Trouble placing items and structures?

[Ryla]

I am having trouble placing items and structures I create. For example, I just made a crockpot and almost no matter where I put it it was red, although there was ABSOLUTELY NOTHING nearby that could have been considered "in the way." I have my camp in the jungle, and am not sure if I would have the same placing issues in another biome (haven't tested it yet, its the middle of winter (hurricane season?) and I'm far more focused on trying to survive than anything else as I am pretty pleased with my current map and don't want to start over. 

 

Has anyone else been having this sort of issue? Any way around it? I'd like to have a tidy camp, but right now I have to build things super spread out (like 1/4 the way across the screen) wherever it might actually let me place something.

 

It did however let me plant trees, grass, etc wherever I pleased.

[Ryla]

UPDATE: It will not let me plant trees, bamboo etc as I had originally thought. I was happily setting my bamboo up in rows, and now it wont let me plant in a vast open space. Still in the jungle biome. Not sure why it wont let me plant it there is NOTHING even close to being in the way.

[Luminium]

I am having this problem as well.  Were you out in the grassy biome too?  I too was trying to place a crockpot and was only able to a bit aways from my firepit, even after digging up grass tufts and the like.  Have not really had a problem planting jungle tree seeds (or haven't noticed).  I wonder if maybe those are spawning points for puddles? (probably not, but it's frustrating)

[Ryla]

Its very frustrating because it means I can't build my base in a way that makes sense, and there's no way to tell looking at the area where I will and will not be able to build stuff! I don't really want to up and move, especially in the middle of winter/hurricane season when I'm likely to run into the same problem elsewhere. I don't know what to do about it other than build a scattered, unsightly base and hope it gets fixed soon.

 

I haven't tried in a grassy biome. The only one near me is its own island and there is no other biomes on the island. I didn't feel it was a good place to set up. So I'm on a big island with sandy shore and jungle for main base, with another island literally a stones throw away with mangrove swamp with waterbeefalo and some jungle where I'm setting up wildboar and prime ape huts. I feed the monkeys and make everyone kill each other then reap the rewards... but because they are on a separate island no fear of them following me around when I don't want them.

[ItsPizzaTime]

There are some spaces where you cannot place items due to unknown reasons, i'm currently facing these issues as well, if you REALLY want to know what places are bugged like this, try using the mod "geometric placement" this will give you a grid for placement and tells you what spots are not able to be built on (the grid will be red in these spots). 

 

If you don't like the mod you can toggle it with CTRL and use it only when you want to know whether or not there are invisible barriers in your way.

[CameoAppearance]

Yeah, my base is way more spread out and haphazardly placed than I prefer it to be because the game wouldn't accept 90% of the places I wanted to put my structures even though they were empty and not visibly too close to other structures. It seems to be worse in my base than anywhere else; possibly the problem builds up from continued occupation or having a lot of structures nearby already.

 

This turned out to be a blessing in disguise when being forced to put my alchemy engine in the jungle area right next to my base kept it out of a flood puddle, but on the other hand I had to build my lightning rod way off to the right relative to the firepit and it's barely even on the same screen.

 

It also interfered with placing a campfire at one point and I almost died to Charlie, but I managed to find a spot to put it down more or less by clicking at random and deciding that if it caught a tree on fire that was a problem for later.

[OrderedChaos]

Just chiming in to say I'm having this problem as well. Invalid (occupied) locations seem to be all over the place when they are actually empty.

My palm leaf hut had to be real far from my fire because it wouldn't let me build it anywhere else.

When I got around to the prestihatitator it's so far away that I can't see it at night time.

This is obviously a bug since I have 180 hours in don't starve prior to this dlc and I have a really good feel for how close the game will let you build things, but in shipwrecked it seems to arbitrarily decide you have to space things out a bunch.

Also worth noting this may only be the case on beach biomes. I don't build structures elsewhere but I've never had a problem clustering jungle trees really close together.

[Kelpy]

I have the same problem, especially with the palm leaf hut. I had to place it really far away from my chiminea. 

 

But then I build the hut first, and then placed the chiminea beside it and it worked just fine. 

[applebottom]

Can confirm.

 

I tried placing sandbags but sometimes it won't let me put one in a spot (sometimes it does, after logging out and back in). I'm using a grassy biome by the way. I don't think the biome matters. :/ The structure placement mechanic just seems to be bugged. I can plant trees okay, maybe that uses a different mechanic.

[Nike_Ritual]

It solved for me by log out - log in game

[rezecib]

I'm pretty sure it's this issue. You can fix it temporarily by reloading the save, or permanently by making a small edit to the files:

Change this part of data/scripts/components/seasonmanager.lua (adding the line I noted):

function SeasonManager:DoMediumLightning()	GetClock():DoLightningLighting()	self.inst:DoTaskInTime(.25+math.random()*.5, function() 		local inst = CreateEntity()		inst.entity:AddTransform()		inst.entity:AddSoundEmitter()		inst.persists = false		inst:AddTag("FX") -- add this line in here		local theta = math.random(0, 2*PI)		local radius = 10		local offset = Vector3(GetPlayer().Transform:GetWorldPosition()) +  Vector3(radius * math.cos( theta ), 0, radius * math.sin( theta ))		inst.Transform:SetPosition(offset.x,offset.y,offset.z)		inst.SoundEmitter:PlaySound("dontstarve/rain/thunder_close")	end )end

[MrSavvy]

Oh, nice info! Thanks Resumptus!

I came to make a thread about this issue too. Since Ryla has a thread going already, I'll just add my image to it for reference.

 

Palm Leaf Hut:

 

Red = area I cannot place anything (fire pit, chests, etc)

Green = I can place structures very close on the top side.

 

This is what I just saw a few mins before logging off, so I had no time to fiddle around. I'll try the editing the *.lua.

[Katalina549]

This happens to me a lot during the rainy season (sometimes in RoG too). Like others have said, quitting to the menu and reloading usually does the trick.

[Ryla]

 

I'm pretty sure it's this issue. You can fix it temporarily by reloading the save, or permanently by making a small edit to the files:

Change this part of data/scripts/components/seasonmanager.lua (adding the line I noted):

function SeasonManager:DoMediumLightning()	GetClock():DoLightningLighting()	self.inst:DoTaskInTime(.25+math.random()*.5, function() 		local inst = CreateEntity()		inst.entity:AddTransform()		inst.entity:AddSoundEmitter()		inst.persists = false		inst:AddTag("FX") -- add this line in here		local theta = math.random(0, 2*PI)		local radius = 10		local offset = Vector3(GetPlayer().Transform:GetWorldPosition()) +  Vector3(radius * math.cos( theta ), 0, radius * math.sin( theta ))		inst.Transform:SetPosition(offset.x,offset.y,offset.z)		inst.SoundEmitter:PlaySound("dontstarve/rain/thunder_close")	end )end

 

So for the less tech savvy of us... Do I do this by opening said file in a text editor like note pad and just typing it in? I'm a bit hesitant to edit any game files in case I mess something up, but this bug is really really annoying and I can't foresee logging out and back in every time I want to place a structure to see if it fixes it. 

[Lacost]

Have you checked for fireflies in the jungle biomes?

[Ryla]

Have you checked for fireflies in the jungle biomes?

 

It's my established camp so if there were fireflies I would have seen them by now (27 days in this location.) Good idea though, if it had been a new location I was trying to set up that could have been the cause. Unfortunately in this case that is not the problem.

[FooBargle]

 

I'm pretty sure it's this issue. You can fix it temporarily by reloading the save, or permanently by making a small edit to the files:

Change this part of data/scripts/components/seasonmanager.lua (adding the line I noted):

function SeasonManager:DoMediumLightning()	GetClock():DoLightningLighting()	self.inst:DoTaskInTime(.25+math.random()*.5, function() 		local inst = CreateEntity()		inst.entity:AddTransform()		inst.entity:AddSoundEmitter()		inst.persists = false		inst:AddTag("FX") -- add this line in here		local theta = math.random(0, 2*PI)		local radius = 10		local offset = Vector3(GetPlayer().Transform:GetWorldPosition()) +  Vector3(radius * math.cos( theta ), 0, radius * math.sin( theta ))		inst.Transform:SetPosition(offset.x,offset.y,offset.z)		inst.SoundEmitter:PlaySound("dontstarve/rain/thunder_close")	end )end

 

Good find! That does look it could cause problems, looking into it.  

[rezecib]

@Ryla, Yup. I use Notepad++, but you can use any plain text editor. If you mess up somehow, you can always verify the integrity of the game cache through Steam to have it fix it.

[Ryla]

@rezecib Thanks I will try that and post back whether it fixed the problem or not for me later after some play time

[Ryla]

@rezecib Thanks I will try that and post back whether it fixed the problem or not for me later after some play time

 

Game has crashed twice since I made this change. It was not crashing previous. I have removed the added line, unfortunately that is probably going to leave me with the same problems placing items.

 

I'm not sure if it was because of the added line or because of logging in and out, but before the game started crashing I was able to place some items in areas that had been problematic last night.

[MrTeHe101]

To get rid of the item placement bug all I had to do was lose my game then reload it. Everything seemed to work fine.

[rezecib]

@Ryla, That's weird, I've been running fine with that line in there. My guess is you mistyped it somehow so it has a syntax error there or something.

 

@FooBargle, I'm glad to see some Capy folks on the forums, welcome, and thanks for making this awesome expansion! It might also be good to dispose of those lightning soundemitter entities sooner than the next save reload, as it probably contributes to lag after having the game open for several hours.