surface stones respawn after rain

[abregado 3]

Like it says on the tin, surface stone has a chance to respawn only after it rains or storms. Thematically this would be due to erosion revealing new stones under the topsoil.

 

Also makes an interesting gameplay addition as you will want to be out immediately after each rainstorm (or even during for maximum effect), and in multilayer immediately after rain will be a very active time for prospectors. Pre-balanced with the fact that mobs can already spawn when its raining during the day under trees and such.

 

[AllenWL 186]

But won't that mean that you can farm metals? if you dig pits to top of ore veins, then every time it rains, stone will form, letting you effectively farm that ore

[Kazahied 42]

Yea, it seams a bit broken.

[Kittychanley 1,002]

But won't that mean that you can farm metals? if you dig pits to top of ore veins, then every time it rains, stone will form, letting you effectively farm that ore

 

This is exactly why stones currently do not regenerate.

[abregado 3]

umm... not the ore blocks. The surface stone rocks, which you break to get rocks for knapping. Which most definitely do regenerate. 

[Kittychanley 1,002]

The little rocks on the surface that you pick up and drop rock items and occasionally ore do not regenerate.

 

The way that they currently work for randomly dropping ore is that they simply scan the area, and if there is an ore vein nearby, there is a chance to drop a piece of ore instead of a rock. So in this case, all rocks around an ore vein have a chance to drop small ore pieces. If rocks regenerated in this area, the new regenerated ones would also have a chance to drop small ore pieces, making an infinite supply of small ore pieces.

[abregado 3]

hmmm, in my single player game it seems that they regenerate (although quite slowly). perhaps I am just missing one or two in each pass.

 

*goes off to do more science*

[Kittychanley 1,002]

hmmm, in my single player game it seems that they regenerate (although quite slowly). perhaps I am just missing one or two in each pass.

 

*goes off to do more science*

 

See my fancy little title that says Forum Admin/Wiki Admin? It means I know what I'm talking about. You're just missing some rocks in each pass, if you really want I can show you the code (or lack thereof) that proves they do not regenerate.

 

 

Post Edit: Did that come off as bitchy? Yeah.. that sounded bitchy... sorry >.> *Please note that Kitty may sound bitchy when it is 4am and she hasn't eaten anything since 4pm.. she really is quite nice. .-.

[abregado 3]

Yeah I saw it there Kit, which is what prompted me to retract my argument. Code is always of interest to me if you wanted to show, but I don't want you to think that I'm asking because I don't believe you.

 

So if the surface stone is generated during worldgen and never again, a similar system could be used if I decide to code the bonepiles... thanks

 

Edit: for the record I'm against any sort of infinite resource and was looking to reduce the effect of what I thought was an established mechanic

[DA_HOBO2_URLEFT 6]

What if when you destroyed dirt, gravel and sand blocks there was a small chance of it dropping a stone as well. A stone that works just like the ones that spawn on the surface?

 

EDIT: Only naturally generated dirt/gravel/sand, of course.

[Kittychanley 1,002]

What if when you destroyed dirt, gravel and sand blocks there was a small chance of it dropping a stone as well. A stone that works just like the ones that spawn on the surface?

 

EDIT: Only naturally generated dirt/gravel/sand, of course.

 

There is no way to flag if dirt/grave/sand is naturally generated or not. That's one of the main reasons why farmland doesn't give back dirt when you break it.

[Euphoric 48]

Sluices have exactly same problem. Simply remove the ore block after it was used to generate surface ore, just like sluice. Problem solved.

[EnTro 29]

There is no way to flag if dirt/grave/sand is naturally generated or not. That's one of the main reasons why farmland doesn't give back dirt when you break it.

------Took me a while to compute this statement. It's to prevent regeneration of the nutrients by digging up and placing back the farmland right? Well, I'd guess it would be similar to plowing the earth over.I'd fix this by giving dirt with grass on top high nutrient levels when turned into farmland, dirt without grass would give low-nutrient farmland. This would allow you to leave the farmland to fallow (after plowing) by letting grass cover it.Or you leave some kind of datatag/item on the block that was farmland to track the nutrients in that one spot, even after removing the farmland. 

Sluices have exactly same problem. Simply remove the ore block after it was used to generate surface ore, just like sluice. Problem solved.

------ Sluices consume a heap of gravel/sand, no need to remove the ore block (it is very unbelievable/unrealistic to me that sluices/surface ores would mess with the ore vein). Plus regeneration can be very slow to make ore 'farming' not worth it.

[starXephir 30]

I'd fix this by giving dirt with grass on top high nutrient levels when turned into farmland, dirt without grass would give low-nutrient farmland. This would allow you to leave the farmland to fallow (after plowing) by letting grass cover it.

I thought this was already the case?

Sluices are NOT worth losing a source block.

[Kittychanley 1,002]

The nutrient mechanic already works that way in that tilling a grass block gives full nutrients, while tilling a dirt block gives none. Because of the lack of a flag for player placed, if you could get dirt back from farmland, you could just place it back down next to grass, throw a torch on it and wait less than a whole in game day/night before it would probably be grassed over as well. So in this case, if the player had used all the nutrients in his plot, he could just dig it up, place it back down, wait a very short period of time and then retill it for full nutrients.

[Kittychanley 1,002]

The current idea that's floating around for fixing sluices is for the sluice to mark the ore block that it found and caused it to produce small ore. It would not consume the ore block, but the sluice would treat that block as if it were regular stone from then on. Eventually, every block in the vein would be flagged by the sluice, and no more small ores could be obtained from it.

Edit: This flag would mean absolutely nothing when the player mines the block, and the same drops would happen no matter if it was flagged or not.

[Kazahied 42]

Yay a fix to sluice farming

[EnTro 29]

Indeed starXephir, forgot that the grass/dirt thingy is already implemented :S. I'm not really a farmer, plus there is no real need to farm in tfc. I'm still living off crops grown 3 (real life) months ago. (I support the SSP for that reason!)Anyway, In my experience grass takes way longer to spread over an area, but I live quite far from the equator, so I guess it is temperature related?Also it's absolutely no work to replace farmland with fresh dirt in the current game, just walk 10 meters. That stuff covers practically every inch of the game. 

The current idea that's floating around for fixing sluices is for the sluice to mark the ore block that it found and caused it to produce small ore. It would not consume the ore block, but the sluice would treat that block as if it were regular stone from then on. Eventually, every block in the vein would be flagged by the sluice, and no more small ores could be obtained from it.Edit: This flag would mean absolutely nothing when the player mines the block, and the same drops would happen no matter if it was flagged or not.

-----Seems like a good solution. Maybe use the exact same system for the surface ores? Then rock regeneration can be implemented without ore farming.Even though I'm guilty of garnierite farming with sluices myself, I agree that that stuff should be fixed.

[transcengopher 349]

The nutrient mechanic already works that way in that tilling a grass block gives full nutrients, while tilling a dirt block gives none. Because of the lack of a flag for player placed, if you could get dirt back from farmland, you could just place it back down next to grass, throw a torch on it and wait less than a whole in game day/night before it would probably be grassed over as well. So in this case, if the player had used all the nutrients in his plot, he could just dig it up, place it back down, wait a very short period of time and then retill it for full nutrients.

I don't really see how not giving dirt back helps to solve that. You mean, I'm wasting dirt by doing this? Big deal, I'll just go over the hill and dig some up, that stuff's everywhere.

[DA_HOBO2_URLEFT 6]

I don't really see how not giving dirt back helps to solve that. You mean, I'm wasting dirt by doing this? Big deal, I'll just go over the hill and dig some up, that stuff's everywhere.

It's not about wasting dirt. As of right now, a tilled grass block yields full nutrients, while a regular dirt block yields none. This is because the devs don't have a way to flag if a grass block is naturally spawned, or player placed. If a tilled block of dirt did give a dirt block when destroyed, then the player wouldn't need to go find more grass to till, or wait for the nutrients to replenish naturally, because they could just keep replacing the same dirt, and waiting for grass to regrow on top of it. Then, they just need to till it, and bam- full nutrients in less than a day. 

(Correct me if I'm wrong about any of that, Kitty)

[AllenWL 186]

The nutrient mechanic already works that way in that tilling a grass block gives full nutrients, while tilling a dirt block gives none. Because of the lack of a flag for player placed, if you could get dirt back from farmland, you could just place it back down next to grass, throw a torch on it and wait less than a whole in game day/night before it would probably be grassed over as well. So in this case, if the player had used all the nutrients in his plot, he could just dig it up, place it back down, wait a very short period of time and then retill it for full nutrients.

Forgive me if I am wrong, but can't you place a block on farmland or stomp on it to turn it to dirt?(never had to break farmland, so I wouldn't know but....)

 

On a another note, If I remember correctly, the Aether mod has a tool that gives you 2x the drops when you break stuff, but it does not give double drops for player placed blocks.

So technically speaking, wouldn't a player placed flag be possible?

[transcengopher 349]

It's not about wasting dirt. As of right now, a tilled grass block yields full nutrients, while a regular dirt block yields none. This is because the devs don't have a way to flag if a grass block is naturally spawned, or player placed. If a tilled block of dirt did give a dirt block when destroyed, then the player wouldn't need to go find more grass to till, or wait for the nutrients to replenish naturally, because they could just keep replacing the same dirt, and waiting for grass to regrow on top of it. Then, they just need to till it, and bam- full nutrients in less than a day. 

(Correct me if I'm wrong about any of that, Kitty)

This is exactly what I have said. Dirt is not THAT precious. If I want to circumvent nuntrient replenishment mechanics by breaking tilled soil, replacing it with dirt and waiting while grass regrows, the loss of a dozen of dirt blocks isn't going to stop me, wouldn't it? Net loss resources of that process is one dirt block (does not matter in all scheme) and one shovel durability. Net loss of time is varied, but still is not enough.

 

What I'm getting at - if idea is to stop people from using this exploit, not dropping dirt thing ain't gonna help. Personally I see this as no more than coding compromise so that farmland does not need to remember which type of dirt it was initially (though that does not make a great deal of sense because of varied textures it has).

[Kittychanley 1,002]

Forgive me if I am wrong, but can't you place a block on farmland or stomp on it to turn it to dirt?(never had to break farmland, so I wouldn't know but....)

 

Nope. You can jump up and down all you want, or place all the blocks in the world on that farmland, and it's not going to turn back into dirt.

[AllenWL 186]

Oh, that makes sense.

It's not perfect, but it works, so I'm not complaining.

[Axier 2]

So, on the topic of the OP, I was thinking, perhaps making duplicate stones that only spawned during certain events such as rain and alongside rivers that didn't have the ore drop chance, would really help with new players on multiplayer servers, where the first few miles are usually stripped of stones and devoid of trees.

 

Another neat idea would just to spawn knappable flint alongside rivers... I mean, I have always wanted to make a few flint tools anyway.