Buildings 101

[c3k]

Gents,

Okay, now that I can move the map around (thanks to Johnny (FGM)), I'm having a bit of fun creating some situations.

I'm currently experimenting with buildings. I know a lot of you have already figured this out, so I'm looking for a bit of guidance. When I put multiple buildings down with adjoining walls, does the initial building facing have ANY effect at all on gameplay? Obviously, the initial facing determines which way the door faces. However, in the 3D view I can use SHIFT, ALT, or CONTROL so that I can totally change the appearance of the buildings. I can add, move, or delete existing doorways. So, after the initial placement, assuming I then edit the building in the 3D view, does that initial placement create ANY effect on the units?

Do you have any other lessons learned about interior doorways, walls, windows, etc.?

Also, is there any way of cutting and pasting a building so that you can create multiple copies easily?

Thanks,

Ken

[birdstrike]

Building facing only determines the initial facing of the front and rear doors and the window positions. If you're going to select the door/window configuration yourself, it doesn't matter at all.

Regarding interior walls: since one of the latest patches, two adjacent walls are considered as both 'having a door' as long as one wall has one -

To avoid confusion, when creating doorways between 'rooms', I try to remove one wall completely and only leave the other with the door.

For multi-room buildings, I often remove the interior walls completely - this seems to cause the least problems for units moving between rooms, because Interior walls with windows create the dreaded 'shooting galleries' and solid walls with doors force units to 'blindly' enter the next room (unless of course, I want that to happen).

You can very easily remove walls or restore a solid wall by moving the camera inside a building in 3D view and ctrl-click on the wall you want to change from the inside. The walls will instantly be removed or restored. If you do this while holding ctrl+alt, you can remove/restore the walls of all floors on that side of the building.

This is a nice way to quickly create solid walls or remove them between buildings of all sizes.

And sorry, but no copy/paste.

[c3k]

birdstrike,

Thank you very much!

Ken

[LongLeftFlank]

Don't forget CTRL+ALT+CLICK from inside the building. Two such clicks will (first) eliminate the existing wall (and windows) entirely and (second) place a door (with no windows) on each and every level of the building.

Don't use balconies to connect adjacent buildings as it will result in utterly insane behaviour by infantry entering those spaces and have players cursing your guts.

Cut paste terrain is very much on the menu for CMN if I understand rightly, but not available in CMSF or its modules. This will be HUGE for the game system in general, since scenario designers will be able to spend less time on maps and more time on the scenarios themselve.

[MikeyD]

There's so much going on under the hood in the game I can't say definitively the AI soldiers aren't aware which direction the building is facing. There may be some coded (movement? targeting?) behavior having to do which which way the front faces, but if there is its too subtle for me to have positively spotted it.

[Ryujin]

I'm not sure what tactical significance the "front" of the building would have as you can change all the features around. They "should" always use the nearest door or whatever windows face the enemy or whatever their orders say. It just seems like a means to place buildings quickly and have an idea of where the default door will be if you just plop one down.

[Jonny(FGM)]

I'm no expert but i presume the building facing is just for being able to (relatively) quickly create urban maps without having to make sure by going into 3d preview that all the doors are where you want them