Ships Discussion

[Accessless 0]

There have been a lot of requests for larger boats and/or ships for TFC, some reasonable others... less than reasonable. Either way the topics seemed to be met with limited interest from admins and few conclusions drawn (correct me if I've just missed the posts, there are a lot of topics on the matter). With the new food decay mechanic I feel like the topic should be re-opened. Now I like the new food decay mechanic, I think it needs tweaks and expansion but that is underway I hear. Anyway, the problem I am encountering now is exploration. I cannot move from my home to explore strange new lands, to boldly go where no steve has gone before! I think that boats with an inventory and possibly animal storage would allow for better world mobility with the new decay mechanic preventing long term ocean fairing.

 

By now you're probably wondering why I'm posting this here instead of in the suggestions thread. Well, I don't know what exactly to suggest and I wanted some feed back on the matter from other players and mods. In short I thought the topic "MAKE SHIPS PLOX, ME LOVE YOU LONG TIME!" wouldn't go down well.

 

 

Questions:

 

Does anyone else strugle to cover much ground e.g. travel >5km south for chickens, tree's, minerals, etc?

 

Would ships be too difficult to program? (not talking about free build boats, only pre-established pattern/s)

 

Do you think that they would break the game?

 

How could they be constructed?

 

What stage should they be constructable at? (e.g. Stone age, bronze age, etc)

 

Are there currently any plans to implement larger boats?

[GopherAtl 22]

there have been a few mods made over the years, that I know of, that had any kind of ships - in one case, air ships - and despite the huge appeal, none have lasted through many versions, and I don't think any were ever very stable or polished, so apparently it's a reasonably difficult thing to achieve well.

 

I whole-heartedly approve of the recently discussed switch from improbable vanilla pocket-sized magic-propelled boats to somewhat more realistic and much less portable canoes.

 

One way I could see boats being built, you would have to build a structure first in which you actually build the boat; the size of the structure would limit the size of the boat you could build. Within that structure, you would then build the boat's hull, using blocks in a fairly normal fashion. Now, I'm not sure really massive ships would be viable even with this, but ships with a deck large enough for a few players or animals and some chests wouldn't seem unreasonable. I'd think these ships would be iron age, perhaps requiring some special tools, and possibly requiring tar to seal and preserve the hull. When the hull is finished, the boat can be released from the structure, dropping into water below and becoming, well, a free-floating block entity.

 

However, this is all ignoring a big question - propulsion. What would make these boats go? Teams of oarsmen are not a viable option, since rarely would you have that many players to dedicate to pulling oars, so that leaves sails. Sailing mechanics would seem to require wind, though, which is not, currently, a thing, and would have no real purpose other than to push boats. So you could have sails, and call them wind-powered, but ultimately it'd be magic wind, which is an improvement over pure magic, but only a marginal one. And that's not the only issue; I suspect along the way a lot of other issues would crop up requiring more even features to resolve them.

 

[edit] on top of this, I have a hard time picturing a scenerio where this kind of vessel would really be necessary. Fun, potentially, but not a part of survival, at least, not unless you're using some strict self-imposed RP rules. [/edit]

 

So scratch that idea for now.

 

A more modest, and perhaps more reasonable, option might be expanding the canoe concept and having the ability to build larger, outrigger canoes. These might carry multiple people, instead of one, and also have room for a chest, though they certainly wouldn't be able to carry livestock, at least, not unless chicken cages are added as a way to more easily transport birds.

 

[edit]

Another thought is rafts - perhaps made in a way similar to canoes, but instead of carving out one log, you tie together multiple logs with jute rope. Could be propelled by poling, and you might be able to transport a few chests, or a few animals, a bit more easily than leading them by rope across land. Biggest problem here, honestly, is the rivers I've mainly seen from world gen, which are not consistently wide or deep enough to support this sort of thing. So while I like the idea in concept, I'd stick a pin in it unless world gen changes to improve rivers in the future.

[furiousuk 2]

I'm never really sure why the threat of thirst or hunger would be given as a deterrent to large scale boat travel?

 

5km is less than 5 days travel, particularly by boat. With a vessel each slot can hold 4 pieces of food so that isnt a problem, and a clay jug will quench your thirst for most of the day, certainly 2 jugs will do it so you only need 10 jugs, leaving 17 slots in your inventory (not including the quick bar), which gives you potentially 68 160gm food slots! You can take a barrel full of water so that even if you didnt find a small island on which to place it you would at least have drinking water when you finished travelling the ocean.

 

Surely its the time taken to travel this distance that is more of a hindrance than any concerns of food and water??

 

A big boat that would also speed up travel distances would be great, and one that would extend inventory to allow you to take all your stuff and animals would also make relocation an easier pill, although, by and large, there will be plenty of resources at the other end so its really the speed of travel rather than the comfort that would be essential.

 

Disregarding actually moving a big ship, I like the idea of building a structure within which you then build your boat, a drydock sort of thing.

 

Sail power sounds good, and gives an excuse to add flax, cotton and/or hemp which would also have clothing uses to combat body temp issues. I have no idea how it would work and I havent got sea legs but isnt there a lot of skill in 'catching a wind', or tacking, or stuff. If there was some dynamic to harness skillfull travel, catching wind somehow, that would be interesting.

 

We're used to using coal and charcoal so an engine of some sort. Not really fitting of TFC maybe but a consideration for propulsion. With and iron propeller, large wooden rudder for steering, maybe some other stuff I dont know about. This would be the fastest travel and would be constrained to iron/steel age which gives you even  more incentive to progress.

[Palisight 34]

http://terrafirmacraft.com/f/topic/5208-canoes/

[GopherAtl 22]

I'm never really sure why the threat of thirst or hunger would be given as a deterrent to large scale boat travel?

You're forgetting, if it takes most or all of your inventory to carry basic necessities of survival, then it's only potentially useful very early-game, during a nomadic phase, or late-game, purely for the sake of sight-seeing. During mid-game, what good is it to cross the sea in search of resources, if you can't really bring useful amounts of those resources back with you?

Sail power sounds good, and gives an excuse to add flax, cotton and/or hemp which would also have clothing uses to combat body temp issues. I have no idea how it would work and I havent got sea legs but isnt there a lot of skill in 'catching a wind', or tacking, or stuff. If there was some dynamic to harness skillfull travel, catching wind somehow, that would be interesting.

Just have to say, the limiting factor in implementing features is never "we don't have an excuse," it's the developers time. So new secondary features being required to support another new feature is always a mark against something, never mark in favor of it. That said, if they were doing sails, I don't see any major reason the existing cloth couldn't be used.

We're used to using coal and charcoal so an engine of some sort. Not really fitting of TFC maybe but a consideration for propulsion. With and iron propeller, large wooden rudder for steering, maybe some other stuff I dont know about. This would be the fastest travel and would be constrained to iron/steel age which gives you even  more incentive to progress.

  Despite being pretty new here, I am 99% confident an engine will be dismissed out of hand, as that is just not the direction of this mod. And I tend to agree with this; it's just not fitting with what tfc is about. Not even if those engines require maintenance and can explode and kill you.

[Thrainn 2]

One quite simple and even more or less TFC-fitting solution for most of the above mentioned problems would be the Small Boats Mod:

http://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/mapping-and-modding/minecraft-mods/wip-mods/1442761-wip-small-boats-elegant-punt-whitehall

I tried it once, and the boats look very pretty! They're not cheaty in any way (exept for currently being indestructable), fit well into TFC, have one or more chests for storing (depending on ship size), changing tacks and even their speed can be adjusted, I think (didn't try that yet).

I for myself can overlook that there's no "real" wind and that the tacks happen with changing directions, it still feels quite realistic and immersive.

Of course I'd rather see an implemented version in TFC, but until then, it should work well enough ...

[GopherAtl 22]

they're a little bit insanely cheap to make, aren't they? The boats in that mod are very neat, but I really don't see how being able to throw 3 planks vanilla boats (15 planks), 2 sticks, and 3 wool into the crafting grid and *bam* boat fits in with tfc... much less being able to craft the largest boat for 27 planks vanilla boats (135 planks), 18 sticks, and 27 wool... without major overhauls in how they are made, at the absolute minimum, you could throw those boats together in the copper age, easy.

 

:edit: mistook the recipe, originally said it was 3 planks instead of boats. Actual costs, at least in planks, considerably higher, but still, imo, too simplistic, in tier and variety of resources if not quantity, to fit at all with tfc's normal pace and style of play.

[Palisight 34]

If you are playing single player, you can personally decide what it is reasonable prices for said boats and throw the excess items into the ocean/lava/whatever to despawn/burn

 

If you plan on adding it to a server

 

http://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/mapping-and-modding/minecraft-mods/1290366-1-6-4-1-7-x-minetweaker-3-customize-your

[dunkleosteus 2,425]

If you read the canoes thread, you will see that Bioxx and I have agreed that canoes are a great way to integrate water travel into TFC, and I discussed the later possibility, feasibility, and implications of small sail boats. For a quick recap: canoes are manually powered, steered and propelled by paddling. Canoes could possibly hold two players or just one. Sailboats are just hypothetical, more of a thought experiment than anything else. Sail boats would probably be 4-5 blocks long and have ~3 blocks of space with in them, two of which could contain a block of some sort, such as a chest or barrel, or if left empty, an entity like a player or animal. The last space in the boat would be reserved for the operator to handle the rudder.