[suggestion] better define foundation functionality

[AznMom420]

Bought the game today and spent a ton of time designing a prison with the design tool only to be totally confused when most of my foundations failed to finish, with the few that did had generated extra mystery walls. After a solid 20 minutes of messing around with foundations to try to figure out what they did I resorted to youtube where I learned the final idiosyncrasy with door placement.

As it is now the way things seem, we have a floor tool (foundations) and a wall tool (walls). It's not intuitive that foundations would make walls, neither is it intuitive that at least one door needs to be placed right on the edge of the foundation to finish the entire construction. This information isn't stressed in the tutorial to the point where I actually remembered it when I started playing the game, nor does it really follow from the tooltips or error messages that just grumble about "entrances" and "walls".

[5hifty]

It says on the foundation in error red "enterence required" or something of that nature. I've found it pretty self explanatory. I guess they could change it to "Requires Door" to be a little more literal. The tutorial isn't really finished yet. It was made before many of the current features were implemented.

[grimmy72]

The door thing never caused me issues. Just place a staff door or two depending on foundation size. You can remove them when foundation is done, but any building/foundation will need either a door or part of wall removed to be useful. Except Waterpump/Electro I guess, if Electro is maxxed out on capacitors.

What does somewhat annoy is that foundations remove existing walls if you're extending a building. I could plan it better I suppose

[AznMom420]

Requires entrance is vague, it could mean it requires a hole in the surrounding walls, a hole in the pattern of walls described by the foundation, a little pip at the top to extend the foundation outwards etc. "Requires Door" would very clearly indicate an entire class of objects that are all universally listed as "doors" and guide the user into the desired behavior. Additionally the error message might highlight the outside ring in red to indicate where the door must go.

[VoiD88]

What does somewhat annoy is that foundations remove existing walls if you're extending a building. I could plan it better I suppose

It only does that if you overlap the new foundation with the old building. If you place the foundation NEXT TO but not OVER the existing building, you'll get an extension with a wall in between.

[5hifty]

Requires entrance is vague, it could mean it requires a hole in the surrounding walls, a hole in the pattern of walls described by the foundation, a little pip at the top to extend the foundation outwards etc. "Requires Door" would very clearly indicate an entire class of objects that are all universally listed as "doors" and guide the user into the desired behavior. Additionally the error message might highlight the outside ring in red to indicate where the door must go.

No offence, but that sounds like a very strange conclusion to draw. None of those ideas sound like the first thing people would assume. Needs entrance>game has doors>it needs a door is a logical thought train. Like I said "Requires entrance" could be rewritten as "Requires door" - but there are very few things, if any, in the game that could otherwise be interpreted as an entrance.

[Gangrene]

I think the problem is... If you don't overlap a current wall it will make a room on the other side of that wall...

Then if I add a door on the existing wall... that door will lead into that room, but the game does not recognize that as an entrance. The door has to be on the perimeter of the foundation which means I have to put additional, non-needed doors just to complete the foundation. I think the door requirement should be removed and if some guys are stuck inside have them punch a hole through a wall or install a door.

[smoothrolla]

I think i agree with OP in a way, I would like to be able to build foundations without walls (and the required door) and just do that myself
It doesn't take long to lay a wall, i could choose my wall type (rather than have it linked to foundations) and place the doors after the fact.
Sometimes when i am extending a building i may place it slightly wrong so it takes down a connecting wall or creates a double wall, or im forced to put a door when when i will not need one, just to remove it once built, so separating walls/doors and foundations could make things easier and more obvious to new players, if not a little slower.
I also read a suggestion somewhere for the ability to choose if you want lights in your foundations too, which i second

Edit: thinking about this, it may lead to an exploit where people lay the walls around the foundations, instead of on top of them like it happens automatically at the moment, effectively gaining a free square of foundations in every direction (as you can lay walls on any ground)

[Böjrn Ragnar]

i think it would rly be good to lay founndations (indoor areas) WITHOUT walls, cuz

1. its bugged ( i know several scenarios where it doesnt recognize the door/entrance or it just wont transform
2. walls are much more expensive which makes a smart gamer want to exploit this as much as possible, like building 1x100 foundations instead of walls ect ect ect
3. another example, using foundations in the form of 2x3 for each cell in a cell block, so that walls are auto.created, since demolishing 1 square is much cheaper than building 4-5 multiplies with he number of cells, its much cheaper but hell of annyoing