They were removed due MP sync issues and also because of a chance of rocks spawning right in the docks.
I think if reimplement them as 12-18 underwater tiles (plus their rotated versions) then we can make underwater exploration be more interesting and unique from seed to seed. Besides the exploration from gameplay perspective it can be a great addition for submarines warfare and missions (since these will be a tiles we can put vehicles more nicely, not just in a middle of nowhere in the plain seabed).
Additionally, for world generation we could use different set of tiles for each biome:
- Arctic is very deep with no underwaters tiles spawned close to surface, and tiles are just hills with no caves and archs
- Main is medium deep ocean but with shallow areas, rocks and caves
- Arid is low depth area with many underwaters tiles spawned close to the surface that forms shallow waters with sand islands. Could be also coral rocks and reefs
Tasks are:
- create meshes
- create tiles
- add tiles to world generation
- add tiles to addon editor
- use new tiles in AI path addon (add pathnodes)
- use new tiles for underwater missions as well