Alternate Mob Spawning - Bonepiles

[abregado 3]

Reading through the other suggestions it seems there is some dissatisfaction with the current night time mob spawning rules, and I personally dont like the simplicity of the current safe chunk system (but do like the effect of making a safeplace). This would be my solution if I wasent working on my own games.

 

Bonepiles are an item entity that is spawned during world generation. There is limited numbers of them just like wild animals, however you cannot destroy them. At night time enemy mobs spawn using the same rules as they do now, but can only spawn on Bonepile entities.

 

During the day if the player wants to make a chunk safe they need to move the piles away from their home. This is done by digging up the bonepiles. Two options would exist:

 

Digging them with the shovel moves the bonepile one block away from the player, perhaps only onto other dirt,grass tiles (less dev time option)

or

If you are holding a bonepile you cant switch to another item or put it in your backpack, so you have to put it down again before doing anything else

 

Inventive players might move all the bone piles to one place, or into a pit, or behind their walls.

 

This would mean that it takes WORK to make an area safe, meaning less time for gathering. Also you will need to prepare the area when you move to a new location, rather than just spending the whole day in one chunk.

 

Also means you could have varying density of bonepiles in different "biomes" so that some resource poor areas are valuable simply because they are naturally less dangerous. They would make good half-way houses between camps.

 

 

[Kazahied 42]

I like this, but make the bone piles have a spawn radius. Instead of just on top of the piles. This would make it harder to mob trap entities.

[Bioxx 796]

I'm not exactly fond of this specific idea, but I would like to foster discussion on alternate spawning solutions so I'll leave this comment here. Should do the trick i hope

[413crossram 8]

being able to move the spawn would allow for such things as mob farming very easily, which is bad.

 

If this bone pile entity idea of yours is going to work it cannot be moved by players at all.

 

Edit; just a quick thought, maybe the bone piles only spawn when something dies or gets killed - except spawning of the bone pile happens randomly in a certain large radius of the kill, to alleviate any mob farming problems.

[AllenWL 186]

Something like spawners, but it spawns mobs at night, huh...

But if you can move bonepiles, it will be easy to make an area safe no matter how many bone piles there are all you would really need to do fence an area off and move all the nearest bonepiles there. You just have to take care of things near you as mobs far away from you won't be able to see you anyways(well, unless they are a zombie)

 

Also, wouldn't it make mob farming ridiculously easy?

[Kazahied 42]

Perhaps make the bone piles have a chance to drop when ever something dies. That way as a town or farm gets very large they have more to defend from mobs. The resulting bone piles would have to be placed (similar to ingots) in stacks but would not allow the player to throw them (so people don't chuck them into lava pits)

 

There could be an underground "biome" like the rivers and such, that would function as a vanilla dungeon. These would have massive piles of bones, but also some goodies to get at for adventurers. 

 

Perhaps if the mechanical mills are added you could grind them in that to get bone-meal.

[AllenWL 186]

So that zombie I kill drops a bone pile that spawns more zombies that drop more bone piles that spawn more zombies that drop more bone piles that spawn more zombies?

That is.....

 

I don't even know what to say....

[Kazahied 42]

not a 1:1 ratio of kills/ bone piles. Maybe a 3% chance of that happening. That way a lived in area would eventually collect a decent number of bone piles, which you can grind into fertilizer or w/e.

[starXephir 30]

Having mobs spawn at above ground dungeons sounds pretty funny. I can imagine a first timer settling up in a Stonehenge looking structure he found for his first night. Only to have it spew forth zombies and skeletons when the moon shone upon the altar. A 'boneyard' might be more appropriate, the elephant graveyard in Lion King has quite an atmosphere to it, no? Areas where mass death or burial might have occurred prior. A death-counter (like the protection meter) could cause the boneyard's to effectively spread, if you fight around it. Mob grinders would then spill over the boundaries you set up and become really, really dangerous. Should you slaughter too many mobs (eg farm slaughter house), or die to frequently in an area it begins to spawn hostiles. Slowing down over time. This mechanic would be okay for the current undead and maybe even player ghosts/shades...

 

I would rather see wild dogs and various nocturnal scavengers incorporated. Loud howling while you're heading home late at night? Excellent foreshadowing to being swarmed by a pack of wild dogs. Other nocturnal animals that have spawned 'hide' (well, you know, despawn) during the daylight. Running away should the player approach. Headding out of spawn distance, causing them to 'hide' as normal.

 

Plus I need more animals to hunt!

[Kazahied 42]

^ that sounds awesome. Or the new player sets up in a cave only to discover it is connected to a massive bone-pile cavern. 

[starXephir 30]

^ that sounds awesome. Or the new player sets up in a cave only to discover it is connected to a massive bone-pile cavern. 

Oh man, didn't really thing too much about it. There is one cavern in the UK where vikings slaughtered hundreds of women and children.

Having stuff like this would be awesome for giving a little life to the world. Giving the impression you have been thrown into a world of madness. Opposed to a clean slate to abuse.

 

The 'bonepile'/'boneyard' could be expanded into having 'dens' for bears and wild wolves (naturally agressive).

That new player would think twice before planning a classic Minecraft 'mining trip'

 

If Senor Bioxx isn't happy about these spawner ideas giving too much to the player/being unrealistic. They could always tick down like the spawn protection in reverse. Should it become fully depleted, there is a chance it will break and stop working. Allowing players to either farm it, or try and remove it (unbreakable by tools).

 

Edit: Fighting until the spawner eventually breaks would also work to allow players to move on through a cave system, but also delay their progress. Or cause them to have defences/watch towers.

[AllenWL 186]

not a 1:1 ratio of kills/ bone piles. Maybe a 3% chance of that happening. That way a lived in area would eventually collect a decent number of bone piles, which you can grind into fertilizer or w/e.

but it's not like bone piles spawn 1 mob per night, or does it dissapear after spawning the mob, right?

Even if it's just 3%, I think one bone pile will be able to output 100 mobs in one or two days.

That's about 3 extra, so 4, which would output 4 times more mobs. The number of bone piles will multiply like there's no tomorrow really fast unless you make over half the spawned mobs despawn, or make it so bonepiles only drop on player kills or something

[starXephir 30]

To remove the bone piles as suggested by Allen and Abregado. Lighting them up with a firestarter/flint and steel? Throw salt down first? Seems easier than shovelling bones around like vagabond snow in your driveway..

The worst kind of bone pile I can imagine are dropped by zombies... And resurrect as skeletons as soon as the next night! Awful. The sun would be seeding the fields with skeletal birthing pods!

Bioxx, your post might not have done the trick you were hoping.

[Kazahied 42]

Purification by fire? could always bury them; dig a hole, place bones in hole, cover up bones. After a day or so buried they would despawn/disintegrate. Untouched piles would despawn after a week or so ( so as to avoid game breaking amounts of clutter.

 

To cut down on the whole armies of the dead thing, you could limit how many mobs a pile can spawn per day.

[413crossram 8]

I'd like to see this bone piles idea get realistic implementation status before we discuss how to moderate spawning levels.  Anybody else have any ideas on how these bone piles should be spawned, the rate at which they spawn, what they spawn, how often bone piles happen, what makes bone piles happen, etc. etc.

[abregado 3]

This was less about a new spawning system, and more about changing the way that we currently make "safe chunks". At the moment you dont need to do any actual work towards making your home chunk safe. There is no opportunity cost as you can do all your normal jobs for 1 day in the one chunk then you are protected for about a week (plus the extra while you are there).

 

Perhaps mobs still spawn in chunks as per usual if there are any bone piles in that chunk and the player needs to clear them to make an area safe. The Bone piles would also respawn over time so the player needs to regularly check his "home chunk" for incursions.

 

Lots of good ideas in this thread! Its good to generate some conversation on this topic

 

I think the mob farming issue could be solved just by having the mobs spawn in a large area around the bone piles, or anywhere in chinks that have bone piles. Then at least the amount of time you spend moving/removing bone piles will increase the likelyhood that mobs will see you, since you could move them several chunks away given enough time.

 

Protecting a town or safezone should not just be about defeating the enemies when they attack, but also should require some time to maintain. Seeing as most time in the Stone age is taken up foraging and hunting, settling down would not be as easy until the later ages (which is historically accurate if your into that sort of thing).

 

I would image the bone piles are spawned during worldgen, and extra ones get spawned randomly in chunks with none every full moon (another scheduled task makes organised players much more successful). They certainly should drop when you kill a mob otherwise it will become mayhem after a few weeks of defending your territory.

[413crossram 8]

I'm not fond of the random, time specific, bone pile spawning.  I'm wondering how players would respond to such a mechanic and cannot decide if it would create any unintentionally linear playing styles or something. 

[Kazahied 42]

View it more as a balance to the chunk safety mechanic. In a town of a few people you can have a relatively large area safe due to being "lived in". If bone piles were a threat then they would at least still pose a risk to a town. 

[abregado 3]

Yep, Kazahied has got it. Generating unintentional linear playstyles is better than the current system in which you can bury yourself with 5 food items and 5 jugs of water, go afk only coming back to eat and drink every 7 minutes. After 30 minutes of this your 3x3 of chunks is protected for AAAAGES...

[AllenWL 186]

View it more as a balance to the chunk safety mechanic. In a town of a few people you can have a relatively large area safe due to being "lived in". If bone piles were a threat then they would at least still pose a risk to a town. 

 

Cover every surface with a torch/non solid block.

A big enough town should be able to do that with little to no problem

[Kazahied 42]

For a large town, that could take quite a bit of resources. I have seen large castles that would take several thousand torches to light just the interior. Plus light wont prevent them from walking into your area.

[AllenWL 186]

Prevent them from spawning, and build a wall to prevent them walking in.

Problem solved

[413crossram 8]

View it more as a balance to the chunk safety mechanic. In a town of a few people you can have a relatively large area safe due to being "lived in". If bone piles were a threat then they would at least still pose a risk to a town. 

Oh, I was hoping to take Bioxx's lead and talk about alternate mob spawning just in general.

 

You know you can tweak and may possibly be able to get rid of entirely those chunk safety mechanics; I know they were tweaked on EnTro's server.

[starXephir 30]

I think the problem with spawning that isn't based on a block (be a bone/refuse pile, nest or bed), is how the game would define such spawning chunks. Then if the system would be abusable by players. It may be hard to program, or even harder to make it calculation efficient on a server. Where the amount of processing power it takes up my degrade the fun of playing the game. More so than a cool spawning system would enhance gameplay.

 

I did suggest in the IRC once the idea of animals 'migrating'. Depending on chunk conditions/seasons. They would become eligible for animals to spawn. Deer could spawn in forests during the spring. They would then persist over the summer, and by the end of autumn begin despawning though autumn and winter. Giving you the sense the animals have travelled to feed and live there while they can, then leave (or 'hide' in a next to sleep) before the area becomes unfavourable for living. You wouldn't really be able to make a proper spawner. However if you created small walled-of chunks, with a suitable habitat for certain animals. You could check them over the spawning months to see if you had "Caught" one. Or seed a whole forest for hunting! Deforest a whole mountain for sheep who need the grass to graze. Cows and other grazers would appear during the the months grass has grown the most, or even just in areas where there is a lot of grass. The most basic problem with this kind of system is how similar it is to vanilla spawning. Any problems you may have with that, you would also have with 'Migration'.

[AllenWL 186]

That's pretty good.

 

Also, in places that the player was in for a long time, he number of 'friendly' animals can decrease, while the number of hostiles increase

(How I get that equation, is this: When people stay for a long time, killing animals and making lots of noise, the peaceful, shy animals run away, while scavengers gather for scraps and such)