Overview
Fortresscraft scratches all my itches regarding both building and automation and has come a long way since it’s been released. That said, some things might not be immediately clear to new players, so I made a video containing 5 tips to hopefully help people get started. I realize not everyone likes videos, so I also include a written version below. Hope it’s useful to at least some people!
Video
Written version
1) Holding Ctrl while building blocks fills up an entire row/column with blocks. From where you aim, to where you’re standing. This is really an amazing feature. Watch out though, as it will replace blocks that are in between. That said, it’s perfect for building large platforms and walls.
2) You start with a grappling hook in this game. Default key is ‘F’. This allows you to get to different places really quickly, but takes a while to get used to. One thing it’s perfect for is actually falling down. If you jump down a cliff, just shoot the grappling hook straight in front of you every seconds or so, this will allow you to land softly even if you fell a very long distance.
I also suggest making a ‘platform’ to hook onto when going up to your base. This allows for an easy to recognize aiming point and makes everything quick and painless (see video for example of my platform).
3) If you don’t know what a specific block does, you can press H for context sensitive help menu. This is really really helpful. It doesn’t only show you the block you have currently selected, but also the one you are aiming at (and some more as well). The help menu is really useful in this game, especially as there are so many blocks to play with.
4) Conveyer belts do not only have to go forward or diagonally. You can actually build upwards, sideways, down, it’s all up to you! Even better, it’s very easy to connect these in weird ways as well, as long as you always build the next block where the previous conveyerbelt transports the good. Hope I’m explaining this well here, this one is much easier to see than to explain. This tip starts at 2.40m in the video.
5) Make sure to activate your holobase once in a while. This gives you a holographic overview of everything you have built, and allows you to quickly identify problems, such as excavators not doing anything anymore, conveyorbelts that are stuck, etc.