Darmo

 Building will always be an end-game scenario.

Are they though?  I ask this in all seriousness - how long do people wait to start a serious building (one that is designed, no just a starter hut)?  I would guess most people like to do at least a semi-serious take on a house in bronze age.   For which a 200 block carry capacity is probably sufficient.  It is really the epic builds (or roads) that require a lot more than that. Most of the LPs I've watched involve some fairly serious building attempts before iron iirc.  But as it stands, a person can get to bronze and not really go any higher, and still do a lot of building.  Though red/blue buckets are still needed for fancy water/lava effects (I'm hoping those buckets are gone in TFC2 though).  A more limited inventory would probably be most obvious where a player bases in a location that does not have all the things they *want* - their favorite building materials.  Currently it's doable to make many thousands of blocks trips, fill a barrel with vessels full of the material, and run home.   A more limited system would hinder this.  Forcing the player to either make more trips, or build with what they have, or get transport.  

An interesting way to alleviate some building material shortage issues, might be to have merchants that actually deal in building material.  So the player can use precious metals and gems to buy them from a boat on the island they want to base on.  For true convenience they can build in the port where the merchant is, and so be able to transport the material easily.  If they want to base off in the boonies, then they'll need a conveyance, but since islands are (last I knew) planned at maybe 4k max diameter, depending on how many merchants any given island had, the player might have to make a maximum of 4k trip to get the materials, which is better than 10k by a long shot.  Especially since it's not clear if carts/mules/minecarts can go through portals between islands.  Maybe with enough cash (and I mean a LOT of cash), the player can actually pay a merchant to come set up shop in their town.  And pay more cash to upgrade the merchant's selection.  And more to upgrade the rate at which the merchant gets in blocks each month.   Actually this may require it's own post...

1.  Those were probably old videos.  The 'wood wall' is an exploit and I think the devs tried to fix it.  I thought they had to be more like 4 blocks apart but I guess I don't know for sure.  Maybe it depends on tree type?

2. Trees can generate pretty close on world gen, which will sometimes cause them to be 'linked'.  And like Mathias says acacias are especially prone to it.  Later naturally generated saplings are supposed to spawn no closer than 8 blocks from another tree, making it less likely they will be linked.  But saplings placed by the player can be closer.   Was the difference about the time that you switched from mostly cutting down natural trees, to cutting down farmed ones?

Huh, interesting.  Currently We can carry 256 granite blocks in two vessels.  So that's definitely a significant downgrade in terms of building material carrying capacity.  Will containers then have a weight capacity, rather than size?  Would that mean that tools will then fit in containers?  I honestly kind of like the current system, quirky as it is, in the way that certain items such as tools, wood, and ingots, won't fit in containers.  It requires better inventory management, and also gives rise to specialized containers and storage solutions which to me enhance the feel of the mod.  If there will still be those specializations, great.   But I look at specific items right now that to me seem quirky - the bed and quern base fit in vessels for instance.  Yet the quern handstone does not.  I've wondered it that is intentional, or just oversight.  And in this context I wonder how those would be handled in the new system.  Will vessels now only be the domain of extremely light items?  And stone will not only weigh a lot, but will not fit in vessels, so regardless of the weight of the stone, we'll only be able to fit however many that is (like 50?) in our inventory?  Plus a few extra if they can fit in a barrel?  Or will it be strict weight, so maybe a vessel holds 8 stone, meaning 8 blocks per vessel?  Will each slot be weight limited, or just overall?

I feel like it'd be a good idea to keep some sort of size as a factor, with regard to containers anyway.  Mostly for non-building materials that may want to be limited in storage options for game balance reasons.  And would the back slot still have some items that only go there?  Like anvils?  Or can the player carry an anvil in inventory if they have the weight capacity? 

I like the idea in that it opens up much more definite usefulness for transport items like minecarts, carts, and pack animals.  And presumably also the upcoming 1.9 boats that will hopefully be able to hold a chest.  Maybe even someday magical/mechanic automatons.   It would also open up avenues for potions and magics to increase this capacity.  It also opens up notions such as raw logs being extremely heavy, and maybe plank blocks too, but raw lumber not so much.  So transport in plank form becomes desirable, to the building site, where it's assembled into blocks.  In combination with other stuff, could bring progression to materials gathering such as wood and ore perhaps.

At the same time, I would hate to see it turn off a lot of people.  I think it mainly depends on the dev plan for TFC2.  If it's still going to try to cater to people who are primarily builders and maybe don't want to have their building limited by mundane details, or if it's going to be more about the progression to some eventual goal of some kind?  TFC already caters to people who want at least some challenge, it seems like.  But it also offers things like chisels and more wood/stone options that probably attract some people more than the hardcore-ness.  They maybe just put up with the increased difficulty to get their hands on them planks.    It seems too me, just from the abstract here, like it will be a step away from primary builders, depending on the actual numbers (but maybe 1.8 is already taking a step away from these people if planks and chisels cannot be implemented).  With 256 as an example, I wonder how the weights might scale for other things.  Will it be such that the player basically has to choose between armor and weapons, or building material?  Like, a tool weighs 5 stone, and a chestplate 20?  Or will such items weigh about 1 stone?  If 1 stone, then 256 would be nearly unlimited, except for building material.  But in the former case, the building material is trivial, and the items weighty, which is similar to what we have now and then I'm not sure much was gained.    That's the problem I think - how to balance building materials vs items involved with game progression.  They're sort of two entirely different classes of things, that have different audiences to a degree.  I would presume the utility items would be balanced to be similar to now in terms of how many the player can carry, so I think the question comes down to building material. 

I kind of feel like the current system can already be used to balance building materials vs other items, and I kind of like the current system as is, and feel like the permissiveness of building materials as it is provides builders with plenty of leeway for their mad dreams, so I would ask in return:

- What are the flaws of the current system?

- How is it hoped this new system will solve these flaws?

- What new benefits might such a system offer that the current could not? (aside from providing uses for transport)

- What are the devs plans for TFC2 with regards to primary builders.  This is rhetorical, I know it's probably still being considered.  But I'd think it would factor heavily in the direction of things.

Wow, very nice job!  Love the use of trapdoors for detail work and shutters

There is so much more that could be done in farming to make it more challenging and rewarding. 

Agreed.  The OP seemed focused on the very beginning though, so I tried to limit myself to that.   I think a lot of different areas of the ag system have been touched on in a lot of other posts.  Just no overriding topic for it I believe.

What's the link between gems and tech tree? I don't see this at all?

and why are people so obsessed with gems anyhow?

Desire to see useless items have a use?

 The suggestion with regard to wild crops would definitely make the start very hunter-gathery.  Personally, I wouldn't mind the stone age being longer, but I'm not sure I want to have to wait through a season of crops to farm food, much less jute, and especially if it's combined with scarcer wild food.  And I don't think this suggestion will prolong the stone age. 

I don't think this suggestion will extend the stone age because there's not been any tech dependencies suggested to make that true.  Which you did say is fine, but it sort of conflicts with the opening statement suggesting that extending the stone age is a goal of this change.     This change merely hoped that by increasing the food workload, the metal progression will suffer as a result.  But the metal progression in the game is relatively simple as it stands - gather surface nuggets, pit kiln them.  Making a clay vessel and a couple molds is very fast, they won't be hindered at all if they don't change significantly.   And really, making the player an obligate hunter-gatherer in the start is going to require they wander more, which will in turn mean they probably will find plenty of nuggets.  Picking nuggets up is easy. Putting them in a vessel is easy.  So overall, I don't think what you suggest will impact metal progression all that much.   So people will have a pick and saw, but maybe not the time to mine.  I think that will frustrate people, and in general I'd imagine most people aren't really looking for an extended hunter-gatherer phase.

I do like the general notion of a tree of devices for all production.  In my mind it's not really a tree without at least 3 steps, so in the case of grain grinding your first step could be a grinding stone.  

I'd suggest plants should not give seeds unless mature.  That would reduce the ease with which players can get seeds.  

If more difficulty were desired, it might be interesting if early on, when the player has low skill, they don't just get seeds popping off, but instead have to somehow sacrifice food to try and get seeds.  That sets up a choice - food or seeds - which was actually a very real choice historically oftentimes.  Offhand I'd say soaking in a large vessel for a time (more clay and large vessels used!).  Potatoes wouldn't work for that obviously, but since they are already I think 1st or 2nd highest producing crop, maybe you just can't get seeds from them by soaking.  Them or onions.  You have to increase your skill with other crops, then eventually you get seeds from everything via harvesting.  If the player manages to get a saw before he's teched up in agriculture, then he can soak seeds more efficiently, since barrel is double the capacity of a large clay vessel.   I just feel like forcing players to wait through and entire season of crop growth to get seeds is not going to be fun or interesting (and the way suggested requires a bunch of additional items).   But giving the players a choice to make via which they can balance their food and seed needs, might be.

I think a way to solve this would be to have automatically dropping of  back carried items upon any kind of damage....

 

I play ARK and really dislike the feature of getting more materials from the same source depending on the tool used. The number of bones and the amount of meat do not change in an animal. 

One more time I need to insist that the main benefits from metal over stone tools are the weight, the durability and the fatigue induced from using a heavy tool.

 

Stone knifes are actually very sharp and able to butcher an animal very efficiently. If we desire to create an incentive for people to use metals, it should be about more durability, faster, and lighter.

 

I like the dropping of back items on damage, even as a standalone suggestion.  I don't think it's a great solution to the corpse issue, because you still take damage, but Bioxx said there's another easy solution, so no prob there I guess.

As for stone vs metal, there's already a durability difference, and I think few people currently makes metal knives except as a novelty.  Stone shovels are also very common even when the player has higher tier metals.  These could possibly be addressed by reducing those stone tool durabilities.  But I'm not sure if it's easy to balance the uses (i.e. durability loss of knife in combat vs trimming)

It's funny about ark, the first time I watched videos and saw people punching berry bushes and getting all sorts of berries, I was like "ok, this is stupid".  I expected different plants specific to different berries - you don't bet blueberries form raspberry bushes.  The awesomeness of the dinos though, made me able to overlook it.   But as for differing quantities, I guess to me it's fine because it is entirely what drives the progression in that game.  In order to get the materials needed for better and better weapons and items, you have to tame progressively better and better dinos to harvest the materials better and faster, and more specifically.  The materials grind combined with level limits on items (very artificial imho) is what make the progression there.  And I don't think it hurts that game.  But dinos are awesome.

Tools for materials is not necessarily 'realistic' as I presented it for TFC2, but it's a useful game mechanic I think, and to me anyway, it falls within the realm of believability.  It's no more unrealistic than, say, tieing the yield to material of tool.  Even the skill wouldn't change the amount of meat and bones on the animal.  It's a matter of theoretical efficiency, and I think it's believable for a tool to affect that as well. 

Oh, and as far as speed, I never did mention, that's one reason to try and make the slice-breaking a block breaking mechanic.  The speed can be adjusted for tool material then.

On the role of tools in the system - making hunting and butchering focused actions

I think one way to bring a unique sort of ambiance to the butchering is by having many tools.  Right now, you just find an animal, kill it, get meat.  No matter where you are, or what you have.  It can be very opportunistic.   I think it would be good for the feel of the game to discourage that, and encourage butchering in an actual area, or hunting for animal products as a directed goal.  Part of that is the butcher block and clean room - that can be circumvented though.  But the other part could be the tools.  If meat and any/everything else just pops off to a knife, then the player just carries a knife anyway for food trimming, and with a little effort field-makes a butcher shop, anywhere they're at, and they can get anything.   But if there are were specialized tools, the player is not going to carry butchering tools with them everywhere they go.  The more tools, the less likely they'll have them.  That helps localize butchering to a shop with a rack of specialized tools.  And I think that would be good for gameplay, personally.  The  player won't be out doing something else, run across a deer, and get a bunch of extra goodies from it.  They can get some meat, but the rest they need to either have the tools on them, or bring the deer back to the butcher shop.  It's far harder to make tools in the field, especially if they can't be pit-kilned. 

Personally I think the stone knife could be switched a stone cleaver - a stone is knive is basically a cleaver really in some respects.  Speaking from fish-cleaning experience, the role of a good knife is allow to make narrow cuts close to the bone, which I cannot imagine a stone knive being good at, and cleavers could believably be used for trimming too.   Knives could be metal-only tools.  That's kind of an aside though.

One the affects on animal husbandry and tool-specific material gains

Another factor, right now it seems like after the player has a bit of skill in butchering, there ceases to be an incentive to raise animals.  Bones and leather both have pretty limited uses in the game.  Once the player has some decent  butcher skill, one pig will last a long time in terms of meat.  In order to encourag enimal husbandry, I would think it would not be desireable to have the player get tons of everything from each slice.   So your choices are basically make each slice yield very little, making it a grinding numbers game, which will probably produce loads of excess of meat or something else, or make it so the player can affect the quantity and likelihood of what they're going for.  There's only so many slices per haunch.  So if the player needs meat they use that tool, get meat, but very little of anything else.  They want bones they use that tool.  This allows players to have what they need at a given moment without having to grind.  At the same time, because they don't get everything from each slice, they're going to need more animals, assuming there are enough products and uses.  So hopefully the player will raise more animals, because they need more things from them, but can't get all at once easily.   The meat is the base need, everything else can be relegated to later tools or higher tiers of skill and metal.

SUMMARY

I hope I'm getting my notion across clearly here - In the case of butchering I think it's a better mechanic for the player to get reasonable quantities of specific things via specific tools, than get smaller quantitites of everything every time from one tool.  I think it's better for the obtaining of the things, from a material grind perspective, and I think multiple butchering tools would reduce opportunistic butchering greatly, and make hunting and butchering more directed activities, especially for specialized products (assuming we ever have such products).   I think it would also encourage raising of more animals, without making animal raising for specific needs a grind, because the player can focus on a specific material they need, and have it in a reasonable time, rather than having to do more hunting/husbandry/butchering to get what they need, and ending up with tons of potentially wasted side-product.  Hopefully in a believable and enjoyable way that adds to the atmosphere of the game.

And PS, if later exotic materials are added, more along the lines of dissection (poison glands, phosphorescent glands, brains, hearts, etc) it could easily be an expansion of the same general system, via more special tools, such as scalpels, forceps, bone saws, extractors, syringes etc.

Well the easy way around that encumbering issue is to simply not make the corpse a standard item. Instead of appearing as a small icon in the world, it would need to have its own 3D model which would probably just be the entity mesh rotated on its side. Then to pick it up, the player has to activate it in some way.

Oh, ok then.   Glad there's an easy solution!  I did rather like the field dressing stage.

I did think of an issue, if corpses are indeed encumbering - it would be problematic to have an animal corpse drop off in combat, but the player is still trying to fight other enemies, yet they are suddenly immobilized by a corpse they got close to and picked up.  That's definitely a scenario to be avoided.   Not entirely sure how to avoid that without making corpses simply not immobilize people.  Takes a bit of the work out of the system, but I guess better than getting killed by it. 

I guess another option could be if the corpse immediately places itself either as a block, or as a place-able item (like large unfired clay vessels are placed in a pit kiln).    Not sure if that would lead to eventual issues with clutter, since they wouldn't de-spawn then.  But then, maybe the player should clean up their mess I guess.   It would also be kind of cool if a placed corpse in block form eventually decayed down to a pile of bones if left over enough time.

Stone is actually terrible for butchery.  At least if you value your tools.  Butcher blocks were historically made of hard woods, end grain up, as the cleaver could hit this and not be damaged, and by hitting the end grain, the wood is self-healing to a degree.   The block was kept well oiled (mineral, tung, linseed), and cleaned, which kept the blood and bacteria from finding purchase.  If the butcher block and butcher are both good, there will be no sawdust or wood chips to speak of.  

Code-wise, I wonder if it's even possible to use the cooking surface, because cooking surfaces technically take the block above the block you put them on, I think.  I know I've had torches on the wall block me making a cooking surface several times.  So the haunch would have to replace it.  And then you could just use any old block.  By using a burdensome butcher block, I was hoping to again encourage people to do their butchery at an established place, not just plop down a bunch of wood or stone blocks in the field and go to town.  It won't stop it, but it'll help discourage it.

Utility issues aside, I think perhaps the best route for such power to take - should it ever be implemented -  would be simply mechanisms and rods.  Mechanisms will be familiar to DF players.  There they operated through quantum mechanics, no linkages required!  But TFC could simply have a block called a mechanism, and to transfer power between them, rods.  If you want to see a real-life example of this, check out this page, or this one which shows pictures from an oil field in Illinois that, at least in 2003 when the pictures were taken, was still operating off of what I'd call 19th century technology - a central power house, and then a series of rods that transfer that power to various wells on the property.  It's a fascinating system that is apparently nearly self-sustaining, being powered off the natural gas from the oil it pumps.  The hard part would be the maintenance of the rod lines I think.  But it's incredible to look at, being supported with simple Y-shaped logs and branches, and yet it does real work.

So, you'd basically have two mechanisms.  Between them you can string some specific length of rod.  Perhaps longer for higher tier metals.  Any time you change direction, you have to use a mechanism, except that they will go up and down with the terrain in a straight 45 degree diagonal, again, as long as there is a mechanism at each end.   Then whatever you want to power must be next to a powered mechanism.  It'd be graphically simpler I think, than try to do a bunch of gears and cogs convincingly, and would only require two types of blocks.  The mechanisms could be designed graphically to be not dependent on direction, so truly a single block for them.   The rods would need a variety to account for all the configurations, but they would be fast to create I think, and hopefully low overhead.

Really cool, but it may be a little bit gross... don't you think so? Collecting the meat like it was snow is pretty brutal! If we can get a way to make it less "gore" I would love to see it in the mod.

Heh, well, I'm an irl hunter, so highly pixelated animal corpses have no chance of grossing me out.  but I guess it may be a concern for some.  I think it's basically a matter of textures though - I don't really see why the method of gathering would be a concern.  I might try to put some examples together, maybe there could be options for both tastes.

I like a sled - but that would have to be craftable by SAM

I was just thinking sticks anyway, so 3-4 sticks vs 5-9 wouldn't be a big difference.   The main sacrifice for the sledge is the speed reduction.  The notion of large corpses being extremely large could lead to things like leading the cow into the butcher room, and killing it there, to avoid the hauling of the corpse, rather than just killing it in the field.  At least bringing it indoors.  It's a small act, but I think it would help lend a sense of authenticity to the process.

Maybe something to be implemented into TFC2?

Well, this *is* the TFC2 suggestion forum.  I hope it's assumed that all suggestions here are for TFC2.

 If you're playing TFC at work and your boss sees, I think there's going to be other problems aside from the detail level of the butchering system.  But ya, I'm not suggesting it be super-graphic.  No more so than the existing chunks of meat.  The corpse would need to be pretty generic and stylized anyway unless each mob has their own.  If the graphics is the concern, that can be toned up or down according to player taste.

Not sure about the larger carcasses being basically unmoveable, but it looks great.

The idea there was kind of to both give a logical step for skinning to occur, if a more thorough skinning mechanic is desired, but also to give another level of risk/reward.  Sure, you killed that bear, but if you want that large hide you have to skin it basically where it died.   If it's close to night you risk attack.  There could even be increase predator spawn chance when a corpse is in place.   So players could like, build a temporary hut around it, or come back later, etc.  But it makes such a significant kill, presumably with more meat products, also have a few more risks.   And though fidelity to RL isn't the end-all be-all in TFC, it does bring some of this - If you kill a deer irl, you're not carrying it anywhere.  You have to cut it up in pieces (unless you can reach it with a vehicle obviously).  The player can just hack it to piece with an axe quick-like, but no large hide then.  

Another thought might be to have a sledge the player can pull, and large carcasses could fit on that.  No sprinting though!

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

My butchering suggestions stem from a few things - my general love for more 'in-depth' processes (seeing the charcoal pit mechanic in an LP was a strong driving force for me to try the mod) the lack of incentive to *ever* make any type of knife other than a stone knife, and the general ease of getting food in the mod - which may or may not be a concern of the devs at all, I don't know.  I searched the TFC1 suggestion forums and found this post, which seemed relevant and had some dev opinions.  But, that was two years ago, and my idea is I think different enough to warrant a separate thread, not to mention some game additions since then.

So in general, food is easy to get.  Meat is also easy to get in large quantities.  You just axe your animal to death --> meat shower.  I think the game might benefit both from an aesthetic sense, and a progression sense, from adding detail and progression to buthering, not just in skill, but in the tools used.  I think several factors, not just butchering, could play into how much meat is gained.

INITIAL DROP ON KILL, AND FIELD DRESSING

First, the initial drop.  No longer will most mobs drop cuts of meat.  They drop a corpse, or a haunch, or something like that.  The corpse is optional, depending on how much work the system is decided to need.  But the common factor, is bulk.  A small corpse - i.e. a pig - can be carried on the back.  Larger corpses - bear, cow, deer - cannot.  they overburden the player no matter what and certainly do not stack.  They are a placeable object, so the player can place them.  But they can also just be tossed like an item and left to despawn.  If placed, they become a block (two for large).  Presumably a generic corpse texture for each size, unless we want to get detailed per animal.   butchering skill is no longer gained just by killing.  It is gained in the later butchering acts.

SMALL ANIMALS - birds & fishes

Birds, fishes, and other very small animals are a special case. They probably just remain as they are now.  Unless it is desired to make the player pluck the feathers from their corpse.  But irl it's far, far easier to pluck a dead bird immediately after you kill it, so it's probably reasonable to leave them as is, EXCEPT that I don't think they should drop bones.  There's not a chicken in existence with a bone in it's body that would make a good knife handle, never mind axe handle.

OPTION - Texture Skinning

If you don't just want the skin to pop off, you can add it to the process. This is done like the current hide scraping mechanic, changing the texture of the block, presuming that's even still a thing in 1.8.  This can go pixel by pixel for lots of work (remember, it's 5 or 8 sides of a cube now, not just 1) or just side-by-side for less work (but still lots of durability off knife). 

The player then hacks at the corpse to dismember it.  They get 'haunches' of meat from the corpse (also hide if the optional skinning mechanic is not used).  Depending on size of animal, they can get more or less haunches.  Skill could also play a factor in this.   Haunches are themselves a placeable item, but come in only single block size.  They do not stack, and can be carried on the back.  Maybe inventory as well if we're going easier.  But they do NOT fit in vessels. 

OPTION - Method of Kill Reduces Meat

It would be good if the possible haunches were NBT data perhaps (since they don't stack anyway), and the corpse dropped can have the potential haunch number reduced depending on kill method.  A bludgeoning kill has a strong likelihood to reduce the haunch count, as it ruins meat, and ruptures internal organs, which spoils the meat.  A slashing attack is better.  Piercing attack is best - especially if it could be coded to incentivize javelins and arrows.

At this point, the player has completed the field dressing of their kill.  If it was a smaller animal they might have carried it back to their hut on their back slot, but if it's large, they had to do this in the field, with the attendant dangers.

The player now has haunches.  If they're in the stone-age, they have to cook and eat the haunch as is.  This reduces the amount of meat.  The cooked haunch also still cannot fit in a vessel (provided this is not too complicated to code, as I assume right now food-vessel-fitting is purely based on ounces via ounces determining size?) The haunch also cannot go into a sandwich or salad (again, if not too complicating of the system).  These things firmly establish the cooked haunch as a stone-age thing.  Without fitting in a vessel they will rot faster, and will take up inventory space with it's 1-stack.  Those in addition to reduced meat on cook, and not useable in meals will mean they will only be desirable early on, incentivizing full on butchering when the player has the tech.

BUTCHERING ENVIRONMENT

Butchering starts with a butcher block.  So the player has to have their grid.  The butcher block is a single block (crafted via 6 logs in top rows, 3 sticks bottom row.  Butcher blocks are back-only carryable.   A haunch can only be placed on top of a butcher block.  Anywhere else is "too dirty" and it immediately pops off.  Once placed, the player then uses their tool to start cutting off cuts of meat. 

This could be done again, via the texture-picking option, with each side of the cube popping off meat when done, or the haunch will have 8 slices, like a stack of coal or snow.  It'd be more fun if the slices were vertical rather than horizontal like charcoal and snow, but if I understand the 1.8 system correctly, that would result in 4x as many blocks required.  In any case, the player has to chop off each slice of meat, for which they get their rewards.  However, each time you destroy a slice/pick a side, the game checks if there are any dirt, sand, clay, or gravel blocks anywhere in a 5x5 cube centered on the haunch.  If so, decay is immediately added to the slice, due to the unclean environment.  Additional decay is added if it's raining and the haunch can see the sky.  This is to incentivize the player to have a proper room in which to butcher, and basically not butcher in the field.

OPTION - Ground Butchering

Butchering haunches might possibly be doable on the ground.  This would allow stone-age folks to butcher, and in that case maybe haunches aren't edible, to simplify things.  You simply place the haunch on a surface and start cutting off the slices.  But again, there is the check of the environment for dirty blocks.  Additional decay is applied if the haunch is not on a butcher block, and more if the haunch can see the sky and it's raining.   This allows stone age people to butcher, but with greatly reduced efficacy.  And possibly a lot of stone knife wear, if they have to cut off tons of decay right form the start.

BUTCHERING REWARDS

So the player can get meat obviously.  But how about bones?  What about other meat items?  I think it would be interesting if there were an Ark-like system, where using different tools gives better chance for different items.  So using a knife give more meat, less bones.  However using a cleaver nets more bones, less meat.  Now that example is not logical - the whole purpose of a cleaver is to chop bone.   So if you want SAPs (Stone Age People) to to get less meat, then there's no stone cleaver, only metal.  If you want them to be able to butcher meat properly, then either the knife nets the meat, or you make stone tool cleavers.  If it were desired to have further products from butchering, more tools could be brought in - a fillet knife for instance.  Or accessory requirements - you have to use a knife and have a sharpening steel in the hotbar (not sure if the block breaking mechanic recognizes that sort of thing though, which is where texture-picking might have an advantage).

Tool tier could also affect the gains.  more meat/bones/whatever from higher tier tools, or maybe more exotic gains have a base-line of a certain tier to gain.  This is to incentivize someone to actually make a metal knife.   More exotic gains could be things like fat, tendon, intestine, or bladders - fairly obvious possibilities I think.   SAPs should have a very hard time getting special items I think, or at least certain ones.   Additionally (not to sound to much like Ark) there could be certain pieces - choice meat, prime meat, liver, tongue - that can be used to tame specific wild animals (which animal takes which item could be randomized per seed) they could also of course be eaten.  These items could again tie into skill, tool type, and tool tier.

SUMMARY

So summary of process in general:

- Kill mob, which drops corpse item.  Back carryable for small animals, large corpse overburdens, even on back.

- Place corpse on ground.  Process corpse for skin and haunches, likely in the field.

- Take haunch to butchering block in clean room, choose tool for desired product, break 'slices' for product.

I believe the overall result of this system would be not only an engaging and believable butchering system, but making meat have a bit more of a 'tech tree' associated with it, and generally take more time to get.  Also people would actually make metal knives hopefully.  I think it could make the system interesting, without being grindy, and it involves no GUI at all.  It would definitely give something more for the farmer/animal husbandry person to do, as it would not be nearly as easy to get the meat as it is now.  And yet meat is still accessible to SAPs for survival purposes (birds drop meat using the current mechanic anyway).

  I've thrown out a lot of variables though, for instance quantity of meat could be affected by:

- player skill

- tool type

- tool material

   And then the following three options, which do not affect meat amount produced, but add decay, affecting the net gain.

- Butcher block or not

- Environment clean or not

- Exposed to rain

That's a lot of variables and it would take some balancing.  Maybe some affect quantity of meat less, and are more about getting the extra stuff.  There may be technical issues - especially with regards to whether block breaking can require accessories in the hotbar, and if texture-picking is even going to be available in 1.8.  In any case, thanks very much for reading another of my long posts, and please comment!

... regardless, you're forced into a very fun, but ultimately hollow experience that serves to be nothing more than a mental wank...

Maybe I've been playing computer games all wrong, but imho, aside from a very few cases where I made some lasting friends, every computer game I've ever played, no matter how much depth or shiny design, was ultimately 'a wank'.  Unless you've figured out how to make irl cash off a game, or otherwise derive a lasting benefit, it's ultimately a waste of time in the same way many hobbies are.  But if you enjoy it, that's all it needs to be justified.  It's no more wasting of time than watching sports, or most of 'entertainment' television, certainly.

Resource-wise,  yes, on big servers you have to be willing to either travel a bit, or join another town.   It would probably help the game a lot if caving wasn't so unattractive right now due to the cave-in mechanic.  That would allow deep exploration without tedious boreholes and branch mining.  I think part of that issue stems from the creative nature though - many people don't want to have to deal with a 'committee' of townsfolk, or a dictatorial mayor - they want to build whatever they want, how they want, and also not log in and find out someone else logged out with the red bucket, or best picks.  Cooks in the kitchen and all.  And that's no fault of the game, that's human nature.

Edit: I would also add, that the devs have stated in the past that they are designing the game with 'small' groups in mind.  So to some degree there's a conscious choice in the design - not for huge servers. 

I believe the popping off of nuggets is what causes large servers to feel depleted.  I think people pop off starting metal for their first tools, and later pop off nuggets of good ores to 'hide' the deposits for themselves, and then don't harvest the vein before they get bored and quit, leaving a deposit with no surface clues.  Personally, I make it a policy when starting, to never pop off all surface nuggets in starting metal groups (copper, zinc, bismuth, cass), if I can avoid it.  I try to always leave at least one nugget in place as a marker.  And I NEVER pop off the surface nuggets after I have a good starting tool supply, unless I'm actively mining the vein, and have decided I want to fully pursue it.   That is, except within a couple hundred blocks of my town.  Even on a towny protected server, it's very aggravating to invite someone to your town, and then have them start running around popping off surface nuggets within a few chunks of your town.  Even then, if I ever decide to quit, I plan to go back and mark all those close veins with signs.  I think if more people would be considerate citizens like that, it would help large servers a lot.

I do think it's a fair point that the game is very one-dimensional in it's tech progression right now.  The metal tech is very in-depth and drawn out, and functionally - in terms of fighting badies - everything beyond maybe bronze, and certainly steel, is arguably a bit unnecessary, unless you want to move source blocks.  The other 'techs' are very shallow.  I don't think it's for lack of desire - old forum posts are littered with grand plans - it's just they don't have a big team, like you mentioned.   However, if you don't already know, there is a TFC2 in the works.  It is still in planning stages, and sounds like it will be a different sort of game in terms of the overall progression of the game.   There's still room for input there, I think, so you might want to check out that forum. 

Sorry, I got lazy and was conflating lumber and planks in my terminology.  In my head it's 'planks' and 'plank blocks'.  I didn't really see this topic in my glance over your forums Tony, but  it's kind of more difficult to discuss in a useful fashion outside of the official game forum anyway unfortunately, as the possible solutions are far fewer without heavy duty coding involved.

I probably should not have drifted so far from the OP - there is, after all, already a topic for stone-age extension.  What I was mainly trying to get across was, in the base mod, changing the method and timing of obtaining lumber has a whole bunch of knock-on affects that need to be considered as well, if any sense of progression is to be maintained.   It's true that it would give people in copper-scarce areas a way to get a grid without a saw (which I think is what Walrus was looking for), but without other changes, the majority of times it will just be a quick way to a grid, and even quicker path to metal overall.  Panning already serves as a 'hard-way' to copper in copper scarce areas. 

To make it more historically correct and also to make the start game longer there are some requirements before you are able to make copper tools.

The requirements are: 

   Make a Sandwich.

   Make a bed.

   Get a bucket of Milk.

   Make a full leather armor

   Make a leather water sac.

The idea is that ancient humans first developed agriculture and animal husbandry, before they started working metals. Also as many players I really enjoy the feeling of starting a new world and fighting the environment.

I feel that once you have metals tools the game gets too easy and there is no challenge anymore. That's my way of extending the stone age.

You must have changed  most of those recipes so they don't require smooth stone and planks, apparently?  That milk requirement could be a pretty severe stumbling block in many cases.  I applaud the notion though.   I think it's a good idea to have the player need a bit more stone age experience, but if it were going to be in base TFC2, it'd be nice if it were incorporated into the tech progression so that it was more organic, rather than an artificial milestones.  And I think making the crafting grid basically obsolete would be a step in the wrong direction.  I think you could keep both the crafting grid, and ladders, as milestones.

This could be firstly done by making the crafting grid require, say, four pieces of leather.  Leather is entirely obtainable within a 2x2 crafting scenario.  The flux stone could be an obstacle though.  An alternate could be provided in the form of pitkilning a vessel of something to get flux.  Maybe bones combined with small amounts of one or two other minerals.  Though I'm not sure the pitkilning mechanic as it is recognizes anything other than ores.    But requiring leather for the grid provides a milestone that is obtainable, but not super-easy, and is separated from obtaining a saw. 

Then, the player has their grid, and you could change the ladder recipe to require plank side-rails (6 planks, two sticks).  Due to how many ladders one needs to go deep mining, making primitive planks could be a very slow way to get enough ladders.  In that way, in combination with support beams, the saw could still be an attractive first tool choice.  Especially if some recipes - chest, door - require a saw as part of the recipe.

The obtaining of metal tools could be required to be after the crafting grid, by divorcing metal casting from pit kilns, and requiring a clay oven that is assembled using clay bricks (requires grid).  This may or may not require mortar as the binder, depending on if flux is desired as a requirement.  Otherwise maybe just sand.  This could be a mere assemblage of brick blocks, or a lone process block.  Or both, like the bloomery/BF.  But it only does 1 thing at a time, so pit kilns are still good for multiple vessels etc (though maybe further combinations of process blocks yields an oven with more capacity)    It would probably be good if pitkilns could still be used for at least some non-tool metals.

In this way, the player would first have to obtain their grid, via leather (or whatever) and then they have to construct this clay oven to fire up a pot of tool metal.   As it stands, you can get lucky and find enough ores to make your first metal tool within the first couple days.  I think that's not entirely uncommon, though I may be wrong as I've not done a lot of worlds. 

By requiring leather for the crafting grid, I think on average it will take AT LEAST that long just to get the grid.  You have to find the animals, fire up probably three large clay vessels, soak the hide in limewater, freshwater, and tannin.  That's 32 hours just for the processes, not inclusive of the finding of the materials.    Depending on animal/flux scarcity, possibly much longer.  

Then, the construction of the brick oven would also take awhile, due to the large number of bricks and logs required (logs for the pit kilns).  Brick blocks could also have an architectural utility, btw.  I'd guess that in an ideal start you'd probably take 4-5 days at bare minimum to get the first metal tool.  And that's assuming animals and flux and a tannin-kosher wood and the surface metals are all at start.   It'd probably take much longer, oftentimes.     But it would be organic to the tech progression, rather than artificial achievements. 

And I'm not trying to dig on what you've got going Tony, you're working with the game as it sits. I'm musing on how things could be in TFC2, if the goal is to prolong the stone age, and allow a 3x3 grid without requiring metal tools. 

Thing is, planks aren't really part of the 'tech tree' of metals - which is arguably the only tech tree in the mod right now.  Right now it's possible to get bronze tools without having planks at all. You need planks to make wood blocks for the crafting grid, but I would argue that's just a baseline for any and all techs after the stone age.  After that, strictly speaking, you hardly need planks at all in terms of the metal tech - a barrel for leather, leather for bellows.  13 planks (aside from crafting grid) that will be required to get to the top of the metal tech tree.  It's mostly charcoal and flux and metals.  Now, you'll have a hard time getting all the metal required without ladders and support beams, obviously.  But that's not what it's about, it's really about how fast you get your first two metal tools, which will nearly always be a saw and pick.  And I think allowing stone-age planks will speed that process up for everyone.

A crafting grid only requires 16 planks.  So even if this stone-age plank mechanic only turns out 1 plank per log, it's still going to be way, way, way faster than having to work up to a saw through finding metals (unless the plank-chopping time is intolerably long), and pretty much everyone will always have their grid at the start of day two (plank chop all night) In the end I don't think it will provide any kind of 'slowed down' metals tree.    It will in fact be sped up, and become the defacto standard for getting the crafting grid, and the pick will be the standard starting tool.  I think it's great that right now, the player kind of has a choice for their first tool, between saw and pick.  If I can make planks with a stone axe, I won't have to think about it at all, the pick will be obviously superior, because I'll have it AND ladders, and that plus a few logs is all I need to dig down and get enough copper for my first several tools.   I think the loss of that choice would be unfortunate for the game.

Now that all assumes that no recipes change, which I know some people advocate.  But my point is, allowing planks to be gained earlier, but at a slower rate, is not going be a 'poor man's' way of getting planks.  It's going to be everyman's way of getting a crafting grid, and then quicker ore, and then all the planks they ever need. 

I do not wish waisting 20 minutes, making tunnel down, finding that layers are wrong (and because there 21 stone layer and only 4 graphite bearing stone types there 4/5 chance that they will be wrong)

Technically, if you're tunneling down to the middle layer, no sedimentary stone shows up there at all - sedimentary is top layer only.  So you have a 4/13 chance to find graphite bearing stone in the middle layer (~30% chance).  All graphite bearing stone is metamorphic, and metamorphic doesn't even show up in the bottom layer, only top & mid.  So there's no reason to dig below the middle layer looking for graphite. 

And ya, like Bunsan said, it shows up exposed in the top layer.  It's not Y-limited.  It's easiest to just find a graphite bearing top layer and run around propicking.  You may get lucky and stumble on some exposed, especially in mountainous terrain.   but eventually you'll get a reading pro-picking.  Easier than boreholes, and also easier than caving with cave-in mechanics as they are now, imo.

So you only need to know the top and mid layers when looking for graphite.  And there's usually a ravine every once in awhile that goes down to the mid layer, and also uplifts of the middle layer exposed in mountain areas as Bunsan pointed out, so you don't even really need to tunnel that much if you are just looking to know what the middle layer is.  Propicking it is another story of course.

You actually used to be able to harvest peppers and tomatoes in TFC without destroying the plant.  Not sure of the story on why it was changed to the way it is.   Speaking as an irl gardener, green beans and squash are two more plants that produce over a period of time.  I assume this was considered a bit too advantageous, so they were changed to be as they are now for gameplay balance reasons perhaps.

Ya, the knife for grain thing always felt a bit perfunctory.   Considering grain = bread, it might do something to address the imbalance between salad (specifically bowls) vs sandwiches.  Especially if burlap is required, as jute can be very hit or miss, and takes a long time to cultivate.

My rainfall is 4000, is that good or bad?

It'll affect the animals you find.  Check out the TFC climate page It's very useful info.   You'll have clay, but 4k is too high to find cows or horses.  I think it'll also be too high for 2/3 of berry bushes to show up.    But, rainfall changes more often than stone types.  So you shouldn't have to travel as far to find a different rainfall environment.

It might be nice, on the anvil page, to clarify where the non-tool metals fall, in terms of being able to make sheets.