Darmo

Just to add a couple other thoughts; bad temperament/aggression doesn't necessarily have to mean toward the player - which if we're being honest would be only an annoyance in many cases, not a true danger. The aggression could be toward other animals as well. So especially aggressive males will attack any other same-species male they see, and other animals in general sometimes. Aggressive females become extremely aggressive towards other species when they have just given birth. Moreover, aggressive animals could attack and destroy wooden fences and gates, requiring stone walls or other means to pen them in. So then even an aggressive pig becomes a problem because it might kill other pigs, or destroy fences letting other animals roam free. Also, bad temperament could mean the animal is very hard to rope. It sometimes seems like this is the case already, as some animals seem to take several tries for the rope to stick. Though this could be my janky mouse. But it would be another way to reflect bad temperament in a way other than attacking the player.

Thought I'd post this link to a TFC LP where the guy muses about the crafting system of TFC vs Ark & others. Always interesting to hear candid opinions. Skip to about 3:50 to hear his musings over crafting.

Thanks for those clarifications Kitty & Bioxx. So, if exotic left and right click functions are to be avoided, the tool could be used in a right-click instant fashion still? You toss planks onto the barrel jig, right click the jig, jig looks for nearby crafting table, finds the planks floating on it and changes to a jig block with partial barrel. Toss hardware on top of partially-complete-barrel-block, right click on block with tool, jig looks for nearby crafting table, finds hardware floating on top, pops out a finished barrel and returns the block to empty jig form? No tier benefits to tool, but could still subtract durability I guess. On the user-friendly level, I kind of feel like this is not any more confusing then some of the other process blocks. If they understand a bloomery they should understand this. Or maybe Miner's setup is simpler from a coding perspective, since it could apply to many kinds of items within a group (if not all items)? I like very much that is has the processing arrow and could (hopefully) incorporate tool tier into the time to complete the item. So rather than instantly sawing up a log stack, or completing an entire plank stack, it could take some time per unit? It still limits the amount of materials in the recipe to the grid unfortunately. I feel like most of the other stuff is a bit superfluous (and potentially rather confusing to a newb), unless variable efficiency ore refining is going to be a thing. As far as a more workshop-like environment, having all that functionality in one block probably won't help that aspect, unless it's a matter of the crafting bench just checking for various scenic workshop blocks around it. If the crafting bench weighs a ton, and is somewhat difficult to craft, that may at least encourage it to be used in a specific area, rather than just being carried around like a toolbox. If hardware had a specific container all it's own, and was also heavy to discourage it being carried around by the player on trips, it might encourage the player to have a hardware bin in the shop, near their bench and tools and so forth. You could do things like require the player to soak the lumber in a barrel (encouraging a barrel to be in the shop) before tossing it in the jig. But then you have a new item (soaked lumber). In the context of a bench gui with processing arrow, looking around it, it could add a slightly different dimension if processing some things could go *faster* if certain tool blocks are near the bench. So you'd only HAVE to have a handsaw or whatever tool to produce a thing, but if you have a sawmill, drill press, planer, etc, it goes faster. Maybe rather than requiring inter-block checking, which I don't know if that's simple, these adjacent speed-enhancing tools could be activated in some way (powered?), and then provide an area of effect 'enchantment' bonus to speed of doing things? Area of effects from blocks are a standard mechanic right? PS as an aside, I'd suggest that specialized slots - for instance the hammer and flux slots of an anvil (but also tool slots if this revised grid has them) - have a grey silhouette of the thing that goes there. I've watched some LPs where people get really confused by those slots, trying to put ingots and all kinds of stuff in them. It might help a bit if there was a visual clue. Just a thought.

Is this referring to Tony's barrel making, or mine? You say a 'valid shape' so I'm assuming Tony's. Does that mean that assemblages like the forge, bloomery, and BF are also not simple to code and should be avoided? Are you talking more about certain valid shapes within a single block space, like a lumber assemblage? Or you're talking more about simple for the player to understand? Loose Item Processors What about the case I suggested of a block that looks for certain items in certain quantities tossed on top of it? Does having no GUI keep coding significantly simpler? Is that base block looking for loose items on top simple enough? It seems like a lot of other mods use it, so I thought it might be familiar to players of regular mc. I tried to keep it to one step because I wasn't sure we wanted to draw out barrel making too much, given it's provides some basic items for other trades, inventory organizing, etc. I tried to keep it to basically one intermediate step. It could easily be expanded on though. Can Left-click output different items from same block? Also, though I've used it in a few suggestions, I've never seen it clarified: the left-click-block-breaking process, can that be made to output different items from a single source block, depending on the tool and/or tier of tool used to break it? Or is it a pretty binary system where you break this block, you get this item, no matter how or with what you break it? I need to stop suggesting it if that's not even a (simple to code) possibility. Can right click simulate time and tier factors of left click? If the above left click stuff is not a possibility, can the right-click be used to bring in the time/material factor? It seems like right clicking is more versatile, and can even have it's own sounds where left button function all uses the same thumping no matter the tool. I'm thinking here of the firestarter, how it has its own sound. It'd be cool for saws and hammers to have their own sounds. It seems like right button functions could *approximate* time based on randomness, like how the firestarter can be fast or long, depending on what I assume is a randomness (though whether the code is on the firestarter, or the block, I don't know). But would it be a simple and useful thing, to make the right click function, instead of using a random number, have a some sort of 'timer' that fills up and then executes, to approximate tool tier time? If the firestarter checks for success every 1/2 second or whatever, could a saw for instance, increment a number on itself when being used continually on a block, and once that number reaches a certain point it turns the block into whatever and resets its timer to 0? So that could in a way bring some time factor into right-clicking of tools? And it could play an actual appropriate tool sound while doing it? So in my earlier examples, the rough chest might use a hammer to finish it, and a copper hammer will finish slower than a steel one, but they will both make hammering sounds while processing? The barrel could use a saw to finish, and make saw sounds? Even if a defined timer isn't possible, could the different tool tiers have different randomness factors? So all tiers can complete it virtually instantly, but on a long average, a better tier will complete more jobs faster than a lower tier? is This idea 'simple' enough to be useful? I apologize for getting a little off topic here with process questions, but I feel like for me at least, I could make better honed suggestions with a little clarification on some of these mechanics above, and if multi-block assemblages like forge, bloomery, bf, are to be avoided.

I'd suggest this topic, and also this one. I think between them you should get a good idea of the thinking regarding the goals/motivators of TFC2.

Or do we?!?! ;-) In seriousness, Like the idea of assembling a rough form of lumber pieces, but as far as I know it's not even a certainty thing that world-placeable lumber will be a thing in TFC2. If we look at what makes a blacksmith shop be built the way it is, there's a few salient physical features: - forge - bellows - crucible - anvil - bloomery - blast furnace Then, there are useful accessory things that, though not required strictly speaking, are I believe often done for convenience: - barrels for quenching - tool racks for extra hammers - an area for pit kilning Plus of course many chests for fuel, flux, ore, and ingot cooling. The metal tiers situation, combined with blacksmithing process - which is very involved and drawn out - is what promotes this. There's a lot of stuff going on to get through the tiers, and it makes for interesting work spaces. If I'm understanding correctly, the desire is to have something similar to this for other crafts? I think the problem is, no other craft really has tiers, large set-piece process assemblies, or an involved working mechanism like the whole metalworking craft has. Right now you just literally carry a saw on you, for instance, and you can make all the wood stuff you want right in your inventory. Most other crafts require a barrel, at most. So, I'm not totally clear if the goal is making more interesting and interconnected workspaces, or simply improving the crafting grid, but I'll give my interpretation of the former. Running with the carpentry craft, as an example, this could be accomplished through making more process blocks/assemblies, or even just 'scenery' tools. I've seen a lot of mods that do their crafting via a block that you toss things on top of/inside of, and they make an item. So for instance, we could have a 'barrel jig' block. You toss your lumber on top, and it turns into a 'rough barrel' block or something, with the clamp in place. Then, you grab your hoops. Either right-click add them, or left-click block-break process if possible, to bring time into the equation, scaling with tool tier. All the while this process block could watch around it for appropriate tools on racks or in hotbar - saw, hammer. Barrel of nails (or maybe it's just generalized 'hardware'). Brace-and-bit. Adze, Planer, whatever. You could do the same thing for a chest process block. You could have a ropemaking stand. A rabbeting plane and jig for ladders. These would all bring these crafts out into the world, and if they share common tools and hardware dependencies (barrel of nails/hardware) this will compel the player to build them in proximity to each other. An additional effect would be to draw out production, since these things would be produced 1 at a time, rather than in big stacks instantly. Also, by just sucking up the materials in the process block, the lumber cost can be whatever is desired. Even 40+, because there's no grid to limit the number of ingredients (assuming I'm guessing correctly at how those blocks function). The crafting table (carpenter's table?) could be another common denominator. It could be that in addition to the process block, and the hardware, the crafting table must be placed. AND if it's not already an involved enough process, the table must contain a piece of paper, and a piece of charcoal. This represents the drawing and planning. These are consumed with each large item (barrel, chest) produced. Now suddenly paper is a resource. Now, all these jigs could perhaps first be built on the carpenter's table, which maybe is a 5x5 grid. That would allow for a variety of expensive recipes. Or, the table could also be a toss-on process block. But instead of a half-finished form, the raw materials just float there, and the jig that is outputted is triggered by right-clicking on the table with a certain tool or item? Overall, this kind of a setup would incentivize in-place carpentry of larger items, by requiring specialized tools and accessories, that the player probably will not carry with them. There could be a variety of metal bits involved in the carpenter table, process jigs, and the finished product itself. And then also metal tool dependencies - tools that are only smithable perhaps, not castable. Add paper and charcoal to the mix, the player just won't carry all that stuff with them all the time I think. Then barrels and chests become items not to be taken for granted, as I think they kind of are now. A player might actually take a cart of chests and/or barrels with them to a new mine, in order to set up. And yet I think the processes I've outlined are not as time consuming as smithing, which is appropriate for basic stuff like barrels and chests. At the same time, if the tier of the tool can be taken into account in either block-breaking or right-clicking to process the item into finished form, it brings a bit of incentive to make better tools. Now maybe I misinterpreted what the goal is here. If the goal is to incentive a 'worshop-like' appearance, without creating a bunch of process blocks, well, I'm not sure that's going to happen readily. Tools on racks are well and good, but ultimately cannot compare to forges, bloomeries, anvils, and blast furnaces. And an inventory crafting grid with tool slots isn't going to do anything at all for a workshop-like appearance. Until the game has a craft with similar intricacy, tiers, and maybe even a minigame similar to metal working, there's just not going to be any other work areas with the same feel as the blacksmith shop. So, is that a GUI for a specific process block? Or a different tab of the inventory? And what is the "deviance range" for? Do we really want players refining ore in their inventory? And is refining ore going to be a thing?!

Right, ya, working up the metal tiers, the main gain currently is faster picks, I think. Secondarily, melee weapons to one-shot mobs.

There's a couple forums directly below this one, that are specifically for TFC2 discussion and suggestions. You'll find a lot of interesting discussion and answers there. Based on my own observations: -Whether or not food will be more of a struggle is unclear at this point, I think. I floated several ideas to make food harder to get in this post. -Temperature has been discussed in the old forums, but not much discussed in the TFC2 forums I think (the clothing post touches on it a bit). Probably could stand to have its own topic for general discussion beyond clothing... -At this point it sounds as if aggressive enemies will definitely be a thing. You may want to check out the regional difficulty post, to see a lot of discussion about some of the more broad-brush ideas and how islands and enemies will work (or at least, the prevailing thought at that time)

Kitty beat me to the BF thing. This is part of what confuses me. These definitions seem a bit arbitrary. Everything is countable. It's still not clear to me why some items are in one category, the others in another. Are these coder terms I'm just not aware of? Or terms minecraft modders know? The other part is, what are we solving with this? Saving a couple seconds once in awhile in crafting? There's also something to be said for keeping a system that will be more familiar to vanilla MC players.

I'm not clear on exactly how Saber's idea differed. But are we talking about like, when the player goes to inventory it checks around the player for tools on racks, or barrels of materials? how would the recipe be formed? Or would there just be a host of buttons to press based on the items you can make with the surrounding ingredients? It would indeed be interesting to have a more 'scenic' workshop, but in another thread in this forum (and others past) there's been a lot of discouragement of attempting to change the vanilla crafting mechanic too much. Or would the basic functionality of the grid remain the same, but tools become accessories, along with maybe Tony's long-desired nails, hinges, and hoops? And so you go to your inventory grid and there's other gui slots or something that have icons depending on which tools and accessory hardware is around you in the workshop? And you don't place accessory items in the grid, they have to be appropriately stored around you? So then you'd just form the raw materials - your planks, sticks, and stones mostly. The system dynamically searches in the environment for hardware, tools, twine, etc and if it finds them it outputs the item? That would allow more ingredients within the context of 3x3 grid... Or are we talking more about it looking for specific placed tools? Rope maker, sawhorses, bar clamps, miter saw? And all the actual ingredients still just go in the grid? It gets scenery - and more interesting scenery than just barrels and tool racks. It also saves the time of having GUI for every tool, but that also removes the ability to add some process time via individual tool interface (like the loom). I'm not sure many trades beyond blacksmith and carpenter would have much to justify a whole workshop...

Oh, wow, I was thinking you'd said the top layer would be the same throughout, and so I assumed there'd be unified middle and bottom layers too. Did not realize there would only be one layer and sea level would be much lower. That...changes a lot of things I've been suggesting. I guess back to alloying. I'm still fuzzy on the details on how it would work, but it sounds like there's a plan for that so I'll leave that be. I wonder if it would be fun/possible to have (and maybe this is already planned, idk) a system where not only durability, weight, and damage can be affected by the alloying, but also the resistances to weapon damages such as slash/blunt/pierce (although those could also be governed by armor type, if we ever have different types), but also 'magical' damage types like cold, fire, acid, negative energy. Maybe an alloy that confers a degree of magic resistance. Not too much, probably need to leave room for magic to confer better bonuses of these kinds. Or maybe the types of 'special' enchantments the armor will accept is governed by the alloy type (feather falling, light, water breathing, health regeneration, warmth, coolness etc). So then the armorer plays the role of setting up the armor to accept the enchantment, but you still need a magician to actually place the enchantment. Is there any notion right now if the production system for procedural alloys will be a different system beyond the blast furnace (or it's TFC2 equivalent)? I'd assume that all procedurals will use the same production system, regardless of tier.

Those examples are a bit off. In the stacked system, only 1 ingredient needs to be in the correct ratio. So your second 7 clicks is really just two clicks, because the first ingredient will govern the result. OR, you just put both stacks in in their entirety, and L/R click for the quantity desired, if it's small. And really who ever does that with a recipe? Anytime I make a pretty basic thing (i.e. not beds or quorns), it's either entire stacks, or half stacks. Brick recipes are the most tedious because the diagonals mean I can't just drag the first ingredient to evenly distribute. But I almost never pull out a small number from a stack, unless it's logs (i.e. 1 log to make lumber to make a barrel). I'm not really seeing the need for this kind of exaction, except in alloying, but it sounds like that system is getting a revamp anyway. And beyond that, the time required to set up the recipes and make them could be considered a game factor. If time efficiency were the end-all be-all, then block breaking would always just be virtually instant. Time is a cost, just like materials.

So procedural material generates irrespective of stone types? I just appears wherever it wants, and crosses layer boundaries? That would mean the player can't really predict where it'll be by stone type after they've found 1 example. They basically just have to randomly search for it. Or am I misunderstanding that? Is that a topic for discussion in this thread? Without surface nuggets, one then wonders if panning and sluicing will be a fact of beginning life, as oppose to an option. Love it! That does look like a huge amount of ore though, is that vein abnormally large? Will it be a case where you find one vein and you're pretty much set for the game, kind of like how it often goes in current TFC with anything but iron? I guess if the alloying system is different, maybe quantities needed may be a different? Tiered processors? That particular picture does make it look like supports will be much less necessary, if the cave-in mechanic still does not trigger on ore blocks. Since that's pretty much a continuous string of ore blocks which would leave a tunnel plenty large enough for the player to walk in.

Minerals and mobs are the most obvious definitely. It'd be even better if volcanoes always had a cave system under them, and the minerals were perhaps in the bottom layer there. Or at least, in more abundance there. If crystals were ever a thing, special ones could be found there. It would be interesting if the minerals had a chance to be located inside or under the lava pool. So the player has to do some complicated work to get down to them (Disallow placement of anything except raw igneous stone in a an existing lava block?) There could also be a page taken from DF, where the player can construct a 'magma forge'. This would basically eliminate the need for charcoal I guess, or perhaps this is the method of smelting the procedural metals? For this purpose there could perhaps be "lava" and then also "magma", with magma being found only at bedrock, and can be used to power a magma forge. But it could require a large volume of magma. And that would probably also need to assume that blue buckets are no longer a thing, otherwise it might be a bit too easy. And then there could be a reason for magma-safe pumps and tubes, to bring it to the surface if desired. For that matter, if resources are under the lava, a pump could be used to *remove* the lava, exposing the material. I would imagine this being something like an intake block, which somehow make all the lava blocks around it (source and flowing) not disappear, because they need to reappear if the pump goes away, but become transparent and safe for the player to walk through? Each intake could do that for like, a 5x5 cube centered on it. Although then where does the lava go...well, it's a basic idea anyway... But overall I think special minerals and mobs is definitely the way to go. Especially underground, in dangerous cave system!

If there truly is to be infinite progression, then ya, procedural alloys sounds like about the only way to do it. And I of course love the notion of secret recipes. Personally I probably would have preferred a system where the difficulty was infinite, but 'technologies' had peaks. So there'd be a max metal tier, a max magic tier, max alchemy, etc. Heck, I was hoping automatons might be a thing someday. So then, any single tech will eventually reach a peak. And the greatest X advancement would come from combinations of players, with different disciplines, as Tony mentioned, banding together effectively. Even then, eventually things would just get too hard. Those with the best combined-arms efforts will go the farthest. It seems like that might be more of an accomplishment - putting together a well-oiled team and battling against every more overwhelming odds - as opposed to just cooking up the next tier of metal over and over again. It could actually encourage more grouping and interaction, because the harder it gets, the more it helps to have more people. But, there's a lot of my own assumptions in there, as far as other professions/techs go. Regardless, I do like the idea of procedural-ness. Will even the stone that the procedural metals are found in be procedural (not the stones themselves, but which materials are in which stones)? That right there could be truly exciting, scouring the tier 5 longitudes for the new materials. At the same time, will there be a risk of all the materials generating in Igneous in some seeds, hence being harder to find, while in another they're all sedimentary and very easy to find? There will be procedural nuggets on the surface? Moreover, what of randomizing all the ore-stone links? Right now I can look at a dynmap and pick where I want to go based on the stone visible. Diorite? junk. Slate? Trash. Phyllite? I'd rather live under water. Gabbro next to Gneiss? Yes please! But if you never knew per seed which ores were in what stones...I don't know, maybe that's too random. Newbs do benefit from the concrete linkages. But for the experienced player it would mix things up. What about a change of policy in Y-limiting generation, to encourage caving? And then once found the choice of whether to just go ham harvesting them, or try and figure out if they're useful first. Will each of these procedural materials be guaranteed to be useful? Will these "classes" only encompass procedural materials, or standard, or both? Will procedural materials of different tiers interact with each other, or are only those in the same tier, plus standard, useful for alloying? It seems like if procedurals can interact with each other the combinations could quickly become overwhelming. And then there's the case where a certain seed ends up with graphite or garnierite as one of the highly useful allowing materials, while another comes up lead. And then, the alloying. Right now required percentages can range anywhere from 10 to 90 percent. Will the procedural alloys have standard ratios, or selected from a set of ratios similar to existing ones? We've got what, 8 or 9 different alloy ratio combos right now? Will the number of ingredients always be 3? Or will the player have to discover that as well? The number of factors could quickly become too much if the system is too random. Or will it be more of a case where a given material provides something, another takes away, and so it's a matter of finding the ones that only add or do not take? So procedural 5A adds durability, procedural 5B adds damage, procedural 5C adds a certain damage resistance? But you can only have one procedural, the others have to be standard materials? And for tier 5 various ones detract from damage and durability, while other are neutral? But wait, maybe you can in fact combine two procedurals if you find the one alloying agent that lets that happen? In a case like that, where each material brings it's own characteristic to the allow regardless of ratio, the player would be trying to optimize the alloy, rather than discover it per se. I like the general notion, I'm just really wondering how it will be done so that it is not too impossible for players to discover them.

Ah, so there would be a numeric track for weight, and separate numeric track for 'bulk' or whatever, both of which can accumulate to over-encumber the player. Ya, I kind of like that. The part about being able to carry a very large item in your hands, but it takes up both hands and you can't equip anything else, is a good one too. That would have been a super-useful feature in Terrafirmacrack season 3.

Oh, you want to bring quantity to the crafting grid? Ya that'd be nice. As for 64 stack, I guess I've never had a problem with it.

I...still don't understand this suggestion. What problem is it trying to solve? Or what is it trying to add to the game? I haven't seen a good explanation of what the benefits of this idea would be.

That I know. But my concern is will i be able to carry MULTIPLE barrels full of vessels? That becomes, in effect, unlimited. I don't know how containers will be limited - if by weight, or just simply stack size. But even if weight is in the picture, tiny items - sticks, seeds, etc, will almost certainly weight a very minimal amount. In my head I've been assuming .1 stone, even though Bioxx gave an example of a water jug weighting .1 stone, in which case a stick could logically weigh .02 stone or something (I don't know what this "AVU" is, btw). But a 64 stack in that scenario would be 6.4 stone, which would be 25.6 stone per vessel. So ok, that's fine right, the player can only carry slightly under 10 vessels full of .1 stone items in stacks of 64. No problem there, that's less than a barrel. But in the beginning, the player doesn't usually have full stacks of anything. The inventory is limited simply by the number of slots available. They could have many seed stacks of 10 or less, weighing 1 stone or under each. There's only 19 crops. Then there's berry bushes, fruit saplings, regular saplings. will all those weight .1 stone each? A large vessel full of vessels full of stacks of ten .1 stone items would weigh only 36 stone. Depending on weights of tools, and such, a player can probably easily carry 6 such sets of vessels (54 vessels), which would basically be enough to pick up everything and anything. The weight of the large vessel itself may be a limiting factor. But even being able to carry 3 LV full of vessels, the player would never have to be choosy at the start I think. For me anyway, the start is a choosy time. I tend to wander pretty far looking for the perfect site that is both scenic and practical. And in the past I've had to be picky about the things I take with me. Now if that went away, it's not the end of the world. And probably a lot of people settle sooner rather than later, or don't have good inventory management (most youtubers it seems like), and it won't make a difference for them anyway. But I think it would take away some of the balancing mechanisms the game requires. I'm actually with Tony, I'd love to see *more* items be either excluded from containers entirely (beds, quorn bases) or at least from vessels and barrels (fishing poles, ladders, jackolanterns) or have their own specialized containers (per my burlap bag suggestion for bushes and saplings). I think specialized containers forces the player to think more about what their plan is, what they're doing - as opposed to just hoovering up anything and everything they come across. The log and ingot piles are great examples of specialized containers. Ingots especially, since there's no logical reason they wouldn't fit in a chest, but forcing them to be world-placed I think adds greatly to the world.

Some of my concerns with just weight are similar to Tony's I guess. Will anvils and water barrels be super-weighty to simulate the limits now? Specially coded? Or will the player just be able to carry multiples? But not just heavy items. Will a player be able to have a barrel/large vessel full of containers full of very light things in inventory? When starting, can I have my large vessel, filled with vessels, and thus carry every single seed, nugget, and other bric-a-brac I happen to pick up? Plus one full of water? Can I go on an epic gathering trip and have a barrel of vessels for all the berry bushes and saplings, and another for all the flowers? And another for hides and bones and other miscellany? Right now there's a limit because you can only carry one barrel/LV that has stuff in it. I have to choose between a barrel of water or a barrel of items. And there's a practical limit on how many vessels you can have in inventory before it becomes hard to operate I've always thought it weird that arrows and leads didn't fit in vessels. I won't be at all sorry to see those liberalized. But I did think the back carrying limits were a good choice-forcing mechanism on those particular large items, and contributed to the believability of the game. Maybe we don't need the size system for that, but I do hope that something like it is present. I'd be a bit disappointed if that went away.

Heh, that's what I was arguing at first. I wasn't really seeing the benefits of weighted vs size based, and was concerned that if size wasn't still a component, it might be difficult to maintain some of the container hierarchies which play an important part in current inventory management system. But, I realized a few things: - The weight system allows a sliding scale of overburdening with speed reduction, rather than a binary move/not move system. Which is probably a good thing. Though the size system could probably be adjusted to allow a size that disallows sprinting, and another that reduces movement to foliage speed. That many size/speed relations may be hard to balance with containers though, unless none of them fit in containers. - Concerns over building material limitations could ultimately be addressed by simply upping the default weight limit if the devs or community decided it was not 'fun'. If there's a config option for it, there'd really be no reason to complain I think. - Having a weight system allows for magic and potions that can increase the limit. Which provides more unique opportunities for those systems. I'm not sure this would be very easy to code with a purely size based system. - A weight system will probably allow for some gradations of transportation, so a hand cart has a greater weight capacity than a player, a donkey greater than a hand cart, and a mine cart greater than a donkey (or whatever). In a pure size system I think the only way to reflect that would be with variance in number of slots, which given the player inventory already has as many slots as anything, might not have been a huge incentive. So I do think there's some advantages to having weight as a component, though I still think keeping size in the mix is probably a good idea.

I guess my main question is, if iron tools are made harder to make well, what will be done to discourage people from just skipping them entirely and moving on to steel? Will the iron plates for the Blast Furnace require the same degree of care in making? Creating a separate class of sheets that have some sort of NBT data? I feel like the current game already has something of a tendency to encourage skipping over iron tools entirely, in the push for steel. The lack of graphite being the only true roadblock to that. Or is it just considered that hey, if the player has graphite, good for them?

I hear ya on principles. At the same time, sometimes when presenting an idea, it helps to have at least an outline of a way things *could* work. Even if it's not the best way, or the way the discussion ends up, it can help stimulate it. I think the weight discount could be an interesting mechanic, but only if it's a considered choice between one of several options. If all I have to do is craft a pouch and have it in my inventory, or in a pouch slot, that's easy and a no-brainer. As soon as I have a little extra leather I just do it, and it's there for the rest of the game. Kind of boring. However, if storage options have to be weighed against other wearable options for clothing, then it becomes an interesting gameplay choice that they have to always consider. So if I have to choose between backpack, quiver, or cloak for warmth (assuming we ever have body temperature as a thing). Or breastplate, bandolier, or warm jacket. Greaves, cargo pants, or warm pants. Now the player is having to consider and plan. It's not just something they do once and never again. In that context, I like the idea.

I think this progression of inventory notion hinges on if the goal is to draw out the start longer. But in general I think it'd be sensible and reasonable to have a barrel loaded with liquid weigh a whole heck of a lot, to the point where it slows the player significantly, just on it's own. They're used like backpacks right now, but we could have actual backpacks instead to serve that purpose. Wood too, I think has the chance to be a more involved process. But I'm not that interested in something like a hard limit on tool or barrel quantity. I think the weight is probably enough. I'll probably not carry extras if I don't need to, if weight is at a premium.

I'm not clear what you're suggesting. Are you suggesting we have a hotbar, and a series of wear locations for containers that we have to remove and open up like vessels to access? Or that you start with just a hotbar, craft a 'backpack' and it gives you like, four columns of inventory? Craft a few 'pouches' for a few more columns, etc, or something like that? None of these sounds that attractive to me I guess, but if there were a more detailed proposal...? (perhaps in it's own post?)