Town Scraper

I am not sure what the official name for these blocks are; therefore, I will call them foundations - the thing you see below.

Your waterworld is the canvas. The placing of these blocks is quite obvious, but there are some features to note.

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  I'm not sure what the official name for these are. I will refer to them as foundation tunnel.

If you put the foundation blocks in a single line, a row of little tunnel will appear.


Tunnel only generate within a one space area. If you make a solid foundation, they will not appear.
See below as an example.




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  Depending on the size of your foundation, tunnels can be centered with some manipulation. See below with a 4 by 10 example.





Be careful with 5 space spots. They can ruin your tunnel setup if you want to keep things aesthetically pleasing.


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  Foundations can be placed diagonally. This will generate little bridges between the blocks and from a tunnel too.


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  Beaches will be one of the early aspects of generation from the game. Beaches tend to generate between two nearby points if the angle is less than 180 degrees (no idea what the specific angle is). Below are examples of this generation being caused:

5-point foundation:


L-shape:


T-Shape:


X-Shape:


You can also produce inner-beaches if you have holes within your foundations. This generation can be trial and error, as shown in the below gif:


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  Just to note, you cannot stack foundations. Whatever you put on top will be your buildings.

So now you got your foundation in place and you have many colors to choose from. You probably have done some trial and error already with the placing of the multi-colored buildings, but read below to see what happens with certain placements.
  If you have buildings in single lines, you're going to have long rows of houses. In the below example, the long line is 12 blocks.


This is the same for multi-colored too. As you can see, using different colors triggers some variety with the buildings.

Stacked buildings will merge if they are the same color.

Using the below picture as an example, take note of the buildings on the lower layers. Buildings on top will retain their unique look and buildings underneath will become similar-looking blocks.


With the yellow building on the right, the top-most building is one layer above the layer below. If you want a tower, you got the make the stack two levels above the layer below; for example, the purple tower.


You can make towers really high, if you fancy.

NOTE: If you make another building right next to your tower, you will lose the tower cone if the height difference is less than 2 layers - this includes diagonal placement.

Credit to Jmawn, OrionOth and TOPO for finding this

In most cases, you will see spires appear on towers; however, there is a way to get them on ground level.

All you need is to have all your buildings the same color and then intersect them into a star or cross, as below:



  Credit to DeeZeePeeZee8 for finding this.

If you generate spires on your buildings, a careful eye will notice the differences for each building color:

A lighthouse is simply a fancy and unique tower, with a fancy top if you fulfill certain requirements.

To trigger your lighthouse, it must be a tower and you must use alternating colors. BUT ONLY TWO COLORS.


The two color method does not have to follow an one layer principle. As long as you have the two colors at a later layer, the lighthouse trigger will be made. See below as an example:


You can add a third (or more) color to the tower, as long as the two-color aspect is maintained near the top to trigger the lighthouse feature. If you lose the lighthouse feature, you dun goofed.

Chapter previously known as thick and thin towers. In hindsight, it is easier to explain the grid types for these buildings

Massive credit goes to Qxeii and BrutalZandax for the 6-sided buildings

For many buildings, the majority will be placed on various shapes of four-by-four grids. Thanks to the way the game generates these grids, sometimes you may encounter 3-grids, 5-grids, and even 6-grids.
  With 3-grid spots, you can create very thin buildings:


  With 5-grid spots, you can create thicker buildings. A personal preference is to use these spots for towers.



  6-grid spots can be quite rare (and in my case, I had the privilege of kind people providing knowledge and an example of these (thanks again, Qxwli and BrutalZandax).


Here's the map code for three 6-grid spots in the same area:

Originally posted by Qxwli:

rzBTRDCH5uExG

 

Archways only appear if you have a solid structure using the same color for the archway pieces, and if the archway gap is one space apart. With that, you get Tidy Tim:


But if you replicate Tidy Tim with a 2 space gap (Thicc Tim), you get the scaffolding back.


And just to prove that the single space rule applies for different colors in the same building - Silly Sam


If you want to be more fancy with archways, you can even make a fourway one. Make sure the gaps are one space apart:

Calling these tunnels is a bit of a stretch, to be honest. The ability to make them is utilizing the same technique used with archways.

You can link normal archways together:


And you can form little archways by using the same building linking technique at foundation level:

I know they're more iron frameworks, but the term is condensed for the explaining.

NOTE: Scaffolding will always appear within the empty spaces under houses!

NOTE: Most single scaffolds have ladders!

NOTE: You can trigger balcony generation (or suspended flat roof buildings) if you place a building between scaffolding sections.

Scaffolding appears when you remove a building from a single stack (tower), if you pluck a building from a part of a larger structure that does not have any surrounding supporting buildings (see below for an example of this), or if you use different colors within an archway.

Using that massive tower as an example; with a piece removed, the scaffolding appears.


Now we added a new structure to our map (nicknamed, 'Messy Bob'). As you can see, different colors trigger the scaffolding appearance. And if you look in the bottom right, that is an example of 'plucking a building from a part of a larger structure that does not have any surrounding supporting buildings'.


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  This is in the same vein as scaffolding, but it allows you to extend buildings out from towers without needing foundations below. See below, with the very tall tower, as an example.


You also do not need a nearby building to complete the suspended look. Simply make a tower and remove all the stacks underneath until you are left with the very topmost house. You get a nice ladder for the look too!


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  If you make individual extensions from a pair of one-space-apart towers, you can generate 'fancier' scaffolding.

Also note that buildings placed between scaffolding will become flat-roof types and produce a random assortment of bushes and other items.

And another example (emphasis on gaps being one-space apart for them to appear):


You can achieve the same result for suspended buildings too:


Now if you want a nice fancy scaffold flooring; with the example of the above picture, if the bottom central piece is removed, this happens:


  (Sorry for the naming of these - trying to guess what they're called from what I see)

Half-arches is still within the same area of scaffolding / extensions. The different between this and the above information is due to some of the archway remaining. See the below gif as an example of this:

Half-arches only appear one space away from the building, and only appears if the scaffolding section is attached to another building. If you make the section 2-spaces long (as seen in the above gif), you get the metal-bar underside.

Like with scaffolding, balconies will generate if you stack the scaffolding layers.

Here's another example of the half-arches:


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With this, you can create new building foundations high in the air and utilize other features to produce castles extended out from very-very-tall towers.

Be warned, the scaffolding can make your town look very messy if you extend too much.

Remember the roofs and those lovely birds. They will disappear if you extend out towards a 3x3 grid.

To show the effects of the change, here's a step-by-step look:

1x1:


1x3:


2x3 (4 buildings)


2x3 (5 buildings)


2x3 (6 buildings)


3x3 (7, 8 and 9 buildings were all flat roof)


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If you have a ring of houses, the flat roofs are triggered if you have a layout of 2x2 buildings (unless you place your house over a 3 space spot (which is a 2x1 layout, kinda).


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You can have a thicker, roofed building if you have building all the same color and do not go beyond a 2-building width; as below:


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For anything else, I cannot specify to what exactly triggers the change. The most I can say that if you go beyond a certain width from your line, the roofs will change to flat (and you cause all the birds to fly away). The above should provide some idea to what causes the triggers.
 

Remember all those lovely different colored houses. Well, here they are again:


Now here they are in front of a big wall. See how they have changed.

Do note that roofs may become flat while you build the wall. Once the wall stack is high enough, the roofs will return. You may need to trial and error this if your building has a unique layout.

Credit goes to 'Frankie Goes To Hollywood' for finding this:
 
Church entrances utilize tidy archways within a large structure. For example, using a 3x3 building (which I have fancified):

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You can also make the inner portion a different color:

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You can also use the same effects for some fancy balcony windows. To trigger the look within walls, you need to go 2 spaces deep into the building for the door to appear.

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  For the roof, you need a single row of buildings at the very top of the church. This row must be a different different color from the rest of the building:

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This type of roof can be stacked. Just consider the width of the building when you start this. The initial example had a 3 wide building, this one is a 5 wide building:


And this one is from a 7 wide building:


 

This one is quite simple. All you need is 5 individual foundations pieces set up like below:


Then build your house/tower in the middle:

For specific items. doors, bushes, benches and other generated items are hard to determine how they are triggered exactly. Their appearance is quite random and you will need to place buildings down multiple times to see what results are generated.

HOWEVER, they all have one common factor - foundations and flat roofs.

All you need is a large open area and then start placing down buildings, As long as there is some space, the items will appear.

For water level triggers, you will find some doors appear with ladders (and sometimes a letterbox) if you do not have any surrounding foundations and buildings:


Some observations with some items:
* Observation binoculars appear near foundation rails
* Benches, chairs and bushes appear near walls
* Bushes can appear near doors.
* 4-chair tables can appear within single space alcoves if they're near a rail (e.g. if you have a 3x3 building, remove 1 part from one of the corners (you'll see it being generated within the above gif)).

NOTE: While I have pointed out some observations, all items still have a chance % of spawning when you place down your buildings, They are not guaranteed!

Credit goes to 'Frankie Goes To Hollywood' for finding this:

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Crane hooks can easily be missed unless you tried out this setup.

Hooks only appear within a one space. To help generate the hook, all you need to start with is your tidy (Tim) archway.

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You can even make a 4-pillar hook, starting with a four-way archway and a tower:
Sorry for the poor quality - Valve has a 2mb limit with gifs.

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And if you want to show off, you can even have a tri-crane, a 3-space crane and a 5-space crane (full credit to Topo for this one):


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With some careful placements, using the above info, you can make a pyramid of hooks:


You can even remove the middle buildings to make taller cranes, but you are at risk of breaking the game's scaffolding generation:

You want the birds? You got to make sure your builds have roofs. The appearance of the birds is quite random otherwise.


Birds can also appear on scaffolds.

To generate a garden (or a field if you have a very large space), make a closed ring of houses. The height of the houses do not matter. If you add an opening, the green disappears.