You cannot place this item here because it is a light source...

SO I have never gotten this message before, or perhaps I had just never noticed it. I am trying to re-decorate my house for the holidays and keep getting this message:

"You cannot place this item here because it is a light source and would be too near other light sources"

So now, not only do we have a light limit, we can't put lights too close to eachother?

It seems now that this is in place even the decorations I already had can't be moved as they were I guess "grandfathered" in.

Can I get some clarification as to why this is helpful for the game? Anyone else experience this?

 

I never noticed the warning before, but I have always had issues with placing too many lights in an area. Sometimes I could solve the problem by moving one type of light source (like a wall torch), placing smaller light sources first, and then moving the wall torch back. This, however; sounds like a bit of a new problem.

 

maybe having too much lights close together is affecting game performance... hopefully, they continue working on it and maybe in the future we'll be able to add rows of lights in our homes... LOL

 

Yup, and it happens between floors too. In my row house I had to stagger light sources otherwise I'd get this message. Haven't decorated in a long time so not sure when this started however.

 

I have yet to figure the rhyme or reason in when SOTA decides a light placement is okay and when it isn't. It's been explained a few times the problem is with the Unity engine and eventually Port hopes to increase our lighting budget. My wish list is as follows though:
(1) Don't let light radius extend above and below existing floors, especially when the space above or below is clearly dark w/out a torch or other light.
(2) Add 'snapping' so that lights when placed automatically go to a valid location within view. In other words, don't make me search all over a wall just to find the one corner where a torch is valid.
(3) Turn off 'item is a light source' for many objects, including cook stoves, smelting benches, decorations, etc.
(4) If there is room inside a building or basement, let us place streetlights (ornate metal or wood, kobold, etc.); it's okay to disallow it if there isn't enough headroom. I'd love it if I could add streetlamps to my rowhouse greenhouse roof level, for example

 

The R37 Release is supposed to have some major performance upgrades. Maybe once those go in, they will be able to loosen some of the deco/lighting restrictions and give us a bit more freedom?

 

Yeah I mean, I am not asking for an increase in limits, just for it to be how it was when I decorated my house 2 releases ago. I cant even put my x-mas tree next to the fireplace!

 

Oooh I remember this one from many many releases ago. It applied to medium and large sized light sources usually/lanterns and such).

Back then you could see the radius of all light sources and it would go from green to yellow the more light sources were near each other until you could not place more.

 

Maybe they're concerned with your tree catching fire? After all, next to a fireplace is not such a good spot for x-mas trees in real life!

But seriously, yeah, items like those trees don't really light up a room, and so should like candles be presumed to have a very tight lighting radius.

 

Oh, they light up a room all right, when the catch fire from a fireplace! Especially when people neglect hydrating their X-Mas trees! Portalarium is concerned!