quasitonality

Actually, I'm pretty sure non-alcoholic fruit juices would be difficult to get in a premodern world -- at least, they wouldn't stay non-alcoholic for very long; modern methods for preserving fruit juices just didn't exist yet. Non-alcoholic grape juice, for example, wasn't invented until the 1800s (by a teetotaler Methodist named Welch, incidentally, for use in religious services).

It's definitely kinda frustrating that things like platinum and gems are currently useless -- I was excited when I found a platinum nugget, but then I realized there was absolutely nothing I could do with it. Of course, I wouldn't expect anypractical use from gems (or platinum), but they could make sweet decorations, and that's good enough for me! That's probably the best way to do the textures. Unfortunately, in MC rings and bracelets would be difficult to see even if you could place them on the player model, and I think we could leave out necklaces and just stick to amulets. But the same principle could be used for things like jewelled armor/weapons, goblets, plates, bowls, crowns, etc. You could further reduce the number of textures needed by restricted "luxury" artifacts to non-tool metals, like tin, gold, silver, and platinum. That way we'd have two distinct and consistent categories of metals --- tool metals and luxury metals. This could be a one-shot fix for every single currently useless metal in the game! EDIT: On second thought, luxury item textures could be made even simpler; instead of overlaying gem textures onto item textures, just use the same mechanic as vanilla dyed leather armor, and alter the color of certain pixels depending on the gem.

Regardless of issues with the model, I really like this idea for actually constructing the firepit. One of the biggest gameplay issues I had the first time I played was inconsistency in the way some structures are built -- "Right-click to place microblocks" is the mechanic used for pit kilns, forges, stacks of ingots, and even placing decorative single-planks; it's also similar to the way pots are placed on the ground or tools are placed on a rack. It would make a lot more sense if firepits were built the same way. (Incidentally, maybe it would also be better if log piles were implemented like this.)

I was just thinking that aquifers would make a great addition to TFC, and came across this suggestion as I was searching the forums for them. The idea doesn't seem to have caught on much, but I really think it deserves more attention, since it could probably be made simple to code, and provide a good boost to variety and a little extra challenge to mining. Here are some thoughts: 1. Don't simulate the entire water table, just aquifers; that is, isolated areas where there's enough saturation to produce a significant water source. 2. Rather than a structure made of special blocks, the aquifer could be a defined area (sort of like a mini biome), whereany mined or destroyed blocks are replaced by a water source instead of an air block. This would probably be the simplest and most feasible implementation, and would be "good enough" for TFC's purposes. Having aquifers that grow, shrink, or move would probably involve a lot of procedural calculations that would be time-consuming to code and might very well contribute to a lot of lag; but they're not necessary to have effective, believable aquifers. 3. Rather than having a special well structure (which has been suggested), a player would therefore construct a well in the most intuitive way possible: find a likely location for an aquifer, and dig down until you hit water. If the well is too deep to conveniently go in and out for water, craft a Well Bucket out of a Wooden Bucket and Jute Rope. Right click with the bucket to drop it; it will fall, remaining attached to the player by the rope; if it hits water, it becomes filled; right click again to pull it back up. A filled Well Bucket will behave exactly like a filled Wooden Bucket. Alternatively, the Well Bucket could be permanently attached toHook (or maybePulley)Block positioned above the water source; right click to lower or raise, then collect the retrieved water with a regular Wooden Bucket or Ceramic Jug. Further structural features would be up to the player, either for aesthetic or practical purposes (such as walls around the well to prevent falling in). 4. Sinceany mined block (including player-placed ones) in an aquifer is replaced by water, this would be an added challenge for mining if the mineshaft is positioned over an aquifer; one would either have to dig around the aquifer, or find some other way to keep the mine from becoming flooded. Since aquifers only occur in particular locations, this would only be an occasional obstacle. 5. If players feel that finding convenient surface water is too easy for wells to be useful, this could be offset by reducing the frequency of freshwater bodies for some biomes. There could be many areas where aquifers are more common than surface water, or where an aquifer is more conveniently located than the nearest freshwater source. Likely locations could be signaled by certain topological features or vegetation (kind of like digging for ores where you found nuggets, or for clay where you see those yellow flowers). Topological signals could include lakes and streams, but shouldn't be limited to them, since wells would be most useful where there isn't any surface water. An implementation like this should be perfectly reasonable to code, and seems to fit very well with TFC's philosophy of believable mechanics and fun, challenging gameplay. Let's give this idea more attention!