Originally posted by heather1348:

I like making roads. The total freedom to build anywhere on the map is my favorite thing about this game. All I care about in this game is building and exploring; I have no desire whatsoever to fight the monsters, so I use the cheat/creative mode. Using the "ghost" command pacifies all the monsters, thereby eliminating annoying monster interruptions. Stamina and tool breakage are still problematic.

Here are some of my techniques.

I first explore an area by running around through it and marking the various points of interest on the map. I take note of crossings that need to be bridged and try to find the best crossing point. While engaging in this initial exploration, I will typically renovate some ruins or build small houses so that there is always a place to rest and repair tools nearby. Building portals also works. It's a good idea to build two or three unconnected portals in a main base and to remember how they are labeled.

Once I have a good general idea of where I want the road to go, I start building. I try to stick to relatively flat terrain when possible, and I use the leveling feature rather than pathen, as it smooths out the road for use with carts. It takes time, and there is often a lot of vegetation to clear out, so the axe is a necessary tool in addition to the hoe and the pickaxe. Sometimes, I will pave a road afterwards, especially if it is going through an area where the dirt road is a bit hard to follow. Using cheats here makes it a lot less tedious; otherwise, it is necessary to gather a lot of stone and keep building workbenches and stonecutters, which gets old after a while.

As I build the roads, I build way stations at regular intervals. When traveling the roads later, it is nice to have places to stop to store junk, prepare food, repair equipment, and sleep. Most of these will be basic huts, but a few should have fully upgraded crafting stations, smelters, and anything else that might be useful in the area. It is best to put these larger settlements at major intersections or near important resource gathering points. Having one of these in the middle of a large swamp full of crypts is extremely useful. A Bonemass spawn point will usually be an ideal location. I also like to have a full service settlement in an area of plains where there are a lot of tar pits nearby.

Swamps are challenging due to the water and indestructible roots. I typically build a combination of causeways and bridges. Paving the road through the swamp makes it easier to follow. Simple wooden bridges are easy to build, but stone bridges are easier to see from a distance. In a large swamp, a main central road with spurs to all the crypts is quite useful. It pays to invest time in building the road first and raiding the crypts later, as navigating the swamp with a cart full of iron is easy with a nice road network.

Mountains are challenging due to elevation changes. Sometimes, it is necessary to run a road in a spiral up the mountain or to build a lot of switchbacks, as is commonly seen in the real world. A loaded cart can barely make it up a stone stairway, so that is an option for steep areas. I haven't tried building in the mistlands yet, but I expect that environment to be an interesting challenge for road building. I don't think it would be fun with the cheats turned off, however. Constant harassment from the nasty monsters there would turn the process into a miserable and dangerous slog.

Bridges can be quite a chore. The resources required for a long bridge are immense, so I usually use cheats to save time. For long or tall bridges, wood-iron beams may be necessary for support. They also help to save time and resources by increasing the distance between supports, which is particularly useful for stone or black marble bridges. Build a frame out of the wood-iron beams first, and add wood or stone afterwards.
Accurately placing bridge supports underwater is a royal pain, though it is made somewhat easier using the fly cheat (Z key when debugmode is turned on). I place temporary wooden walls along the sea floor for use as spacers; this allows for accurate placement of supports. Bridging wide gaps can take forever, but it is possible if the sea floor isn't too low. Bridging a channel wide and deep enough to include some ocean biome seems to be impossible in most cases. Building ports on each side of a designated crossing and placing a few boats there (or the materials to build them) is the best approach when the crossing cannot be bridged. Having connected portals on either side of the crossing is also wise in case all the boats are on the other side.

I'm glad it is possible to use cheats to turn this game into a peaceful sandbox. Hopefully when the game finally reaches a full release state, there will be difficulty settings so that this can be accomplished in a more elegant way.

I love the cheat mode but I set aside worlds for it where I just build. Also it helps me experiment before moving to survival. We need a proper creative mode