Ragnarok - Day 13

I only got a couple of hours in tonight so didn't get much done.  I transferred a few dinos in from the mess on the other map.  I may or may not have mentioned it before.  I was in such a hurry to get them stored after short notice of a map change that there are literally bunches of dinos that have been brought out of the tek transmitter and fused together as one unmovable mass.  It will be good to get them all sorted and homed properly.  I'm not doing them all straight away as that many dinos will cause an FPS drop that I don't need while I'm still building.  Having a few here gives me some perspective on size and placement.  So far so good :)  I've considered moving/removing one of the inverted towers due to how close it ended up to one of the scrolls but part of me likes that.  Once the balcony is done on that tower you can look up at the scroll work.  I'll see how I feel as time goes on :)

I had a chance to ask Mazion in his stream this morn about recording software.  I've checked out the couple that were suggested by him and a few others in the chat and managed to get on of them (OBS) to work (sort of).  Unfortunately the quality of recording I can do with this PC while playing at the same time is so terrible I wouldn't even consider subjecting someone to it.

Other than moving a few dinos around I extended the bottom of one of the central columns so it looks more supportive.  It was looking too small for the size of what was above it.  I want it to look like it pierces through the dome but I think I may have to try something else unless I can get it to look right from underneath.  I would like to have done more today but it can't be helped.  I'm liking how it looks with the hatchery ramps beneath it, it matches in quite nicely.  I really need to get round to furnishing the hatchery level.  I've also thought it may pay to set up another platform just for my boss rexes, but that can wait for now.  I'm not even sure the bosses are even setup for ragnarok yet and I have so much building I want to get completed.  My todo list hasn't shrunk in a while infact it has grown somewhat lol.  At least I have something to keep me busy.

Ragnarok - Day 12

Well today I finished setting all the glass foundations to invisible up the cliff which is a rather dull task I must say.  But I cleared them away so I could get some sweet shots of the newly finished scroll work!!!  I'm really pleased with them they came out fantastic!

I did some basic tidying up of structures and finished making the central shaft and supports invisible.  Its really changed how things look.  I didn't think that the top and bottom levels had enough of a connection before and it made it look rather silly to me.  Now it has some solidity for sure.

I said the other day I had a bunch of ideas for new builds.  Well I've added another to that list.  I might have a go at building a candelabra base sometime.  I would have a better time of it building a base with this style specifically in mind.  Adding it afterwards has worked but it could be integrated further that it has been.

It has turned out to be a rather bizarre looking base as a whole lol.  I've finished up a bit earlier tonight so I'm getting the write up done now instead of in the morning like I have been.  These scrolls have definitely taken more time than I expected them to take.  They have been one of the most time consuming pieces of the base.  I don't think I'll be doing any more to the main structure although I must admit I'm tempted to do some more to the very base of the scroll work as it looks a lil small compared to whats above it.  I might have to get a sounding board on this one ;)

No matter how much I build I still like to get feedback on bits.  I was glad to have a few good sounding boards on the server I was on.  360 and Haidies were the best as they told me if they didn't like something and why which is what I needed so I could improve things.

Not had much interest in this blog yet but to be honest I'm not particularly worried.  Its given me something new to do and a great way to track my building.  With all the building I do, I see it all constantly so I don't see any big progressions just one big ongoing project.  I have to admit I'm rather surprised as to how much I've gotten done on this project so far.  But I'm already looking forward to getting this one finished so I can start on another build.  With all the ideas I have on the go at the moment I have no idea which one will get made first.  I need to do a water pen yet but that shouldn't take very long at all with the method I have in mind.  I will recreate a water pen that I used recently online so there won't be much planning for that.  Other than where I end up building it that is.

Ragnarok - Day 11

I spent quite a few hours working on section of scroll work.  I've fixed up the issues I noticed with the initial scroll.  I told myself when I started I needed to be careful not to stretch out the snaps while doing this and completely spaced on it when it came to building it.  So I went through and managed to tidy things up so they look like they line up.  There is a little bit of variation but nothing too major.  I've embedded the one into the cliff as much as I could.

I've made the top section of the central shaft invisible now and have started making all my glass foundations on the cliff invisible as well.  That actually gave me a significant FPS increase which is nice.  

I still have a few of the glass dividers visible but as I complete the scroll work I'll take care of that.  I've built around the existing platforms and I'm rather pleased with the new look.

At the bottom I've made it embed into the glass dome and pierce through.  I was thinking of pointing the bottoms so it looks like it got stabbed into place.   

I've made a bit of an adjustment to the first scroll to add a little more shape which I rather like.  I have to say I'm really liking the look of the base more now.  I had orig planned to do a basic embelishment down the shaft but the orig idea didn't look right.  Had I planned this style of scroll before I started the building I wouldn't have bothered using a central shaft to connect it to.  I would have simply left it self supporting but these things happen.  I've learnt not to be too fussed if one idea doesn't work.  Its a time consuming progress to get things to look right.  The more I got things completed the less I was liking the base as it wasn't coming together properly but now I'm really starting to enjoy it.  Once the scrolls are finished and all the supports are made invisible and I finish doing the same to the foundations up the cliff I think this is going to look crazily good.  I'm starting to feel the confidence.  Lol as many builds as I do I'm still not always convinced as to how well things are going to turn out.  I've never seen anyone try anything like this so I'm positive I'm heading in the right direction.  I'll sort out some lighting once the scrolls are complete and I've been considering a small floating plat in the largest of the scroll work gaps.  I think it could look cool but I'll wait until they are completed before I try them.

These have been taking a fair bit of time to work out.  Its funny how it works sometimes.  Some of the areas of the build like the foundations where you roughly know what will be done assemble really quickly.  But this scroll work I've probably spent as much time working out my angles as building some of them.  Once I get an idea for the shape worked out the assembly goes much quicker.  If I hadn't had to go back and fix my previous mistake I may have had all the scroll work completed by now.  But even when you spend as much time building as I do you are still gonna make silly mistakes.  Even after you tell yourself not to make that exact mistake ;)

Ragnarok - Day 10

I only had a few hours tonight to get some building in but I had been brainstorming how to improve the look of the base and better tie it all together.  I had an idea for the main shaft leaving from the top to the bottom.  It looks kind of strange at the moment but once it is finished and another 2 put into place I think it should look pretty good.  The scrollwork turned out about as good as I could expect.  I wish the bent bits down the shaft transitioned a little better but like I said when the other two are in place it should look pretty awesome.  I'm going to make the existing shaft completely transparent (I've already removed most of the stairs within it.  They were never meant to be used anyway.  The idea was always to use Teleporters to move between the levels.  I had thought of removing the shaft completely but the way I'm building the scrollwork it needs some extra bits to anchor it to.

I did run into a snag today...  I hit the structure limit haha.  This is one of the problems with working in tri.  The tile sizes are smaller so you need more to complete a larger area.  I really hope that we get some new sizes.  A 2x2 square that fits the underwater pods would be a great start.  Also a tri tile to match it.  A tri underwater pod would also be amazing.  I've doubled my structure limit to 20100 which should easily finish the base.  I've had a few moments of FPS drop but after a couple of restarts getting the structure limit to work its been running much better.  I'm considering making the semitransparent dome on the hatchery level one way.  In S+ glass is prob the most FPS dropping structure.

I had some crazy raft idea's today.  They will have to wait until I'm done with this project before I tackle them.  As frustrating as it can be I love to have more ideas than time to build them.  I have an idea for 2 kinds of raft build, 1 rather shapely tower, a new kind of spiral tower base and I really want to build an inverted base.  I spent some time looking around the map for some big overhangs but I've only seen a few small ones.  I'll keep looking hopefully something pops up that I can try an inverted build on.

I've seen a flaw in my scroll work that means  I may have to redo the one I've already been working on.  I'll revisit it after completing the other two.

Lol look I "made" some new friends today.  I've added the gardener, farmer and herder to my bar and a couple other places to make it feel like there are more people are here.  I'm not lonely...  I swear lol

Tutorials

Ok so I've mentioned a number of times regarding the base invasion vid Mazion did.  After the vid dropped our server flooded with new people coming to have a look at it in person.  I had a number of questions regarding how I do some of my building and why.  I've taken some time today to throw together a few examples to cover a few of the main questions.

Now the first couple I've lumped together.  How do you make self supporting ramps?  And why did I do my foundations like I did?

Well for starters I started doing my foundation work to match what I planned to have above.  This does require some forward thinking and/or testing to get what you are after.

Top left of the collage above is how I prefer to do my self supporting ramps.  I place a wall on the bottom level and lean a ramp against it.  Place a ceiling at the top and repeat.  You can fill in the sides with sloped walls and the underside with roofs making a tidy structure.  I've done a number of variations of these but they all have the same core structures.  Now you will notice that my foundations are positioned to match the ramps.  This is so that at the top everything all still lines up.  The top right shows how things should look when lined up.  The bottom left shows I've built a platform between the two.  The bottom right image shows how far you can take it.  This is the same principle as my spiral towers where I use tri ceilings to turn the ramp in stages.

This image shows the use of a different pattern of foundation work.  Each row outwards swaps from tri to square and back.  Now I don't like this pattern for many reasons.  Its a great way to expand things but if you plan to build structures on it then it can be problematic with walls constantly needing to change direction.  You will notice that the two self supporting ramps while made the same way as the others do not line up with one another.  I'm not saying its impossible to line it up in this fashion (I've achieved it only once before) but its so much of a hassle I won't bother with it.  Another reason I avoid this pattern is I don't like using massive behe gates in my actual bases but I like for most (if not all) dinos to access my base.  Instead of a behe gate I use an XL hatchframes with a ramp which requires a 4 wide path for the ramp and hatch.

Setting up for a specific purpose like the XL hatch makes life easier in my opinion.  I will place 4 squares then a tri and repeat until I have a 'circle'.  The image above I capped to show something to keep in mind.  If like me you chose to build the outer ring size you want first only seperated by a tri anything within that 'circle' will always have to be in the tri.  Any time you only use the single tri to seperate the squares this will occur.  The above example shows 2 sizes and as you can see within this only tri will fit tidily.  I'm rather OCD about getting the foundations right.  If you do a really good job of the foundation work then the rest of the build will go much more smoothly.  I have a friend that will make his outer foundation line then just overlay as many square tiles to fill in the space and it drives my OCD nuts!!!  YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE ;)  This makes snapping anything within the space considerably more hassle when you undertake any alterations or additions.

Now I've seen plenty of Youtubers complaining about the multiple snap points when placing a wall on a ceiling that has another wall below it.  There is a very specific reason for this feature.  I always do my best to drop the wall below the ceiling and connect to the wall below.  In fact sometimes I will remove a ceiling just to be sure I'm hitting the right snap point.  This means nice flush walls on the outside.  I've got a base on a backed up SP that I expanded and altered a number of times before I understood all this and I will never be able to fix the holes properly.  What holes you ask?  Well I will give you an example.  Build 4 walls high then near it build a wall then snap a ceiling the a wall etc until you have 4 walls high and compare the heights.

You should come out with something like this.  Notice I've not placed the walls on the same side of the ceilings.  I did this to show a worse case and to lead onto another thing I discovered.  I call this "Stretching a Snap Point" because if you remove walls and ceiling just from the stretched side you will notice...

It stays connected!  Finding it hard to see what I mean?  Lets try another angle so you can see it a little better...

Talk about a gap!  I've used this stretched snap a couple of times but I've yet to find a really great use for it.  I suspect in PvP it could be VERY useful.  I'll come back to that in a moment.  What can you do with it?  Well how about this...

So you could make a low gradient custom staircase.  Wow a straight gradient how exciting.  How about a custom spiral ramp?

Now were are getting something a little more interesting.  And would you believe it there is enough space between them to walk up it!  I worked this out quite some time back but to be honest I've never worked out anything decent to use it for.  Now I mentioned PvP earlier.  Why might this be better for PvP?  Well how about because you can use it as a layering system?

So for every third step you can layer it over the first.  I've not played PvP but I know layering is a huge advantage in defence.  I would love to see someone manage to use this technique for something interesting.  If anyone does manage to use it advantageously PLEASE screencap it and let me know!

Next on the list:  How do I connect a 'round' tower to a square base?  Round peg square hole so to speak.  Well actually that's prob one of the easiest things you can do.  During your builds I'm sure you have snapped ceilings over the top of each other by mistake.  Well its a matter of doing it on purpose.

I removed 2 square tiles to make this stand out more.  In the gap I snapped 3 tri's in place and added walls.  I then carefully watching the snaps placed a mirrored 3 into the squares the original 3 were snapped to.  Re place the 2 square ceilings and your done.  As long as one of the 4 square tiles its on remains the tri's shouldn't disconnect.  You can use this technique for MANY problems.  Sometimes you have a gap that you can't quite fill and by overlaying a tri ceiling you can snap a wall in a way that fills it in.

Another problem that can be a huge pain when building in tri is staircases.  I tend to use a hex shaft with stairs inside it as it fits pretty well and if your super fast and run off the edge there is no where to go.  An S+ staircase pivots 90 degrees each time so as long as your floors are an even number of walls apart this is no problem.  But when you have an odd number you end up with a gap that can be annoying.  This can be solved in an easy manner with the overlaying technique mentioned above.

I built this particular stair from the top down.  Now I could put a tri in place but the back of the stairs would then have an overlap of ceiling that looks silly (for my OCD at least).  Instead simply snap a square on to the adjacent tri and it will fill it in nicely.

So that covers a number of questions and building tricks I've been asked about.  I wanted to cover as many in one post as possible so they are easier to find.  If this helps even one person with their building then it was worth it :)

Ragnarok - Day 9

Well I got about 3 towers built today so in a way it was a big build day.  Unfort they all happened to be the same damn tower lol.  I built a tower under the vault room for crafting gear and tried to enclose the Tek Replicator into it as well as the other crafting gear but its just too damn big.  I had thought of encasing the Tek Rep in a room and have a ramp down below it and have the crafting gear under it and you could look up to access it through a gap in the ceiling.  I managed this part but it meant that the crafting gear was far enough away to effect its pull from accessing all the vaults.  The first rendition of it the ramp was really kicking my arse.  I finally found a great way to access the tower (its diff now) and made a neat little entrance but I was using a tri roof ramp and when hanging down the tri sticks up enough that my char couldn't walk through the one high space I had.  I tried all sorts of diff mounting and even tried diff mounting points but for some reason I just couldn't seem to get that to work.  In the end I made the access directly through the vault room as a spiral stair going down into the tower.  I had wanted to try stick with just using ramps for access like the other towers but that went out the window lol.  I even tried building through the tek rep.  I had thought it would be cool if you had to stand in the middle of it while it did the oscillations but it seems to be counted as one big object.  I used ghost to stand in the middle of it and fired it up.  Its a real shame it didn't work as it would have looked amazing!

So as you can see this tower is a stubbier one and is not aligned to the rest of them.  This is the first tower to get its balcony sorted.  I used half glass walls along the edge of the 'roof' so it didn't detract from the look.  The bottom floor is only partially decorated but I thought to make it look a bit like a break/staff room.  

The crafting level ended up pretty basic as they usually do.  Everything I need in a circle around the room.  I've done a few in the past where some of the crafting stuff is stacked but it wasn't required here.  I've even done builds where I've made a hatch in the floor and put a stack of forges in a recessed level below it.  I really liked that method but I would make it 1 wall and 1 half wall in height if I repeated that.  I found that walking over the floor above got a bit hot for my char ;)

I'm not sure it was easy to see on the first image but I've made the 'top' of the inverted tower glass.  I thought I would make a viewing room.  I noticed there was a stack of unused space and that once all the pieces were placed I could remove the supporting structure back to a very clean and basic finish.  I will prob one way the glass so it keeps its point from the outside at more viewing angles.  I'm really pleased with how this turned out.  I even made a weird lil ramp to get into it.  There are simply 2 tiles missing and one tri roof as a ramp up.  You can see the ramp in the image.  Well I say ramp but its actually just another level of the inverted roof structure with a little piece of the support removed.  It seems to allow access just fine, no ducking or jiggling required ;)

This is what its looking like from a distance now.  I've tinted along this side of the structure and I've been through and done some modelling on all the 'exploded' windows.  It def looks different lol.  Most of the super structure is completed now I think.  I might do some more room dressing and then consider if I want any more additions to the main structure.  I was thinking of a separate location for wyvrns and I still need a water pen.  I could combine the two I guess but I had wondered about making my water pen in the deep ocean.  I'll tackle that when I get there ;)

I'm not sure how I feel about the look of things at present but its given me some ideas for the next few projects.  I'll have a scout around and try to find a decent overhanging cliff and try build an inverted base.  I also want to make a spiral tower base using the ufo disks that connect up to each other in spiral with self supporting ramps.  I would make the 'disks' smaller as they go up.  The idea sounds cool but getting it to work within the Ark logic is an entirely diff kettle of fish haha.

Orig Server Build

This is my first build online.  Sadly It was lost in the server crash but became the template for the much bigger version.

As you can see it is made with the same design as the base in the Mazion Vid but in a smaller scale.  I was about 3 days away from sending Mazion an invite when the crash occurred.  In the background you can see the starter base I made with the lillypad tower on top.  The main base I had planned to add lillypads to each of the small towers but my tribemate Bull just couldn't seem to land on them ;)  I decided to scrap that idea in favour of a more simple look.  To be honest I actually prefer the look of this one to the one in the vid.  Its more compact and the entrances to it came out looking fantastic!  The downside was the connection to the center spire was so tiny it was a pain to make a transition for it.  The S+ gardener actually reached to all the crop plots on this build but the recreation it came out much larger.  I used overlayed snaps to connect these towers which caused all sorts of problems.  I don't mind doing this but when your building multiple of them you HAVE to do them all at once.  I did two then tackled the third a few days later and remembering the snap pattern I used was painful.  If I had at least laid the groundworks for the towers it would have been much easier.  The recreation I did away with overlaid connectors and set the towers further out from the greenhouse ring.

And looking up from the main bridge entrance gave a wonderful shot of the towers.  The rebuild I ended up with them at a diff angle and you couldn't see them.  

The entrance had a large trapdoor so I didn't need a gate to stop wild dinos entering.  I even mounted forges into the flanking structure for a real firey look.  I used all electric lighting for internal lights and all the lower outside lights are torches. I think it gave a really interesting look.  There is actually another hatch at the end of the bridge that has a ramp down accessing the underside of the bridge on the base side.  This was to take beavers down into the water and gave access to the vanity builds I had.  My first tavern and dungeon.

The tavern is very much like the one featured in the vid but sadly it was only shown during the day.  This is how it would have looked at night.  It really changes the feel of the room when its lit up properly.

My dungeon was SLIGHTLY underwater.  I loved it!  There was a thin layer of water through all the cells and gave you the splashing as you walked around.  It was a bit on the cramped side so I couldn't get good screen caps of it but there are little recesses between each cell where a gaurd could stand out of sight.  The very end cell was the larger communal cell.  Above was a gaurd room.  The floor of which was clear and allowed the guards to see anyone trying to escape.

UFO Base and Spiral Towers

Here is a few pics of my last build.  I spent a few hundred hours on it and we were prob a month into that map when it changed.  I really dislike not being able to complete a project but there simply wasn't enough time.  I really like how it was looking.  This was my third spiral tower and made to look as much like a UFO as possible.  I used multiple tek transmitters in the center to give it a good thick beam of light.

While it looked pretty massive it was designed to use far less structures than my previous build (the one that starred in the Mazion Vid).  This was in the attempt to minimize server lag that big building was causing.  Of course that was before  I found out STRUCTURES DO NOT CAUSE SERVER LAG.  They will cause a FPS drop as you load them in but not lag the server.

I did some research and spoke to an experienced Ark admin and found out some interesting things about Ark lag that explained why all attempts I'd seen of people trying to reduce the problem had failed to make a difference.

-=-=-=[ Server Lag Info ]=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

A Network Engineers opinion:  It's badly implemented lag compensation in conjunction with high ping players. The server is trying to keep everyone in sync. The worse someone's connection is, the harder and more resource intensive it is for the server to keep up communications. If there are many players like that, the server can't keep up with them, and there is really bad lag and rollbacks when it syncs to the last state these players' machines fully received from the server (rubberbanding).

When you cannot open doors when lagging that means you truly are out of sync and your more than likely sending a lot of packets or receiving a lot. When your lagging but can still open doors and then lag back to were you started walking is because the server is still in sync but the client is not, the client will send your actions and it's deemed completed but when you recieve the packets back from the server this disagrees with what your client believes and thus lags you back to where you started.

Experienced Admin:  The only time the server has to do anything with structures are when they are put down and calculating any damage they might take. So blowing up a large structure all at once can cause sever lag.  But no builds will strain the server just by being there.  Structure decay can cause lag because the server needs to calculate that damage on each building part which is why private servers are best to turn this off.  You might get an FPS drop if there are a ton of dinos or an absolute ton of building parts in one area but no server lag.  you can even ramp up harvesting rates to 80x without any lag.  Server wont lag because of buildings.  Tamed dinos yes. We had a server crashing because someone let their snails breed freely on pugnacia and there were 14,000 tamed snails.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

So anyone that watched the Mazion Vid will recognise the above Spiral tower.  This is the first that we dubbed the UFO tower.  The bottom of this tower was a small hatchery (much too small in hind sight).

These two images are the original spiral tower I built.  One of the guys on the server setup a community build location so we could all do a small build.  I did this as a showcase of the skills I had at the time.  Not long after this we had the server crash and we all lost everything.  I was really gutted as I had some decent dino's and gear I had wanted to keep.  I lost my breeding Spino's but one of the others on the server lost multiple generations of Spino's.  I believe it was close to 30 of them which is rough.

Ragnarok - Day 8

I need a break from building in mass and decided to finish the "pods".  I had planned to flank the aviary with two vertical gardens and use the fliers to feed the fert production but after constructing just one vertical garden I ended up with WAY more plots than I originally thought.

As you can see it has 8 levels.  One of the levels has 1 plot missing the rest have 6 plots.  So no shortage of plots.  I won't bother starting them till I start moving fliers across to help with the fert.  I added some stone to the top in a hope that a bit of stone might help tie it in with the rest of the build more.  I was finding pure glass was making it look foreign to the rest of the build.

This is the outside of the 3rd "pod" which has become the kitchen facilities.  I've been playing around with the adv rafts furn and so far I'm loving it!  There are a few issues placing some of the items as the required space is a bit overkill on a few items.

This above pic is the access level.  This has the preserving and beer production.  I set fridges on top which poke through the floor into the kitchen above making them accessible to two floors.

The kitchen level is a bit of a tight fit.  I've inlcuded a few vaults for any storage requirements I can't think of at the very moment.

Now I have to say I'm rather pleased with the bar!  This level is just below the preserving room.  I had built it without this level but once I finished the lowest level I found I wanted to try make a bar.  I've built a tavern in the past that looked epic but I was after something a little more upmarket for this build.

I had a fair bit of trouble with the damned bottles.  GGGGRRRRRRR.  ok so I had to remove the ceiling above in order to place them.  You need more than a wall height above them it seems to place.  Note to self:  If you get drunk don't pick up or knock over any bottles or you will spend the whole night wondering why a tiny bottle won't fit in a room height space lol.  That would be a fun drinking game ;)  But the bottles mugs and pitchers really made this bar seem real.  I don't normally do decor mods but the ADV rafts was a sponsored mod recently and only has a few decor bits in it.  Just enough decor to really change the feel of things.  I originally used the bar from the rafts mod but they won't overlap and I couldn't get it to look right.  Instead I ended up using catwalks.  I had to link them from the walls as the floor under them is partially tri so I had no anchor points.  I used a glass half wall above and below the bar to block off the customer side.

So from the bar level goes down into a open plan area with a dining space.  I played around with this level for a little while till I was happy with it.  I don't normally do wooden railings but they seemed to fit this particular bit better than anything else.

From the dining area you get a sneak peak into the other rooms.  I used stone walls with glass above hoping to keep the rooms from feeling too confined.  I'm quite happy with the results.  I've used this technique before but it was in a much larger area.

TV room.  I simply placed a fence foundation on the floor.  Put a wooded railing on it and turned it into a half wall.  A glass wall set to opaque and instant TV lol. 

I tried out the new S+ bookshelves to make a little library.  I'm thinking they need some more work.  Placing them embeds them into the ceiling it seems.  I did experiment with embedding them into the stone wall so the back of the bookcase was stone but it made it a bit too busy.  I might try again another time with a diff type of wall.

I really love the four poster bed!  It looks great!  Although lighting make the white glow very bright.  It might be my GFX settings tho.  I've had issues with brightness before.  Off the bedroom is a walk in wardrobe and ensuite toilet.  

Under the ramp I put a piano to fill in the empy space with some interest.  I also went through the entire base and placed lighting which has changed some of the areas immensely!  I'm rather happy with this kitchen pod with living quarters the space feels well used.  I could have added a shower if I made the ensuite bigger but its no major.

Well the good news is that brings me up to date with posting.  I do skip days here and there with building but I will do a post for each day I do play.  I think I mentioned in one of the previous posts I do plan to add screencaps from other builds as well.  I might also do a few tutorials for questions I had the most after the Mazion Invasion Vid.

The pics here aren't a great show of the builds as they won't capture the feel quite as much as 'walking' through it.  So if anyone does want a better angle of something let me know and I can snap a screenshot.  That is if anyone even reads this haha ;)  I'm essentially talking to my self at the moment ;)

Ragnarok - Day 7

I may have to reformat a few of the posts.  It seems the screen I post from is considerably diff than what it looks like on the blog.  The pics are all over the show lol.  The first couple worked out ok so I stopped using the preview.  Whoops lol.

 I started out today completing the glass dome on the hatchery.  I went with the tinted dome.  I'm not sure what I think of it.  I mean it looks pretty good but I'm not sure I'm sold on it yet.  I can always remodel it later.  I ended up using ramps instead of roof's on the square sections.  I couldn't get the roof's to snap to anything I had in place so ramps it is.  Not sure why square roof's won't snap to tri ceilings.  Tri roof's snap to square ceilings after all...

Oh and I built two upside down towers.  I was thinking the underside of the upper plat needed something to break up the lines a bit and I've always wanted to try upside down building.  They are currently just shells as with most of the build but I'm quite happy with them (well one has some ramps and levels in it so a little more than a shell).  I had to drop the flier platform down to fit them in and still have room to use the platform but that wasn't a huge problem.  I also trimmed the flier plat in stone which def seems to have tied things in much better.  I'm thinking of a third tower but it will be offset to break up the symmetry I can see sneaking back in lol.

Ragnarok - Day 6

I updated to the new window structure and have made them one way.  Its looking MUCH better.  Its def feeling more solid now!  I didn't get a lot of time to play today so I didn't get as much done as I had hoped.

On the plus side I did define most of the levels/room sizes!  I've gated things up and sorted most of the balcony levels now:)  Its finally starting to feel base like!

I'm liking each part of the base so far but as a whole it's not feeling quite meshing in very well.  But that often doesn't happen at first.  Some things won't tie in until after the embellishment stage and others will just look right as soon as they are added.