Building guide

A guild to building ... well buildings.

Summary and Warning

So I noticed there was no real guide to building ether in game or on steam so I thought I would make one.

That being said i'm not that grate at making guides and I didn't feel like doing a lot of editing and fancy graphics to make it.... maybe some other time.

However I did go into debug mode and do a LOT of testing for this... so here is the fruits of my labor.

This guide is mostly a guide to building with the games structure system.

Support Structure

Your main limiting factor on building structures on how high up and out you can build, besides resources, is the support they have. Structure is displayed when you mouse over a building part with an appropriate tool with a highlighted color. These colors indicate how structurally sound the object is, starting at blue (indicating it's touching a solid object such as the ground) then going from green (indicating it's structurally sound) through various shades of yellow to a solid deep red (indicating you can't build much more before things will start braking).

How the game calculates support

Anything touching any terrain object is fully supported so long as that terrain object exists and is still touching it.

Whenever an object is placed it checks everything it is touching, refreshes the structure of everything it's touch, and everything that everything it's touching is touching and so on down the line and recalculates everything. It then finds the best structure value for everything it's in contact with and uses that to figure the structure that object has, with each object having less structure than the last. The same happens whenever an object is removed or destroyed.

If an object has no structure it brakes immediately after it's done updating it.... if it has even the smallest amount it will never brake, it may however take damage over time but it will never fall under half damage.

So any individual part of a building will only ever use the best structure value

Because of that there are only three ways to raise the structure of your buildings:

Connect the part to the ground, or some other object in the world such as a tree or rock. This will turn it blue. If your building on the ground and you have a green object consider using the hoe to raise the ground under it till it turns blue.

Build to the middle: If you are building from two supported segments and you build them together the point in the middle will get support from both of them, this means often you can get a tinny bit more area than you would otherwise have where the supports come together, paticuarly if your using support structures from them.

And finally use support poles and beams. They support buildings a lot more than just walls and floors do alone and they are the main way to hold support. Each type of beam will support a different amount before it too gives away though shown bellow (these do not count the first placement of one as it is asument the first one will be placed down blue)

Poles and Beams

Note for every bit you build up that's less you can build out.

wood pole/beam (1m) - 1 wood
Vertical 6 placements (6m) green - 5 placements (5m) yellowish - 4 placements (4m) deep red
Horizontal (from blue 1m up) 4 (4m) placements green - 3 placements (3m) yellowish - 2 placements (2m) deep red

wood pole/beam (2m) - 2 wood
Vertical 3 placements (6m) green - 2 placement (4m) yellowish - 2 placements (4m) deep red
Horizontal (from blue 4m up) 2 placements (4m) green - 1 placement (2m) yellowish - 1 placement (2m) deep red

Log pole/beam (2m) - 1 core wood
Vertical 4 (8m) placements green - 3 placements (6m) yellowish - 3 placements (6m) deep red
Horizontal (from blue 2m up) 2 (4m) placements green - 2 (4m) placements yellowish - 2 (4m) placements deep red

Log pole/beam (4m) - 2 core wood
Vertical 2 placements (8m) green - 1 paclement (4m) yellowish - 2 placements (8m) deep red
Horizontal ((from blue 4m up) 1 placement (4m) green - 1 placement (4m) yellowish - brakes after that unless meeting from other side then 1 red placement can be placed in the middle.

Wood Iron pole/Beam (2m) - 2 wood 1 iron
Vertical 6 placements (12m) Green - 5 placements (10m) yellowish - 12 placements (24m) deep red
Horizontal (from blue 2m up) 7 placements (14m) green - 5 placements (10m) yellowish - 12 placements (24) deep red

Wooden Walls, Floors and thatch roofs

These structures can only support themselves out so much on there own before collapsing if left unsupported. I made these crude charts to show you how much you can build unsupported. If your starting at Some color other than blue just go up and out from that color, and you can see it makes a big difference how much you can place.

Floors

R
YRR
YYR
GGYR
B

Walls

R
RRR
YYRR
YYYRR
YYYYR
GGYYR
GGYYR
B

Roofs angled up

R
YRRR
YYY
GG
B

Roofs angled down

B
G
GYR
RR


This is a lot of information but what it boils down to is if you want to build you can't build that big unless you have iron sport beams because everything else is too weak to support large building.

You can built a house with core wood logs suporting it every 12m with a second floor or a tall cilling, or you can build a three story building with core wood log support beams every 8m. Anything taller you will have to pull some BS.

What kinda BS you might ask?

Well You could make a support out of the ground using a hoe and trim it with a pick axe.... this will let you get a few more floors of blue support if you do it around an already built beam. However this will leave a massive stalagmites holding up your base so .... not the most attractive looking option.

The second option planting tree's outside your base beside the suppor beams and letting them grow, the trees will then turn all the beams inside them blue..... down side is the branches inside your base and the fact you can't repair a tree.

Best option if you want to build big though is to go with Iron supports.

Angled beams and crosses....and why they don't help at all.

These seam to be mostly for looks and for when you can't get a pole in place. But from lots and lots of testing they don't seam to add any additional support when added in so they only come in handy when the best support you get will be through them.... consedering the crosses only supply about the same support a wall dose (this makes NO SENSE) and there are no angled logs, they don't turn out very helpfull.

Right now the only cases where angled beams actualy help support is where they give a shorter path to other better support. This seldom happens.

However they look nice, and they look like you should have them in several cases and they only cost a wood or two....... so I would use them anyway unless your hurting for wood, just know they arn't helping support your building most often.

Building with stone

Building with stone is not like building with wood. Stone can only be built on top of anywhere that it would be blue, stone, or wooden iron supports.... It has a much higher durability than any other structure but it's vertical build structure is similar to core wood logs and it's ability to be built horizontaly is almost non existent.

The only way to place stone horizontally is to first place a stone arch or wooden iron supports and then place the stone on top of it. Using just stone arches it can only go 8m out before giving out.

If you want to have a second story of stone floors you will ether have to use a lot of pillars and arches or each stone floor will have to be touching an iron support beam.

So building with stone for aesthetics is costly, and it is generally only recommended for the first floors or outer walls to protect agenst attack. However if you are going all out and have lots of iron there is no reason not to build a castle. I would still recommend sticking to wooden floors and inner walls though as you need one iron support per 2 floors atleast if they are placed above ground level.

Stone has it's own support

Stone Pillar (2m) 5 stone
3 placements (6m) green - 2 placements (4m) yellow - 2 placements (4m) deep red.

All stone can be stacked as high so you won't get any stone over 16m stacking stone on stone.

However stone supported by wooden iron beams gets you more:
6 placements (12m) green - 4 placements (8m) yellowish - 3 placements (6m) deep red.

So with wood iron support you can have 28m tall stone walls. This makes an epic castle possable, just very very costly.

My suggestion: Use stone for the outer walls of your base.... it's not sturdy enough to build the base itself with.

If you want an epic stone build, start by building the wood iron supports first, horizontal supports add there support value to a stone wall, so you can build poles far appart and every so often add horizontal beams to support the walls so they will go higher.

Some common misconceptions

Placing multiple overlapping beams in the same spot will improve support. It won't however sense it takes the best you can do something like place down core wood logs clipping over wood iron beams if you don't like the look of wood iron beams, or hide your wood iron supports inside the stone walls.

The game only ever takes the BEST support value that there is.

The highlighted structure when you place a new structure is what it will get it's support from. Yes and no, support updates every time something is placed down and attaches to it something. So if something intersects a structure it will recalculate the support it has basses on everything intersecting it. What is highlighted when you place it just shows the structure of what you are highlighting. If it's touching something else with better support it will still take the support from that.

The support value updates to the best when there is a new best.

[TJtothekore]

nice guide!

[Mean Weanie]

@shadow, I think the default is the middle mouse button.

[Azraile]

check your control options i think it's just a button you push when you have the build menu up.... been a while sense i've played

[ANGEL]

how do you remove building peices that need to go?

[Azraile]

Perhapse the changed things or if you build core wood off a blue core wood pole it will have enough stability to suport a stone floor? I will look into it some time and exsperement if i remember, not in the best of health right now

[fenlander]

I supported a stone 1st floor using a lattice network of corewood.

[Azraile]

Then the time I spent researching was well spent

[dragonmamma]

Thank you!! my husband and i spent 10 frustrating hours trying to build a roof that kept falling. This really helped!

[Azraile]

Ah didn't even think about that! Yah that would do it. lol
Hope the guide helps now that you got things working.

[rwaldo76]

figured it out somehow my build and destroy buttons became the same. thanks for your help