Pillar and foundation support, not working properly. With screenshots.

[Thane]

Ive had a thread about this before, but Ive got some screenshots this time to show what i mean.
Bascially the problem is building on uneven terrain (in the ocean on my part), and the pillars will not be acknowledged as foundations suitable for further building.

Here is the screenshots ive taken showing some of it:

1:Shows the ceiling tile not buildable, and Error message. http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/687145533365438417/8F9669FE8890CD72C2DF707D2B21E8243A0ADEE4/

2: Shows the pillars reaching as far down as possible into the ground, also a pic of me in ghost mode showing its not possible to place another under it below the map.
http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/687145533365439113/9AE16F3BB98F21368885DE5D6B7C7DDFBE5C899A/
http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/687145533365439631/48AE063CF79A52B020BAAC8CCF81C59748F6A1A8/

This is making it a real pain to build anywhere but a flat area, unless you feel like changing your plan all the time.
"I wanna build a square house here--> Guess i want a foundation here with a hole there and another foundation here".

Also, if you find a flat area and place down a pillar, then you can place more pillars nearby that will snap into a grid next to it, this way ceilings can be place upon and fit nicely together.
However if there is a diff in height (as in my screens) this barely ever works. So we have to keep placing ceilings on the allready existing pillars and using those to place the next.
Major pain in the ass, and very likely to still cause a height difference up top.

Hope a dev reads this and if you do, could you please leave a post in here that its been seen? Its impossible to get anything through in the forums as everything gets pushed back so fast.

-Frost

[Corpratespaz]

It's working properly, you're just not providing your bridge with enough support. My bridgework (within a week of game release) led me to building a double-wide bridge across the East-West river in the center of the map (at the base of the 'T' formation of ravines) just west of where the river meets up with the other major river in the area.

Through experimentation, I'm pretty sure pillars have a different 'support value' than foundation. Foundation has more. This dictates how high you can build and how much of a cantilever (overhang) you can support. I'm pretty sure it's based on the Pythagorean theorem with a fixed hypotenuse because the higher you build a bridge pier, the amount of cantilever off the top it can support decreases.

Solution: Place foundations at the bottoms of your pillars, or atleast at most of them. The pillar must be snapped to the foundation for the bonus to count however. This can be somewhat difficult, depending on the seafloor/riverbed, especially to square up the foundation and have everything snap. Typically, you can snap the edge of a foundation to the PREVIOUS pillar, and then you'll be able to build on a foundation that is squared up with your bridge. If you're trying to skip pillars to save resources, I would snap one foundation to the edge of the pillar, snap a second foundation to the first, then build up your pillars on the latter. You'll find the added foundations will allow you to continue building your bridge. You may find that constructing a double-wide bridge is actually easier, since you have two chances to be able to place a foundation and will still have enough support to build your bridge if the surface isn't being cooperative for the placement of some of the foundations.

I'll try to remember to come back and post screenshots of my bridges when I get on later.

[Thane]

Thank you, and im aware foundations can help fix it.
However im not able to snap them here at all, guessing its the special angle on the seafloor?
Its only 3 pillars though, should be no problem as support. Try building on a flat area. Set up 10 pillars high, then it can hold 4 ceilings in between 2 pillars. So it is becouse of the angle and such

[Thane]

After fooling around a bit, with foundations (finally got the height i needed by carefully placing a pillar a little lower into the one under it. (This is also a little annoying btw, as you can end up with uneven heights on even flat terrain. If u place a pillar, you can place the next one at 2 different, although very close, places into the first one.)

Then i manahed to get a green placement at the correct height, but it will still not place it.

http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/687145533365568456/2F16A56E80A2A5B7A9BC2A2666A4AA4E08CE2EF7/

When i click, trying to place it makes the sound of placement, but nothing is placed.

[Corpratespaz]

Check that it's not doing that glitchy thing where the structure places somewhere nearby but not where it's supposed to. You may actually be placing the ceiling somewhere, just not there so look around for random ceilings under the water. If that's the case you'll need to come at it from a different angle.Otherwise, there is a bug or make sure you're at v180.1.

[Tirthak]

^That doesn't really help much. The point of using pillars is to build on uneven ground (if it was flat, you could've gone for foundations + walls right away).

The problem is - the pillar is not registered as supporting/snapped to ground if it's too deep - so if your one pillar ends just above ground, you're SOL (you can place another under it to connect to ground, but it won't count)
And you can't really work around that, when it is like that, you just cannot use that spot as pillar.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=469139806 Check the aviary for reference.
The point is to extend building above the slope - you cannot do that with foundations, since they sadly have to snap side-by-side on level. Pillars, if they worked as intended (the fact that at certain elevations you cannot use pillars as support is obvious bug), would be the solution here. You just place them from top-to-bottom, until you connect your overhang to floor. Then you build another overhang, and connect it to floor again (this way you have to have the pillar needlessly close, but you don't risk the failed height when snapping them into grid on the bottom).
If the tile is X.0-X.7m above ground, you're fine, the pillar will add support and you can continue.
If the tile is X.7-X.99m above ground, you're SOL - you cannot use pillar on this spot (you can have it there, but it'll be just cosmetic)

So, if you build the pillar from bottom-up, you run a VERY real risk of having uneven ceiling up there.
If you build the pillars from top-down, you have to place them close and you run a slight risk that the spot won't be eligible for pillar, based on height difference (and this can mess you up heavily, if all nearby spots are ineligible as well)

There are many ways the pain of this can be alleviated:
1) Fix the pillars so they snap to ground no-matter how deep they end up
2) Give us a "framework" tile - costs 2 wood, is just a visual "frame", that can be placed as ceiling, can overhang 5 instead of 2 - so we can extend the grid at any level, to get the correct snap point of pillar at maximum distance
3) Make the pillar-snap also check for height (and jump by 1 floor if needed), there is next to no use in having the pillar snapped to grid horizontally when vertically it's a bit (or a lot) off.
4) Let us hold any modifier button to to tell the game "this is the grid i want it snapped to, but a little bit further" - so if you want a foundation/pillar 2-4 tiles away snapped to the same grid, you don't need to get there with thatch structs that will get destroyed, but you can just walk there and be safe you're still in grid, even 5 spaces away.

[Thane]

Everything is updated to the latest patch.

Yea, Tirthak explains it perfectly! And it really is a terrible bug, gathering 10.000 wood to start building this, and ive allready had to demolish over half of it multiple times to get things right. Im simply bleeding away all my resources.
Im still in the shallows aswell, i gotta cross a very deep ditch to get the bridge to where i want it. (Check screenshot in this post).
As Tirthak mentions, there are workarounds that work MOST of the time, by building around the area until you can place what you need where you need it. Again though, costly (and risky, im getting torn up my megas all the time. And when i die, they continue to attack the supports.)
These workarounds dont always work either, sometimes you just hit a spot where it wont let you snap anything into position, it wants you to place it freely, which is impossible to have match when you get to the point of the ceilings above water.

http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/687145533365655893/1161698D422CF6E9B172017FD942C62A5A46B136/

Really hope a dev can see this and tell us if we just arent supposed to build near water or if this is a bug we can hope to see fixed.

[Thane]

How can we bring this to the devs attention? Its blasted back to thread oblivion within seconds of a post. This is really killing the game for alot of us, first becouse of the insane resource waste this is causing. secondly becouse it kinda forces us to build in designated flat areas to avoid this. I build large buildings with floors, pillars bridges etc. But i keep having to resort to living in a square box, with a square (not white) picket fence.

[Thane]

If a dev does see this, is it possible to get a workaround before its eventually fixed? Like the ability to place foundations on pillars. This would help a bit, though still not if we cant snap the pillar or anything into the correct position anyways.

[Rafiki2085]

Originally posted by Tirthak:

^4) Let us hold any modifier button to to tell the game "this is the grid i want it snapped to, but a little bit further" - so if you want a foundation/pillar 2-4 tiles away snapped to the same grid, you don't need to get there with thatch structures that will get destroyed, but you can just walk there and be safe you're still in grid, even 5 spaces away.

That is what I hope the Dev's do, the ghost image / item that real objects could snap to, so you could build ghost ceiling way out, and then snap the pillars to them for real and then build the ceilings would also be a good way to handle it, but I like the idea of placing a foundation or pillar and then saying I want items placed to snap to match the grid created from THIS object, so all placed foundations and pillars know they will line up when connected.

It seems like the most user friendly options.

[Corpratespaz]

One workaround is having this knowledge^, do your civil engineering work and survey the land first to maximize (note: not guarantee) your chances of success. I often run around with a foundation out to see where it's green now. In you screen shot there looks like a potentially better crossing off to the right. I'm pretty sure I know where on the map you are (south beach, eastish near that little private island?) and that's fairly open water. I'd recommend taming a megaladon to help defend you a bit.

In the meantime until they make a fix, you should probably just try to work on connecting the other islands in the chain... Or abandon the project for now and get a flier and just leave a dino pen on the beach for everything else...

Yes, it definitely sucks though: planning a structure, starting to construct, getting halfway done and something's OBSTRUCTED and won't place then you either have to tear it all apart or abandon your brilliant plan... I've gotten in the habit of laying only foundations for buildings until I know my floorplan will fit in the desired area before building up. Unfortunately foundations are the most resource intensive, so I still waste a ton.

I know this post is only mildly helpful, but it was half-written with the intention to be a 'bump'

[Silent-XX]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8-k8Islhz0

[Thane]

Heres another annoying thing thats happening sometimes, when working on a workaround for this by placing pillars and ceilings around the area to get into the snap point you want.

Heres what happens : I have a pillar supporting some ceiling tiles, 2 tiles out. Then i build down from that one to get to the bottom. However at some point if i misplace it INSIDE the last placed one (which normally only breaks the one you are trying to place and refunds some mats) now the whole pillar comes crashing down.

The pillars was in this case placed at the edge of the roof tile

[colonel_eviscerator]

Originally posted by Frost:

Heres another annoying thing thats happening sometimes, when working on a workaround for this by placing pillars and ceilings around the area to get into the snap point you want.

Heres what happens : I have a pillar supporting some ceiling tiles, 2 tiles out. Then i build down from that one to get to the bottom. However at some point if i misplace it INSIDE the last placed one (which normally only breaks the one you are trying to place and refunds some mats) now the whole pillar comes crashing down.

Oi, that's gonna make upgrading from wood to stone or metal a pain in the butt.

[Thane]

Well my plan for upgrading is to simply build all the floor tiles (metal) next to my current ones, then build the pillars down, should be very easy.

[Thane]

If i could somehow show this to a dev,im sure they would very quickly go "Ugh, yea this has got to be fixed. Im geting annoyed even watching you try to build that!"