Useful lava

[Maga 99]

This is not a massive, detailed suggestion that aims to overhaul an aspect of the game.

Whenever I'm exploring I see all these beautiful hot-springs and lava-pools, and I think to myself....

"Wow, that place looks so cool, too bad there is no point building here since hot-springs and lava-pools don't help me in any way other than aesthetics." 

 

I'm aware that regenerative effects are planned for hot-springs and I think that's great.

Problem is, lava is still basically useless even at the end-game when you can actually move it.

 

I would like to see a feature added where lava is useful the entire game. My idea is this:

Make building a forge over/near lava blocks allows the forge to reach slightly hotter temperatures on its own without consuming extra fuel.

Make building a bloomery/blast furnace over/near lava work faster and perhaps allow the player to add more ores and a little less charcoal and still get a result.

 

Is it realistic? Not really. 

Is it believeable? I think so.

Do I think it would be sweet to have a fantasy dwarf style forge room where lava and metallurgy go hand in hand? Absolutely.

 

When body temperature gets implemented you could obviously make building and using these devices near lava more dangerous so that it remains balanced.

[EternalUndeath 1,208]

Honestly, this was brought up once before in a forging thread, and I still think it's pretty brilliant.It would have to be near natural lava though - separate natural and placed lava the way you separate natural and placed logs, and have this bonus only apply to the natural stuff, or make placed lava cool into stone after x amount of time.

With that change, I would FULLY support the idea of having lava touching any of a forge's base blocks boost it's heat by a base additive number. That just sounds plain badass to me, as well as totally believable - geothermal energy is still energy.

[antimattergizmo 41]

Maybe it could be implemented in the far off inclusion of rudimentary steam? As much as I want Dwarf Fortress-esque lava forges, it just doesn't seem like it could work quite right or mesh well with the dry burn of the forge. I might see it being used with a blast furnace and it's metal walls as a way to speed up the process. And I definitely think moved lava should work just the same as natural if only to give more want for high tier metals.

[Hyena Grin 92]

I think they are planning on changing the way lava works so that it is less of a persistent thing. I don't know the exact details (maybe someone else does) but they have talked about geological instability and earthquakes and volcanoes and things.

 

I never liked that lava was persistent. Lava cools into stone pretty quickly and it's rare to have a source of lava pushing to the surface for very long. Lava should turn into obsidian after a while of being exposed to air (with the exception of lava pockets below a certain Z level).

 

... as you can probably tell I don't really like the idea of lava blocks providing an infinite, intense heat source. Heh. Just my opinion though.

[Necoxus 54]

I like the ideas, here but maybe for balance you would still need a amount of charcoal to start you bast furnace or forge, so its not constant and free energy, and maybe add a danger element such as if a forge(for example) has lava X number of blocks under it, it has a risk of over heating, and breaking or maybe blowing up. I also like the sound of natural disasters, and maybe some weather changes such as hurricanes can occur if you're too close to a ocean biome. I hate lava pools as well, they are helpful in regular minecraft for nether portals, but thats it really, the cooling of the pools is cool tho, but a lot of these ideas correct me if im wrong, are hard to code, and would cause more lag, not only in single player, but on multiplayer more so multiplayer because more chunks are loaded for this stuff to occur.