What are the criteria to place a dew collector?

[Cellar_Cat]

I made two of these and meant to put them on the roof of the tower I'm in (it's a "Box Factory" but I can only place one in one weirdly specific place slightly overhanging the edge of the roof. This is annoying because there's loads of space elsewhere and that part is both inconvenient and half floating in air.

There's nothing above them, and I'm pretty sure no half-blocks are intersecting the build spaces.

All I can think of is that the game might be forbidding me from overloading the roof. I am not sure if it does that however or just lets you overload things. Furthermore, it's not letting me build over all the places supported by a wall, just one.

What do these need other than 3x3 space and sky access?

[Corsin]

This may sound weird but they're on tripod legs and if you left click to rotate them before placing them, like a building block, it can change the support color. Thats my experience anyway, and hope maybe it helps.

The game will let you overload things, a wall will collapse if you do overload it. The different colors are there as a guide to tell you stability as you go/build. Pretty sure you know that though 👍🏻

[Cellar_Cat]

Hm... does not appear to make a difference in this case.

Might be worth noting also that they are more pink than red. Not sure what that means. Kinda surprised the game doesn't have a journal entry about this stuff considering all the others it has thrown at me.

[Corsin]

Yeah, sould be clearly stated somewhere. I agree. It'll basically go from green at full strength support to yellowish, orangish and pink shades. If red....dont try or it'll fall.

You can go 8 blocks out from support, but 9 will not "stick" and the whole arm youre trying to build on will collapse.

[Cellar_Cat]

Hm okay so I guess this whole building is just at the limits of its structural integrity. I may try cleaning off some of the metal AC looking stuff from the roof and reconnecting some pillars and see how it goes.

[Corsin]

Another thing that helps is beginnig your building 1 block deep so it connects to bedrock. I think that gives a bit more structural integrity than just placing a block on the ground and building up.

[Cellar_Cat]

This building is just part of the world so I am not sure how deep it goes tbh. I will probably have to make a new one or capture a better one eventually but I don't have the materials or all the unlocks to do it conveniently at the moment so I'm just recycling this one.

[Corsin]

One way to check your structural integrity is hit F1, type DM then hit ENTER then ESC.

Hit ESC again and on the right hand menu click SHOW STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY (or something like that) then ESC again.

You can then see the integrity of your whole base.

To get out, just F1 again, DM, ENTER, ESC

This shows structural integrity of everything built in the game, not just your base.

And everything has mass (weight) and how much weight it can hold. So if you use frame shapes to outline an idea, dont place alot of cobble/cement/steel on top of frames or they can break and you get a collapse. Start with the heavy stuff low and build up. 👍🏻

[Cellar_Cat]

Okay yeah so from what this is telling me... it's best not to have only half a building lol.

It looks like this structure is made with a kind of 'skeleton' of cement pillars with weaker brick walls. I think if I slap iron on the broken pillars and reconnect them to the roof it might be workable without needing to fill in all the wall parts.

[Cellar_Cat]

One weird thing I am noticing though...

The dew collector has a mass of 10. Yet when I was previewing an iron I-beam in the same location, with a mass of 20, it was green. The dew collector is still pink.

Not sure what to make of it.

[Corsin]

The brick texture would be painted on. You could hit the walls once with a hammer or something to see what its made of (good way to "test" pois early game when looking for a good first temp base) and then upgrade it to a higher, stronger material 👍🏻

[Corsin]

Originally posted by Cellar_Cat:

One weird thing I am noticing though...

The dew collector has a mass of 10. Yet when I was previewing an iron I-beam in the same location, with a mass of 20, it was green. The dew collector is still pink.

Not sure what to make of it.

The iron beam is a series of blocks to make it look like 1 long iron beam. The middle of it would be weaker than the end points connecting to something. So it would hold the weight of the dew collector but you wouldnt want to put anything else there after the dew collector.

I have dew collectors precariously perched on pink blocks about 18 high. Haha. Nothing else gets put near them.

[Cellar_Cat]

Well I mean the iron beam is vertical. I put it on top of a broken cement pillar, connecting to the roof so it has more support. And it did make the roof there less orange, so I think it worked.

What I don't get is why the dew collector is showing pink when I preview it on the roof, but something heavier than it shows green.

Is its mass actually 10 per occupied block or something? But then, I've removed more than its volume from this roof in iron clutter since I started. For some reason this, unlike other things, seems to only be green when it's over direct vertical support.

[Corsin]

Probably because its a what, 3x3 block (dew collector...cant remember dimensions) so unlike just 1 block on 1 solid piece, its gonna distribute weight different based on where its placed.

[Cellar_Cat]

So I decided to turn on god mode and flying and zoom around the map with these dew collectors. Turns out it's not my building at all, they really do just show up pink anywhere but on the ground or directly above a vertical wall/pillar. Even tiny little buildings that are basically just a hut, barely big enough to fit the collector on.

I think I will just risk putting them on my roof and see what happens. It does not make any sense to me that a water barrel with legs is really as dense as this build colour thing seems to suggest.

[Corsin]

Like I said...mine are like 18 blocks high and pink when I put them down. As long as I dont add more stuff to the blocks theyre on (without shoring them up) they will be fine.

Good discovery in their placement you made 👍🏻