Torch Discussion

[lipki 40]

You can play in 78

Obviously you focused on creating.

And it is obvious that the developer prefers the realistic survival.

But you can still continue to play in 78 or find another mod which enables you to give free rein to your talent.

Nice church

--

When we take a torch in hand, It would be nice it is consumed, giving us a dynamic lighting.

And also, can pick up the torches extinguished.

[tenterro 60]

You can play in 78Obviously you focused on creating.And it is obvious that the developer prefers the realistic survival.But you can still continue to play in 78 or find another mod which enables you to give free rein to your talent.

Yeah, but I love to play at servers with other players and soon mostly all of them will be at 79. =)

[Trulhammaren 5]

there are ways to keep lighting without having to run around, jack-o-lanterns are a good way and through testing the chiseled block become light transparent, so hiding them isn't terribly difficult.

[Two 21]

After several days of playing I am now going to switch off that torch-depletion system. Here is why:

For once as I already complained: there is no alternate light source, and light is something I love to decorate with. And then I learned that the spawn protection system is not working well without permanent light sources. It is a good idea and adds to make you feel at home, but whenever you travel for a few days (which is necessary since biomes are so large now), you house will be overrun by mobs.

Burnt out torches in mine shafts give you a good feeling of "I haven't been there for a while", and having to clear out some mobs is ok and adds to it. As you can simply relight torches here, that isn't an issue either. So it all boils down to spawn protection, which is currently lacking.

I still think adding some form of expensive permanent light would be the best solution, so you can selectively light areas you do never want to have mobs spawn, and use (cheap) torches for everything else.

[Kittychanley 1,002]

I don't have a forge because there are barely any trees in my area and I don't want to make the resource commitment until the wiki stops warning my every 5 lines that forges are outdated/have been removed.

 

That warning isn't saying that forges are outdated or have been removed. It means that the way forges work has been changed a bit, so not all of the information is correct. You just have to try things out for yourself and it quickly becomes obvious which parts of that page are correct, and which parts are outdated.

[kozi 2]

Why didn't I make more torches and light up my areas? Because it's a pain to have to load sticks into my fire 1 by 1 to get a handful of torches. Now that those torches burn out, I'm just not bothering with them.

 

In 79 all you have to do is make 1 in a campfire and place it then right click on it with a stick and you can make a full stack of them in a matter of seconds.

[nickasummers 1]

Don't know why that didn't occur to me to do even though i read you could. I assume the trade-off is you only get 1 torch per stick that way instead of the usual 2?

[AllenWL 186]

Personally, I would just like one light source that burns for a longer time than torches, and one where I can tell how much light is left, and preferably turn on and off to conserve fuel.

I really like the 'torch burns out' mechanic myself, but once I start spreading out, going back around every two days to re-light my torches is a pain. Also, while burnt out-torches in a mineshaft does look nice, having to re-light a place every two days isn't fun.

 

I would like something like a lantern that runs on oil and can last, quite a while, say, 20 days or something, and I'm able to turn it on and off to save oil.

Then I could light up the lamps going in, then when I leave, turn them off except a few, and leave those burning for light and to prevent mob spawns to some degree.

I could put some barrels of oil in there as well, and keep refilling the lanterns when they run low.

 

I don't care if I have to do a chore once in a while, but if I have to do it every other day, it gets pretty annoying

[TomeWyrm 4]

This mechanic actually does not exist, and would be ridiculously memory and performance intensive to implement.

Actually yes it does. All it requires is a new block that only generates during World Generation. When the player picks it up, it gives the block we're all used to. And when we place it it places the block we're all used to... except that block disallows spawns. Note that grass grown on player placed dirt should also be of the "will not spawn mobs" variety.Yes it's slightly more work, and uses up more block ID's... but it also fixes the biggest issues with monster spawning in MC, and nearly the whole reason the Torch Forest ever became a Thing™; Monsters spawn in my carefully built and obviously secure base.That frees you up to provide attractive (expensive) permanent light sources for the people that want cosmetic builds, and keep or discard the current lighting/spawn interactions as you see fit, make torches burn out, whatever. If you want the "reclaimed by wilderness" effect, maybe track via NBT the "spawn protection" per-block (though THAT will probably cause a nasty performance hit) or update all the player placed blocks every hour in a mechanic similar to the current Spawn Protection. Maybe make it so mobs and unloaded chunks have a very slight decrease, but otherwise never go down? Maybe make the last bed that the player has slept in more than 5 times into a permanent source of "Spawn Protection".There are a large list of suggestions that appear to be summarily (and quite rudely in some cases) dismissed. I realise that you are all busy, but this is a discussion thread. That's what they are for; getting feedback — from BOTH the users and developers; two-way street there.-----In response to the whole "Minecraft won't let me make bigger/brighter lights"... while this is technically true of a single block, it is also easy to work around.See Thaumcraft's Arcane Lamp, Factorization's Wrath Lamp, RotaryCraft's Floodlight, the entire Greg's Lighting mod, and probably 3 or 4 dozen other mods.The "main" block simply creates a number of blocks (some in a blob, some in a cylinder, the Arcane lamp is a bit more sparing about it) that have the IsAir(true) flag/property/class/whatever, AND emit light at 15.

[Kittychanley 1,002]

Actually yes it does. All it requires is a new block that only generates during World Generation. When the player picks it up, it gives the block we're all used to. And when we place it it places the block we're all used to... except that block disallows spawns. Note that grass grown on player placed dirt should also be of the "will not spawn mobs" variety.Yes it's slightly more work, and uses up more block ID's... but it also fixes the biggest issues with monster spawning in MC, and nearly the whole reason the Torch Forest ever became a Thing™; Monsters spawn in my carefully built and obviously secure base.

 

Have you seen just how many block IDs world generated blocks already take up in TFC? For a smaller mod this might be feasible, but not when you've got 20+ types of dirt, sand, gravel, stone, grass, clay, clay grass, peat, peat grass, dry grass, etc.

[Two 21]

You could just use a bit in the metadata to mark a block as player placed. That would be almost no inconvenience at all and would work fast and reliable.

[Kittychanley 1,002]

You could just use a bit in the metadata to mark a block as player placed. That would be almost no inconvenience at all and would work fast and reliable.

 

We already use up all 16 spots in the majority of world generated block metadata.

[Two 21]

But then still it wouldn't increase required block IDs by 100% but only by like 7%-10%. Reasonably possible.

If it is worth the trouble however is a completely different question.

[PanRouge 5]

I think that my main concern about the torches would be the ability for creepers to spawn in my house while I'm gone. There would be nothing worse than coming home from a long trek, only to explode seconds later along with half your house. At least you have some time to kill a zombie before it kills you. Also, you should be able to pick up a torch similar to how you pick up a sword and carry it around, lighting up the area as you walk. This will help people become slightly less reliant on placing torches as the sole light source.

 

Another concern of mine is that I wouldn't necessarily walk through all areas of my house constantly. I spend a hell of a lot more time at my forge rather than my "bedroom." This would definitely limit the size of a house that I could build and actually feel safe in. Could we just make it so that zombies need sky or unmodified rock above them to spawn?

[TonyLiberatto 364]

Ok. If I understand the objections, it is that it would be hard for the mob spawning mechanic to differentiate between a dirt block that was naturally generated and on that was player placed. So what about making mobs only spawning over dirt, grass, sand, gravel or stone. This way there would be no need for mob spawning protection ( I have no idea how much processing this cost, but it would free that).

Since I have never met anyone who makes a house with dirt floor, there would be no risk of going back to your house and finding a creeper inside.

[nickasummers 1]

I don't want creepers spawning in my yard either, and right now they don't because spawn protection mechanics work just fine. Replacing that mechanic with an only-on-natural-blocks system would be clear and obvious step backwards.

 

I really like the new torch mechanic as it is. My home is always safe because spawn protection works very well, my mines are dangerous, but easy to relight so you can at least see, a long-term light source requiring metal would be a nice addition, but I don't think spawning needs to change as a result of torches changing

[Two 21]

Did I mention that lanterns would be a good idea?

[Terex 108]

From the changelog:

 

Additionally you can create new torches by right clicking on a placed torch with a stick. This is not as efficient as creating them in a firepit but is useful when on the move.

 

mhmm, i dont understand this tbh. I can hold a stack of 64 sticks in my hand, right-click and hold the right mouse button on a placed torch to convert the whole stack into torches in a matter of seconds. Seems as efficient as necessary to me.

[Kittychanley 1,002]

From the changelog:

 

Additionally you can create new torches by right clicking on a placed torch with a stick. This is not as efficient as creating them in a firepit but is useful when on the move.

 

mhmm, i dont understand this tbh. I can hold a stack of 64 sticks in my hand, right-click and hold the right mouse button on a placed torch to convert the whole stack into torches in a matter of seconds. Seems as efficient as necessary to me.

 

Resource efficient, not time efficient.

 

If you hold that stack of 64 sticks, you'll make 64 torches fairly quickly.

 

If you put that stack of 64 sticks in the firepit, you'll get 128 torches.

[lightningtiger88 19]

But it's also more energy efficient. You use wood or some other fuel in the firepit. Not to mention holding right click is a considerably less involved process than shift clicking things and watching their heat levels.

[Kittychanley 1,002]

But it's also more energy efficient. You use wood or some other fuel in the firepit. Not to mention holding right click is a considerably less involved process than shift clicking things and watching their heat levels.

 

It takes maybe 2 pieces of coal to light an entire stack of sticks in the forge, and with the double-click pickup function, it's ridiculously simple and fast to do.

[munin295 18]

I think having player-placed blocks not spawn mobs is a terrible idea, but if it were to be implemented probably the best thing to do would be to just add an optional (like the Add array) 512-byte array of bits (i.e., 16x16x16 bits) to chunk section data that identifies player-placed blocks. The world would start with no chunk sections having this data, but would gradually add it to chunk sections as the player modifies the world. Most player modifications tend to be sparse (torches in caves) or follow patterns (floors and walls), so it would probably compress pretty well. It would add less than 5% to in-game memory (5% only if every chunk section had the optional data, so usualy much less than 5%).

Personally I'm just going to chisel-slab any manufactured floors that aren't expected to keep spawn protection and let caves stay fun.

BACK TO TORCHES: I actually think the B79 torches last too long. I've set their duration to 12 in-game hours in my game.

[TomeWyrm 4]

Well if not metadata, use an NBT flag. I haven't looked at the spawning code but it should be as trivial to check for "IsPlayerPlaced" as it is for "IsTransparent" or "LightLevel<8".

Incidentally I'm not intending to provide any sort of reason to get rid of the current spawn protection mechanics... my idea is intended to be a refinement of or extension to them. The idea that areas you spend a lot of time in are "more inhabited" and therefore less likely to spawn monsters is awesome... but it should also be possible to secure a player built structure (at least one that they don't visit constantly) in a way that does not involve slabbing the whole thing with the chisel, or painting it with torches.

Another really obvious point is completely decoupling light levels from mob spawns. Then light becomes a way for you to decorate your structures and see things better at night. Incidentally if you do add lanterns? Might I suggest some form of tubing so you can pump oil to lamps that are far away, possibly make an oil-lamp lit road/walkway/rail line, and also include some form of infinite light in default.

It is very good that you have configuration options except for this "rule" that I've found to be quite true:

First rule of configs: 90% of people won't see your configs. 95% of people won't change them.

This change won't affect me in the slightest until ExtraFirma updates anyway, and then it will likely do precisely what is intended and be a reasonable change making the early game just a bit more spooky/tedious/dangerous. Because I'll have access to lanterns. If I get tired of waiting for ExtraFirma I'll either disable the config setting or "exchange" glowstone for the materials that would be required for an ExtraFirma lantern (in other words use NEI to cheat one in and delete the raw materials from my inventory that would have been consumed in the crafting). But I'm a highly atypical user, and I can only do this if I am an admin or playing in single player with cheats. That is not the case for a large majority of people.

I constantly rage at people who assume "You don't like it, don't play it" or "It's configurable" are good ways to dismiss a perfectly valid opinion or suggestion, or end a discussion. THEY AREN'T. People play Minecraft on servers, servers they have little to no control over. Lots of admins are either conservative or lazy and only change configs if most of the community both knows about a change (which is far from assured, most people aren't investigators or researchers compelled to know ALL THE THINGS™) AND desires the change enough to bug the Admin(s) about it... and most people aren't assertive enough to do that.

I can understand Bioxx's reasoning behind the change, I'm just saying that it should be switched to default off... the youtubers and stuff know about the change now, and they also know that you're trying to see what they do with the change, but your random users (most of whom will never go through the effort of actually talking to you about this) won't. It will appear as a sudden change, and with no alternatives to the things they want until REALLY REALLY late in the game and dealing with fire spread, or the non-renewable jack-o-lanterns (which most people don't like... and expecting someone to use a texture pack is much the same as expecting people to change servers, especially if they're ON a server. Hiding lighting is not the easiest thing to manage, and sometimes people WANT displayed lighting).

-----

Incidentally now that the Crucible accepts a stack of items in the input slot... could the firepit do that with sticks? The worst part about using torches before was the constant shift-clicking. The forge makes it better, but it always struck me as a bit odd that you couldn't put more than a single stick in a firepit at a time, and it gave you TWO torches.

[Kittychanley 1,002]

The last time that I checked, you can't use NBT flags on blocks unless you turn them into non-ticking tile entities, which would be another performance hog.

 

Nowhere have the devs said that lanterns will never be added to TFC. It was simply stated that lanterns will not be added to TFC right now.

 

Decoupling light levels from mob spawns wouldn't really be a valid solution, mainly because the plan is to move all of those "magical" hostile mobs to spawn underground in the caves. All we're currently waiting on for making this long promised change is enough new, more believable mobs to populate the surface with.

 

As for the configuration rule, that's why we're open to suggestions for altering the numbers in the default configs. However, we chose the booleans for very specific reasons, and they will not be changed.

 

The crucible was changed to accept more because it is a late-game item, and there are still limitations on it. The temperature will decrease each time it consumes an item, and it will only consume 1 item every few seconds if the temp is still hot enough. The firepit slot will not be changed because it is an early-game item. There is also the time/resource trade off. If you want torches quick, you can hold a stack of sticks and spam right click on a placed torch to turn each stick into 1 torch. If you want the 2 torches per stick, you have to deal with the slot limitation of the fire pit.

[Two 21]

All we're currently waiting on for making this long promised change is enough new, more believable mobs to populate the surface with.

I wonder how Minecraft feels like if mobs no longer spawn but are permanent. So if you kill them, they are dead, and if you don't kill them, they do weird stuff like reproducing.