Build 49 first impressions

[Najual 46]

First of all thank you Bioxx for getting this out even though it's still kinda buggy. We know you're working hard on it and we'll try to help with reporting issues.

Because it's MC 1.3.2 you don't have to go hunting for old .jars or reverting anymore. Same with other mods that aren't required for core TFC like Rigasumi's Mod Loader, Smart Moving, and Rei's Minimap. Just grab the latest ones, and start with a clean vanilla install of current MC. TFC has never been easier (for me at least) to load up and get busy.

Edit: Anvils are working (49e), you can test past the stone age now. Check the changelog here: http://www.terrafirm...com/change-log/

Right. That said, here's what I think of it so far:

Starting out is really about the same as it has been. Gather sticks, rocks, wood, food, etc. before it gets dark. In three seeds and three versions, spawn was in a mid-latitude area with common features - mountains to the north, ocean to the south, a mix of forest and open terrain, very much like starting on the coast of a pangea in Civ. In the new terrain gen, regional features and water are typically massive, so there's not much point in heading off in some random direction to find your favorite jungle over the next hill. You'll have to make do with what's available. Otherwise your chances of survival go down about as fast as the sun on that first day because you're going to have to hide like the naked ape coward that you are. Mob spawn appears to be increased across the board.

Before I knew that anvils weren't working yet, I did my usual rock gathering for nuggets. They were all granite, everywhere. Looks like the geology defaults to granite in most of the world. Ok, so not a lot of variety there. Granite works. Cass and bismuth nuggets were surprisingly frequent, or maybe I was just lucky, but I find that unlikely in three different seeds. Range seems to have been increased for rocks and sluices picking up deposits beneath them. That's both good and bad. You'll get more nuggets for your effort, but the ore can be is much deeper than before. The only visible surface deposits I found flying around in creative were in chasms. TNT crater mining revealed almost zero ore, and some of those were very deep. I haven't even gotten a hint of copper yet. So, running around smacking the ground with a propick is very unlikely to get you anywhere now. You're going to have to work for that ore and it may be a long time before you find any. Tier 0 tools should be somewhat easier to get with nuggets though. I think it's a good balance shift toward challenging but not impossible.

So I have a few stacks of two kinds of nuggets. I dug a hole in the ground, with a wooden door, a nice granite floor, and a wood block roof. I have fire pits a-blazin' and hickory smoked steaks on the grill. That new stone anvil is waiting to be hammered. Time to melt down those... wait, I haven't even seen any clay. Thus began the quest for clay, and I was never so happy to finally see some on a small river bank after cruising along the coast in a boat for two days. I was wondering if the color or pattern had been changed and I just didn't recognize it. It doesn't spawn practically everywhere near water anymore. So keep that in mind when choosing a location to build. In fact, I wouldn't get too attached to any place you put a bed because you might have to move to where more or better resources are. Not to mention the rapid changes this build is going through right now. A 49c map I spent a few hours on wouldn't load in 49d. No great loss, we've been warned in the changelog.

Clay update (possible spoiler):

Having played 49e for awhile on a new map, turns out it's not quite as rare as I thought. Still not as common as before but now it has soil covering it most of the time so it's not as easily visible

from a distance. If you're having problems finding it like I was, dig around a bit on lake and river shorelines, and look closer at that first layer underwater.

Overall TFC is indeed becoming a more Civ-like experience in a huge world. SSP is somewhat like playing with no other civs, and in SMP (when it becomes more stable for servers) there will be more need for cooperation or hostilities over limited resources. Good stuff.

[Sirbrandino 7]

Great review, glad someone put something together for us who haven't tested it.

[mrpwase 66]

I've noticed clumps of trees occurring where previously you'd have either a forest or almost nothing. That's a really cool effect, it makes the world feel a lot more real.

[Leosallespoli 338]

Trees are amazing, if you get a chance to see a sequoia it is really good looking, and there is more dirt and sand colors making biomes look even more distiguished from oneanother

[EstebanLB 183]

Did you started a new world to just play it and complain about the state of it or to help Bioxx find bugs quickly? Because for me it looks like the former.

[scotty2 11]

The only visible surface deposits I found flying around in creative were in chasms. TNT crater mining revealed almost zero ore, and some of those were very deep. I haven't even gotten a hint of copper yet.

I have a script that analyzes ore distribution. There are no Y>=144 (sea-level) ores anymore.

Even the formerly common "surface-level-ish" ores like sphalerite are now down at the 105ish level (far outside of range for a propick).

I suspect this isn't on purpose... I feel like the change that made the starting surface ores more common at surface level and above (I love finding ores in cliffs!) made me 100% more committed to this game, and I'd hate to think that change was reverted on purpose. Until we hear for sure, I will remain optimistic

[Najual 46]

I have a script that analyzes ore distribution. There are no Y>=144 (sea-level) ores anymore.

Even the formerly common "surface-level-ish" ores like sphalerite are now down at the 105ish level (far outside of range for a propick).

I suspect this isn't on purpose... I feel like the change that made the starting surface ores more common at surface level and above (I love finding ores in cliffs!) made me 100% more committed to this game, and I'd hate to think that change was reverted on purpose. Until we hear for sure, I will remain optimistic

That's what I observed too. I can't say if it was intentional due to the radical changes in terrain gen, but like I said you can't run around smacking the dirt with a propick to find ore now. The mid-game has changed for the harder and I think that's in line with the direction Bioxx wants to take it for SMP.

[scotty2 11]

That's what I observed too. I can't say if it was intentional due to the radical changes in terrain gen, but like I said you can't run around smacking the dirt with a propick to find ore now. The mid-game has changed for the harder and I think that's in line with the direction Bioxx wants to take it for SMP.

i think there is fantastic potential within this game for making all kinds of enjoyable difficulty.

i believe it is a step back making copper and zinc nearly impossible to find (in greater than small/nuggest sized units) for a starting player again.

i like the difficulty making it past the initial bottlenecks. making it nearly impossible to make a copper anvil is just Not Fun - again. I'm still hoping this is just a temporary side effect of the massive (and awesome, imho) changes to world generation.

[Leosallespoli 338]

Still is rather easy to find starter ores, you just have to know how...

Look for nuggets on surface, analyze if there is a pattern and dig.

[Scooterdanny 285]

Did you started a new world to just play it and complain about the state of it or to help Bioxx find bugs quickly? Because for me it looks like the former.

Quite the opposite to me, i liked the review very much.

[scotty2 11]

Still is rather easy to find starter ores, you just have to know how...

Look for nuggets on surface, analyze if there is a pattern and dig.

i invite you to try. by my analysis, should you find a relative region of 100x100 in which you are getting positive results on surface rocks or sluices, it would still require you to mine through nearly 3200 blocks just to cover the most common distribution layer, which is only more common by a factor of 1.4, meaning the realistic range is 2x more than that to get to the bottom distribution layer.

9600 blocks mined via the nuggets you've scraped together across the surface?

I'm really tired of hearing this argument. I've done the analysis. I've popped the worlds into minecraft x-ray to confirm.

It's not my mod, so I don't determine the direction it is steered, however, I feel it is probably unlikely that Bioxx starts up a world and works his way through to the bronze age very often, so he is reliant on feedback to know how it is progressing.

When people rather disingenuously say you "simply sample the rocks and dig down" without giving concrete numbers of just how *lucky* you have to be to find anything in any reasonable amount of time (when was the last time you mined 9600 blocks with a zinc or tin pickaxe, much less found enough surface nuggets to create enough pickaxes to do so?), the result is Bioxx tunes his mod based on *bad information*.

The late 40's builds ore distribution was a *vast* improvement to how playable the game was, without sacrificing the still rather difficult task of getting anywhere past bronze.

I have no doubt I will not be the only person sad to see them go, if this in fact on purpose.

Surface rocks and sluices giving general indicators of ore location is a fantastic tool for mid-game progression past bronze, but I feel their combination with the ability of a propick to actually detect minerals in order further restrict the search space is absolutely necessary for the early game where your first tools are made by melting 8 to 16 nuggets in a fire pit, after running around looking for stone that will function as an anvil.

[Najual 46]

...When people rather disingenuously say you "simply sample the rocks and dig down" without giving concrete numbers of just how *lucky* you have to be to find anything in any reasonable amount of time (when was the last time you mined 9600 blocks with a zinc or tin pickaxe, much less found enough surface nuggets to create enough pickaxes to do so?), the result is Bioxx tunes his mod based on *bad information*.

I think maybe you're way over analyzing. This is why we don't want hard numbers on the wiki. Statistically, yes, ore is deeper and harder to find. No offense but that's all that really needs to be said about it. It's still a dice roll, and requires more effort, but that doesn't mean everyone will have to mine 9600 blocks every time to hit some ore.

And yes I agree with you that it's not as easy as finding concentrated rock nuggets and digging down. The increase in range also includes horizontal coverage. From personal experience on the current build (49e), I've been tunneling through an area that had a lot of cass nuggets on the surface, but so far no luck all the way down to y=50 with side tunnels in cardinal directions every 20 meters. I've almost used up two bismuth picks. No dice. I'm assuming propicks are working now, but I can't confirm that until I actually find something. (Edit: Propicks are working, that was sarcasm. I finally found some cass but not where I thought it would be)

Again, you're going to have to work for that ore and it may be a long time before you find any. Tier 0 tools should be somewhat easier to get with nuggets though. I think it's a good balance shift toward challenging but not impossible.

There's also a historical reasoning. The stone age lasted thousands of years until bronze became widespread, and a thousand more until iron and steel. I'm generalizing, but you get the picture.

Having spent quite a lot of time on two TFC servers (as well as many other MC servers of various flavours) there's a problem with having most ores so common. For a lone wolf player, it takes a certain amount of time and diligence to get to bronze and then go deep in search of iron (similarly in vanilla, it's iron and then diamond). An experienced player could do so in a few hours, possibly one if they hit surface tin and copper quickly. Same with SSP. On servers with just a few dedicated players, after just a few days on a new map there are multiple players, villages, and small cities sporting bronze and steel, available to anyone who whines "OMG CAN I LIVE WITH U??? CAN I JOIN UR TOWN???" And then what? Once you hit the nickel wall (legitimately), what else is there to do but build stuff? The age progression stops or becomes irrelevant. It's not game over by any means, more like finding huge, sprawling veins of diamonds in vanilla. Your tools, weapons, and armor are top quality. Mobs are a laughable annoyance. Day or night doesn't matter much, except that whatever you've been building looks prettier lit up at night. Falling into lava is the only significant threat left if there's little or no PVP. You build a castle, or help others build one. Then most players get bored and leave for something else... another server, another mod, another game entirely, leaving behind something massive they built and area protected, which sits there unaltered until the server dies or a new map gen.

In short, it's too easy. Or at least it was. Bioxx is making TFC difficult, with unprecedented depth, the kind that got all of us hooked in the first place. I can't speak for anyone but myself about enjoying a challenge, because everyone has their own level of skill and involvement... but I'm voting for harder.

[merrybike 9]

Cave gen has been increased alot... Ore gen has decreased I think though...

[Leosallespoli 338]

i invite you to try.

I'm saying that because I am doing that and I have found plenty of sphalerite without having to break more than 200 marble blocks. I don't think you really know how to use the propick.

when was the last time you mined 9600 blocks with a zinc or tin pickaxe

The thing is YOU DON'T have to do that!

[Treyflix 277]

Snip

I agree. The copper bottleneck is one of the most important aspects of the core progression in this game. It is not something to be taken lightly or made easy. Why make a ore that is required in every single metal tier findable in a few hours of game play? Really, I think this person is getting to wrapped up in numbers and becoming far to impatient.

[Najual 46]

I agree. The copper bottleneck is one of the most important aspects of the core progression in this game. It is not something to be taken lightly or made easy. Why make a ore that is required in every single metal tier findable in a few hours of game play? Really, I think this person is getting to wrapped up in numbers and becoming far to impatient.

Update 49g: Copper is back. Got rock nuggets rather quickly on a new map gen, and continued to find them in the surrounding areas. Can't say if ore gen was tweaked or how deep the ore is, but I'm still not seeing any obvious surface veins. I'll mess with it on creative in a new seed and see if maybe I just spawned in a copper rich area.

Edit: Interesting. All tier 0 and copper ores near the surface are consistently spawning at Y=129. It's just out of range of a propick from sea level, but still not difficult to find the vein with only a few rock nugget clues. Reported on bug tracker. Might want to fix that.

[Scooterdanny 285]

The granite being freakin Everywhere is starting to bother me, if that was fixed, i would be more than happy to start a serious world in ssp.

[Treyflix 277]

It's fixed for me I started three different worlds in 49g and none of them were granite. A bug that continues to bother me is I have marble and phylite, but the loose rocks drop flagstone and siltstone. And the dirt is flagstone and siltstone color, which I don't mind because its quite pretty

[scotty2 11]

I agree. The copper bottleneck is one of the most important aspects of the core progression in this game. It is not something to be taken lightly or made easy. Why make a ore that is required in every single metal tier findable in a few hours of game play? Really, I think this person is getting to wrapped up in numbers and becoming far to impatient.

I agreed with the previous above-surface copper generation being a cool bottleneck.

It more modeled something believable.

Most copper mines in the world are located *far* above sea-level (the largest, well over a mile above sea-level)

People have tended to concentrate around these surface deposits. People are willing to dig deeper for more valuable metals, which is why no sizable source of copper is mined from the depths of the crust. it just isn't worth enough to justify the operation. we pull it from open-pit mines high in the mountains.

I feel having to search vast amounts of subsurface rock to find one of the most common minerals on the planet is just silly. I like the idea of having to do that for rarer metals, and I like that I have built a settlement near a surface deposit and used it as my base of infrastructure to dig for deeper and more valuable things.

i do understand the concern for gameplay, but i think a "challenge" can be made in a better form than an unrealistically and tediously long pre-copper age.

copper was the first metal man learned metallurgy with. it's easy to find, easy to work, and was reasonably strong.

[Najual 46]

I agreed with the previous above-surface copper generation being a cool bottleneck.

It more modeled something believable.

Most copper mines in the world are located *far* above sea-level (the largest, well over a mile above sea-level)

People have tended to concentrate around these surface deposits. People are willing to dig deeper for more valuable metals, which is why no sizable source of copper is mined from the depths of the crust. it just isn't worth enough to justify the operation. we pull it from open-pit mines high in the mountains.

I feel having to search vast amounts of subsurface rock to find one of the most common minerals on the planet is just silly. I like the idea of having to do that for rarer metals, and I like that I have built a settlement near a surface deposit and used it as my base of infrastructure to dig for deeper and more valuable things.

i do understand the concern for gameplay, but i think a "challenge" can be made in a better form than an unrealistically and tediously long pre-copper age.

copper was the first metal man learned metallurgy with. it's easy to find, easy to work, and was reasonably strong.

These are good points. The ore and terrain gen are still being messed with, though. Low tier ores are all still spawning at Y=130 consistently (49h), which makes it ignorantly simple to get them as soon as you collect enough rock nuggets for a pick. You just don't see them on the surface anymore, or occasionally in a chasm that cuts deep enough through that layer. So it's fair to say we don't know what direction it's going yet.

[Najual 46]

(49h) The new charcoal pit is really well done. I just did a 3x3 room, and it yielded a little over 2 stacks of char. The log piles turn into darker blocks that are really stacked 'slabs' that disappear from the top and drop a piece (sometimes two) of coal when you shovel them. So it takes some extra time and shovel durability to collect, but you don't have to worry about losing your investment if you're afk or doing something else nearby when it finishes cooking. Otherwise the mechanics of stacking and filling the wood piles, making sure it's 'sealed', lighting it, and so on are the same as before. I'll mess with the timer to see how it's affected by various resets.

Edit: So far the usual suspects reset the timer. 1) Moving too many chunks away causes a reset to when you come back in range. I'm not sure how many exactly but suffice it to say that you don't want to run off. 2) Quitting and reloading in SSP. This is not the case in SMP if another player stays in range. 3) Removing a surrounding block on top and replacing it with a ladder to check for smoke. 4) Changing the log count in any pile.

In all cases the timer was 10 minutes real time with the default day/night cycle, a significant reduction. It was not affected by sleeping in SSP, so SMP probably isn't any different. An open/missing log block somewhere at the top, assuming you have a chiseled block or something not affected by gravity to cover it, will produce more visible smoke through it. Similarly, an open log block at eye level behind a wooden door will allow you to see both smoke and fire from the side while it's cooking. Although it is a bit unrealistic, the door technically fills those two block with something other than air and you can even leave it standing open. Glass blocks or panes would do the same trick but a wooden door is both easier to make and allows easy entry/exit.

So if you're looking for realism, just seal it with dirt blocks after lighting it as usual, and resist the temptation to open it up to check. It's not as important now to know exactly when it's done because you won't lose the char to despawning after 5 minutes or so on the floor.

[Kirhak 5]

So what about the whole farther you go from spawn, colder the land gets? Has that been implemented? How far do you have to go to get to tundra?

[Scooterdanny 285]

yes, circa 20k from equator, you spawn around -10k (or 10k north)

[TheBlindPeople 31]

As stated in the blog post, it would take around 30 minecraft days to reach the tundra. We can thankfully climb mountains to find small colder climates closer to the equator than that. It's long enough to be a hassle, but just short enough for me to consider it a possibility without being a waste of time.

[Filipe Lage Garcia 0]

its very cool map, i getting hard job with excess of rocks. now i building granite buildings to use them. i have found 2 big veins of copper and zinc, so.. i'm in bronze age now.