Quote - Maybe snap to, but Autogrid sucks. It creates geometry at all kinds of weird angles. the only time it works if if the surface is on one of the axis and is not rotated in any way.

Autogrid has caused more problems for me than it solved. I refuse to use any longer. Its a great idea, but does not implement well.

That's the first time I've heard that complaint.  Autogrid works as expected as far as I can tell, in every version of Max that I've used.  The only exception, is if you are trying to autogrid on an object that was non-uniformly scaled, or scaled at the object level, where the pivot or normals were affected.  On a smoothed object, it will use the smoothed normal, not the unsmoothed normal. 

However, for more options and control, there's a ton of maxscripts dedicated to snapping objects to a surface,which expand on the already existing function in Max.

Here's just a few.

http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/autoplace

http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/snap2object-tool

http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/instance-align

At any rate, I still suggest modeling as one object, if in fact your object is supposed to be connected in real life.  Solves all your problems.

 

 

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