A More Complete Roofing System

[Murklak]

Needs of the Community
I've tried to cover all the things people have asked for in various places as well as offer solutions to the interface problems they create. In short, we want more options and more control.

Selecting a Shape
There should be two ways to select the shape of a roof piece: by pressing 'f' with the wrench to select a specific shape from the grid, and by placing in the crafting grid, repeatedly, to cycle through shapes. It's important to have both of these methods because this is a situation where having both is significantly better than having either of them alone. Being able to cycle through the crafting grid enables the player to change stacks at a time but can get tedious when there are many needed shapes, which can quickly fill your inventory. Selecting with the wrench is much faster when creating a few pieces at a time, especially when there's a lot of variety needed, but can get tedious when dealing with many repeating roof pieces. Both of these have disadvantages that make them far less valuable without the other, so it's really only worth changing if both are implemented.

Rotating with a Wrench
Placing a roof piece in the correct orientation can be challenging. We've all fallen off the roof while trying multiple times to place a corner. By clicking with a wrench, we should be able to rotate that piece to the desired orientation.

Reducing the Number of Crafting Recipes
We only need two crafting recipes per material: one recipe for full-size pieces and another for edge pieces. This will keep the next paragraph from bloating the number of recipes.

A Comprehensive Set of Shapes
There simply aren't enough shapes to cover the needs of our community's builders. For instance, we have a roof ridge and a peak which cover having slopes on two sides and on four sides, respectively, but we don't have anything for a slope on three sides and a ridge on the fourth, or ridges on three sides and a slope on the fourth. You also can't have the ridge of a lower roof blend into the slope of a taller roof like you might see over an upstairs window. Our advanced builders probably know exactly which shapes are missing, if we ask them. We should have the freedom to build any shape of structure knowing there is a complete set of roof shapes to make a roof that fits the structure. As it is, we either need to take the limited set of roof shapes into account when designing the footprint or risk having to fit an awkward roof onto that footprint.

A Gentler Slope
People have asked for roof pieces that have a 22.5 degree slope in addition to the existing 45 degree slopes. This can be done as part of extending the set of shapes and would increase the set of crafting recipes by two per material for the full-size and edge pieces. These could be placed like slabs going on the upper or lower half of the block space.

A Post-Crafting Grid World
Using the crafting grid is fine for now but, of course, we'd like to get away from it over time. To do so, we could use a bench. Maybe one specifically for roofing or more generally for carpentry but in effect, a block that has an interface. It could have a single slot that accepts a stack of roof pieces and a grid of available shapes, just like the wrench. Selecting a shape changes the stack of blocks in the slot. It would be nice if the bench was made from cheap materials so roofs could be made at the earliest stages of progression, or have a cheap and limited version that could be replaced by a higher quality bench later.

In Conclusion
These changes would reduce frustration while boosting creativity. They may not be easy to implement but are definitely worth the effort. We appreciate what you do.

Edited August 18, 2025 by Murklak

[Ryilo]

There is a Mod called "One-Roof" that is very flexible, I suggest to start by incorporating its functions in the base game. It handles the creation of corner pieces automatically, it converts the standard roof piece in a corner piece when it detects what the player wants to do, and it permits manual editing of what has been placed if the player wants to do something different.

It permits the creation of more steep roofs simply by placing another roof piece on top of an existing one, and it does the same thing for horizontal pieces, and it does even more things.

[Murklak]

It occurs to me that, if 22.5 degree angles are included (which I think would be appreciated), then 67.5 degree angles would also make sense. That's the same as the 22.5 but angled more vertically. We see angles like this in barn roofs, for instance. The recipe could be two normal roof pieces arranged vertically or horizontally in the crafting grid, and would return two of the desired slope.

https://www.google.com/search?q=barn+roof

[Ryilo]

A quick and dirt example using the mentioned mod, is this what you mean?:

[Murklak]

3 hours ago, Ryilo said:

A quick and dirt example using the mentioned mod, is this what you mean?:

Similar. A 22.5 degree angle would be 1x2 blocks while your example is 1x3.

[Facethief]

26 minutes ago, Murklak said:

Similar. A 22.5 degree angle would be 1x2 blocks while your example is 1x3.

The mod mentioned has 67 degree angles too.

[Rudometkin]

I agree roofing deserves deep attention.

Source: am a roofing contractor. 

[Echo Weaver]

1 hour ago, Rudometkin said:

I agree roofing deserves deep attention.

Source: am a roofing contractor. 

Sounds legit! 

[Rudometkin]

7 minutes ago, Echo Weaver said:

Sounds legit! 

hahaha I'm serious!

The roof Ryilo displayed here is considered a Mansard roof. It has the typical barn shape. For standard residential roofs, there are Hip roofs and Gable roofs. Straight gable roofs are more simplistic and straightforward, with just two facets, or slopes, unless it has cutouts. Hip roofs are more complex and probably needs the most attention here. Hip roofs have hips, which is a ridge with a diagonal slant. These are your standard 4-facet or more roofs. This is where a lot of the complexity comes in as far as needing more pieces.

[Murklak]

On 8/18/2025 at 6:20 AM, Ryilo said:

There is a Mod called "One-Roof" that is very flexible, I suggest to start by incorporating its functions in the base game.

I've used this mod and considered it while doing my homework for this post. I specifically chose not to suggest incorporating it because an automatic roof will not allow you to have the control some builders will want. For instance, if you were building a ruin and wanted to put a corner roof piece on a wall with no other adjacent roof pieces, automatic roofing does not allow that. In my opinion, being able to arrange roof shapes more freely is more important than making it easy.

That's not to say they should not incorporate the mod into the game. Only that it should be a lower priority than a system that enables a greater amount of creativity.

[Echo Weaver]

On 8/18/2025 at 7:21 PM, Rudometkin said:

hahaha I'm serious!

The roof Ryilo displayed here is considered a Mansard roof. It has the typical barn shape. For standard residential roofs, there are Hip roofs and Gable roofs. Straight gable roofs are more simplistic and straightforward, with just two facets, or slopes, unless it has cutouts. Hip roofs are more complex and probably needs the most attention here. Hip roofs have hips, which is a ridge with a diagonal slant. These are your standard 4-facet or more roofs. This is where a lot of the complexity comes in as far as needing more pieces.

Haha. I believed you. I was just entertained by a roofing contractor critiquing the game's roofing -- that brings in a lot of realism. 

[Facethief]

17 hours ago, Murklak said:

I've used this mod and considered it while doing my homework for this post. I specifically chose not to suggest incorporating it because an automatic roof will not allow you to have the control some builders will want. For instance, if you were building a ruin and wanted to put a corner roof piece on a wall with no other adjacent roof pieces, automatic roofing does not allow that. In my opinion, being able to arrange roof shapes more freely is more important than making it easy.

That's not to say they should not incorporate the mod into the game. Only that it should be a lower priority than a system that enables a greater amount of creativity.

Here’s the thing:

[insert image of Ben Grimm]

Uhhh… I mean, you can use hammers to select a specific type of roof with oneroof.

[Echo Weaver]

I just want the "boards" under the roof to match the material I'm building with. Looks like One Roof does that. Definitely adding it to my planned more-modded game.