towers randomly breaking.

[OmegaFerret]

So I have been playing around on the game.  I tend to find like a Cell tower thing to climb up to the highest point and shoot or hit zombies that are climbing up during the blood moons.

But the last 2 i had in my gen world crashed down as soon as the blood moon started  causing me to drop from the top down lower.  I dont know what causes this or why.

[zztong]

5 hours ago, OmegaFerret said:

So I have been playing around on the game.  I tend to find like a Cell tower thing to climb up to the highest point and shoot or hit zombies that are climbing up during the blood moons.

But the last 2 i had in my gen world crashed down as soon as the blood moon started  causing me to drop from the top down lower.  I dont know what causes this or why.

 

It would be handy to know the name of the POI. There are a couple of cell towers in Vanilla, plus some in modlets. It's possible the cell tower you're on isn't very durable.

 

Zombies will attack structures under certain conditions, such as not having a path to get to you. A blood moon insures they know where you are so the number of zombies that might be interested in tearing down your cell tower is higher than normal.

[OmegaFerret]

2 hours ago, zztong said:

 

It would be handy to know the name of the POI. There are a couple of cell towers in Vanilla, plus some in modlets. It's possible the cell tower you're on isn't very durable.

 

Zombies will attack structures under certain conditions, such as not having a path to get to you. A blood moon insures they know where you are so the number of zombies that might be interested in tearing down your cell tower is higher than normal.

Its like Cell Tower #8 or Cell tower #2.

I know blood moon zombies know there i am at. But the thing is even before they spawn or right when they spawn the top part of the tower just crumbles. Not the whole thing just the top like half or 3/4ths of it that i am up on.

The thing i right as it hits the 22:00 and the blood moon starts the tower just starts to fall.

[Adam the Waster]

9 hours ago, OmegaFerret said:

So I have been playing around on the game.  I tend to find like a Cell tower thing to climb up to the highest point and shoot or hit zombies that are climbing up during the blood moons.

But the last 2 i had in my gen world crashed down as soon as the blood moon started  causing me to drop from the top down lower.  I dont know what causes this or why.

Must be made by Boeing

[Riamus]

There is probably a strict stability check that is triggered for blood moon and you being on it is enough to cause it to fall when that happens.  Maybe try being down the ladder a ways until after 2200 and see if that helps.  Otherwise, try doing a little building on there to add extra support.

[OmegaFerret]

13 minutes ago, Riamus said:

There is probably a strict stability check that is triggered for blood moon and you being on it is enough to cause it to fall when that happens.  Maybe try being down the ladder a ways until after 2200 and see if that helps.  Otherwise, try doing a little building on there to add extra support.

One of them i did build like supports between a part of the tower to stand on or to put a campfire in case i got cold. That might be it. But i have done this in other maps and didnt have the same problem. Its just awkward maybe next time i do it ill try to record it.

[BFT2020]

Turn on debug mode and turn on stability.  That will show you if there are weak points in the structure.  It will also show if you add something to it that causes a normally solid block to become weaker.  Then when you step on it, it collapses.

 

Is it possible that it might be related to CPU processing?  When the bloodmoon happens, the game has a lot to do so stability calculations might be delayed.  I have seen issues before where something I had that was solid would have portions failed (no damage or missing supports) because part of the support structure wasn't included in the stability calculations (I think it was chunk loading related but that happened a long time ago).

[doughphunghus]

I believe that destroying "any block/object" will cause a stability re-calculation, and even something like "looting a bird nest or cardboard box, etc" causes that block to "be changed/destroyed" (like from a full box replaced with an empty box) which causes a stability recalculation. A crop/tree growing, when it changes size, counts also (and the blocks are normally "heavier" as they grow as well i think)

 

that, and maybe the post by @BFT2020 above (delayed stability calc because of cpu/blood moon) are all working together?

Edited June 6 by doughphunghus (see edit history)

[zztong]

4 hours ago, OmegaFerret said:

Its like Cell Tower #8 or Cell tower #2.

 

Vanilla has Cell Tower #1 (utility_celltower_01) and Cell Tower #2 (utility_celltower_02).

 

Cell Tower #1 has a small building with it. The tower isn't even close to having any structural integrity issues. It's integrity depends on the four pillars that are made out of iBeam blocks and corrugated metal iBeam shapes that have 1,000 hit points. If you take out one block two of the pillars on the same side I think it will collapse. Take out a block on three and parts of the tower will collapse for sure. The cross braces at the very bottom do provide some support that can compensate for certain missing pillar blocks, but those above the first layer are just decoration and don't provide any support. There's a ladder up the middle of the tower that supports only itself. It is an iron ladder with 500 hit points. Take out a ladder block and a bunch of the ladder will collapse. Come to think of it, the ladder might just provide enough support to keep the tower standing if it lost 2 pillars.

 

Cell Tower #2 has a trailer. The analysis of the tower is pretty much the same as the one above other than I think somehow the ladder is providing some support.

 

In both cases you can probably bring the tower down with the destruction of around 5 blocks, if you get the right blocks. Those blocks are I think one block higher than I think zombies would pick on, but if you explode one of the demolition zombies, or maybe a cop, in the right spot you might take out 3 or 4 of them.

 

3 hours ago, OmegaFerret said:

One of them i did build like supports between a part of the tower to stand on or to put a campfire in case i got cold. That might be it.

 

I can't see how placing any blocks would make either structure collapse.

 

3 hours ago, Riamus said:

There is probably a strict stability check that is triggered for blood moon and you being on it is enough to cause it to fall when that happens.

 

Perhaps. I'm not sure why they'd choose to voluntarily inject a bunch of stability processing just as a blood moon was starting, but I suppose it is possible. I mean, they still have to do stability processing when a block is destroyed during a blood moon, so okay, sure.

 

[warmer]

Back in the day there was the red barn of doom that would collapse if you removed a single block. I would bet the towers stability is just BARELY stable enough to keep it upright. Have you tried looking at that tower in Dev mode to see all the structural integrity? My guess is there is one or two blocks that are JUST on the edge of breaking and that is causing the stability check to fail when you are on it. I have collapsed bases by adding a forge when it was close to breaking.

Edited June 6 by warmer (see edit history)

[Riamus]

5 hours ago, zztong said:

Perhaps. I'm not sure why they'd choose to voluntarily inject a bunch of stability processing just as a blood moon was starting, but I suppose it is possible. I mean, they still have to do stability processing when a block is destroyed during a blood moon, so okay, sure.

 

Yeah, I agree that it wouldn't really make sense.  Maybe I shouldn't have used the word "probably" there as I was just tossing out an idea that would cause it to fall right at 2200 before anything hit it.

[OmegaFerret]

8 hours ago, warmer said:

Back in the day there was the red barn of doom that would collapse if you removed a single block. I would bet the towers stability is just BARELY stable enough to keep it upright. Have you tried looking at that tower in Dev mode to see all the structural integrity? My guess is there is one or two blocks that are JUST on the edge of breaking and that is causing the stability check to fail when you are on it. I have collapsed bases by adding a forge when it was close to breaking.

its not the whole tower though. just like the top 1/3 im gonna tonight try to find the tower that last colapsed on me to see if i can get back up. The zombies where able to get up the tower still.

 

[OmegaFerret]

so this is the last one that just the top fell off that i was up on. and going back to look at it looks like one whole area was kocked out too.

[zztong]

5 hours ago, OmegaFerret said:

so this is the last one that just the top fell off that i was up on. and going back to look at it looks like one whole area was kocked out too.

 

That narrows it down. Cell Tower #1 and the upper third. There are two blocks supporting that section. If you eliminate one Iron Ladder (500 hit points) and one Metal Trussing Block (1,000 hit points) then the upper third alone will fall.

 

But your 3rd picture is puzzling to me. You lost a steel block (10,000 hit points) and a few things hanging below it that. I'm wondering if they were lost after structural integrity failed, as that process can destroy otherwise supported blocks.

[warmer]

8 hours ago, OmegaFerret said:

its not the whole tower though. just like the top 1/3 im gonna tonight try to find the tower that last colapsed on me to see if i can get back up. The zombies where able to get up the tower still.

 

The way the physics is intended to work is when something breaks, it only breaks the portion with critical integrity, it's not like a house of cards, once one block is gone the whole thing is gone.

 

I was using the red barn as an example of something that may "appear" stable, but is just on the verge of collapse.

 

The highest blocks/furthest from a stable foundation are always the weakest.  I am pretty sure even a nerd pole straight up weakens in stability after so many stacked frame blocks. 

[OmegaFerret]

4 hours ago, zztong said:

 

That narrows it down. Cell Tower #1 and the upper third. There are two blocks supporting that section. If you eliminate one Iron Ladder (500 hit points) and one Metal Trussing Block (1,000 hit points) then the upper third alone will fall.

 

But your 3rd picture is puzzling to me. You lost a steel block (10,000 hit points) and a few things hanging below it that. I'm wondering if they were lost after structural integrity failed, as that process can destroy otherwise supported blocks.

are those points that caused it to fall down at the bottom of the tower? or closer to the top of the tower? cus again the tower breaking happens right at the 22:00 mark when the blood moon starts.

[theFlu]

5 hours ago, warmer said:

The highest blocks/furthest from a stable foundation are always the weakest.  I am pretty sure even a nerd pole straight up weakens in stability after so many stacked frame blocks.

You may be correct, but you've phrased it a little .. incompletely. If there's a "hanging bottom block" to your pole, then yes, a tall enough pole of wood frames will eventually fall. But if the nerd pole starts from normal solid ground, with solid blocks all the way to bedrock, you can happily nerdpole all the way up to the world ceiling - after which you can't place any more blocks as the game couldn't save them.

[warmer]

Ain't going to get me up here unless I attached something funny down below. Back in the day this was the easy way to avoid the horde

[zztong]

5 hours ago, OmegaFerret said:

are those points that caused it to fall down at the bottom of the tower? or closer to the top of the tower? cus again the tower breaking happens right at the 22:00 mark when the blood moon starts.

 

Those points are high up on the tower on the landing you show in your third picture. They're at the lowest point of the highest third.

 

I can't explain why they might fail at 2200, or ever without somebody or something destroying the blocks.

[zztong]

2 hours ago, theFlu said:

You may be correct, but you've phrased it a little .. incompletely. If there's a "hanging bottom block" to your pole, then yes, a tall enough pole of wood frames will eventually fall. But if the nerd pole starts from normal solid ground, with solid blocks all the way to bedrock, you can happily nerdpole all the way up to the world ceiling - after which you can't place any more blocks as the game couldn't save them.

 

Not quite, but pretty close.

 

A blocks is as equally supported as the block below them, vertically. Or, if there is air below them, then their support is slightly weaker than the strongest block beside them. That horizontal support weakens the farther out you go horizontally without any vertical support.

 

Thus:

 

A vertical column from ground up will show as bright green when you view stability. That's the strongest.

 

A horizontal arm will show as bright green from where it is supported and slowly change to yellow, orange, red, and black when you view stability. Anything showing black will fail taking some of the red blocks with it.

 

In Cell Tower #1, the upper third of the tower is all yellow, well supported. The lowest third of the tower shows bright green on the four main pillars. The tower's horizontal span isn't very big in any place.

 

Here's how the structural integrity looks. Notice everything is well supported. Yellow is still well supported. Dark Red and Black are bad. Some crossbars will show as black but that's something about the block definition, not integrity. (Some blocks always show black and don't fail.)

 

Here's the entire tower...

 

And here's the upper third...

 

Edited June 7 by zztong (see edit history)

[zztong]

 

5 hours ago, OmegaFerret said:

are those points that caused it to fall down at the bottom of the tower? or closer to the top of the tower? cus again the tower breaking happens right at the 22:00 mark when the blood moon starts.

 

Question: When you took over that tower there are some vultures and a zombie that can spawn at the base of that third platform. Is there any chance one of them had an opportunity and motive to weaken the truss block and ladder up there? Or, if you went up there and had to fight one of them, is there any chance you damaged the truss block and ladder? If so, maybe when the horde started there was a vulture spitting acid at you that maybe finishes off those two blocks?

 

I'm grasping here.

[theFlu]

1 hour ago, zztong said:

A blocks is as equally supported as the block below them, vertically. Or, if there is air below them, then their support is slightly weaker than the strongest block beside them. That horizontal support weakens the farther out you go horizontally without any vertical support.

It also "weakens" with vertical distance, just less so than with horizontal (given no bedrock connection).

 

The "show stability" seems to ignore that, but here's a quick test I did:

 

 

 

The point here is, the left and the right pillar will collapse if you add one more (all 8 side-attached blocks drop + the added one). The middle one obviously doesn't - didn't test yet how many it would actually require to collapse that.

 

And the "show stability" shows NO difference. It's .. not all that reliable 😛 

 

EDIT: Went on to test it .. adding wood to the side of the middle pillar caused all the wood to collapse after 7 more blocks. But it also collapsed on a way shorter tower on a re-try, after the same 7 side-attached wood blocks. The actual SI is weird (prolly stacking wood on top of iron/steel is going past the calc distance for SI, and it just assumes there's bedrock below beyond some point, or something to that effect, I haf no actual clue..)

Edited June 7 by theFlu (see edit history)

[Riamus]

3 hours ago, theFlu said:

It also "weakens" with vertical distance, just less so than with horizontal (given no bedrock connection).

 

The "show stability" seems to ignore that, but here's a quick test I did:

 

 

 

The point here is, the left and the right pillar will collapse if you add one more (all 8 side-attached blocks drop + the added one). The middle one obviously doesn't - didn't test yet how many it would actually require to collapse that.

 

And the "show stability" shows NO difference. It's .. not all that reliable 😛 

 

EDIT: Went on to test it .. adding wood to the side of the middle pillar caused all the wood to collapse after 7 more blocks. But it also collapsed on a way shorter tower on a re-try, after the same 7 side-attached wood blocks. The actual SI is weird (prolly stacking wood on top of iron/steel is going past the calc distance for SI, and it just assumes there's bedrock below beyond some point, or something to that effect, I haf no actual clue..)

It does get worse with vertical distance if there is air under it, which is what you're showing.  A "nerd pole" being a stack of single blocks with no air under them will have full stability all the way to the top.  Maybe you weren't referring to what was said about that before?  But yes, air under will reduce stability.

[OmegaFerret]

I would like to thank those in this thread for explaining  things to me about this. I was really curious. Also how do you get the stability colors to show up?

Im thinking of trying to build a cell tower like structure and want to kinda make it so the zombies can climb up it like i do and make it so it wont break down easily.

 

[zztong]

13 hours ago, theFlu said:

And the "show stability" shows NO difference. It's .. not all that reliable 😛

 

Interesting. I'll have to try that. Show stability had worked pretty well for me, admittedly I'm usually building with a plan for support.

 

Okay, now I've tried it and I stand corrected. Thank you for that.

 

With some experimentation, it only appeared to became "infinitely stable" when it had four supports. (See picture.)

 

EDIT: And that only appeared to be infinite because I gave up. Later playing with the tower suggests it isn't infinite. Thanks @theFlu for opening my eyes here.

 

Edited June 8 by zztong (see edit history)