Base Building

[JakeyK]

Can the items still be rotated in 360 degrees instead of just 90 by 90.  I cannot remember the keys for the life of me.

[Rylas]

Hold down Alt to rotate the piece in shorter increments. And use shift+control to lower/raise the item in relation to the floor.

 

Does anyone remember there being some options for large rocky surfaces. I remember being able to use some that would take up a fair amount of space in a room, but I've looked through all the tabs and can't find anything like that now.

[Burnt Toast]

The only "rocky" thing I remember are the three stone items...each looked a lil different and you had to make sure not to mesh them together at the same level or you would get flicker which as very distracting.

 

 

Hold down Alt to rotate the piece in shorter increments. And use shift+control to lower/raise the item in relation to the floor.

 

Does anyone remember there being some options for large rocky surfaces. I remember being able to use some that would take up a fair amount of space in a room, but I've looked through all the tabs and can't find anything like that now.

[Erydanus]

Let's make this a general question thread on base building questions ~

 

I noticed that one of the new options is skies and I placed one but it just kind of fuzzed the base atmosphere. Is there some way to emulate an outdoor space or are the skies just for lighting?

[Rylas]

Let's make this a general question thread on base building questions ~

 

I noticed that one of the new options is skies and I placed one but it just kind of fuzzed the base atmosphere. Is there some way to emulate an outdoor space or are the skies just for lighting?

 

I was wondering the same thing. Would be nice to have it at least be room specific.

 

I get the feeling base stuff will be low priority though.

[LycraBoy]

Apparently it is a skybox effect, like in Doom or Quake, where you put a particular texture on the ceiling to show the sky. Lots of new stuff to sort through, but you'll know it when you find it.

 

[Impish Kat]

Check out the Bases section in the i25 patch notes:  https://docs.google.com/document/d/11cLJiSYlfueJheOumRywG8Evip2Mjmu_30Y6ePaetqY/edit#heading=h.26in1rg

 

New Key Bindings:

• F1: Cycle through grid size settings. Settings are Disabled (no grid), 1/4 unit, 1/2 unit, 1 (Default), 2, and 4.
  
• F2: Cycle through rotation angle snap settings. Settings are Disabled, 1, 3, 5 (Default), 10, 15, 30, and 45 degrees.
  
• F3: Toggle 'room clipping' mode. When in room clipping mode, items are allowed to be placed partway through walls and outside a room, and may be placed at any height, even completely above or below the room. At least 1 world unit of the item's bounding box must still remain inside the room.
  
• F5: Change the attachment mode for the selected item. Attachment modes cycle through Floor, Wall, Ceiling, and Surface.
  
• CTRL+Z: Undo. Reverts the last change made in the editor.
  
• CTRL+Y: Redo. Reverts the last undo, but only if Undo was the most recent change.
  

Slash Commands:

The following new commands are available while in base editor mode (bring down the chat window to type them in)

• /grid_snap value Sets the item placement grid to <value> world units. The default grid size is 1.
  
• /angle_snap value Sets the rotation angle snap to <value> degrees. The default angle snap is 5.
  
• /room_clip 0-1
  room_clip 0 (the default) constrains items to be completely inside their parent room.
  room_clip 1 allows the bounding box of objects to extend partly outside the room, and disables vertical constraints entirely.
  
• /base_default_sky 0-15 sets the default sky that the base will use outside of Sky volumes.  (I think sky volumes are the ones you can set inside the base, for a room by room setting?)
  
  • 0 - Praetoria
    1 - Atlas Park
    2 - Boomtown
    3 - Mercy Island
    4 - Grandville
    5 - Cimerora
    6 - Night Ward
    7 - Shadow Shard
    8 - Storm Palace
    9 - Dense Fog
    10 - Rikti Invasion
    11 - Zombie Apocalypse
    12 - Praetorian Invasion
    13 - Lighted Paths
    14 - Shadowed Paths
    15 - Spaaaaaaaaaace!
     
    
  • 
    

  Added Search function to UI. Clicking on 'Place Item' reveals the search bar. Remove query from search bar, to regain access to the complete base library.

   

  There are a ton more notes in there, can't cover them all...

  anyone have their cheat sheet of old commands?  are they any use still?

[Obsidius]

Much obliged, those patch notes came in very handy!

[legion]

I've seen photos of these massive outdoor bases ... how do we do that?

[Rylas]

Check out the Bases section in the i25 patch notes...

 

Thanks for that! Those are gonna be super helpful.

 

Does anyone know if an easy method to move an object horizontally after you've place it? For example, I have an object I've raised above the floor, but need to move it sideways without lowering or raising its height, but that's way easier said than done.

[Erydanus]

I did see the notes but wow so much to take in.

 

I was fiddling with placing a sky last night and I still can't figure out what's going on with that. I put a sky in a room and the room's lighting got a little different but only when I was right by the item - at the edge of the room no effect at all. The sky above the base if I put the camera up there did change dramatically.

 

If anyone figures this out, please do chime in here with some screen shots!

[Obsidius]

I've seen photos of these massive outdoor bases ... how do we do that?

If you figure it out, let me know. And vice versa :)

[Rylas]

I wonder if Bases is a big enough topic to eventually need its own subforum. Or at least a stickied thread. I spent a good many hours... er, days... building and rebuilding SG bases. For those of us who just love the creative possibilities it provides, there's plenty of tip, tricks and photos that are going to be coming.

[WanderingAries]

I'll just leave this here: https://web.archive.org/web/20120904102936/http://boards.cityofheroes.com/forumdisplay.php?f=581

[Obsidius]

Anyone know if there are base window options that will let you look out into the skybox? Otherwise, what's the point of being able to select a skybox?

[Rylas]

Anyone know if there are base window options that will let you look out into the skybox? Otherwise, what's the point of being able to select a skybox?

 

I'm working on a fun way of creating that illusion. I'll post pics if I figure something out.

[Impish Kat]

I'll just leave this here: https://web.archive.org/web/20120904102936/http://boards.cityofheroes.com/forumdisplay.php?f=581

 

Oh my... 

How fun

Unfortunately, many of those guides are outdated.  Some of the stacking guides still refer to stacking desks, when at the end of things, there were quick commands that made desk stacking obsolete.

Unfortunately, I've lost my cheat sheet, so I'm remembering things bit by bit...

 

SHIFT = vertical move

CTRL = horizontal move

ALT = spin (on x axis?)

 

There were other combos... one to spin on y axis... SHIFT+ALT (or CTRL)?  egads I'm so rusty!

 

And the new i25 commands open up new possibilities... No more attaching wall items to a cubicle to float them in mid-air!

 

[Impish Kat]

I've seen photos of these massive outdoor bases ... how do we do that?

If you figure it out, let me know. And vice versa :)

 

Okay... I tinkered with this for a bit...

 

First and foremost... enable room clipping (F3)

I had to start with a fully filled section (2 lvls ceiling, wall, 2 lvls floor)

Then I was able to place items ON TOP of the filled section. 

I was able to place a surface item that was larger than the section with no problem.

 

Next, I set a tp inside the base, and connected it to the alpha beacon, like normal

Then I set a tp on top (outside) the base and connected it to the beth beacon, like normal.

NOW, the trick became the points...

I connected the alpha point to the top (outside) tp... so the inside tp was "pointing" to the outside point. 

Then I connected the beth point to the inside tp... so the outside tp was "pointed" to the inside point.

 

The thing to remember about the points is that is where you will "land" when you tp.  So you need to position them in such a way that you won't get stuck... which I learned the hard way.  I had forgotten to enable room clipping when I positioned the top point, so it was on edge.  I kept getting stuck in the ceiling... lol

 

For placing things up top, I found that I could place them directly on the filled base section but not on the large surface tile I had placed.  HOWEVER, once I got an item up there, I was able to move it around on the surface tile without issue.  It was like the quirk of needing to set something on the floor before you could raise it.

 

One other thing I noticed about the outside... there seems to be no ambient light.  So you will need to light with lamps and such (hiding lamps is a fun way of creating ambient light).

 

That was pretty much the extent of my experimentation.  It sounds like others have gotten a lot further!

 

[Erydanus]

Not so far as I've been able to figure out yet.

 

I've been doing small practice builds to get used to the new item options and just started on my first real serious attempt at a base last night. Especially now that the servers are a bit smoother and I've taken in some of the new limits I think I'm coming back up to speed. For instance teleporters. They can now have 10 beacons attached to them, which in theory sounds nice but in practice is maybe too many things in one place hero side. I can see a newbie builder villain side who just slaps all the CoV zones on a wall and puts 1 teleporter in front of it. But for me I want to split them out in reasonable level ranges. So I put 4 instead of the classic 2 on each of my porters, and that's enough room to see the beacons on the wall. (For instance Atlas, King's, Perez, and the Hollows are on one pad.) Also, I'm using orange bagel portals instead of magic bird cages; why not??

 

There's a lot of new display items... it cracks me up there's an entire section for bathrooms now, not that you can create a working door INTO a bathroom. It's a pity that the original devs didn't have the resources to do 1 or 2 more base styles. There's a nice starting selection there but they all read "lair" pretty hard. I'd have loved it if they had come up with a wood paneling/plain wall design for creating effects like the base is inside a house instead of a sewer. (For concepts like Family run office building, a haunted house, a barn, etc.) I know people have gotten really creative with mixing the style pieces and tinting them I honestly think wood paneling or Victorian paneling would do a lot. I noticed there's also a search which is pretty nice once you know that something must be in there somewhere.

 

 

[Erydanus]

YOU GUYS.

 

We are so dumb.

 

There is a new base style for ceiling called OPEN SKY. It's only available on the highest ceiling level.

 

Quickie shrunk screenshot to illustrate... that's an orrery on the ceiling and then I changed the sky above.

[Impish Kat]

yes... the open sky is very cool for building open rooms inside the base... that is definitely a cool option

 

The other option is to build on top of the base, for a truly "open world" feeling... 

 

Two options!

More choices!

 

Yaaaaaaayyyy!!!

/kermit flail

[Impish Kat]

This thread needs more pics...

 

/jussayin

[Silk]

Nice thread, I just started working on a base today too!

 

Might be nice to have a controls thread/sticky.

[Obsidius]

OH YEAH

[Impish Kat]

It was brought to my attention that the numbering for the skies in my previous post were off...

Because text editor numbered list doesn't like to start with zero.  :facepalm:

 

Should be correct now.

 

Also, for folks starting out, some commands to help you move and place items...

To move an item, left click, hold, and use these keys as you move:

 

SHIFT = vertical

CTRL = horizontal

ALT = spin

CNTRL+ALT = flip object on axis