Base Building is a MESS

[programmed.messiah]

Am I stupid or something, or does Base Building (the main feature in this game) is REALLY janky.

1. Why can't I put my fridge/crate/whatever directly up against a wall? Why can't I place lights on my walls?

2. Despite having a fridge, 2 solar panels, and a Battery (Tall thing with blue lights) does my food still spoil? And yes, I pressed "Y" to turn my base on.

3. Why are there no "roof" tiles? Am I suppose to take the "thin wall" tile and rotate it to make a janky roof tile?

Sorry, I know there's a Beginners Building Guide, but in reality, I shouldn't have to read 3 different guides on how to use a core feature of the game.

[Midas]

1: the game is block-based. Everything fits within that block grid. It doesn't matter how thin or thick your wall is, it will occupy 1 block, and anything adjacent to it will occupy the next block. How natural or unnatural it looks is up to you.

2: Probably not enough panels. Solar power is an economical alternative, but rarely the optimal solution, so powering a base on solar alone usually means you want more than 2 panels. I'd recommend 4 minimum, assuming that you also are placing them ideally to get as much sun as possible.

3: There are no anything tiles. If you want to make a roof you can combine any number of blocks, textures, and colors to make a roof that fits whatever aesthetic you wish. There is no difference between a roof, a wall, or a floor with regards to blocks. Just the shpaes and how you want to use them. That said, solor panels are often airtight, and make good roofs.

Base building in empyrion is not as simple as many other games, and if you don't think you should have to read guides to learn how to play, early access games might not be for you.

[mathaniel]

Methinks you need to rotate blocks like freezer, armor locker, etc. Rotate therm around wall (home key) but you can`t place anything directly in front of something on a wall. Same as a window in growing room, always one block between the window and the planter. You can turn the invisible part out thouh to very outside of a wall.

[seven]

1. The first thing to learn in building is that all blocks take up the whole block space. So, a "thin wall" still occupies the full block space. You can walk in the empty part, but you can't place anything there.

2. Solar power is buggy, and 2 solar panels is probably not enough. I don't remember if fridges are ON by default when placed but you might check that. It's probably just not getting enough power consistently though.

[Cassian]

Everything takes up the space of 1 full block.

If you press "P" you can find out how much power your solar panels are producing and how much is in your, you most likely ran out of power. Things in the fridge do not spoil, if it is powered.

There is hundreds of shapes make your own roof.

Why go straight to "Base Building is a Mess", why can't you act like an adult and ask for some help?

[jamesc70]

Originally posted by seven:

1. The first thing to learn in building is that all blocks take up the whole block space. So, a "thin wall" still occupies the full block space. You can walk in the empty part, but you can't place anything there.

That basically proves the OP's point.

Took me a while to figure out why I couldn't place things on walls, and then when I found out the reason, it basically takes away a huge amount of creative building opportunities. Now when I build, all walls/floors/roofs HAVE to be the big large blocks, in order to place things against walls or on them.

You can't place blocks below you by looking at the edge of the block you are on or at the ground where you want it, you have to jump off and look at the 'face' you want to connect to. You can't place blocks above you the same way; have to get up on top of something to look at the face.

I'd use the words 'janky' or 'clumsy' rather than messy to describe the building though. Actually I'd use those two words to describe every aspect of this game. Calm down fanboys, I'm still playing, just realizing how things work is not often intuitive or makes sense.

[EMCM Magellan]

Originally posted by jamesc70:

Originally posted by seven:

1. The first thing to learn in building is that all blocks take up the whole block space. So, a "thin wall" still occupies the full block space. You can walk in the empty part, but you can't place anything there.

That basically proves the OP's point.

Took me a while to figure out why I couldn't place things on walls, and then when I found out the reason, it basically takes away a huge amount of creative building opportunities. Now when I build, all walls/floors/roofs HAVE to be the big large blocks, in order to place things against walls or on them.

You can't place blocks below you by looking at the edge of the block you are on or at the ground where you want it, you have to jump off and look at the 'face' you want to connect to. You can't place blocks above you the same way; have to get up on top of something to look at the face.

I'd use the words 'janky' or 'clumsy' rather than messy to describe the building though. Actually I'd use those two words to describe every aspect of this game. Calm down fanboys, I'm still playing, just realizing how things work is not often intuitive or makes sense.

'calm down', snort. Not OUR fault you fail to be able to visualize what you want and then assemble it. If you have a better way then by all means put it in your game and let us have a look at it.

[Midas]

Originally posted by jamesc70:

Originally posted by seven:

1. The first thing to learn in building is that all blocks take up the whole block space. So, a "thin wall" still occupies the full block space. You can walk in the empty part, but you can't place anything there.

That basically proves the OP's point.

Took me a while to figure out why I couldn't place things on walls, and then when I found out the reason, it basically takes away a huge amount of creative building opportunities. Now when I build, all walls/floors/roofs HAVE to be the big large blocks, in order to place things against walls or on them.

You can't place blocks below you by looking at the edge of the block you are on or at the ground where you want it, you have to jump off and look at the 'face' you want to connect to. You can't place blocks above you the same way; have to get up on top of something to look at the face.

I'd use the words 'janky' or 'clumsy' rather than messy to describe the building though. Actually I'd use those two words to describe every aspect of this game. Calm down fanboys, I'm still playing, just realizing how things work is not often intuitive or makes sense.

Because of the way blocks connect, it would be way worse if the game was 'predicting' where you want the block based on your own orientation/position. That might work well enough for building a basic square house on a planet, but it would be awful for ship design in space.

Also, you have a drone (F5) that can maneuver however you need to for block placement.

[programmed.messiah]

Originally posted by jamesc70:

Originally posted by seven:

1. The first thing to learn in building is that all blocks take up the whole block space. So, a "thin wall" still occupies the full block space. You can walk in the empty part, but you can't place anything there.

That basically proves the OP's point.

Took me a while to figure out why I couldn't place things on walls, and then when I found out the reason, it basically takes away a huge amount of creative building opportunities. Now when I build, all walls/floors/roofs HAVE to be the big large blocks, in order to place things against walls or on them.

You can't place blocks below you by looking at the edge of the block you are on or at the ground where you want it, you have to jump off and look at the 'face' you want to connect to. You can't place blocks above you the same way; have to get up on top of something to look at the face.

I'd use the words 'janky' or 'clumsy' rather than messy to describe the building though. Actually I'd use those two words to describe every aspect of this game. Calm down fanboys, I'm still playing, just realizing how things work is not often intuitive or makes sense.

Thank you. Again, to echo this, I'm not saying it's a bad game, but it's by no means intuitive.I hope in the future that the base building system is tweaked to be a little more user friendly. Again, NOT A BAD GAME, but jank as ♥♥♥♥ right now.

[HurtfulPlayer97]

It is unfortunate that they call those thin blocks "walls". It leads to all sorts of confusion for new players.

[russak]

Originally posted by jamesc70:

You can't place blocks below you by looking at the edge of the block you are on or at the ground where you want it, you have to jump off and look at the 'face' you want to connect to. You can't place blocks above you the same way; have to get up on top of something to look at the face.

Sounds like you've not discovered the drone yet, if you're (like I did for a while) having to build ramps to get high enough to put a roof on anything... Try pressing F5.

[Tazmo]

The CV and Base building blocks are one size and SV/HV blocks are a smaller size. Is there any good reason Base/CV building can't use the smaller size as well? This would dramatically improve space efficiency and allow the placement of stuff against the walls. These massive blocks we use now look like they could withstand a nuclear strike yet pea shooters can take them out in short order. Just a thought for others to consider.

[Sparrowhawk65]

Can I suggest you spend some time looking over the Workshop. Download a bunch of blueprints then make a Creative game and spawn them. See what is possible.

[BlackD]

just want to add a small tip in case you dont know this already, you can "call" a drone with F5 and fly around your character before loosing connection (depends on distance to your character. no time limit). really helps with building and also mining

[Isme]

Originally posted by Sparrowhawk65:

Can I suggest you spend some time looking over the Workshop. Download a bunch of blueprints then make a Creative game and spawn them. See what is possible.

This is what I'm doing. I have two parallel saves going, one in creative and one (my intended save) in survival. I figure out how to make what I want in Creative then recreate that quickly without hassle in Survival.
Also, I'm finding most YouTube, internet guides, even Steam guides to be outdated in most cases nonetheless it makes it cool for me because it's harder. I get most of my info here, reading all the posts.

[Balthazaar]

Originally posted by mathaniel:

Methinks you need to rotate blocks like freezer, armor locker, etc. Rotate therm around wall (home key) but you can`t place anything directly in front of something on a wall. Same as a window in growing room, always one block between the window and the planter. You can turn the invisible part out thouh to very outside of a wall.

This was good advice.

Rotate the block, so the invisible side is on the outside. There is a column block to fill in the edge for corners. Expand your floor for to have more base area, big bases help you add later devices easier.

Then you can mount your devices and decorations right on the wall. Page up down and delete keys to rotate blocks.

Works great to make a ceiling as well, use a column rotated as the edge to connect the wall that is now a ceiling block, and then can place stuff on ceiling blocks.

Also, tactically speaking, smaller blocks usually have a lot less hit points. Using thinner blocks for walls can have poor outcomes during combat, IE base raids by enemy npc.

Good luck Galactic Survivalist!