tutorial: easy heterogeneous asset blocks

[gwgardner]

Asset blocks are a wonderful tool. There is one limitation, however, in that only one object can be placed in a given asset block. I wanted to use three different kinds of trees altogether all over my route. I could have made three passes over the route with three different asset blocks. Here's a different way, for making just one pass over the route:

1) make n asset blocks, each with different objects;

2) move all those blocks over each other - no need to be precise, indeed better to offset just a bit;

3) now place the cursor near the edges of the overlaid blocks, and drag the mouse until the white circle covers a bit of the edges of all n overlaid blocks;

4) hit ctrl-c to pick up all those overlaid blocks at once;

5) move to wherever you want all those overlaid blocks, and hit ctrl-v - that places one over laid set under the cursor, allowing you to move the whole set about, and every time you click the left mouse button you get a new placement of the whole set.

[Toripony]

I love the asset block tool! It's exactly what I dreamed of! Just last night, for the first time, I successfully placed asset blocks of forest on the Alleghany sub. Previously, all my attempts resulted in an SBHH or thermal shutdown. But last night I had no problems at all and completed one area in about an hour! The difference?....... I turned off TSX.

Still had the issues with changing the Density number as other people have found, but after making a few different tiles, I just used copy/paste and don't have to fool with that Properties panel or Density field any more. I expect that in my next session I'll get twice as much done. I can see the possibility of foresting the entire 40 miles of the route that I have done in a few days instead of weeks or months!

p.s. One time when that field refused to take my numbers, it went to 0. I then put in 1; it took it. Then I added a zero to make it 10; it took it. Next, 100, then 1000 and after that I could put in any number I wanted. Don't know if that works every time or not....