Structural Integrity. Please Explain.

[ShaftAlmighty]

I can't really figure it out. I'm really a horder than an experimenter. Can anyone explain to me, in the simplest possible way, how to roof a structure? It always ends with it being in the red before i'm done.

Granted, i'm not entirely sober when i play but it still confounds me. I've looked at Youtube vids and Googled it and nothing really took.

[Dialtone]

Do you use poles? Stack them until they meet the roof.

[SigilFey]

In order for structures to remain standing, they need to be connected to a "grounded" block. Grounded literally means "touching the ground". So, this applies to walls, vertical beams, etc. Depending on the building material (wood, stone, or iron-reinforced beams) you'll be able to build further vertically from the nearest grounded block.

When you're in building mode, hovering the reticle over a building piece will turn it a color ranging from blue, to green, to yellow, to orange, to red. Blue is a grounded block. Blood-red is a piece that's very unstable. If you attach any more pieces to that, the future pieces will collapse. You'll need to reinforce it by connecting it to a grounded block. Early in the game, using tall pillars of Core Wood is the easiest way to do this, as they reach quite high and can be used to quickly and simply reinforce weak points in roofs and such.

Later, building stone walls, pillars, and eventually, iron-reinforced beams can help you build much taller and more intricate structures.

In general, though, you can build about 6 pieces vertically or horizontally before you start seeing red. Thus, ensuring you support pieces every 3-4 blocks with something else, you can be sure the structure will stand. Experimenting with that simple system, you can start learning other tricks to add support. Another great way to figure it out is to try to build structures that imitate the random, abandoned houses and stuff you see in Meadows. Try building them as large as you can before they start to fall, keeping their proportions in place as you scale them up.

Notes:
+ Walls and vertical pillars will add support. Horizontal / diagonal beams and roofing will not.
+ Stone is great for building up, but will collapse almost immediately if built horizontally over open air.
+ Take the time to level a wide area of ground before building. Ensuring all base blocks are blue (grounded) when you start makes life much nicer in the long run.
+ The game progresses with *everything*. End-game building materials will allow for much bigger and more complex structures than what is possible earlier on.

[Probitas]

Dig down into the ground a bit (above water), then start laying down a floor at the bottom, put your forge,workbench expansions down there, floor that over, then build the work area proper, floor that over with stairs down, then go as high as you want (be reasonable) and as long as your support touches the ground on the sides you are set. Once you get up some, roof on the top with a bit hanging over protects the whole thing. You can get fancy by building a faux tunnel access using rock walls that enters from below ground. If you place stone floors you can hide all sorts of stuff under that and no one will suspect a thing because of all the ground up top around the area.

[Mharr]

Note that in the details it's a bit more complicated than number of supporting pieces, materials have different values for vertical and horizontal stability, distance is taken into account and supports connected from several different angles absorb horizontal stress.

In general once you've built a frame that holds together it'll support any roof, floor and wall tiles you care to add. Sometimes you need to place the final central pieces of a horizontal span quickly because they'll fall individually but once they're all connected they hold each other up.

[Venrez]

It still bothers me that the Roof needs to be an angled 23 / 45 degree thatched roof sort of thing. You cant just use a flat floor as a "Roof" as it then starts to take weather damage. Wood at least.

Triangular Viking houses are nice and all, but I'd rather a few more options. Making an uncovered balcony that sticks out wont exactly fall down, but is a liability if it is always sitting at 50% health unless you wedge roof tiles inbetween the floor panels that sticks up above them juuuuust slightly, which looks awful but functions.

If horizontal or X shaped beams do nothing for structural support, what purpose do they have? Purely cosmetic?

[Mharr]

The water damage is largely cosmetic, the main reason you can't use wood floor as a roof is the workbenches and such don't recognise it as shelter. Flat roofing options become available after finding some iron and unlocking stone building.

Originally posted by Venrez:

If horizontal or X shaped beams do nothing for structural support, what purpose do they have? Purely cosmetic?

They do transmit some stability sideways, more so once they meet in the middle. Angled beams are your best bet in general though.

[loppantorkel]

I saw someone on youtube reinforcing stone structures with iron gates or iron-poles integrated into the stone walls - does this increase max the height of stone structures?

[Mharr]

Massively, yes. Each 'tier' of building materials treats the better ones as equivalent to a direct ground attachment, and iron wood beams are the highest current tier.

[Weaver]

Have another video. It's only 6 minutes. It can't be explained any more simply or clear: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tScU0d5igLU

[SiEgE]

Originally posted by ShaftAlmighty:

I can't really figure it out. I'm really a horder than an experimenter. Can anyone explain to me, in the simplest possible way, how to roof a structure? It always ends with it being in the red before i'm done.

Granted, i'm not entirely sober when i play but it still confounds me. I've looked at Youtube vids and Googled it and nothing really took.

All your ♥♥♥♥ should be supported with whatever.
Tip 1:
Build bottom-to-up. First, place your floor. Support it properly, if it floats above the ground. Then, place your walls. Then - place parts of your roof. 3-block roof is usually pretty stable. If you decide to have a roof for a 10x10 house, then you'll probably need a few poles somewhere around the center.
Tip 2:
More red-ish the color gets - more chance the next block will fall. All objects in the game have their own weight. Placing a stone hearth at your wooden tower would most likely cause it to collapse.
Blue objects are contacting with the ground. Green ones are connected to a block that is blue. Red objects are connected with a series of unsupported blocks. Place a support, and red would disappear.

And that is all you need to know about structural integrity.

[Fridge Lord]

Hi,

Please refer to my posts here:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/892970/discussions/0/3104638636519838531/

Good luck!