How do you feel about new charcoal mechanic?

[warfighter67 124]

• The firepit uses a new search algorithm, similar to tree felling which allows it to support charcoal pits of varying shapes and sizes up to 25m wide and 13m tall. In order to start the charcoal process a lit firepit simply needs 1 logpile on top of it. The firepit must still be lit at the base of the charcoal pile. Important: The charcoal is now spit out into the world and the firepit will disappear upon completion. This is not a bug, the firepit simply can’t hold that much charcoal.

I personally love that you can now make huge charcoal pits, but the fact that it gets spit out into the world worries me a bit. I can see this turning bad in a SMP server when you are logged off and your charcoal finishes, or in SSP if you are away from your base when it finishes.

I know this isn't a suggestions forum, but something to fix that would be:

When the charcoal finishes, the firepit disappears and a new block appears that looks like a big chunk of charcoal. What this is is actually similar to the logpiles where you can store your charcoal. It will have 4x4 slots for 16 stacks of 64 charcoal.

[GCountach 39]

I was concerned about that too, until I tried it. It turns into charcoal in like 15-30 seconds tops. I throw a block of sand ontop of the log pile(s). When it falls, clean up the sand and get your charcoal. Don't know if its a bug or feature though.

[Salvatos 10]

Hmm... speaking of the suggestion forums, there was already a post depicting, pretty much, exactly what your 'fix' would be.

http://terrafirmacra...harcoal-stacks/

And I for one would like something like that, but wouldn't be too surprised if the current setup is just a placeholder as Bioxx works out everything else.

[Jasnatdic 85]

The 10 to15 seconds thing was debug mode and it should be back to 18 game hours or so. Which is like 15 minutes. Also, the process should be suspended in unloaded chunks. So in smp if nobody is in load radius for the pit it shouldn't burn.

[Too-DAMN-Much 8]

i'm a bit worried about having just lose items be spit out onto the ground, sounds like it'll be far too easy to not receive any of your charcoal from it if you don't set a timer or something, but other than that it sounds great and even more so if the output gets it's own charcoal holding block like suggested above.

[ZeroBurn 0]

It would be cool if you could get a small reminder a minute or so before the charcoal pit was finished, a message saying "A charcoal pit is nearing completion" You have to find which one (If you have more than one) and be there in time. This way it can play as your character just remembering that the charcoal pit should be finished soon (you get messages for gold pans, etc so I don't see a problem with it). This would be nice in my opinion but then again it would make it easier and one of the things I love about this mod is its ramped up difficulty.

[HidingInTheLight 10]

Yeah. I like that you can make the pits bigger now, but it hasn't really helped me much, I've lost more coal then i've gained because I got busy doing something else and forgot about it, until it was to late.

A reminder would be nice, some sort of coal stack would be good, or even just updating the old mechanic with the firepit, but give the fire pit more storage room.

[Jasnatdic 85]

Could just have it search for chests in range and put the coal in there.

[Johnny_Madhouse 28]

I love the new mechanic, and I don't think a reminder is necessary. In SMP, I put a torch on the mound when I start it, and whenever I want to check it I just hit the torch to update the dirt blocks.

As for time, it's not bad at all if you press n to see what time it is when it starts and come back about twenty hours later. Even if you aren't RIGHT there, it'll hang around for five minutes real life time which is half a night minecraft time. There's plenty of leeway, and it's cool to have charcoal pits next to your lumberyard.

[XelNigma 11]

I like being able to make really big charcoal pits, how ever I do have problems with it on SMP getting stuck in the burning phase and never producing charcoal. After several days I end up just digging it up and putting out the fire. It seems as long as the second layer has a 3x3 log section over the firepit it will work, but any thing smaller (like a 3x3 cross shape or just a single log square over the fire pit) causes it to break.

Having it just dump the charcoal on the ground has caused me to lose alot of charcoal. this REALLY needs to be changed.

Like suggested above I think charcoal squares that function much like the log squares would fix this issue.

[benkc 1]

It seems as long as the second layer has a 3x3 log section over the firepit it will work, but any thing smaller (like a 3x3 cross shape or just a single log square over the fire pit) causes it to break.

Thank you! I couldn't figure out why my charcoal pit wasn't working, I'll try that.

[benkc 1]

A fuller charcoal pit did indeed solve my problems. I went with 3x2x3 (17 log piles). Oddly, though, my charcoal pit was still smoking at 18 hours. Afraid to interrupt it too soon, I got on the roof and started running and jumping all over it; it wasn't until about 24 hours that it stopped smoking and very quickly collapsed underneath me.

[The Shadow 8]

Personally, I like making *smaller* charcoal pits. I did a 3x3x2, and it gave me over a stack and a half of coal - plenty for what I needed.

[Too-DAMN-Much 8]

i have one thing to suggest for anyone annoyed by charcoal being spit into the world thus meaning there is a timer that you must gather the product within after it completes, build a small room directly on top of a 3x3x5 charcoal house, leave yourself only room for 1 torch, 1 air and 1 door, that way you can afk on top of your charcoal house and still be well within earshot of the firepit that is producing charcoal and know by sound the instant the charcoal is done, also one torch inside protects you from monsters spawning.

[Deviator 51]

The charcoal seems to spit out where the firepit was so how about something like this....

On the flat ground floor of your charcoal pit, dig 1 block out so that it is below the rest. Put logs covering the hole and the rest of the space for your charcoal pit and place your firepit in the same level as your log piles but on the block next to where your hole is. Now cover the pit with dirt except for the spot on top over where you dug the hole, in this spot you place sand. Stand on the sand block so when the charcoal pops out, you fall down right next to your firepit and suck up all the charcoal while AFK.

I know, I know... you all envy my sweet photoshop skillz! haha

[Deviator 51]

OK, just did another one this time putting logs in the firepit. I got 1.5 stacks less than when I didn't use logs in the firepit. I don't think fueling the firepit matters. I think it is just a random amount of return.

Also tested my theory about the sand block falling when the logs turn to charcoal.... didn't work. I just stood there as the fire went out and had to place a torch to get it to fall.

[psychotimo 5]

OK, just did another one this time putting logs in the firepit. I got 1.5 stacks less than when I didn't use logs in the firepit. I don't think fueling the firepit matters. I think it is just a random amount of return.

Also tested my theory about the sand block falling when the logs turn to charcoal.... didn't work. I just stood there as the fire went out and had to place a torch to get it to fall.

well, with some redstone and pistons you could make something to force the block to update so it'll fall, problem being... it's terrafirmacraft xP when you just started and are making a firepit it's impossible to do this xP (don't even know if there's something like pistons and redstone in tfc tbh... guess i never got that far xP )

[DaGoblin 3]

Not had too many problems with the new 'spit out' mechanic, but I do feel compelled to loiter fairly close to the pit now. It takes a great deal of effort most times to get a really stuffed-full charcoal pit set up and the risk of losing it all magically is disconcerting. Mostly because if I go off and do something else I tend to get distracted by that task and more time passes than I intended!

I like the idea of a charcoal block for sure - it'd save my nerves a bit when I do go work on other projects!

[eichermacher 0]

-snip- (don't even know if there's something like pistons and redstone in tfc tbh... guess i never got that far xP )

You can get redstone by crafting cinnabar, but I have no idea which rocks it spawns it. Not sure about pistons, but presumably you could enable vanilla recipe conversion to make it, if you can't make it otherwise.

[psychotimo 5]

You can get redstone by crafting cinnabar, but I have no idea which rocks it spawns it. Not sure about pistons, but presumably you could enable vanilla recipe conversion to make it, if you can't make it otherwise.

well, a small redstone clock could act as a block update contraption.

but to get back on topic a bit more: i really dislike the new charcoal mechanic, first time i tried it, i filled up a whole charcoal pit ( the regular ones, bottom part 5x5 top part 3x3) and lost it all cause i waited too long and it was still in debug mode :'s

took me a lot of time to gather all the wood and then i needed to do it again, since charcoal normally doesn't just disappear after it's been made and i'm sure a lot of people will frustratingly lose a lot of work by doing other things and returning to the charcoal pit too late, i really support the idea of making something like a charcoal block or something else to 'safeguard' the charcoal when you aren't in time to reach it.

[Majca 0]

I agree... Same thing happened to me. A recipient is needed to prevent the charcoal from disappearing.

[MortisLegati 0]

Charcoal block. Make its tool the shovel and have the algorithm that snoops around the pile, rather than produce charcoal pieces, exchange the log blocks for those. There could be a metadata value to indicate how much they break into or how much you receive from each block when crafting it to produce charcoal (it would probably work out to not give a single unit of charcoal for single-log or so log piles).

This way, charcoal piles couldn't technically kill people (Oh, there's nothing for 13 blocks below this unsupported dirt bl-fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu), since there would be blocks supporting the shell, just like with the original log piles.

Heck, the charcoal blocks could operate akin to the log piles, just a different texture and a different substrate.

[Phaedin 5]

Good to note on wiki that it no longer smokes when properly built.

EDIT: Also if there is anything in the DIRECT (block touching the cover or side blocks) vicinity of the pit; tree, rocks, tall grass, etc. They will light on fire. (This happened using Dacite Bricks to cover and surround the pit)

Do we know if opening to check on the charcoal resets its timer?

Answer: It does not.

[Raumis 1]

My pit is made from bricks, and I have a piece of glass in the top to look inside when its done.

[Salvatos 10]

Well if you want a cheap way to scope out your charcoal pit, wooden doors are currently fireproof. (Idea from Crysyn)

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