Building on the frame

A base starts with a foundation: a 13 by 13 foot square or a triangle with 13-foot sides. Everything else snaps onto it. Small amber dots show where the next piece can go, and the one it will take glows brighter.

Building up

• Walls, doorways, window walls, half walls and gateways go on the edge of a foundation or a floor, on top of the wall below, or between two posts.
• Inside a base you own or are on the cupboard list of, timber walls can also stand on bare ground with no foundation. They snap to each other end to end and at corners, each on its own patch of ground, as long as the ground along the wall is fairly level. A wall on bare ground stays timber, because only timber stands without a foundation. Outside a base like that, walls need a frame.
• Floors go one story up over a foundation, beside a wall top, or between posts. A story is 11 feet.
• Foundations snap beside each other, level. Their footing has to reach the ground at every corner, so build out over a slope on stilts.
• Doors, window shutters and garage gates go in their frames, and they take a padlock or a keypad deadbolt. See Storage and locks.
• Stair floors and ladder hatches take you up a story. Roofs hang from a wall top, and gable walls close the side under them.

Compound walls

• A compound wall is an 26-foot palisade of sharpened logs, 25 feet high, braced on the inside. It stands on bare ground anywhere you're allowed to build, or along a foundation line, where it spans two edges.
• Compound walls join end to end and at corners, the way the old big walls did. Turn one with Q or E to put its braces on the other side.
• A compound gateway takes either a compound gate, which hangs from a hinge 16 feet up and lifts into the compound, or a pair of double gate leaves that swing inward. Each gate takes a padlock or a keypad deadbolt.
• They're timber only, with no upgrade, and it takes a lot of explosives to bring one down.

Controls

• With a hammer drawn, hold RMB to open the frame wheel, the same kind of wheel as your comms. A hint under your crosshair shows the keys whenever the hammer is out. Flick the mouse toward a group, such as Walls or Roofs, and its pieces fan out around it; the middle shows each piece's cost against what you carry. Let go to build the one you're pointing at. Let go on nothing and the cursor comes up so you can click instead. You can also give it a key: Building: frame wheel in the key settings.
• Draw the hammer with a building kit on you, inside your own claim or near your base's frame, and you're in build mode: the hammer won't swing or lock on, so the right mouse button only opens the wheel and the left only builds. Put the hammer away, walk off with no kits, or take a hit, and it's a weapon again straight away.
• F5 opens the full build menu with every piece in the game.
• Aim anywhere on a foundation or a floor and a wall snaps to its nearest empty edge; aim along an edge from outside and it takes that edge too.
• Once a piece snaps, Q and E turn it by a whole step: walls about face, squares a quarter turn, triangles a third.
• Benches, crates and furniture sit flush on whatever is under them. On uneven ground they settle into the dirt; if it falls away too much, find a flatter spot or build a floor. ↑ and ↓ bed a piece in a little or lift it a hand's width, never into the air.
• G switches snapping off. ENTER or left click builds, and BACKSPACE or right click stops.

Everything fits

Fences, palisades, BzZz walls and Blocks walls line up along a floor's edge. Furniture, crates and workbenches sit square on the floor, and wall lamps and trophies sit flush on a wall. Away from a frame, they all place the way they always have.

What holds it up

A wall needs a floor edge, the wall below or two posts. A floor needs walls or posts under its edges, or a foundation beside it. Knock out what holds a piece up and it comes down, along with everything resting on it. Nothing can be built on top of a person or a car.

Getting stronger

Every piece starts as timber. Hit it with a hammer to take it to stonework, then sheet metal, the toughest. You're told straight away if you're too far, missing materials or not allowed, before any work starts. At the cupboard, Upgrade the base takes every piece up a grade at once, paid from the cupboard's stock: timber to stonework first, then stonework to sheet metal. See Camp and bases.

Each tier stands up better than the one below to everything. Stonework chips under a sledgehammer and takes rounds badly, but it stops them. Sheet metal shrugs off hand tools and bullets barely mark it. Against either, explosives are the way in.

You can't build inside a safe zone, or within 197 feet of its fence or edge.

Lay out all your foundations first, then walk the edges with the wall kit. The ember dot shows which edge it will take.