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munin295

Tool right-click info

15 posts in this topic

There are a lot of blocks to learn in TFC and many of them are difficult to distinguish. I was watching Kitty's Let's Play, and even she sometimes finds it convenient to be able to check what something is by looking at it with her items mod instead of by attacking it to drop an item. I was thinking it might be useful to have this in TFC directly and that it would work like the prospector's pick works when you right-click directly on an ore or mineral block.

For example, if you right-click with an axe on wood/planks/leaves/saplings, it would tell you what kind of wood it is. A pickaxe would tell you the type of stone/cobblestone/stone bricks/smooth stone, a shovel for dirt/grass/sand/gravel, and a hoe for crops. For berry bushes, maybe a knife? Anything else?

It would also be convenient if the pickaxe and prospector's pick worked on loose rocks and nuggets also, so you could check what something is without losing its place by picking it up (or if you could put nuggets back down on the ground).

This wouldn't tell you anything you couldn't learn by attacking the block and reading its dropped item name, but it would save you that (often irreversible) step.

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Honestly? The only reason that I use WAILA currently in my series is because it's been a long time since I actually played TFC, and even longer since I used that texture pack and remember what everything looks like. After getting back into the swing of things, I rarely ever use it anymore because my own memory is refreshed, and I can tell most things apart just by looking at them again.

 

The fact that I could use WAILA in the pre-season episode to tell what ore was without even having any metal tools was also a little OP.

 

I would also say that the "(often irreversible) step" is quite an overstatement. While you aren't able to put rocks/debris back down on the ground, I really don't see why you would ever want to. Plus since they were changed to render the actual item instead of the blocks on the ground, you actually can already tell what it is just by looking at it, and cross referencing with the item textures. Before you absolutely had to break the little block in order to know if it was even ore.

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Oh yeah, texture pack. Anyway… 

… you actually can already tell what it is just by looking at it, and cross referencing with the item textures. …

You mean on the wiki? Wouldn't an in-game, texture-pack-independent method be better?
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Oh yeah, texture pack. Anyway…You mean on the wiki? Wouldn't an in-game method be better?

 

You can already do it in-game with NEI and the search function.

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Another mod? I guess.

The NEI interface doesn't feel "real" (from videos, I've never used it), compared to actually interacting with your environment with tools to sample materials/etc. Does that makes sense?

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I guess, but I have never understood the whole "breaking immersion" argument. In my opinion, I never expect to play a game and get completely lost in it to the point where I think that it's real life and the only thing happening. Mods like NEI are there to make your life easier, especially considering that it is hardly more "immersion breaking" than actually pausing the game, tabbing out, and going to the wiki.

 

If you want to know what kind of tree it is, break some leaves and get a sapling, or just chop the thing down. It's not like there aren't a whole bunch more all over the place. The same thing goes for rocks. Once you pick up one of them off the ground, and have it to look at and compare, you know what all of the other rocks in that area are. It's not like there are a mass variety of debris in a small area, rock layers are pretty huge so you pick up one and you know what the items are for a very large area.

 

The ore items also have fairly distinctive textures compared to each other, so you only have to see a copper nugget a few times before being able to recognize it laying on the ground. In the majority of cases when I come across ore on the ground, I pick it all up anyways. Then I mark where I found the ore with something simple like log piles, and then just create a waypoint (or write down the coords and ore in a notebook if you dislike minimaps). That way I can find the ore again later, and I know what the thing was in the area that caused me to place down all the marker log piles.

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Native copper or malachite? Easy. Galena, cassiderite, magnetite, sphalerite, and tetrahedrite? Not as easy to memorize.

I'm not saying there aren't workarounds (like, you know, just breaking the block), but more ways of getting in-game info would be useful to support different playing styles (and mental capacities?).

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I'm sure that no matter your mental capacity, you can either find little memory tricks to help you remember, or you can ask others for tips that they have. And I still don't see what's so wrong with picking the item up to see what it is. If it turns out to be an ore that you don't want like galena, then just toss it. If you can't bare to throw away a single piece of ore and you have to hoard all the things, then you'll just have to go back to empty your inventory sooner, and you should probably have been carrying vessels if you know that's your play-style anyways.

 

From Left to Right:

 

Posted Image

 

Cassiterite: Greenish tinge, missing the white stripe that tetra has, darker spot in the center. You know that this is Tin because cassiterite has two T's

 

Galena: More S shaped than the others, nearly completely uniform in color, no major distinguishing marks.

 

Magnetite: Completely different shape than the others, the only uniformly grey ore that looks like a little circle. Reminds me of the little circle craft magnets you see on the back of refrigerator magnets. Itty bitty magnet -> magnetite

 

Sphalerite: Only small ore that is this shape, almost completely vertical. Lighter in color just like Zinc. Almost looks like a B, and is a key ingredient in Bismuth Bronze.

 

Tetra: More general shape, biggest distinguishing feature is the whitish stripe across the center. Tetra is similar to "Zebra" which have black and white stripes like the ore.

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Yep. Now there's just the fruit tree leaves, all the gray-ish stone types, brown dirts, brown tree trunks, black-ish ore/mineral smears (propick), early-stage crops, berry bushes, …

Is non-destructive in-game info/help really such a bad idea?

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Is non-destructive in-game info/help really such a bad idea?

 

Yup.

 

When I first started playing, half the fun was the mystery of finding a new rock on the ground, or ore in a cliff... running over and picking it up to see what it was and how I could use it. The same goes for fruit trees... every new one was an exiting moment as I chopped branches to see if a sapling would drop so I could identify it. Forest trees and berry bushes likewise.

 

After just a few days of installing TFC I could recognize the things common to my area and after a few weeks there isn't much I can't glance at and instantly know what it is. Even if I forget what type of tree I'm looking at why should there be a tool that I right click the truck with when it's just as easy to chop one down and have a gander at the logs that fall? I don't understand why you want to take all the fun away from new players who have a chance to discover everything on their own. 

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… I don't understand why you want to take all the fun away from new players who have a chance to discover everything on their own.

This wouldn't give you any info you couldn't get by attacking the block and reading the dropped item name.
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This wouldn't give you any info you couldn't get by attacking the block and reading the dropped item name.

 

What's more fun?

 

1. Finding a brand new tree, gathering saplings to learn what kind of tree it is, and bringing the saplings home so you can grow more of them near your base.

 

OR

 

2. Finding a brand new tree, right clicking it with an axe to see what kind of tree it is, and then keep moving.

 

Hint: #1 has more sense of achievement because you actually get a prize to take with you for finding something new (the sapling).

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This wouldn't give you any info you couldn't get by attacking the block and reading the dropped item name.

 

You're argument invalidates itself. Like you said, there are already ways of identifying everything with very little effort.

 

If this is how you want to play just go in creative and cheat in one of every item to stash in a chest and read the names to yourself.

 

I assure you that no-one else in their right mind thinks that this is a valuable or necessary addition to the game.

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Even if breaking the block was less "satisfactory" or "practical" than using your proposed right-click function, (which it isn't) why go to the trouble of making a whole new feature that saves some TFC player literally not more than a few seconds at most and usually not even one second. Like Maga said, this is just unnecessary. 

 

I personally can distinguish most blocks anyway, and even if I forgot, it's not a big deal if I break one of the many blocks in the game. Most of the times, it's beneficial to break it, albeit slightly (more/new rocks, more saplings, more materials in general).

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You're argument invalidates itself. Like you said, there are already ways of identifying everything with very little effort.

Well, sometimes, I forget what something was or mistake it for something else, break it, don't want it, but can't replace it, so it just ends up hogging inventory space because I don't wan't to trash it. Or when I break berry bushes to see what it is, and then realize that it was the season for the berry to bear fruit, successfully losing a chance to get some very needed food.

 

But while mistakes like that are quite vexing, in my opinion, those mistakes are half the fun, so... *shrugs*

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