Advanced building technique question.

[Lawn-Mower]

I recall years ago there was a way to achieve fine x/y axis placement using barriers, there was a means of sliding something along it, can't recall what it was now (wall, pillar, another barrier, foundation perhaps), and nothing I'm doing is working.

Am I misrecalling, or is the functionality gone now? How do others achieve it?

[Dwane Dibbley]

Building on foundations. It has grid and rotations are in 45°.

Theres also "global" grid to help you have all foundations in same directions.

[TyCobb]

The catwalk with no railing lets you screw with placement of foundations off center. The beams/connectors and pillars will also allow for offhand placement.

You can also lock the item in hologram mode by hitting H (default) and then using the arrow keys to position. Holding CTRL or Shift (I can't remember which one) and the arrows keys will move the piece in half steps.

[frogger]

I don't know if I'd recommend it because of how annoying it is, but you can achieve fine placement along 3 axes, not just two. Use a curved surface such as a quarter pipe to position in either X or Y. Place a metal beam on the desired X/Y along the curved aspect. Place a catwalk that includes a railing adjacent to the quarter pipe such that the metal beam intersects the catwalk railing. As you will recall, placing on catwalk railings allows for fine Z adjustments. Begin placing another metal beam. Fiddle your cursor such that the first metal beam has the selection outline, but the placement for the second metal beam inherits the fine Z selection of the catwalk railing side. You may now correct the Z placement, thus getting fine placement in XZ or YZ. Do even more awful fiddling if you need XYZ fine placement.

There are probably better items and placements for this, but that was what I came up with from a couple minutes of testing, and it technically fulfills your request. I haven't tested how fine the placement of catwalk with no railing is on a foundation, but if that's just as fine as using a curved surface, just go with that.

[kLuns]

If you put a big pillar on the side of a 4m foundation you can slide a wall on top of it to be built exactly on the edge of a foundation.

[Kimo]

Just to have it said, in case, for a newer feature:

Pressing H freezes the blue building preview, arrow keys to nudge it around.

[Lawn-Mower]

Originally posted by frogger:

I don't know if I'd recommend it because of how annoying it is, but you can achieve fine placement along 3 axes, not just two. Use a curved surface such as a quarter pipe to position in either X or Y. Place a metal beam on the desired X/Y along the curved aspect. Place a catwalk that includes a railing adjacent to the quarter pipe such that the metal beam intersects the catwalk railing. As you will recall, placing on catwalk railings allows for fine Z adjustments. Begin placing another metal beam. Fiddle your cursor such that the first metal beam has the selection outline, but the placement for the second metal beam inherits the fine Z selection of the catwalk railing side. You may now correct the Z placement, thus getting fine placement in XZ or YZ. Do even more awful fiddling if you need XYZ fine placement.

There are probably better items and placements for this, but that was what I came up with from a couple minutes of testing, and it technically fulfills your request. I haven't tested how fine the placement of catwalk with no railing is on a foundation, but if that's just as fine as using a curved surface, just go with that.

Have to admit it never occurred to me to try a non-flat foundation piece.. Nice this does work, though it's very fiddly and I'll go [even more] nuts trying to get things lined up right using this technique a lot.. Although I might get pretty good with it with enough practice, I don't think I'm committed enough to get to that point. I'm sure it'll still come in handy once in a while for something I deem particularly important though. So, thanx! I won't mark your response as the answer just yet in case others come up with something a little less fiddly..

[Lawn-Mower]

Originally posted by kLuns:

If you put a big pillar on the side of a 4m foundation you can slide a wall on top of it to be built exactly on the edge of a foundation.

Thanx kluns! I think that's the one I forgot how to do... Serves me right for becoming reliant on mods..

Pillars!
Horizontal pillars for horizontal slide, vertical pillars for vertical slide. Railings and Barriers also work well for sliding where you want to create an anchor/snap point for building off of.

[Lawn-Mower]

Thanx to the others for chiming in. Essentially I'm trying to get something at an exact location 'off-grid', so nudging (with in-game nudge anyway) and other things that 'snap' won't help me unless the snap increment points were far smaller..

[ждун]

Originally posted by frogger:

I don't know if I'd recommend it because of how annoying it is, but you can achieve fine placement along 3 axes, not just two. Use a curved surface such as a quarter pipe to position in either X or Y. Place a metal beam on the desired X/Y along the curved aspect. Place a catwalk that includes a railing adjacent to the quarter pipe such that the metal beam intersects the catwalk railing. As you will recall, placing on catwalk railings allows for fine Z adjustments. Begin placing another metal beam. Fiddle your cursor such that the first metal beam has the selection outline, but the placement for the second metal beam inherits the fine Z selection of the catwalk railing side. You may now correct the Z placement, thus getting fine placement in XZ or YZ. Do even more awful fiddling if you need XYZ fine placement.

There are probably better items and placements for this, but that was what I came up with from a couple minutes of testing, and it technically fulfills your request. I haven't tested how fine the placement of catwalk with no railing is on a foundation, but if that's just as fine as using a curved surface, just go with that.

This sounds interesting. I was trying to achieve this with different methods but none worked for me. To be honest I didn't fully understand how you do it. Could you post a screenshot?

[frogger]

Originally posted by ждун:

Originally posted by frogger:

I don't know if I'd recommend it because of how annoying it is, but you can achieve fine placement along 3 axes, not just two. Use a curved surface such as a quarter pipe to position in either X or Y. Place a metal beam on the desired X/Y along the curved aspect. Place a catwalk that includes a railing adjacent to the quarter pipe such that the metal beam intersects the catwalk railing. As you will recall, placing on catwalk railings allows for fine Z adjustments. Begin placing another metal beam. Fiddle your cursor such that the first metal beam has the selection outline, but the placement for the second metal beam inherits the fine Z selection of the catwalk railing side. You may now correct the Z placement, thus getting fine placement in XZ or YZ. Do even more awful fiddling if you need XYZ fine placement.

There are probably better items and placements for this, but that was what I came up with from a couple minutes of testing, and it technically fulfills your request. I haven't tested how fine the placement of catwalk with no railing is on a foundation, but if that's just as fine as using a curved surface, just go with that.

This sounds interesting. I was trying to achieve this with different methods but none worked for me. To be honest I didn't fully understand how you do it. Could you post a screenshot?

I improved the technique a bit and made a video. It's kind of hard to describe with words, or even just a screenshot. still haven't tried the other way mentioned in this thread so I'm not sure if there is any particular reason to do it as pictured
https://youtu.be/Ds0ghCFJ-d8

[ждун]

thank you @frogger