Need help understanding support beams.

[Danny97]

I've been trying to pretty my base up a bit lately using support beams and i found they work perfectly fine 90% of 50% of the time and it's pissing me off.

I used to have the same problems some time ago with the beams not being straight or outright not working but i read online that having the immersive first person mode enabled can cause issues so i turned it off and that was the end of that,but now that i decided to actually use the damn things again they refuse to listen.

They work well enough for simple jobs like pic 1 but something happened where i couldn't break the beams once i placed them even when breaking the surface they were attached to and it's making me want to shave myself bald because there is a hole in my roof now.

I tried axes,i tried breaking blocks,i even tried reseting the game,only thing left now is to set fire to the damn place and be done with it,BUT before i do that i would like to know if there is a way to fix it?

Thanks in advance.

Edited November 1, 2025 by Danny97

[Broccoli Clock]

"Finicky" would be my description of beams, if they weren't so damned nice to use as detailing I don't think I'd use them as they are a pain to place. It gets better over time, and believe it or not 1.21 is better than 1.20 in handling them. Still you'll always find some daft situation where you can knock out every block you think it's attached to only to have the bugger hang in open space, taunting both you and gravity.

I do not envy your job there. As I'm sure you know, the beginning of the beam should have a nub that you can target to remove all the beam's length, but that's not the case when dealing with chiselled blocks, they seem to attach differently. I wonder if this is the same for roof tiles, which could be causing the issue?

If I had to give advice it would be to remove everything around it, like everything within a block then try to see if the "nub can be targeted". It's not the advice you want to hear, though..

[Danny97]

7 hours ago, Broccoli Clock said:

"Finicky" would be my description of beams, if they weren't so damned nice to use as detailing I don't think I'd use them as they are a pain to place. It gets better over time, and believe it or not 1.21 is better than 1.20 in handling them. Still you'll always find some daft situation where you can knock out every block you think it's attached to only to have the bugger hang in open space, taunting both you and gravity.

I do not envy your job there. As I'm sure you know, the beginning of the beam should have a nub that you can target to remove all the beam's length, but that's not the case when dealing with chiselled blocks, they seem to attach differently. I wonder if this is the same for roof tiles, which could be causing the issue?

If I had to give advice it would be to remove everything around it, like everything within a block then try to see if the "nub can be targeted". It's not the advice you want to hear, though..

The nub vanished in thin air until i restarted the game twice and took a chunk out of my house.

I guess that's just one of those things we have to deal with from time to time,like when you break shelves with stuff on them and some of said stuff dissapears.

Lost a couple pies that way.

Edited November 1, 2025 by Danny97

[LadyWYT]

11 minutes ago, Danny97 said:

when you break shelves with stuff on them and some of said stuff dissapears.

What may be happening there is the items are getting tossed into a solid block and then spit out the other side out of sight, since the item cannot occupy the same physical space as the block.

 

15 hours ago, Danny97 said:

They work well enough for simple jobs like pic 1 but something happened where i couldn't break the beams once i placed them even when breaking the surface they were attached to and it's making me want to shave myself bald because there is a hole in my roof now.

I tried axes,i tried breaking blocks,i even tried reseting the game,only thing left now is to set fire to the damn place and be done with it,BUT before i do that i would like to know if there is a way to fix it?

I've not messed with support beams all that much, but from what I recall the main method of removing them is to search near the "base" of the beam--that is, the point you first anchored it. There should be a small hitbox there that allows you to break the entire thing.

As for building with beams in general, unless you're building diagonal accents, I would recommend chiseling out supports from wooden blocks or other materials. Much less hassle, while still looking very nice if you're keeping the details oriented to a grid layout.

[Kreeate]

From the Wiki:

[Danny97]

9 hours ago, Kreeate said:

From the Wiki:

I explained how i've used beams before and even provided pictures of my most recent work with the main issue being that i couldn't remove them the entended way but hey thank you for trying anyway i guess? Appreciate it.

[xXx_Ape_xXx]

Ah yes, the everlasting battle of removing beams.. I've lost my hair from battling these buggers a long time ago, they still haunt my dreams to this day.

It seem you have tried everything I'd advice and do myself when cursing at the screen because they get placed like a 5'yr old tossing them around like lego's. I feel your pain and join the suffering..

One thing (which you probably already have tried) I do, that sometimes help, is to equip the axe and wave around in the general area of where the beam was placed, while simultaneously adjusting the angle and position I view the beam. I find that the hitbox can sometimes only be targeted from a certain angle, and not necessarily the same angle you were standing in when placing the beam. And occasionally I find the hitbox be way off from the beam itself. It's not much of a tip, but worth mentioning at least..

I wish you godspeed and good luck in your search for the allusive beam hitboxes! May the maker have mercy on your sanity..

Edited November 2, 2025 by xXx_Ape_xXx

[Kreeate]

8 hours ago, Danny97 said:

I explained how i've used beams before and even provided pictures of my most recent work with the main issue being that i couldn't remove them the entended way but hey thank you for trying anyway i guess? Appreciate it.

 

The Wiki instructions are the standard method and it works perfectly to remove beams for myself on countless worlds and builds.  In addition, the same method works for family and friends in the same way.

 

You most likely have a mod or other setting that is messing with the standard beam removal method.

But thanks for your snarky retort.  Always good to see sarcasm from people that don't understand basic game mechanics.

Edited November 2, 2025 by Kreeate

[Blaiyze]

I find they're a lot easier to use in creative and pretty much never use them in survival. 

You need an empty hand when interacting with them, and when trying to remove one to replace it if the placement has been wrong, you need to be able to view the square end of the starting point. If there's other blocks in the way you'll have to remove them so that you can look right at that narrow square end to be able to access the hit box to get rid of it. In survival, this is steeply annoying and not as easy to do, which is why I personally only use them in creative. It's still frustrating to do all this even in creative but is easier to tinker around with. There's also some placements that, for whatever reason you simply can't get the nub end to pop up and have to remove basically any block around that end to get it to show up again.

I recommend playing with them in a creative testbuild world to understand the mechanics before attempting them in survival. Regardless, they definitely need some work because they're very frustrating -  the end point can often bounce around and good luck if attaching them to chiseled blocks, if the placement is wrong you effectively have to throw out that chiseled block.

Edited November 2, 2025 by Blaiyze

[Teh Pizza Lady]

OP

Can you confirm you were following the wiki instructions for removing a beam? I've never had ANY issues removing them by following those instructions. If you can confirm you were following the wiki instructions for removing them and you aren't playing with any mods, then submitting a bug report on the issues tracker github is the best way to get it fixed.

EDIT:
OP's silence is telling.

Edited November 4, 2025 by Teh Pizza Lady

[Danny97]

21 hours ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

OP

Can you confirm you were following the wiki instructions for removing a beam? I've never had ANY issues removing them by following those instructions. If you can confirm you were following the wiki instructions for removing them and you aren't playing with any mods, then submitting a bug report on the issues tracker github is the best way to get it fixed.

EDIT:
OP's silence is telling.

I was playing battlefield 6 for gods sake,can you give me a minute?! I'm not on this website 24/7,what just because i didn't respond to you in a single business day (4 hours lol) suddenly i'm hiding from something or whatever? Please.

Yeah i did everything right,no i wasn't using any mods,yes it was a bug which caused the nubs to vanish and prevented me from removing the beams even when i destroyed everything around them to the point they just floated in the air,I had to restart my game a couple of times before it got fixed,yes i know how to remove them and based on the pictures i provided you could have guessed as much because there is NO WAY anyone can work with beams and have them be perfect 100% of the time so you best believe i had to remove some of them a couple of times.

I already explained all of this in a comment that got deleted by a mod because i hurt someone's feelings by telling them to taste test a firearm.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

22 minutes ago, Danny97 said:

i hurt someone's feelings by telling them to taste test a firearm.

Ah yeah, that would be a violation of the forum rules (found here).

23 minutes ago, Danny97 said:

I was playing battlefield 6 for gods sake,can you give me a minute?! I'm not on this website 24/7,what just because i didn't respond to you in a single business day (4 hours lol) suddenly i'm hiding from something or whatever? Please.

No need to be hostile. It's an open forum, not a live chat. I was being cheeky in my edit because it had been well over 12 hours. I may have also been responding a bit to your overly hostile remark about the firearms. Because of how the moderators have been handling rule-breaking responses lately, I wouldn't have been surprised if you had gotten a temporary suspension of your forum account for breaking the forum rules and netiquette. I was maybe alluding to that being a possibility.

However, I would suggest bringing it up in a bug report (as politely as possible) in the Anego Studios issue tracker git repository if you can confirm that you NEVER saw the tool tip at the top of your screen telling you what kind of support beam it is. The hitbox is quite small and it originates where you started the beam, not where it ends or even in the middle. I haven't had any issues with them once I figured that out. If the base of the support beam is buried underneath something else, then it will be impossible to remove until you uncover it.

Anyway, you asked for help. We're trying to provide it. Save the kys talk for people you actually dislike, not strangers on the internet.

[Danny97]

6 minutes ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

Ah yeah, that would be a violation of the forum rules (found here).

No need to be hostile. It's an open forum, not a live chat. I was being cheeky in my edit because it had been well over 12 hours. I may have also been responding a bit to your overly hostile remark about the firearms. Because of how the moderators have been handling rule-breaking responses lately, I wouldn't have been surprised if you had gotten a temporary suspension of your forum account for breaking the forum rules and netiquette. I was maybe alluding to that being a possibility.

However, I would suggest bringing it up in a bug report (as politely as possible) in the Anego Studios issue tracker git repository if you can confirm that you NEVER saw the tool tip at the top of your screen telling you what kind of support beam it is. The hitbox is quite small and it originates where you started the beam, not where it ends or even in the middle. I haven't had any issues with them once I figured that out. If the base of the support beam is buried underneath something else, then it will be impossible to remove until you uncover it.

Anyway, you asked for help. We're trying to provide it. Save the kys talk for people you actually dislike, not strangers on the internet.

Yeah i got a violation.

Also i called a mod a reddior so that didn't really help my case.

I regret nothing.

[Michaloid]

Seems like the problem has been fixed. So instead i'll give a fun fact.
If you crouch and aim your beam, the beam will snap in a 16x16 grid as opposed stood up.