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mdtexeira

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About mdtexeira

  • Rank
    Wood Cutter
  • Birthday 09/12/1980

Profile Information

  • Gender Male
  • Location Duesseldorf, Deutschland
  • Interests Playing music, playing games (video and board), cooking, writing, sci-fi and fantasy novels, music composition, philosophy, teaching Yoga, giving and receiving massages, hugs, friends, my wife
  1. Etho does TerraFirmaCraft

    If you look at the stuff he's done on his LP world, I think you'd agree that Etho can accomplish what he sets his mind to. I guess the question is whether or not balancing the timing of refining blooms, ingots, welding sheets and such at the same time will be more or less interesting than troubleshooting a complex bit of redstone timing to find out where the bug is. He routinely cuts his video and announces that several hours have passed while he's been figuring something out. I imagine that's what will happen in the space between bloomery and blast furnace.
  2. TFC is missing a goal

    The idea of the almanac doing it for you was for servers in which a disaster might happen while you're logged off, but you might still want the information to better estimate when another disaster is likely to occur, and hence prepare for it, in the same way that people prepare for tornado or hurricane season. Sure, the disasters happen outside of our expectations, but a lot of meteorological disasters happen somewhat predictably. Regarding skill decay...I was saying that having all in-game ability based off of player skills allows someone who has a good memory to retain all their smithing skill even if 100 in-game years have passed since they touched an anvil. Having an element that is based off of in-game skill progression rather than player skill means that the character (as separate from the player) must remain invested in an ability in order to keep it optimized. Again, these ideas are really more about creating a reason for there to be more specialization, and hence functional economy, on MP servers where people congregate in towns.
  3. Skill mechanic suggestion

    I think we see things primarily the same way. I think player skill is paramount, and that the amount of dedication the character (not the player) has put into a task should ideally have some effect. Part of what I like about this idea is that is mirrors real life. In real life, even if you completely lack the characteristics to be really successful at something, having practiced it you will have more capability than someone who lacks the characteristics and the practice. So, the poison maker, even if he is not particularly innately skillful (the player's skill), will have some tricks that come from repetition and focus. What I like about this model is that it encourages specialization for servers, and, I think, will help build more cohesive communities which mirror real communities.
  4. Easy to Implement Ideas

    What if the payoff was a small buff that would last for a decent while? I imagine that nutrition dropping below a certain point would cause a decrease in ability...within a certain range everything would be normal, and for those who micromanage, a small buff could be attained...maybe a slight increase to speed (something that would benefit all activities other than forge work). Again, I don't feel there should be a huge benefit, but I feel that anything that the player pays significant attention to could ideally yield some benefit. If the system was designed well, it would be such that players who don't want to worry about it could still, with just a small amount of experimentation, get to a point where it's a non-issue. I mean, we all get through that patch without cheese just fine, don't we? Having max health and a little buff isn't a requirement, just something that is attainable. It would only be a detriment if the player had the dual neuroses of being a fastidious completionist AND someone who dislikes micromanaging. Then again, why would such a person play TFC at all.
  5. TFC is missing a goal

    As I've said elsewhere, the problem with making skills solely dependent on player skill is that it makes no distinction between a skilled player playing a veteran character and a skilled player playing a new character. Also, there's no reason to believe that people will necessarily forget one skill while they master another. I haven't played Dwarf Fortress for 6 months, but I'm pretty sure I still have most if not all the key-bindings memorized. Ultimately, that kind of gameplay penalized people with poor memories/motor skills. Persistence and the willingness to keep doing something that you've little aptitude for should count for something. I like the idea of disasters. Once you've got the farm up, the mines working, the metalworks built...there's nothing that can really harm you. Heck, you're pretty much invulnerable to everything but stupidity from the bronze age up. Personally, I'd use a seasonal system. So, certain events are tied to certain seasons, like tropical storms, droughts, etc. For server, use long cycles, like a certain kind of disaster which strikes between 45-60 years. At 45 years since the last one, RNG checks start. Every year that passes decreases the range until at 60 years, it's checking for a 1 rolled on a 1 sided die. Another disaster could have a totally different range. This could play in with my almanac idea, which could record those events even when you're logged off (for a MP server) and give relatively probabilities of an event happening in the book.
  6. Skill mechanic suggestion

    The problem with having systems which take real skill, or which utilize complex repeatable patterns is that people will find ways to copy those patterns without any skill involved. Also, we are not our characters. Ideally it should be a bit of both, so that having real life skill makes it easier to increase in-game skills. Otherwise, the fourth wall is broken, and you're no longer playing a character in TFC. When your skills develop to their maximum, your character can no longer increase. By having a hybrid system, the in-game skill system rewards the player for developing real life skill, such that, when you start a new world, you'll be back at square one, but it will take you less time to get as good as before. Of course, TFC already has this to a large degree. In my first world, my skill at figuring out a successful first-night shelter was sufficiently poor that I went to peaceful rather than get murdered. It wasn't until my 4th world or so that I perfected for myself a shelter design that was the right balance of resources for me such that I was able to focus on other first-night goals. I think in-game skills would have to be subtle, providing only a bit of additional padding to the success of one's actions in the game. Things like getting back a few more seeds with agriculture (while absurd) are functional examples. As far as I know, the skill never starts giving back dozens of seeds per plant. The benefits of getting the skill up are subtle enough that most sane people wouldn't consider grinding at farming just for a few extra seeds. Meanwhile, knowing which plants need which nutrients, and being aware of the weather and such, are still much more important for making agriculture efficient. So, for instance, with a paralysis poison, the skill wouldn't determine whether you successfully make it, but rather, a high skill would add a certain amount of duration to the effect. Combat skills could lower the enemies armor by a bit, for instance, to reflect skill at seeing openings and making finesse attacks. The player, however, would still have to have the skill to hit the other player for that bonus to matter. So, in-game skills that give effects only after the application of real world skills.
  7. Easy to Implement Ideas

    True, but you'll also know that corn, squash, beans, and rice will keep you fairly well nourished by themselves, among other combinations. As soon as you find a combination you have available then you're sorted. Meanwhile, other people can continue to experiment to find the optimal nutritional profile. Just like the anvil, you can find a series of strokes that works for you and just repeat that, regardless of whether its optimal, or you can keep experimenting until you develop for each item the successful pattern utilizing the fewest number of strokes. Anyway, there's ways to implement a more complex dietary system which rewards those who work on it without providing too large a penalty for those who are satisfied with 'not hungry'. I personally don't see the difference between search around for various ores, then mixing them at the right percentages to create alloys, then paying close attention while you heat them and work them, again having to find the right combinations to do so without wasting too much fuel...and searching around for various foods, and trying to mix them in different quantities to obtain different degrees of nutrition. The essential activity of search, acquire, experiment and succeed is there. In essence, what I've been talking about would merely make the food aspect of the game slightly more challenging for a little bit longer. It wouldn't require everyone to micromanage it, but would reward those who want to. Essentially that's in general what I like in a sandbox game...minor penalties for overlooking things, and minor rewards for putting in the time.
  8. More uses for sticks

    I've made a lot of comments on various other threads about this subject, so I thought, why no centralize them. Sticks are awesome. Besides being my favorite toy as a child, sticks are super useful...but not in TFC. Once you get to higher tiers, tools last long enough that you rarely need sticks for anything but torches, and, unless you're doing a lot of spelunking, you probably don't use THAT many torches. I have three full sized chests full of sticks because...well, because I'm a hoarder I guess. I feel instinctively that they should be useful. So, here's a place to put all our collective ideas about how to fulfill the potential of sticks. I'll start: Sticks burn...quickly...but they burn. Please let us use sticks as fuel. Sticks support. If they can support the force of a hammer, they can be used as framework for other structures as well. Give us more multiblock structures which use sticks. Looms, stretchers for tanning leather, easels, framework for earthen building, etc. Sticks hurt...when you get smacked with them. The first blunt damage weapon is a stick. Or a bone. But this is about sticks. Sticks in the garden. Perhaps planting tomatoes, beans, or corn could consume a stick. After all...I can see a stick. Where did it come from. Any more ideas? Soon I shall resort to tossing dozens of full stacks of sticks into the nearby river...nothing can prevent that now...but surely something else should be done. Edit: Just watching the new Etho LP for TFC, and he agrees....too many useless sticks.
  9. Smokehouse Multiblock Structure!

    I understand that...I'm thinking of sinew for things like binding sticks into stronger support beams, or threading through holes in a hide in order to stretch it for tanning. I've been far and wide in my current world and have seen exactly zero sheep. I basically have to hunt spiders for my string.
  10. Spices and seasoning: improving meals

    I think to really make use of seasonings in a way that respects rarity, the whole cooking system would have to be redone. I'd like to see cooking more like metallurgy, where there's timing involved, and maneuvers you can do. Instead of using bowls, have a craftable pot or pan. Each could have a different interface, with multiple inputs. Cooking in a pot would be much easier, but would be harder to produce tasty food in the absence of salt and spices. Cooking a pan would have more nuance (the addition of oil, either from plant or animal sources would be much appreciated) and require better managing of ingredients and timing. For instance, you'd add the oil to the pan first, and then, when the oil is the right temperature, you could add some seeds (mustard, cumin, coriander) until those seeds get hot, making sure to add the next ingredient before they get TOO hot. In essence, metallurgy is a mini-game, and I think it would be fun if cooking was too. Ultimately, all the cookable foods would have to be reworked to include a 'cooking time' range. Potatoes take a lot longer to cook than peppers, and also take a lot longer to overcook. So, potatoes cooking range would be both wider and further along the total temporal range than peppers. Of course, herbs are another matter. Some herbs are easily grown, and make almost any unseasoned dish taste more palatable.
  11. Stone Age Building Materials

    Why adobe, but not cob? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cob_(material) I've helped to build cob structures. It's very easy to work with, and requires only sand, clay, water and straw (well, fibrous material). If I were making my own house in a situation like TFC, I'd start with a lean-to while I spend time noting what in the area can be foraged and finding reliable fresh water sources. If the area I was in wasn't sufficient to support me food and water wise, I'd move on and keep constructing a lean-to while I scout the area. After I found a suitable area, I'd be looking to make a cob house. Cob doesn't require building molds, but generally requires that you can build a framework for your structure. The OP's idea about placing sticks would be sufficient, especially if the sticks could be lashed at junctions using animal sinew. Perhaps the ability to last sticks together into more structurally sound support beams would be useful as well.
  12. Smokehouse Multiblock Structure!

    I like the idea of different parts as well...but I want sinew as a low-tech replacement for string, and the ability to extract fat from the animals for the purpose of soap and candle making. Of course, none of this has anything to do with smoking meat...sooooo....
  13. Ideas about food preservation.

    You're right Allen...bacteria evolved for a certain balance of salt and sugar. Anything way outside that range doesn't support bacterial life. In the case of sugar, it causes the bacteria to lose water that they lack the machinery to reclaim. Without water, they cannot replicate, and thus, sugar in excess is indeed a functional preservative. Since no one has linked this yet, I'll do it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_preservation I want this: Cabbage + knife + vessel + salt = sauerkraut
  14. Charcoal pit

    Well, just to update and close this thread...I finally filled the room up again, and by removing the blocking block and adding it back, I was able to convert the whole chamber. It ended up netting me 10 full stacks and some change. I'm fairly satisfied with it. The only other change I made was replacing the floor with basalt bricks so that I didn't keep accidentally digging it up with my shovel during harvest.
  15. multiblocks and buildings/infastructure

    The tanning stretch would be easy enough...after placing the hide in tannin, place it in the middle of the 3x3 grid, with sticks in all four corners, and string filling the rest. You get the string and sticks back once the leather has cured. This is one situation in which I've realized that I want animals to drop sinew which could be used instead of string for such an activity. Perhaps there would be an intermediate step where you use a knife on the prepared hide to simulate cutting holes to thread the string through.