Originally posted by Samoth:

also kinda like some weapons have the secondary attack with roller ball button.

Also known as the Middle Mouse Button :)

Yeah the shift click thing is weird, here's how i've been making smooth roads up hills:
aim straight down, walk sideways, flatten ground. As you go up a hill it makes for quite an even slope, and if you turn your aiming slightly ahead or behind, you can adjust it even further. It's all about aiming right at your feet though, anything further out feels too weird.

As for flattening large patches of ground.. it's the same drill as before the patch. Hoe and Pickaxe the ground until it's flat. Shift click method is interesting, gotta get used to it.

In my opinion paving is bugged. Bottom line is it should simply add a cosmetic enhancement to the hard work, time and materials, players have spent constructing (and levelling) a road/path. It doesn't do this! I constructed an extremely level road from the Pillars spawn to the castle my partner built ( we use the Pillars as our main dock), so we could pull carts filled with ore. It went up the side of quite a steep hill, so there was 6 switchbacks. Pulling 1000 lbs. of material was a breeze. The next day my partner thought it would be a good idea to pave the road. What a disaster. Paving introduced huge gouges, and potholes with very jagged edges. The switchbacks no longer worked as they should.

One would think that after spending so much time and materials to construct a path. Utilizing another designed game construction mechanic (which also costs resources), should only enhance, not detrimentally alter and render a road for drawing carts virtually unusable.

They should make the stone path one a 'painting' one like in the Sims' games, instead of a weird levelling one.

Originally posted by Complaintdesk:

In my opinion paving is bugged. Bottom line is it should simply add a cosmetic enhancement to the hard work, time and materials, players have spent constructing (and levelling) a road/path. It doesn't do this! I constructed an extremely level road from the Pillars spawn to the castle my partner built ( we use the Pillars as our main dock), so we could pull carts filled with ore. It went up the side of quite a steep hill, so there was 6 switchbacks. Pulling 1000 lbs. of material was a breeze. The next day my partner thought it would be a good idea to pave the road. What a disaster. Paving introduced huge gouges, and potholes with very jagged edges. The switchbacks no longer worked as they should.

One would think that after spending so much time and materials to construct a path. Utilizing another designed game construction mechanic (which also costs resources), should only enhance, not detrimentally alter and render a road for drawing carts virtually unusable.

It is still early access, hopefully they can address this one, cause that does sound super frustrating

both pave and cultivate change the terrain that you had carefully leveled. Its frustrating, but minor. There is no reason you should not get a cart over paved road, the change is 'not flat' but its 'flat enough' for that. What I do is put down floor tiles and get it leveled to the same plane over a large area, or a line of them for a road. There isnt much practical incentive to pave a long road; it looks nice but flat dirt is better (smoother) for a cart.

Originally posted by Lucidess:

Originally posted by Grid_Nine:

Holding shift while leveling with the hoe on slopes may help.

As for the paving, I've noticed mine gets a bit distorted as well in some places. Like the ground is swelling in the middle and tapering off to the sides. In other places it is perfectly flat. I started to pave a long road I had going through a black forest and after a while I was like, dirt road it is.

Where does it tell you that you can hold shift to change the height like that?

That's awesome, thanks for letting me know.

settings ~ (hotkey binding) shift and alt have functions, depending on which tool you hold, also kinda like some weapons have the secondary attack with roller ball button.

best trick i found is to carefully use the shift function. say a road about 2 hoe circles wide. you want to place yourself at bottom of the hill, max range of where your hoe will reach, your hoe must reach top of the hill from where you are standing. do one click on each side of the road, moving to left or right for second click. now keep your position and move hoe about one circle down from where you just hoed, where its uneven really.. then do again on left/right side. keep doing this for entire slope. you can move further down after initial two hoe picks, but thats likely to make your slope steeper than wanted. also, above method is likely to make your slope longer than originally intended, albeit much nicer and 500% better for a cart.

TLDR: shift-hoe click carefully.

tho, even with this. you may have some spots that are just a nightmare due to rugged terrain that needs to be mined in a fashion thats near impossible to tell. i actually advice to raise terrain to compensate for rugged terrain instead of mining as it usually just makes it worse.

Originally posted by Grid_Nine:

Holding shift while leveling with the hoe on slopes may help.

As for the paving, I've noticed mine gets a bit distorted as well in some places. Like the ground is swelling in the middle and tapering off to the sides. In other places it is perfectly flat. I started to pave a long road I had going through a black forest and after a while I was like, dirt road it is.

Where does it tell you that you can hold shift to change the height like that?

That's awesome, thanks for letting me know.

Originally posted by Lucidess:

Where does it tell you that you can hold shift to change the height like that?

That's awesome, thanks for letting me know.

It's not really in any of the game's tutorials (it's only pointed out in forum posts, wikis, and online guides), but holding left-shift while using the hoe gently levels ground based on where the cursor is pointing rather than the ground level immediately under your character's feet. By holding it down while gradually leveling bit-by-bit along your desired path, you can get a fairly smooth grade. Not always perfect, but workable.

Stone steps make great ramps.

You can also use the roof pieces as ramps over rough spots

Holding shift while leveling with the hoe on slopes may help.

As for the paving, I've noticed mine gets a bit distorted as well in some places. Like the ground is swelling in the middle and tapering off to the sides. In other places it is perfectly flat. I started to pave a long road I had going through a black forest and after a while I was like, dirt road it is.

to really get things level, sometimes you've got to use your pick. at some point as you go down you'll run unto soil that just won't go lower, pick it and it'll go down and can then be leveled with the hoe. if you need to raise to fill a little hole, it'll often go higher, but the level action will bring the mound down to where you need it.
also swing the camera angle down to the ground.
another trick is to do a "sideways" pass on your road... so if you're on a slope don't level up or down hill, but at the same level as you're standing, then move up/down the road a bit and repeat.
i like to level wider roads b4 adding cobble, then do a pass with the cultivator to fill in with grass. you can even get some cool effects cultivating the soil b4 adding cobble. but overall i still find that after i get a nice path made on a hill, cobbling it messes it up some. cobbling sideways or doing a sideways pass or leveling from the high side if i just did the low side or vice versa often helps keep things from getting too out of whack.

You also sometimes need to think real world.

Look at San Francisco's Lomard Street as an example. Many roads that go up hills use a similar method just not so extreme. I use it fairly regularly if I think it is going to be too steep. I also sometimes cut through if it is short enough.

You can also use the farming tool. It levels the ground better than the hoe (but its hard to control the height)