I've used to Construction Set quite a few times, but one thing that constantly bothers me is trying to figure out what pieces go where when I trying to put together a house, a manor, castle or whatever.

I haven't tried a castle, or fort, yet.

Can anyone lend their thoughts on this?

Do I just need to load up a cell with a fort in it and study the layout?

If I had to do this for every structure I planned to make it would take a long time. Any suggestions on how to pick the right pieces to go together?

I built a house once, put it just north of Balmora, it was plenty big enough, had lots of chests and cabinets, some plants and tapestries.

One strange thing was whichever stairs I used worked strangely, I could go downstairs but not up. It was like after I went down the stairs the other levels of the house were blocked off. How or why did that happen?

How do you know which stairs to use?

Thanks ahead of time!

G.D.

Ok, well what I did when I first started out with interior building, was just that. Study the layout, learn the names of the pieces, copy and paste, etc. Personally I used the Ebonheart Legion Garrison

Also, what do you mean with the stairs? So long as you position them with the bottom aligned with the floor below and pointing upwards, you should be able to make them go up. Though with imp small stairs (the ones found in garrisons) you have to place two straight after one another and connect them to make them go up a level.

Also I suggest using Snap to grid and Snap to angle at all times at first, it makes putting things together much easier (Snap to grid = grid icon at the top, Snap to angle = triangle like thing with the red semi circle in the middle at the top). Though I don't suggest this for doing things like positioning furniture, just building the structure

Hope this helps

Thanks for the input Switch,

I should probably go in-depth with the stairs problem:

I picked a staircase (which one? I haven't a clue), flipped it, moved into place, finished the house up, well at least a test model and saved it.

Loaded the data file, morrowind starts, I start off a new game, head straight to Balmora to visit my homestead. The outside looks pretty good, all level with the ground, contours nicely.

The inside needs a little more light, but otherwise the layout is good and certainly big enough. Ah, the stairs! Let's go to the basement and check it out.

Walking over to the stairs I notice that there is a wooden X over the top of the stairs; I walk over it and fall in between the X to the next step, I continue down the stairs and turn around only to see that the open part of the stairs is closed and I can no longer go back up stairs, it's like a wall at the top of a staircase.

Had to start a new game, then I did it again. Same thing happened. Only I can't remember which staircase it was and I was so dissapointed that I deleted it to try again.

But I will study the layouts and make a rough sketch of the forts so I can learn the names and positions of the pieces.

Thanks again switch!

Wouldn't it be great if we had a book that described each house, fort, building, & the names of the pieces that make up the structure?

PS: To keep the mod clean, if I loaded a fort then copied stuff off it, then deleted the original would the mod be clean with no doubling reference to the original fort?

Thanks!

No, it would still be dirty but you could easily clean it with Tesame - this is a utility you should use for every mod you make, because it will remove nearly all the dirty references for you.

Well actually it doesn't remove them FOR you - you still have to delete them yourself. But it's still pretty easy to use, PM me if you get it Gemini and I can explain

As for the stair problem... I'm not very sure what you mean about the wooden X. Did you make sure that the staircase wasn't on the same spot as another tile? Like you didn't try to place it on the same part as another part of the interior?

And you're welcome