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Hyena Grin

Saltwater oceans and aquifers.

6 posts in this topic

Right, so. I am not actually sure how the worldgen works and how difficult it would be, but I'd love to see oceans made up of saltwater, and new salt blocks that could be mined and used for a variety of purposes.

 

Essentially, salt water is not drinkable. Salt water could spawn new types of water-based creatures and monsters, making swimming around in the ocean unsafe, without making rivers and lakes equally dangerous.

 

This could give rise to some interesting biomes such as salt-water marshes, rockier ocean shores, deeper oceans, etc. Rivers that connect to oceans would be fresh water, of course. How it is handled where the two water types connect would be trickier. Rivers would need to remain freshwater while lakes connected to the ocean would need to become saltwater. I'm not well-versed enough in worldgen to describe a solution. If there is one.

 

Another thought is aquifers. This is tricky for a few reasons, but the primary challenge is simply that Minecraft does not handle water volumetrically. And of course an aquifer is essentially earth that is also sodden with water, which also can't really be done.

 

Here are some ideas for how an aquifer might be simulated.

 

1) Aquifers are comprised of earth, gravel, and stone. Earth and gravel in an aquifer spawn water in much the same way as a water block, with the obvious difference that they can be mined and cannot be swum through. Blocks mined out of an aquifer become ordinary earth and gravel blocks, and due to restrictions, if replaced back into the slot they were mined from, no longer spawn water. Stone blocks do not spawn water but do 'drip' as they do when water is above stone under normal circumstances.

 

2) Sporadic water pockets. Simply put, fill the area of the aquifer with (frequent) pockets of water. These could be single cubes or up to 3x3 pockets of water. These would have to be quite frequent, enough so that digging near them without hitting water would be difficult.

 

3) Replace dirt and gravel blocks dug out of an aquifer with a water block. This water block could be removed with a bucket, however if the walls around it contain dirt or gravel, then it will become water again after a period of time. This means digging through an aquifer layer would require cobblestone at a minimum, and probably supports. Otherwise your carefully tunneled staircase down may end up submerged in water.

 

 

None of these are perfect, obviously. And I don't know the mechanics well enough to say how feasible any of it would be. But it'd be nice to be able to dig a well, perhaps with a new tool made of string and a bucket and some planks for gathering water from a deep water source. This would be useful for islands that are surrounded by salt water, as above, and do not have a source of fresh water on the surface. You would need to dig down to the aquifer (as would likely be present on an island) for fresh water. And it'd be nice if there was a (relatively easy) barrier in some locations to dig beyond the aquifer.

 

Where would aquifers spawn? Mostly around rivers and lakes and near the ocean, but could potentially exist anywhere, even under deserts. Ideally aquifers would form 'rivers' and 'lakes' beneath the ground, or as extensions of the ocean. At least in-so-far as what they would look like if you mapped them out. Areas above aquifers might be more lush, and there may be natural springs that result in things like an oasis in the desert.

 

I realize that without a good understanding of how biomes and world-gen work this is a bit of a wishlist, but I'm just throwing some ideas out there.

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The first idea is very interesting. The lands have changed significantly, having stones, some basic plants (still could use more), different types of trees, varying animals, etc. Whether the ocena/sea bed is barren of any life... Maybe generate corals, reefs where fish dwell, some kind of underwater plants, crabs, etc. Liven it up a bit, that's how i see. It shouldn't be in a matter "going from a lively land into a dead ocean/sea". Oh yeah, there are squids... hooray...

 

Creating underground water rivers, water flow etc. will definitely require a more sophisticated world gen. Interesting idea, but requires a big think through on the influence and coding. Would be interesting to dig a hole, find an underground river and ride it into a massive cave system.

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Salt water buckets should be playable as models when shift right clicked. Leaving them in full sunlight for two or the days, then breaking it would give you 4-5 salt. I saw you mention meat salting to preserve, right? Sealing meat in a barrel of salt or something similar could be a use for it salt.

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How I expect bodies of saltwater could be implemented could be that it is effectively normal water, but if it's from an ocean (or perhaps new saltwater lake) biome, using a bucket or water jug (if the jug could even be used) will fill it with saltwater instead. Also, swimming in these biomes doesn't recover thirst. That is probably the simplest way to implement it. I like how drying the bucket of saltwater results in acquiring salt. Since rock salt already exists, I suggest crafting it with a hammer, much like with flux stones, could also get you salt. I would like to suggest uses for the salt, but that belongs in another thread.

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I was just thinking that aquifers would make a great addition to TFC, and came across this suggestion as I was searching the forums for them. The idea doesn't seem to have caught on much, but I really think it deserves more attention, since it could probably be made simple to code, and provide a good boost to variety and a little extra challenge to mining.

 

Here are some thoughts:

 

1. Don't simulate the entire water table, just aquifers; that is, isolated areas where there's enough saturation to produce a significant water source.

 

2. Rather than a structure made of special blocks, the aquifer could be a defined area (sort of like a mini biome), where any mined or destroyed blocks are replaced by a water source instead of an air block. This would probably be the simplest and most feasible implementation, and would be "good enough" for TFC's purposes. Having aquifers that grow, shrink, or move would probably involve a lot of procedural calculations that would be time-consuming to code and might very well contribute to a lot of lag; but they're not necessary to have effective, believable aquifers.

 

3. Rather than having a special well structure (which has been suggested), a player would therefore construct a well in the most intuitive way possible: find a likely location for an aquifer, and dig down until you hit water. If the well is too deep to conveniently go in and out for water, craft a Well Bucket out of a Wooden Bucket and Jute Rope. Right click with the bucket to drop it; it will fall, remaining attached to the player by the rope; if it hits water, it becomes filled; right click again to pull it back up. A filled Well Bucket will behave exactly like a filled Wooden Bucket. Alternatively, the Well Bucket could be permanently attached to Hook (or maybe PulleyBlock positioned above the water source; right click to lower or raise, then collect the retrieved water with a regular Wooden Bucket or Ceramic Jug. Further structural features would be up to the player, either for aesthetic or practical purposes (such as walls around the well to prevent falling in).

 

4. Since any mined block (including player-placed ones) in an aquifer is replaced by water, this would be an added challenge for mining if the mineshaft is positioned over an aquifer; one would either have to dig around the aquifer, or find some other way to keep the mine from becoming flooded. Since aquifers only occur in particular locations, this would only be an occasional obstacle.

 

5. If players feel that finding convenient surface water is too easy for wells to be useful, this could be offset by reducing the frequency of freshwater bodies for some biomes. There could be many areas where aquifers are more common than surface water, or where an aquifer is more conveniently located than the nearest freshwater source. Likely locations could be signaled by certain topological features or vegetation (kind of like digging for ores where you found nuggets, or for clay where you see those yellow flowers). Topological signals could include lakes and streams, but shouldn't be limited to them, since wells would be most useful where there isn't any surface water.

 

An implementation like this should be perfectly reasonable to code, and seems to fit very well with TFC's philosophy of believable mechanics and fun, challenging gameplay. Let's give this idea more attention!

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Sheesh, Necro'd much? Is a good idea though, if we ignore the stuff about salt (Pretty much already there). Perhaps marshes where an aquifer hits the surface?

EDIT: IRL you can eat cattails, maybe turn them into a freshwater seaweed?

Edited by Xenolith166
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