Leveling the ground

[Moyocoya]

It seems to me that I read in a post that there were tools to modify the height of the terrain. Or was this a request made to the developers?
I can't find the post. Does anyone know anything about this?

[Summanus]

Originally posted by FAIL! Chapi:

Originally posted by Moyocoya:

I'm particularly suspicious of map editors when it involves mods. I've had practically nothing but bad experiences.

You could at least give it a try.

Writing "This Editor is not finished. If someone wishes to take over this Mod feel free to do so." on your mod page doesn't exactly inspire confidence. It sounds like you're saying "This mod has problems but I'm abandoning it".

No offense, I'm sure you've put a lot of work into it, but I personally wouldn't dare touch a mod with such a disclaimer attached to it. If you want more people to try it, maybe consider changing your wording?

[Moyocoya]

Wording is not enough

[FAIL! Chapi]

The mod itself has only minor problems. It's simply a lack of Lua knowledge.

[Moyocoya]

All the more reason. I don't want any problems, however minor, in my game.

[Continuum]

Getting back to the original topic, you can level ground as much as you want. You just go into housing and build floors. For general stuff like power poles or solar panels, etc., you can just use soil flooring. Stone or wood for supporting defenses, concrete/steel/carbon for more durability and/or supporting big items.

Here is an example of a tiered base where all of the housing and center complex is built up on floors of different materials, mostly stone for the core base. https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197997990945/screenshot/2013720707531100056/

[Summanus]

Obviously everyone knows that you can, and in fact have to, use foundations to level the ground before you build no matter where you are on the map. It goes without saying - you can't build a building in this game without foundations. But in most areas the land is so uneven that its extremely resource intensive to cover a decent sized area with enough foundations to level off the whole base at the same level (and even then the farms will be on a completely different level and it will all look terrible and function inefficiently due to the way steps work).

If all you want is a purely functional base where you don't care that it looks like trash then its obviously not a problem, yeah. But if you've already played the game several times over and you're now looking to create something aesthetically pleasing as well as functional (without using cheats) then a decent patch of flat landscape is almost essential.

[Moyocoya]

I would add that ground levelling is not only useful for construction purposes. It's also useful for crops and livestock, where it goes without saying that foundations are of no use.
The reason I asked the question in the first place was that I'd like to put in a pen for animals, but the ground is so uneven in the area I'm interested in that it's impossible. And obviously putting in a foundation isn't going to solve my problem.

[Summanus]

Originally posted by Moyocoya:

I would add that ground levelling is not only useful for construction purposes. It's also useful for crops and livestock, where it goes without saying that foundations are of no use.
The reason I asked the question in the first place was that I'd like to put in a pen for animals, but the ground is so uneven that it's impossible. And putting in a foundation isn't going to solve my problem.

I ran into a similar problem in my last playthrough, but it was with planting trees. I had no idea that you couldn't plant anything on slopes above a certain (relatively shallow) gradient.

There were trees already growing there! It made no sense lol

[draconis]

wonder if trees can be planted on soil foundations? would be like a raised garden bed...

[Summanus]

Originally posted by draconis:

wonder if trees can be planted on soil foundations? would be like a raised garden bed...

That would make sense, but no you can't do it. Soil foundations act the same as any other foundation (other than lower thermal insulation rating and structural strength).

Originally posted by Moyocoya:

I would add that ground levelling is not only useful for construction purposes. It's also useful for crops and livestock, where it goes without saying that foundations are of no use.
The reason I asked the question in the first place was that I'd like to put in a pen for animals, but the ground is so uneven in the area I'm interested in that it's impossible. And obviously putting in a foundation isn't going to solve my problem.

You know you can build animal sheds on top of foundations, right? I mean, it would look a bit silly in a heavily sloped area, but it can be done. I assume you're avoiding this though because you want them to be on the same level as the ground.

[Moyocoya]

I want them to live on a meadow, not an artificial ground

[Continuum]

Originally posted by Moyocoya:

I want them to live on a meadow, not an artificial ground

You can always make just enough space for the barn and a few ramps. The animals don't care if the ground is level. Just remember that they need at least two squares width to navigate through any opening. In my experience some species won't try to move through planted trees (where others open gates themselves and wander as much as they can) and you can run into a lot of pathing problems on the livestock accessing the food troughs if it's in too narrow a space. You can also construct just a little soil/hay roof to put feeders and stockpiles in near your livestock and the food keeps longer.

This screenshot shows multiple areas of a base on a pretty steep hill. I ended up having to locate the barn up towards the center of the base to keep the livestock from being attacked, so you can see it is placed on a very steep slope but only the barn area is on soil flooring. The base itself features an experiment in soil flooring over broken ground, with mixed results (ramping between levels wastes a lot of space).

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2996323589

[BlackOMEGA]

I dont understand how they couldnt do it, they already do it with falling wreckage, when it hit it deforms the ground, this is a MAJOR tedious flaw of the game, makes me sigh and go play something else a lot of the time

[injto4ka]

Hi! I've just made something about the craters. It's still WiP, but please give it a try. Any feedback will be highly appreciated. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3004997517

[Oblivia]

I don't know anything about coding, so this might be a dumb question, but... Would it be possible to just make the foundation building codes not only stack up, but remove square chunks?

Also, I agree it would be very cool to choose landing spot in Military and Trade scenarios. After all, those are planned landings. Why would you park in a bad spot? Crash Landing, on the other hand, not so much control.

There are some pretty good threads on best starting seeds and at least 2 Youtube videos on seeds that show some pretty amazing spots. CALM-TUNE and LLL, for instance, seem to be good starts on any world. I've tried them both on Sobrius & Desertum so far.