
yoooy
ooooo
yoooy
yyoyy

And here’s what happens if you try to place another of the same type on top. Notice how the y area does not produce conflicts.

Here’s how it looks if you try to place things on top:

Essentially, the building is shaped like this (mock-up):

Yardmap characters

Basic characters:

letter	buildable if active?	pathable if active?	buildable if INactive?	pathable if INactive?	stackable?	need geo?
o	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌
y	✅	✅	✅	✅	❌	❌
c	✅	✅	❌	❌	❌	❌
g	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌	✅
i	❌	❌	✅	✅	❌	❌
j	❌	❌	❌	❌	✅	✅
s	❌	❌	❌	❌	✅	❌
b	✅	❌	✅	❌	❌	❌
u	❌	✅	❌	✅	❌	❌
e	❌	⚠️ exit only	❌	⚠️ exit only	❌	❌

Others:

• h has a special meaning - it has to be the first letter and means a high resolution yardmap, i.e. there have to be 4x more characters and each will correspond to a “regular” 8x8 elmo game square instead of the larger 16x16 elmo footprint square.
• w, x, f: deprecated, same as o.
• whitespace is ignored, which you can use to neatly arrange the rectangle visually.
• anything else is ignored as well but may be used in the future.

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Written by: sprunk