Shack Better Paths

The hoe's Pathen and Paved road make smooth paths. Vanilla Pathen leaves the ground as rough as it was, and Paved road flattens everything to one height, so a path up a hill turns into steps. With this mod, each click grades the ground into an even slope from your feet to where you aim.

How it works

Equip the hoe, pick Pathen (dirt) or Paved road (stone), stand where the path starts and aim where it should go.
Each click grades a strip from your feet to the aim point:
- flat from side to side, with an even slope along it;
- the sides and the far end blend into the ground around them, so there are no ledges or lumps;
- then it's painted dirt (Pathen) or paved (Paved road), and the grass on it is cleared.
Nothing behind your feet changes. Walk to the end of the strip you just made and click again: the next strip carries on from exactly where the last one ended, with no step.
Going across a hillside, the path cuts in flat with sloped banks on either side.
Hold Shift for the normal vanilla Pathen or Paved road.
Level ground and the other hoe tools are unchanged.

Paths are ordinary terrain: they stay as they are if the mod is ever removed. Like vanilla terrain edits, the ground can't be moved more than 8 m from its original height.

Cost

Pathen is free, like vanilla.
Paved road takes its stone once per 2 m of path, rounded up (a 5 m strip takes 3 stone). If you're short, it tells you how many you need.
Stamina and hoe wear are the same as vanilla, per click.

Limits

A click more than 8 m from your feet is refused, for example from a build camera far from your character.
The whole strip must be outside other players' wards and outside no-build areas (dungeons, boss altars), not just the aim point.

Settings

Set by the server admin in F1 (Shack Better Paths). The server's values apply to everyone.

1 - Tools

Pathen grades (on) and Paved road grades (on). Off gives that tool its vanilla behaviour.

2 - Shape

Path width (4 m): width of the flat part. Vanilla Pathen paints 4 m.
Edge blend (1.5 m): how far past the sides and the end the path fades into the ground. 0 = hard edges.
Paint margin (0.25 m): how far past each side the dirt or paving goes, so the edges come out clean.
Max distance from feet (8 m).

3 - Cost

Paved road meters per stone (2). 0 = one stone per click, like vanilla.

Multiplayer

The server and every player need this mod. A terrain edit is carried out by whichever player's game is looking after that patch of ground, so everyone must know how. Jotunn turns away anyone without it, or with a different 1.0.x version.

Part of The Shack Pack.