Ok... so how did you guys handle this?

[Gargoyle Girl]

EDIT: And another question for those who completed this: Do you need to leave these in place after getting your reward, or can you tear them back down and use the same parts to make it again if they ask you to? Would it be worth it to just make the parts ahead of time and have a premade loadout?

I got the Simple mission to build a tower for the Prototype Portable Beacon. Easy! I love building!

...and then things got stupid.

First, I went for a simple square tower with a ladder. Climb up, set the Beacon, done, right?
Wrong. Even using stone walls, it all collapsed at the third level.

Did I mention they wanted FIVE levels before placing the beacon?

Next I tried to be more expansive and supportive. I used a 4 block square, 1 high room per level, with plenty of poles for support both vertical and horizontal, and put the trapdoors and ladders inside.
Got up to the fourth floor this time, above which literally everything I placed collapsed instantly. Even the support poles would crumble immediately.

To compound the misery, almost every time I climbed that high to try to puzzle out what needed to be done, some random animal would take offense at the building existing and start trying to tear it down.

By this point, I was no longer having fun playing the game or building. I couldn't understand why things were breaking. Is it that they need a direct line to the ground in order to be considered stable? Is it the materials; do I need a higher level of materials (tried both wood and stone)? Is it something else?

If anyone can give some insight in to how they expect you to build a five level high tower when four levels high, nothing will stay together, it would be greatly appreciated.

[william_es]

Stone frame (foundations blocks), and pillars. Use a LOT of pillars, all leading straight down to the foundations.

Throw in some angled pillars too, to make crossbeams. It's possible to have two angled pillars overlap to form an X shape.

You can also use buttresses. That's a vertical pillar placed away from a wall, that at the top angles over and connects to the wall. They literally prop the walls up, constantly pushing against the wall. You see them on the outsides of medieval cathedrals. Sometimes you have buttresses in layers. There's a second shorter one that props up the taller one, and the tallest connects to the wall you want propped up.

[Mourn]

start a 3x3 base of stone foundations (wood won't support the upper levels) and continue with stacked stone foundations for the center column and build stairs around the outside.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2734347719

[Gargoyle Girl]

Thanks to those who answered... but nevermind. >_< This was really bothering me, especially after finding a post saying wood walls should be able to stack up to 5 levels without supports, so I created an outpost game just to test it.

That was an adventure in and of itself; for a supposedly more 'relaxed' game mode, those pig horses sure wanted me dead, even going out of their way to come and try to break down my test tower! But I digress.

My problem was literally not putting four poles *into the ground* so the tower would recognize it was supported.

I had originally framed out the entire thing from top to bottom in poles, thinking that since the bottom floor was directly on the ground, it would count as being properly grounded.

It does not. I needed to put poles UNDER that floor piece that ran *into* the ground for it to count the tower as having support, no matter how much else I did. In my test game, while trying to figure out what when wrong, that was literally all I did. Add 4 poles going into the ground under the base floor. I managed to make a 6 high tower out of nothing but wood, though that sixth floor was absolutely riddled with cracks.

A quick note though; are you sure you can put in diagonal supports to make an X pattern? Once I had used vertical and horizontal poles to make a cube shaped frame around each floor, it refused to let me apply ANY diagonal ones, not even a single one.

[Mourn]

you can't actually place diagonal posts where a wall is already in place, you can however put railings in. In other words, you can have the X crossbeams in a cube, OR you can have solid walls. The fences / railings will clip into both as far as I know though.

[❄️The Last Frontier 😊]

All I did was 1 stone post out up the first floor then added the other 3 posts then just put up 4 more posts and a floor and repeated until it was at the right height. Used all stone except ladder of wood. Just used a ladder to climb up and down.