The topic title can probably be improved.
No-Effect objects do not interact with the No Overwrite checkbox in the same manner as other objects.
Suppose I were decorating a level using a water object. The water object is, by default, no overwrite, so it only appears behind other objects. But, if I want to draw it in front of an object, I simply have to disable the No Overwrite checkbox. However, No-Effect Objects do not respect this checkbox; they can be drawn where there is no terrain, or you can turn on Only On Terrain to draw the object on top of terrain, but you can't have a single No-Effect Object that is drawn in front of terrain the same way you can with a water object. I imagine this was most likely done to prevent troll levels from being made, but in this case it 1) interferes with non-troll decoration and 2) doesn't actually even help because a workaround exists: you
are allowed to perfectly overlap a No Overwrite No-Effect Object on top of an Only On Terrain No-Effect Object, which will look and function exactly as it would if No-Effect Objects respected disabling the No Overwrite textbox.
Suggested discussion questions:
Should this restriction be kept? If so, should the workaround be removed (this would likely require a reworking of Only on Terrain to be tied to object types instead of object instances)?
Suggested changes:
Considering that users who want to make troll levels can still do so by making a custom style, I'm not sure I think removing legitimate decorative features that can potentially be abused to make troll levels is the way to go about it - after all, such users can be punished simply by leaving bad reviews on their packs
. However, contrast this with Fake or Invisible Objects: these features are really
only usable for troll levels, so culling them was a wise decision. For that reason, I'd suggest making No-Effect Objects respect the No Overwrite checkbox being off (for compatibility, the checkbox should probably be applied to non-Only On Terrain No-Effect Objects when loading levels predating this change, if implemented).
That said, I do think it's important that whatever choice is made here is done consistently. Thus, if we decide the existing restriction to require No Overwrite for No-Effect Objects should be kept, the checkbox in the editor should be grayed out to match, and the workaround should be patched by reworking Only On Terrain to not allow it to be applied to specific instances of arbitrary objects.