How to build guides - anything useful around?

[Mister Toad]

Hey,

As for now I decided to give PZ another try. To be honest it was bit annoying for me with all the "building ANYTHING" is so hard and a bit of understatement what exactly makes the building a shelter and how to make animal house that guests can walk into (like a reptile house or monkey house where your visitor walk above/around enclosure yet separated from animals, either by height or glass or smth). I also dont understand how the heck doors work in this game. Like, are they just decoration and placing them on a wall makes it valid? They are all smaller than door frames in buildings AND it seems impossible to attach them to these anyway so I dont get it.

From what I understand to build something properly you should:

• Start by making sure terrain is flat with the right tool
• Place foundations
• If you want to make a building a shelter just place animal "beds" inside on the floor and it counts as normal shelter

And then what? It seems most walls are working good, BUT making roofs is often horrible and I couldn't learn how to:

• Make paths on upper floors of the buildings
• Place doors/windows
• Some kind of materials dont work as roofs or have only some of shape options avalible
• Build ON THE paths
• Stop the paths to autoconnect which makes life a hell but at the same time being able to still connect them at some point

Please share some good guides for this kind of things, I feel like it is really needed

PS: If there already WAS such a thread, then sorry, couldnt find

 

[ElectricMonk]

As for now I decided to give PZ another try. To be honest it was bit annoying for me with all the "building ANYTHING" is so hard and a bit of understatement what exactly makes the building a shelter and how to make animal house that guests can walk into (like a reptile house or monkey house where your visitor walk above/around enclosure yet separated from animals, either by height or glass or smth). I also dont understand how the heck doors work in this game. Like, are they just decoration and placing them on a wall makes it valid? They are all smaller than door frames in buildings AND it seems impossible to attach them to these anyway so I dont get it.

Doors are only decorative and are designed to be placed on flat walls - the cutout doors are (primarily) for the facilities. (People and staff do not have hotboxes with anything other than bins, seats etc. when walking on paths and will walk through walls etc.) - guests will go anywhere that paths are placed.

From what I understand to build something properly you should:

• Start by making sure terrain is flat with the right tool
• Place foundations
• If you want to make a building a shelter just place animal "beds" inside on the floor and it counts as normal shelter

1: You don't need to make sure the terrain is flat - although it does make it easier.
2: Foundations? Not sure what you're referring to but, no, you could start with the roof if you wanted.
3: Any area covered by a solid object inside a habitat will count as hard shelter whether or not there's bedding placed inside.

And then what? It seems most walls are working good, BUT making roofs is often horrible and I couldn't learn how to:

• Make paths on upper floors of the buildings
• Place doors/windows
• Some kind of materials dont work as roofs or have only some of shape options avalible
• Build ON THE paths
• Stop the paths to autoconnect which makes life a hell but at the same time being able to still connect them at some point

1: To make paths go up press shift and move the mouse upwards. Sometimes paths are easier to place using the grid - especially for buildings.
2: Just place doors and windows against walls if they're not transparent. If they are make gaps for them (most of the transparent options are gridded pieces that will stack on top of walls etc. automatically)
3: The only things that won't work as roofs are gridded walls - anything else can be a roof.
4: There's no limit to building on paths - i'm not sure what you mean (except for facilities?) - Facilities should be placed near a path and then connected)
5: Press control (i think) to prevent paths connecting automatically.


OVERALL: Check out youtube for some very good tutorials... Practice,... Download some (simple) buildings from the workshop and have a look to see how they're built.

EDIT: Try THIS ONE for instance.
or THIS ONE
or THIS ONE
for building, and THIS ONE is a good summary of the controls

 

[shirandhak]

The thing with the path going up or down by shifting my mouse I never got to work.
Just use the shortcuts: path should go up - press U, if you want a stair instead of a ramp - press 2x U
Path should go down - use J (and if you built a stair with 2x U and want to go straight press 2x J)

 

[NZFanatic]

The thing with the path going up or down by shifting my mouse I never got to work.

Wait, really?

Forgive me if this is a stupid question, but are you sure you're doing it right? Holding the 'Shift' key on your keyboard down, and moving the mouse up? It's the same as raising or lowering anything else in the game.

 

[shirandhak]

In the beginning I tried placing paths with my mouse - a horror!
Now I love to use the shortcuts - U and J for path/stairs and X for moving items. More precise in placing something you can't get

 

[NZFanatic]

In the beginning I tried placing paths with my mouse - a horror!
Now I love to use the shortcuts - U and J for path/stairs and X for moving items. More precise in placing something you can't get

I actually prefer the mouse option since it doesn't raise/lower in stages and you can use any height you like, but to each his own.

 

[shirandhak]

I actually prefer the mouse option since it doesn't raise/lower in stages and you can use any height you like, but to each his own.

Same goes for the x-menu: No stages, any height you like - just more precise placement.

Edit: As for path-placement - there you are right, if you don't have an existing path already and want to place your path above the terrain, you have to go with shift-mousemovement (and it's a pain in the backside ).

 

[NZFanatic]

Same goes for the x-menu: No stages, any height you like - just more precise placement.

Edit: As for path-placement - there you are right, if you don't have an existing path already and want to place your path above the terrain, you have to go with shift-mousemovement (and it's a pain in the backside ).

If you hold down 'ctrl' you can stop your new path from connecting to an already present one. You can do that and the shift key at once.

 

[shirandhak]

Funny it gets, if you have to press ctrl and shift the same time, because you want to stop your path from autoconnecting and try to get it up the same time...
Usually I have no issues with the path tool It's just that it is so timeconsuming and fiddely in some places.