Darmo

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.

... the 5 x 5, we have it for clay and leather, why not for crafting?

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.

Refining.

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.

 only raw materials are weighted. Countables are still stacked.

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...

Islands do not have multiple stone types (mentioned this in another thread). Sea level was placed back down at 64 to allow for more movement of the terrain. There are plans to address this lack of layers in another way that I havent really started on nor talked about yet but is pretty easy to guess at.

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.

Nah, 5 clicks and a key press is faster, easier, and more intuitive than fifteen clicks.

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.

To the question of stone, it would not make sense to limit any of these to any particular stone type. The running idea is that every single island after tier 6 or w/e will have a set of procedural materials in addition to the static ores and minerals that spawn based upon rock types.

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?

As far as surface nuggets, that's not a thing in TFC2 quite yet and I'm not really sure weather it will be added or not. The exact changes to prospecting are still under review at this point.

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.

As far as ore veins themselves. Veins do not generate like they used to http://prntscr.com/95636g so the Y level issue really isn't an issue. Veins rise and fall as they please.

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.

So, yeah, you should be able to pick up stuff willy-nilly, but keep in mind that your barrel of vessels is not a bag of holding. 

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?

One thing I think would be more generic is a discount on weight/encumberance based on specialised holders. If your sword and axe being holstered reduced its effective weight, I'd go for that. It would be realistic and entertaining.

Apologies for concentrating on priciples but what I'm trying to do is discuss a groundwork rather than try to build a game that I am not building. Throw some ideas around that stimulate the minds of Kitty, and Bioxx. Hope that's helpful.

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.

Have you read, understood, and followed all of the rules listed in large text at the top of the suggestions forum?(Yes/No): 
YES

So, in light of the recent discussions regarding encumbrance and how that could advance a more fully realized world, I thought it might be worth discussing how progression of lumber making might work within that context.  I considered adding this in the log chopping thread, but I think that is more concerned about how lumber works in the early game, and the notion of getting lumber before saws.

I guess what I'm wondering is, if people are wiling to trade lumber convenience, for a an actual tech tree in wood processing?  Right now you get a copper saw, it's kind of the same result progression-wise as a blue steel saw.  They both make lumber just as fast.  The blue has more durability, but even a copper saw lasts a long time.

Hand Saw Tiers & Lumber

I think much of this has to do with the use of the grid to get lumber.  It's instant.  If lumber creation were moved to block-breaking instead of the grid, it could be gradated over the tech tree. 

This could be done by requiring a cut log (as opposed to natural logs, which trees are composed of, and which it is my understanding are a different block from cut logs) to be placed horizontally.  Then the player used a saw on it in a block-breaking fashion.  So here a copper saw can be made to take longer.   By having some fair amount of time difference between logs, the game could incentivize higher tier metal saws somewhat.

 

But, can it be made that higher tier metals yield  more lumber per log?  It would be an even more significant incentive if copper saw yielded, say, 2 lumber per log, bronze 4, iron 6, steel+ 8.  The time difference is more logical though.

 

If variable yield on block breaking is not possible, perhaps higher tier tools will break multiple logs at once, like felling a tree, but governed by tier.  So copper breaks just one, bronze 2 logs, iron 3, etc.  But the logs have to all be touching in a line, end to end.

Sawmills

Then, there is the notion of a sawmill.  Maybe it's not necessary, if we have tiered lumber yield from handsaws.  But, if TFC is ever to have power and mechanisms and that fun stuff in the game, I think it'll need to have things like Sawmills.  Either "knock and drop" style if looking to stay 14th century, or circular if willing to stretch things a bit (or both, with circular going faster?)

 

One benefit of a sawmill could be in quantity.  They could be the top of current tfc 1 production - meaning they convert 1 log to 8 lumber, while handsaws maybe max out at 4 or 6.   Or they could be above and beyond current production levels, producing more than 8 lumber from one log - presumably varying by tier of blade.  Perhaps sawmill blades start at steel though, and move up.  No low-tech mill blades.

 

The other benefit could be time.  It could be done the easy hopper way - the player tosses logs into the mill (or hopper above the mill), which automatically cuts them over time, outputs them into a chest.  And bonus if a minecart can be made to dump the logs directly into the hopper. 

Or a bit more fidelity to rl could re required, with the player lining them up in log-fashion in front of a blade, and having the saw blade move to cut them.

If logs are extra-heavy, it could be made to incentivize sawing of the logs on site, rather than transporting them back home.  Though that may be a bit hard to balance with tiered progression.  In the current game, if a plank block weighs 1 stone, then the log would have to weigh 3 stone to make it at all advantageous to saw on site.   If 4 plank blocks per log can be gotten via sawmill, logs would have to weigh even more to incentivize sawing on site. 

The early game use of logs would have to be kept in mind of course.  If logs weighed 3 stone each, that would be 48 stone per stack.  4 stacks would leave 64 stone for other items.  But really a starting player should be able to get by with 1 stack of logs anyway.

There's also the possibility of an unintended effect of stone and bricks becoming easier to get than plank blocks, which may not be desirable.

Plank blocks are used a ton in many buildings, so I'm sure many people wouldn't love this.  But, I think it plays into the notion of a better realized world, so I thought it was worth discussing.

 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.

...What do you all think of that?

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?)

Awesome, I'm on board.  I guess in the end if the mod has enough awesome stuff people will hopefully come.

This is precisely it. I used to toy with railcraft in a mod pack in the past and it always bothered me how little point there was to making trains to carry goods.

If that's the goal, does it need to be building materials?  Or what if new items come into play (and existing items adjusted) that are are just too heavy for the player to carry, period?  In the magic thread I suggested large crystals, with several sizes a player cannot carry no matter what.   What if quern bases, bloomery blocks, blast furnace blocks, crucibles, and beds cannot be carried on the player, but on a cart at minimum?  Though quorns are trivial to make so that wouldn't affect the game much if their manufacture does not change.   What if mechanisms came into the game, and could not be moved by the player?  Bars of ore?  Could there be a strategic number of things that are just not player-moveable period, to incentivize transportation?  And yet still allow freedom with building materials for people that want that? 

Material difficulty could definitely expand the game in other ways though, that's for sure.  perhaps bringing more incentive for machinery and power.  If we're sacrificing some ease of building for general expansion of usefulness of things...that's another matter perhaps.

Creative build, sure, in an absolute sense that's true.   But I think most people like some challenge too.  Otherwise it's not such an accomplishment.  But there's a limit, which is different for everyone.   And personally, while I love watching TFC survival LPs, I have no interest in watching a creative build LP.  One can kind of look at it that way - if someone is not wiling to watch an LP of a thing, will they want to do it in game?  Some grind is unavoidable in the context of minecraft I think - namely ore grinding.  But I kind of enjoy it at times, and I think others do.  But travelling the same terrain a bunch to transport material...ehhhhh.

As for the transport, I'm not sure that providing a use for transport is by itself a great reason to make building materials less transportable.  Which is why I was wondering if there are other issues that a weight system would solve, or opportunities it would provide.   

If the main idea is to reduce buildling material transportability, and hence give impetus to transportation use, what about reducing stone and plank block stack maxes to 8 or 16 in inventory and don't let them go in vessels or barrels?  It would have the same effect, would it not?  Stacks could still be 32 in a chest on a donkey or minecart or cart?  Ore too.  You could even make breaking an ore block result in the actual block, (maybe placeable, maybe not), and then the player has to process it somehow to get the ore out, so you can't just pit-kiln ore while you're mining, unless you've set up that machine in the mine.  Make those blocks stack low as well.  If the processing machine is hard to move, it might incentivize some more minecart use?   Even with this system, I feel like donkeys will win out, because they don't require tons of track laying and iron smelting, etc. I don't think we've been told how carts work yet, but I'd presume they slow you down.  Can I jump pulling one?  Or does it give me the ability to walk up a full block height change, like mobs, and not jump?    I love tracklaying, but I think on the balance a donkey is faster, unless the minecart holds quite a bit more.

I mean either method of item weights/bulk can accomplish the goal.  But will there be a loss of fine gradation in terms of items in vessels and chests?  Will ingots have to weigh so much that they can't fit in a chest?  Or will that be some kind of hard-coded exception?  Tools will have to weigh enough to not fit in vessels or chests either, or that's another hard coded exception?   If a bunch of exceptions have to be hard-coded, again, is it an improvement over what we have?  If it's just easier to code overall, great.  But I'm curious.    It kind of seems like maybe the question is boiling down to not so much do we prefer a stone or bulk system, but are we ok with being able to transport a LOT less building material at once?