Building, Debug, and Symmetry Tools

This guide is here to help players understand how to use the new Symmetry, Selection and debug tools added Post Alpha 8, If anymore significant changes are made after this guide is updated. I won't be avaliable to update them for two years since the last update. Until then This should remain correct for a long time.

Anyways, Welcome to the newly completed Build and debugging tools!

Introduction

So, the build tools? where do I begin? since my start of playing Empyrion in PA 3.2.2 they've made some significant changes that back then would still save me even more time. But here are the basics:

This menu is accessed usually by the n key, if you've rebinded this key to something else other than the 'build tools' bind in controls, you may need to find another key to use the build tools for.

Once the menu is pulled up it will appear in the middle Right hand side of the screen.
From here on this will take us to the other sections, going in order of appearance on the menu.

Connecting to a Base

So, here we will be working on Connecting to a pre exisiting structure, for those of you who aren't entirely familiar with this feature, its main purpose is for planetside use, using in Space will not only be hard to do but also be broken in the future. What I'm saying is don't make base's in space that are seperated from the main structure. As when seperation of blocks is added to the game, which of writing this it is not, I can bet any blueprints designed in such a manner will just fall into pieces. With that out of the way, lets begin.

This feature is actually really straight forward, as all you need to do is be within range to access the control of the base you'd like to connect to,


and simply just check the box,


Then from there, (as long as your within a reasonable distance of the core, which to Empyrion is the center of every build you make and is the main limiter of how far you can go in one direction) you'll see the block can be placed on the terrian as shown here:


If at anypoint it won't allow placement the blue box surrounding the preview of the item you can place will turn red and the preview will disappear. It's as simple as that.

The Symmetry Plane

The Symmetry plane is were this begins to turn a little more complex. Lets start with setting the plane itself and its options.

Setting the plane is very easy, as well as resetting it. Setting and resetting the plane is simply done using the left mouse button, and can easily be changed between builds without problem. There are also three options regarding how you interact with the build and placing a symmetrical block. You have the XY axis, the XZ axis, and the YZ Axis, each with corresponding colors, as shown:
Ontop of that, in builds before the build tools got a major overhaul, you were not able to create builds that were based on 2 block symmetry, or more specifically, if the center of your Vessel or base was based on a two block width, you could not use these tools and it had to be hand built. Now this is no longer an issue. As shown below you can also have the mirror tool placed in between blocks rather than just on a block:


Otherwise that about does it for the Symmetry tool.

The Selection tool

This tool is about the hardest one to understand, but if you read this throughly you should be able to use this tool without pulling hair over it. Lets start with beginning a selection.

It starts with the first corner you'd like to start, which again is started by clicking the left mouse button, I'm going to be using this corner for providing the examples nessecary.


After selecting your first corner all you need to do next is select the oppisite corner, which in this case is the bottom of the ramp. At this point you should have noticed the options for selection have lighten up, from here you have multiple options on what you can do with the selection you have.


These act in a similar way to how the copy, cut, and paste functions work in a document that if your in school should probably be doing about now. Anyways, The major difference is the Paste fuctions allows you to preview where the item will be placed, with options to scale it, rotate it, or move it. During this point it should look like this:


Using scaling, moving, or rotating tools are pretty easy to use since its just direct interaction. If your not satisfied with the selection or where you thought you'd like to paste is, you can easily just click 'Remove Selection' which will remove what is currently pasted or if something is selected with the blue box, THIS WILL NOT remove what you may have copied or cut. It just removes whatever was selected or pasted once.

When your ready to paste something all you need to do is paste again when the selection is still green and the selection box will turn blue. This will and I must make this clear, will remove any preplaced blocks you mave have had that are inside the selection will be removed and replaced with whatever was in the selection you copied, so be aware of that.

Blueprint Parts

Although I myself haven't fiddled with this one much, its still worth a mention. This is if you would like to have universal pieces between a lot of your blueprints. Otherwise I don't know much myself about it beyond being able to save to it using a section you have copied and reusing it.

Debugging: Center of Mass

This one is actually pretty straight foward, although its best use is for Hover vessels, since hover vessels are heavily effected by this. There are two main components to this, the blue dot. Which represents the actual center of mass, and the yellow dot represents the overall center of the structure. As shown below using a slightly modified Prefab hover vessel.

Again, this is very helpful for hover vessels since their center of weight heavily effects how it will be balanced and how it hovers above ground. But I will leave this for someone else to explain for everyone.

Debugging: Structural Intergrity

Although this one sounds rather hard to understand, in Empyrion I have found it to be rather easy to understand. It simply works like this: The structure is supported when at any point it touches or is below the surface of the planet. As you go further out the structure becomes weaker, and can not support as much weight. But thanks to this tool it isn't a hard guessing game.


This should best demonstrate how to gauge when the structure is at risk of collapsing, any further and not only would the further block fall, but it may take a big chunk of the structure with it as well. So be sure structures are well supported as you build and expand upon them. If built correctly bases should look along the lines of this one here, Although integrity can vary from structure to structure.

Debugging: Oxygen and Airtight blocks

Usually this stage is dependant on when you would like this part to be done, I prefer to do this towards the end of my building process. Luckily if there happens to be a leak the Airtight function can help you to identify a spot air can leak from, although it might not be easy if the room is massive.

If all is working correctly your room's should look along the lines of the photo above if your structure is oxygenated which is very important in this game if you plan on living on a otherwise inhospitable planet.

[Kysus]

Building things shouldn't be this complicated the build tools remind of tools a dev would use to create things in the game,but i have no training in making games so its useless to me and not at all fun to use

[N99024]

yeah, I do already have a Hang of the tools, maybe i will update around Alpha 8

[DogVomit7]

Probably wait for 8 to come out :) But would love to then see this updated so I could learn how to speed things up.

[Splattergutz]

Thanks for your time and efforts doing the guide anyway. Many of the guides are currently outdated and it sort of leaves newbies like myself in the dark. I must of removed and replaced a 1000 blocks just due to not being able to figure out the grids/axis/plane function.

[N99024]

Yeah, this is sadly outdated, however the tools are still there, may need to update this soon

[Splattergutz]

None of the above works in my game. My build settings dialogue box is far more complex then the above and I can't figure it out.

[redbaron]

the hours that can be saved.. Thank you

[DogVomit7]

Yea!! Thanks dude!

[Nookriot]

Thanks!

[N99024]

@Nookriot no, it works in both