Base building - external platforms/stairs

[barbrady123]

First....ouch, the pain. This base-building thing (after seeing some screenshots awhile back) is what prompted me to pick up NMS again (I played the first month or so after release 3 years ago)...but man it's painful if you want to do ANYTHING other than just snap pre-made buildings and tubes together.

Anyway, to break down what I need help with, basically I'm OK with indoor buildings, constructing them either with the larger rooms + connectors, or "making" rooms from the smaller cubes, etc. I get that after you get them floating in thin air, you can add supports underneath, great. Also I get that for INTERNAL stairs, you can build a bigger room (2+ levels) from the small cubes and then attach internal stairs to ledges, and add additional flooring to the open indoor spaces, great.

Now the issue is that I don't want my entire base indoors, and I don't think that's unreasonable. I know that the "basic" pieces and the prefab pieces don't "fit" well, but I'm hoping somebody has some ideas to help, I'm desperate, and what I'm trying to do is simple!

Basically I am building a base off the ground, as recommended, because I'm fearful of all these things I've read about ground reforming after being removed, etc....so that's fine. But I still want stairs to the ground (to reach the base computer, which has to be on the ground, and various other things). I just CANNOT connect these two ideas cleanly!

The two ideas I've had are:

1. I built a 2 level outside staircase from the ground up...so, external stairs, small platform, external stairs, bigger platform. This is great because now I can either continue to add outside platforms, OR connect rooms. This is a problem because it's VIRTUALLY IMPOSSIBLE to connect rooms to these outdoor "basic" platforms. I actually did something really hacky and got a small cube room (with door + adjoining access ramp) fairly close to the platform by placing it as good as I could, then modifying the height manually in the save file itself. This was a pain and I don't want to keep doing it, espescially when my base has hundreds of objects later on.

2. Don't use the basic stuff at all (this seems to be the usual recommendation), but I'm running into problems doing this when it comes to vertical changes...it's pretty much impossible. Yes I did try building cubes on cubes, then adding struts, then removing the rooms...yes, now you have struts you can walk on. Or you, can just walk on top of the solid cubses, rooms, square room support. Those are OK, except that limits you to floors that don't look like floors (because really you're walking on top of rooms, or on strut tops that aren't really designed for visibility.) This I could probably deal with, but there's NO WAY to change elevation in you go this "don't use any basics" route, because the only exterior stairs are basic and don't fit! I don't want to only change elevation by going in doors, that seems lame.

There does seem to be some cheesy thing where you can build all your prefab stuff leaving space for stairs, then take a "basic" stairs and do a weird rotation so that the height fits the height of a pre-fab room...but this is really a pain since the free rotation is a pain to align with other objects...and also this doesn't play well with the doorways that are required to actually get into the prefabs.

So, I'm at a loss on how to merge these 2 ideas. I'd like to have a bunch of indoor stuff....but also I want outdoor platforms just for running around, or connecting my ship platform(s) to each other. Basically I'd like something like a trading post, but with some indoor buildings as well. I have NO idea how you get creative with outdoor building and still get your rooms to play nice...any help would be greatly appreciated.

[bill]

Nothing fancy needed. Stick a corridor on to your pre-fab (cuboid room, circular room) then put a wood/concrete/steel wall on the end. Then attach floor-tile to wall and stairs to floor-tile. Extend stairs to ground.

[Gumsk]

The standard stairs with a hand-rail snap to doors on prefabs. As long as you don't start too high off the ground, you can reach it at the steeper angle with 1-3 of them. If that doesn't work, you can turn off the building restrictions and use the freighter corridor stairs, if it doesn't mess with your aesthetic too much.

[barbrady123]

Thanks for the input. I actually have learned a lot since posting this, as I've done nothing but building a base the last few days. I think I've blended basic/prefab pretty well, at least as much as possible without save editing too heavily. In the end though, I'm still not totally happy with exterior stairs...makes no sense there is no pre-fab version (not including that silly access ramp that is 1. ugly, and 2. has some really restrictive angles).

Just letting the "interior stairs" that you can build inside the small pre-fab rooms snap to the outside of the rooms as well would be AMAZINGLY helpful, but alas, no luck. I don't know why there can't be an exterior version of the interior stairs and floors...or just allow those objects to function for both. That woud literally solve all of the indoor/outdoor coordination issues. I did manage to just build my outdoor platforms/ stairs first as a base...then start adding prefab rooms on top of the platforms, as centered as I possibly could (file editing helps a bit here to get it perfect)...then using access ramps (bleh) to make the holodoors accessable from the basic platforms...It'll do for now.

[credhc]

Pics needed to understand your issue, but first of all,

- You can stack portable stuff to raise the base computer pretty high before starting your base
- You can use scales instead of stairs to go up there