How to flatten a area for your base?

[Ephemeral]

Is it possible to get those plots of land from the old updates that were already smoothed out for you? I'm a little irritated by the constant terrain poking through the floor and then regrowing back after I get rid of it.

[Chompman]

You need to build a bit above ground to prevent that when your terrain editing hits the limits as you can find some flattish areas but it's better to be safe then sorry.

[Rexxer]

Building materials used to be able to flatten the terrain automatically as you placed them....in NEXT. Not so any more in Beyond. Terrain will ALWAYS rebound, so it is pointless to flatten the terrain as it will mess up your base the moment you leave and reenter the system. You must build well above the terrain (and rocks and trees) so it doesn't invade and make your base unworkable. Any tree you fell, or rock you vaporize, will grow back. Make sure none are naturally intersecting your base unless you want it there. I position my base so that I have some well positioned "houseplants". But you must adjust to the terrain, not the other way around.

[Azure Fang]

Originally posted by Rexxer:

Building materials used to be able to flatten the terrain automatically as you placed them....in NEXT. Not so any more in Beyond. Terrain will ALWAYS rebound, so it is pointless to flatten the terrain as it will mess up your base the moment you leave and reenter the system. You must build well above the terrain (and rocks and trees) so it doesn't invade and make your base unworkable. Any tree you fell, or rock you vaporize, will grow back. Make sure none are naturally intersecting your base unless you want it there. I position my base so that I have some well positioned "houseplants". But you must adjust to the terrain, not the other way around.

Not quite accurate. Building objects will still flatten ground, though this flattening will still refill as you overrun your save-wide edit limit; this has been the case even as far back as the day the Terrain Manipulator was implemented and has never changed.

[japp_02]

Yep OP, that's the big feature I'm missing in NMS when it comes to base-building. In the first game versions this was not a problem and base-building was even fun. Now you can build everywhere but the results are questionable because the lack of this feature. THERE IS NO FLATTENING TOOL.
Go in the suggestions, and make the case for the return of an Habitable Base building in flat grounds.

Meanwhile you can - as a workaround and not a solution - use foundations around your buildings to flatten the entry and make doors snap with ground level, then build from there.

[Rexxer]

Originally posted by Azure Fang:

Not quite accurate. Building objects will still flatten ground, though this flattening will still refill as you overrun your save-wide edit limit; this has been the case even as far back as the day the Terrain Manipulator was implemented and has never changed.

You are wrong. I am completely right. I just placed a variety of building types down in the terrain, as you can see below:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1870569517
None flatten the terrain. The terrain goes right through them and when they are deleted, the terrain is exactly as it was. Objects DO NOT flatten terrain any more as of a recent sub-update from a week or two ago. When Beyond first dropped, they still did, but there have been many updates since then.

I also just deleted about 15 bases from last year, so I should be below whatever the game save wide edit limit is, or was 2 weeks ago when I still saw material flattening. Regardless, if in fact the "save-wide edit limit" is determinant....it must then be easily passed by anyone building a base or two, so for all practical purposes is irrelevant.

[perpetualprose]

On PC use the NMS Save Editor to reset the terrain edits then use base parts to flatten the ground.

[japp_02]

HG was too in a hurry to change the base-building mechanics. They should re-include the 'Habitable Base' with big flat terrains. And meanwhile they can continue to work for better building features in the wild on non-flat terrains.

Base building is a big mess currently compared to Atlas Rises. The screenshot above is evidence enough.

[japp_02]

@Rexxer,
Send your screenshot to Hello Games, they need to see their mess.

[Rexxer]

Originally posted by japp_02:

@Rexxer,
Send your screenshot to Hello Games, they need to see their mess.

I've posted a ton on the bug thread already, this is just a minor issue. Actually since I still have a preBeyond game save on file as well as NEXT on another hard drive, I will reproduce this same screenshot as it would have been 1 month ago in NEXT. Remember back then, I would have had 15 more bases, so presumably would have been closer to, or even above, the game wide edit limit....although it may be a wash since in addition to deleting many bases, I also upgraded others to include power and industrial mining, and I don't fully know yet how they are weighting the new build objects in that limit. In one case it seemed like just one stray wire fragment put me over the local construction limit, so who knows.

[Looniper]

Originally posted by Rexxer:

Originally posted by Azure Fang:

Not quite accurate. Building objects will still flatten ground, though this flattening will still refill as you overrun your save-wide edit limit; this has been the case even as far back as the day the Terrain Manipulator was implemented and has never changed.

You are wrong. I am completely right. I just placed a variety of building types down in the terrain, as you can see below:
...
Objects DO NOT flatten terrain any more as of a recent sub-update from a week or two ago.

How long did you wait?

Placing uses up a space immediately, but removing them doesn't get counted (in some cases) until the area/object(s) respawn which can be up to 24 hours for some things.

There is/was also a bug where various counts never got removed, leaving players eventually with nothing else placed where terrain didn't care about building... but I Hope they would have fixed that by now.

The NMSEdit tool lets you reset them, but I don't know how that impacts areas you've already cleared with buildings.

[japp_02]

Originally posted by Rexxer:

I've posted a ton on the bug thread already, this is just a minor issue. (...)

No, not a minor issue , a big issue. Once a player experience that he is done with base-building (and maybe with NMS altogether).

[VulcanTourist]

Originally posted by Rexxer:

Originally posted by Azure Fang:

Not quite accurate. Building objects will still flatten ground, though this flattening will still refill as you overrun your save-wide edit limit; this has been the case even as far back as the day the Terrain Manipulator was implemented and has never changed.

You are wrong. I am completely right. I just placed a variety of building types down in the terrain, as you can see below:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1870569517
None flatten the terrain. The terrain goes right through them and when they are deleted, the terrain is exactly as it was. Objects DO NOT flatten terrain any more as of a recent sub-update from a week or two ago. When Beyond first dropped, they still did, but there have been many updates since then.

I also just deleted about 15 bases from last year, so I should be below whatever the game save wide edit limit is, or was 2 weeks ago when I still saw material flattening. Regardless, if in fact the "save-wide edit limit" is determinant....it must then be easily passed by anyone building a base or two, so for all practical purposes is irrelevant.

Nope, Cuboid rooms still flatten terrain, at least in the short term. I was doing it successfully a few days ago, though I'm sure I will live to regret it. I optimistically assumed that placing foundation blocks underneath everything afterward would act as a "fence" to prevent the reappearance of the removed terrain.

[Rexxer]

Originally posted by looniper:

Originally posted by Rexxer:

You are wrong. I am completely right. I just placed a variety of building types down in the terrain, as you can see below:
...
Objects DO NOT flatten terrain any more as of a recent sub-update from a week or two ago.

How long did you wait?

Placing uses up a space immediately, but removing them doesn't get counted (in some cases) until the area/object(s) respawn which can be up to 24 hours for some things.

There is/was also a bug where various counts never got removed, leaving players eventually with nothing else placed where terrain didn't care about building... but I Hope they would have fixed that by now.

The NMSEdit tool lets you reset them, but I don't know how that impacts areas you've already cleared with buildings.

It's been awhile. I deleted the bases over last 3 weeks as I knew I needed to make room for all the new power and industry objects. In the past, I never dug out terrain also, always had bases above ground, so there should not be many terrain edits to begin with. Actually I had more terrain edits the last 2 weeks than the last 2 years due to putting supply depots under bases. That still should be way less than the max edits since I only did that fully for 2 bases.

All bases, power, and industry is above ground. Only supply depots have been buried at 2 bases. I still have about 9 bases I haven't visited in over a year, and will probably delete those as well, but the older bases were very small...just basic materials with a portal and trade terminal.

[Rexxer]

Originally posted by VulcanTourist:

Nope, Cuboid rooms still flatten terrain, at least in the short term. I was doing it successfully a few days ago, though I'm sure I will live to regret it. I optimistically assumed that placing foundation blocks underneath everything afterward would act as a "fence" to prevent the reappearance of the removed terrain.

If cuboids still flatten terrain, it is an anomaly, and you will "live to regret it". When Beyond first dropped and other things still flattened terrain, I did in fact use some cuboids to update one base, flattening the terrain underneath along with some basic floor panels. The base was 95% off the terrain though, and the cuboids were just a ground floor with a door. The next time I visited the system, the terrain had fully engulfed them, I couldn't get through the door without the terrain manipulator, so I rebuild the entire base as elevated only.

[Rexxer]

Originally posted by VulcanTourist:

Nope, Cuboid rooms still flatten terrain, at least in the short term. I was doing it successfully a few days ago, though I'm sure I will live to regret it. I optimistically assumed that placing foundation blocks underneath everything afterward would act as a "fence" to prevent the reappearance of the removed terrain.

...And I just placed cuboids in the same area and took a screenshot. No flattening.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1870622258