What does View Variants do?

[Crankthulhu]

There's a new key for building parts that lets you apparently view different versions of pieces but I haven't been able to get it working. Anyone have luck with it?

[Krash Megiddo]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1gRqEnuSg4

[Johnny in the Clouds]

I haven't fiddled with the recent change yet but basically when for example you place a wall part and then place another wall part on top of it, the new part would automatically switch to an appropriate part to match the style of an adjacent part. It's easier to see in practice. Sometimes the auto change might change the part beneath, perhaps because of a roof part above the last wall part. If you decide you don't like the part placed just use free placement to override the auto thing and place the part.

I think the Endurance update now gives you a toggle to continue using the auto build thing or not but in both cases snapping parts would not need to be overridden with free placement. When you use free placement to build snapping is temporarily turned off. The point is with Endurance update you have a choice now to enable the contextual building or not. I like the contextual building generally (not only because it can sometimes be quicker to build an interesting small building without having to keep selecting parts manually) and only in very specific moments might choose to not go with it. It's all fun. : )

[Andromalius]

Yeah the key does not work for me either.

[StormFX]

The "variants" key is used to expand a sub-menu for relevant parts when in the build menu. Eg, if you're building a wall that has multiple variants (they'll have an icon in the top left corner that looks like a pause icon or the Roman Numeral Two). Click X (PC) while mousing over the part and it will expand and show the variants that you can select directly instead of the game deciding the next part.

[Andromalius]

Originally posted by StormFX:

The "variants" key is used to expand a sub-menu for relevant parts when in the build menu. Eg, if you're building a wall that has multiple variants (they'll have an icon in the top left corner that looks like a pause icon or the Roman Numeral Two). Click X (PC) while mousing over the part and it will expand and show the variants that you can select directly instead of the game deciding the next part.

That's my problem then, I don't have the numbers in the top left of parts that should have variants like certain walls and the freighter corridor. I have the button prompt though.

[Crankthulhu]

I *think* it's coming in the next update, something about it on the experimental branch?

[Comradovich]

Hmm... on experimental it just works for me. Not sure if it's already been fixed or I just lucked out and didn't trigger whatever causes the issue. If it's the first one, then just gotta wait a bit for the update.