Building frustration

[Jdwarfer]

Hi,

I enjoy building my HQ but there's something really annoying.
You can pick up a standard building block but as soon as it is upgraded, you can't do it anymore.
So you need to destroy it, which can be versy long depending how much it's been upgraded. Like, I want to replace an iron door by a steel one, it's not possible! And you can't upgrade it either!
So there's practicle mechanics but it's not usable everytime, and it sucks hard.
Also somtimes I wanted to just repair some wall block and oh damn, I upgraded it... And of course you can't downgrade.

Interesting thing, I found you can upgrade a window... So it works like a wall but it's still a thin block lol which looks better than cubes you need to make walls. That thing I never liked because it feels like you're in Minecraft. It's like ancient build mechanic lol. While most of modern building crafting survival games let you build walls that actually look like walls, here you still build walls with cubes lol ok
Also if you want to place a hatch that's kinda annoying, depending how your contrusction is, you can't put a ladder in the same spot or whatever... Or the hatch is on the bottom side of the block, no way to choose the top one.

[Eriskumma]

Originally posted by Jdwarfer:

Like, I want to replace an iron door by a steel one, it's not possible! And you can't upgrade it either!

Yes you can. Doors and hatches are upgraded by crafting better door/hatch, having it in your inventory and using upgrade/repair tool. (stone axe, claw hammer, nail gun). In your case craft the steel door in workbench, pick it up after it's done and use upgrade tool to your iron door.
Just as a tip, you can use upgrade tool to figure out what you need, right click on thing you want to upgrade/repair and game shows in lower right corned what materials/items you're missing.

[Jdwarfer]

Ha thanks!

[DerFinneAT]

Originally posted by Jdwarfer:

Hi,

That thing I never liked because it feels like you're in Minecraft. .

That is the nature and consequence of a voxel based game.

It is a design decision, and it is advertised a such.

This also comes with a list of advantages over those "other, modern" games. So it is not by accident.

I always have a hard time understanding, when people buy into a thing, and then are surprised, by the thing being the thing as advertised.

[Jdwarfer]

I prefer panels over cubes. Cubes makes house walls weirdly big, that's why I don't like it. I don't mind using it of course, otherwise I wouldn't have bought the game LOL

[BigRowdy]

did you even try to use the shapes that are provided? I don't play this game anymore because I think it is ♥♥♥♥♥ now, but they used to have some shapes that are wall like iirc.

[onanonehand8]

Originally posted by Jdwarfer:

I prefer panels over cubes. Cubes makes house walls weirdly big, that's why I don't like it. I don't mind using it of course, otherwise I wouldn't have bought the game LOL

As the game is now, panels do not hide your presence as a cube does, even adding a panel to a cube makes a player visible to zombies.

[Eriskumma]

Originally posted by BigRowdy:

did you even try to use the shapes that are provided?

Oh yeah, forgot to ask about this.
To OP: Every placeable item (building blocks, some furniture etc) that has small icon of tiny square, triangle and circle in upper right corner has additional shapes or colors. Hold down your R key to open radial menu and choose Shapes to open the shape menu. Radial menu also has other useful features that really speed up your base building like copy shape & rotation etc.
Also if you have a paintbrush and craft some paint you can change the textures of blocks, you can make pretty realistic walls in many architectural styles if you tinker a bit. Every building in the game is done with the same blocks and textures you can use to build your bases.

[Dr. Rockso]

Cubes + plates on the outside of the cube make an excellent horde base defense strategy essentially giving you two block thickness while barely being thicker than a cube.

[Trooper Bri]

Originally posted by Dr. Rockso:

Cubes + plates on the outside of the cube make an excellent horde base defense strategy essentially giving you two block thickness while barely being thicker than a cube.

Even better than plates is the sheet shape. It's a 2D "plate" that can be fully upgraded. Perfect for extending horizontal SI using basically an invisible block.

[Powerferret]

Originally posted by Trooper Bri:

Originally posted by Dr. Rockso:

Cubes + plates on the outside of the cube make an excellent horde base defense strategy essentially giving you two block thickness while barely being thicker than a cube.

Even better than plates is the sheet shape. It's a 2D "plate" that can be fully upgraded. Perfect for extending horizontal SI using basically an invisible block.

Weird. In my experience a 2D plate is very weak even upgraded, since its the one they use to hide boxes and satchels and things. The 1/16 width plate acts like a normal block though.

[Trooper Bri]

Originally posted by Powerferret:

Weird. In my experience a 2D plate is very weak even upgraded, since its the one they use to hide boxes and satchels and things. The 1/16 width plate acts like a normal block though.

I thought sheets upgraded like every other block, but you are 100% right. My big bad... Don't use them for defense then. Jumped into my world for a quick test, and they are trash. A steel sheet upgraded from wood has a whopping 500 hit points. That's what, 10% of a steel block?

I swear there was a 2D block you could upgrade? Wanted to try it as well with the wooden fence design blocks, since there was a 2D version of those, but I think those got removed for 1.0. But I'd imagine it would have been coded the same.

Still good for a sneaky invisible support block if nothing else.