Grid Size = 0.025... Please?

[Thundercraft]

Whenever I'm building stuff at a small scale like 0.1 or 0.05, I often find that the blocks I'm trying to place stubbornly refuse to line up. That is, they tend to overlap by half a 0.05 block, or 0.025. But there's really not much I can do about this since the Grid Size scale only goes as small as 0.05... :(

 

This is even more of a problem when I'm trying to copy and past arrays of small (0.1 or 0.5) blocks. Those will overlap by 0.025 almost every time.

 

Maybe this is a bug? It seems like I'm always having to set my Grid Size to half of my Scale Step. Because, if I don't, then stuff tends to not line up properly. So, if I'm building with the default 0.5 scale, then I have to use a Grid Size of 0.25 to make it line up, and with a Scale Step of 0.4, I find myself using Grid Step 0.2... :(

 

Am I the only one experiencing this?

 

[Kage]

Change the grid type.  You have options like no snapping, local, global and middle block.

 

I believe the default (local) aligns itself on the center of the face for the block you are placing on.    So if you place on a face with of 0.5x0.5, then the center is at 0.25x0.25.  This is how you are getting half a block off.

 

If you do "global grid", it will behave more how you expect I think.

 

The middle block option that I can tell ignores the grid altogether, instead places things at increments based on the size of the root block.  But I still don't fully understand if this is what is happening.

 

No snapping lets you place anything anywhere, but it'll be hard to line things up.

 

So basically, always use global and you'll should be good.

[Thundercraft]

Well, it seems most of my problem stems from trying to use an atypical size of root (core) block. The default that we start with is a 2 x 2 x 2 iron cube. (lowerX="-1" lowerY="-1" lowerZ="-1" upperX="1" upperY="1" upperZ="1")

 

However, I followed this How to Make Tiny Ship Cores & Upgrade Your Ships Materials tutorial to create smaller ship cores. And when I used a core of size 1.6, I frequently ran into this issue with overlapping blocks. I would imagine that some non-typical core block sizes are okay and some will cause this issue.

 

Change the grid type.  You have options like no snapping, local, global and middle block.

 

I've tried all of these. But none of them fixed my issue. Though, it was a good suggestion.

 

In the end, I started my design over from scratch using a default core size. That pretty much solved this issue. (Though, I still wish there was a 0.025 grid size...)

[Adonis]

you can delete any core blocks and base the whole design off an engine or random hull block if you want, just turn off safe mode and make sure you do the tiny details later.

[Thundercraft]

After more experience with Build Mode, I realized that this issue is much more prevalent and problematic than I thought. I have never cursed and sworn at my monitor so much in my life as when I'm frustrating by this issue when trying to use blocks that are 0.05 in any dimension (any combination of X, Y, and/or Z).

 

As I wrote earlier, using an atypical size of root (core) block is likely to cause this or make the situation much worse. But that's not the real problem.

 

It's much like I mentioned earlier:

It seems like I'm always having to set my Grid Size to half of my Scale Step. Because, if I don't, then stuff tends to not line up properly.

 

 

The root of the problem is how Avorion will center the current block. This can cause issues for any block - or template of blocks - that has a unit length of an odd multiple of the Scale Step. Think about it: If I have a block 3 units long with a Scale Step of 0.1, then that is 0.1 + 0.1 + 0.1 or 0.3 long. To center this, the game realigns the center to half of that, or at 0.15. This necessitates either reducing the Grid Size to half of the Scale Step or, in this case, increasing it to 0.15.

 

This becomes an impossible problem when Scale Step is set to 0.05 and an X, Y, or Z dimension is an odd number. There is no way to set the Grid Size to half of 0.05.

 

I'm not asking for a Scale Step of 0.25. But, I beg of you, give us a Grid Size of 0.025! Please?

 

Edit:

 

I found another impossible situation: Any time the Scale Step is set to 0.25 and we attempt to use a block (or template) that is an odd number. Consider what happens with a block, say, 5 units long at 0.25 per unit. That's 0.25 x 5 = 1.25. But dividing that by 2 (to find the center) gives 0.625... That is not divisible by 0.05 and makes it impossible to center because we can't set the Grid Size to anything less than 0.05.

[cy414]

would be nice if the build mode had a 'snap to edge' feature.

or the ability to highlight things and click something like "align to standard (X.X) grid"

[Thundercraft]

would be nice if the build mode had a 'snap to edge' feature.

or the ability to highlight things and click something like "align to standard (X.X) grid"

 

That would be wonderful, yes.

 

Frequently, I find myself checking the "Match Block" checkbox, hoping it aligns a block properly, but disappointed in how it also reshapes the block to 'fit the hole'. This effect makes me question why there is even a "Match Shape" checkbox. I never find myself using that option and it seems kind of pointless to me.

[thedamnatus]

Thank god I'm not the only one who has noticed this. I've spent hours designing ships and I'm constantly running into this issue. I really don't want to measure every god damn block I plan to bolt on just to solve this