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The Builders Paradox (Improve your builds) Tutorials

Discussion in 'Starbound Discussion' started by SivCorp, Mar 19, 2016.

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What level of builder are you?

  1. A hole in the ground will do.

    30 vote(s)
    8.5%
  2. Boxes as far as the eye can see!

    98 vote(s)
    27.8%
  3. It looks like the plans.

    103 vote(s)
    29.3%
  4. Sure, I'd live there.

    92 vote(s)
    26.1%
  5. The Sistine Chapel? Yeah I built that.

    29 vote(s)
    8.2%
  1. PinkieCube

    PinkieCube Big Damn Hero

    Well I have many humanly buiding parts which match together like a puzzle.
    My race the human build first a foundation, a very big Plate with some highs and downs for Wall, Door and Floor.
    For the ground in the floor / rooms are in foundation so much downs and for the wall and doors are the highs.
    The down are in my build style two block deep and set on the downs a floor plate which you can walk over the plate.
    Also is the foundation 4 blocks wide (two blocks for the ground shell, one block for the space and one block for floor plate)
    Between ceiling and floor are the logistic pipes for water, Gas and sewage. This is the empty space between the concrete shell and the floor plate.

    The wall of one human building is 6 blocks, 3 blocks or 2 block wide.
    According as the wall stand inside the buiding, or a part of the outside border by the building
    and if the wall is load-bearing the next floor or the wall is only a border for the two rooms then the is wall is only two blocks wide.
    The outside walls are all load-bearing walls and they have all a frontages which keep off the rain, mud and sometimes look better than the concrete wall behinde it.
    001.PNG Picture: From left to right - frontage(light metal), space(air), insulating material (sod or thatch), load-bearing wall (concrete block, girder, concrete block)

    The ceiling of one human building is 3 blocks or 2 blocks wide.
    A room bigger than 16 blocks long get a 3 blocks ceiling.
    It is lower than 16 block then the room get 2 blocks ceiling.

    The window of one human building is double-glazed.
    A window has two glass panes where between the outside panes and the inside panes is air.
    037.png

    See also:

    Masonry veneer
    Formwork --> (important video to humanly formwork)
    Thermal insulation
    Facade
     
    Aikiro42 and Wolf1e like this.
  2. HI-MAX²

    HI-MAX² Scruffy Nerf-Herder

    My main concern when building on Starbound or Terraria is the behavior of NPCs. I can't stop thinking that the floors are too high or plataforms too distant. Will they be able to cycle through all the floors without problems? Will they use the bed I built for them? And why the hell is he standing outside while it's raining?

    The end result always ends up being unsatisfactory because of this. The NPCs always need to teleport at some point, keep using the wrong furnitures and such.

    Still, I really enjoyed this guide. This will make my next buildings seem less "standardized".
     
  3. Bahroth

    Bahroth Star Wrangler

    I hate having smooth pathfinding for npcs ... I found the golden number in my ship and it takes AGES for people to get back to their rooms just for a few seeds/pixels :lod:
     
    Wa.luigi.time likes this.
  4. LilyV3

    LilyV3 Master Astronaut

    while that looks interesting form an engineering point of view, it also is kinda weird when you think about how thick those windows and walls are xD

    also, painting the thatch yellow should be more recognizeable as insulator as I think thats he more common color people have in mind.
     
    Last edited: Aug 10, 2016
  5. PinkieCube

    PinkieCube Big Damn Hero

    I use only the human building style.
    If you enter a human house then you have first the entrance room
    where you in the front to you see a door or a wall and to the side of the wall is one door and opposite to this is the hall.
    Of course the entrance room is a part of the hall
    but the entrance room get sometimes a small stair where you can see that you are in the apartment.
    This is the hall, if you go the next door then you enter the kitchen.
    In the human house bound often the kitchen with the hall and the hall with the entrance room where is the entrance door.
    But, it is true that the hall is bound with all rooms in the house.
    You can only enter a room in the house if you use the hall in the house which run across the house
    In the most human house are in the outside walls windows. The windows are framed glass panes where is a handle right or left.

    I think that it is interest that the human pour their building with liquid concrete in the shape.

    I only talk about the human, our race. :rainbow::lolwut::3
    I know the humans very very good. I don't know how the other races like to live or like to build.
    Our race is different and every people decorate their rooms other than the next human.
    But we build with the same pattern, nobody would build the hall outside or avoid to build boxs.:love:

    A example for the human building stlye, It is the one and same building in three view:

    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Aug 10, 2016
    Wolf1e likes this.
  6. Avian Village Guard

    Avian Village Guard Void-Bound Voyager

    An amazing guide! I'll try some of these out when building a colony so they look less... Well, boxy.

    ... I just need to figure out whether to build a Human bunker colony or a Hylotl underwater city.
     
    SivCorp likes this.
  7. Big Richard

    Big Richard Scruffy Nerf-Herder

    This is fantastic! Just what I was hoping someone would do.
     
    SivCorp likes this.
  8. LilyV3

    LilyV3 Master Astronaut

    well in modern first worlds yes, but in many countries houses are still very simple and not following these rules. But in SB thats exactly the thing, everything looks rather 3rd worldish instead of modern. There are large areas in Argentinia and brasil where many villages consist only of simple clay huts
     
  9. PinkieCube

    PinkieCube Big Damn Hero

    I can't speak for every human on the earth but in Germany, United Kindom, USA and other industrialized countries are this default by building.
     
  10. LilyV3

    LilyV3 Master Astronaut

    in USA they still make wooden houses because they enjoy insurance paid tornado renovation
     
  11. Pedro Falcão

    Pedro Falcão Pangalactic Porcupine

    About Brasil, if you're talking about the favelas, they're improvised masonry and/or wood, but not clay huts. Clay huts are prone to barber bugs, and they transmit barber bug's fever, an incurable disease, so people avoid it. Only very small villages of indigenous peoples, villages of slave descendants (called "quilombolas") or homeless' personal shelters may be clay huts like you describe and they are not large areas. That said, our house styles are very different, yes, but there are a lot of practical reasons for that (like no wooden houses because of the higher temperatures, for example).
     
  12. Shadox2.0

    Shadox2.0 Spaceman Spiff

    At the moment i'm not realy a build im most a supervisor with WEdit xD , i've merge some underground glitch castle together for made a big one , but its never realy finish , but the main goal is to make a full glitch planet (already 2 dg + sewer + town + the baron castle (glitch mission)) , check here for the undergound if you are curious http://img4.hostingpics.net/pics/385371glitchcastlucustom.png )
     
  13. Mile-High Hat

    Mile-High Hat 2.7182818284590...

    does anyway have a good tutorial on building underground? i'm working on an underground city, and stuff like no roofs and no natural terrain edges to build off of hampers the effectiveness of land tutorials for me. '^v^
     
  14. Shadow20218

    Shadow20218 Scruffy Nerf-Herder

    I don't know about an underground village but for a large bunker dig out what general size you want then use dirt background to show where the walls will be then you should build a central,large,darker staircase area to give it a different feel then the rest of the bunker. You should also be building in a slightly darker material to build support beams in large rooms,tunnels. The base should have lots of tunnels and relatively large rooms for important features. The top layer should be a medium room imbedded in the side of a hill with only one direction to go, down. I tend to only build bunkers in late game so I am sorry if this is not beneficial for your build. You could build a large artificial biome with small huts in you bunker, sort of as a Glitch style life testing/observation, with observation decks with dark glass windows.
     
    Pedro Falcão likes this.
  15. Pedro Falcão

    Pedro Falcão Pangalactic Porcupine

    That is most useful for me. Where did you learn about that? Have you ever been to a bunker? I would apprecite your opinion on my build here.
     
    Shadow20218 likes this.
  16. Shadow20218

    Shadow20218 Scruffy Nerf-Herder

    I am in an area where multiple bunker are that are accessible to me. I tend to find these tips are consistent with most of the bunkers.

    With your build I have to say it is very nice but I believe it could be improved if you made it contain a generator room as a bunker of this scale would require its own power source. It would also be good to have a more complex elevator that could lead you to multiple locations instead of just the entrance. Also a control center were the power can be turned on and off and the bunker can be put in lock down would be good to put above the generator. Though these are just suggestions it will give the bunker a higher tech feel while still giving it an underground appearance.
    And if you have to choose between building tall or wide I would suggest going tall with a good elevator as a long elevator would make it feel like you are going deep underground.
     
    Last edited: Aug 14, 2016
    Pedro Falcão likes this.
  17. Qtw

    Qtw Phantasmal Quasar

    i have a question. could someone please post tips/tutorials on making some of these builds?

    space station city.

    underwater city or underwater lab.

    a town in the sky.

    if have to choose only one...i'd like the underwater city.
     
    Wolf1e likes this.
  18. SivCorp

    SivCorp Parsec Taste Tester

    Totally lost track of this thread... Will have to add some more to it shortly, as there are many more building things to do :)
     
    TheFloranChef likes this.
  19. SivCorp

    SivCorp Parsec Taste Tester

    Advanced Large build tutorial -
    Large shipworld build.


    This tutorial uses B.Y.O.S., admin commands, custom assets and multiple mods due to scale and aesthetics.

    1. Decisions on scale and scope.
    The first step is the most important.... Decide on the size you are aiming for, and the purpose of the build.
    For this example, I am building a main ship for my character to traverse the FU mod universe in. This requires many custom workbenches, resource processors, and storage.
    Therefore, I've decided to keep the ship to a maximum of 2 screen sizes at 1x zoom scale. This will limit my travel time on my own ship, and keep me focused on the necessities.
    It's also good to make a stat sheet of your build. What will be it's features and details?
    For this ship, I wrote this out -

    Esox class Stealth ship.

    Armament -
    1(Dual) Multi Chambered Partical Cannon
    3 laser Cannons
    1 Shuttle bay with capicity of 2 ships, 2 mechs, 1 large mech
    4 Marine Complement capacity​
    Defenses -
    Multi unit Image Refraction Stealth units with Shield projection
    Liquid Iridium Hull layer, blocking scanning and sealing hull breaches​
    Power -
    1 Biogenerative Power core with 6 stage relays augmented with dual modulated Shield generators
    1(Dual) Particle power chamber
    1 backup generator
    Multi unit panels function as solar power supplies​
    Navigation -
    1 pair of Cruiser Nacelle FTL Stealth intake engines with exhaust dampeners
    1 pair of Secondary Nacelle FTL Stealth intake engines with exhaust dampeners
    1 pair of impluse engines
    6 maneuvering Thrusters
    1 Passive Radar
    1 Reciever antenna
    1 Navigation Computer core
    1 Data Computer Core
    4 Main computer Cores​
    Personnel-
    1 Command deck
    1 Command quarters
    2 Crew quarters
    1 Medbay
    1 Galley
    1 Manufacturing center
    1 Science center
    1 Organics center
    1 Teleporter room
    1 Engineering deck
    1 Brainstorming deck​
    Crew of 9

    2. Decide on style.
    This decision is the hardest one. Comb through the available blocks, workbenches, assets and colors. Think about the purpose of your build again, making decisions on what will convey functionality of that purpose.
    For my ship, I'm making a stealth ship that is completly independent. Thefore I'm going with a smooth, sharp style like stealth planes/ships of today.
    I also browse online renderings to find inspiration. Here is what I found and emulated as a pattern.
    [​IMG]
    NOTE: the scale is that of a fighter, but I'm up sizing it to a Cruiser. Don't limit yourself just because of scale.

    3. Prep your space.

    For BYOS, you get a small area pre generated for your ship. I remove everything and put all the functional necessities into a small work cube. I also make a very long solid plane along the bottom edge of the ship space, to catch dropped items, and missteps by myself ;)
    [​IMG]
    I also build in /admin mode, with 0 gravity, with a booster tech mod.
    Leave the teleporter where it spawned originally, to know where the center of your shipworld is. I switched mine out for the correct color, then built the teleporter room first, and will build the rest of the ship around it.

    4. Phase 1 building.

    As opposed to ground building, ship building is done using the exoskeleton method. When building ships, also build like it is a submarine... with many doors to seal off rooms, thick outer hull and thinner decks with lifts instead of stairs.
    Here I build down to where my engines will be and slope back up using the visual assets to show the "image refractors" (solar panels) that function to stealth the ship.
    [​IMG]

    5. How to handle mistakes.
    As you can see, my dark metal support beams don't line up correctly at the sloped upper section the way I want it to. I use the Base In A Box mod to move segments around and save completed builds to be redeployed later.
    Here I can wire it up and copy my progress, move it forward to where I want it to be, and redeploy it so everything lines up.
    [​IMG]
    ^ wired up to move
    [​IMG]
    ^ redeploying aligned forward a few spaces.
    [​IMG]
    ^ completed move part.

    There is no reason to keep mistakes in your build, if something looks off, just change it. Play around with different things to get what look you want. Even boring crafting tables can be used for new and interesting things!

    5. Finish Phase 1 building.
    Continue building around the outline of your ship, keeping in mind the purpose of your build.
    In this case, I didn't want to put my communications units directly on the hull, so I have it enclosed so it cannot be detected.
    [​IMG]

    I put another engine on the top side, to allow better manuvarability and allow for a backup to be available.
    [​IMG]

    The docking bay, large thruster, back windows, and exterior hatch finish off the outline.
    [​IMG]

    6. Phase 2 building.
    Phase 2 is laying out the interior levels and necessities for the build. Build to strengthen the outside inwards, keeping sizing in mind for what you want to place in each room. Space is cold and unpressurized, build to protect your crew.
    For the ship, the decks are laid out, reactor area left open, and added some back wall supports for strengthening.
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

    Now is also a good time to check your "looks" of the ship. You may have noticed that I've been building with /fullbright enabled... so as to not worry about lighting what I'm building yet.
    Once your hull and decks are all set up, it is a good time to evaluate your lighting solution.
    For the stealth ship, I've left a 2 space wide section in the hull to fill with illuminated liquid. This functions as a scanner block, hull breach emergency seal, and excellent lighting to see your lovely hull shape and details.
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    NOTE: You may want to use self lighting blocks to get the same effect, or use more point lights. Do realize, however, that the more lights you put in a build, the more you tax the rendering engine within Starbound... leading to lag.

    Once your decks and lighting is all set, begin placing your necessary systems.
    For space craft, I always go through a checklist...
    1- power and propulsion - have engines that look the part they are to play, have a power core that looks strong enough to power the systems of the ship.
    In our case, using the FU mod, I've used the batteries as a core border along with the main reactor unit sitting on top of a Idle Miner Mod unit simulating the reactor core.
    I also like to work in some of the functional workbenches into the build, hence the atomic furnace, refinery and other additions.
    2- Personnel structure - The bridge is the attitude of the ship, and should match with it. Have a galley for food and entertainment, bathroom amenities, medbay, crew quarters, and work areas.
    3- Ship structure - Ship computer core, docking bays, navigation relays, hatches, storage areas, elevators all need appropriated.
    4- Offense capabilities - Weapon and defense systems. Don't just stick guns everywhere, think of how power or ammunition gets to those weapons, and what is needed to control, aim and fire them.​
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

    Once all the main systems are in place, it's time to wire up everything so it can be fully functional.
    Here we see the two elevators wired up, the power plants linked to batteries which are then linked to the different powered stations that need it.
    [​IMG]
    It was at this stage I noticed my main power system was not enough for all my power needs, and added the front reactor. It also serves as a source for the weapon system of the ship, a win, win :)
    Now that everything is finalized, put in the backwalls across the entire ship. Mix up the materials used, and add some variety to it.
    NOTE: 0 gravity and full bright should be turned back off now, as it is time to make sure everything is fully working and lit correctly. If something is too dark or inaccessable, now is the time to fix it.

    7. Phase 3 finalize.
    Now that the ship is essentially finished with its main systems and functions, its time to add furniture and tweeks.
    This phase can take longer than expected, as you go through each room setting it up with everything needed. Crew quarters, storage containers, control panels, ... they all need put into place.

    The fruits of our labor is worth it by the end.
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

    I also like to put in little functional nuggets, like the ability to change the refractory settings from the bridge by using the Replicator bench. It makes for some fun design elements with standard stuff. Always think outside the box :)
    [​IMG]

    Well that's it! Hope this helped you in building large and building ships.

    Let us know of your tricks and tips as well, and happy building :)
     
    Last edited: Oct 19, 2017
  20. ratkintheoverestimated

    ratkintheoverestimated Phantasmal Quasar

    Dang! What mods are you using apart from FU and BYOS?
     

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