Builders Problems / AKA: REEEEEEE

This post is intended for those of us who build ships and find annoying problems with placing blocks, stuff like that. And possibly for Keen to fix.

I'll start it off with my very own recent "REEEE" moment in building



https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1910360490

 

The dual corner lights mount from the back only. It's been that way for a while.

 

It also makes sene, otherwise you can create a free floating light, that moves along the grid without any connection. So this isn't a bug, it's by desingn. In your case I would just try to place an armor block behind the light and remove it again once you have placed the light.

 

It's been that way forever. The original mod it came from was that way.

What is "annoying" depends on your personal level of patience. I have to believe you don't have thousands of hours playing, otherwise you would know why you couldn't place those lights in that spot, even though at first glance there seemed to be no good reason why it wouldn't work.

Things like that are what moved me to incorporate mods into my builds. The corner light mod itself was a solution for having a light that was not centered on a block.

I have often avoided problems by using the Paint-Delete Cursor mod. Created in December 2015, this is always the first mod I load whenever I start a new world from scratch. With it I can quickly find out if a block will fit where I want to place it, and also if there is a surface it will attach to. If Keen does an update that breaks this mod, then they have broken the entire game and nothing else will work either, so don't worry about it suddenly becoming obsolete. It'll never need updating, either. You won't use it as part of a build, so your stuff can still be all vanilla even though you used a mod during the building process. This mod may not have solved your problem, but it does tend to flatten the learning curve when it comes to block placement .

 

I hate how it's confusing to figure out which way glass is see-through / tinted.... I'm coming up on I think it's 800 hours playtime and I still have no idea.

 

You need to hold your tongue just right to see the difference. I with we could choose to have non-tinted and/or clean glass. Yes, I do wish...

 

On the glass bit, why not just a big fat C or a T for "clean/clear" and the T for "tinted" when trying to place it?

 

Probably because the "C" or "T" wouldn't go away after placing the block.

Generally speaking, a window block will occupy the same space as an armor block, so the window will be flush with the surrounding armor, the space inside the ship will be unusable, and the the tint will be on the outside. The window that works the other way is the inverted window. There are subtle differences in the frame, inside and outside.

 

I'd like to see clear glass (both ways) as an option.

On a separate note. I'll confirm which way a window block is configured by mouse wheeling to the inverse version and looking at which one appears to be lighter in contrast before placing it.

_EDIT_

As far as building problems in general... the ability to realign a ships orientation in its own grid would be nice... aka... what dimension is considered the front, back, top, left, right, bottom, etc. When you place your first initial block, it's established and can't be changed. This is a pain when using projections or spawning. If you're projecting, your new ship inherits the orientation of the grid it was built from. If you're spawning in creative, there's a good chance the ship won't be orientated correctly... especially when trying to spawn aligned to natural gravity.