ARCHITECT

ARCHITECT

Base building is one object at a time, on a grid that decides where it goes, paid up front out of whatever is in your backpack. A row of twenty solar panels is twenty placements and three trips to a container. ARCHITECT takes the whole job: put one piece exactly where you meant it, or forty at once in a pattern, stake what you cannot afford and let drones fill it, and move or undo anything you have already built.

━━ NEW IN THIS RELEASE ━━

• Co-op. Every feature works for a joining player as well as the host, and there is nothing to switch on.

• Four new systems: the Repository, the Allocator Terminal, Precision Placement and the Modular Ladder.

• Surface Treatment recolours your base, with glass that reads tinted from outside and clear from inside.

• Move Object no longer charges you the full recipe every time you move something.

• Blueprint stakes placed by ARCHITECT 1. 2. 7 or earlier are cleared on first load and every material you deposited into them is returned. Read UPGRADING before you install.

Full history is on the Logs tab.

━━ HOW THE PIECES FIT ━━

ARCHITECT is built in layers, and each one works on top of the last.

Placement core: how one object behaves in your hands

Rotation steps, Selective Grid Snap, Unrestricted Access, Solid Placement Ghosts, Foundation Relative Facing

Patterns and precision: many objects at once, or one object exactly

Structured Deployment, Precision Placement, Modular Ladder

Materials and logistics: where materials come from and where the leftovers go

Blueprint stakes, the Allocator, the Repository, the Allocator Terminal, Free Build

Editing: changing what you already built

Move Object, Undo, Panel Edit, Panel Join, Surface Treatment

Movement: reaching the part you are working on

Altitude Adjustment

The placement core applies inside every pattern, so a rotation step or a freed grid axis behaves the same whether you are placing one object or forty. Anything you place can be moved or undone afterwards. Anything you cannot afford becomes a blueprint stake, and any Allocator in range fills it without being asked.

━━ PLACEMENT CORE ━━

Rotation steps

The game turns build pieces in 18 degree steps, so 45 is never one of the stops. ARCHITECT divides a full turn into as many steps as you ask for, 24 by default, which puts 45, 90 and 135 degrees exactly three, six and nine taps away.

Full details

How it works: every rotation is 360 divided by your step count, applied to the game's own rotate action rather than to a new one. Hold a rotate direction for about half a second and it snaps to the nearest 45 degrees instead, then walks 45 at a time while you keep holding. A rotation you set by hand survives chain placement.

Controls: the game's own rotate controls. Mouse wheel, Left and Right arrow / D-pad Left and Right. Nothing new is bound.

Settings: ARCHITECT Settings, GENERAL. Rotation Steps, default 24. All Objects Rotate, default off, which unlocks the pieces the game normally keeps at 90 degrees, such as foundations and compartments.

Works with: Foundation Relative Facing, which is what keeps the next object square to a base you have rotated off the compass.

Limits: rotation is around the vertical axis only, so nothing tilts or rolls. With All Objects Rotate off, foundations and compartments keep their 90 degree steps. Leave the Underground Living Compartment square to the world even with All Objects Rotate on: turned off-axis, it will not take an adjacent compartment, so you cannot extend the space.

Selective Grid Snap

One key cycles the build grid through five states: full, X free, Z free, Y free, and both X and Z free. A second key changes the grid size while you are building. X and Z Free is ARCHITECT's off-grid placement, and it stays where you put it rather than needing a key held down.

Full details

How it works: the grid step is applied per axis, so a freed axis keeps whatever position your aim gives it while the others still snap. The cursor names the state you are in.

Controls: cycle the state, V / Back (tap). Cycle the grid size, semicolon / right stick press. On a controller, holding Back instead of tapping it enters Precision Placement.

Settings: ARCHITECT Settings, SELECTIVE GRID SNAP. Both keys are rebindable there, keyboard and controller.

Works with: Structured Deployment and Precision Placement both inherit whatever state and size you have set.

Limits: X, Y and Z are the world's axes, not your