Suggestion: Pre-fabricated houses?

[Shneekey]

The devs should rightfully be proud of the house building mechanic, it's quite amazing for those who can actually handle the mechanics, and you can create some truly amazing buildings with it.

However, the mechanic is awkward, with a steep learning curve, and one that many might not want to interact with. Therefore, in the interests of having a place to put all the furniture items one collects along one's journey, how about a selection of already designed houses available to drag-and-drop onto your plot? I know I'd be more than happy to drop 10k gols on Heidi to avoid having to deal with the mechanic all together.

Heck, host a competition among those who do enjoy the mechanic, with the top dozen or so entries being formally included. Or maybe a blueprint system wherein players can share their designs and allow homes created by other players to be imported? The importing player would, of course, need to be able to pay for said upgrades to their home, and all components would need to be unlocked in order for it to be available.

The house building mechanic is awkward enough for a player on PC, I can only imagine the nightmare it would be on a console. Give people who have little interest in being architects the opportunity to buy pre-designed houses, like you had in Portia.

[House Gnome]

Aren't there already pre-fab houses? Assuming you have the required items in inventory, that is.

[mskitty]

I agree 100%, I would much rather have a few pre-fab models to chose from, instead of this complicated design on your own thing, it's way to frustrating.

[syzara]

I liked the prefab houses of Portia better as it wasn't just Lego blocks. I also highly prefer the Factory over whatever we got this round (I don't use the current version as it has more down- than upsides).

Everything is just blocks, and every time you change a bit, you have 3 more stair cases and 6 more doorways, which makes your furniture that was originally there disappear into your mailbox. You keep having to redo all the things when you move a room. It's incredibly clunky.

At this point I have 4 lay-outs that I made myself, for every phase of the game a house (so, simple, advanced, big enough for family kind of progression). You can't just remove your old house when you put down a new one, so you either have to remove all your furniture from the old one so you can put down the newer version so you don't have to redo all your furniture again. At this point I just put down a random new room (smallest version) so I can remove the old house, empty mailbox and put down the new house so my furniture goes in again. And then keeping fingers crossed I actually found the nice things in the furniture chests.

But the point is it is a lot of work, and while it's nice in theory to be able to import someone elses house, usually its decoration is not remotely what I would do, so it is going to cost a lot of time whether I like it or not. If I want to play the Sims I will play the Sims, at least it has the full building options and it never decides to just put random doors and stairs in.

I get it that you don't want to have a floor without stair cases but it gives so much entirely unnecessary work. Same with doors. It's easy to make a room without doors anyway, which makes the whole thing even more frustrating.

tl;dr: I agree with the OP.

[样]

Hello! We've introduced some 'showroom' features where you can easily implement pre-designed layouts with just one click. However, when it comes to furniture items and inventory, it's a bit more complicated. These items have unique data that can't be easily shared in the showroom files due to their variability. We believe that allowing players to personally decorate their own houses adds a layer of enjoyment and customization to the game experience. So while we can't provide pre-made solutions for furniture placement, we encourage you to explore your creativity and make your house truly your own!
However, I've noted down your feedback, and we'll discuss it as per your suggestion. At least, we can create and add some new Show Rooms! Also, here is a Show Room sharing thread in our Discord channel; you're welcome to join and find your favorite.

[样]

Oprindeligt skrevet af syzara:

I liked the prefab houses of Portia better as it wasn't just Lego blocks. I also highly prefer the Factory over whatever we got this round (I don't use the current version as it has more down- than upsides).

Everything is just blocks, and every time you change a bit, you have 3 more stair cases and 6 more doorways, which makes your furniture that was originally there disappear into your mailbox. You keep having to redo all the things when you move a room. It's incredibly clunky.

At this point I have 4 lay-outs that I made myself, for every phase of the game a house (so, simple, advanced, big enough for family kind of progression). You can't just remove your old house when you put down a new one, so you either have to remove all your furniture from the old one so you can put down the newer version so you don't have to redo all your furniture again. At this point I just put down a random new room (smallest version) so I can remove the old house, empty mailbox and put down the new house so my furniture goes in again. And then keeping fingers crossed I actually found the nice things in the furniture chests.

But the point is it is a lot of work, and while it's nice in theory to be able to import someone elses house, usually its decoration is not remotely what I would do, so it is going to cost a lot of time whether I like it or not. If I want to play the Sims I will play the Sims, at least it has the full building options and it never decides to just put random doors and stairs in.

I get it that you don't want to have a floor without stair cases but it gives so much entirely unnecessary work. Same with doors. It's easy to make a room without doors anyway, which makes the whole thing even more frustrating.

tl;dr: I agree with the OP.

I've forwarded the feedback regarding doorways and stairs to the designer team for review. We'll see if there are any adjustments we can make to make it easier.

[mskitty]

If I remember correctly in Portia every time we expanded the house the furniture stayed in the house, and then you just needed to rearrange it after expansion, instead of having to unpack and do it again from scratch. And that same system would be far less convoluted than this one in Sandrock, and there still could be a wide range of interior design customization options for it. And the tables we have now are very limited with what we can place on them, like I have one table that has 3 of the same plant on it because I haven't found anything else I can put there, can't place a plant from the flower shop, the builder's trophy, a relic, nothing like that.

[Sketch Elder]

Oprindeligt skrevet af House Gnome:

Aren't there already pre-fab houses? Assuming you have the required items in inventory, that is.

Yes, there are a dozen predesigned houses for people who don't want to design their own. ~ Bearnwyn ~ even made a guide for them.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3051079954

[syzara]

Oprindeligt skrevet af 样:

Oprindeligt skrevet af syzara:

<big snip for readability>
tl;dr: I agree with the OP.

I've forwarded the feedback regarding doorways and stairs to the designer team for review. We'll see if there are any adjustments we can make to make it easier.

Thank you! I appreciate it.

P.S. I also appreciate the addition of interior doors which were introduced at some point. It helps a lot with the feeling of actual rooms.

[syzara]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Sketch Elder:

Oprindeligt skrevet af House Gnome:

Aren't there already pre-fab houses? Assuming you have the required items in inventory, that is.

Yes, there are a dozen predesigned houses for people who don't want to design their own. ~ Bearnwyn ~ even made a guide for them.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3051079954

I remember this, amazing lay-outs in it.

I've tried a few showroom builds, btw, when I had both the time, the workshop size and the curiosity. But, if it's not perfectly what you want, you still run into the 'move a room, have stairs/doors/removed furniture'. I hope they can adjust that, uh, feature into something easier to use.

The absolute bonus of the Bearwyn's collection & guide is, is that there are also interior pictures and footprints. These things are invaluable.

[Paralt]

Hi all! I'm interested in installing one of the pre-fab designs. Can you install a pre-fab even if you don't have all of the furniture yet? The comments in the manual in Construction Junction seem to say you can but it's not totally clear to me. Thanks for any replies.

[404]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Paralt:

Can you install a pre-fab even if you don't have all of the furniture yet?

Yes, you can then furnish it as you wish.