Having Problems with basements

[MasterKitties]

I've been trying to build a house with a basement (this is in ACE) and for some reason when I start building it highlights the basement floor red I've tried everything to fix what else can I do?

[YetiChow]

This sometimes happens because the hearthlings don't technically have "access" to the blocks they're trying to build. For something like a basement, there's no 'outside' where they can build scaffolding; and their "mine 1 layer to build the floor" logic can't handle working within a completely enclosed space.

The easiest fix is to make sure that the basement is fully mined out, place the blueprint, start construction and then manually place a ladder inside the walls. You may need to place ladders all along the insides of the basement walls to ensure the hearthlings know that they can reach every block. Even then, they might get stuck on the corners (they technically can't access the those blocks from any side), so you may ultimately need to build most of the sides of your basement walls while leaving the corner columns exposed, and then come back to manually fill in the remaining walls/sections later (you can still drag out a room, just use the slice/hole tool to cut out an area near each corner to ensure access.)

What I used to do to save time was to mine out my basement, lay the floor and the back wall, then build the side walls with one "pillar" on each side repainted where they met the back wall. For the final wall, I'd simply fill in the remaining space but paint the pillars on each side of that wall to look like they weren't there. So, effectively every corner had a "double pillar", rather than a shared pillar at the junction of each wall. With the basement done, I'd start a new template on top (it's been a while so I'm a bit foggy, but I think they couldn't touch during edit mode -- so I would have made my basement walls a little bit shorter to compensate), leaving a hole in the ground floor for the eventual staircase or ladder. I'd often make the staircases out of the freeform block tool, and I enjoyed playing around with spiralling staircases (not "spiral" staircases, but more like... corkscrew, I guess?), and I'd use the same freeform block tool to patch up any gaps in the walls after construction was finished. If memory serves correctly, you can place freeform blocks onto a finished building quite easily; but I think the room tool would freak out if the room came into contact with existing structure.