Advancing Ages : Making it Harder

[Auburn Crow 9]

As I've played TFC there are times when I find that later on in the game even while playing in community servers, I find that I've reached a point of Omnipotence just a bit to quickly...and it makes it harder to new players who join to get a foot in, in these worlds. However I thought through a night of playing some ideas that could be implemented.

First off - Perishable food - Its common knowledge that if you stick a slice of meat in a chest, or a anywhere and don't cook it or do anything to it it'll rot. That gave me an idea. Forcing players to consume food items to finding methods to conserve and preserve it. Players in their begging stages would not be as careless with food, as even cooked food can expire. I find that it should be made so that players would have to preserve their food in the begging by just quickly eating it, and later on through more long term methods such as Curing, Smoking, or Pickling.

Curing- Simply salting the meats of animals would preserve them for a long time, players could do this by creating simple low tier 0 kettles or pans that would be placed in a stove. The water would evaporate and have a chance to leave behind salt. (The chance would be kind of low/high between) They would then salt their meats and it would become Salted {Meat} which after about a day would become Cured meat once placed in a clay pot and placed down.

The next method Smoking would actually make another use of Tool Racks. Players would be able the tool rack, and by using string x3 placed between six sticks would make a Smoking Rack. This can only be placed above a fire-pit and would be able to hold 4 pieces of meat. Which over a few minutes would be smoked and then could be placed into a clay jar or eaten. (They would last a good amount of time.

The last method Pickling would require players to make vinegar or at least have advanced to making glass to make jars. Which they would pickle things such as fruit, meats, and store them for later. These would last very long over a period of a year or so.

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Next on the list is higher tier simple items. Things such as Chests and Doors, would begin as VERY simple storage items. Chests being replaced with Clay Pots, and sacks for the stone age. Doors would be flimsy and could be easily broken by zombies, skeletons, or even *shivers* creepers. Players would need to get metals, in order to craft low end sorts of items as these. Weak Doors, Trapdoors, and such made with Tin, Bismuth, or Zinc hinges and nails. It wouldn't be until the Iron/steel phase that you'd be able to make high end doors and good quality chests.

For now that's what I've come up with Kanr Out!

[EternalUndeath 1,208]

Sigh, already suggested. God's sake, it's like there's not even a search bar...

[dunkleosteus 2,425]

The reason we haven't already implemented perishable food: inventory management. As I'm sure you've noticed, items with a heat value do not stack, except with alloys from the metallurgy table. The reason is because items have to have the exact same heat level (which is stored as metadata) to be stackable. However, heat loss calculations or other calculations can't be performed on itemstacks that the player is holding with the mouse, so as soon as you split the stack, the components instantly have different values, because one had more updates than the other.

The deterioration of food would have to be handled by itemstack metadata as well, meaning that while your stack of 32 pork chops might all decay at a constant rate, as soon as you split the stack, they would never be able to restack. Because there are SO many food items, not being able to stack them would be a huge hassle.

Let's say you go pick some apples and store them in your chest. The next day, you pick some more, but the first stack will have already begun to decay, and you won't be able to stack them together, giving you two very small stacks of apples.

Further, if we try to extend the time that a food item is at a particular "stage" of decay, so that players have more time to stack same-staged food items, we're left with a problem: when does the product stack next decay? Let's say the first stack would decay again in 1 minute, and the second in 5 minutes. Does the resultant product decay as a whole in the average? Do we use one of the times and not the other? It would be too easy to manipulate the system to maximize the length of time before a stack decays, without requiring any special treatments or preservatives.

Unless we can solve all these issues neatly and efficiently, food decay can't happen.

[Mileaos2 15]

we finnaly add baskets, where you are able to store 1 type of Food the same time in and those Food inside dont decay, the baskets has an decay meta data. when you tale 1 piece of Food out of the basket, the taken Food pice gets the decay meta data of the basket its taken from. (baskets should be easy to make via sticks) they could be placeable in the world, with leftklick you pick them up, with rightclick you tacke one pice of the Food. when you have some allready decayed Food of the same type and you throw it inside one of those baskets, they loose there decay meta data and those data are added to the basket. when the basket is empty, it loose ist meta data and you can use it for another type of Food... my suggestion

[Sting_Auer 59]

-SNIP-

You could always switch to a menu-based inventory with a volume and mass limit instead of a tile limit . That would solve more problems than just the item metadata stacking problem. For example, it would be possible to make the player unable to carry a castle in their pockets while still allowing them to carry a bazillion seeds.

It would also make backpacks, pockets, pouches, etc. useful and purposeful by initially limiting the players inventory to what they can carry in their arms and pants pockets. Making pouches, pocketcoats, backpacks, etc. would help boost your inventory space.

[Mileaos2 15]

well, thats an idea too, but i allready see myself Scrolling the rest of my life through billions of pages XD

[Auburn Crow 9]

The reason we haven't already implemented perishable food: inventory management. As I'm sure you've noticed, items with a heat value do not stack, except with alloys from the metallurgy table. The reason is because items have to have the exact same heat level (which is stored as metadata) to be stackable. However, heat loss calculations or other calculations can't be performed on itemstacks that the player is holding with the mouse, so as soon as you split the stack, the components instantly have different values, because one had more updates than the other.

The deterioration of food would have to be handled by itemstack metadata as well, meaning that while your stack of 32 pork chops might all decay at a constant rate, as soon as you split the stack, they would never be able to restack. Because there are SO many food items, not being able to stack them would be a huge hassle.

Let's say you go pick some apples and store them in your chest. The next day, you pick some more, but the first stack will have already begun to decay, and you won't be able to stack them together, giving you two very small stacks of apples.

Further, if we try to extend the time that a food item is at a particular "stage" of decay, so that players have more time to stack same-staged food items, we're left with a problem: when does the product stack next decay? Let's say the first stack would decay again in 1 minute, and the second in 5 minutes. Does the resultant product decay as a whole in the average? Do we use one of the times and not the other? It would be too easy to manipulate the system to maximize the length of time before a stack decays, without requiring any special treatments or preservatives.

Unless we can solve all these issues neatly and efficiently, food decay can't happen.

Ahh I see. well that sucks but hey hopeful thoughts, t's all they are. Though I'd wonder if instead of preserving to stop decay that perhaps curing, smoking or otherwise preparing your foods could be implemented to make more filling foods and maybe even add some more to Meals?

[killster550 401]

edit after reading kolakanr922's second post, above this one

curing was done with hides, to preserve their flexibility and softness hides were cured (usually with the brains of the animal) whereas smoking was done to prevent bacterial and insects rotting out the hide. although smoked food does exist, its equal to having purposefully dried food, which i would call food instead, to avoid trouble when/if curing and smoking hides comes in to play

dunk, you know how they used to preserve food in the stone age? by cooking it then storing it below the ground at cold, close to sub-zero temperatures, or in storage areas in caves that werent heated but instead purposefully left cold.

why cant we work with giving COOKED item stacks a temperature value of hot-normal (name that differently)-cold-frozen which would be determined in the manner of which it is stored: in frozen ground, in a cave without light nearby, or just out in the open.

frozen food cant be eaten, cold food will give minimal hunger, with normal and hot temperatures each boosting the hunger gained by a bit and to avoid catching a disease from bacteria (random chance of a debuff/poison/food poisoning?)

[Sting_Auer 59]

well, thats an idea too, but i allready see myself Scrolling the rest of my life through billions of pages XD

Not really, there'd be an upper limit on how high your volume limit could go, and your weight limit would be fixed (maybe raisable by leveling up?). The inventory could be sorted by categories similar to the creative mode inventory, or maybe even custom "folders" in your inventory.

Heck, it could be tied to which storage item it's in. Is it in a pocket, a your pouch, your other pouch, your backpack, etc.

[killster550 401]

hmm, on the topic of storage, i kind of liked the backpacks in the forestry backpack mod, although its retarded you can carry more than 1, it could be TFC'ed somewhat by making it a very high tier item that would enlarge your inventory for some items (with a set weight limit, which could finally make proper use of the weight system)

[abculatter_2 21]

You could always switch to a menu-based inventory with a volume and mass limit instead of a tile limit . That would solve more problems than just the item metadata stacking problem. For example, it would be possible to make the player unable to carry a castle in their pockets while still allowing them to carry a bazillion seeds.

It would also make backpacks, pockets, pouches, etc. useful and purposeful by initially limiting the players inventory to what they can carry in their arms and pants pockets. Making pouches, pocketcoats, backpacks, etc. would help boost your inventory space.

This is probably the only way to truly fix a lot of item and inventory nonsense like this.

Unfortunately, it would also probably be a huge undertaking code-wise, since you'd basically be re-writing almost the whole inventory system from the ground up.

Unless I'm wrong, Dunk?

[transcengopher 349]

Can Don't Starve-like perishable food help the issue?

Food has freshness points, that tick down at a rate dependant on container food resides in. Different food have different volume of points, as in: fresh apple has 500, fresh raw meat has 200, food is considered stale when it has a certain percentage of points ticked away compared to the fresh item, and so on. Stack of food has the same amount of points as a single food item. Merging stacks produces a stack that has arithmetical mean from both stacks with applied weight ratio, so adding a single apple to the stack of 20 apples has lesser effect than stacking two apples. Cooking food adds a percentage to the amount of points this food has. Cooking a meal, again, uses this arithmetical mean mechanic, possibly adds some points just for the sake of it as well.

I can see how, know how and do abuse this mechanic in Don't Starve to some degree, but it's about the extent of what can be done in terms of food spoiling without getting rid of food stacking. Or at least I think so.

[Srgnoodles 1,030]

well, on the inventory thing, i think you should only be able to carry two items, one in each hand. but you should be able to have backpacks that maybe take up the chest armour slot, because really, you don't see knights in full armour carrying around backpacks into battle these would let you be able to carry more, depending on how good the pack is.

[EternalUndeath 1,208]

wordswordswords

Aw man you KNOW I already had a great idea for that. Now I gotta go find that post...

[theJalden 21]

There are a number of ways to handle food perishablility. One way that I like is that combining items will merge the decay metadata with the lowest value, symbolizing the one bad apple scenario. Another way of merging stacks could just take the mean of the the two stacks, or if more of a challenge is desired, weight it towards a lower than avererage number.It isn't rocket science, it is just simplifying a construction so that it fits the game more than it fits real life.

[Bbushh 29]

Mayhap a better way to manage food is to address it in regards to diet. Make it necessary to eat several different food types to maintain health and vigour. I can't imagine how unhealthy you would be if you ate nothing but cherries..... brrr!

[Srgnoodles 1,030]

I can't imagine how unhealthy you would be if you ate nothing but cherries..... brrr!

or the souls of the innocent....

[Roark92 16]

yeah the current state of food is a silly one. from day one you will have enough food to get you to the bronze age. i dont know what can or should be done to address this, but something needs to be done i think or the hunger mechanic may as well be removed. (always thought as much in vanilla as well)

[gatts205 39]

I had a rather unusual idea for how to approach perishable food last night without flooding the inventory with large numbers of individual items. I truly am not sure how doable it is though. It revolves around food dropping as packages instead of individual items. In other words if you kill an animal instead of a large number of individual slices of meat you get one package of uncooked meat which ages as one. Now crops do not age as quickly as meat and thus their metadata can take days to change. Therefore after harvesting a person has that amount of time to combine these into a package by placing them into the crafting grid. In order to cook these you then place the package onto the crafting grid and separate out the number of whatever you want to cook. This subsequently causes the package to take durability damage. Now cooked food cannot be recombined into packages without further preservation techniques. This will encourage early game players to only harvest/gather as much food as strictly necessary.

This leads into the meat of the issue, what are the preservation techniques. Now along with the ideas presented by the author, I would like to propose a somewhat more ambitious idea. To me, early preservation techniques such as salting or smoking should not me the end of advancement. These foods should still age (although slowly enough that they can be recombined into stacks before their metadata changes). I believe the next tier in advancement in food preparation should be canning. Now before I incite a riot, I am not talking about canning with metal cans. I am talking about using jars for canning which I believe is a far older technique (I am not exactly sure about this though). This is first done by making either a glass or clay jar using whatever technique the developers decide to make available for us (I am not going to presume on the developers plans for the ceramic age). Along with this a lid will be made using metal. You then fill the jar using the crafting grid. Each individual food item only takes up part of the room, so a jar can hold a large number of food items (although only of one type). Once the jar is full you then bring a pot of water (already suggested in thread start) to boil. You then place the jar into the pot for a few minutes. If all goes well, when you remove the jar and allow it to cool the pressure differential will create an air tight seal on the lid which will last as long as the jar is not opened. However, there is a small chance that jars will spontaneously fail if their construction was flawed. This means that person with poor ceramics working skill will not be able to use canning without either practice or trading. I believe this can be an additional step to pickling as well along with simple general food storage.

[AmoebaMan 7]

Somebody above mentioned a scrollable inventory that was limited by aggregate volume rather than an arbitary number of "stacks" - a term that has absolutely no context or place in a realism mod.

Somebody else shot the idea down by arguing that it would require a total rewrite of Minecraft's inventory system.

Good news is, the second bloke was wrong. Minecraft has already kindly implemented scrollable inventories, even still in the same nice familiar stack format as now. They are on display in the Creative inventory.

If possible, I think this, coupled with the also already implemented searh feature, could be a brilliant addition.

[Sting_Auer 59]

Somebody above mentioned a scrollable inventory that was limited by aggregate volume rather than an arbitary number of "stacks" - a term that has absolutely no context or place in a realism mod.

Somebody else shot the idea down by arguing that it would require a total rewrite of Minecraft's inventory system.

Good news is, the second bloke was wrong. Minecraft has already kindly implemented scrollable inventories, even still in the same nice familiar stack format as now. They are on display in the Creative inventory.

If possible, I think this, coupled with the also already implemented searh feature, could be a brilliant addition.

WOOOH~! I'm smart!

[Arekis 3]

Can Don't Starve-like perishable food help the issue?

I really like the idea of a Don't Starve type of food system. Sure, it's not perfect and can be gamed to some extent, but it would be significantly better than what we have now. It would be easier to implement without having to redesign a lot of the interface or mechanics and we would have something that can vastly improve gameplay instead of waiting for an idealized and elegant total rewrite that may not come for a long time.

[Xechon 58]

I love the meat packages idea, gatts205. It goes really well with the feature I've been violently hoping for, carcasses. I have also had an idea that may fix the stacking issue, but being a complete novice in java and minecraft modding in general, I'm not sure if it would work, or even help a great deal. What if, at creation, an item or item stack does the normal calculations for their change of state (cooling, decaying, etc.) and stores that metadata as a time stamp, instead of constantly doing the calculations and timing down.

My reasoning for this is that in the normal time that these processes occur, there would be very little significant change in the environment that will alter the general time of (cooling, decay, etc.). For example, you make some bronze on your metallurgy table, and at that time the calculations run and store the metadata for what hour/date/year the items will be at the individual temperature states. The items should still be able to stack, but still not with ones created at a significant time interval from themselves. This could also work by the day or so for decay, so that a single harvest will always stack. Change in state, like turning the unshaped metals into ingots, would simply redo the calculations based on it's current state, as with cooking/preserving foods, and everything should (in theory) still stack from the same general origin time. The process of metals cooling and food spoiling is like that object 'normalizing', and steps could also occur to help or hinder that process. For metalworking, putting an ingot in a water barrel helps the normalizing of the metal, cooling them off so they retain ambient temperature. Preserving foods in any way (cooling, salting, drying, etc.) would be a counter-normalizing process that causes their time to decay to increase, or erase all chance of decay, whichever is most favorable to the devs.

Getting stacking and inventory management sorted out is pivotal to my next suggestion idea, so what do you guys think? Is this possible? Is it helpful in any meaningful way?