H -the cut in half hotkey

[Maga 99]

With the addition of more and more complex preservation mechanics it was really nice to see the devs add the hotkeys to trim and combine foods, saving valuable time on these tedious fronts allows us to spend more taking advantage of brine, vinegar, smoke racks and grills. This idea came to me after attempting to turn my potato harvest into 10 barrels of vodka for later use as vinegar. Because the recipe calls for 100oz of food and I prefer not to waste any, I took the time to cut potatoes and combine them into 100 oz pieces. 

 

I think it would be nice to include a hotkey for cutting food items in half. It would work similar to the combine hotkey where you need to hold your cursor over the desired food item. Essentially you would need to have a knife in your inventory, hover over a food item and then press H at which point the food item would be cut in half and both pieces placed in available inventory slots. This would fit in well with the existing hotkeys and take away a little more tedium so we can enjoy the new preservation mechanics more.

 

Useful applications of this hot key include: 

-Easier time preparing food for small vessel storage

-Easier time preparing food for grill cooking

-Easier time cutting food into the correct portions for use in liquid recipies 

-Easier time sharing food with other players in SMP

 

Thank you for your consideration.

 

[Kittychanley 1,002]

The hot keys were specifically added to cut down on a single task that took multiple steps (That's up to 37 possible items that need to be moved to the grid, and then taken back out). The D key trims the decay off of all of the food, saving the player from moving the knife and each individual piece of food to the crafting grid. The S key combines all food of the same type, saving the player from moving a whole bunch of smaller pieces up to the crafting grid.

 

The addition of an H key would literally only save 3 actions: moving the knife to the grid, moving the food to the grid, taking the smaller food out of the crafting grid.

 

The D and S key also always result in the same amount or fewer items that were already in your inventory, so the process is fairly simple. As soon as you start adding additional items into the mix, you get into the nightmare of calculating whether or not the player has enough space, and what to do if there isn't space.

[Maga 99]

The hot keys were specifically added to cut down on a single task that took multiple steps (That's up to 37 possible items that need to be moved to the grid, and then taken back out). The D key trims the decay off of all of the food, saving the player from moving the knife and each individual piece of food to the crafting grid. The S key combines all food of the same type, saving the player from moving a whole bunch of smaller pieces up to the crafting grid.

 

The addition of an H key would literally only save 3 actions: moving the knife to the grid, moving the food to the grid, taking the smaller food out of the crafting grid.

 

The D and S key also always result in the same amount or fewer items that were already in your inventory, so the process is fairly simple. As soon as you start adding additional items into the mix, you get into the nightmare of calculating whether or not the player has enough space, and what to do if there isn't space.

To address these points one at a time...

 

FIRST 

The existing hotkeys are great, and save a lot of clicking, but only a few times a year (not to say they aren't useful) I use the S key when harvesting our town farm which has over 400 plants and when harvesting fruit. The D key comes in handy when maintaining stored food and a large number of items need trimming, usually followed by a few S uses.

 

SECOND 

In regards to your 3 actions comment I will try to explain why this hotkey would not be a waste of code. Yes, cutting a single item takes far fewer clicks than condensing and trimming a full harvest, but to make 100oz items needed for optimal barrel processing takes quite a few clicks. 

 

1-Cut 160 into 80 and 80

2-Grab one 80 and cut into 40 and 40

3- Grab one 40 and cut into 20 and 20

4- Combine a 20 and an 80 (can't use S)

4.5- Use S when the 100 oz food is out of your inventory

 

All that grabbing stacks and cutting in half takes a lot of clicks, and that's just a single barrel of liquid. If you're using a large vessel you have to cut a 20 down to 10s to optimize your weight usage and that adds yet another click-drag-click. When you're processing several barrels the clicks add up really fast. Try making enough vinegar for a town and I'm sure you would appreciate the value of this suggestion.

 

In addition to this when cooking a large amount of that delicious harvest on the grill to modify tastes to preferred values you have to cut all those stacks you just combined one at a time. The same goes for storage in small vessels. I'm not saying that this key is more useful than the current ones, but it certainly comes close when managing food for a small village (remember SMP balancing, means more food and one person almost always does it alone because others are busy or offline)

 

THIRD

I don't think it would be as scary as you make it out to be. When using S I commonly stand on other bits of the harvest, when my inventory is full the item I try to combine simply sits in the crafting window until I have room in my inventory. Usually the item I pick up is the same food type and another S will combine what is in the grid and what is in my inventory.

 

A similar solution could be used but it would be simpler (because the game doesn't have to check inv for the correct food type and decay value to merge it with and the size of that stack, it only has to check for empty slots)

 

If the player does not have enough inventory space for the resulting 2 pieces simply place the output food items in the crafting grid (along with the knife if needed). That single rule would take care of this issue that you have portrayed as a code nightmare.

 

 

 

Hopefully I have explained myself well, not a single person I have asked about this on SMP has said anything other than an empathetic "Yes please!" I expect the poll will validate that claim.

It doesn't hurt progression and doesn't unbalance anything. As I said in the OP, it removes tedium so that time can be spent on meaningful actions instead of mindless click-and-drags. Same principal as the combine and trim keys and I fully expect to use it almost as often as I do those.

[Kittychanley 1,002]

1-Cut 160 into 80 and 80

2-Grab one 80 and cut into 40 and 40

3- Grab one 40 and cut into 20 and 20

4- Combine a 20 and an 80 (can't use S)

4.5- Use S when the 100 oz food is out of your inventory

 

1. Place Knife in crafting grid

2. Place 160 food in crafting grid

3. Hold Shift and click on crafting output - Inventory will have 80, 40, 20, 10, 5, 2.5, 1.25, 0.625, 0.625 and the shift-click logic with handle the inventory limits.

4. Craft 80 and 20 piece together.

 

Edit: Adding the H key doesn't make it any easier than using shift. Instead you would just be moving your mouse around on the needed pieces and spamming H. You would still have to do all the combining and other steps.

[Maga 99]

1. Place Knife in crafting grid

2. Place 160 food in crafting grid

3. Hold Shift and click on crafting output - Inventory will have 80, 40, 20, 10, 5, 2.5, 1.25, 0.625, 0.625 and the shift-click logic with handle the inventory limits.

4. Craft 80 and 20 piece together.

WAaaaaaaatttt >_>

 

Ok, I think my suggestion just went from 99 on the important scale right down to a sad little 53 ;_;

The hot key would avoid this inventory mess but this is good to know, wish I'd learned it sooner.

I still think the community would appreciate it, and it adds continuity. However I will be much less annoyed at 100oz recipes from now on, thank you.

 

EDIT: Filling extra slots with sticks/torches so you only get the 80s 40s and 20s helps.