Base building - getting things to snap or resorting to a mod

[eamonn.fanton]

So fairly new to the game, but totally disappointed with the base building side of things.

I had a very clear idea off what I wanted to do, 3 buildings/rooms for storage and refining, science and growing stuff, and a section for personal space, portal save beacon etc. and then alongside them 3 landing pads at roof level with a hangar space below them for my exo craft.

I found using the cuboid rooms was useful in doing for building the 3 small buildings with connecting corridors between them easy enough once you got use to the snapping and snapping points but the hangar with the landing pads above is giving me serious trouble.

The main issue is that normal walls floors and roofs will not snap to the cuboid blocks.
Finally figured out by snapping a wall to the end of a corridor I could get some sort of connection that entailed build stuff that I later had to delete just to get other building components in the right place.

It would have been much easier to build the hanger with the cuboid blocks but I came against 2 issues, 1. you cant remove a wall from one side of a cuboid block and 2. I hit a building limit for number of blocks placed.

So I have built the hangar space using normal metal walls and floors, but come across yet more issues. Now I cant build a staircase with 90 degree turns that will connect to the entrance corridor and I need to build a ramp to get vehicles into the hangar but the wedge shapes do not appear to want to snap to anything. The ramp I know I can place free-form but getting it to line up is nigh on impossible (ramp is whole length off building and even paced a fraction out results in a huge gap between the ramp and hangar floor at one end.

seriously were the developers even thinking when they put this game together regarding base building. Surely it was obvious that all major parts should snap, that ramps should be able to turn at 90 degrees and yes even sloping corridors would have been an almost essential component to add . The rest of the game I am enjoying very much.

Have searched youtube etc for solutions, but it appears to do anything that would be normal in most games you have to use glitches or hacks to do what should be simple and to be honest after trying a few of these methods they still did not get me any success in what I was trying to achieve.

So unless I have missed something obvious please let me know,
Alternatively is there a mod that actually allows snap building or adds some simple features such gangways or stair cases that allow 90 degree turn?

[Liralen]

Yes, it's obvious that all the different types of building parts should snap.

But they don't for whatever reason.

So I generally build the core of my bases with the basic type of building components (foundations, walls, and ceilings, and even then, vaults will need ceilings placed at least two walls high).

I do have to use the biodome because I like to grow plants, but those are only placed after my core is built using the basic structures.

I've never built anything using cubes.

Also, before I started building anything, I played around with building in Creative mode, from which I learned these things. If they have since fixed cubes and biodome structures so that you can cleanly place vaults in them, I wouldn't know.

[eamonn.fanton]

I figured out how to place the storage vaults so they snap.
You place a cuboid block in front of where you want the vault to be and then snap the vault to the outside edge, and then place the remaining cuboid blocks around them. The vault effectively acts as if you were placing a cuboid block. If you have already placed your cuboid blocks then delete the cuboid block where you want the vault to be and the vault should snap in. Getting the snap point doing this is a bit hit and miss so I found it easier to delete the block that would be behind the vault as well before placing the vault.

You will have to build yourr vault room 2 cuboid blocks high as the vaults stick out the top a bit on a 1 block high room. I built my vault room 2 blocks high and then place an internal floor to split the levels. The top of the vaults will still slightly show through but the only saving grace is that they give you a snap point so in my case it was perfect as I used the top of the vaults as platforms for my refiners and it looks pretty good (well good in nms, probably no so good in any other game). As I intended to have the refiners in the same building as my vaults anyway this work out for me the janky nms snapping actually benefited me for a change

[SotiCoto]

I just wish everything snapped. Including things like generators, solar panels, batteries, the portal thingie, etc. Given how many damned solar panels and batteries I end up having to put down just to power anything, I'd like to be able to line them up neatly, rather than having haphazard "rows" of meandering machines all over the place.

[wkitty42]

Originally posted by SotiCoto:

I'd like to be able to line them up neatly, rather than having haphazard "rows" of meandering machines all over the place.

you can get them to line up a lot easier if you use the build camera and look straight down... then move only left and right... you can rotate and move left/right to get into position and rotate back to your desired orientation before placing the item... just be sure you are fully bottomed out (can't rotate down more) when looking straight down...

[eamonn.fanton]

I'm surprised hours after posting that no one has posted regarding a mod. Surely some modder has stepped in at this stage of the game for something that is so badly needed

What really annoys me more than anything is when you look at the space stations and trading posts all the building blocks we could ever wish for are already in the game just not released for players to use. I highly doubt the developers paid some one to painstakingly place every single staircase, ramp, or whatever in every single space station or trading post without giving them snap able blocks, or additional blocks to what players of the game have to use. The models are already there, all they have to do is add snap points (if that has not been done already) and release them to the players.

Its a crying shame that the best space game I have seen for years has the very worst construction. If one the devs is reading this please take note, and while your at it hang your head in shame.

So much effort has obviously been put into the gameplay, the ships, the space-staions and trading posts, its an absolute joy to play this game, its so immersive.

[Lailantie]

I hardly ever built with blocks, and when I did, I had a lot of difficulties with stairs and floors etc.

For the storage vaults (I don't know the word vault but I guess it's the containers) you can build a row of blocks and then add the vaults to the left and right. I usually colored them so they looked nice from the outside. You can also build a hall with basic construction pieces, a bit higher than one wall, and then place one vault on the floor (it won't snap but it's easy to align) and the other ones will snap to the first one.

For ramps I always use roofs, they easily snap to floors.

I am rather a bit annoyed at the difficulties with basic building pieces, especially placing the narrow stairs. Or that you have to tear down half of your building so you get the right angle with your camera to make a stair or a little floor snap.

Once I wanted to make a balcony on my lighthouse and didn't get the small triangles to snap. I was so angry that I wrote a bug report on zendesk and added a lot of pictures. And the devs actually fixed it in one of the next updates, so that was quite nice. I made another bug report that you can't build around your ship anymore, even if it's quite far away. So you always have to place your ship far from your base if you want to build anything around the landing pad. They haven't fixed that one yet.

Eventually I made peace with the complicated building system and see it as a challenge, and it also helps to lower expectations about things having to be perfect. But that's just my take, of course.

*Edit: forgot something. At the Anomaly multitool guy you can unlock a visor which will let you find hotspots. Build your base next to an electricity hotspot and you don't need to place any solar panels and batteries.

[amosdway]

You can snap the bulkhead doors and holodoors for the prefabs into the arches of the wood stone and metal building materials, use that as your anchor point to build from

[Krash Megiddo]

Originally posted by eamonn.fanton:

So unless I have missed something obvious please let me know,
Alternatively is there a mod that actually allows snap building or adds some simple features such gangways or stair cases that allow 90 degree turn?

90deg stair cases are easy, so I'm probably not understanding your issue with that.
Stair case+floor tile+stair case. 90 deg or even 180 deg turns.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2818969575

[SotiCoto]

Originally posted by wkitty42:

Originally posted by SotiCoto:

I'd like to be able to line them up neatly, rather than having haphazard "rows" of meandering machines all over the place.

you can get them to line up a lot easier if you use the build camera and look straight down... then move only left and right... you can rotate and move left/right to get into position and rotate back to your desired orientation before placing the item... just be sure you are fully bottomed out (can't rotate down more) when looking straight down...

Build Camera? I've never heard of such a thing... Clearly I'll have to fiddle around with the controls more.

Speaking of which, this is just with the controller. When I play in VR, half the normal options are missing, including recolouring.

[wkitty42]

when using a controller, click down on the left stick (IIRC) and then you can move around without moving your character... that's the build camera mode...

i especially use the build camera when i'm building during storms and my toon is hiding in a cubical room for safety... i definitely use the build camera when stacking extractors and storage silos on top of each other... the trick, here, is to be sure you have all the mats needed before stacking so you can stack 4 or 5 in one go without moving...

[NZ.Zero]

press B to go into build view mode, MUCH easier to snap then.
[edit: ninjad by wkitty42!]

[BigGrayGolem]

Originally posted by eamonn.fanton:

I highly doubt the developers paid some one to painstakingly place every single staircase, ramp, or whatever in every single space station or trading post without giving them snap able blocks, or additional blocks to what players of the game have to use. The models are already there, all they have to do is add snap points (if that has not been done already) and release them to the players.

Adding snap points to every asset is time consuming, too. They are probably building these in Blender or something like that, not via a game-like interface.

[eamonn.fanton]

Originally posted by Krash Megiddo:

90deg stair cases are easy, so I'm probably not understanding your issue with that.
Stair case+floor tile+stair case. 90 deg or even 180 deg turns.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2818969575

doesnt work with access ramps. Also if you use half wide stairs you cant put them against the wall, If you place the wall the stair wont snap, and vice versa.
The alternative is to use the full width stairs which I guess is what you are suggesting , which look awful, and end up building rooms twice the size you intend simply to accommodate stairs

[Khalunka]

Kinda on topic but also not on topic. A quick question.

I am aware terrain can get back into shape, that's why I never build ground level. BUT, I just dont know at which point that happens. Is when you leave system? Reach build limit? when terrain get back to normal? Let's say for example, a small area you made flat.

[lordoftheapes79]

You gotta remember this game is built from scratch. No Unreal Engine or anything like that. Every piece goes strait from code to console. As such, it has quirks that the devs need to work around that aren't common in most games.

The pieces seem to have slightly oversized hitboxes and overlapping parts can also be particularly problematic, stairs tend to suffer from this regularly. The new freighter stair parts seem to be the best so far. Then there's what those imperfections add to the base complexity and the sheer number of snap points that can be in a small area.

Yeah, it's a flawed system, but it's made steady improvements over the years. It's definitely not been neglected and you can be assured that there's a technical issue in this case that they just haven't found a better way to code yet. If you compare it to FO76's CAMP system, probably the closest match out there, it's pretty similar with different quirks, but you also see similar problems. Bethesda has actually answered some of these questions, or at least, the systems are similar enough that it's probably the same problem.