In the Mega Slopes Pack V2 Mod for From the Depths, I have added 2,158 new block shapes and sizes to the game for each material. For all 8 materials, that's 17,264 blocks. That can probably seem a bit overwhelming at first, but this guide aims to simplify the menus, and help to explain what I had in mind when I created each shape, along with how to get them to line up.

If you use the original Mega Slopes Pack, note that the mod has been broken up into two separate mods for V2. This was due to the large size of the mod, and as a way to reduce computer performance issues if you never see yourself needing an 6x4x3m Lead Triangle Corner. "Common Block Materials" has Wood, Alloy, Metal, and Heavy Armor, while "Other Block Materials" has Glass, Rubber, Stone, and now even Lead. There are links to each other on each mod's workshop page.

If you built things using the original Mega Slopes Pack, all the original blocks are still here, and once you have the new version installed, you should be able to load those old creations with no issues.

This guide will apply to both the "Common Block Materials" and "Other Block Materials" mods, as both are identical, and laid out exactly the same.

Now to the first topic, the Menus. To keep things organized, all the mega slopes pack blocks are in a menu in the top right corner or each block type in the vanilla menus.

The main Mega Slopes Pack Menus have been re-done from the original, both for some simplification, and to allow more space for a lot more blocks.

The sub menus have been grouped to keep related items close to each other as much as possible.

BASIC BLOCKS

First, I will go over the basic blocks section, although this should be straightforward for experienced players.

As you can see, beams, downslopes, triangle corners, inverted triangle corners, and square-back corners have been expanded to 5-8m lengths. There's really nothing special here. Only thing to note is the L/R hand versions only have the "Left" side accessible through the menu, as a way to save space. You can get the "right" side versions with the mirror tool, or in these cases, just rotate them.


Only other thing to note here is the main menu also has 2, 3, 5 and 6m versions of the beam slope available, as a compliment to the vanilla 4m one, which can also help reduce the need for 1m downslopes. These, of course, also have a health bonus applied to them over the 1m slope.

There is a huge increase to the slope transition options in the mod. They are expanded to include transitions to the larger slopes in the mod, and entirely new shapes have been added as well.

SLOPE TRANSITIONS
First, slope transitions. These are expansions of the vanilla slope transitions, they have been increased to include the larger slope sizes, up to 8x7m. They also have new sizes that increase the width over which the transition occurs, these are the (2m), (3m), and (4m) versions.

Here are some examples of the menus

And here are some examples of the blocks, 5x1m and 7x2m in 1m to 3m widths. The green blocks are the transitions, with the red on the side the corresponding downslopes.


By Stacking these shapes, you can create gradual curves over a long width/height. This can be very useful for hull shaping. The image shows a 8x7m to a 7x6m to a 6x5m to a 5x4m slope transition, increasing by 1m in width each time.


INVERSE SLOPE TRANSITIONS

Inverse slope transitions are also just like their vanilla counterparts, but again, have been expanded to include up to 8m sizes, and also have 1m to 4m widths.

Here are some example blocks, with 8x7m and 6x3m sizes, in 1m to 3m widths.

You can also create gradual slopes with these, but notice how in this case, the left faces stay in line with each other.



OFFSET SLOPE TRANSITIONS

A new shape that has been added is the "offset slope transition." These work just like the vanilla slope transitions, but they also offset 1m between the two sizes. This can also be very handy for hull shaping. Like the others, I added in 1-4m widths for these shapes.

Here are some examples, 3x2m and 6x5m offset slopes, in 1m-4m widths. The blue blocks show the corresponding slopes.


These are also great for making gradual slope changes. Here you can see 1m to 4m offset slope transitions on the left, going from 7m to 3m, and normal slope transitions stacked on top on the right, going from 8m to 4m.


TRIANGLE-BACK TRANSITIONS

Another new shape is what I call "triangle-back" transitions. These are somewhat similar to a triangle corner, in that the "side" face, and the "back" face are triangles. The difference is that they have a 1m flat adjoining the "back" side face rather than a normal diagonal side like a triangle corner has. They have been split into two sub menus due to how many there are.

Here are some example pieces, a 4x3m in red, a 5x3m in tan, a 7x4m in grey and a 8x8m in blue.

COMBO SLOPES

Next I'll cover "combo" slopes and offset slopes. Combo slopes are simply unequal-sided slopes meant as a way to line up with the many combination slopes that arise in this mod, such as a 5x6 triangle corner. The sizes correspond the the height and length in the other direction. Each unequal combination is accounted for, and all the equal-sided sizes are skipped, as they can be covered with 1m slopes or beam slopes.


Here is an array of combo slopes in various sizes


And here is a row of 8x5m combo slopes ending in an 8x5x3m triangle corner.


OFFSET SLOPES

Offset slopes are just the same as in vanilla, but there are additional sizes added up to 8m, and 2m and 3m versions added, which offset further back. All sizes now also include 1m-4m widths, for more gradual transition. There are only offsets up to 3m due to a game limitation which only allows blocks to be up to 11m in any given direction. This corresponds with an 8m offset with an additional 3m of length.

Below is an assortment of 1m offset slopes. A 5m version in 1m, 2m, 3m, and 4m widths can be seen at the bottom left.


Here are some 6m right hand offsets showing the 1m, 2m, and 3m setback versions for comparison.

Here are some 2m wide offsets also displaying the 1-3m setbacks

There are many types of "curved" and "round" blocks added to this mod, and V2 has done a lot to expand this section and increase its usefulness These are all different to the vanilla blocks, so I will try to go into more detail here.

BASIC CURVED BLOCKS

First, I will cover the main "curved blocks" menu. Fitting all the types in a logical manner was a challenge, so this menu can be a bit hard to navigate at first. Here I have highlighted the main sections of it.

First, the "rounded blocks" and "curves. These are the basic building blocks of the rounded blocks section. A "rounded block" by my definition, is a 1-4m beam with one side curved over, these are the 1 to 4m blocks shown on the left. A "curve" by my definition is a combo size, 2x2m, 3x2m, 4x3m etc. These can be seen in the right side of the image. There are also curved beams, which behave like the beam slope block, simply with a 1m curve rather than a sloped side.

INSIDE AND OUTSIDE CORNER BLOCKS

All the inside and outside corners are based off of these shapes, and are meant to join with (some) of them. It turned out to not be practical to get every last possible corner combination, so a basic assortment was added in. The outside corners are basic 1m tall corner blocks that correspond to each round or curved shape. Here you can see form left to right, the 4m, 3m, 2m, and 1m sizes, with a 4x4m at the back left.

The outside corners can be used to cap off a row of curved blocks, or in a "flat" orientation can be used to make an outside corner of curves, either the same size or changing around the corner. Below are some examples, with the corner pieces highlighted in yellow.

The Inside corner pieces follow the same pattern, and are primarily meant as a way to join two intersecting rows of curved blocks. Here is the full array from 4m to 1m once agian.

Here are some more examples, with the inside curves highlighted in yellow. Note that these don't work well with anything other than the 1m tall blocks, these is no inside corner that will properly fit a 3x3m curve for example. You could achieve this with a mimic or decoration if needed though.

CIRCLES AND SEMICIRCLES

These blocks are quite simple, and are exactly what the name implies. They come in 3m to 11m odd numbered sizes. The only thing to note is that two of the semicircles do not make a perfectly aligned circle, due to how the grid is aligned in FTD. Two semicircles will make circle offset .5m off the rest of the grid, this was the reason for the full circle blocks. They can make a handy base for a simple weapon turret, or a top for a round turret. The semicircles also make good platforms or overhangs. They are somewhat limited in that they are solid, and cannot be used to build hollow objects.

ROUND-TO-SLOPE AND ROUND-TO-SQUARE TRANSITIONS

These are two sets of transition blocks, wach with their own sub menu near the top right. They are meant as ways to blend the round shapes in with other shapes. They are limited to the "1m tall" rounded block types, and they are provided in 1-4m lengths, which vary the rate at which they transition.They do not change size, as in, they transition from a 1x3m slope to a 1x3m curve. Below are some Round-to-slope transitions in 1-4m legths, with the corresponding rounded blocks, and downslopes at either end.

There is also a small set of "vertical" orientation blocks, which transition from a slope to a curve, but also turn a 90° angle. These are shown below.


The round-to-square transitions follow the same pattern, but without the "vertical" versions, as those should not really be needed. Below are a selection of round-to-square transitions, with the associated blocks on either side.


CURVE-TO-CURVE TRANSITIONS

These shapes are pretty self explanatory, they are simply 1m long transitions between the differnt slope sizes. Due to the large amount of combinations, these could only be offered in 1m lengths, but it is possible create more gradual transitions by stacking shapes together. They are also only shown in the menu as the "left" side, but the right can be obtained through mirroring, or in some cases, they can simply be rotated around.

Below are some examples, with the matching slopes attached to either side, along with a row of "stacked" transitions.


ROUND AND CURVE CORNERS

In these next two sections, I have, admittedly sort of deviated from my original definitions of "rounded" and "curved" but it's still pretty logical. For the "Round Back Corners" and "Curve Back Corners," "Round" is any even size i.e. 1x1m 2x2m 3x3m etc. "Curve" here is anything with an uneven size, i.e. 2x1m 3x2m 4x3m etc. Both of these menus again only have the "left" side due to there being a lot of possible combinations, as these corners are available in 2 to 8m lengths. I decided to skip 1m lengths, as many sizes looked highly irregular smashed down to 1m long.

These shapes are somewhat like the rounded version of triangle corners, and can be useful for nose sections of planes, among many other things. A selection of shapes is shown below.

ROUND AND CURVE OFFSETS

Round and curve offsets follow the same naming conventions as above, and are simply a 1m shifted slope shape, in 1m to 8m lengths. The "back" side has a small 1m flat section next to the curve. A selection of these shapes is shown below.

These shapes are also quite useful to gradually slope a curve, which can be nice for the bottom corners of a hull.

Arc segments are going to get their own subsection, as they can be pretty finicky to figure out, and even as the creator, I often find myself spinning them around several times to get them to line up right.

Firstly, an overview and what they are intended to do. These are a set of blocks that can be used to create a hollow tube shape, at least visually. The hit boxes for these shapes still are made up of 1m cubes, so technically, the game still sees them as stacks of blocks and beams. I have given the 1m segments the health boost usually afforded to beams, as a way to keep these useful as turret armor.

The arc segments are meant to build a tube out of a stack of rings, and each arc segment piece is meant to go at a certain location around each ring. Blocks for 5m, 7m, 9m, and 11m size rings are provided. In the 7m and up sizes, "slit" segments are provided, with a hole, such that 2 or 3-gun turrets can be built. In all sizes, a "plug" segment can be omitted at the 90° sections to allow for a weapon, door, etc. to be placed. For this to make sense, when you are building think of the layout like a clock or a compass. Below is the arc segments menu for reference.

There are 4 basic types of blocks, segments, plugs, slit segments, and for 11m only, mid segments. Segments will generally construct most of each ring. Plug segments are meant to go at every 90° or N,S,E,W on a compass / 12,3,6,9 o'clock. Slit segments replace normal segments in certain left/right locations, and have a "hole" through which weapons can protrude. The mid segments and 45° plug are only needed for the larger sizes, where the rings take more blocks to properly form, and are an intermediate between the regular segments.

Confused yet? I will do some step-by-step builds that will try to explain this better. To begin, I'll start with the simplest one, the 5m ring. I will start by building a full circle. I will build on top of a 5m circle block, which may help make things clearer. First, place a 90° plug with its concave face facing to the inside of the ring you want to build. You will notice with all of these blocks, that the default orientation is sort of weird, this was by design, as doing it this way eliminated the need for left/right mesh versions.

Next, you can either place the other three arc plugs, or start adding segments, I will go with the latter method here. The first segments will go directly next to the arc plug.

The next arc segments, moving backward, will be flipped around the other way, this will ususally wind up taking a couple tries to get it lined up right until you do a few of them.

Next, continuing along, place 2 more arc plugs, at the "East" and "West" loactions.

Then the rest is just a mirror of the first half.

At this stage, the easiest way I've found is to go around the circle, and use the R key to copy each block and place more vertically until you reach the height you want.

Now, we have a full tube shape. You can place whatever you want in here, and Rambot can even walk around in it, with some minor clipping issues.

The arc plugs at every 90° allow for some options, such as placing doors or weapons, just delete (or omit in the first place) the plugs where you want things.

The other advantage to this system is you build as much of the circle as you want, which allows for things like custom casemate turrets.

Next I'll walk through how I built this (useless) APS turret example, which will also show an example of how "slit" segments are used. First, I laid down a 3m turret base, and a 7m circle block as a base plate. For a real turret that goes below deck, you would use a base of beam blocks, and use more arc pieces for the bottom layer of the turret. I have started to lay out the ring profile here, with a 7m plug segment and some normal segements to the sides.

Next, continue building the ring around as far as you wish, I went pretty far with mine.

Now for the slit segments. For 7m rings there are "double slit" segments, which will allow for two weapons, with a 1m gap in-between them. The actual "block" is placed 1m off of the center arc plug piece, as shown highlighted by the cursor here. The meshes are filled in properly so everything has nice flat edges.

Next, just use the copy block method to raise the walls up. I topped mine off with another 7m circle.

As I mentioned earlier, the hitboxes for these shapes are not perfect acrs, to demonstrate this, I took the turret and replaced the arc segments with blocks to show what the game "sees." The Red blocks are the plug segments, green are normal segments, and blue are the "slit" segments.

Another thing to note with the arc segments is that they have been set up to be neatly concentric, so it is possible to build multi-meter thick shells with these shapes. Below is an overhead view of a 9m ring with a 7m ring inside of it.

The Slit segments are also made to line up perfectly, such as show here

For the 9m and 11m rings, additional pieces were needed to get everything to line up right. The 9m has the "45° arc plug" and the 11m has the "arc mid segment" Both work similarly, but two mid segments are needed every 90° around the ring, whereas only one 45° arc plug is needed every 90° for a 9m ring. Here is an example of half of a 9m ring. The 90° arc plugs are in yellow, the arc segments are in green, the 45° arc plugs are in red.

Here is half of an 11m ring. The 90° arc plugs are again in yellow, and the standard segments are in green. The first mid segment is in red, and the second is in purple. The purple is the same block, just flipped around backwards.

The 9m and 11m rings also allow for a "triple slit" design, agian by replacing certain blocks around the ring. I'll continue along with the 11m example above. First, here is the setup for the "double slit" layout, the two segments adjacent to the center arc plug are replaced with "double slit" segments, shown here in black.

For the triple slit layout, similar idea, but here, the first two segments, and the first two mid segments get replaced as well. For the central gun, simply remove the center arc plug. You could, of course, also use the triple slit parts to build a double slit arrangement with a wider spacing too. Below the "triple slit" segments are in black, and the "triple slit" mid segments are in white, with the center arc plug having been removed.

PYRAMID SHAPES

There are two kinds of pyramids included in the pyramids and cones sub menu. Regular pyramids, are simply 1m square based pyramid shapes in 1-8m lengths. These shapes are effectively a "half angle" compared to the same-sized downslopes, and therefore do not blend in perfectly. A half size, such as a 3m pyramid, next to 6m slopes, will work however. The lower two images show an example.

Pyramid caps, in contrast, are a set of 3m base pyramids, with the angles adjusted such that they will blend in neatly with a pyramid built of slopes and square corners. The meshes are a half meter short as a result. The image below shows the pyramid caps in red, with bases of the corresponding slopes below in green.


CONES AND BOAT TAILS

These two types are meant as nose or tail pieces for aerodynamic shapes. An ogive cone is a cone with a rounded profile, often seen in planes and rockets. The original shapes from V1 have been expanded to include 3m and 5m base widths, this provides a nice array of blunt shapes up to very pointed ones.

Boat tails, are an aerodynamic shape that amounts to a truncated cone, rifle bullets will sometimes have their back end shaped this way, along with rockets, and things like aircraft drop tanks or bombs. These have also been expanded to 3 and 5m wide versions for V2. These can also come in handy as a base platform for equipment. Note that the back ends of these were not made to scale to anything else, so they do not necessarily work as a transition from one diameter to another.

TETRAHEDRONS

This is an all new shape, that was inspired both by some user suggestions, and a need I had for a transition piece for rake on the front end of ships' bows. The tetrahedron is a shape which essentially slopes upwards and to the side at the same time, with one face horizontal, and the opposite end vertical. I decided to put these in as 1m to 4m wide variants as well. They include all sizes from 1 to 8m.

Wedges have been greatly expanded vs. vanilla, and some new shapes were added for V2. Firstly, the 1-4m wedge shapes have been expanded up to 8m lengths.

Wedge fronts and backs have been significantly expanded, to aid in things like hull shaping, and making airplane wings. Both have been expanded up to 8m lengths, and all sizes have versions up to 4m in the other dimension.

Here are some example pieces.

The various pieces can be mixed and matched as needed. Note there are a couple redundant sizes, but I decided to just leave them in anyway.
The below images show a partial wing construction, with a gradual leading taper. The inner side starts with a 8x4m wedge front and 8x2m wedge back. Next is a 7x2m wedge front and 7m wedge back, then 6m and 5m wedge fronts/backs, with a 2m tip section.

CURVED WEDGE SHAPES

A set of curved wedge front pieces was also added for V2. These come in convex and concave versions, and follow the same pattern as the large wedge pieces above, up to 8x4m sizes. The convex pieces were originally intended as a "bottom" corner at the tip of a ship's bow, but also can be handy for making elliptical wing tips or fins.
Here are some examples

There are certain combinations of concave wedge fronts that are meant to transition well into each other. They aren't perfect, but generally work OK. I created the chart below which shows this. The leftmost two columns show the size of the concave wedge front. The colored sections on the right in the "top slope" and "bottom slope" sections show what matches. To use it, pick a row from the left, and then go to the bottom slope section and note the color. Match the color in the top slope section, and go to the far left to find the matching wedge front size. Note that the white rows do not have a match anywhere, there are only a limited number that can be paired up.
Example: a 3x3 concave wedge front has a purple "4x3" in the "bottom slope" section. There is a matching purple "4x3" in the top slope section, reading that row to the far left, that is a 4x2m concave wedge front. This means the bottom end of a 3x3 concave wedge front will closely match the top end of a 4x2 concave wedge front.

Triangle and Inverted Triangle corners were one of the original reasons for creating this mod, and in version 2, they have been expanded to what I would consider a practical limit. Usage wise, there isn't anything to say, just like the vanilla blocks, but bigger, so I will cover what has been added here. Just like everything else, these have been expanded to include up to 8m sizes, and all combinations have been added up to 8x8m sizes.

New for V2 of the mod, these shapes were expanded out into the 3rd dimension. along with the normal 1m tall versions, 2m, 3m, and 4m high versions have been added in their own menus. Each is a duplicate, but with one caveat - I have made sure to eliminate any duplicate sizes. So, you will notice as you go through the menus, as you go up in height, there are less blocks each time. In all cases, you can simply rotate a block from one of the smaller menus to generate the exact orientation you may be looking for.

Here are some example shots, first some assorted triangle corner sizes showing the 1m to 4m height range.


Here is a similar array of inverted triangle corners

And here is a few shots of a large construction making full use of the new sizes. As can be seen, it is a complex shape which slopes in all three directions at different points. It generally follows a 5-6-7-8 slope from left to right, and has many profiles along its length, just starting to slope back out at the top.

Square corners are just like in vanilla, but have been expanded in size just like everything else. They are in a sub menu on the center far right of the main Mega Slopes menu, next to the new rectangle back corners.
Not a lot to say here, just more square and rectangular bottom corner blocks. Here are some examples.


RECTANGLE-BACK CORNERS

The rectangle-back corners are really just a logical expansion of the "square-backed corner" shape, which accounts for all the new size combinations up to 8x8m. The 1m versions are the "square back" corners in the main menu.

Below are some examples.

I hope this guide has provided some help and design insight into using the huge array of blocks available in these mods. There is of course some learning and experimenting to do here, it can take a while to get used to how to use all the new shapes, and hopefully you will come up with things I never even conceived. And yes, there is a lot more menu navigating to do, but that's really just a part of FtD if you ask me. I hope this new layout will at least keep things easier to follow, and it will become second nature eventually.

And of course, all these new shapes open up even more possibilities with decorations and mimics, some which would not even be possible with just the vanilla block shapes. And in many cases, it will no longer be necessary to even use mimics to make that odd transition or combination triangle that's needed in that odd corner.