Chant

Much appreciated.

To form the cyrstal room I just stacked a ton of crystals of various sizes all around, alternating the directions they faced to make it appear "natural." Once I made the walls I covered the floor with small crystals and then stacked small crystals as high as they would go to make a "ceiling." Outside the crystals, the room is really just a big empty archane room.

As for the OP:

"Stacker" has some pretty good youtube videos about how to stack. It's far from being a self-explanatory process so all of us had to learn from someone (except whoever invented it perhaps).

I'd just play around the base editor for awhile until you felt comfortable with the basics, and then research stacking if that's something you choose to do.

For me, the best way is to be shown how to do this sort of stuff. Once you get the basics down, then I would ask someone to show you how to do the more complicated stuff. Believe it or not, you can do all the stuff you have seen on the forums with just a little help and some practice. Base editors in my experience tend to be happy that someone appreciate the craft and are generally very willing to be helpful to teach someone willing to learn. I could show you even.

Well, to use a political cliche, I would say that my fourth statement is a "mistatement." I'd agree that I could have just stuck with the first three and avoided most of the backlash. With that being said, if someone was offended for an honest reason, I regret that statement. It was indeed "unnecessary." In other words, I apologize.

As for Stacker, I'd agree the whole base building system iteself in inherently flawed, and while I have my personal preferences, in reality every design is flawed due to the fact that it's a flawed system in the first place. I guess that brings us all back to what we can agree on, and that is that base building is the most neglected feature of the game. We shouldn't have to stack to create second or third floors, or combine random items together in the hopes that it looks like a toilet in a bathroom or whatever. We should have those options in the first place. I don't think those opinions would offend anyone here in this section of the forums :P

I also think that if I saw bases like stacker's base I would have not been quick to say that. My server in general is very dry of decent base builders, and the few of us who take it seriously tend to build with the same methods. I have visited other servers and seen some very amazing stuff though. Likewise, I am fairly new to the forums and to this section especially, so I am sure I have a lot to see. I know base building is undervalued across the game, but it seems to be especially the case on my server. If anyone here has anything unique that they would like to share with me in-game, I'd love to see it.

I know there is a way to place desks without glitches, I have done it before. I just find it easier to continue to use lamps/tiles for the kind of building I do. Perhaps this is just a personal flaw of my own, but I think its much easier to avoid desk stacking altogether for various reasons as stated above.

Covering them up is easy as well. Say if you have a problem with a glitch at the end of a series of desks, and you cannot avoid glitching to make the desks fit a certain way in a certain area. Obviously the solution I have found is to just put something on top of the glitch, or surround that glitch with another object. Maybe you have found a better solution that works for you, I don't know.

I need to find a picture of a base in which I was referring to so you know what I was speaking against. And if you are going to give advice and advocate desk stacking, you should give details to how you avoid the overlapping (this is a general you, obviously you have video links where you try to explain things correctly). I've found it easier to tell new builders to avoid the desks altogether unless really called for, and even if you do use the desks to use the lamp/tile method. I think if you just say "yeah use desks!" then the user will tend to peform the type of building I was speaking against. Obviously you have a completely different approach and one I can respect, but its just not my method.

I also wanted to say that if every base builder that used desks built wonderful rooms like in those pictures then I would retract every statement I made.

Maybe I've just seen too many bad designs that desks have left a bad taste on my tongue. For example, buildings where the knobs of the shelves on the desk are visible in what is supposed to be a wall. I see that you have avoided all of that.

In the few times I have built modern rooms, I have tended to use counters instead of desks myself for walls, etc. I have felt that it gives viewers on my server something more unique to see. Maybe you disagree, but I just find lamps/tiles not only more liberating, but just easier.

I don't think I'm missing anything from not using desks, but I guess thats easy for me to say since most of what I end up doing is archane anyways.

I disagree with this as well, by my definition of texture overlapping. I have none in my base. I do have items that touch, but no texture overlapping glitches.

I would by no means insult the amount of effort you put into your base. I still contend that desks used in every case of stacking is less than optimal. And it seems you misread what I intended as well, as even though desks is your main tool for stacking, even you admit that its not the best thing for every case. I think there are times when desks are reasonable to use, and in your case you may have found those. And just as I said before, if I see a base has nothing but this kind of stacking, then I am inclined to make that judgement. Let me clarify in saying that there are exceptions, but I'd imagine they are few and far between based upon my personal experiences with touring bases. And likewise by my original statement, your work would not be included in that category as 5% of what you do does not include desks, and my statement concerned 100% :P

A better way to say what I intended would be to say that in most every case where I have seen someone use nothing but desk stacking, it has for the most part been either very old work or amateur work. Obviously I have not seen every base on every server, this is based on my personal experiences and observations (and opinion).

Trust me its best seen in person

If you will reread my comment, I stated that if that is all I see then I make that judgement. Of course, there are instances where using desks are warranted. Me personally though, even if I use desks I still stack them with the lamp to avoid texture overlapping.

I'm sure if I saw a room you did, and it was good quality and done before all this other sort of stuff came out, and it was very complex and time-consuming, I would acknowledge why you left the room the way it was. But for NEW base building, I strongly advise against using just desks. As previously stated, if you want to use desks, still stack them with another method to avoid the texture overlapping.

That's my two cents, people can do what they want with their bases and I will just remain arrogant I guess.

Desks are flawed because of the following reasons:

1. There's only one level on a desk that you can place the tile.

2. If you stack desks, and then want to delete a desk in the middle of the stack, you cannot just delete it, you have to drag it to another room to delete it.

3. Stacked desks causes some texture overlappings. This is that graphical issue you see between the desks that occurs when you move the camera about. This promotes a lot of lag within your base if done frequently.

4. To me anyways, it looks like noob base work. You can do the same thing and have 12 more options with lamps and avoid texture overlapping. When I go into a base, and all I see is stacked desks and no other forms of stacking I either assume the builder is lazy or just does not know the better options.

Maybe it would be worth considering losing RoF and picking up vengeance for the LOTG slot.

Okay, thanks for explaining that to me. I majored in sociology because I sucked at math :P

Im going to have to review my other 50's in regards to this as I always previously avoided using procs. I think some procs are worthless though. I don't see much value in the Ragnarok's knockdown proc, for example, when you already have so much mitigation available.

In that case I am no longer bothered by that either :P

I haven't read any guides about the new system and I haven't gotten on to Beta yet either. Called me old fashioned, I'd rather give the issue a chance and just try it out once it's live.