Confused by construction

[Jon.Topps]

I've played Ark quite a bit now, and I've gotten pretty used to the building mechanics (which are horrendous...). I've just now clued into the idea of building a base first in thatch, then replacing the pieces with metal, so that if you make a mistake, it's no huge loss.
Anyways, I made a huge ground network of pillars, so that the whole base of the building is supported (it's quite large). Some pillars touch the floor, but most are just touching the ground (which works in Ark for some reason). I got the whole area covered in thatch ceiling, to create the bottom floor of the building. The whole thing worked, no problems. I then built up some walls in places, to get the basic idea of what I wanted down.
Then I try to replace them with metal, and everything starts collapsing. It's now telling me that I don't have foundation support, when there's a pillar on the ground right beneath it! (Albeit the pillar isn't touching, but that actually makes building easy other times).

I'm just super confused why this isn't working. This sort of pillar mechanic has always worked for me when I was just building, and not doing the build/replace method. In fact, it makes things easier beacuse of how stupid Ark is with how it's foundations to ceilings work, and how it's pillars have two snap spots on the top of them (which is just the dumbest thing ever).

Anyone able to tell me what I did wrong here so I can fix it?

NOTE: Can wood pillars not support metal ceilings?

[eagle_1980]

Pillars can support 2 foundation/ceiling distance, so you can have pillars spaced out 5 foundation/ceilings apart. With that being said, get a starting corner setup, then start working the pillars from ceiling down, this way it will be connected from the ceiling for sure and the bottom part of the pillar will stick through the ground so there would be no doubt that the pillar is connected between the ceiling and the ground. When replacing wood with stone or better, start with the pillars first, from the ceiling, work your way down. It should be fine that way.

Any structures that is being supported by foundation, pillars or fence foundations should always have this replaced first, it's harder to get to these and will make it less costly of mistake if you had everything else upgraded then replace the foundations only to have it collapse. Furthermore, these foundations if wood or stone can be destroyed by dinos or other players which will in effect destroy the rest of the nearby structures.

Thats why foundations, pillars or fence foundations should be upgraded first. It saves time and avoids costly replacements.

[margalus]

Sometime a pillar will look like it's touching the ground, but it's really not. You need to attach another to the bottom and drag it so it goes into the ground.

[Jon.Topps]

I start with pillars at the lowest elevation, and then snap them to each other, so they're all for sure snapped into the structure, and for sure snapped to the ground. I find working from the top to the bottom causes problems, like them not snapping to the ground, and also the double snap spot for the top of the pillar being a problem when placing the ceilings.
I know for a fact my pillars work, because I had a full layer of ceilings covering the entire area. It wasn't until I started replacing pieces that foundational support was gone, which is bizzarre.

[margalus]

If you are starting at the ground and working up then they are not all snapping into the ceilings. They have fixed snap point at that spot. You need to snap to the ceiling first and work down, then there is no trouble.

[eagle_1980]

Also, with vanilla pillars, they have that annoying way of sticking through the ceilings. There is a way to get rid of that annoying visual of pillars sticking through. Start the pillars from the ceiling, work down to the bottom so you have that solid connection. Once you have it, take the ceiling off and put it back down and it will go directly ontop of the pillar without it sticking through.

That's if you're playing on official, if you're playing unofficial or single player, get the mod "Structure Plus (S+)" and it solves a lot of the snap issues. Though this issue may not be around for that much longer as there's a strong possibility that WC will buy the S+ mod and incorporate it into the core game replacing the vanilla stuff.

[Jon.Topps]

Thanks all, I'll try out some of this.

This system is so messed up though. I have an entire field of pillars on the ground. I just destroyed a pillar which wasn't even connected to a ceiling, and like a dozen tiles away I saw ceilings fall... No way that pillar was supporting those ceilings, lol.

[margalus]

Originally posted by Jon.Topps:

Thanks all, I'll try out some of this.

This system is so messed up though. I have an entire field of pillars on the ground. I just destroyed a pillar which wasn't even connected to a ceiling, and like a dozen tiles away I saw ceilings fall... No way that pillar was supporting those ceilings, lol.

That pillar just being there was being recognized as support for nearby tiles even though it wasn't connected.

[itsDic]

Originally posted by margalus:

Sometime a pillar will look like it's touching the ground, but it's really not. You need to attach another to the bottom and drag it so it goes into the ground.

Also, if you play singleplay/host your own server/run a non-dedicated session, I'd recommend disabling structure collision in the game/server options (might be under Advanced) so that you can clip structures into the ground. This ensures that you have pillars and foundations touching the ground.

[Hammer Of Evil]

Originally posted by Jon.Topps:

<clipped the post, its still there though, honest>

so when you make a pillar, it supports the structures in an area around it.

any structures touching the pillar are bound entirely to the pillar, despite having more pillars nearby, despite their 'areas' overlapping..

so when you 'replace' a pillar, the game actually 'destroys' the old pillar, its area is 'removed' and anything in the area falls down, despite having overlapping areas. And once that old 'area' is removed, it seems the game engine chokes for a while as it reassigns the area to another pillar, or perhaps glitches out completely and you can never re-build in that area again. (404: no foundation support found, despite 50 nearby foundation supports.) Yup. #arklife

That being said, your pillar can support anything above it in that set radius. so can foundations for that matter. I have not hit a weight limit with a pillar or foundation (of any material) where the building just randomly collapses, so go nuts.

building is not intuitive in this game, if you build more than one floor, the bottom can be foundations, but higher floors need to be ceilings =p.

Some fun videos I've watched to help me build more than a single floor uneven and misshapen hovel:

Uneven ground

Interesting stairs

[itsDic]

I'd highly recommend the Structures and Platforms (S+) mods, allows you to pick up structures and replace them without having to waste half the resources in destroying them. (e.g.. if you're upgrading your pillar, you can just place another pillar right next to it and switch out your pillar you're changing)