TomatoThief

TFC is hard. If the idea of the game being hard doesn't appeal to you, TFC might not be a good fit. Play the game with mobs on. Scale it back if needed (or get better).

Use a mod that allows way-points to be set, and mark locations of note. You probably don't know enough about the mod to know much of what is noteworthy, but you could be marking areas with copper bearing rocks on the surface, groups of animals, fruit trees - anything that you can can capitalize on later. For example, you might find three pigs, but it would be foolish to kill all three (or maybe even one if other food is abundant) since the meat will just rot in your inventory and on the ground. The location I suggest for a first home should have ready access (in sight) to all of the following: trees, fresh water, and tall grass (for thatch). I consider access to coastal oceans very desirable for the mobility it provides once you get a boat. I really don't care about proximity to ore anymore. Ore veins are huge, and mining trips are more like excursions rather than quick little jaunts for a few extra copper. For example, once you find a copper vein, it may possibly supply all the copper you'll ever need. You'll be heading there with a pack full of tools and food, and returning to base with a pack full of ore. You don't do this frequently, so it's not a big deal if you have to travel half a day to get there.

Create channels of water from smooth stone. Flowing water in Vanilla checks adjacent X and Z blocks. If two of them are source water blocks, the flowing block becomes a source block. I suggest adding an additional check. If one X or Z side of the flowing water is source, two other sides are smooth stone, and the block directly underneath is smooth stone, the flowing block becomes source (because it does not dissipate through stone). The primary purpose (for me) would be to connect inland ponds/lakes/rivers to each other or to open sea. Digging a torchlit culvert through a small hill with support beams would be very satisfying and romantic. Followup suggestion: add a new gondola boat that comes equipped with an Enderman poler singing 'O Sole Mio.

Congratulations!

Urban chicken coops are rising in popularity in the U.S. Many Homeowners Associations and towns are relaxing rules on their use. About 90% of our eggs are freshly laid - we do supplement from the store from time to time. Unprocessed eggs have a very long shelf life. If your chickens weren't laying, there are a number of things that could be wrong. Snakes and rats will take them. Chickens stop laying when they get older. They might not have a good kind of feed, or bad water. They could be sick or stressed. The most likely answer is that somebody sold you a flock of roosters.

[Citation Needed]

Don't be afraid to roam thousands of meters. Waypoint (use a map mod) features of interest as you go. No matter where you start, something will be scarce. It is more apparent when food is scarce because it is your first critical need. So if you spawn and don't see any food, start running. Craft some knives and cut thatch on the move. Waypoint ores, forests, clay deposits, fresh water ponds, whatever your experience tells you you will need in the future. Stuff is just far more spread out in TFC than your Vanilla instincts will allow you to think is acceptable.

I've also been filling under flowing water..

I hereby retract support for this suggestion.

I didn't read your post, but I support anything involving more bacon. +1

So can I have a block of covered woodpile by itself, then walk up to 12 blocks over completely disjointed from the woodpile, light a fire pit, and have the woodpile ignite into a charcoal fire?

I have experienced this behavior. Seemed to be related to shift clicking from the anvil into my inventory, but I am not certain.

Three related suggestions, I'll work backwards: Cobblestone One cobblestone block is nothing more than four loose rocks stacked together. You should harvest one cobble block by hand in the same or faster time as thatch. It should be even faster with a shovel and/or pick, on par with shoveling gravel. Explosives Forget about Vanilla blast radius mechanics, which I understand are difficult to modify. Devise new explosive recipes. When detonated, they could trigger a mechanic similar to cave-in propagation. Instead of destroying raw stone, they should be fractured into cobblestone (like a cave-in). Ore bearing rocks should either be unaffected by the blast, or have a significantly reduced chance of being "cobbled". Combined with the above change to cobblestone, this would allow you to fracture a large area of raw stone, then harvest the resulting cobble by hand or shove/pick quickly. Fire-Setting Fire-Setting is an actual prehistoric method of mining. A fire is lit next to a stone wall, causing thermal expansion. The wall is then doused with water for rapid cooling which causes the rock face to fracture. If implemented, I propose ignoring the water, especially since there is some evidence it had minimal or no effect on fracturing. In TFC, this would be a stone-age low range explosive-over-time controlled by the existing firepit. I would recommend a fracture area equal to the 3x3 horizontal plane centered on the pit, and two units high (3x2x3), with no fracturing below the firepit. The initial 3 sticks should be enough to at least fracture a portion of this area, with the addition of logs guaranteeing full coverage, or possibly expanding the range of effect (perhaps dependent on log type/heat).

Well, no proper door isn't a big deal. I'll just have a dirt door.

Keep at it for another week. By then you'll be experienced enough with TFC that you'll be annoyed with just how much food there is and can't carry. That said, if your sample size is limited to one or two worlds, it's possible you got unlucky. In temperate regions you can't walk for more than a minute without tripping over patches of wild vegetables and fruits. There are cold high hills and mountain areas that can be utterly barren. For shelter, first of all don't place log "trunks" on the ground. Shift right click to create log piles that are easily removed. Make your first course of walls out of dirt on a flat surface (so the dirt doesn't fall), then a course of logs above that. That protects you from everything but spiders. You can place a ring of thatch around the outside as a spider blocker if needed.

To your question about tree spawning: I don't know about a rule of thumb z-wise. But according to the wiki they need a temperature range of 1-14, and rainfall of 750-16000. That's fairly cold temperature, so shoot for more northern or southern regions from the equator.http://wiki.terrafirmacraft.com/Trees As for the door, the rule is not that the firepit need be surrounded by wood or logs. You could have it in the corner of your stone/dirt structure. The door "trick" is merely that a door block counts as a closed space (a wall), and will not burn.

I like this idea. I don't think knowing temp is breaking immersion. We need numbers because we are not there to feel temperature. I would be happy with qualifiers like Hot Warm Chilly etc. that represent ranges of degrees. I might even like that better than numbers. That should be divorced from an almanac and be displayed at all times, since it is a basic sensation. Perhaps the almanac could be a container which houses crafted measuring devices. Thermometers, barometers. While on your inventory, the almanac could display relevant data on your HUD. As time goes by, seasonal changes could also be revealed (highs and lows). Maybe even record biome and rock layer data. And as agriculture skills increase, relevant growing data displayed. Sounds intensive, but it's not much more than adding widgets which display already known F3 info. Mostly.

Have you guys met a baby zombie before? If there were 1.5-2 high grass, I'd never set foot in a prairie again.

Welcome! To your point about Scythes: this is brought up often and is well documented. To summarize, scythes were implemented for harvesting grass and crops. It just so happened that they also worked on leaves. Since mass harvesting of grass and crops is not all that useful, but mass harvesting of leaves for sticks is useful, that's how players ended up using it. I do not think there have been any official comments about it being slated for change, but the issue has at least been officially acknowledged.

I like the lit firepit idea. Perhaps the bedroll skips precisely as much time as the fuel provides to keep the firepit lit, until dawn of course. Having a tamed wolf with you could provide a similar function! Can't comment on spawn points as I only play on Hardcore, what with being a man and all.

You are doing it right. Sounds like you found the open air block that was your problem. You are clearly harvesting on an industrial scale, so small coal pits are not ideal. I have yet to find a tree that does not propagate to nearby trees. I don't know if the trees have to be adjacent, or overlapping, or if the trees have to be a certain proximity. The two spaces you use are what I have the most luck with, sometimes three. Douglas firs are good because their branches are not sprawling, so you can pack them in tight without crowding other trees from growing; but as you have experienced you can have success with other kinds. My pits are usually only two high, with a door. If you are going with three high, you could avoid the unreachable pocket of air by making your door level one higher than ground.

Igloos. I want igloos.

I built a dry stack retaining wall (more delineation than actual soil retention) lining both sides of my driveway at my last house. They were flared at the end, about 25' long, 2' at their highest, and tapered into natural ground as the driveway ascended. The digging prep took part of one day (nothin' but clay where I live, hard as heck to break through, had to rent a high HP tiller), and laying the stone & backfill took another day, all with my wife helping. I don't recall the stone type, but it was a thick slate cut specifically for dry stacking. We had two large pallets delivered, about 4' high each, maybe 3' diameter. Anyway, I don't think there's any doubt that dry stacking can be done, has been done, and is still totally a thing. While I'm not a low tech building expert, I am fairly confident that people did not actually dwell in houses with tall dry stack walls. There are simply too many kinds of mortar available worldwide to take that risk. Whether using an actual lime-based mortar, adobe, or cow dung and straw (for insulation if nothing else), something went between those rocks. The reason I support this idea is because while I enjoy teching up through the metal ages, I just love a rustic country house. I could have completely dominated my map, and I'd still live in a cobblestone and thatch house somewhere in a valley, where the sheep may safely graze. More low tech options, even just for aesthetics, are plus's for me.

Naturally spawned crops will die off if the temperature drops low enough. Note that crop death is linked solely to temperature, not to season. Thus warmer climates which support temperatures greater than 0º year-round will not suffer crop deaths. If a natural crop does die from cold (or is harvested or removed in any way) it will respawn during it's given season.

Welcome! Check the suggestions forum, there is a listed of features planned for future builds:http://terrafirmacraft.com/f/topic/5033-suggestion-directory-look-here-first/ Body temperature and clothing are in the works.