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Map Making

A blank map lets you chart the land as you explore it. You only draw what you can actually see, and you have to stop to draw it, so a good map takes a walk, daylight and a few stops on high ground.

Making a blank map

Craft a blank map from 2 soft wood in the paper & printing section of the crafting menu. In legacy research modes it needs 19 Industrial research.

Sketching

  1. Stand somewhere with a view. Open fields, beaches and riverbanks show the most.
  2. Hold the map and use it in hand. You stop and sketch for about four seconds. Moving interrupts you.
  3. The map fills in every tile you can see at that moment, then opens so you can look at it.

Things to know:

  • Light. You need decent light where you stand to draw at all; at night, stand by a lamp, lantern or fire. Faraway land only needs a little light to make out, so moonlight is enough for the view, just not for your own page.
  • Line of sight. Walls, dense woods and rock hide what is behind them. Land in darkness right next to you is still drawn.
  • One land per map. The first sketch binds the map to the land and level you are on. It will not draw anywhere else; a cave level or another world needs its own map.
  • Nothing passive. Walking around with a map does nothing. Only a sketch adds to it.
  • If the map already shows everything you can see, it tells you so.

Reading a map

Use Read Map (right-click the map) to look at it without sketching. North is up, and a red mark shows where you stand when you are in the land it charts. The legend shows grass, woods, bare earth, sand, snow, water, deep water, ice, rock, lava, roads and buildings.

Examine a map to see which land it charts and roughly how much of it is drawn in.

Use a pen on a map to give it a title, such as “Northern hunting grounds”.

Tips

  • Sketch from a few spread-out spots rather than every few steps; each sketch covers your whole screen.
  • Charted maps are ordinary items. Hand them to new members of your faction, sell them, or keep them in a chest.
  • On maps that save the world, your charts are saved with it.