One click upgrading building tiers is a wish for many of us, but it neither easy to code or emersive as far as gameplay goes.
However, there are several repair hammers available, all of different grade and not very different in function. If repair hammers of different grades and materials were tied to building tiers and types, it might be possible using current dev tech to create the seamless upgrade system we all want.
The current tech shows the required resources to repair the current targeted structure, if the materials are in player inventory each swing will add durability back to the object. What if alternatively there were a hammer for each building material.
- sandstone hammer
- stonebrick hammer
- black ice hammer
- Et cetera…
If the current block did not match the hammer type it would show the repair cost as the entire building cost of a new block, and upon meeting the resource cost (via hammering) the block and all of the blocks hit by the AOE of the hammer would begin to change into the new material.
I for one find that stations or thralls being placed on top of the block I’m trying to replace (current method) often stops me from placing the new object, and this is frustrating at the least. This does not happen with a repair hammer.
Alternatively in the future an upgrade hammer could be used to change a normal placeable into the improved version of itself, furnaces, blacksmiths benches, tannery, firebowl cauldrons. Keeping the layout of your base is often ideal in an upgrade senario, even 2x deep foundations could be upgraded this way so as to eliminate any weak links in your structure.