Are you considering that you could add blocks all around the block?
Not just “up.down.left.right” i cant tell you how many times i have thought about this thing.
Its rly frustrating building wise when you have to add “extra” block that you have to usually remove after.
This may not seem much of problem for those who build just small things, but when you have done this like with few hundred blocks for 1 build it gets rly frustrating.
Green=Block placement that i would like to be added
DarkBlue=The Block
Orange=Blocks we are able to place atm.
LightBlue=Extra Block you need placing Block you want
This thing comes up even with stairs. sure not so big of a deal as said when you are doing few steps, but still it could be better.
Agree completely!! Although at the moment you could use foliage for extra blocks then just bomb them out afterwards as they are weaker… and yes i am offering foliage at 0.3c per for anyone looking lol. Thats 300 for a stack of you’re wondering, hand trade only at the moment till stack pricing (or the decimal system) becomes a thing
Definitely see where you’re coming from with this, it would take some hassle away from build for sure. From a functionality point of view, it would be quite difficult to implement as the game currently only recognises faces and projections (so, for example you can look up above a block and place one on top).
Communication in game would also be a bit of an interesting one, we’d need to make sure it was just as easy to place a block there, and was obvious how the function works.
It’s certainly something for us to consider for the future though.
I think the biggest problem would be that because the desired new block placement is not directly off one of the faces of the target block it would be extremely difficult to lock onto it especially if there are any other blocks near by. Whichever method is used as soon as you move the cursor to place the new block you will invariably have to come off the initial block which will then deselect it, and if there’s any other blocks in line of site then the selection will lock onto that block instead. … maybe once the initial block is selected it will need a key to be held down to lock that selected block so the cursor can be moved around beyond it’s faces to hi light the diagonal ones.
I can think of a reasonable way for it to work well enough with a mouse and keyboard. There could be some additional keybindings that shift the block placement ghost by one block while held. Then throw in some conditional logic so that if you hold the ‘up’ or ‘down’ modifier keys while the placement ghost is on the top of a block already, it won’t move because they are an invalid placements. I believe this would work well because:
The keybindings can be unbound by default, so you keep advanced features out of the new-player experience, but still allow builders to fully customise the way they want to build.
Given that the modifiers affect the placement ghost, you can get the ghost where you want it before ever clicking/holding a mouse button to start placing the block.
Being that they are keys affect the placement ghost while held, you can hold multiple keys to modify the placement, which means all 26 blocks around the initial block could be easily accessed with no more than two keys held.
You can place blocks in places that might otherwise be difficult/impossible to place them normally. For example, you could target the side of a block you are standing on the edge of, hold the ‘down’ modifier and the appropriate directional one and actually place a block underneath the block you’re stood on - We could actually build downward staircases without grapples!.
The drawback: I don’t use controllers a great deal, and definitely not for a voxel building game. As such, maybe I just don’t have the experience or vision, but I can’t think of a single ‘good’ way to do this on a controller that doesn’t feel like it takes up a lot of the very limited button pressing real-estate… maybe appropriate the triggers/bumpers and abxy buttons while you are attempting to place a block? I don’t know, seems flaky.
How about just holding shift, and it goes to the edges placement, and then maybe also shift+alt for corners (corners not shown, and would be next problem for buildings to still face)
The other block placement thing that annoys me a lot is getting the block rotation right. A lot of times you only have 1 block to the side or below to place the new block on, but the rotation you want requires attaching to another surface. I end up building scaffolding with dirt just to get rotations right, then remove the dirt later.
Maybe we could get a Summoner’s Block tool. You equip it to your hand and it lets you summon one temporary block where you’re looking. Click the tool again and the block returns to your hand (or the summon dissipates or w/e theme makes sense for Boundless). Should solve both diagonal and rotation use cases.
The summoned block can automatically dissipate after 30 seconds or at a certain distance. Whatever the implementation needs to be technically feasible and balanced
