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Darmo

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Posts posted by Darmo


  1. 2 hours ago, Darmilian said:

    I've read about mob implementations in TFC2. What do you think about including diferent types of sharks for having more dangerous oceans?

    Not sure what you mean by "read about mob implementation", but generally if you want to submit models for TFC2, you need to read the MCMC tutorial, and the TFC2 guidelines, In the guidelines post, it mentions you're expected to contact me regarding this.  You've bypassed that part, though your post does contain more general ocean discussion.  So, in the interest of saving some time, and maybe educating other budding TFC2 modelers, here's my critique:
     

    Spoiler

     

    First off the good;  it's a pretty good model and you seem to have done pretty well with proportions.  I like that you used just 3 boxes to do the body through the tail - that's the minimum necessary to get a good effect, and each fin is just a single box - all good.  You did a good job packing maximum detail into a rather small model, using not only minimum box numbers, but minimum box sizes as well.  Good choice on the no teeth.  If I was sure we'd have an opening and closing mouth I'd be willing to entertain individual pixel teeth, turned on their corners so they're pointed.  Because teeth could be considered 'iconic' for sharks.  But at this point we're not really guaranteed to have a mouth animation.  For bigger more aggressive sharks, it may be that the model just always has the mouth open, and so then try out some teeth.

    Now the 'bad';  Doing the nose that way - one box in the center and two slanted side boxes to create 'taper' - is a kludgey way to handle that, and it needs to be avoided whenever possible ('possible' being key.  If I were ever going to allow it a shark is probably the best candidate, but I'd need to see other attempts first).  The black dots and eyes as separate boxes is a no-no.  Those need to be part of the texture - and I see you even actually have the eyes in the texture so I don't get why you made separate boxes in addition.  Your tail boxes have parts 'sunken' into adjacent boxes, that are unnecessary.  Those boxes should have adjacent faces, or only very slightly overlapping, if you're concerned about small cracks showing during animation. 

    Technically speaking, in your box names you've mispelled "nose" and "upper", and box names are not allowed to have spaces - this is mentioned in the MCMC tutorial.  CamelCase is preferred, or dashes or underscores.

    So overall, a good start.  Feel free to fix up those things and message me, we can go from there.

     

    As for the general notion of sharks, I'm all for them.  Tony has a point about the shark attacks possibly being overwhelming if not controlled a bit.   For instance only if the player has less-than-max health (is bleeding), or is carrying any raw meat.  However, considering that there is intended to be as-yet-unspecified hard-coded measures against players swimming or boating between islands, to me it would make perfect sense to have instantly aggressive sharks near the island sector boundaries.  Maybe limited to 'deep ocean' sectors, and expand the shallow ocean areas a bit.  I would think the black tipped shark would be a good candidate for shallow, but not necessarily instantly aggressive, while a great white or something would be an instantly aggressive boundary-guarding mob.  I don't know that the game necessarily *needs* more than a couple shark mobs, but if that's your thing and you want to help, I'm not going to stop you from making more.  Just realize that they may or may not ever make it in the game, if they don't have a niche to fill.

    1

  2. 12 hours ago, Bioxx said:

    Your seed there is the default 0 which means your client never generated an islandmap for itself. The features listed in that case are simply incorrect for the mountain. On the server half of your game it has chosen to generate what i suspect to be a subtropical island. Try doing a "/dbg report" for us from that location. Relogging from that world may also fix what you're seeing.

    Relogging did indeed fix it to show the correct island features list, which did not include spires.  However I found another island (World Seed: [1361230909105481895] | IslandMap: [1,0] | PlayerPos: [BlockPos{x=7233, y=115, z=2518}] Which did include spires in the list (along with gorges, valleys, AND canyons - made for some nice terrain).  and once again, flew around and found nothing I could recognize as a spire.  Relogged a couple times to make sure it was showing the right list.  So, I still think some sort of biome map marker that would indicate some of the more 'unique' features would be a good idea.

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  3. 7 hours ago, Akirameta said:

    how do you get the biome map?

    type in "/pi biome name" where "name" is whatever you want the name of the map to be.  It will create a png of that name in the base appdata/roaming/.minecraft directory.

    1

  4. 43 minutes ago, Akirameta said:

    I've yet to see any clay.

    I've only seen it along river banks myself, not in swamps or lakes yet.  Which doesn't mean it isn't in those places, I just haven't seen it.  I find that it appears maybe once every 10-15 hexes along rivers?  So once along average size rivers, it seems like.  More on very long ones.   But I haven't made a scientific survey of it yet; ymmv.

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  5. I don't know, I don't want to have to restart knapping 10 times (or whatever) to have to find a suitable rock.  It'd just be random, so you could just have two rocks, and open and close the knapping grid until you get the right shape.  Either that, or a 'seed' would be stored on he player, which would dictate which rock they are getting, until they 'use up' that shape.  Either way I feel like it'd be more frustrating than anything.

    But, what I *would* like to see is a rule that you can only knap a box that has at least one side 'exposed', either to the edge of the grid, or to a previously knapped square.  This would at least force the player to start from the outside and work inward, rather than wherever they want, including inside-out.  And would make knapping slightly different from the clay interface, where you can just start anywhere.  And maybe if the player tries to start from the 'inside', it immediately ruins the rock.  If this became a rule though, there might need to be some feedback when the player tries to knap an internal square.  If it doesn't break the rock immediately, it might need to return a message like 'you must start from the edges'.  And maybe a noise.  Otherwise if nothing happens, the might think there's a bug.   If starting from inner areas immediately ruins the rock, a similar message, to let the player know why their rock broke.

    2

  6. Bees and apiculture have been suggested several times (here being perhaps the most recent and thorough).  It can be tied into a lot of products and mechanical game benefits, so that one probably has the best chance.

    As for bugs for bug-collecting's sake, I'm going to guess most people (me included) would say that's good for a mod, but not really core TFC2.  I mean I like it, I'm a collector at heart, and I want there to be dinosaur/monster fossils to collect and reconstruct the skeletons of, but similarly it just won't contribute anything to any core mechanics.  I'd rather see stuff that contributes to core game mechanics.

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  7. A couple concerns.  One, what happens with plants in the area?  24 logs take up a pretty large area even if they're allowed to all be adjacent.  will plants in he area be obliterated?  popped off as drops?  I'd have to lose flowers and stuff to logging, even if it is realistic. 

    Second, what about cases where a tree is on a cliff, or in a swamp?  In a swamp, if the logs are allowed to place down in water, you risk obliterating lot of water source blocks (unless void states are a thing).  They could of course 'float' above I suppose.  On a cliff, you'd probably end up with a lot of logs hanging in the air strangely Id imagine, or losing sections in the cliff face, or falling upward.  Unless it can be coded to only position them downslope, and maybe they can pile on top of each other?  Sounds complicated and error prone to me, but idk. 

    What if the log made debris piles, and the dropped objects didn't automatically place, but when placed by the player were the described 3-5 long blocks.  Then they'd 'flow' downhill in item piles, and the player would have to 'dig' them up, and place them.  And the rules would only allow them to be placed on flat areas with room for them.  They'd be so heavy the player would be immobilized, and have to either immediately put them in a conveyance, or on the ground.  Seems like that would avoid a lot of complication in code-placing the logs, popping off tons of plants, and obliterating tons of water source blocks.

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  8. 3 hours ago, ciekma said:

    By the way, homogenous piles of certain food, for example potatoes, should decrease decay rate. Or even can be used for items conversion (cabbage to kimchi etc)

    Wouldn't fermentation be better handled via large vessels and barrels?  And while storing potatoes in piles might be fine in terms of realism, it complicates the code and most importantly, shortcuts any kind of prep-work required on the player's behalf.  I think it's better for gameplay to require the player to do at least a little work to preserve their food, regardless of what's 'realistic' for a certain type.

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  9. Was down in the tropics and found a 'desert' island that had no sand at all.  It appeared low moisture in color, but had large kapoks in abundance.  The biome map shows rivers and lakes everywhere.  I wasn't sure if this was as intended, or what.  The big kapoks just seem kind of not-desert-y to me.  I expected kapoks to be limited to higher moisture areas.

    Spoiler

    2017-04-28_23.14.59.pngtropicdesert.png

    On a separate note, I was flying around this island looking for the 'spires' feature to find the re-written spires generation, but I never saw anything I would recognize as a spire (though by no means did I cover every inch of the map).  Are spires an extremely localized feature now?

    It would probably be useful if a little bit more detail could be added to the biome map, maybe in the form of dots in the center of the hexes.  Maybe white for 'man-made' (like dungeons), and black for 'natural'.  Just those two for now, to keep things simple.  Then I could have looked at the biome map, looked for black dots in the middle of some hexes, and went and took a peek.  Maybe spires, maybe the small crater.  But it'd still help me find the features faster that just randomly flying around the island.  Dungeons could even be whole-hex colored, like the portals.  They're rare enough they wouldn't really obscure the underlying biomes.   But I would assume that some geographic features may be wide-spread enough to obscure the biomes excessively.

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  10. Not sure the black side-of-muzzle pixel on the bottom, two pixels away from the end is necessary.  I think the two directly adjacent are plenty.  But otherwise ya, I like it.

    1

  11. Interesting ideas.  My question on your idea @Stroam would be how do you handle the turning into piles?  By that I mean, is there like, a 5 or 10 second delay between something being thrown on the grown, and turning into a pile? 1 minute?  I'd assume to get the savings on ticks you'd want it sooner rather than later.    If mobs and players can break the piles, you presumably don't want them instantly turning back into piles again.  You'd need to give time for the player/mob to move through or do whatever, ya? 

    I like the compost idea, and it'd be great if the organic piles generated miasm....stench, or something, which would maybe accelerate the player's hunger drain, or make them unable to eat for 12 hours, or something like that.  That would basically incentivize the player to make organic garbage pits, so they could toss the food down inside, without being exposed to the stench.

    As for blocking paths, I'm not sure how it's better than just using actual cobble blocks or whatever.  If the debris pile takes longer than a cobble or brick block to break, the player will probably just go around the pile through the normal blocks.

    On bricks specifically, I don't think making it be like ingot piles is really necessary, vs the work it would likely take.  I'd say just one large unchanging block, just like log piles.  But, I do hope that log and all other piles do not float in air this time, but instead behave like ingot piles did in TFC1, collapsing if they have no base support.  And Btw you might as well add a haybale block for straw.

    I'd go on about specialized containers (vault for ingots, bins/wagons for ore) but that might be a bit off topic.

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  12. 12 hours ago, Konlii said:

    Yeah, I don't think "paper" existed until around the Iron Age, and was not made of wood, but of cloth fibers like hemp and cotton all the way up until the Industrial Revolution.

    I mean, wikipedia and other webpages seem to cite 105ad as the invention of "paper".  It wasn't widespread, sure, but it existed.  Papyrus mabye 4000 years before that.  Parchment/vellum, who knows?  one account gives an important point when the egyptions refused to sell papyrus to another country, and so then that country started using animal skins.  Which are heavy and not convenient to make scrolls, so apparently they invented books.  Kind of interesting.  Though I'd imagine that animal hides were the first easily portable thing ever written on, even before papyrus. 

    Personally I don't really care 'when' things were invented as much as how.  We're going to have minecarts in the game, quite possibly steam engines if railcraft gets implemented.  It's moving to a fantasy setting, and fantasy commonly mashes together a lot of disparate technologies.  papyrus and parchment/vellum were both relatively easily obtainable by primitive people and methods.  Paper from rags and other fibers less easily, but still doesn't take that much tech - I think mainly takes good sieves, which requires wire.   But making paper from wood, like straight up wood - not specific bark layers - my understanding is it requires some pretty hefty chemicals to separate the wood fibers.  Like, industrial-scale.  So to me it sets up a logical progression of papyrus/parchment --> fiber paper --> wood paper.   Not based on time per se, but based on the tech necessary.  papyrus/parchment just prepping easily available stone-age stuff, fiber paper needs wire, but could be copper wire, and wood pulp paper should require iron/steel age presses, and maybe significant chemicals.  

    But the question is still, after all this time, is it justified?  TFC1 had barely any uses for paper, much less actually useful uses.  Just blueprints, as I understand it (never used them).  So question is, not only what uses will paper have in TFC2, and will it be enough to justify a more drawn-out process, but will it be enough to have *tiers* of paper production?  Some ideas:

    DECORATIVE - Paper Lanterns (candle center, 3 planks bottom, 2 paper sides, 1 string top middle),     Paper Screens (Placed like doors - 5 paper in cross shape, planks in corners),  Paper sliding doors (paper screen with row of planks top and bottom)

    PRACTICAL (non-book) - Blueprints,  paper maps, contracts (if we ever get npcs and the ability to hire them), nautical charts, for...reasons?

    WRITING/MAGIC - scrolls (papyrus or parchment),  books (parchment or rag paper), tomes (paper). 

    Spoiler

     

    The obvious tiered tie-in seems like magic.  There could be some overlap between tiers, but it would be necessary (perhaps) to make the quantities drastically different to incentivize advancing to the next tier of production.  So scrolls may take 4-8 sheets of papyrus/parchment, books may take 18-24 pieces of parchment or rag paper, and tomes may take 100+ sheets of rag paper or paper. 

    For the middle stage - books, it might depend on how they're used.  Small books might be two leather plus 7 paper.  Then you combine 3 small books to make a larger book.  So no process block required then.  Small books might only be good for make bookshelves, doing magical research, or scribing low tier spells.  The larger books would do larger - but still mid-tier - spells.   And then tomes would do high tier spells.

    For tomes, the large of quantities of paper might require special process blocks, at least at the tome level - a book press obviously.  So you just put your stacks of paper in the slots (plus paper and glue) and pop out a tome, rather than having several intermediate combinations of paper. And by 'pop out' I mean some time later.

    Or maybe the book press comes into play for even the intermediate level (copper press?).  You still use it at the high tier (or maybe upgrade to a iron/steel one - tiered book presses like anvils, anyone?), but eventually there is a powered version that is much faster.

     

    Aside from the above, I'm kind of struggling to find good uses for paper.

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  13. Oh weird, I was thinking that little spot half way up the back legs was just because it was a preliminary texture, but I see they actually have that apparently. 

    So just some minor texture suggestions, it seems like if you look up close at photos of Roe Deer faces, the nose is typically flanked by white spots on the bottom right and left.  So I'd suggest making those pixels white(ish).  And then, I feel like overall it's rather smooth.  I wonder if it could do with a bit more noise?  It wouldn't be much; taken as a whole they do appear fairly smooth.  Just a thought.

    And then, the lower jaw, as it is, it 'diverges' from the upper snout, getting further away as it moves outward.  I think some slight adjustments to the angle and position would give it a slight narrowing taper, and I think it makes it more 'deer-like'.  It's funny, the diverging jaw to me actually makes it look more 'masculine', so it'd be funny if the male had the diverging jaw, and the female the tapering, but that's not really worth having two separate models.  I just thought it was interesting how such a small detail can change perceptions like that.  Or at least mine anyway.

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  14. Too me the angled back legs without haunches above looks weird.  Irl that angled piece of leg starts below the body.  I'd go with the original orientation, personally.

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  15. Looks good.  I'd suggest maybe shortening the leg top sections upward 2 or 3  pixels, and lengthening the lower sections to match.  Also the 'antler base' needs to be transparent in the fawn version i think.

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  16. 55 minutes ago, Stroam said:

    just wanted to point out that harvestcraft has a paper bark tree that gives infinite paper.

    That's fine, but I'm sure Bioxx can just remove it, if he hasn't already.  Or rather, make it's spawn conditions impossible to achieve.  An infinite paper tree certainly doesn't add anything to gameplay, I'd say.

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  17. And don't forget vellum!  I'm hoping books (and paper in general) are eventually an important thing - and with magic, I'd assume they would be.

    I think it'd be great to have several avenues to get paper (and other finished products for that matter) in which there's basically an easy way, and then a couple harder ways. 

    For paper, the easy mode could be papyrus plants (or reeds, I guess, if the desire is to still use that resource that is already there) found only in sub-tropical and tropical swamps.  Production could be as simple as soaking in a barrel, getting a pile of pulp for each plant, and forming them to paper via a 2x2 pattern resulting in 4 pieces of paper.  A more true-to-life process involving presses would be great, but reed/papyrus should still be 'easy mode', obtainable in the stone age.

    Medium might involve regular cattails.  you'd soak the cattails in a container, then grind it in a quern (making this metal age only).  The yield would be low, maybe 1 in 4 ground cattails actually produces useable pulp.  Then, when you combine the pulp in a 2x2, you get 1 or 2 paper, rather than 4 as with papyrus (or if wanting to use only 1 pulp item id, then maybe the quern yield is even lower; 6 or 8 to 1).  The thing is cattails, while not renewable (presumably) would be vastly more common.  So that would need to be accounted for.  Maybe add a drying and pressing step, just to compensate for the great abundance of cattails.

    And the other alternate could be vellum.  It could basically be an extension of the leather making process, involving perhaps 3 more rounds of soaking in limewater, scraping,  and soaking in water, with the texture getting lighter each time until it is eventually an off-white for the final product.   So if you don't have papyrus, and don't want to denude you waterways of scenic cattails, then you go the vellum route - more use for leather!  As given it's a stone age method, but could be modified to be metal age if desired.  I think it'd be fine stone age though, since it uses animals.

     

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  18. I don't know how complicated it would be, but it might also be useful if someone could create a mod that simply added a tutorial book to the player's inventory when they spawn?  It could briefly explain the new/different features.  Which at this point I think basically amounts to firepits and pit kilns.  Maybe even a section that briefly explains the general idea behind TFC2 (island hopping progression, island limited metal tiers).  I know zilch about modding but if someone provided me a template for such a thing, I might be able to muddle through, and then keep it updated as TFC2 progresses...

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  19.  

    1 hour ago, TonyLiberatto said:

    My problem is that to make it worthwhile to implement it would need  a Dramatic change between tiers.

    It still remains to be seen if Bioxx still likes the idea of the tier vs tier weapon and armor system (and if it's practical code-wise), but if so that system could provide some pretty steep differences.  I do like the idea of item wear affecting things.  In my example tier-vs-tier numbers I used 25% jumps between tier differences, so I could see where relative weapon/armor durability could alter that another 10% or something.  So normally equal tiers is 50% damage, but if the armor is 100%, and the weapon 60%, that's a 40% difference, so maybe a further 4%-ish penalty to weapon damage.  On the other hand if the armor were more damaged than the weapon by 50%, it might be a 5% bonus to weapon damage. 

    Or the penalties/bonuses could be even more, and even overwhelm tier differences.  So normally a weapon 2 tiers higher might do 100% damage against armor, but maybe if the weapon is 90% damaged and the armor only 10% damage, the 80% difference x (.5% x percent difference) = 40% damage reduction.  Which would nearly put it down to as if the weapon were the same tier as the armor.

    1 hour ago, TonyLiberatto said:

    I think unless we have a way to easily repair armors it would end up really frustrating to wear low tier armors. Like as soon as an armor is half way gone we would need to go around with spares in our inventory.

    I would be fine with being able to repair armor with appropriate material, depending on how it's crafted.    Here I touched on a system that brings more pieces into the equation.  So you might not craft your armor as a single piece, but as several pieces, and those pieces could be combined with smithing, or combined in the crafting grid.  In that scenario there would exist generic armor plates, chain mail pieces, and leather plates.  It might be that you could carry those pieces and use them to field-repair your armor.  But there could be limits.   Each piece of armor can only be repaired 5 times.  If there's different kinds of armor, each could require a certain type of piece.  Leather leather plates, chain chain sections, and plate armor, armor plates naturally.   If we only have one metal armor progression (like in TFC1 - basically plate armor) then maybe different parts can only be applied so many times.  Leather once, chain twice, and plate twice.  Each application improves the durability 10%.  After that it's an assemblage of patches and you can't repair that piece anymore.  That would allow some flexibility in the field.  You could even differentiate field repaired vs anvil repaired.  So you're in the middle of a dungeon and need a repair, you just put the armor in the grid with the repair piece, and combine, you get one bonus.  But if you do the repair at an anvil, you get double the repair amount.  So 5/10 if you only want best case scenario to be 50% at anvil, 25% in the field, or 10/20, if you want the player to be able to 100% repair the armor if they use an anvil, but only 50% in the field.  now the player has to choose between help now, but overall reduction in the maximum working life of the armor, or risk waiting to repair back at base to stretch their 'armor dollar' the furthest.  Or, hope that the dungeon they're raiding has a blacksmith room.

    I think it could be a fun addition to the game, that sets up a couple choices for the player;  field repair vs risk waiting for anvil repair, carry spare leather, chain, and plate for field repair, or save the inventory space.  Armor pieces like these could also be loot in fortresses and dungeons (or even rotten/rusty versions that only repair half of normal).  For that matter, smithing quality could give a small bonus to the repair amounts for a given piece, so another hook for smithing skill.

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  20. 3 hours ago, Bioxx said:

    I think I'm ready to say that I'm formally ditching the idea of procedural metals. Beyond just how much of a pain it would be to implement, my plan now is to allow magic to be the force that augments progression past the steel islands. That said, your ideas are still very valid in some altered fashion Stroam.

    I support this.  I was never enamored with the procedural thing, for reasons outlined previously

    I do think it'd be worthwhile though, to still have some 'fantasy level' metals.  Mithril and Adamantium are, I think, pretty universal to those who are into fantasy, and meteoric iron is pretty well known to older school D&D folks I think.  Orichalcum is a bit obscure perhaps, but it's historical.  It allows for a few different methods too.  Meteoric could be randomly scattered on the surface in small quantities in boulder-like clumps (except in island with the 'crater' feature, there might be extra-large clumps!).  Mithril could be buried down deep at 'diamond level'.     Orichalcum could generate only under large bodies of water, or even just the ocean, hence being only really obtainable via a lot of branch mining under the ocean, or use of water breath/moving magic.   And adamantium might also be buried at 'diamond level', but also only appear near lava or hot springs or other thermally active 'biomes'.    Any or all could be extra-tough, strongly encouraging the player to use alternate mining methods such as gunpowder or magic, and extra heavy necessitating minecart action. 

    They could either be metals in and of themselves, or addons that enhance physical properties and/or enchantments power/max level of steel.  And each could require their own processes and recipes either way.  I think fantasy metals would be great to add value to some of the oddly non-valuable metals of TFC1.  Gold and platinum for instance.  And since these metals would be replacing black/red/blue steel, silver and garnierite will need new 'homes'. Basically a few fantasy metals would allow there to be use for the useless, and continued use for low-tier metals like zinc, bismuth, and cassiterite.  And they don't even all have to be actual ingredients of the new fantasy metals.  Some could be use to make quenching baths (that might be a good use for lead and the bronze additives).  They'd get used up in the process of making, but not be an actual part of the final result.  Some could be post-process.  Powdered and sintered to the surface, for instance.  I think having new processes for these metals, that aren't beholden to real-life processes (and so avoiding people coming in and nit-picking over how a process isn't 'realistic') is a great opportunity for fun, and use of mechanical power.

    It might be interesting if the metals affected the magic that can be added to the tool/weapon.  So steel can only accept low tier magics, mithril next, orichalcum higher yet, and adamantine accepting the highest tier enchantments.  Or they might just each have their own properties.  mithril enhances cold and illusion magic, orichalcum electric and summoning, and adamantine fire and transmutation.   Meteoric iron can be added in small quantities (5-10%?) to other metals to enhance damage and durability, but if made into it's own metal (90% MI) it can enhance magic with changes speed and weight.   Maybe even all four could have admixture properties, and then primary properties.  So addmixtures of mithril reduce item weight, meteoric iron movements speed (armor) or swing speed (weapon), orichalcum durability, and adamantium damage in weapons and durability in armor.  There could be three 'tiers' of magic accepting weapons and armor.  Steel would be the lowest tier(s), steel with fantasy admixtures one or two tiers higher, and the pure fantasy metals the highest.  There's just so many options for ways to handle it all!

    In summary, I think it's a good idea to ditch the procedural thing, but I still think it'd be good to add a defined amount of fantasy metals, to keep metallurgy important.  At least the historical/established fantasy ones, since people are familiar with them.  But even totally new ones if use can be devised for them. 

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  21. There's only really two methods  - run around looking at exposed host rock, or blanket pro-picking.  Don't do exploratory mining tunnels, that's a waste of time.  You need to be able to cover lots of ground fast, and mining is not that.  Graphite is not as common as other ores, but at least it spawns in four host rocks (god help you when you start looking for garnierite - I hope you're taking notes on where the gabbro is). 

    You may have to cover a very large area to find it exposed in a rock face, and be very observant.  Obviously this will work better in hilly and/or treeless areas - I would not bother going for observation in heavily forested areas if the dominant trees have low foliage (like willows).  You may need to cover a thousand block square area looking for it exposed.  I'm not sure where you heard this 115-128 being the best level.  I've never heard that, and its definitely not worth mining at this level for some minor bonus.  It's all about covering ground.

    If that doesn't turn anything up, then you need to blanket propick.  You need to be VERY systematic about it.  Don't just do it every 100 blocks or something.  Since the propick radius is 12, it's best to take a reading every 30 blocks or so, though you'd probably be ok at 50, as veins are very wide (this is just rough, don't bother counting it out).  Make yourself a bunch of propick heads and go camping.  Pick a sector, travel east-west or north-south in scan lines, propicking every 30-ish blocks, and with your scan lines 30-ish blocks apart.  Or whatever you have the stomach for.   You will find it eventually.  It's more efficient if you can combine blanket propicking with observation, but there's probably a higher chance you'll do one or the other less well, because one method you're looking up and around, and the other you're looking at the bottom left of the screen.

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  22. I agree with Mort, I also look for unique terrain features to build on/around.  And to clarify from my earlier post, in the small scale, I don't think every formation needs to be some bizarre sculpture or arch.   Just really huge lumpy boulders would do a lot I think.  anywhere from 3 to 10 meters tall or so.  Might be cool if they could sometimes have a pocket or two of soil, on which trees could grow.  The existing rubble fields below cliffs are a great start, but I'd like to see more variety of sizes, and for them to occur in other-than-cliff areas.  I'd think the 'peak' of the island would be a good candidate.   Fields of small (but taller-than-player) boulders could be suspenseful as you'd never know what monster may be just on the other side.  Such areas might be harder to bow spam in.  If there were a hex flag such as 'boulder field' that denoted these areas, mobs could be made to specially spawn there, I'd think. 

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  23. Making a clay item takes only 1 clay.  While the clay blocks seem to yield quite a lot.  Wasn't sure if this was the plan or not.  Would really love to be able to have torches.

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