What affects / determine structure being supported?

[InfestedAdam]

Building integrity is off and to my understanding, structures need to be supported to be built. I thought this is based on the connection of the individual structure pieces leading to the ground / foundation. My friends and I built walls / stem scaffolds tower directly on the ground and not on foundations.

Our tower shows one section of grass stairs supporting 80+ pieces while everything else, even the stem scaffolds that the grass section sits on, supporting 0.

If we add additional pieces from the ground to the wall / tower, would that prevent everything collapsing if those critical sections are destroyed? Or would the game ignore these additional pieces touching the ground and still think the original pieces are supporting everything?

EDIT: I just found a freestanding set of stairs being supported by a floating grass floor. The stem scaffolds that the grass floor was sitting shows support 0 items and upon removal, the floor stayed floating.


Comments and suggestions are appreciated,

Thank you

[Flyingbox]

I'm trying to figure out integrity. There is a de-sync of information between client and host.

Host sees the truth, clients may place blueprints that are actually in the wrong spot and/or will see numbers that don't make sense. This is also including paradox blocks which appear to be destroyed (their debris on the ground too) but are actually not. (Hitting the block with ANYTHING pops it back into reality for you)

Structure integrity is on and I had to convert from stems to pillars because after a few floors the *entire* first floor had everything saying they were supporting 250+ objects. I don't know the range of integrity, and I don't know the severity of instability (can there please be a clear UI/glow for this?). I just know that "supporting" number turns red and suddenly everything explodes when you hit that limit.

What is the limit? Who knows. Bars with pips are bad indicators.

Keep in mind that building off of dirt in most cases will consider the structure floating---whatever you started with on top of a rock (for example) can be considered the "base/ground". So putting scaffolds/pillars down to connect with more of the rock end up not adding stability, but rather they take away total integrity from that source block!

[InfestedAdam]

Originally posted by Flyingbox:

There is a de-sync of information between client and host.

Host sees the truth, clients may place blueprints that are actually in the wrong spot and/or will see numbers that don't make sense.

By host do you mean the original creator of the shared world? Or whoever is currently hosting?

Originally posted by Flyingbox:

Keep in mind that building off of dirt in most cases will consider the structure floating---whatever you started with on top of a rock (for example) can be considered the "base/ground". So putting scaffolds/pillars down to connect with more of the rock end up not adding stability, but rather they take away total integrity from that source block!

Thank you for that input. That would explain the floating grass floors, walls, and stairs magically supporting everything while everything else shows 0 supports.

Now I wonder if we oughta build foundations going forward at the risk of the foundations becoming the critical section and maybe more prone to attack / splash damage.

[Flyingbox]

I refer to the person hosting. "The house always wins". Cloud save or no, whoever hits the host game button has accurate information about the world.

Clients connecting on the other hand could have inaccurate/false information. (Like the paradox structures or dew drops floating and not working)

[Jaggid Edje]

"Building Integrity" is off by default. So unless you are playing a custom difficulty game with it switched on, you are not dealing with that. You are just dealing with the game's basic requirement that the game requires for support with it off is that some part of the structure is supported by the ground (or other non-constructed object that allows building on it).

And yes, if you add additional 'anchor' structures then it does prevent everything from collapsing when you remove whatever was originally supporting it. I do this regularly when modifying existing structures where I want to tear down the supporting part.

The 'floating floor" you talked about above is likely just a clipping issue, where the game felt that floor piece was supported by an object or terrain, even though it wasn't. I would have said that it just means the floor is supporting everything above it, but has multiple things supporting it below, if not for you saying removing everything below it left it floating in the air.

With building integrity off, things show: 0 when they are not alone in providing support; you only see the supporting number when it gets to a point where it's the only piece providing support for everything else above. So if you build a 'table' structure consisting of just two half walls supporting a single floor piece with a column on it, the half walls will just show supporting: 0, while the floor piece will show "Supporting: 1", because of the column. If you remove one of the two half walls, however, the remaining half wall will show "Supporting: 2" because of the floor and column that it is now the only thing supporting.

The custom option for building integrity adds a whole extra layer on top of the basic support requirement, where the mass/bulk of what is being supported, and what is doing the supporting, also matters. You cannot build a basic 6 x 6 grass building with a 6 x 6 clover roof with it turned on, for example, because the 'grass walls" are unable to support all that roof without additional columns for support. Stem Walls can support more than grass walls though, and brick walls even more.

[InfestedAdam]

Originally posted by Jaggid Edje:

And yes, if you add additional 'anchor' structures then it does prevent everything from collapsing when you remove whatever was originally supporting it. I do this regularly when modifying existing structures where I want to tear down the supporting part.

Thank you for the input. Hopefully I can test this with a singleplayer save prior to attempting it in the shared world.

Originally posted by Jaggid Edje:

The 'floating floor" you talked about above is likely just a clipping issue, where the game felt that floor piece was supported by an object or terrain, even though it wasn't. I would have said that it just means the floor is supporting everything above it, but has multiple things supporting it below, if not for you saying removing everything below it left it floating in the air.

With building integrity off, things show: 0 when they are not alone in providing support; you only see the supporting number when it gets to a point where it's the only piece providing support for everything else above. So if you build a 'table' structure consisting of just two half walls supporting a single floor piece with a column on it, the half walls will just show supporting: 0, while the floor piece will show "Supporting: 1", because of the column. If you remove one of the two half walls, however, the remaining half wall will show "Supporting: 2" because of the floor and column that it is now the only thing supporting.

Thank you for the insight. If I understand you correctly regarding the tower we built with just stem scaffolds, grass stairs, and grass floors wrapping around. With the exception of that one particular stair, everything else in our tower is supported by more than one structural (i.e. scaffold, stairs, and floors wrapping around the scaffold). Removing only one scaffold, stair, or floor oughta mean everything else above will still be supported and now that section would show something other than "Supporting: 0".

This would also explain why the grass floor bridge we built shows the first floor extending off the tower supporting 40+ items and counting down to 39, 38, 37, etc. as we run down the bridge. The moment I added a tower at the other end as a backup support, the floors in the middle started showing "Supporting: 0"

[Jaggid Edje]

Yah, it's actually pretty simple to know if destroying someething will bring down other things. If it shows Supporting: 0, you're fine, but if it doesn't.....you aren't.

That's, of course, any bugs notwithstanding. And also only if the optional building integrity is not turned on. In the game I started the last week of early access, I played custom difficulty just to test playing with that feature on, and I hated it. It seemed pretty buggy, at least in terms of me knowing ahead of time that tearing down something wasn't going to bring the whole house down.

[InfestedAdam]

Not 100% sure but seems after building a second support at the other end of the grass bridge. Somehow the entire tower is now supported on two ends and that specific stair piece is showing as "Supporting: 0". Even the grass floors in the middle of the bridge is showing as "Supporting: 0" as I assume because the floors are supported on both sides.

Of course the moment I dismantled that particular stair piece as a test, the support at the other end of the bridge is supporting the entire bridge and the tower. The moment I dismantled a portion of the grass bridge, the entire tower collapsed despite the stem scaffolds supposedly anchored to the ground.

Despite the issue with floating structures, at least I have a better understanding and can find some way to build secondary supports to the tower / bridge.