chepelink

Your goal is to find a way to make TFC more suitable for longer play.  That's not my goal.  I have lots of games, so I'm not so bothered with TFC having endless content.  If it did, that would just discourage me from playing some of my other games, which all have their own charm. 

Naaa, I'm not saying that that is my goal, it is just that I like the idea of the OP in the sense of TFC having a goal (o multiple goals) after reaching red/blue steel. You know, TFC, as far as I know, isn't a finished game/mod, so it is now when we can say something to make it more appealing for the rest of us (obviously there are people that don't share the same views and that is fine, hence, we might go against the ideas of the creators of this mod). Endless content? not even WoW that have been in existence for several years have endless content, and people that play WoW play other games as well (as I do and as you do). Some people find themselves attracted to a goal, to kill that dragon, that big bad demon with Biblical name, why does TFC shouldn't have something like that? Well, maybe a demon might be too crazy, but to do something after reaching the last tier of metals. That is the point of the OP. 

In regards to the rest of your post, AllenWL gave some good answers.

I like the idea, and also I do not find O.P. to be able to grow edible bushes, since they produce so little food that you need a great deal of them and that would cover a lot of surface, vital surface in a city or town. Fruit tree, on the other hand, produce a lot of fruit  and are really compact, they can also be reproduced (slow, but surely), in that sense I feel that fruit trees are more O.P. than some bushes. 

The problem here is essentially the one that the human race may one day face.  At some point you become technologically dominant enough that you essentially remove all risk from the equation of living. 

That is true but at some extend. In a game like this you have to face two situations, one is that you become a godly being with all that technology or face challenges that, no matter how well prepared you are, you are prone to an imminent death. Just for the sake of an example, think of an infinite tower with enemies so strong that even with red/blue steel armors and swords if you make two or three mistakes, you are dead. How many floors can you clear before being another ghost in that tower? It is true that nobody will adventure to such dangerous place without a proper treasure, something with a value in game that worth all the effort and preparation. That is a goal (one of many). Why do you think that in our era, with a technology so advance that our survival instinct are so damned that a deer (or a chicken) is harder to hunt than a human, especially one of those creatures that walk in the street while texting, but at the same time, there are people that look for live threatening situations, like free fall, bungee jump and so on? That does not make sense from the survival viewpoint and yet, they are doing it. 

 My recommendation:  play another game for a year, and come back to new content.  

That won't solve the problem, that just divert it. Well, no game would ever be fresh forever, but there are situations (in a "sandbox" environment) where you can face countless of challenges that would test your steel and keep it fresh for long time. And yes, in a game where you can make armors it almost foolish not looking for fights (why do you need them if you cannot face dangers?). Multiple dimensions, "infinite" towers, lost temples scattered on the world, in a multiplayer server wars can be organized (it would be cool in a sense), boss fights. trips around the world, hunting the rarest beast (Dragons, unicorns, anyone? We have Zombies and walking skeletons, if you dare to say that Dragons don't have place in TFC think twice), etc. If those ideas can be implemented, TFC would have so many goals that you can play much longer and actively seeking to reach red/blue steel age. 

As stories in books, games always have the feeling of being in a Déjà vu; "I've seen/read this, bla bla bla". Instead of inventing for something original just look around, there are sagas that have been successful without having a complex combat system even if combat is their main role. I already suggested this, hence I should be quiet and keep reading the post but, well, I'm kind of stubborn. One of those games that have been very successful (even if you may think that the game is not good) is Zelda. The concept it is quite simple a guy with a bunch of weird and not-so-weird tools that save a princes (a classic one). The thing is that those tools are simple in a sense, they only do one thing, from a wooden stick to light up as a torch to a amulet that allow you to become a moving paint. Link is not different from Steve, the both have limited life, and inventory and a sword (shield is optional for Steve). Both of them don't have more fighting skills that just swing that blade in the same way over, and over, and over (aside for the spin attack and some other in some incarnations). The difference is in the fact that Link use his tools as weapons and/or shields.

What about Steve? Does Steve in the TFC incarnation need to have skills? No, not really, but he has a skill that Link doesn't, the ability to make tools, and it is in those tools that TFC has all what it needs to fight. Small explosives, shurikens, hammers, swords, fishing roads (yes, those roads are killers, and very good at it with the right conditions), axes, etc. Just thing about it, a big sword (Buster Blade if you wish) with a charging option similar to a bow, ideal to kill slow moving targets (or with the proper timing, your skill, fast moving targets) and a second ability as its smaller brother, a shield. It can be adjusted to make you slow while wielding it as a form of balance. You can make moving floor spikes (blocks) that you can activate it with a lever (dig a hole, lure a mob of mobs and use that fishing road to "fish them into the hole" and enjoy the butchery). The tool possibilities that are believable in the TFC universe are great, and I bet you that you won't need skills to have fun with your creativity and see how can I use this tool to kill a target. The thing is that we need those tools. We have the means to make them, and a fun (and some times frustrating) way of doing them (metal working, leather working) and the materials to do them, even poisons. 

IMHO I think that an open goal is better. What is an open goal? Well, basically it is a "always having something to do" goal. For example, with the new spawning thing where all zombies and similar are going to be underground one end would be exploration. Spawning dungeons underground (or a "infinite tower" kind of building in the surface, for example) that can give you trophies (useless items) when you reach the room with the chest. A second dimension that give you a lot of terrain to explore and new mechanics and mobs to fight. I guess that part of this open goal could be more focused to fighting and exploring since you want to have an use to your shiny red steel armour and blue steel sword. It might include some bosses with weird "abilities" like a "green bear" that, when die it become a "green big spider" and later a "green dragon" to end with his final form, a small and cute "green slime"... 

I'm with you Kittychanley, it would become quite boring playing like that. But my point was toward that TFC isn't a survival game per-se, I mean aside for hunger, thirst and avoiding dangerous mobs (especially at night) there is no mechanic that force you to keep doing stuffs in order to survive (for example, that you have to move from your spot every three or four nights or become the prey of zombies that can burn your house or that to ensure enough amount of food you have to fight through a horde of hungry beasts or be left with the leftovers that can make your day if you are lucky). Once you have a farm, some clay vessels and a hut that you call home, you are settle and that is achieved the first few nights. So, the question is, after settling what is the next step? Metal working. And after metal working is just going to an adventure because there is nothing more to do (not that that is achieved easily, though), I think that fighting and combat have a really important place in TFC that should be explored (and I read that it'll be if I'm not mistaken) especially after you are able to craft your first set of armor and weapons.

Skills and abilities are a really nice addition for any game that have some "fighting" side (it is sad that minecraft vanilla doesn't foresee something like this). And I'm not saying something overly complicate like an RPG as D&D or Diablo. Something a little more simple like Zelda (a bunch of weird tools/weapons, some spells like in Ocarine of Time) that are simple in context but are nice. A spin attack would be fun I guess, but I think that the best action would to focus on the "tools abilities" rather in character ability. Just for the sake of an example that could or could not have its place in TFC: combat knife (fast hits that deals low damage and has so little knockback that make it easy to combo an opponent), a Fransica axe that you can throw (not far) to deal slash damage at distance and, if attached with a chain/rope, you can return to your hand in the same fashion of a fishing road. We have metals and a way of making metal powder so it would be "easy" to create "metal poison" that would affect an spider and strong enough to kill it if weaken enough... Well, just saying. 

In a mod about survival, fighting is just a tool toward that end, 

Actually, TF is not about surviving if you get what I mean. You achieve survivability the moment you get your farm and you thatch house, at that point you are alive and, if you just play in a safe way (sleeping at night in you thatch home) you can survive as long as you wish before even finding a single metal ore. After you have survived you go to ease your life (since you are "safe" now), you want better tools, better home, something different that just hiding behind a wall of thatch. So, after you find your nice home and you have nice tools and armours what are you going to do with all that? In a game with zombies,,, killing them seems to be the best option. And the most fun you get with that the better. Just saying...

Hence the suggestion for solid doors with no window panels so no light is let in, possibly made from metal. Can't seem to find the thread where that was suggested...

Here: http://terrafirmacraft.com/f/topic/5724-non-translucent-doors-and-trapdoors/

In my last map I dug a hole to place my food jars, I dug it a little deep, placed a door to easy access and a trapdoor to avoid falling by accident (me or a mob). I wondered, why do this doors have to allow the light to pass so damn good? It would be very nice to have trapdoors and doors without holes to reduce the light in a room as much as possible. They can be made of metal sheets and/or wood. What do you think?

Version #: 0.78.13

Suggested Name: Riding horse bug

Suggested Category: Annoying

Description: After taming a horse I put the saddle in the saddle slot but the saddle does not render. I ride the horse but it does not move or jump (although the "jump bar" appear as normal). There is a work around and it is exiting to the main screen and reenter the game (The saddle appear and everything works normal). Mods that I have and tested if they are the problem: Smart movement, Player API, Rei's minimap, damage indicator level, craft guide, optifine_1.6.4_HD_D1. None of them are the problem (at least so far) since I can still reproduce the bug without them.

Have you deleted your config files and are still able to reproduce this bug?: Yes

 

The 1.7 changes might be great and all, but if it doesn't work with TFC, it'll be kinda redundant, you know?

There are more changes that sand and blocks in 1.7+. By no means I'm an expert in modding Minecraft (I just made some simple weapons not long ago), but if 1.7 actually ease modding and/or make things that in 1.6.4 would be a nightmare to mod  or impossible I think that it'll be important to move forward. Also, as was pointed out, forge stop supporting 1.6.4 and that is a bad sign for 1.6.4 modders in the sense of bugs and whatnot. 

The right question, in order to make a better decision, would be; what are the modding difference between 1.6.4 and 1.7.+ and how would they impact TFC in the long run? 

Since TFC modify so heavily Minecraft I do not think that moving is needed unless it add things to the game, improve the performance, keep up to date with the best mods (or useful ones), and/or that makes things easier for the devs to program things or to play with mechanics that aren't available at 1.6.4. The only thing that I like about 1.7+ is that I can change the volume of the weather effects (no more annoying rain). 

What would be considered challenging? I mean, Diablo 2 inventory was challenging and fun (from my perspective) because of items' difference in shape and size, but it reached a point where it become really annoying because I had to deal with it so many times. I thought that the best solution is to keep the inventory as it is right now but with a reduction in stack size, reduced to a minimum point where you can manage to do things "easily" but at the same time it force you to use alternatives to carry things around. 

Two pair of words: "Francisca axe" and "Hammer bros". With the best feature that TFC has around metal working it amaze me that there are only a small selection of weapons. I guess they are going to be added later, though  . 

Logs actually used to only stack to 4. However this made inventory management so ridiculously horrible/tedious and there were so many complaints about it that it was increased to 16.

... So, what now? As I see this problem right now is quite complicate to reach a conclusion. Every idea posted here is tedious in one way or another, it is hard to decide which one is the less boring  .

 I think the best way to equalize is to have a proper weight system, which allows the early player to carry a lot of different types of item in small amounts and the later game player to carry a lot of few types types of material

You hit the nail in the head. Just think about of what is the relation about weight and stack size. You can emulate a weight system if you just focus on the stack size. There is no actual need to implement weights because there exist no logic about carrying a tree in your pocket even if each "log" has a "decent" weight, but you can limit the amount of things that a player can carry reducing the amount of things a player can carry per slot. IMHO, the best way to ensure diversity of items but reducing the OP of the inventory is to reduce the size of the stacks of specific items and implement specifics way of transporting those items. Those transports can range from a simple method already implemented (clay pots, chest in a mine-cart, mules) to more complex one like wagons pulled by a horse. You can also ensure that the player don't abuse of those inventory managers applying a cost-benefit rules and especial rules (like you can carry only an 'X' amount of those). Just to put an example of how I see this kind of development with a common item; logs:

Logs has an actual stack size of 16 and the actual size of the inventory is 36. That mean that you can carry 576 logs. If you reduce that stack size to, lets say, 4 you can only carry 144. With just that simple trick you put a much more value to each character slot. If you reduce the stack size to 2 logs per slot you put much more pressure to the inventory magnament (72 logs). Yeah, I know, with a stack size of 2 making a pit would be tedious so I think 4 would be the ideal (one layer of logs). Just remember that you usually have food, water and an axe (scythe and ladders to harvest items from leaf are optional). That mean that you actually can carry 128 logs or 8 piles to make charcoal. 8 piles for charcoal are not enough, at least you want something like 27~28 piles to ensure something nice. That mean that you have to do 3~4 trips to fill that with your inventory almost empty!!! With that in mind you can now have a justification for a better way of transport materials but without crippling the inventory at the beginning, where you do not need logs (you want seeds, bushes, thatch, food, clay, etc, things that are "small" or that having them in "larger quantities" do not affect the late game but are really nice at the beginning). 

Bear in mind that an inventory based on weight follows more or less the same rules as stacks: heavy/big items can't have large stacks. You can actually said that each slot of the inventory can carry, for example, 10 kilos /22 pounds and say that each log weight 2.5 kilos/5.5 pounds so you can have 4 logs per slot (it is just an example, no IRL weights). With that you can justify why only 4 logs per slot. 

I think that the actual size of the inventory is right as it is now. You know, there are times where even with all that space it's hard to get the items you need, specially at the beginning. There is an alternative that is quite simple and it might satisfy most people. First reduce the stack size of items (e.g., stone, logs, ores), with a reduction on the stack size of some items you actually force the player to think more about inventory without having complicate mechanics in the character inventory. Second thing, you have already a nice storage mechanic in game that can be used quite nicely: Clay pots. The idea is quite simple, you need to create a especial barrel made of metal if you wish. That barrel works in the same fashion as a Clay pot but just with much more space and capable of storing up to medium things or with the mechanic you like. On pick up it check your inventory to see if you have a second barrel and drop it if you have it (or apply a debuff if dropping an item is hard to program), also it starts a counter and give you one hour (or the time you seem fit) to put things in the barrel or  the barrel is dropped or it apply a debuff (like a heavy slowness). With that you can have a storage with some capabilities. What would be next part? Well, If you are going to implement things like a transport you can make that it only accept those barrels and other storage managers like Clay pots, and logs tied with a rope (4 ropes as a crafting recipe you make  a log storage with a simple concept: You use the rope to tight the logs as IRL). With this you do not break the balance of being a game that need a nice storage to build things (the essence of minecraft) and you put a limit in the storage capabilities. You force the player to think ahead because, although you have a nice space for different things/items you cannot store a great amount of those things in the same slot. Try it, chop a tree and divide those 16 logs per slot into 2~4 logs per slot  or your 32 dirt pile into 4~8 dirt per slot and, suddenly, your "big" inventory is not so big in the end. 

In the end it's all about prep time vs life span.  

I think that in reality it is harvest VS life span rather that preparation time. If you can gather fresh food constantly all year around you don't need food preservation at all. Food preservation served one main purpose "have a food stock for winter, when the food is scarce and that last long enough to the first harvest", they also helped humans to settle down because, after farming, food preservation reduced drastically the need of gathering. The thing right now is that people want food preservation because they want a way of stopping decay in order to have good stock of food for they needs (winter, large excursions, metal work focus, mining) but as the preservation system is planed that wont help too much to that purpose. What do I mean with that? Just for the sake of an example, 100oz of X food root from 0% to 100% in 3 days, if a preparation method is used that reduce the decay rate in half that food will last 6 days. Speaking in terms of gameplay, that is nothing, you spend those days easily in a mine and when you return your food is gone/lost or almost decayed. I do not know how people play right now but I delay as much as I can the harvest of my food because, once harvested it starts to decay, where in reality you want to harvest as fresh as possible so the ripen and preservation process work in conjunction to prolong the shelf life. What it should be is that after the preservation process the food stop the decay long enough to be viable (15~30 game days with 80%~90% of the food intact, from single player perspective, SMP is different and really need a way better preservation rate). If you give a really good boost for preservation you really need to increase plant's growth time to make both things worthwhile. That way, you put a great weight to exploration and gathering at the begging of the game before the farms kick in and the preservation methods worth the time you invest in them, when you start focusing in metal working and mining.

By the way, using the knife to remove from a piece of food reduce the decay rate but not as good as it is used here and handling food is the worst thing to do if you want it to last the longest, you only do it if it is really necessary to save your stocks.

I really like the idea, but the problems lies not in the code (I think this could be "easy", it can be done as a shapeless recipe if ) but more about of obtaining the first seeds. As things are right now we find a wild plant and harvest it no matter its developing state to get its seed. Unless you add a mechanic where the growth and/or the weight of the harvest are dependent on the origin of the seed rather than fixed value (new mechanics like weather if implemented are apart)

2. The y=60 thing was completely removed in build 78. Ore moves with the shape of the terrain, and can be found at any layer that it's correct rock type spawns at.

That is nice, just it adds one question. Right now I'm the correct layer of rock type for graphite, what can I expect from this? can I expect to find graphite 100% of the time (just have to search) or that there is a chance to find graphite in that layer?

Thank you very much. 

It is a shame that there are not going to be an extended grace period, I was thinking that would be great to plan my harvest to have it ready to be processed in fall to last all winter and the first harvest of spring easily. Anyway, that answer my questions.

I read that there are going to be a way to preserve food. I have some question and some thoughts.

1. Is preserved food be like slated meat (half the decay rate) or are you going to give us free days/months of zero decay and after that the decay normally?

2. At what 'era' are you going to make available this methods?

3. Are you going to reduce the weight of preserved food because of preservation method (like dry or smoke)?

4. Do you plan to have some food (aside from milk, since cheese is a way of preserving milk) to be treated or all food can be treated for preservation?

I asked these because I feel that the food decay as it is it too slow in the inventory and too fast in the chest/jar (or it seems as this). If you answer 1) as free days/months you can actually put more pressure to food preservation making the decay rate faster (IRL raw meat start to stink in a warm/hot day in few hours). That also mean that the sooner you got your preservation tools the better, since you can now actually store food in your chest/jar for days/months (as IRL) and some techniques are from the stone age (dry food and smoke meat). I think that free days/months would be better  in single player since you can have a much more realistic experience disabling the food protection option (when the chunk is loaded it just do a math operation to get how many days you left from food/chunk and reduce the days accordingly). In multiplayer games either options are hard to control since the world is "always on" unless you can do two things: store the last log-in and ownership of a preserved food and make it inedible and unable to decay if the player is not online. With that you can give some kind of off-line penalty (e.g., 1 day of food preservation per 5 days of IRL of being off-line) to ensure some kind of realism. 

I think that the length of the stone-age is good enough. If we want more realism or prolong the stone-age we would need the bone age before the stone-age, since bones where the one used to knap (the hardest material at his disposal at that point). As matter of fact, what it is called the stone age is a compressed version of the nomadic life (gathering) with the advance knowledge of agriculture (yes, it is advance for that time) and hunting. Prolonging the stone-age would mean to review how would be the "correct" (if any) way of moving through eras:

1 Gathering

2 Discovery of the bone and first tools made of bone (they probably obtained bones from corpses rather than hunting) 

3 Hunting / start of the stone-age

4 Agriculture

5 End of the stone-age / start of the metal-age.

But I fear that that would prolong in an unnecessary way the first few hours of the game and without real challenge (you want to settle as fast as possible to start moving into different things). The problem right now is to balance the metal age (I just started playing the game and I haven't had a single tool made from copper, because tools made from cooper are harder to make for me than bronze tools, since they require different quantities of metals making them easier to make). My problem right now is to move from the bronze era to the iron era. I just can't find graphite (yes, I mined in the the correct type of rock at y=60 as suggested and nothing, my black-bronze pike is almost breaking and I'm using correctly the pro-pick). I think that there should be different ways to obtain the same item because of different biomes.

I like the idea of drying food and smoking them. Dry food can last for a year or more and smoked meat and adding salt make them to last from six months to a year. The "downside" is that the food lose weight according to the water presented in that food (if meat has 40% of water, 100 oz of meat would yield 60 oz of smoked meat). With that in mind we can have dry vegetables and meat that not only reduce rooting, but also might stop it for some days/months (you can even have a preservation "level", the better you are the more free days/months you get). Here is the trick to balance it to an extend:

Vegetables are conformed mostly of water, you lose almost 80% or more of its weight if you dry them, but you keep some of its properties. You can say that a dried vegetable would lose 80% of its weight but "gain" 50~70% of its nutriment value (100 oz of a veggies has 100 points of "vegetable nourishment", 100 oz of dry veggies would have 150~170 points of nourishment, but to make 100 oz of dry food you need: 500 oz. of fresh veggies). The thing is that what you lose in weight you gain it in longevity. For dry veggies you might get from 6 moths to 1 year (affected by your preservation level) of no-spoiling (free days) and, after that that food start to root normally. With smoked meat you might have from 3 moths to 6 moths of free days and, if you smoke salted meat you get from 5 to 9 months of free days. Some cereals can be dried also, it can be done in the form of flour or, to keep it simple, as a dry grain.

Now, you can "easily" build a food drier and a smoker. For a smoker you can put 2 sticks over 2 stones (any kind) in your crafting box and open an UI similar to the grinding one where in one box you place a wood (for easiness any kind) and bowl of sliced meat meat (a knife, a bowl and meat in the crafting box) and lit the block. You can save some programming time and use the same smoker to dry also veggies and using the same recipe to generate sliced veggies to the mix.

Two things:

First, humans aren't nocturnal animals, our eyes can't see very well in the dark (they emulate that in minecraft reducing the "light" at night), whereas other animals have better or nocturnal eyesight or smell/hear senses. Cavemen hunted in group using tactical movements to corner their prey and they used weapons like javelins to kill them even if they were running, that is how they managed to kill faster or stronger animals than themselves. If you play in single player you don't have the support of your group and, unless you can train some dogs to help you, it is going to be hard. 

Second, in minecraft you have a little big problem at night and it's called "hostiles mobs" like  creepers and those fast spiders/baby zombies that would make night hunt almost impossible to do unless you erase them from the surface and reduce them to crawl in caverns and hunted castles/ cemeteries.