Constructing buildings

[Multihack]

Is it me or is it incredibly clunky and difficult to create houses in this game?

I appreciate all the work that went into ACE, so don't get me wrong. However I had forgotten how annoying it was to build in this game! What do you guys think?

[Droknar]

Yes it is. I have a very strange bug in one of my games. I built 2 barns just fine but when I go to make a third it says the hearthlings can't figure out how to build it. There are no items in the way of building and it is literally beside where my other 2 barns are with 10 blocks of space between in an open field. This game could have been so much better if the devs weren't forced to stop development.

[YetiChow]

The main thing to remember about the building editor is that it follows the conventions of 3D modelling software (hardly surprising since that's what the devs are familiar with) -- a blueprint for a house works a little bit like like a multi-part model with basic rigging.

For example, you can think of rooms as the basic "building block", and then everything else attaches to them. Room walls (i.e. ones that come from the room tool) aren't a separate thing, they're an extension of the room they're made from; same with floors. Standalone walls "stick onto" rooms to divide them up or connect them, as do blocks from the freeform slab tool and the roof tool. So, what you want to do is "rough in" the shape of the building using rooms and roofs, and then add things like standalone walls and slabs and roads to bring in more detail. You're basically working from most -> least detailed to refine the shape as you go.

[Tanyon]

yea when I build stuff I literally try to make it as simple as possible.. like you think you'd want to really go all out and build something awesome but then you do and all of a sudden your guys run into an issue and for some reason cant complete it or get stuck etc..

[YetiChow]

Originally posted by Darth:

yea when I build stuff I literally try to make it as simple as possible.. like you think you'd want to really go all out and build something awesome but then you do and all of a sudden your guys run into an issue and for some reason cant complete it or get stuck etc..

it's possible to build extremely complex buildings in this game without any issues, as long as you understand how the building tool works

I've tested it myself -- I've build large multi-room buildings, forts with suspended bridges between different layers, walls that wrap around the entire town in one section (bad idea, BTW -- which I'll come back to later), basements, tall towers that get wider towards the top, and even the "impossible to build" rooms inside a cave with a ceiling and everything.

The hearthlings are not smart, and they're not /meant/ to figure out how to solve problems -- that's your job as a player. So, when you're doing construction on a complex building, you can't just throw all the instructions into a single sentence and expect the hearthlings to translate it. If one task needs to be completed before another task can happen then you either need to use the tools that come with those "order of operations" instructions, or else you need to order one task and wait for it to finish before starting the second one (which is often essential if you're using the slab tool for complex shapes where the hearthlings won't be able to access/walk freely through the shape during the construction; and you might even have to split the shape into sections and build them one-at-a-time.)

The other factor is that bigger buildings will multiply the processing effort required for pathfinding just by the fact of being bigger. So, if you're building something large then it's much easier to run into a situation where the game can't figure out the pathfinding and so it marks it red as a fail-safe rather than get stuck in an infinite "cannot compute" loop. That one-wall-around-the-whole-town I mentioned before? The first half a dozen of those that I tried resulted in my game crashing when I hit the 'build' button. Over time I was able to simplify the design down to a single room and get it to build (which was laggy and frequently got held up by other tasks)... but the much, much easier solution was just to split the wall up into short sections that built almost immediately. And in fact, that's just the start -- when working with short sections, I was able to move the required materials on-site before starting construction (using input bins) so that they literally went up in a matter of seconds per section.

My personal challenge has always been building 'chimneys' -- i.e. a fireplace alcove, and then a 3x3 or 4x4 room with walls that extend all the way up through the roof. It's an absolute magnet for problems... the hearthlings either get stuck inside the chimney or physically can't fit inside to build it, other walls block access for construction, and often it needs to be build before the wall around it can be built but the only way to force that to happen is to leave the wall out and build the chimney first then add the wall in as a second build later. And yet, I was able to figure out a few tricks to make it work; and now I can build functional fireplaces with realistic chimneys without having to use either debug tools/console commands or build the houses block-by-block using the slab tool. All I had to do was figure out which sections of wall would interfere with the chimney, and use the hole tool to remove the appropriate blocks; then use freestanding walls to fill in any gaps once the rest of the building is done.

[Tanyon]

Originally posted by YetiChow:

Originally posted by Darth:

yea when I build stuff I literally try to make it as simple as possible.. like you think you'd want to really go all out and build something awesome but then you do and all of a sudden your guys run into an issue and for some reason cant complete it or get stuck etc..

it's possible to build extremely complex buildings in this game without any issues, as long as you understand how the building tool works

I've tested it myself -- I've build large multi-room buildings, forts with suspended bridges between different layers, walls that wrap around the entire town in one section (bad idea, BTW -- which I'll come back to later), basements, tall towers that get wider towards the top, and even the "impossible to build" rooms inside a cave with a ceiling and everything.

The hearthlings are not smart, and they're not /meant/ to figure out how to solve problems -- that's your job as a player. So, when you're doing construction on a complex building, you can't just throw all the instructions into a single sentence and expect the hearthlings to translate it. If one task needs to be completed before another task can happen then you either need to use the tools that come with those "order of operations" instructions, or else you need to order one task and wait for it to finish before starting the second one (which is often essential if you're using the slab tool for complex shapes where the hearthlings won't be able to access/walk freely through the shape during the construction; and you might even have to split the shape into sections and build them one-at-a-time.)

The other factor is that bigger buildings will multiply the processing effort required for pathfinding just by the fact of being bigger. So, if you're building something large then it's much easier to run into a situation where the game can't figure out the pathfinding and so it marks it red as a fail-safe rather than get stuck in an infinite "cannot compute" loop. That one-wall-around-the-whole-town I mentioned before? The first half a dozen of those that I tried resulted in my game crashing when I hit the 'build' button. Over time I was able to simplify the design down to a single room and get it to build (which was laggy and frequently got held up by other tasks)... but the much, much easier solution was just to split the wall up into short sections that built almost immediately. And in fact, that's just the start -- when working with short sections, I was able to move the required materials on-site before starting construction (using input bins) so that they literally went up in a matter of seconds per section.

My personal challenge has always been building 'chimneys' -- i.e. a fireplace alcove, and then a 3x3 or 4x4 room with walls that extend all the way up through the roof. It's an absolute magnet for problems... the hearthlings either get stuck inside the chimney or physically can't fit inside to build it, other walls block access for construction, and often it needs to be build before the wall around it can be built but the only way to force that to happen is to leave the wall out and build the chimney first then add the wall in as a second build later. And yet, I was able to figure out a few tricks to make it work; and now I can build functional fireplaces with realistic chimneys without having to use either debug tools/console commands or build the houses block-by-block using the slab tool. All I had to do was figure out which sections of wall would interfere with the chimney, and use the hole tool to remove the appropriate blocks; then use freestanding walls to fill in any gaps once the rest of the building is done.

Ohh I don't build my own stuff I want to play the game not spend half my time in a building editor.

I just downloaded a building package and then 3 other separate designs off the workshop.. nothing too extravagant and out of the 4 building I made only 1 was ever fully constructed.. they have.. scaffolding.. all required items and materials available they just refuse to build the rest of the buildings..

[Eagle_of_Fire]

I have found that 99% of the time someone bring that problem up, they simply do not realise that it is possible to add stuff to your building queue that you do not downright own or are able to produce at that moment.

Like, I usually make my own houses and templates. But one of those is a HUGE hall with a 9x9 table covered in seats, coffers all around to store food and then a huge, full kitchen in the back of the same building. That alone isn't a problem, but I always wait for "endgame" to build those because I don't want to refurbish the whole thing every single time I build that building (and I build it in every single game I play). So the thing is, it is chocked full of the best late game stuff (like gold adorned chairs and tables and stuff like that) which obviously a new carpenter would not be able to produce until he is levelled up. But that doesn't stop me from plopping down the bluprint, right?

Well in actuality, if I did that the building would never finish building until my carpenter can actually level up and have access to gold flake and all that jazz. Simply because the toons will have to wait for that particular item to be available in storage before they grab it and place it down, right? But what if you are early game and you decide that this poppy wall garden look SOOOOO cute under your windows? But you never realise that you don't even have those flowers available (and YES, you do need them to complete the item) or even the seeds to get some? Building never complete because it will always get stuck there.