So, I’m trying to make a bridge across the top of a ravine, but there’s another player with a build directly below where I want to put the other end of my bridge, so the plot I need to finish it is reserved. It got me thinking that it would be very difficult to make a vertically-oriented city. I was hoping we could get an option in the beacon control that sets whether or not our beacon reserves the land above/below it, to allow for more communal vertically-oriented projects.
thoughts?
As someone who is building a huge tower having multiple plot owners on top of each other would be wonderful. Or at the very least assigning permissions to specific plots.
I second this. I love this idea.
This has been asked for a few times, and I’m not sure we ever had much of an answer on this particular topic.
Personally, I’d love for there to be toggle options on beacon controls to allow people other people to build over and/or under your beacon.
I’ve build an ‘Inn’ for my alts to have rooms in, and it would be awesome if they didn’t have to own the downstairs and roof plots. Then I could just have blank rooms and let anyone plot and own a single room in the building.
Yeah if there was a beacon option to not reserve plots, maybe a simple toggle, that would be fantastic!
It would be good if there were different options for just those on your friends list eg. They can plot above or below or both.
there definitely has been a response on this.
the reason is because the plot claim map is 2d.
so once you claim any plot in a vertical chunk the whole thing is reserved. you can’t have 2 different owners in the same vertical chunk.
Also, if people can build above or below your plot, a lot of frustrations will emerge.
If you want to build a bridge… reserve everything before building! 
It’s an open world MMO after all, everyone has same right to those plots as you do.
Fair enough, I just must have missed that. I guess that must be a legacy design feature from when a beacon reserved the whole vertical space, not just a chunk of it and it didn’t need to be more complex?
That being said, I still think it’s a fair think to ask (again), with the hope that it get revisited at some point post-launch. Especially if the developers aim to add features based on popularity.
Yes its partially a legacy coding thing but it would also make planning for builds really crazy and the data stored for each of the chunks astronomical.
Could you imagine if someone else plotted right above you? It would really complicate things in a bad way…
Release 115: Beacons and Trading Now Live has some extra context around it (and hints as to why columns are reserved)
As it happens, I can imagine. I’ve thought about this quite a lot over the last year or so since I realised that it was a big limitation for any social collaboration that wasn’t just a horizontal build, and wanted more vertical aspects. With the given suggestion, if a player has plotted right above you, it is because you will have actively allowed them to do so.
What if a group want to build a set of chalets that are embedded on a steep mountain face? When (if) ladders show up, that could be amazing.
What if you wanted to build a multi-story shopping mall, where you build the road and infrastructure, and they can actually plot their own shops instead of relying on you giving them permissions and having access to all their stuff?
Wouldn’t it be nice if you were building an underground cave city, and you could just ASK a player at ground level to let you extend your base under theirs?
I cannot deny that there would be some technical complexities to iron out. 'If Person A allowed other friends/players to claim beacons above/below a plot they own, then would the other person also have their own data stored as to who could and couldn’t plot above/below them? Or would you just mark a column as being open for mixed plotting and make it work on a veto system from everyone with a plot in the column?
That being said, ‘Astronomical’ seems like an unnecessary over-statement. What has been suggested is a system that works like it does now with the ‘Ability’ to allow others to plot within the a reserved column. That means for the vast majority of cases, you’d need one extra boolean worth of data to be stored for each entire column. The suggestion is just an opt-in mechanic to allow for better collaborative building.
Like I said. I get that the are technical reasons why it doesn’t work like that right now. I also concede that this is something that would take time and consideration and (hopefully) discussion with the community at large. My posts here have just been saying that what we currently have it limiting, and could be expanded upon to give people more options with minimal overhead.