Zone editor fields
Colour and category colour are editor labels. Type, owner, faction and conquerable are simulation rules. Atmosphere, glow, weather, fog and spawn settings decide what a zone looks and feels like.
The zone panel is the densest form in the launch build. It is split into four groups - colour, ownership, atmosphere and spawning - and the labels below are the ones printed on the panel.
Colour and labels
| Field | What it sets | Affects simulation? |
|---|---|---|
| Zone Color | The zone's fill colour in the editor | No - editor readability only |
| Category Color | Colour for the zone's category | No |
These two exist so that a map with twenty zones stays legible while you work. Nothing in the simulation reads them, which is worth knowing before you spend ten minutes picking exactly the right green.
Ownership and politics
| Field | What it sets | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Type | The zone's category | Drives how the panel groups and filters zones |
| Owner | Who holds the zone | Without an owner, nothing political happens |
| Faction | The faction the zone belongs to | Quest generation and diplomacy key on this |
| Conquerable | Whether the zone can change hands | The single most consequential checkbox in the panel |
A zone that is owned and conquerable is a border. Owned and not conquerable is a capital. Unowned is scenery. That is the whole political model in three fields.
Atmosphere
| Field | What it sets |
|---|---|
| Atmosphere | The zone's atmosphere preset |
| Glow Color | The colour of ambient glow |
| Density | How strong the glow is |
| Weather | The weather type |
| Weather Color | The colour of the weather effect |
| Intensity | How strong the weather is |
| Fog | The fog preset |
| Fog Color | Colour of the fog |
| Fog Density | How thick the fog is |
Atmosphere, weather and fog are all per zone, which is what lets one valley look different from the next hill. They change what a player sees while watching the simulation, and heavy fog genuinely hides events - a design tool and a readability cost at the same time.
Spawning
| Field | What it sets | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Creature Spawns | Which creatures may spawn in this zone | Templates must exist in the monster library |
| Respawn sec | Seconds between respawns | Shorter means a zone refills faster after a fight |
| Zone Drawing: Brush | The brush used to draw the zone | Drawing tool, not a rule |
| Zone Drawing: Size | Brush radius | Same |
A monster template that no zone references will never appear in the world. That makes this pair of fields the gate between your bestiary and your map.
Field-by-field workflow
- Draw the zone with the brush at a size you can see on screen.
- Set Type, then Owner and Faction.
- Decide Conquerable - and be deliberate, because it changes whether the zone can ever be a war objective.
- Set Creature Spawns and Respawn sec if the zone should be dangerous.
- Set atmosphere, weather and fog last, once the zone behaves correctly.
- Save, then check the zone inspector to confirm the values applied.
Values the panel does not publish
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| What units is Respawn sec in? | Seconds - the label says so |
| What is the default respawn value? | No data |
| How many zone types exist? | No data - the type list is not published as a count |
| Does weather affect combat? | No data |
| Does fog affect detection? | No data |
| Can zones overlap? | Zones are drawn shapes; treat overlaps as ambiguous rather than supported |
The atmosphere and spawning fields are the ones most likely to grow during Early Access, so treat any specific value here as launch-build behaviour rather than a permanent rule.
Related pages
The workflow context is in the region and zone guide, the systems that read these fields are in the simulation table, and the panels that report the results are in the editor reference.
