Inventory Space: Oh my god it's a thread about Inventory

[Tsuarok 47]

Because that requires a complete rewrite of existing inventory system and is way more trouble than it's worth.

Maybe. That is up to the coders to decide.

[transcengopher 349]

Maybe. That is up to the coders to decide.

You don't just hide behind some coders like that. What good your system brings to the table compared to the existing one, where it all functions the same, but using stack size instead of slot size, and without inventory tetris? Well, besides inventory tetris.

[AllenWL 186]

Instead of having specific slots for items weights, why not just have larger items take up multiple slots, with perhaps a total weight encumbrance system?  Keep the stack sizes small and maybe add sensible external storage (idk, brick piles?).  And of course external transport systems such as horse/cow wagons (different speeds), handcarts, backpacks and baskets. 

 

I agree with everything expet the take up multiple slots thing. that could frustrate a lot of players trying to organize their stuff. Plus, it could end up with some slots that are empty, but unuseable

[Tsuarok 47]

You don't just hide behind some coders like that. What good your system brings to the table compared to the existing one, where it all functions the same, but using stack size instead of slot size, and without inventory tetris? Well, besides inventory tetris.

Sorry, I was only refering to the trouble part of the "it more trouble than its worth." It is indeed my job to determine the worth of the proposed system, but i have no idea how much time the devs want to invest in programming, or even how much programming this would take.I feel that inventory tetris adds more realism, as things are shaped differently and thus fit together differently. It would also allow the devs to control to a certain extent the portability of certain items. If, for example, a single blast furnace (including all the stone) required the entire inventory of a handcart or wagon, one would not be able to easily move it to a new location. While I'm not neccesarily suggesting this limitation, the example demonstrates a feature of the system, namely that some items could be made to require external transportation systems to be able to build them. Another feature could be to eliminate stacking entirely as it doesn't really occur irl, while expanding inventory and greatly expanding the inventories of minecarts, with the proposed handcarts and wagons having some intermediate storage capacity. If this were implemented, it would be nice if when an item is placed and you have another in your inventory, a replacement would automatically go into the active hotbar slot.Whether or not this would require too much development time is beyond my expertise.

[transcengopher 349]

Sorry, I was only refering to the trouble part of the "it more trouble than its worth." It is indeed my job to determine the worth of the proposed system, but i have no idea how much time the devs want to invest in programming, or even how much programming this would take.I feel that inventory tetris adds more realism, as things are shaped differently and thus fit together differently. It would also allow the devs to control to a certain extent the portability of certain items. If, for example, a single blast furnace (including all the stone) required the entire inventory of a handcart or wagon, one would not be able to easily move it to a new location. While I'm not neccesarily suggesting this limitation, the example demonstrates a feature of the system, namely that some items could be made to require external transportation systems to be able to build them.Another feature could be to eliminate stacking entirely as it doesn't really occur irl, while expanding inventory and greatly expanding the inventories of minecarts, with the proposed handcarts and wagons having some intermediate storage capacity. If this were implemented, it would be nice if when an item is placed and you have another in your inventory, a replacement would automatically go into the active hotbar slot.Whether or not this would require too much development time is beyond my expertise.

Stack size system implemented now is as good as slot size. If you were to make parallels - each stack slot of the current system could be corresponding one slot of this tetrisy system. That way we now basically have 27*64 (1728, this is a lot to keep track of, dont' you think?) inventory slots, and an anvil takes up 64 tetrisy slots at once. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to make tetris inventory for a building game, especially considering what I've just said, - that's not Diablo, you are not looting blues here, there's far more items you would actually want to get a hold of, especially in TFC.

[Tsuarok 47]

Stack size system implemented now is as good as slot size. If you were to make parallels - each stack slot of the current system could be corresponding one slot of this tetrisy system. That way we now basically have 27*64 (1728, this is a lot to keep track of, dont' you think?) inventory slots, and an anvil takes up 64 tetrisy slots at once. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to make tetris inventory for a building game, especially considering what I've just said, - that's not Diablo, you are not looting blues here, there's far more items you would actually want to get a hold of, especially in TFC.

 

 

It still doesn't allow for items that take up more than 64 slots, which means it can never be used to limit portability in the way that I described.  Also, there are some great inventory sorting mods that could provide inspiration for the UI, making the huge number of slots and the tetrisy aspects manageable.  

[Guest Elagn]

My question for inventory space is A) how advanced do you want the player to start? Personaly, i would perfer if the player started out with abosolutly nothing and had two invetory spaces, his hands. For this though, the player would be able to make belts, pouches, backpacks and such. Also, basicly every item in the game should be able to be placed on the ground like ceramics currently are. How realistic do we want this to be? Realisticly, the player could carry at most one block of wood, dirt, sand, ect at a time. If you want reason, go out and try to pick up a cubic meter of wood. I have done it but it is very heavy, slowing, awkward. Stone would be even heavyer and harder to move. Enough small rocks (more than about 10) realisticaly should slow the player down signifigantly and they shouldnt be able to cary much more. Dirt and Sand have similar problems and I personaly find it rediculus that a cubic meter of dirt, while heavy, is considered Tiny. They are not tiny at all. Solutions would be as sugested handcarts and wagons, barges for water, sleds for snow, minecarts for mines and caves. one problem of this is how blocks have meter drop offs. Realisticaly, these would destroy the axles on all wheeled carts, wagons, ect. These should be able to cary much larger quantities of materials. Logs should drop as a large, log that can be drug on ropes or cut into smaller, meter long pieces. Historicaly, buildings were made by stacking the logs, rocks, bricks ect. individualy, and they were made from mostly smallish pieces. I would love if this was implimented that to build a house you go out and cut down trees to drag them back and and lift them into place one by one to make a log cabin or to make a large brick castle by bringing in barges of bricks and unloading them as you use them to build the structure.

[Kittychanley 1,002]

My question for inventory space is A) how advanced do you want the player to start? Personaly, i would perfer if the player started out with abosolutly nothing and had two invetory spaces, his hands. For this though, the player would be able to make belts, pouches, backpacks and such. Also, basicly every item in the game should be able to be placed on the ground like ceramics currently are. How realistic do we want this to be? Realisticly, the player could carry at most one block of wood, dirt, sand, ect at a time. If you want reason, go out and try to pick up a cubic meter of wood. I have done it but it is very heavy, slowing, awkward. Stone would be even heavyer and harder to move. Enough small rocks (more than about 10) realisticaly should slow the player down signifigantly and they shouldnt be able to cary much more. Dirt and Sand have similar problems and I personaly find it rediculus that a cubic meter of dirt, while heavy, is considered Tiny. They are not tiny at all. Solutions would be as sugested handcarts and wagons, barges for water, sleds for snow, minecarts for mines and caves. one problem of this is how blocks have meter drop offs. Realisticaly, these would destroy the axles on all wheeled carts, wagons, ect. These should be able to cary much larger quantities of materials. Logs should drop as a large, log that can be drug on ropes or cut into smaller, meter long pieces. Historicaly, buildings were made by stacking the logs, rocks, bricks ect. individualy, and they were made from mostly smallish pieces. I would love if this was implimented that to build a house you go out and cut down trees to drag them back and and lift them into place one by one to make a log cabin or to make a large brick castle by bringing in barges of bricks and unloading them as you use them to build the structure.

 

The problem with this is that TFC isn't going for realism at all. I see that you are new to the forums, so I suggest you read around a bit to determine your interpretation of the difference between realism and believabilty. In the simplest terms, TFC is a game, and therefore real life mechanics are drastically changed, while still being believabe for a game environment for balancing reasons.

[AllenWL 186]

My question for inventory space is A) how advanced do you want the player to start? Personaly, i would perfer if the player started out with abosolutly nothing and had two invetory spaces, his hands. For this though, the player would be able to make belts, pouches, backpacks and such. Also, basicly every item in the game should be able to be placed on the ground like ceramics currently are.

 

How realistic do we want this to be? Realisticly, the player could carry at most one block of wood, dirt, sand, ect at a time. If you want reason, go out and try to pick up a cubic meter of wood. I have done it but it is very heavy, slowing, awkward. Stone would be even heavyer and harder to move. Enough small rocks (more than about 10) realisticaly should slow the player down signifigantly and they shouldnt be able to cary much more. Dirt and Sand have similar problems and I personaly find it rediculus that a cubic meter of dirt, while heavy, is considered Tiny. They are not tiny at all. Solutions would be as sugested handcarts and wagons, barges for water, sleds for snow, minecarts for mines and caves. one problem of this is how blocks have meter drop offs. Realisticaly, these would destroy the axles on all wheeled carts, wagons, ect. These should be able to cary much larger quantities of materials. Logs should drop as a large, log that can be drug on ropes or cut into smaller, meter long pieces. Historicaly, buildings were made by stacking the logs, rocks, bricks ect. individualy, and they were made from mostly smallish pieces. I would love if this was implimented that to build a house you go out and cut down trees to drag them back and and lift them into place one by one to make a log cabin or to make a large brick castle by bringing in barges of bricks and unloading them as you use them to build the structure.

 

Well, while nice ideas, I think there will be a bit of a problem in the gameplay bit.

 

If we had 2 inventory space to start with, we'll have to get stone, get sticks, make axe head, drop the stones, make a axe, get some wood, stack them(log piles) get the stones, drop the axe, make a shovel head, drop the stones, make a shovel, get some clay, drop the sticks, mold some vessels, drop the vessels, pick up the sticks, drop the shovel, get the stones, make a knife head, drop the stones, make a knife, get some straw, drop the sticks, get the vessels, drop the straw, drop the knife, get a shovel, dig a pit, put down the vessels, get the straw, pile the straw, get the wood, put the log pile, pick up some sticks, make a fire starter, drop the shovel, light the pit kiln, wait, and get the vessels to have more inventory space, and vessels can't even hold all the things. Belts, backpacks and such will need leather in my opinion, and to get leather, you need metal.

 

So I think for your starting inventory, the minimum should be 6, 2 hands, 4 pockets. That way, you don't have to go back and forth a crapload of times to get something done, and can actually get leather and make backpacks and such without too much tedious grinding.

 

Also, while realistic is fine, I don't think we should over do it. If we had 2 inventory space, and could only carry one dirt block, 1 log, 10 stones, etc at any given times, well, I think most people will think of it as useless, and annoying. I mean, if we had backpacks, carts,wagons, etc it'll be easy enough, even if we can only carry 1 log per stack, but it's the process of getting them that'll be require time, effort, and lots of going back and forth for no reason other than the fact you can only carry 2 logs, max. I think the items and stacking are better off as it is now.

 

And yes, a meter drop, or even half a meter drop, will most likely wreck all carts and wagons, sleds, etc going off it. But people can't jump a meter into the air, and pigs most definitely cannot jump a meter into the air. water is not infinite, grass does not drop seed bags, tool heads from molds do not come out ready for usage, bumping into cacti will not hurt you repeatedly, roses have thorns, putting an open source of flame(say a burning stick, a.k.a torch) near wood should light it on fire, zombies should not exist, killing animals don't give perfectly cut meat slices, skeletons should not be able to move due to a lack of muscles, corpse and bones should not spontaneously combust under sunlight, and killing a spider a meter tall and 2 meters wide should not give you string. And putting random items on a wooden block a square meter in size with saw and hammer paintings on the side should not give you barrels, doors, and so on.

 

And while it could be fun if you had barges and carts and so on, what about freshly spawned people trying to get a house? And I doubt everyone wants to move back and forth dozens of times just to build a house. Also, it would make mining a huge pain until you got enough metals to make a minecart and enough rails to make it reach outside the mine.

 

While making it challenging and realistic is nice, I think there is a limit on the realism. I'd like dirt/stones/etc be heavier and harder to store/carry to prevent players from leveling out hills and mountains, having small starting inventory, needing carts and barges to move items, and all that, but it shouldn't go to the point where it takes a large amount of going back an forth, grinding, and not being able to do anything without lots of work and time until you get carts and such

 

I think carts getting damaged a bit when it goes off meter tall drops is fine. It makes the player build better roads. but having it compleatly break will be a bit too annoying/frustrating.

[Arekis 3]

The problem with this is that TFC isn't going for realism at all. I see that you are new to the forums, so I suggest you read around a bit to determine your interpretation of the difference between realism and believabilty. In the simplest terms, TFC is a game, and therefore real life mechanics are drastically changed, while still being believabe for a game environment for balancing reasons.

 

What is the policy on generating additional mods for TFC?  If someone wants TFC to have hyper-realistic inventory, they could experience the game in such a manner without imposing the change on other players that do not wish to do so.  Additionally, it will put the burden of proof, viability, and support on whoever wants to create such an additional mod.  It would very much be in the spirit of minecraft: if you want it to play differently, just mod it to play differently.

[Kittychanley 1,002]

What is the policy on generating additional mods for TFC?  If someone wants TFC to have hyper-realistic inventory, they could experience the game in such a manner without imposing the change on other players that do not wish to do so.  Additionally, it will put the burden of proof, viability, and support on whoever wants to create such an additional mod.  It would very much be in the spirit of minecraft: if you want it to play differently, just mod it to play differently.

 

There is an addons section of the forums where people are allowed to post mods for TFC. We just currently ask that you do not use TFC base code in the mod. A better API will be available with the release of 78.

[Kereminde 5]

Is it weird to note on my first couple plays in a few years, I find inventory is not so much the problem as some other issues which take me out? (Notably, hunger and mobs.) Assuming I start near a good source of clay, I can use Ceramic Vessels as a rather handy inventory expander, to take care of the smaller items which stack up over time. 

 

Beyond the massive amounts of dirt I don't have any use for, I wasn't exactly requiring a lot more inventory space. If I'd started out making a saw instead of a pick, I'd probably have gotten chests and thus less worry about inactive storage space and only about what I could carry back. I never managed to reach a point yet in TFC where I can actually proceed to higher metallurgy than Copper/Bronze (usually I enter a starvation loop due to food being scarce), but I don't yet see how it's an issue to have "not enough slots" with Ceramic Vessels included. 

 

And if you think carrying too much back is an issue, remember you're kind of bounded based on food/drink right now, where once you've solved that problem and metal supply, you might as well be in Creative mode. Much like vanilla Minecraft. 

[Forgelander 4]

My question for inventory space is A) how advanced do you want the player to start? Personaly, i would perfer if the player started out with abosolutly nothing and had two invetory spaces, his hands. For this though, the player would be able to make belts, pouches, backpacks and such. Also, basicly every item in the game should be able to be placed on the ground like ceramics currently are. How realistic do we want this to be? Realisticly, the player could carry at most one block of wood, dirt, sand, ect at a time. If you want reason, go out and try to pick up a cubic meter of wood. I have done it but it is very heavy, slowing, awkward. Stone would be even heavyer and harder to move. Enough small rocks (more than about 10) realisticaly should slow the player down signifigantly and they shouldnt be able to cary much more. Dirt and Sand have similar problems and I personaly find it rediculus that a cubic meter of dirt, while heavy, is considered Tiny. They are not tiny at all. Solutions would be as sugested handcarts and wagons, barges for water, sleds for snow, minecarts for mines and caves. one problem of this is how blocks have meter drop offs. Realisticaly, these would destroy the axles on all wheeled carts, wagons, ect. These should be able to cary much larger quantities of materials. Logs should drop as a large, log that can be drug on ropes or cut into smaller, meter long pieces. Historicaly, buildings were made by stacking the logs, rocks, bricks ect. individualy, and they were made from mostly smallish pieces. I would love if this was implimented that to build a house you go out and cut down trees to drag them back and and lift them into place one by one to make a log cabin or to make a large brick castle by bringing in barges of bricks and unloading them as you use them to build the structure.

In my opinion, this is going way too far in realism.

[AllenWL 186]

In my opinion, this is going way too far in realism.

 

I agree.

I think starting out with a hot bar (9 slots)

Is a good idea. Challenging, but not too hard

[Hntrofdmnds 6]

There should be a inventory rebalance but also some kind of early storage (Weaving a mat with a string on it [could be crafted out of bush fiber {something they add in an earlier update}]) and I have carried a small tree once (not fun, I can tell you, and its roots were 5 cm down).

 

Also you could work up from having a mat on a string to having a pig to having a donkey (Yay donkeysrawesome) to having a chest on wheels to having carts. If you carry a lot of heavy things you should get slowness, nausea (differently named) or even die.

 

Chests should have altered capacity depending on what you put in it (ie, you could put a hoe in it but that would make some spots unavailible, but when you take it out, they come back.

 

You could also place EVEEEEERRRYYYYthing on the ground, but pickaxes, swords, hoes etc. could take up one block.

[chepelink 14]

I think that the actual size of the inventory is right as it is now. You know, there are times where even with all that space it's hard to get the items you need, specially at the beginning. There is an alternative that is quite simple and it might satisfy most people. First reduce the stack size of items (e.g., stone, logs, ores), with a reduction on the stack size of some items you actually force the player to think more about inventory without having complicate mechanics in the character inventory. Second thing, you have already a nice storage mechanic in game that can be used quite nicely: Clay pots. The idea is quite simple, you need to create a especial barrel made of metal if you wish. That barrel works in the same fashion as a Clay pot but just with much more space and capable of storing up to medium things or with the mechanic you like. On pick up it check your inventory to see if you have a second barrel and drop it if you have it (or apply a debuff if dropping an item is hard to program), also it starts a counter and give you one hour (or the time you seem fit) to put things in the barrel or  the barrel is dropped or it apply a debuff (like a heavy slowness). With that you can have a storage with some capabilities. What would be next part? Well, If you are going to implement things like a transport you can make that it only accept those barrels and other storage managers like Clay pots, and logs tied with a rope (4 ropes as a crafting recipe you make  a log storage with a simple concept: You use the rope to tight the logs as IRL). With this you do not break the balance of being a game that need a nice storage to build things (the essence of minecraft) and you put a limit in the storage capabilities. You force the player to think ahead because, although you have a nice space for different things/items you cannot store a great amount of those things in the same slot. Try it, chop a tree and divide those 16 logs per slot into 2~4 logs per slot  or your 32 dirt pile into 4~8 dirt per slot and, suddenly, your "big" inventory is not so big in the end. 

[chaotix14 4]

The biggest problem with the inventory size, is how to scale it properly. In the beginning every slot is a gods send as you need dozens of item types, but as you (slowly) progress you build up a place to live with storage and such, meaning you don't need to carry as many types of items. Afterall it doesn't make sense to take that pick with you if you are going out to collect more wood if you have a tool rack or something alike to store it. Similarly you won't carry your entire food supply with you when you have somewhere to store a part of it. I think the best way to equalize is to have a proper weight system, which allows the early player to carry a lot of different types of item in small amounts and the later game player to carry a lot of few types types of material. Though personally I would also be for using the food weight system for ores giving the ore blocks a yield range instead of having small, poor, normal and rich varieties of each ore.

[chepelink 14]

 I think the best way to equalize is to have a proper weight system, which allows the early player to carry a lot of different types of item in small amounts and the later game player to carry a lot of few types types of material

You hit the nail in the head. Just think about of what is the relation about weight and stack size. You can emulate a weight system if you just focus on the stack size. There is no actual need to implement weights because there exist no logic about carrying a tree in your pocket even if each "log" has a "decent" weight, but you can limit the amount of things that a player can carry reducing the amount of things a player can carry per slot. IMHO, the best way to ensure diversity of items but reducing the OP of the inventory is to reduce the size of the stacks of specific items and implement specifics way of transporting those items. Those transports can range from a simple method already implemented (clay pots, chest in a mine-cart, mules) to more complex one like wagons pulled by a horse. You can also ensure that the player don't abuse of those inventory managers applying a cost-benefit rules and especial rules (like you can carry only an 'X' amount of those). Just to put an example of how I see this kind of development with a common item; logs:

 

Logs has an actual stack size of 16 and the actual size of the inventory is 36. That mean that you can carry 576 logs. If you reduce that stack size to, lets say, 4 you can only carry 144. With just that simple trick you put a much more value to each character slot. If you reduce the stack size to 2 logs per slot you put much more pressure to the inventory magnament (72 logs). Yeah, I know, with a stack size of 2 making a pit would be tedious so I think 4 would be the ideal (one layer of logs). Just remember that you usually have food, water and an axe (scythe and ladders to harvest items from leaf are optional). That mean that you actually can carry 128 logs or 8 piles to make charcoal. 8 piles for charcoal are not enough, at least you want something like 27~28 piles to ensure something nice. That mean that you have to do 3~4 trips to fill that with your inventory almost empty!!! With that in mind you can now have a justification for a better way of transport materials but without crippling the inventory at the beginning, where you do not need logs (you want seeds, bushes, thatch, food, clay, etc, things that are "small" or that having them in "larger quantities" do not affect the late game but are really nice at the beginning). 

 

Bear in mind that an inventory based on weight follows more or less the same rules as stacks: heavy/big items can't have large stacks. You can actually said that each slot of the inventory can carry, for example, 10 kilos /22 pounds and say that each log weight 2.5 kilos/5.5 pounds so you can have 4 logs per slot (it is just an example, no IRL weights). With that you can justify why only 4 logs per slot. 

[Kittychanley 1,002]

Logs actually used to only stack to 4. However this made inventory management so ridiculously horrible/tedious and there were so many complaints about it that it was increased to 16.

[chepelink 14]

Logs actually used to only stack to 4. However this made inventory management so ridiculously horrible/tedious and there were so many complaints about it that it was increased to 16.

 

... So, what now? As I see this problem right now is quite complicate to reach a conclusion. Every idea posted here is tedious in one way or another, it is hard to decide which one is the less boring  .

[AllenWL 186]

you need a balance between 'challenging' and 'annoying'

But the the opinion on where challenging turns to annoying is different for each and every person, so.....

[Hyena Grin 92]

There's no point in restricting inventory until there's infrastructure in place to support moving stuff around. Any reduction in inventory capacity is going to annoy somebody. You can't really expect otherwise until more thought has gone into how you're going to alleviate inventory stress in a way that fits in with the TFC theme. Wagons, pull carts, ways to expand inventory, etc.

[chepelink 14]

What would be considered challenging? I mean, Diablo 2 inventory was challenging and fun (from my perspective) because of items' difference in shape and size, but it reached a point where it become really annoying because I had to deal with it so many times. I thought that the best solution is to keep the inventory as it is right now but with a reduction in stack size, reduced to a minimum point where you can manage to do things "easily" but at the same time it force you to use alternatives to carry things around. 

[TomatoThief 53]

I'm not looking for realism as much as motivation. Obviously nobody is going to realistically quarry a 100 hectares and build a castle by themselves. We have to suspend disbelief somewhere.

 

An example of my gripe with Vanilla is this: There is no reason not to build a 1x1 dirt bridge spanning any length. So you fire some cobblestone, make some bricks, lay some fenceposts, and make an awesome looking bridge with supports and towers and rails. But the only reason you did that is so that it would look nice. Vanilla Survival is still essentially Creative... with zombies. The time it takes to gather materials is laughable, and the need for those materials is purely aesthetic. If I need a bridge over a river biome, I don't want to pretend. I don't want to role play with myself, and create house rules. I want to be in the muck laying support pillars because if I don't, the bridge will collapse. I want to use the minimum amount of materials possible, because they were hard to get. That's not annoying to me. That's a challenge of need where the final product brings satisfaction, instead of , "Eh, another bridge on day 1".

 

I agree with Hyena above. Restricting inventory is bound to be purely annoying until the solutions are implemented.