The scenery and building systems need to be unified into one, coherent concept. Not two separate chunks with two separate sets of rules.

The scenery and building systems need to be unified into one, coherent concept. Not two separate chunks with two separate sets of rules.

Buildings: Cannot be free-rotated. Scenery: Can.

Buildings: Can be mass-recolored. Scenery: Can't.

Buildings: Clusters of objects joined together as one piece, selectable in one click. Scenery: Clusters of objects that cannot be joined together whatsoever, never selectable in one click except from the Blueprint menu, but never again after that.

Buildings: Clusters of objects, can be duplicated. Scenery: Clusters of objects, can't be duplicated.

Buildings: Nameable. Scenery: Not nameable.

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Ultimately, the "workaround" for these inconsistencies is to build everything as a building. If you're making something out of nothing but non-building pieces, like a fence, or a mosaic, or a scene, or nature, or in my case a giant cluster of crystals, you essentially **have to** create it as part of a building- which requires a building piece- in order to have the following essentials:

- Recolorability

- Duplication

- Bulk selection without fiddling

- Naming/Organizing

- Separation into individual chunks

**But**, when made into a building, you lose the following essentials:

- Free rotation on all axis

- Easy placement as a separate piece

- Free placement of building objects, something you can do invidually, but have to exit the building each time to place a new one.

Why are these two systems separated like this? Why can't we make Buildings (as in, selectable groups of objects) out of scenery objects? If you make something entirely out of art pieces, you have to have a building piece involved in order to bulk move the pieces. If you make something entirely out of building pieces, you can't free-rotate it, or free-place anything.

Building pieces should be freely placeable like scenery objects. Scenery should be "joinable" like when making a building. And everything in-between.

I support this [up] Selecting any object should have the same features as a wall, such as creating a grid.

For further context since I think my explanations might be confusing.

Here is a blueprint I made last night.



neat! I can place it freely, rotate it freely, embed it into ground, and quickly place more by using the blueprint system.



But...I want to recolor them.

When I select multiple pieces, I can't color them at once. So every single piece has to be done individually. What a waste of time! But if I add them to a building, made of a single post, I can now select them and color all the pieces. Here's 6 building versions.



But...now I can't free-rotate them. See how all of those colored ones are pointing the same direction?

To free-rotate them, I have to place the building blueprint, go into the building, select the crystals, and split them from the building to make them a scenery chunk.

Then I can place the scenery chunk however I want!

...And in order to place another, I have to use the building again...because I can't select the one I just placed. It's now a ton of different objects. :\

First off, nice work - your Crystal Clusters look great!

I completely agree with you on this. I find myself spending far too much time dealing with "workarounds" like the ones you mentioned.

Also, excellent post - the visuals along with your explanation should make this request easy for the Devs to process (and hopefully work on implementing).

BTW, where does that tunnel lead to? Is there a Dwarven Kingdom in there?

Fully support everything listed here.

I have really wondered why the building section has any non grid items listed at all. Most non grid items in buildings seem to have a "architectural" context but why not just put them all into scenery? From the user's perspective, the game treats scenery items exactly like the non-grid building items. Why have the two tabs at all unless there was something different?

Most folks use items in places that the developers never (specifically) intended, like using the flower cart to make an awning for a window. So in the end, I think it would make sense to have grid items under building and non grid items in scenery.

I am sure there were good reasons why decisions were made along the way during development, but inequality of what you can do when you have a building part present verses not in a group of items has baffled me since the alpha 3. At this stage it doesn't make sense to me. I'll bet it has something to do with the engine and the ability to tilt buildings.

Fully support making scenery items "groupable" (and all those advantages that go with that) without the use of a building item.

I have to say you presented the case really well FinalMantasyX.

My full support too [up]

PS: Nice crystal cluster [heart]

https://forums.planetcoaster.com/showthread.php/19134-Giant-Crystals

*cough cough shameless plug cough*

Not to mention that there are decorative props (skeleton, flags, shields, ...) in the various Building submenus and other items I would classify as building attachments (planks, ladders, fences,...) buried within the Scenery panel. Especially the lights are a mess, I still don't get why certain lights are treated building attachments and others are located in a totally different menu as props. Some pillars are restricted to the grid, while other, very similar looking ridges and beams are suddenly (and thankfully) gridless. The entire catalog of scenery and building items needs to be re-organized, this mess is unsustainable in the long run with (hopefully) tons of new content.

I would go further. Besides integrating buildings and scenery, integrate buildings and paths.

The lights being separated is completely illogical. And for that matter, lights that would almost exclusively go on paths are not in the path menu, nor do they snap to paths!

+1. You got my support. Really nice crystals in your example images. [up]

The game is not consequent with several different building systems as well. Why do we have nice helping gadget for building coasters but not for building paths? I would love to be able to extend or shorten the piece with a gadget instead of looking in the long menu list. Why do we have nice feedback on banking tilt but not for vertical and horizontal tilts on coasters?
And for scenery, how much easier it would me to use the multi-target tool and be able to copy paste. Think how fast to make a forest without blueprints.

+1. I was confused and disheartened by the way scenery was kicked out of the mechanic system I had just gotten used to with buildings. It no makey sense.

I think it's just another one of the many not-fully-baked features. I therefore expect it to be tweaked

+1 to everything being said! I was just wondering why the lights are seperated.....and then in turn wondering why everything is sorted the way it is.

Perfectly said, the fact that there are 2 different logic systems for objects makes no sense what so ever.

If anything it just shows that these 2 categories of objects (buildings and scenery) were probably implemented at completely different times and then devs didn't have time to combine both.

Combine this thread with the one about walls - https://forums.planetcoaster.com/showthread.php/19120-Need-Help-with-Paths-Inside-Buildings
then you see that it gets even more complicated! lol

The possibility to move everything in every axis ? A MASSIVE +1 !!! [up]

Also, because my job taught me that we never make enough noise to be heard, here an auto-quote from another thread

Angelis said:

[...]

This could be extremely useful to have :

• - A way to merge things together (the equivalent of CTRL+E - Or I do not know what the key combination is on QWERTY keyboards - to merge layers on photoshop) which would be a way of creating a sort of blueprint in live, but without going through the blueprint system, and more importantly, who stay merged when you move it (technically : several grids that are merged into one grid, which is something that already exist)
• - + The possibility to duplicate two (or more) objects after selecting it with "multiple selection tool" just like what you can do with one object (like Vampiro asked)
• - And also, if possible ... to duplicate something (including a "merged building") on the same axis when you maintain SHIFT the a scroll on one axis with the 3D Gizmo (to earn few clicks compared to the current procedure)

[...]

Click to expand...

What I've been saying!

Oh, and one grief I don't think the OP mentioned: You can't use grid and snap-to with scenery. Which could be very useful if only it was optional.

Totally support!

I agree with all of your suggestions....Especially the moving and collection of items. I thought that the "Multi Tool" was supposed to do all of that, but it it doesn't do anything but make Blueprints. There is No 'Copy or Paste' when trying to do that chore and as far as the lights and the paths...Oh Yes, something should be done!

Ctrl+D duplicates multiple items at once. Maybe I'm missing something here?