Terrain overlay, or tricks for building pre-planning?

[Swato85]

What tricks do you use in terms of "scouting the land". I am using the stockpiles to get an approximate idea of the height differences in terain so that I can choose the best place to setup shop, as you dont have buildings unlocked from start and have to guess the resource impact of chosen area.

I would appreciate to have an option to turn on terrain height overlay in order to get the best idea of the land, but that is not in the game..

Currently the only info you can get is the tile color difference representing different elevation levels:
White tiles = your currently selected area and all connected tiles applicable for the same elevation level.
Yellow tiles = different elevation level. Guaranteed height shift of any built structures.
It would be nice if we could turn on at least this overlay and not have to hover around with prefabs to see them.
- even better would be if the +/- height difference would be of different color. Like yellow for lower elevation and orange for higher elevation as sometimes i must move the camera quite a lot to identify into which direction the terrains shifts as it is not allways so clear from the birds perspective.

So what methods or tricks you use in order to find tje best flat zone with place for further expansion later on. Take into account stranded scenario option, you have nothing researched yet and have to pick the best flat area (as we unfortunately can not shape the land).
We are talking only about the area for building, so ignore resource locations and etc..

Thank you.

[Flin Fredstone]

Personally i am not to bothered if the terrain isn't flat. I had plenty of practice with elevation changes when building later on. Defense perimeter is another subject though as you might want a continuous wall without a gab. Sometimes had to make an alcove in the wall to go around a none buildable spot, but that wasn't to bad.

[injto4ka]

This mod has an option to display build levels: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3019749289

[bmnoble981]

I usually just give up, since any nice flat piece of ground I find usually ends up with a spaceship or meteor crashing into it. Maybe it is just a placebo but I find laying out a foundation then pausing seems to prevent that spot getting hit.

With multi level buildings having a lot of flat ground to build on isn't as important as it use to be.

Only thing you really got to be careful of with elevation is to make sure enemies don't have line of sight over your walls for example if your wall is in a crater or there is a hill on the other side, enemies will have a nice spot to shoot into your base, especially important in the guardians scenario.

[Swato85]

Originally posted by bmnoble981:

I usually just give up, since any nice flat piece of ground I find usually ends up with a spaceship or meteor crashing into it. Maybe it is just a placebo but I find laying out a foundation then pausing seems to prevent that spot getting hit.

With multi level buildings having a lot of flat ground to build on isn't as important as it use to be.

Only thing you really got to be careful of with elevation is to make sure enemies don't have line of sight over your walls for example if your wall is in a crater or there is a hill on the other side, enemies will have a nice spot to shoot into your base, especially important in the guardians scenario.

Yep, one of the reaaons for rising this question. Bet you mean the snipers in guardians who seem to allways know where to find the small hill that allows rhem to stand up and shoot over walls 😁.

My main concern is just for the start, where unncessary using 3-4 times the resources for foundations just because of overlooked hole or a slide is an unnecesaary strain. Later on I build my fields so far away that there is no reach whatsoever for the enemy to hit my inner base.

A better layer for rhe height levels or a tool to flatte the ground would be nice.

[Treveri]

I you don't like mods (I hate them) ... you can get down to eye level on the map and actually see where the highs and lows are to determine decent placement.

The VERY FIRST thing I do if I'm not going to have enough trees (wood) to handle the terrain, is identify trees, and "plant plant plant!" Unless I'm on a map with an absurd amount trees, I always have 4-6 double-plots of trees growing outside my food farming zones ... so they are close enough, but not in the way of the important stuff. Then I set a maximum harder (stockpile level) of 3500 lumber at any given time.

[leonie214]

CITY-SMILE flattest I have come across. Excellent map for trading post scenario!!

[Jaggid Edje]

I generally don't worry about it until I actually have buildings unlocked. Terrain doesn't need to be flat, foundations can span terrain of differing heights and I just use whatever building material is most common rather than worry about how much of the material is going to get used.