Finish making minerals useful

[Bobbias 0]

Please, for the love of god, make this stuff useful. It's sad when I happen upon a MASSIVE saltpeter deposit and I sit there mining the whole thing out just so it doesn't pollute my readings (Coincidentally there was some magnetite hidden under the saltpeter which would have been nearly impossible to track down if I hadn't decided to just dig all the saltpeter up)

I'd love to see an actual use for many of these materials, because as it stands most of them are totally pointless to even include in world generation in the first place.

[Jed1314 420]

Please, for the love of god, make this stuff useful. It's sad when I happen upon a MASSIVE saltpeter deposit and I sit there mining the whole thing out just so it doesn't pollute my readings (Coincidentally there was some magnetite hidden under the saltpeter which would have been nearly impossible to track down if I hadn't decided to just dig all the saltpeter up)

I'd love to see an actual use for many of these materials, because as it stands most of them are totally pointless to even include in world generation in the first place.

Unfortunately, the scale of this mod really makes it difficult to implement all the features at once. Please be patient.

Additionally, this wasn't really suitable for the suggestions thread. It is more of a general complaint. While it is true you have "suggested" he finish the minerals, you've not added anything to the forum in doing so.

Please try and make sure your posts are relevant and constructive

[Bobbias 0]

I feel like you misunderstood the point of my post. I understand that the mod is quite large, and still under heavy development. However, as it stands there is literally zero reason to include the minerals in the world generation. It's fine to add a new block and leave that block as unattainable until you have further use for it. Ore generation is rather.... frustrating, to say the least, right now. I feel like including these blocks in world generation just adds to it by polluting the world with large pockets of literally useless material. There are two solutions: remove minerals until they are useful, or add content that makes them useful.

It'd bad design to leave the user with useless items, unless the item was designed expressly to be useless. I feel like the developers might not have a debug build separate from the release build, which is generally a bad idea. If the devs want to make sure ore generation works correctly with minerals and such then that should be in the debug build, not the release build. At least not until there's a legitimate reason for them to be included in the release build.

Remember, when minecraft was in heavy development, notch was often playing with things long before the community ever got to see them, and the community usually only got to see it when the block/item was at least in a useful state.

[EternalUndeath 1,208]

Please, for the love of god, make this stuff useful. It's sad when I happen upon a MASSIVE saltpeter deposit and I sit there mining the whole thing out just so it doesn't pollute my readings (Coincidentally there was some magnetite hidden under the saltpeter which would have been nearly impossible to track down if I hadn't decided to just dig all the saltpeter up)

I'd love to see an actual use for many of these materials, because as it stands most of them are totally pointless to even include in world generation in the first place.

1) I believe that saltpeter, sulphur, and charcoal is a gunpowder recipe at present. I believe.

2) Bioxx has (quite intelligently) done the Eloraam thing of adding ALL generation mechanics he can think of first, and then giving them uses later. This prevents the need for almost daily world regenerations later in development and allows you to keep a given world for much longer

[UnderCuvaHippo 27]

Agreeing with Death here, he is adding it all in even without a current use so he can just add in the use later on without massive changed to the world gen so you can run through several updates without having to reset your map every time you play. It all has a purpose even if we don't know it yet so just let him do his thing.

[Bobbias 0]

1) I believe that saltpeter, sulphur, and charcoal is a gunpowder recipe at present. I believe.

2) Bioxx has (quite intelligently) done the Eloraam thing of adding ALL generation mechanics he can think of first, and then giving them uses later. This prevents the need for almost daily world regenerations later in development and allows you to keep a given world for much longer

1) I saw no indication on the wiki, and never ran into anything actually confirming if you could do that.

2) While that is understandable, this mod is still in early development, and you should expect to need to regen the world fairly often.

Ultimately, Bioxx has the final say anyway, but I just feel like the focus is on some of the wrong things when it comes to how to present the mod to it's players during development. Of course, deciding how to present something heavily in development is not easy. I just feel like with the constant changes to world gen that we're seeing anyway (block edge issues, changes in ore distribution) coupled with the speed of development, that there are likely to be changes to the generation algorithm anyway.

I kinda feel like they probably should have left them out, kept them as private development only blocks and made an announcement after they've implemented at least some of the uses for the minerals telling us that there will be a major update and world regenerations will be required. Not everything has to be pumped out the moment it's considered finished, especially if it's a large change. Sometimes leaving things out can ultimately lead to longer times of not needing a world regen. I mean, this thing is still in beta releases, which should mean that anything and everything can change on a moment's notice. We should be seeing the ability to even play it as a privilege and everything should be devoted to heavy backend and content development until they get to a point where things are mostly fleshed out, at which point they transition to a "polish and playability" type development focus.

Ultimately it's up to Bioxx how to run things, but I just feel like there might be better ways to handle some things.

[EternalUndeath 1,208]

1) I saw no indication on the wiki, and never ran into anything actually confirming if you could do that.

The wiki also doesn't list half of the metals you're supposed to make tools out of. The wiki is just fucking woeful.

[DarkLadyPhoenix 62]

Not to mention it gets outdated each and every patch. We've gone as long as a week or as short as half an hour between updates. This game is updated ridiculously often and the wiki just can't keep up that fast. To me, it seems strange, not to mention incredibly rude to come in here and bitch about something so tiny (You could have asked instead of demanded) when there are far larger things at stake, far larger things to worry about at the moment like say, no ore spawning or not getting it to melt at all?

You picked a poor time to post this and poor word choice. I hope your next post is more fitting to this community.

[dunkleosteus 2,425]

1) I saw no indication on the wiki, and never ran into anything actually confirming if you could do that.

2) While that is understandable, this mod is still in early development, and you should expect to need to regen the world fairly often.

Ultimately, Bioxx has the final say anyway, but I just feel like the focus is on some of the wrong things when it comes to how to present the mod to it's players during development. Of course, deciding how to present something heavily in development is not easy. I just feel like with the constant changes to world gen that we're seeing anyway (block edge issues, changes in ore distribution) coupled with the speed of development, that there are likely to be changes to the generation algorithm anyway.

I kinda feel like they probably should have left them out, kept them as private development only blocks and made an announcement after they've implemented at least some of the uses for the minerals telling us that there will be a major update and world regenerations will be required. Not everything has to be pumped out the moment it's considered finished, especially if it's a large change. Sometimes leaving things out can ultimately lead to longer times of not needing a world regen. I mean, this thing is still in beta releases, which should mean that anything and everything can change on a moment's notice. We should be seeing the ability to even play it as a privilege and everything should be devoted to heavy backend and content development until they get to a point where things are mostly fleshed out, at which point they transition to a "polish and playability" type development focus.

Ultimately it's up to Bioxx how to run things, but I just feel like there might be better ways to handle some things.

uhh... glad you took the time to state your opinion?

[Bedgar 13]

I feel like you misunderstood the point of my post.

I feel obliged to point out that maybe Jed missed the point of your post because you didn’t write the point of your post?

Nowhere in your first posts did you suggest something like:"maybe they should remove all the ores that have no use yet from the release patches?" you just asked for the dev to make them useful and pointed out that they were useless. Not the same thing.

Now as for your idea I think eternal is right on this one. Just because we should expect the need to regen our worlds often doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to avoid it as much as possible.

[Lumireaver 101]

I don't know, guy. Your take on project management is nice and professional, but I prefer the open, mostly transparent approach Bioxx is taking.

[EstebanLB 183]

Also, seems like everyone is missing something.When minerals get an use, you will still get polluted readings

[Bedgar 13]

Having an option to turn the less useful (useless) ores off from the pickaxe seems like a better solution to me then removing the ores.

[EstebanLB 183]

That would be cheating!

[DoodTheDud 29]

Depends. The propick itself is meant to simulate what? Very subtle signs that show a certain metal would be nearby. The shape of the rock, the past presence of water, slight mineral dust, etc. That's what I've always figured anyways. If someone was looking for certain ores, surely they could tell the signs of each ore? Or groups of ore?

[GCountach 39]

Bioxx's sticky thread in this very subforum seems relevant here:

Any threads suggesting a change to the Prospecting Pick to make it easier or more accurate will be summarily terminated. In any system that I implement, I try to do justice to the folks that do these things for real. Prospecting takes years to learn and master. As such, prospecting in TerraFirmaCraft is a skill. It CAN be mastered. In fact there are quite a few people who have already discovered how to use it to great effect.

This is the nature of TerraFirmaCraft. Not everyone will be good at everything. This is by design. I don't WANT everyone to be masters at everything. Please accept this. Thank you.

It seems when there is minerals like saltpeter around, other ores seem to alway be near/connected to it. Clicking with the pick in other places should make them show up, but it's of course not certain. If nothing else, you should try to find the edges of the saltpeter (or any other mineral, that is just the one given in the OP) to see if any other ore is visible. Trying to get the pick changed to be easier though isn't going to happen.

Related to the actual thread though, I agree that minerals need to be more fleshed out, but I have no idea what any of the minerals are for IRL so I can't provide any worthwhile suggestions. I've gone through so many threads thus far that my head is spinning with facts, speculations, and conflicting reports. I thought I read though that saltpeter can be used to create gunpowder though? Wikipedia says it's real world use is in fertlizers and gunpowder, so it seems likely it will be if it isn't already.

[EternalUndeath 1,208]

I have no idea what any of the minerals are for IRL so I can't provide any worthwhile suggestions.

/

Wikipedia says it's real world use is in fertlizers and gunpowder

Wikipedia is your friend. It's there for you. Don't be shy.

[GCountach 39]

True, but then I recall a time I used it to determine the release date for, I believe, Battlefield Bad Company 2. At the top right of the wiki page for it (whatever game it was), the platforms were listed as "Xbox 360, PS3, PC, Your Mom". While I got a good laugh out of it, it still made me cautious to getting my info from there. But here we go!

Bituminous Coal:

Going by its wiki page, it's main use seems to be to make "coke" which is used to produce cast iron in a blast furnace (bloomery). We already have that with charcoal, so my idea is this:

1.) Bituminous Coal and Charcoal are the same thing, game wise. This is how it is pretty much now, but you can only use it in the forge and not in a bloomery for some reason...

2.) On top of 1.), Bituminous Coal can be cooked in a forge to create "coke". Coke can be used in bloomeries and forges. It would burn hotter and/or longer than coal/charcoal. That's the benefit for making it. I'd prefer longer as, if it were hotter, it may become a requirement for higher tier ores and it would be annoying having to mine for it AND the higher tier ores.

Borax:

Borax has only two uses worth mentioning here. One is as a flux (which is already in the game) and the other is as a food preservative, which isn't in the game but has been suggested. If that feature makes it in, borax could be one way to preserve food.

Cryolite:

Read about this one and olivine (see below), I have to wonder if Bioxx planned to add aluminum. Cryolite is apparently kind of rare and is used to separate aluminum out of the ores. I won't pretend I know what I'm talking about here, so I'll just give you the wiki quote "The difficulty of separating aluminum from oxygen in the oxide ores was overcome by the use of cryolite as a flux to dissolve the oxide mineral(s)." Without aluminum, there's only one other use for it and that's as a insecticide and a pesticide. Assuming it ever comes to the point you need that in the game, there are other minerals that will also do the job and they are probably more common....

Cinnabar

Currently, cinnabar is how you get redstone. That seems to be a good use for it since it's only other use is to obtain mercury. Mercury could be used to make mirrors, as an antiseptic on cuts, or as a "wobbler lure" in fishing. Since medicine isn't in the game yet, and mirrors seem.... well, pointless, the only other use for cinnabar would be the lure bit. Perhaps somehow adding the lure to your fishing rod will improve your catch rate is the only reason I could see adding mercury and frankly that doesnt' seem worth it.

Graphite:

Graphite has a lot of uses, almost all of them are quite modern advancements though. That said, it can be used to increased the carbon content in steel. That could perhaps allow you to get higher quality steels in other ways than currently available. Ideally it wouldn't be required to get what steel you can already get. That seems hard enough. An example would be black steel. Currently, you have to make black steel by combining steel, nickel, and black bronze. After you create that, you have to weld it to pig iron and hammer it to produce black steel. In that case, it would be useful to allow you to just use graphite instead of pig iron to get the higher carbon steel, but you could still do it with pig iron if you didn't have graphite. Its other and much more obvious use is as a writing tool. That could help you write books or plans and allow you to not need ink, though it's rarity would be an unncessary barrier to metal working. Having it and ink would mean you'd always use ink too.... so the carbon bit seems to be the most likely use.

Gypsum:

Amongst other things I learned today, apparently gypsum is used in drywall. That has zero relevance to TFCraft, but I thought it was interesting. Another and more useful purpose is in "Fertilizer and soil conditioner". Given it's apparent commonality in my ore readings, it seems like a reasonable subsitute for vanilla MC's bone meal. It's also used in making mead, but then we need bees and all that jazz, so we'll just stick with bone meal replacement for now.

Jet

Jet is apparently not so much a mineral as it is a gemstone... so... hmm. That's what I got from the wiki page anyhow. Gemstones are kind of out the scope of this topic. It's really black though. Could be used as a dye, but like graphite, it would be much harder to find than ink sacks so its difficult to determine a purpose for it.

Kaolinite <-- No longer spawns

Apparently it can be used as an organic insect repleant or to surpress hunger. Surpressing hunger bit is interesting as it could eat it instead of bread or whatever, but it doesn't spawn anymore going by the wiki entry, so it doesn't really matter.

Kimberlite

Drops diamonds like a boss. That's its only purpose in life so no need to change that.

Lapis Lazuli

Lapis seems to only have decorative uses in the real world. Keep it as a blue dye.

Lignite

Lignite is apparently pretty crappy coal. It's only real world purpose is for power generation and they don't even bother to transport it any further than they have to. As it is now, it's a replacement for charcoal which seems fine. Alternatively and/or on top of, it's brown color could possibly be used to obtain brown dye.

Olivine

Only meaningful thing I found about olivine is "The aluminium foundry industry uses olivine sand to cast objects in aluminum." So perhaps you can use it to make ceramic molds?

Petrified Wood

Going by the wiki article, it seems to have absolutely no use what so ever. I think it's actually a fossil? Anyway, the article did say that the color of the wood can be changed by what is in it, such as copper or iron oxide. Perhaps there would be some way to obtain one or both of these metals from it. Otherwise I can't see a use for it and it I know it spawns in the game still.

Pitchblende

It's radioactive, but I'm fairly certain that nuclear reactors are a bit further along in the time scale than Bioxx is shooting for. That said, it apparently decays to lead which is already in the game. Perhaps throwing this stuff into a bloomery would get you lead back, though at lesser amounts than lead rich ores?

Saltpeter

Saltpeter has two noteworthy uses: Fertilizers and gunpowder. The later seems more useful. Combine it with charcoal and sulfur maybe, you got gunpowder for TNT. This isn't an orignal idea, as it has been mentioned before.

Satinspar and Selenite

These are apparently just varieties of the mineral gypsum. The wiki article says "Because of the long history of the commercial value and use of both gypsum and alabaster, the four crystalline varieties have been somewhat ignored, except as a curiosity or as rock collectibles." Sounds like a fancy way of saying useless. Don't think they spawn anymore anyway, but if they did, even if it wasn't realistic, they should be comparable to gypsum in use.

Serpentine

The wiki article states "Soil cover over serpentinite bedrock tends to be thin or absent. Soil with serpentine is poor in calcium and other major plant nutrients, but rich in elements toxic to plants such as chromium and nickel." I'm thinking, similar to pitchblende, throwing this into a bloomery should yield nickel, though in smaller quantities than nickel-rich ores.

Sulfur

The noteworthy uses of sulfur seem to be fertilizer, fungicide and pesticide, and bacteriocide in winemaking and food preservation. Since none of that stuff is in the game yet, its fallback is an ingredient in making gunpowder.

Sylvite

"Its principal use is as a potassium fertilizer" says the wiki. Lot of fertilizers on this page for a game without the need of them. Perhaps in a later update.

It should be noted that while Kaolinite is the only one I saw in the wiki that was stated as non-existent in new worlds, I'm fairly certain it's not the only one. Ore generation experiments I've done have seem to shown that only bituminous coal, lignite, gypsum, petrified wood, sulfur, jet, and saltpeter currently spawn. Same data also shows that native gold and platinum don't spawn though, which I know is false, so don't take my word for it. The most important take away from this is, with exception of gunpowder creation and wheat fertilizer, most of these minerals are dependent on other aspects of the game being developed before they have a use that's equivalent to their real world use. Most notably agriculture, distilleries, and medicine. That said, if I were to take a shot at finding a purpose for the ores, this is what I'd use them for.

Thank you for reading my wall of text and apologies for any grammatical errors or what seems like mindless rambling.

[Jed1314 420]

-snip-

True, everything on wikipedia must be taken with a grain of salt unless you can find a decent citation attached

As regards the research, well done ! That is a comprehensive list of the uses of these minerals.