This is one of the most intuitive, flexible and non-labour intensive building systems I've ever played in a game, and you want it to be more like Ark?

Ok.

I've played ARK, Conan, NMS, Subnautica, and Valheim and Valheim's building is the easiest to work with imo

...even using a controller, I find it only takes some practice building and 'snapping' becomes much easier. The only real issue I encounter is on very thin construction pieces to find the snapping point, but I get it; the surface face[normal] is tiny...the Log Poles sometimes get wonky, trying to find a snap point as well, overall...is okay.

Wood-iron frames are essential for building big stone things, like bridges and towers.

Originally posted by wizard_of_woz:

Do the iron beams actually help support things?

A bit, yeah. They have a much higher stability score than most materials, so most other pieces will effectively treat them as a ground connection even when they're bright red, and a beam will stretch a good way when supported by a post at both ends. Horizontal support is non-intuitive but does exist, and pieces that would immediately collapse placed individually will hold together in an unbroken line mutually supporting each other. Try building with support poles, but then removing the middle ones after everything's in place.

If you place a beam on the side of the one you're trying to snap up/down from, with the side of it exposed in the direction you want to snap and then try to snap to that second beam it'll snap above/blow the first one. That made my life a lot easier.

Imho, it's actually quite fine once you get used to it. Whereas I've always found the building in Ark to be absolute garbaggio.

The building is really bad - at first... my first shelter was an absolute abomination eye sore of ramshackle pieces thrown around like a beachball at a nickelback concert, but, as you continue building shelters & expanding bigger & better structures,you learn as you build newer designs & more pieces to use as you unlock them. It becomes 100 times easier, as you go basically. Just keep experimenting with different designs that you like, and go from there,maybe get a few ideas online, and see what you can come up with.

Also don't forget the hoe, it is a really, really super useful tool. Where ground level beams fail as support, dirt is so much better for foundations. If you don't want to fiddle around building a frame, raise a ground wall, and build off of it. want a unique looking fireplace? raise dirt and put a roof on it, etc.

I've built some really cool stuff in ARK, but there's no way that raising/lowering floors with a finicky wooden beam exploit is intuitive.

You kind of have to think outside the box. If you aren't getting the snap you want try building up to that snap from another direction/angle, when you manage to get the snap then remove the stuff you placed to get the snap. Hope that makes sense.

I reckon Valheim's building with Ark's easy snapping would be the best of both worlds. That and actually being able to go under the water to see where things were going.

I think the building mods add hotkeys to cycle through the nearby snap points, which sounds like something the core game could really, really use.

Originally posted by Gunther Ultrabolt Novacrunch:

You kind of have to think outside the box. If you aren't getting the snap you want try building up to that snap from another direction/angle, when you manage to get the snap then remove the stuff you placed to get the snap. Hope that makes sense.

Basic wooden walls, half walls and the smaller stone blocks are perfect for this because they're easy to snap onto diagonal corners and edges. The walls are also great for making curves to snap 3d blocks onto so they overlap on the inside.

love game, but worst building ever.

Originally posted by davidedpg10:

Is better building snapping in the works? This is easily the issue most likely to turn me away from the game. It's very difficult to position building pieces, and a lot of times the only way to place a structure where you want it is to look at a very specific edge angle that's about 2 pixels wide. If I had to provide a suggestion I would say a system similar to ark, with a bigger snapping trigger area on the edges of structures to make building easier.
There's also the issue where if you cannot see a pole from just the right angle, you cannot snap to it so it actually reaches the ground to provide support for the structure.

This game has so much potential and I really want it to succeed, because it has the basics to do it. But it does need to make building way more intuitive.

they really need to get rid of the build height limit as well roofs with hundreds of poles going to the ground sucks,

Originally posted by Venom526:

Originally posted by davidedpg10:

Is better building snapping in the works? This is easily the issue most likely to turn me away from the game. It's very difficult to position building pieces, and a lot of times the only way to place a structure where you want it is to look at a very specific edge angle that's about 2 pixels wide. If I had to provide a suggestion I would say a system similar to ark, with a bigger snapping trigger area on the edges of structures to make building easier.
There's also the issue where if you cannot see a pole from just the right angle, you cannot snap to it so it actually reaches the ground to provide support for the structure.

This game has so much potential and I really want it to succeed, because it has the basics to do it. But it does need to make building way more intuitive.

they really need to get rid of the build height limit as well roofs with hundreds of poles going to the ground sucks,

I think the potential for what you want is already in the game. Have you tried using iron reinforced beams?

Originally posted by Gunther Ultrabolt Novacrunch:

Originally posted by Venom526:

they really need to get rid of the build height limit as well roofs with hundreds of poles going to the ground sucks,

I think the potential for what you want is already in the game. Have you tried using iron reinforced beams?

what I want is to not have to support them

Originally posted by Gunther Ultrabolt Novacrunch:

Originally posted by Venom526:

they really need to get rid of the build height limit as well roofs with hundreds of poles going to the ground sucks,

I think the potential for what you want is already in the game. Have you tried using iron reinforced beams?

Do the iron beams actually help support things? All the other wooden beams don't do anything.
And to clarify, a beam runs vertical, a post runs horizontal.
Right now they seem to have the physics in this game a bit off. Most of your support should be coming from beams not posts, especially if they are trying to emulate real building in anyway.