Collapsing ladders?

[Wisp Cat]

I was putting a wodden ladder up the side of an Ostrich Hotel (on the side -- the side which would be on the left when facing the front of the hotel from the street -- slightly towards the rear of the hotel). I placed the first ladder section with two empty blocks below it, then I placed another four ladder sections leading up from there. That was all i could reach from ground level. So I started climbing the ladder and extending it upwards.

When I reached a total length of 8 ladder sections, the whole thing collapsed on me (and I took about 30 damage when I hit the ground).

So....

(1) Is this normal? (I do not think so, because I cannot find people talking about this.)

(2) Is this because of a glitch in the implementation of "Structural Integrity"? (If so, is there any feedback mechanism indicating that I am about to run afoul of whatever the rules are here?)

(3) Are there any known workarounds for this kind of thing?

[Niuq]

Ladders tend to collapse often. You could have been building off a weak area as far as SI is concerned. If memory serves 4 hanging sections is ok 5 will collapse

May have very low stats for vertical support.

[Amanoob105]

I'm going to leave 1) and 2) to people that can explain this better beyond saying that its collapse was likely in part because the ladder wasn't supported by anything below it (the two block gap between it and the ground). The game cares more about the vertical support than it does the horizontal.

3) Easiest work around is a trick known simply as the "noob ladder".
Put down a wood frame. Jump on it. Jump and place a new wood frame below you.
Repeat until you are at the desired height. Also makes for great scaffolding when working on larger projects.
When you want to go back down, just pick them up while standing on top of them. Which also makes them reusable.

[seven]

I'm going to say no that's not normal, and something strange happened. I went to the hotel and built a few ladders.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2562339505

I'm assuming you placed the ladders right on the wall. Each segment of ladder should have been supported by the block behind it. In the above, the left and middle ladders are connected directly to the wall. The right one is supported by the window ledges, so many segments have no horizontally supporting blocks. All three worked as expected and I could climb without collapsing.

This is in 19.5 however. Maybe 19.6 added a bug?

[Mardoin69]

The answer is: the Ostrich hotel has an underground parking garage and the support pillars are spaced wrong. If you want to use it for a poi then you'd need to go underground into the garage and place new pillars under the right spots to support the pillars above going the rest of way up. Otherwise you'll run into all sorts of 'SI' rule violations resulting in miscellaneous collapses such as this. Because there's too much weight relying on the exterior walls to support it since the underground garage pillars are in wrong place.

Edit: I know this cuz I use to use it for a base and whoa....have fun trying to build anything on the roof if you don't re-support pillars in correct places in garage, lol.

[Wisp Cat]

Originally posted by seven:

I'm going to say no that's not normal, and something strange happened. I went to the hotel and built a few ladders.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2562339505

I'm assuming you placed the ladders right on the wall. Each segment of ladder should have been supported by the block behind it. In the above, the left and middle ladders are connected directly to the wall. The right one is supported by the window ledges, so many segments have no horizontally supporting blocks. All three worked as expected and I could climb without collapsing.

This is in 19.5 however. Maybe 19.6 added a bug?

Yes, I am in 19.6. And, of your three ladders, the one on the far right (next to the "balconies") was the exact same place where I had placed mine.

Edit:

Originally posted by Mardoin69:

The answer is: the Ostrich hotel has an underground parking garage and the support pillars are spaced wrong. If you want to use it for a poi then you'd need to go underground into the garage and place new pillars under the right spots to support the pillars above going the rest of way up. Otherwise you'll run into all sorts of 'SI' rule violations resulting in miscellaneous collapses such as this. Because there's too much weight relying on the exterior walls to support it since the underground garage pillars are in wrong place.

How would I determine the correct place for pillars? (Is there some UI mechanism showing structural integrity issues, for example?)

[Mardoin69]

So, make you a bunch of wooden frames and maybe sketch a grid map for yourself. go from outside walls and count how many blocks into building when you get to those 4 columns inside center. Then go into garage do same count and start building your pillars. Another way would just be to destroy the floor next to a pillar to fall through into garage and then build pillar next to hole......then counting off to find the other 3 pillars.

[seven]

Originally posted by Wednesday Crisis:

Yes, I am in 19.6. And, of your three ladders, the one on the far right (next to the "balconies") was the exact same place where I had placed mine.

Think I found the problem.

From the angle it's hard to see, but my rightmost ladder is 2 blocks left of the railing. I tried another ladder right next to the balconies and as soon as I placed a ladder next to the railing, the railing collapsed and brought down the ladder with it.

[Wisp Cat]

Originally posted by seven:

Originally posted by Wednesday Crisis:

Yes, I am in 19.6. And, of your three ladders, the one on the far right (next to the "balconies") was the exact same place where I had placed mine.

Think I found the problem.

From the angle it's hard to see, but my rightmost ladder is 2 blocks left of the railing. I tried another ladder right next to the balconies and as soon as I placed a ladder next to the railing, the railing collapsed and brought down the ladder with it.

It's great that you can reproduce my problem.

Is this a known issue? Or have I stumbled onto something "new"? (I mean, if you know...)

[seven]

I would say it's a problem with that POI. The railings are actually not supported at all. They are just floating there. Don't build next to the railing and you'll be fine.

[Mardoin69]

It's not new. It's a 'Structural Integrity' rule violation. That's the beauty of this game, it calculates loads on a structure and collapses if you exceed the material's load capability. You might be interested in watching the SI tutorial guide in guides section.

[Wisp Cat]

Originally posted by Mardoin69:

You might be interested in watching the SI tutorial guide in guides section.

That sounds like a good idea.

What is the name of that guide?

(When I search the guides for structural integrity, I find almost 40 guides, but none of them have "Structural Integrity" in their title nor in the part of their description which shows up on the steam search results page. Oddly, also: some of them do not actually contain the word "structural" ... Edit: so steam is doing an OR search, apparently... adding quotes around the phrase cuts the result list down to about a dozen guides, but... still... none of them have structural integrity in their title nor in their summary description.)

Further edit

The best match I have found to this description is the How To 7 Days To Die Tutorial guide by Lewis3 which contains this (along with a bunch of other stuff):

Structural Integrity

Each block type has a Mass and Max Load and the Structural Integrity of a block is Max Load divided by mass. what this means is if the block has a structural integrity of 8 then you can build a bridge out of 8 blocks.

Pillers connected to bedrock will give their max load from each face.

[Wood] Mass 5, Max Load 40, Structural Integrity 8.

[Stone] Mass 10, Max Load 120, Structural Integrity 12.

[Metal] Mass 20, Max Load 320, Structural Integrity 16.

[Mardoin69]

Yeah....there are SO MANY guides now it's unreal. Might be able to find it doing an internet search. I searched the guides section and could only find this;

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=377346453

which does discuss SI but, there used to be one that was a video showing simplified explanation of each type material and building results. don't remember the guides exact name.

[seven]

Originally posted by Mardoin69:

It's not new. It's a 'Structural Integrity' rule violation. That's the beauty of this game, it calculates loads on a structure and collapses if you exceed the material's load capability. You might be interested in watching the SI tutorial guide in guides section.

I'm not sure I'd call it a rule violation. I'd say the builder turned of SI while building to make it work. Like I said, the railings are completely unsupported. They are in the space outside of the balcony alcoves. Nothing below them, nothing to the side. The only connection to the building is diagonally. The builder could have easily rotated the railings so the blocks were inside the alcove and there would be no problem. None of the balconies have anything in them that needs that space.

Originally posted by Wednesday Crisis:

That sounds like a good idea.

What is the name of that guide?

A good video guide I've watched before is this one. It's for Alpha 15 but I don't think much has really changed, maybe some numbers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hq_HxCqgyU

[Wisp Cat]

Ok, an hour long video -- I hope it's worth it! (thanks)

[Crater Creator]

Particular places in particular POIs that are unsupported - that collapse as soon as SI is calculated - should be considered bugs in the game. They can be reported here:
https://community.7daystodie.com/bug-test-1/

There is a known issues doc maintained here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1YNo1DLatARAXCyRWwLxOhrjKnZKLL-onr4hwc3IIUuI/edit#gid=0