Clay refining

[Castiel 0]

Clay is one of the most abundant materials in the world, and the base for doing almost everything in terrafirmacraft. In the real world, you can get it almost anywhere by just digging down. It is not usable everywhere, but there are ways to refine it. It should not be hard to find.

 

Let me clarify "hard to find": I know to look for yellow flowers, and I know that there are places where it's quite abundant. But there are also places, like the seed I am using, where I had to look for it for and hour or more. Meanwhile, I found:

 

Lava

Countless ravines

Mountains, including a floating island

enough nuggets to create almost two copper bars, and two full iron bars.

Not one, two or three, but seven open veins, of which at least two are not jet (I can't distinguish them yet, It's been a while since last I played).

 

All of which should be notably less common than clay.

 

My suggestion is that clay, of poor quality, can be found in a thin layer between dirt and stone. This would need to be refined, a process that should take time, and effort. This would mean that clay pockets, like the ones there are now, would still be useful, because they would require a lot less effort. This way, you wouldn't need to spend several in game days hunting for clay, before you could even get started.

[TonyLiberatto 364]

I personally never had a hard time finding clay, but I like your idea to a certain degree. In one way it would make easy to find clay. Sop clay is everywhere. just dig bellow dirt. 

Questions: We now have gravel under dirt and on top of stone. So clay would on top or under gravel?

The main reason we so desperately need clay on the start of the game, is to unlock metal. So without saw, no crafting grid.

Explain how do you propose to create a refining process without metals, 3 x 3 crafting grid or clay to start out. 

[Kittychanley 1,002]

It sounds to me like you ended up with an unlucky world seed that spawned you in an area with low rainfall. If you ever see dry grass, there will be no clay in that area.

 

http://wiki.terrafirmacraft.com/Clay

 

Clay requires a rainfall value of at least 500 in order to spawn. You can check this value in the F3 menu. If you start a new world, and you wish to have clay right away, you should be checking F3 as soon as you start. If it's lower than 500, then generate a new world.

 

The primary reasons why we do not make it so that you cannot spawn in an area with no clays is because 1. Minecraft uses procedural world generation and 2. Some players actually like the difficult start of having to explore for the initial materials such as clay, or trees.

[Castiel 0]

I personally never had a hard time finding clay, but I like your idea to a certain degree. In one way it would make easy to find clay. Sop clay is everywhere. just dig bellow dirt. 

Questions: We now have gravel under dirt and on top of stone. So clay would on top or under gravel?

The main reason we so desperately need clay on the start of the game, is to unlock metal. So without saw, no crafting grid.

Explain how do you propose to create a refining process without metals, 3 x 3 crafting grid or clay to start out. 

I'd suppose a makeshift bag made of hide hung from a tree could be one way of doing it. 

[Remnant 0]

but you would need rope (which needs the 3x3 grid to make a barrel to process jute) unless you wish to hang the item with string in which case we'd have to kill spiders and hope we don't die and that the spider drops the string. Also how would you propose your idea of making the hide bag in the first place?

[Castiel 0]

you wouldn't need rope, string would be fine. I found fibers before I found clay in my map, so that could be used. If not, then animal hair can be used, seeing as you would have to kill animals regardless. I don't see how you can't make a simple purse-like bag with raw skinned hide.

 

Alternatively, you could stretch the skin out by putting sticks through the corners, and use those to suspend it from the ground.

[Remnant 0]

i was asking mainly how would you make the bag without having a 3x3 grid. Currently in TFC in order to get a skinned hide you need to be able to craft barrels (which also requires the use of a saw and therefore already having a source of clay =/) Are you saying we should be able to craft a rawhide (like the interface for leather?) to make this bag? Your other suggestion about stretching the hide seems like it would fit more with early game tho. As we already have the temporary bed using thatch and a large hide because then we get the hide back when we break it. The bag in early game just seems like a waste of a hide.

[Castiel 0]

It's only a waste if you stop using it. If you are stranded a place with no clay in a several km radius, id say it's worth using a single piece of hide instead of having to spend hours looking for clay.

[Kittychanley 1,002]

There's a few flaws in this. As the others have stated, the only hide you would be able to use would be a raw hide, which isn't very flexible. If you wanted to make a bag, you would probably need a hide that has been processed, which requires either a barrel, or a large ceramic vessel, both which require clay in order to get. As for the hanging of the bag, the only option pre-clay is literally spider string, making this impossible for players who play on peaceful, or just do not like killing spiders. Both wool yarn and jute fibers require clay in order to get.

[Castiel 0]

Which is why i suggested animal hair, as you would have access to it before you make clay. If you have no way if threading it, you could make it horse hair exclusively.

If the hide isn't flexible enough, you could always use an animal bladder.

 

Having all crafting require clay in some form or another just highlights my concern that it can be too hard to get.

[Remnant 0]

honestly if clay is too hard to find, just generate a new world. It just sounds like you've been unlucky to find clay at start. =/

[Castiel 0]

honestly if clay is too hard to find, just generate a new world. It just sounds like you've been unlucky to find clay at start. =/

I did make a new map, through that was because my old one bugged out.

 

Though that is beyond the point. If you have to make a new map to circumvent a problem, it should be fixed. I don't mind having to look for large qualities of usable clay, but there should be alternatives for when you start in a place without a clay abundance, especially since so much of the game requires clay to either make or in order to enable it.

 

Like how you can get copper regardless of where you spawn. Not only is it very abundant in visible surface veins, it's also something you can pan yourself to, regardless f whether any copper actually exists in the vicinity. Why? Because it's the first tier of metal, which means you absolutely need it to advance. Clay is the exact same, arguably more so, and I don't see why it should not be treated the same.

[Remnant 0]

i understand where you are coming from. I get it, i do and i think anyone else reading this thread sees that as well, but i would agree whole heartedly if this was a 100% complete mod that had been out "as is" (as in as build 79) for longer than only a few months. This mod is still in beta and still being worked on and updated so there's bound to be a few things that are frustrating.

 

Starting a new world isn't a horrible issue that breaks anything with the game as finding clay is pretty much a "need to do" in the first day or so. So again, if you are having a hard time finding clay just start a new world. The Devs can only fix things so fast and i'm sure they'd rather work on more immersive content at the moment. From what i've read in past threads and from reading the change log, they have done everything they can currently to make finding clay and the possibility of surviving the first few nights as challenging (and dare i say easy) as they can. Spawn zones are near areas of diversity for food, animals, biomes and they gave us the golden rod flowers to see pockets of clay easier. In my opinion I think clay is fine the way it is and i actually enjoy having to search far and wide for basic stuff. *shrug*

[Kittychanley 1,002]

I'm just going to quote a post I made in another thread, because it applies here as well.

 

 

it is intentional that not all spawns are going to be an "easy start" and contain all of the materials you are looking for including an abundance of food, fresh water, clay, trees, etc. This is a side-effect of the fact that Minecraft uses procedural generation, and not only would it be fairly difficult to "fix" there are actually reasons why we do not want to "fix" it.

 

Believe it or not, there are actually players who enjoy a challenging start. Even in vanilla Minecraft, you see seed posts of "survival island" or other similar themes. While you may wish for things to be easier, and have everything required right at spawn, there are players who if they spawned on a world, and everything was handed to them right around spawn, they would actually delete the world and generate a new one. We cannot please one style of play without alienating the players of the other style.

 

TL;DR - If you want an easy start, and your world doesn't have everything at the start, then start a new world with a different world seed.

 

[Castiel 0]

Yet you have implemented ways of getting copper regardless of where you are, even through it's much rarer than clay. Not having access to clay doesn't make the game harder, it just prolongs the phase where you can't do anything other than make stone tools, which doesn't make sense.

[Kittychanley 1,002]

Technically that is not true. Gold panning requires a source of water, and there are times where players will spawn in the middle of a plains with no copper, and no water in sight.

[Castiel 0]

A source of water that you would require to survive regardless. A single block of water can be stretched to pan four or even five chunks, which would give you one, or even two, tools. These could then be used to extend the range of your waterblock, giving you even more copper.

 

I am not suggesting that this should be a priority update, but arguing that clay should only be found in large pockets of readily available clay, found only in regions with "heavy" rainfall, for the sake of gameplay makes no sense, because it's such a basic material that should be abundant.

[Kittychanley 1,002]

A source of water that you would require to survive regardless. A single block of water can be stretched to pan four or even five chunks, which would give you one, or even two, tools. These could then be used to extend the range of your waterblock, giving you even more copper.

 

I am not suggesting that this should be a priority update, but arguing that clay should only be found in large pockets of readily available clay, found only in regions with "heavy" rainfall, for the sake of gameplay makes no sense, because it's such a basic material that should be abundant.

 

You seem to not quite be understanding how some basic mechanics work. A chunk is 16x16 blocks. A single block of water can only extend a max distance of 8 blocks. There is absolutely no placement of a single water block that can be spread to cover more than 4 chunks, and that's only if you get lucky and that water block is near the corner. I'm also not sure how you expect to extend the range of the waterblock with copper tools, since you cannot move source blocks until you've maxed out all the way to red steel. Wooden buckets are for filling barrels, they do not actually place water sources.

 

Your idea of "heavy" rainfall is also really far off. Clay spawns in any area with a rainfall value of at least 500, which means that it spawns in any area that has regular grass, instead of dry grass, which spawns in areas of rainfall less than 500. In other words, clay spawns in any area that is not dry and barren with the super sparse grass. For reference, swamps have rainfall higher than 1,000 and jungles can have rainfall as high as 2,000

[Castiel 0]

Alright, so i forgot your source blocks don't work like regular ones. Doesn't mean you can't get at least one tool from them.

 

Notice the quotation marks around heavy? Those mean that I don't actually mean >heavy<...

 

But my point still stands, you can get the pickaxe you need from a single block of water, and use that to get enough copper to make new tools. This effectively makes copper more easily obtainable than clay, even though you can't use it before you get clay.

[Hubertus 29]

The very fact that you need the gold pan to get copper nuggets effectively makes copper more difficult to obtain than clay. TFC is all about stepping stones: you need clay before you can get copper. You need copper before you can mine, ect. Finding clay is the first stepping stone. Wouldn't be much of a challenge if you spawned on top of it, would it? That being said, being the first node in the tech tree, it's a pretty easy challenge. Sure, it's possible to start in a region with no clay, but it should take you too long to find an area that does have the required rainfall (Which is very common). You just got an extremely unlucky seed. Too bad, get over it. In vanilla you can spawn on an island in the middle of an ocean with no wood in sight. If you don't like the randomly generated seed you got, then get another one.  It would take 10 seconds at best to start up a new world. The time saved by adding in this idea (which still doesn't work, since nobody has proposed a viable method of refining clay) that would be used by so few people is negligible to the time it would take for us to think of a good way of implementing it and the devs to code it into the game. It's not worth it.

[Thrainn 2]

(...)

I agree completely!To underline the concept of stepping stones: In my current world, I basically swim in iron! There is Limonite and Magnetite everywhere, but only after some exploring did I come about Copper, which was pure luck too, because it cannot spawn in my top layers (all sedimantary for very far, so the only veins I found were at where the top layer was thin enough for nuggets to be generated on the surface).And I have yet to find ANY flux!So just like you can't do anything with all your copper until you find clay, I cannot utilize any of all the iron until I find flux somewhere. That's the way it is ...

[Castiel 0]

The very fact that you need the gold pan to get copper nuggets effectively makes copper more difficult to obtain than clay.

By that logic, every last-boss in every game is the single hardest thing in the game, because it's last. Invalid argument.

 

TFC is all about stepping stones: you need clay before you can get copper. You need copper before you can mine, ect. Finding clay is the first stepping stone. Wouldn't be much of a challenge if you spawned on top of it, would it?

My argument being that it shouldn't be hard to find one of the most abundant and wide spreed materials on earth, especially not when you can literally build nothing but stone tools before you get it.

 

That being said, being the first node in the tech tree, it's a pretty easy challenge. Sure, it's possible to start in a region with no clay, but it should take you too long to find an area that does have the required rainfall (Which is very common). You just got an extremely unlucky seed. Too bad, get over it. In vanilla you can spawn on an island in the middle of an ocean with no wood in sight. If you don't like the randomly generated seed you got, then get another one.

Being able to make new worlds easily isn't an argument for not doing things right. If Malachite was the only way to get copper, would you just tell people to create a new world until they spawned on the right kind of stone? I don't really want to spam new worlds until I get one that is easy enough, if you do then maybe you should find an easier mod.

 

It would take 10 seconds at best to start up a new world. The time saved by adding in this idea (which still doesn't work, since nobody has proposed a viable method of refining clay)

Then you should have no problem explaining in detail why my two separate methods of refining clay aren't viable.

 

that would be used by so few people is negligible to the time it would take for us to think of a good way of implementing it and the devs to code it into the game. It's not worth it.

I never said it should be a priority update, I merely want to discus it, seeing as it's not very  believable that something you would generally just need to dig down a meter or two to get is instead something you potentially have to spend hours searching for, especially since it's the first stepping stone in the game.

[Kittychanley 1,002]

It would take 10 seconds at best to start up a new world. The time saved by adding in this idea (which still doesn't work, since nobody has proposed a viable method of refining clay)

Then you should have no problem explaining in detail why my two separate methods of refining clay aren't viable.

 

Let's see here:

• You haven't clarified exactly where the clay should spawn. You said "between dirt and stone" but what about the gravel that is currently between dirt and stone.
• You haven't stated if this block that you get should be a new completely different block, and if there should be a new specific item of clay that needs refining, and if it should be named something different, look different, etc.
• You haven't explained how exactly you plan for players to create a bag, as they do not have access to a 3x3 crafting grid, nor access to hide that is in any form remotely flexible. We're looking for the use of a current existing mechanic, otherwise you need to provide details on a specific interface, and how that interface is accessed.
• You haven't explained how players can hang said bag from a tree, as rope and jute are not obtainable, and spider silk is not a valid option as some players play on peaceful. You mention "animal fibers" but these do not exist on TFC. How do you expect players to get these fibers from animals, and what exactly is an animal fiber? Is it just fur trimmed off a cow or something?
• You can't really stretch the hide you get from animals unless you process it first, which requires clay. So stretching on sticks isn't really a viable option either.
• The suggestion of using an animal bladder instead of a hide is also not viable, as there is absolutely no way that offal will be added to TFC. See the do not post thread for more details.

[Castiel 0]

• There are three options, above, below, or mixed with, gravel. All are realistic, and I didn't realize that you would have to make the actual spawn mechanics when you made a suggestion, so I never specified one. If I had to choose, I'd say mixed with gravel.
• Again, seeing as you come up with several different ways of implementing it, I would say that the problem is less in whether it can be implemented, and more in "we don't want to", regardless of game play or believably. But seeing as you want me to chose, a new block that drops "unrefined clay", the same way that clay drops now.
• Do a google image search on "portable seat". You will see a tripod design that should be manageable do do with three sticks. I see no reason why you couldn't put three sticks into the 2x2 crafting window and got one of those. My other suggestion would be something akin to what you would see if you searched "primitive medieval purse", i.e., a circular piece of leather with made into a small bag. I don't see how this is so impossible either, as there are several ways of softening leather. Other than the one currently used, I could see using hot water (hot springs) as a way of doing this, or maybe use a pelt instead of a hide, as smaller animals have thinner skin that would be easier to bend.
• Hanging it from a tree was just a proposal, not a requirement. If you made a primitive bag, then you could hang it from the branches with primitive string. I do believe I said animal hair, not fiber, and specified that the ones from a horses mane would be long enough to make a simple piece of string or rope. I suppose you would get it the same way you currently get hide, I don't see why hair should require some specific way of getting when meat and hide just appear after you kill the animal. If not hair, then there are several plant fibers that can be used without having to soak them. Several saplings could also, depending on the tree, be used to make simple string, along with grass.
• I see no reason why the leather should be stretched, instead of just cutting out a usable piece with a knife and then using that. As far as I know, clay refining doesn't require an air proof bag, simply a way of draining water through it, allowing sand particles to be removed.
• Alright, I didn't know that.

I still see no argument as to why it's not viable. Instead, you say that my suggestion isn't detailed enough. I guess I left too much for the devs to decide, seeing as it is their mod.

 

However, I see that there isn't much willingness to discuss a change in mechanics in this forum, so I will let it go, and just accept that this is the kind of mod where you have to restart until you're lucky enough to get a viable map.

[Hubertus 29]

 

The very fact that you need the gold pan to get copper nuggets effectively makes copper more difficult to obtain than clay.

By that logic, every last-boss in every game is the single hardest thing in the game, because it's last. Invalid argument.

 

TFC is all about stepping stones: you need clay before you can get copper. You need copper before you can mine, ect. Finding clay is the first stepping stone. Wouldn't be much of a challenge if you spawned on top of it, would it?

My argument being that it shouldn't be hard to find one of the most abundant and wide spreed materials on earth, especially not when you can literally build nothing but stone tools before you get it.

 

That being said, being the first node in the tech tree, it's a pretty easy challenge. Sure, it's possible to start in a region with no clay, but it should take you too long to find an area that does have the required rainfall (Which is very common). You just got an extremely unlucky seed. Too bad, get over it. In vanilla you can spawn on an island in the middle of an ocean with no wood in sight. If you don't like the randomly generated seed you got, then get another one.

Being able to make new worlds easily isn't an argument for not doing things right. If Malachite was the only way to get copper, would you just tell people to create a new world until they spawned on the right kind of stone? I don't really want to spam new worlds until I get one that is easy enough, if you do then maybe you should find an easier mod.

 

It would take 10 seconds at best to start up a new world. The time saved by adding in this idea (which still doesn't work, since nobody has proposed a viable method of refining clay)

Then you should have no problem explaining in detail why my two separate methods of refining clay aren't viable.

 

that would be used by so few people is negligible to the time it would take for us to think of a good way of implementing it and the devs to code it into the game. It's not worth it.

I never said it should be a priority update, I merely want to discus it, seeing as it's not very  believable that something you would generally just need to dig down a meter or two to get is instead something you potentially have to spend hours searching for, especially since it's the first stepping stone in the game.

"That being said, being the first node in the tech tree, it's a pretty easy challenge. Sure, it's possible to start in a region with no clay, but it should take you too long to find an area that does have the required rainfall (Which is very common). You just got an extremely unlucky seed. Too bad, get over it. In vanilla you can spawn on an island in the middle of an ocean with no wood in sight. If you don't like the randomly generated seed you got, then get another one.

Being able to make new worlds easily isn't an argument for not doing things right. If Malachite was the only way to get copper, would you just tell people to create a new world until they spawned on the right kind of stone? I don't really want to spam new worlds until I get one that is easy enough, if you do then maybe you should find an easier mod."

 

It is how the game works. A world is randomly generated for you. Depending on how it's made, it can be easy or difficult. That's the nature of randomness. If you don't like the difficulty setting, then try a new one. Since you seem to be the person with the problem, perhaps YOU should find an easier mod.

 

"It would take 10 seconds at best to start up a new world. The time saved by adding in this idea (which still doesn't work, since nobody has proposed a viable method of refining clay)

Then you should have no problem explaining in detail why my two separate methods of refining clay aren't viable."

 

Thanks Kitty!

 

As for the spawning mechanic, I'd vote against adding a new block that people are going to running into constantly that has such a conplicated process to ever become useful. I'd suggest it be a random drop when digging gravel or dirt, like how flint is sometimes randomly gained from gravel.