ThinkTank

Might be an idea for bioxx to establish the sort of things the mod wont be doing technology wise, rather than date cut offs. Otherwise its always going to be the 'but X was used in Y' debates over and over.

If you have a 2/3 block high placable for a stamp mill, with a big block coming smashing down on another. Would be a perfect model for another technology later down the line. (place die on surface, smash white hot iron or steel into it, good times)

Steam power and pistons were a technology that could have developed and spread much earlyer than the 17-1800's. This is a particularly good read for anyone intrested in the development of more complicated technology, and why it happened when and where it did. Much (not all) of the delay on things like pistons which pushed them to the 'forbidden zone' can be traced to philosophical blind spot on the existance of vacume, and later the understanding of heat and energy. Not because people couldnt construct these things, more because of little facets of history that pushed societys understanding in diffrent directions. Although I'd always prefer larger dynamic machines constructed using wheels, weights and pullys, than the single block pistons powered by magic and unicorns (seriously how do vanilla pistons even work?).

Always thought of it more as a Civ game where you start out with a few sticks and a rock, and have to go from that to a functioning society (or at least the bits where someone hasnt made a gigantic lava spewing phallus out of cobble). But then I'v never used singleplayer for much more than testing out designs. Maybe bigger biomes would be nice, so it takes you about a minecraft day to get from one side of a biome to the other. Although that would mean that if your current biome layers dont have the minerals your after, its going to be a treck in whatever direction before you can start looking for new resources. As for the D&D bit, I believe they are making adventure mode a toggled option for worlds.

A good point here, a system which took in water at one end and put it out another (like the sluice interface maybe) would still need to use a water source alot higher than where your taking it to. I'v seen a few suggestions for mountain valleys/streams/lakes/waterfall biomes and higher aquifers someplace, mainly for sluices and the like, but equaly applicable to this sort of construct.

Throwable rocks sounds intresting. Need to hit somthing far away? OK, pick up that lump of granite, and pitch it at the creeper. Well done, you just invented mankinds earlyest form of ranged weaponry! Now start running, that creeper looks pretty mad. Converting a number of bones and string into a bone support block would be hilerious if impractical. (temple of doom held up by bones)

Hmm, anyone know what texture packs those videos use?

the complexity is always optional. (after all, bloomery level gives you most of what you'd have in vanilla as is) Overall I'd recommend any sort of machinery focusing on a few simple (comparativly) dynamic blocks you can create in a crafting gui and can be combined with some form of power source to produce effects. The bar/nut/wheel/chain blocks implyed by that old post seems a good lego set for players to develop their own levels of complicated from then on. Big 'dynamic' mechanics you can see happening tend to be a bit more transparent than some of the more invisible rules of redstone that you can only figure out by error, or reading a few pages of eletronic diagrams. But either way, somthing for the future. Theres still alot of tweaking, prodding and occasionaly bashing with a hammer, to be done to the foundation levels of TFcraft befor we get to anything as high level as dynamic machines.

Making picks reduce stone blocks piece by piece in the same manner as chisels, but taking double or trriple the 'shaving' size with each hit. (so for delicate work, stairs and smoothing you still need a chisel) When encountering ore, each bit of block knocked off produces a piece of ore, or a small piece of ore similar to the surface shards. Pros: a more natural tunneling experience, potential way to make ore veins with larger resource amounts without to many extra blocks. Cons: much slower than normal mining, having to rework cave-in mechanics.

Generaly I was thinking along the lines of giving the option of increaing vein yield by upping how many ore chunks drop every time a pick smashes off a chunk of ore bearing rock. From what I know Bioxx already thought over a similar semi-infinite ore block system, but went with the 'numerous small surface deposits and rare large deep deposits' system thats in the current build. so who knows, having a block just drop what it would have droped anyway but split it up between chunks removed, with the option of increasing or decreasing that later on, seems a nice hook for any changes later down the line. But long story short, when mining using a chisel, it felt more like mining to me, and left a rougher more random tunnel surface behind me as I went. (I might even have to make some effort in future to keep my random burrowing level for when I install some minetracks)

If it was anything as awesome as this (eg make a wheel place a wheel, make a chain, place a chain, make a hook place a hook etc): It would be awesome. I'v personaly always liked things like the forge and bloomery, that required multiple blocks to function. But I'll be the first to admit I have no idea the level of work somthing like that would require.

True, the yield values would need looking at, a simple way might be having as many pieces as the block would ordinarly drop in one go, drop one at a time as you reduce the block to nothing. If your looking to seriously pack more ore into a smaller space (eg super veins), the block could drop a piece each time you take off a layer. That really would keep you going for a long time. Tryed the premise with a red steel chisel the other day, at the speed a chisel does it, it takes around 3 seconds to reduce a single block to nothing if your just holding down the key, (10 layers for each block). However after a bit of time I'd ended up with a great looking tunnel, and felt like I was actualy chipping away at a proper rock face. If it was a bit faster, like say knocking x2 as many layers off for each breaking animation (5 layers for each block), would be slower but not as ridiculous as all that once you had a metal pick. Considering also how many times you can smash a pick against a surface per second in minecraft is a alot faster than swinging a pick around in real life. Its one of those things that would need a bit of community feedback on realistic vs tedious.

Its a pity BTW is just so spiky when it comes to compatability, no idea what flowerchild is going to do when 1.4 rolls around with a universal mod API. While a long time ago, some intresting ideas regarding machines larger than just one block in minecraft. http://www.minecraft...tures-machines/

Daveyx0's done a fair bit on smaller mobs , including various fish if thats of intrest.

Goldpanning is Sluices-lite, I'd only use it to confirm what a river biome is actualy producing befor decideing if its worth making a Sluice system or not. Same way you'd use a propick to go 'yep thats a big lump of ore right enough' then get your proper mining pick out.

Adds a step toward prospecting as the first stage of going out and finding a place to settle and start building even after the stoneage. >find loose ore on surface >create sluice to y/n deeper supervein >explore caves >site shaft mine if high enough concentration detected

As far as I can grasp this. Sluices are, along with searching for surface ore, static methods for finding where concentrations of ore are in your world. The detection range can pick up stuff a fair way down, so if your sluice starts spitting out alot of iron ore, well done you have found a spot to site a mine when your out of the stone age. Pans now serve a additional function a propicks at a stoneage level. But yes, it seems you cant start mining right off the bat. You need to collect ore from the surface, build sluices to sieve ore or pan for ore chunks in river biomes. A bit trickyer than just slaping together a stone pick, but it brings back the whole prospecting field of the mod into more focus. Personaly I never got around to useing a sluice in previous game worlds, now its a vital tool. Also great news on the land generation changes, the coherance of the cave systems and the greater space for more varied ore forms to spawn is well worth losing that 4th layer of stone for. I'd still like to hear from anyone, if the new generation code is open for individual players to tweak like Better Ore Distribution has its own txt files linked to the mod.

wooden beams that didnt require upright supports would be nice, say if you chiseled out a hole in the supporting wall, and placed a horizontal support they would merge up leaving you with some nice ceiling beams. Somthing like this.

now you too can experience the joys of haveing several tons of prime lumber land on you!

http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/1107057-125v5-custom-ore-generation-ie-ore-veins/page__hl__%20wireframe%20%20mod the long vein systems here are intresting on that note.

Does anyone know if the new generation system is manualy adjustable in the same way marcopolo1613's Better Ore Distribution is?

While gold isnt too critical to TFcraft, pretty much every other big/popular mod uses a fair bit of gold (and redstone for that matter). Just worth keeping in mind.

A distribution of many but small ore deposits near the surface, and few but huge ore deposits deeper down, or in the center of extreme mountain regions, would seem appropriate. Enough ore on the surface for 10+ players to progress up the tiers, and create infrastructure needed to slap down a large scale mine to get at one of the rare superveins, so they can get enough raw materials to fuel individual or group projects. A big issue with the whole locating the large deposites deep down thing, is that (in my experience anyway) you tend to find that cave systems are sliced off by the next layer down, thats when you get those cave passages that 'sink' into solid rock. It seems that generation of the passages and spaces is having problems maintaining cohesion across the layer boundaries (you can also see this occasionaly on the sea floor, when ocean terrain generation it hits the layer of rock and flattens out). This means finding a way down to the lower strata where you might pro-pick a motherload is pretty hard. Personally Im in favor of a less honeycombed underground than you find vanilla. But if there are fewer cave systems, the ones that do turn up need to work down the layers.

I'd say 'best played with friends', and not just because it seems a better way to play with the TFcraft mod. As of the next few updates it looks like minecraft will be merging SSP and SMP into one, as part of the run up to a workable mod API. So if you are ever frustrated with wandering around on your own, your just a local network connection away from inviting people into your world. On a less postive note: Jens Bergensten For resource hungry mods, this could mean SMP or nothing for however long it takes to get to 1.4. In short, its a distinct possibility that mods will need to be multiplayer (even multiplayer only for a while) if they are to keep up with the game. So if alot of the problems stem from tackling TFcrafts diffculty curve alone, that, along with singleplayer as we know it may become a thing of the past.

A distribution of small surface deposites, and large deep veins should provide enough initial scarecity to encourage a group of players to explore and gather enough materials to make digging deeper possible. I personaly see no problems with huge veins, as the point would be not to be able to grab everything in one go. Rather I see the superveins as the starting point for more complicated infrastucture, working mines and the like and a gathering area for a server population. The goal is not just the extraction of the ore, but that that amount of ore can be turned into things, like towns, industry and travel. Centers of population built up around places where trade, raw materials, industry and agriculture were. As of the next few updates it looks like minecraft will be phasing out single player in favour of multiplayer, so issues with distribution, inventory space and mining being difficult for just one person will become moot in anycase. If you find one of the motherlodes, it will be you and everyone else helping to dig it up; and at that point it would need to be that size to feed the demands of that server population.