Landscaping and the case of the disappearing dirt blocks

[AfkForCoffee]

I've been doing some landscaping, evening out the terrain and building a pretty plateau around my house. I noticed that there are blocks of dirt disappearing sporadicly when I build up the terrain using dirt blocks (Haven't tried with other "soil" type of blocks). I'll try to explain how this happens

I have my house on the edge of a hill. I needed to build some log spike trenches around it. So I went to the bottom of that hill, started laying down rows of dirt, going up one block, another row and so on. Kinda like building one side of a pyramid. Then I've noticed that at times there are blocks of dirt that disappear from the rows making a gap in the nice and smooth hill side.

Anyone else noticed this and is this some sort of an intented game mechanic with soil bocks?

I'll try in creative mode if I can come up with a case that I can reproduce over and over again.

[BigRowdy]

but stone in the holes and see what happens.

[AfkForCoffee]

Here's a screen of what I meant:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=480418762

That was flat asphalt terrain where I started laying down dirt and built a pyramid and then I started adding rows of dirt to the sides of it going up towards the top. This is something that can be reproduced, at least by me, but it's some what random.

[Zombie]

it might be a graphic glitch when you add around it the graphics adjust to merge and it might be glitching leaving the holes

[Whiplash]

I think this is that thing where the game tries to auto-level terrain to that next to it. It gets messy if the terrain in question is actually somewhere in the middle of a block size. Like, it's not a full block tall, but half a block tall. Then you add blocks around it, and it auto-raises it to full height, to match them up.

There's some weirdness to how some of that works. You can also use frames to flatten terrain in a similar manner.

[AfkForCoffee]

I'll clarify a bit. The block that's missing in the picture was there. It was a solid row of dirt. I was extra careful when I tested this in creative. Somehow the dirt block that I placed there disappeared.

[TombViper]

Originally posted by FadingCeiling:

So I went to the bottom of that hill, started laying down rows of dirt, going up one block, another row and so on. Kinda like building one side of a pyramid. Then I've noticed that at times there are blocks of dirt that disappear from the rows making a gap in the nice and smooth hill side.

This bug has been present at least since Alpha 10 and yes it is pretty annoying. Only workaround I've found so far is to not lay out dirt blocks in layers ontop of each other, but rather to stack them column-wise e.G.:

369
258
147

instead of:

789
456
123

[AfkForCoffee]

Originally posted by TombViper:

Originally posted by FadingCeiling:

So I went to the bottom of that hill, started laying down rows of dirt, going up one block, another row and so on. Kinda like building one side of a pyramid. Then I've noticed that at times there are blocks of dirt that disappear from the rows making a gap in the nice and smooth hill side.

This bug has been present at least since Alpha 10 and yes it is pretty annoying. Only workaround I've found so far is to not lay out dirt blocks in layers ontop of each other, but rather to stack them column-wise e.G.:

369
258
147

instead of:

789
456
123

Thanks for the tip I'll have to try it out.

Do you happen to know if the developers are aware of this and do they acknowledge it as a bug?

[TombViper]

Originally posted by FadingCeiling:

Thanks for the tip I'll have to try it out.

Do you happen to know if the developers are aware of this and do they acknowledge it as a bug?

Not sure whether the devs know about this bug. It is just one of many bugs that have been around for ages now.
I will do some landscaping on my second base in A12 now, so I am pretty sure I will run over it too :)

[YamaKami]

Originally posted by Whiplash:

I think this is that thing where the game tries to auto-level terrain to that next to it. It gets messy if the terrain in question is actually somewhere in the middle of a block size. Like, it's not a full block tall, but half a block tall. Then you add blocks around it, and it auto-raises it to full height, to match them up.

There's some weirdness to how some of that works. You can also use frames to flatten terrain in a similar manner.

If that is not it I don't think anyone has an answer for you.

[TombViper]

Originally posted by YamaKami:

Originally posted by Whiplash:

I think this is that thing where the game tries to auto-level terrain to that next to it. It gets messy if the terrain in question is actually somewhere in the middle of a block size. Like, it's not a full block tall, but half a block tall. Then you add blocks around it, and it auto-raises it to full height, to match them up.

There's some weirdness to how some of that works. You can also use frames to flatten terrain in a similar manner.

If that is not it I don't think anyone has an answer for you.

I think this is something different. It also happens when you are working on pretty flat terrain. What I have seen happen most often is this. Say you have dug a square hole like 4 blocks deep and now you want to fill it up with dirt again. So you start placing one layer of dirt blocks. So far everything looks good. Now you start to lay out the second layer of dirt blocks. Eventually you will notice that after you have placed dirt blocks in the second layer, some blocks in the first layer have vanished for apparently no reason and left gaps.