Not having fun with this at all....
By
AngryRedHerring,
Posted on: 2009-09-12 16:13 in Base Construction
The problem is that stacking in general is a mostly unintended thing. One could almost say we're exploiting a bug. I don't think the devs ever really intended for us to make bases with walls made out of placeable objects, let alone dividing a room vertically into two or three "floors".
It's basically a matter of it making raid pathing imfrickingpossible to calculate. Personally I couldn't give a rat's *** about that, because I hate PvP with a passion that burns like a thousand suns, and would never, EVER want my base to become a theater for that activity.
I wish they'd give up the idea of base raids entirely, bring back the CoP and objects of power, but just make it something to earn that makes you better in PvE, and leave it at that.
Then they could give us better base building tools, because they wouldn't have to worry about the idiotic base raiding features.
To be honest, it doesn't bother me in the least. It did at first, but I've done this for so long that I don't even notice an issue, even when I switch over and play the sims or something, because I think we can do alot more with what we have here than one could do with say the Sims or something. Now I would like to have new tools, that would be awesome, but so long as they don't mess with what I have built.
The only thing that worries me is if pathing rules are implimented for secure bases and ignore them for hidden. That would be a disaster for me. All my bases are secure; mainly because I wanted the bigger TP rooms.
But like a poster above, I wouldn't/don't PvP. I do feel for the guys and gals who want to.
Really it would be lovely to remove the size/item differences between secure and hidden and just have pathing rules for "PvP-enabled" bases. Best of both worlds for me. 
As to the OP; it's time and effort. The game wasn't built around base building so it's unsurprising the editor is a little clunky. If you haven't already, do have a look at Stacker's and Cronic's video's. Stacker's is an ongoing series; check this sub for the thread.
Other than that, it's planning and patience. Good luck!
SAVE CoX info:
Titan Network efforts
Saving CoX events/FB info
I got to agree with Caleb. The more you practice stacking, the easier it gets. You will also find that you make mistakes less frequently. (Like acidentally moving one already placed desk, and having to tear everything apart to put it back).
I'm all for more tools, and placeable wall sections, two sided floor sections etc...
But I'm not holding my breath, lol.
Black-Strike: lvl 50 AR/Dark Corruptor
Brutally Beautiful: lvl 50 BA/Inv Brute
Seared Earth: lvl 50 EC/EA Dominator
Yashi Onuku: lvl 50 Ninja Blade/Ninjitsu Stalker
Death-Widow: lvl 50 Night Widow
Quote:
uhmmmm... have you tried using the Accent Lamp + Floor Tile method? |
Originally Posted by eryq2
It's taking me 30 minutes just to cover a wall with shelves having to use a safe to stack them on top of each other.
|
1. Accent Lamps stack on top of each other. I find that a stack of 3-4 is usually as tall as I need.
2. The floor tile will interconnect with the lamps. You can then "slide" the floor tile up and down the lamps to your desired height (sometimes adjusting the camera angle helps with this).
3. Once you have your floor tile at the desired height, you can actually move it around horizontally a bit. This is a little tricky and may take some practice. Think of moving it into an overlapping position. As long as you don't hit a wall or floor with the mouse, you should be fine.
Using the floor tile will allow you much more surface area to work with for setting up your bookshelves, floors, etc.,. Way more efficient than just using floor safes!
Quote:
|
Don�t say things. What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary. - R.W. Emerson |
YUMMY Low-Hanging Fruit for BASE LUV
Quote:
To piggy back on this... you can also just lay a bunch of floor tiles on each other to corss whatever space you want it cover. Just be careful enough to either leave a part of it showing so you can delete it, or know how to go to the Room Details and delete things.|
Originally Posted by Impish Kat
3. Once you have your floor tile at the desired height, you can actually move it around horizontally a bit. This is a little tricky and may take some practice. Think of moving it into an overlapping position. As long as you don't hit a wall or floor with the mouse, you should be fine. |
And to the OP. I would be more than ahppy to work on yoru base. I seriously enjoy it and feel that I have accomplished quite a bit. Hit me up at @Bru'Tal in game or send a mesage here. My main base in on Protector, blue side, if you want a look.
But to each their own.
Best of luck regardless, its a skill thats worth learnign if you really want a place ot call "home" thats all your own.
I tried the floor tile method, but I couldn't get things to stack on top of the floor tiles. Maybe I'm using the wrong tiles.
Maybe a stupid comment but are you stacking from the top? The floortiles are transperant from below and fly/hover is almost a requirement for base builders.
//Jack
The Kickers base.
Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.
-Groucho Marx
They really, really should give up on using the SG bases for raids. I know the idea is cool, but I seriously doubt it ever happening again.
I also know that bases, ESPECIALLY Tech themed bases, need some TLC, but I concur that I'm probably not going to hold my breath on any of that. -shrug-
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Zwillinger
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
|
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
 |
Quote:
I almost think Placeable walls would ruin base building.|
Originally Posted by Black_Strike
I got to agree with Caleb. The more you practice stacking, the easier it gets. You will also find that you make mistakes less frequently. (Like acidentally moving one already placed desk, and having to tear everything apart to put it back).
I'm all for more tools, and placeable wall sections, two sided floor sections etc... But I'm not holding my breath, lol. |
Maybe that's the ego in me and that special feeling I get knowing that I'm one of the gifted few who can make great unique multi layered bases.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Impish Kat
uhmmmm... have you tried using the Accent Lamp + Floor Tile method?
1. Accent Lamps stack on top of each other. I find that a stack of 3-4 is usually as tall as I need. 2. The floor tile will interconnect with the lamps. You can then "slide" the floor tile up and down the lamps to your desired height (sometimes adjusting the camera angle helps with this). 3. Once you have your floor tile at the desired height, you can actually move it around horizontally a bit. This is a little tricky and may take some practice. Think of moving it into an overlapping position. As long as you don't hit a wall or floor with the mouse, you should be fine. Using the floor tile will allow you much more surface area to work with for setting up your bookshelves, floors, etc.,. Way more efficient than just using floor safes! |
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Paladin_Musashi
I tried the floor tile method, but I couldn't get things to stack on top of the floor tiles. Maybe I'm using the wrong tiles.
|
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Jack Power
Maybe a stupid comment but are you stacking from the top? The floor tiles are transparent from below and fly/hover is almost a requirement for base builders.
//Jack |
Quote:
Heh. My main base builder is a teleporter without hover. I do it all with camera angles and zoom.
|
Originally Posted by CalebLancaster
Hover is a Must, Flight is the second best thing. Mainly because Hover gives you the stability that flight just doesn't have.
|
.
Check... and Mate (poster) - Arc ID# 15095 (comments)
Invasion on Earth BX1132! (poster 1) - (poster 2) - Arc ID# 98943 (comments)
Global @ARH
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/07...ureBanner2.jpg
I was gonna say, hover is OK for certain things, but far from a MUST. Just whip thye camera around and its easy as pie. I occasionally (read: very rarely) break out a hover toon if the angle cant be found, which seriously is VERY rare.
And as for safes over accent lamps...
I used safes exclusively for some time, now am a firm believer in accent lamps. Heck, each lamp has 7 divider lines on it to measure. Thats something that a safe just loses out too..
Too many times I was like ... "Hmmmm, how high did I place that thing?" only to have to try and retry it with a safe because I was using somewhere in the middle of it.
And no offense Caleb, base building isnt such a hard thing, and there arent really that many "Elite few" that know how. I've seen so many bases now-a-day learn wicked fast how to build levels and what not. It seriously isnt that big of an accomplishment. Unfortuantely, after that, its how you make it look lived in that provides the real challenge.
And THAT is a challenge that many are not so good at. Building lego's can be done by a 3rd grader. Making it look like a kick **** base is a challenge indeed.
Well maybe it's the Hover that seporates the men from the Boys or have you.
I must say that the one thing I wish they'd remove is the double-click teleport thing. I don't know how many times I was trying to pick up an object just to find myself TPed over to said object.
//Jack
The Kickers base.
Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.
-Groucho Marx
Quote:
Oh, I LOVE that function. At most make it an option-- I can see how it could be an annoyance, admittedly. However, my bases are so big now that discovering that little feature was a godsend.
|
Originally Posted by Jack Power
I must say that the one thing I wish they'd remove is the double-click teleport thing. I don't know how many times I was trying to pick up an object just to find myself TPed over to said object.
//Jack |
.
Check... and Mate (poster) - Arc ID# 15095 (comments)
Invasion on Earth BX1132! (poster 1) - (poster 2) - Arc ID# 98943 (comments)
Global @ARH
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/07...ureBanner2.jpg
Quote:
It's not really a bug. They intentionally turned off path checking to allow people to build things by stacking various pieces. They already had several items that could allow stacking (so you could put phones on desks); they just generalized things so more items could be stacked. I don't recall the exact details now, but I believe they said that bases that don't obey the pathing rules will not be able to do raids. And no one really cared.|
Originally Posted by Paladin_Musashi
The problem is that stacking in general is a mostly unintended thing. One could almost say we're exploiting a bug. I don't think the devs ever really intended for us to make bases with walls made out of placeable objects, let alone dividing a room vertically into two or three "floors".
|
About better tools: I'm sure they know how clumsy it is to build things out of pieces in this way. But it's a matter of priorities. Do they work on Going Rogue or better base building tools? More people will play Going Rogue than will ever build complex bases that need those tools, probably by orders of magnitude.
I think for a minimum requirement the devs should give us wall segments that have the same textures as the existing room textures and can be resized height- and length-wise, and similar floor segments that you can directly set the height and horizontal dimensions on.
Those two things would go 80% of the way to making cool bases easier, and -- most importantly -- would speed up base building by a factor of 10.
Oh, and another thing -- real wall and floor segments would really help reduce graphics lag in bases. I have a friend who's made our base absolutely fantastic, but my framerate drops to 10 fps in some parts of it because of all the objects and special effects going on. Real wall and floor objects would drastically reduce the number of objects required to make complex bases (one object instead of 200), and allow graphics optimizations that could reduce lag in complex bases.
THIS
Quote:
and THIS|
Originally Posted by AngryRedHerring
Heh. My main base builder is a teleporter without hover. I do it all with camera angles and zoom.
|
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Bru_Tal
I was gonna say, hover is OK for certain things, but far from a MUST. Just whip thye camera around and its easy as pie. I occasionally (read: very rarely) break out a hover toon if the angle cant be found, which seriously is VERY rare.
|
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by CalebLancaster
Well maybe it's the Hover that seporates the men from the Boys or have you.
|
Quote:
|
Don�t say things. What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary. - R.W. Emerson |
YUMMY Low-Hanging Fruit for BASE LUV
Quote:
I hate to disappoint you Caleb, but as mentioned by Bru Tal, Hover is by no means necessary and it doesn't "separate the men from the boys". The only time I use hover or flight is when taking screenshots of my work. The rest is done just using the camera. And considering the things I've been able to do like that, I know that flight or hover are not a requirement.
|
Originally Posted by CalebLancaster
Well maybe it's the Hover that seporates the men from the Boys or have you.
|
Ah, I see. I was using the EZ Flooring tile from the tech set. That explains why it wasn't working. Things shall get much easier with the use of those tiles
Or at least much less time consuming.
I have to say though, the one thing I would KILL for, which should be a fairly simple thing, would be keyboard based "nudge" controls. Basically letting you select an object and hit say, shift leftarrow, or something like that, to move it exactly one unit in that direction. That would be a huge timesaver.
So, basically, we as base builders would like the devs and engineers to take notice how important base editing is to us, and how much we need new and better tools/items.
theres also this:
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...66#post2212466
Ignoring anyone is a mistake. You might miss something viral to your cause.
I have found hovering is invaluable when you are placing a bunch of stuff up high near the roof, especially if you need to get between layers of desks or what have you.
Also, when you've already completely blanketed the walls with cabinets. Swinging the camera around won't help a lot when there's stuff in the way.
-np
I see myself as witty, urbane, highly talented, hugely successful with a keen sense of style. Plus of course my own special brand of modesty.
Virtue: Automatic Lenin | The Pink Guy | Superpowered | Guardia | Guardia Prime | Ultrapowered
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Impish Kat
Oh, as in hover/fly is a crutch for little boys who haven't learned their camera controls yet?
|
I think this pretty much sums it up.
Caleb, please flame elsewhere. Its seriously not needed.
I was just pointing out a fact. Hey, everyones experience is different, everyones talent is only enhanced/hindered by certain uses of certain things. Like yeah, Hover is OK, it helps me with like the 3rd floor after I already built the enitre thing and am sick of just swinging the camera angle around... of course, it has its advantages.
However, by no means does it quantify you as anything more (or less for that matter) than anyone else. If we're calling a spade a spade, I am seriously underimpressed by your ego and the base tour slide show you have to "back it up"...
It isnt marvelous, but it works for you.
Good, thats exactly how it should be. Whatever works for me and makes me feel good. But dont impose on us your sense of grandeur... b/c what is working for you and stroking your ego is kind of stale and bland in my book.
I would love to see your base in person.
And by all means, come see mine.
I have open invites to anyone who wishes to see it actually.
I LOVE my base and all the hard work thats been put into it, and it works for me, makes me feel good to be there.
Isnt that really the point anyway?
Quote:
I was going to say something similar, but ya beat me to it. I never even use travel powers while building, and have managed to put together some pretty nice rooms. The Camera Angles will do anything you need to do.|
Oh, as in hover/fly is a crutch for little boys who haven't learned their camera controls yet?
|
But I guess it's all in your style of building. To insinuate that if you don't use Hover you must not be a good Base Builder is absolutely childish and silly.
Black-Strike: lvl 50 AR/Dark Corruptor
Brutally Beautiful: lvl 50 BA/Inv Brute
Seared Earth: lvl 50 EC/EA Dominator
Yashi Onuku: lvl 50 Ninja Blade/Ninjitsu Stalker
Death-Widow: lvl 50 Night Widow
Could it be any more of a pain in the rear to stack and build seperating walls? Why in the world do they not just give us a wall piece to use, OR, let us stack objects without having to use a safe or something?
I played a war game called Joint Operations, and the editor in that game was soooo easy to use. We made whole maps, inserted every building, vehicle, could use a timer and make rain fall and all kinds of stuff. There was no using objects to stack other items. Back to topic.
Why don't they make it simple to do? It's taking me 30 minutes just to cover a wall with shelves having to use a safe to stack them on top of each other. Then if the mouse moves it throws the shelf all over the place. If one object can stack they all should be able to, imo. Really, what would it hurt?
Sorry, i'm just frustrated. I really think my 50mil would be better paid for a decorator. At this point id prolly throw up 100mil or a 7.5 rech.