Question to those that make amazing bases/houses/structures

Do you guys, make a sketch or something on paper before creating these awesome structures in-game? or do you just go by guts and etc, and do it straight in the game without any plans?

I like making houses, but i'm not structured and i always have to destroy parts to change others and whatnot.

So, how do you guys proceed?

 

I started with a bit of graph paper for small things, but I quickly realized that graph paper is just far to small for me to properly design, so instead I like to use a softer material (like moon dust) in game to plan things out, so its easy to take down if I don't like it, before replacing it with the item in question that I want to actually build my base from.

 

I don't consider anything I make as amazing but I have built some large-ish things. I kind of build as I go and if I don't like the look I'll mine it back out and reshape. A lot of cooler things come from either total randomness or actually making mistakes.

 

I just build with no planning,

 

interesting, do you mean you use moon dust or the such for the background? or even for floors and etc?

 

I just build by feeling aswell

 

Same here, used some "zoomed-in" Paint while playing Terraria, but with the great freedom of Starbound I "draw" the outline with Dry Sand or Sand so I can quickly mine it down if i don't like it. After the walls are set and as i like them, I replace corners with the actual material, mine down the rest and connect the corners.
For finding materials that work great together I use a random planet in the solar system, try to build different Mini-Rooms and compare them, if I have found what I want to use, I just go back to the home planet. That way I don't have to mine down everything, since e.g. Sandstone Brick takes a while to mine down.

 

Usually I just start by looking at what other people have built and in-game screenshots of the buildings already in game, then I pretty much just copy the general structure or at least have a good sense of what it should look like. Then, as TheCourier stated, I just build as I go. If I make a mistake I usually just try to improvise and build around it since I'm too lazy mine out tiles; the only time I really mine out something is when I just mess up my placement or the mistake is really impossible to work with. Sometimes I do end up having to drill out larges sections of metal walls, and yeah it's pretty annoying.

One trick you can use is to simply extend your building underground. You end up spending a lot of time mining out the ground and the ground-background, but the trade-off is you don't really have to do much planning. You can just build by making one room at a time and you can append more rooms in any three directions and your building isn't going to look weird.

On my current project I started by looking at this screen shot of a Glitch castle from one of the wikis:

Then I basically copied it, making it smaller, ignoring the wall detail, and making it accommodate for items I didn't have (I somehow didn't have those large castle doors and was too lazy to go pick some up) and this is what I have so far:

 

I build spaces first, rooms, corridors, stairwells.

Then I fill things in with various decorations. I rarely ever plan what I'm doing and it's almost always done on the fly.

 

I try to come up with a concept, or a theme, and then I mostly have at it, changing and revising as I go.

 

I start out with a sketch on a sticky pad, then I usually revise it with scratch outs and notes, and then rewrite a cleaner version on a new sticky pad. From there I take it to a white board and sketch it out with dry erase and a ruler. Then I go start designing it in game. It's not like you're going to plan it out exactly when you draw it either, you might start designing a part that you don't like, or realize that it looks a lot nicer or that you could add some flavor by taking it a different direction that you coudln't have thought of without finding a new texture type, or a new item/biome in game. So just get your rough draft, try to integrate some cool ideas. Borrow from what you like but put your own spin on it. It should feel right to you.

Also #1 tip. Take symmetry and throw it straight out the window. Best thing you can do.

 

thank you guys for all the tips, it's interesting to see how you plan/dont plan your constructions

 

Wow, this seems to be a lot of work, are you an artist or something?

 

- I start with a concept; What do I want this structure for? What do I want it to represent? Is it for form? Or for Function?

- Then I make this structure with no plan. This is not to make the final structure -- this is to learn the blocks short comings, the terrain challenges, what kind of construction difficulties to expect.

- Then I plan around what I've learned by looking for the ideal prep and setup for what I would need to make the structure.

- Then I build with no written plan.

 

read books alot this will upgrade your visualization , this way u can easy create an scetch in your brain inside ,so u wont need paper or anything else 99,99% of all things that build here so far was premade by someone , just check in google for sci fi , nature and so one junk wallpapers , u will find a lot of thinks that u can rebuild or even make ur own by saving many blueprints in your brain

 

No I'm just a bored 23 year old IT consultant with ~4 hours of free time, a white board, and sticky notes available at my desk.

 

ah, so you do these at work? awesome lol

 

I have a pretty good visualisation, it's just that i guess i just don't know what to build and end up destroying or changing things around a lot when building lol, thx for the reply

 

No, I don't use it for the background, only to build the skeleton of the building.

 

My structures are made up as I go along. It usually starts small, like a hovel carved within the side of a hill or cliff, or a one/two story house with the crafting items in the house or set up on a porch. It also depends on the character's way of living, too. One of my characters has a quaint house on a hill surrounded by farming fields and lives with low technology. Another character of mine would live more high-tech, so his house or living space would be more defined by tier-2 blocks rather than wood and stone.