Flatten landscaping: bugged or WAI?

[Calvax]

Started up a new playthrough today with the new expansion and update. Was glad to see some landscaping features (really cool that it uses waste rock!). There was an area near my start with some rocks so I used to flatten terrain, now I can't build anything there. It bizarrely appears as "uneven terrain" despite it appearing completely flat. I've tried to fix it by making it the same terrain type, by repeatedly using the flatten command, but now I just have this useless section. Any advice? Am I missing something here?

 

[Promethian]

I've had that happen. There is some small piece of unflattened area in there you need to hit.

 

[Calvax]

I've been dragging and flattening the flatten command over the area for a while. Will keep trying...

 

[YertyL]

You can see where the building is blocked by looking which tiles are not shown in the preview (upper right side in the screnshot). Maybe that helps.

 

[jordanjay29]

This is a big annoyance for me, I got caught with this in my current game. Finally managed to nail it (somehow) by doing small strips with the texture changer tool (for the sands/mountain textures, somehow this also deals with uneven terrain), enough to put down the dome I wanted, but it got its revenge by making the terrain around my passage tunnel uneven.

And now that my domes are there, I can't go back to it with the landscaping tools, the brush sizes are too big.

 

[Promethian]

This is a big annoyance for me, I got caught with this in my current game. Finally managed to nail it (somehow) by doing small strips with the texture changer tool (for the sands/mountain textures, somehow this also deals with uneven terrain), enough to put down the dome I wanted, but it got its revenge by making the terrain around my passage tunnel uneven.

And now that my domes are there, I can't go back to it with the landscaping tools, the brush sizes are too big.

Yes! Oh please Haemimont, gibs us more brush sizes.

 

[rhaak]

Hmm, The smallest brush size is only a couple of hexes, do you really need a smaller brush size ? Having more options is always OK though.

 

[rittstar]

I've been dragging and flattening the flatten command over the area for a while. Will keep trying...

i had the same issue several times, usually flatten the terrain again and again with a wider scope worked for me, at least it cost you almost nothing if it is flatten already to do it again

 

[svetlio]

The flatten tool supports resizing and continuous placement (like the building construction). The area under the brush is set to be completely flat, but elevated to the height of the starting point of the drawing. This could lead to some hard to see edges. Another common mistake is too leave uncovered areas between the brush strokes. In this case the zone there is smoothed to merge with the surrounding height. Sometimes this also leads to hard to see unbuildable areas. Also, if the construction is cancelled, the result is also questionable.

 

[Calvax]

The flatten tool supports resizing and continuous placement (like the building construction). The area under the brush is set to be completely flat, but elevated to the height of the starting point of the drawing. This could lead to some hard to see edges. Another common mistake is too leave uncovered areas between the brush strokes. In this case the zone there is smoothed to merge with the surrounding height. Sometimes this also leads to hard to see unbuildable areas. Also, if the construction is cancelled, the result is also questionable.

Thanks for the response. Would you consider making the tool a square that can be dragged to appropriate size rather than a line? In this case I made several lines in a row overlapping in various configurations and it did not work until after the 4th or 5th time when I must have finally caught the errant tile. Given that fiddly experience I haven’t bothered with it since, despite a flatten terrain tool being quite desirable.

 

[svetlio]

Thanks for the response. Would you consider making the tool a square that can be dragged to appropriate size rather than a line? In this case I made several lines in a row overlapping in various configurations and it did not work until after the 4th or 5th time when I must have finally caught the errant tile. Given that fiddly experience I haven’t bothered with it since, despite a flatten terrain tool being quite desirable.

Well, it's a brush which can form almost any form. Just hold the key for multi construction and draw the lines to form a solid square. Is that working for your case?

 

[Mauer]

Well, it's a brush which can form almost any form. Just hold the key for multi construction and draw the lines to form a solid square. Is that working for your case?

Now that I've tried it, it works great!, but is there a way to let players know this with a tooltip or UI element?, because I bet most people who don't visit the forums will never have any idea this is possible.

 

[svetlio]

Now that I've tried it, it works great!, but is there a way to let players know this with a tooltip or UI element?, because I bet most people who don't visit the forums will never have any idea this is possible.

From my experience, I can tell than most people don't read and that wont help. Actually there are control hints in the flatten infopanel:

 

[Mauer]

My bad lol

 

[w0x0f]

I can't see the brushes at all. Occasionally I can get a build site placed and click a rover to get to it, but not being able to see the brushes makes it really, really hard. This is on MacOS 10.12.6.

 

[YertyL]

From my experience, I can tell than most people don't read and that wont help. Actually there are control hints in the flatten infopanel:

It might be less that people generally do not read than that you automatically assume that this tooltip is going to be the same for all buildings if it only changes in some very specific cases. Almost everything in this tooltip will usually be stuff you already know, like "place" "cancel" "this building requires power" -- which you do not want to read every time, just in case a small part is different for one specific building. I am pretty sure I did read the tooltip -- once, and then assumed it is going to be "place, cancel, rotate, zoom" for every building, because it almost always is. You will notice changes like the "change skin"-paintbrush popping up from the corner of your eye (mostly), but not almost identical text.

It might be worth it to add a small hint in the in-game encyclopedia for landscaping and lake shapes ("size/shape can be changed when placing" e.g.), because I only stumbled across either after pretty extensive forum reading, and that seems to be more rule than exception.

 

[Herbert West]

The flatten tool supports resizing and continuous placement (like the building construction). The area under the brush is set to be completely flat, but elevated to the height of the starting point of the drawing. This could lead to some hard to see edges. Another common mistake is too leave uncovered areas between the brush strokes. In this case the zone there is smoothed to merge with the surrounding height. Sometimes this also leads to hard to see unbuildable areas. Also, if the construction is cancelled, the result is also questionable.

Well now, here is your problem.

Instead of a simple "equalize with starting point", you need "equalize with buildable area". Lets say I have an already built-up area, crammed full, and a rocky, uneven area next to it. I should be able to pin any point in the built-up area, and just tell the drones to make everything like that.

Instead, I currently have to flatten potentially very many times to get these annoying uneven terrains out of the way.