Building help

[lala2021]

I'm not a very good builder. If I want to build a raised building (restaurant, food court, shops etc) what's the best (easiest!) way to do this? I always faff around not knowing whether to put the paths in first, or the facilities, or the actual building (walls, roof etc). We're not talking fancy domes or anything just simple rectangular or L shaped buildings, raised off the ground a bit. I prefer building on a grid because I find it easier but then struggle with the paths.
Happy to be pointed in the direction of any good YouTube tutorials - I watch loads, but often I wish I could see what the person was doing with their keyboard/mouse as opposed to just seeing the end result on the screen, if you see what I mean!

 

[Lailantie]

Here is another not good builder trying to answer you. I just made my first raised restaurant. I built a path with stairs and then adjusted the height of the floor relative to the stairs, so that the path will be slightly underneath the floor. I saw in a tutorial how people fiddled with pathing so they could make the stairs custom height, but I'm not there yet. If anyone knows how to do that I'll sit back and listen together with you

 

[Nioell]

Here's how I go about building raised areas if it contains facilities: Build the facilities first, then use the align to grid option to build the floor around those and after that leave the grid mode and add stairs and curves etc. where you want them. When you build the paths first they're gonna get messed up 99% of the time when you add the facilities because of the auto snapping and paths bending to fit it.

Anything that doesn't include facillities: build the paths first or you'll most likely run into "OBSTRUCTED!" issues in the future. You can also select a specific segment length for the stairs in the path menu to the right (second page, all the way down) which is really helpful when building raised plazas and such.

 

[iloveyourzoos]

I also start with buildings on a grid, and then add my paths to the grid afterwards. Partially I do this because if the grid doesn't work, I can turn off the grid for the paths and fit them in separately.

But the better answer that I usually follow is: Start with whichever feature is the hardest for you, or that you have the least experience with. Because then the one that you're doing at the end is the one that you know better, and are going to be more likely to know the solutions for!

 

[ZSHplays]

Biggest help for me was the realisation you can align the path grid to building pieces as well as paths. So you can build the building up in the air, then use align to grid to get the paths to match the building.