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Maga

Exploration Incentive (structures)

43 posts in this topic

First of all, hats off to the devs on generation code, Terrafirmacraft consistently produces stunning landscapes that are a pleasure to build in.

 

I think Mojang had a decent idea with rare, randomly generated structures, but their execution was horrible. The buildings are ugly, serve no real purpose, and worst of all they all look identical.

(Seriously, they are hideous... Don't get me started on the recent guardian temples.)

 

I would like to see the landscape dotted with buildings in various states of decay. They should be rare, more so even than in vanilla. Additionally they would serve a purpose by providing the player with knowledge.

 

The idea for learning was inspired a little by skyrim, learning words of power at locations, also by tinker's construct (MC mod) where to make a scimitar you have to find the mold at a village tinker hut.

 

Each ruined building would impart one or more various recipies/abilities to the player when visited. (ie one blacksmith might enable throwing knives and lanterns while another only enable scimitars) This idea has the ability to pull from a plethora of other fantastic suggestions on the forums.

 

Without going into crazy detail I'll list a few possiblities. 

 

Ruined Smithy 

would enable the option to making scimitars, halberds, metal lanterns or throwing knives in the anvil gui

 

Ruined Tower/Fort

allow players to craft/use sheilds or inlay their armor with precious metals for decoration (shields worn in quiver slot and come out on left of screen when using a right-click to block, reducing slightly more damage than sword blocking)

 

Ruined Huts

could have small overgrown gardens with new types of plants and trees not found in the wild (canola, peanuts, fig etc)

Huts could be for different trades... so a carpenter's hut might allow players to craft new wood items, or enable a new chisel mode.

 

Ruined Windmill/Watermill

Not sure what purpose these would serve but they could look really awesome.

 

And others (suggestions please)...

 

I would also suggest making buildings fit the biome, such as having different huts for deserts, igloos for the poles etc

Building schematics could be sourced from the community in order to attain the variety that Mojang desperately lacks, I'm thinking at least 5 of each building type is appropriate. Combine that with making stone and log types randomly vary building by building and you would have something that feels natural even the 5th time around.

 

 

As you can see this would open the game up for adding many great ideas that people are already suggesting while simultaneously adding more longevity to the game. 

Finding them in multiplayer would make for great bragging rights. Imagine a player with gold-inlayed black bronze armor, wielding a steel scimitar and living in a house lit by metal lanterns... Infinitely more cool than some guy grinding out red steel everything and having progression stop there.

 

A few images that articulate my imagination:

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I don't like the progression system of having to find a randomly spawned structure to unlock aspects of the game.  One unlucky seed will near completely lock a section of features to the player.I know the devs have shown an obvious dislike to the suggestions of humanoid AI, Humanoid structures might also play into this.As for sheilds and more advanced weapons.. Yeah sure why not, there are other mods that do this that you could tweak the recipes to add to your own game.  I wouldn't mind seeing shields native to TFC or an addon.  Unfortunately I am unqualified to make one.

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From what I've read on the forums I think the player is supposed to be the first humanoid in TFC. Structures would make a good mod.  Some aspects of your idea could be implemented, such as a rare micro biome that contains a (non-essential to the overall progression) plant, fossil or gem to collect.

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TFC starts you off in the mesolithic era, during which things like permanent buildings were only just being invented. All "buildings" up to this point were sticks driven into the ground with animal hides draped over them; primitive portable shelters for nomadic people with no concept of what it meant to stay in one place for longer than perhaps a single season at most. It would take another ten thousand years of human evolution for things like windmills and stone towers to appear.

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TFC starts you off in the mesolithic era, during which things like permanent buildings were only just being invented. All "buildings" up to this point were sticks driven into the ground with animal hides draped over them; primitive portable shelters for nomadic people with no concept of what it meant to stay in one place for longer than perhaps a single season at most. It would take another ten thousand years of human evolution for things like windmills and stone towers to appear.

The devs have also stated quiet often TFC is not historically accurate and only pretends to be psuedo realistic.That being said structures would make a good addon so those who don't like it don't have to use it.

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TFC starts you off in the mesolithic era, during which things like permanent buildings were only just being invented. All "buildings" up to this point were sticks driven into the ground with animal hides draped over them; primitive portable shelters for nomadic people with no concept of what it meant to stay in one place for longer than perhaps a single season at most. It would take another ten thousand years of human evolution for things like windmills and stone towers to appear.

 

Exactly. However, some structures like pyramids and the stonehenge were made long before that era, so although you wouldn't be able to find ruined windmills, one can probably stumble across monoliths, crude statues, and other primitive structures.

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Ancient egypt arose during the early bronze age, meaning the great pyramids were built during that time at the earliest. And that's long, long after the mesolithic. Five digit year numbers afterwards, for that particular region of the world. :P Seriously, there was no such thing as countries or kings or Pharaos back then when the paleolithic ended. No cities, not even villages. No agriculture, no boats, no metalworking, no quarrying or mining; even the wheel hadn't been invented. Humanity was 100% hunter-gatherer nomads, walking on foot after herds of animals on their seasonal migrations. They didn't build anything lasting, because it was worthless to them. It's only throughout this period that the discovery of agriculture and animal husbandry made it feasible to adopt a sedentary lifestyle. Much like in TFC, where you run around the first 2-3 days living off food you find in the world, until you have enough seeds to plant a farm.

 

Shini_otoba has a point when he says that TFC doesn't make an attempt to replicate a realworld timeline exactly, but it's still hard to imagine finding any sophisticated permanent building in the world - much less many of them all over the place. That would strongly imply that you are in fact just a guy living in the wilderness during fairly recent times (middle ages / renaissance), and I'd be surprised if that was the intended flavor of the mod.

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I can tell you that I've personally talked at length with Dunk about generated structures - he's a fan of the idea, and there was even a sorta-not-really contest a while ago to see who could come up with generated structures that might possibly be implemented.

(Here's one of mine:

Posted Image

)

 

 

This all said though, I have NO idea what Bioxx's thoughts are on the matter, and he has a tendency to just put a 'no' stamp on a bunch of Dunk's non-animal-related ideas - many of which are community-derived.

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Love the idea.

 

I don't think it's fair to say that buildings couldn't exist, but a single man could mine, smelt and forge complex alloys.

I also don't think any explanation or justification for buildings (or almost any mechanic) is necessary. It seems to me like a harmless but effective and original mechanic to be added to the game.

 

At some point the scope of the game will surpass a threshhold and will no longer be entirely believable within the context of the original mod (perhaps it has happened multiple times). It is something we must embrace in a mod which will invariably change over time. I get the feeling that some people on this forum oppose ideas purely because they would add a new unusual aspect to the game.

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Thanks dutchraptor, well put.

 

My goal with the original idea was to present a way to make exploring exciting long after you acquire animals. I started on a server and within a week had horses, donkeys, chickens, cows, pigs and sheep (several colors) as well as a hand-full of nickel deposits marked on my map. In my mind this pretty much marks the end of any reason to venture out into the unknown, seeking adventure and generally enjoying your surroundings. I think it's sad that people don't have more reasons to get out and look around their worlds. The addition of learning skills by visiting locations provides the incentive and (perhaps more importantly) allows for easy implementation of dozens and dozens of great ideas over time.

 

 

I don't like the progression system of having to find a randomly spawned structure to unlock aspects of the game.  One unlucky seed will near completely lock a section of features to the player.

 

I agree with you completely... but you seem to be talking about a problem that doesn't exist here. It's not like a player can't get by with a regular sword, torches, armor, crops etc. Adding bonus items/skills that are found/learned at remote locations would simply be a frivolous perk, more bragging rights than anything else.

 

Also, I should make myself clear that I don't think these things should be thrown down willy-nilly all over the landscape. I'm talking VERY rare. I think it's important that people who have been playing a world or server for over a month should get the same new-player excitement that comes from finding cows or nickel for the first time. 

 

@eternal

nice tower, pretty much exactly what I was thinking about... though taking into account the potential of the chisel would hope to eventually see buildings with much higher levels of detail... Maybe I'll give it a shot and see what I can come up with. I just doubt I have the patience to build the things I'm envisioning here.

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@eternal

nice tower, pretty much exactly what I was thinking about... though taking into account the potential of the chisel would hope to eventually see buildings with much higher levels of detail... Maybe I'll give it a shot and see what I can come up with. I just doubt I have the patience to build the things I'm envisioning here.

 

I specifically avoided the chisel here, with a few exceptions - the arrow loops higher on the wall were done with the chisel, and serve the same purpose as they did in meatspace - easy to fire out of at (due to the tower's position on a hill) long range with a wide view, but next to impossible to shoot into. I spent a good 15 minutes trying the design out with a bow and infinite creative arrows, seeing how far and wide I could spread my shots from the inside of the area, vs. how many shots I could land in the building from the ground below. Once I found a good high ratio, I duplicated that design on every wall. This tower only has 4 arrow blind-spots, and they're fairly narrow.

 

But that said, I used the chisel detail mode as little as humanly possible, because those puppies will LAG YOU SILLY, especially on a server.

Here's another view of the same tower:

Posted Image

 

On the inside of the upper floor, there's several (I think 3?) tool racks along the walls, and 2 bows total hanging on them. There's also 2 chests in opposite corners, one of which is empty and the other contains a small smattering of arrows. Less than a stack I believe.

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I like the idea.

 

If I understand correctly, what you want for the schematics is simply be different variations of the tools we have right now, right?

I think that will be fine, as long as it's balanced, or purely aesthetics.

I think the shield, if added, should be craftable like any other metal things, and we should find different shields like tower shields or bucklers or whatever instead of just the shield

(I feel it needs something more that 'take quiver slot and boost blocking').

 

 

I also suggest having the material type of the buildings depend on the wood and stone around it, so if your in a area with granite and birch, the structure will be made mainly of granite and birch, if the area is claystone and chestnut, it'll be made of clatystone and chestnut, etc

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I also suggest having the material type of the buildings depend on the wood and stone around it, so if your in a area with granite and birch, the structure will be made mainly of granite and birch, if the area is claystone and chestnut, it'll be made of clatystone and chestnut, etc

 

I'd actually mentioned this to Dunk when we were talking about it. I kinda forget if he said it was feasible or not though. I suppose you could always pull from the generation code for the top stone layer, but that might make for some.. interesting structures on stone borders lol.

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Like, a house that's half granite, half chert with the floor 1/5 chestnut, 2/5 aspen, and 2/5 ash or something like that?

 

That.. would be interesting.......

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Like, a house that's half granite, half chert with the floor 1/5 chestnut, 2/5 aspen, and 2/5 ash or something like that?

 

That.. would be interesting.......

 

Interesting is one word for it, lol

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As I've mentioned in threads of the past, I certainly wouldn't mind some special locations, rare areas and structures in the world. However, I don't like idea of one having to find and retrofit buildings or be forcefully limited. While there could be, rarely, some (more or less common) resources worth salvaging among ruins, I'd rather have building one's facilities from the ground up remain a perfectly viable choice.

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As I've mentioned in threads of the past, I certainly wouldn't mind some special locations, rare areas and structures in the world. However, I don't like idea of one having to find and retrofit buildings or be forcefully limited. While there could be, rarely, some (more or less common) resources worth salvaging among ruins, I'd rather have building one's facilities from the ground up remain a perfectly viable choice.

I'm not sure how this is even relative. These things would need to be RARE. Take how rare you think I mean, then even more than that. I've said this many times now and I'm hoping I can stop soon. I see no reason why anyone in their right mind would want to aimlessly wander the world for months/years in search for a run-down shack vulnerable to mobs before they build their own place to get geared up and settled in. Also, where are the forceful limitations? ... I don't see them.

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I'm not sure how this is even relative. These things would need to be RARE. Take how rare you think I mean, then even more than that. I've said this many times now and I'm hoping I can stop soon. I see no reason why anyone in their right mind would want to aimlessly wander the world for months/years in search for a run-down shack vulnerable to mobs before they build their own place to get geared up and settled in. Also, where are the forceful limitations? ... I don't see them.

 

So... When I was talking with dunk (I know I keep bringing up this 10 minute conversation like it was a 3 day philosophical debate, but it's just always relevant), I mentioned 1 structure spawn in every 100x100 chunk square. Do you guys think that's pretty reasonable? Remember, you can walk across 1 chunk in roughly 2-ish seconds at a sprint. A little 16x16 chunk isn't all that much.

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Nope I think that's way to rare. I checked out some of my saves on mcedit and it seems that 10000 chunks is an immense amount of terrain, even when you have a far render distance.

 

I would rather see a 30% chance for a ruin to spawn, and another 30% for two ruins in a single 80x80 chunk square.

(which would put one ruin every 7100 chunks as opposed to 10000 chunks, but could make a huge area devoid of buildings)

And on top of that, the loot a ruin has may change drastically too.

 

I like the idea of rare ruins, but I would rather not have that they are painstaking to find. I think that after a few hours of real life one should reliably be able to find a ruin or two. I think it would be awesome to find one at the start of a game and use it as a base.

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@EternalUndeath

To me the best way to do it would be to make it a config option with several levels. NONE for 0 structures. LOW, MEDIUM and HIGH for progressively more structures (so servers who want to pregenerate a smaller map because of hardware limitations would be able to have more than 3-ish structures if they wanted) As for 100x100 chunks per spawn, even that seems a bit high. Maybe there could be two types of ruins. One is basically a broken foundation with no walls, completely run-down and give no real bonuses (maybe crumbled wells and such), they would spawn a little more frequently to kind of set the tone. The other type would be the more structurally intact ones that spawn rarely and give things like the ability to decorate sheilds/armor, craft new swords types, lanterns, rare crops etc.

My number would be one every 64x64 for the small ruins and one every 128x128 for the big ones. (that's chunks, not blocks)

 

@dutchraptor

I don't think the beginning of the game should be about hopping into the nearest run-down cabin and setting up shop, I love how the beginning of TFC requires planning and forethought as you slowly build something from the raw environment around you. I see this working best as a late-game goal where you (and better yet your friends too) get geared up for some serious adventuring once you've built a thriving settlement to return to.

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I don't think the beginning of the game should be about hopping into the nearest run-down cabin and setting up shop, I love how the beginning of TFC requires planning and forethought as you slowly build something from the raw environment around you. 

Well, spawning and deciding if you want to strike out to try your luck for a ruin or if you want to play it safe and just build something yourself can be planning too.

I mean, you don't start up vanilla minecraft and say "Hey, I think I'll just go look for a village and set up shop there instead of building something myself", right?

I think having the same rarity as vanilla villages/temples/whatever would be fine.

 

 

Maybe there could be two types of ruins. One is basically a broken foundation with no walls, completely run-down and give no real bonuses (maybe crumbled wells and such), they would spawn a little more frequently to kind of set the tone. The other type would be the more structurally intact ones that spawn rarely and give things like the ability to decorate sheilds/armor, craft new swords types, lanterns, rare crops etc.

I think the structures should come in three states and four types.

 

The states can be:

Ruined, partially ruined, and mostly intact.

A ruined structure would have very little shabby loot, or more likely no loot at all, and would be much destroyed and broken, with just enough remaining so you might guess what it was.

Partially ruined structures would have some loot, not very good, but not bad, it would be somewhat destroyed, but not that destroyed, kinda like EternalUndeath's tower

A mostly intact structure would be the rarest, have good loot, and it would be nearly whole, just missing windows and doors, the odd wall gone here, a staircase broken there, a hole in the floor, a crack in the roof, but otherwise intact.

The chances of what states a structure would be:

Ruined:common

Partially ruined: uncommon/rare

Mostly intact: extremely rare

 

The types would be:

Basic structures, Civilian, Military, Complex structures

Basic structures would be things like wells, bridges, roads, signposts, wells, etc Mainly to set the mood, has no loot. Pretty much just aesthetics.(though I guess you can steal some blocks from it that you can't make yet, like plank blocks from bridges(if they are wooden) to make crafting benches before the copper age)

Civilian structures would be smithies, farms, barns, stables, quarries, etc. They would have loot like wool, crop seeds, fruit tree saplings and berry bushes, salt, bowls, alcohol, saddles, tools, ores/ingots of the nearby ores, plans for new tools and lanterns, etc

Military structures would be towers, small forts, camps, etc. They would have loot like armor, plans for new armor and weapon types, arrows, weapons, quivers, etc

Complex structures would be large structures like castles and huge forts, a combination of basic, civilian, and military structures, like villages and army bases/camps, or a combination of both. they would have large amounts of loot, but also hold a huge amount of threats.

The chances of structures spawning would be

Basic:common

Civilian:uncommon

Military:rare

Complex: extremely. extremely rare

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>_> That's quite a tall order. Sounds adventurous but lots of building and the code to make larger structures not look awful and out of place could be a lot more work. Also, pretty sure bridges are a bad idea... They would need to spawn the river perfectly and if they didn't it would look silly. Making random generation find the spot to cross the river would be almost impossible. Having loot at the locations seems reasonable.

 

Also, I've been thinking about how this would work in a large SMP setting where players that are new to an old map would still have a reason to visit the ruins.. let alone how to deal with the ruins being completely gutted by the first to discover them. Any ideas?

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All That Shitby: You

 

Waaaay too much. If it happens.. IF it happens... there'll probably be maybe 6-7 different structures all in severe disrepair/decay, and they'll all be incredibly rare. Anything else just doesn't... feel very TFC.

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Waaaay too much. If it happens.. IF it happens... there'll probably be maybe 6-7 different structures all in severe disrepair/decay, and they'll all be incredibly rare. Anything else just doesn't... feel very TFC.

Well put. It's important to always remember that adding to current gameplay is different from making it obsolete. I don't want a 'Ruined buildings' mod. I just want to spice up TFC a lil' bit.

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@dutchraptor

I don't think the beginning of the game should be about hopping into the nearest run-down cabin and setting up shop, I love how the beginning of TFC requires planning and forethought as you slowly build something from the raw environment around you. I see this working best as a late-game goal where you (and better yet your friends too) get geared up for some serious adventuring once you've built a thriving settlement to return to.

 

With the rarity I suggested that wouldn't even be possible, or beneficial in most cases.

In the few hours it would take to find a ruin, you would have to face probably over a dozen nights with only stone tools, if you didn't run around at night it would take even longer. Besides this you would have to find the ruin and patch it up yourself with basic materials.

On the other hand if you had started mining straight away you could be at the bronze age already.

 

If you used you suggestion of a ruin every 64X64 chunks it would become a breeze to find them. The rational behind my figure was that I analyzed a few of my saves to see how far I explored after a month or two of in game time and I explored roughly 5000-17000 chunks. I chose a system where there is a ruin at 7100 chunks on average, but it is possible for there to be nothing for twice that length depending on your luck. As such searching for one at the beginning of the game would be a pretty weak strategy. I just thought it would be cool to find one by pure chance of luck when you are starting instead of just resorting to digging a hole in the ground.

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