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Yoseph

Mechanisms and Mechanical Power

24 posts in this topic

What about power generation? I don't speak about electricity, but mechanical power and automation.
I have aways seen redstone in Minecraft as a weird thing. In my understanding, it is a 'magical' mineral capable of conducting and generating electricity. It fits perfectly in a sort of alchemy setting, but in the matters of 'believability', i can't see it like that simple. You see, i'm not discarding the possibility of alchemy existing in Terrafirma (as it says, it's not about realism, but believability), but i also cannot see it as the first step to automation and mechanical power as well.

 And this is where a mill comes to mind!

Bellows, grindstones, enormous gates made of metal (or just a metal, maybe a really heavy wooden door), trap systems, elevators; It all would be connected to a system of axles and ropes and chains connected to gearboxes activated by levers and pressure plates. Mechanism parts could be big and heavy items representing a unmounted machine pack, or just a common part as a axle.

I divided this idea in some topics, and they are:

 ​(heavy items are transported one of a time and are indicated as [heavy] by this listing)

1. Animal and Human powered systems


> This would be the first tier of mechanical power, as it needs only relatively simple components and your own strength (step 1), or a animal (like a bull, donkey or a horse. Step 2);

> Animals would get tired and lose health slowly if overworked;

> Uses ropes, wood, stone and other relatively early materials.
> Has little efficiency, resulting in some relative material loss and takes more time.

 

 Items:

  • A Quern for the grinding;
  • Crude wooden axles made of logs and rope;
  • Pulleys and cranks!
  • Big wooden gate (opened only by animal power source or a boring time of spamclicking-human-power at a crank)
  • Animal Mill [heavy], assembled at the crafting grid by putting together axles and ropes. When placed, it creates a 5x5 structure (described bellow). You can also put a quern on it.
  • Idea: Manual water pump?

 

Structures:

  •  A primitive quern for crude material processing (much like TFC 1, with some quantity loss due to lesser efficiency);
  •  A animal powered mill. It has to uses and two versions: it could power simple machines, as a crude gate with ropes and pulleys, or be used as an independent milling process so you can make other activities while the animal works and gets tired. (same efficiency as primitive quern, but automatic for the price of animal food); Image for reference!
  • Idea: manual grinding stone to sharpen swords, giving back some durability but removing its durability cap.
  • Idea: A manual water pump could be used to fill buckets and barrels with water if connected by bamboo pipes or something like that. Just a thought i had now.

 

2. Water and Wind powered systems I

 

> The second tier of mechanical power is continually generated, requiring some maintenance overt time.

> The structures would have a internal component that loses durability and must be replaced (something related to the quern interface in TFC 1, but with ropes or other parts, i don't know.)

> Uses the same materials of Tier 1, plus sails (for the windmill), metal parts and boards instead of crude wood.

> Has a greater efficiency, resulting in less material loss and taking less time than animal or human powered machines.

> They would power manual machines that are connected to the system by a gearbox. 

 

 Items:

  • Sails, axles (now made of boards and ropes), nails and screws (metal parts);
  • A Gearbox for transfering horizontal to vertical power of axles and activating/deactivating the system (made from boards and metal parts);
  • Levers that activate/deactivate gearboxes;
  • Windmill Paddles [heavy] that would be placed in one side of a gearbox or axle;
  • Watermill Paddles [heavy] that would be place in one side of a gearbox or axle as well.

Structures:

  • Windmills would need a clear space of 5x5 in front of it to turn and generate power and would be randomly less effective at times due to wind unpredictability. It also needs to be at a height of 6 blocks above ground level.
  • Watermills would need to be with its lower part inside a running river (its center must be at 3 blocks high from the water surface) and would be a more continuous power source than the windmill (as it wouldn't vary as much) but less effective then when the air flows stronger at his wind cousin.
  • Both structures must be kept repaired to work, as it would slowly degrade it's components (much like a quern in TFC 1). In my opinion it should snap ropes from time to time, making it good to use a metal chain instead.

 

3. Water and Wind powered systems II

 

> The third (or second and a half) tier of mechanical power is very similar to its previous level, unless it requires less maintenance overt time and are more effective and powerful.

> The structures takes more rare materials (as metals) to build and can power multiple components at one time or stronger machines than its precedents, like a blast furnace bellows for quality steel production.

> It enables the use of elevators due to the enhanced gearboxes when combined with ropes, chains and pulleys from previous tiers.

 

Items:

  • Enhanced Sails, axles, nails and screws and gearboxes that require higher quality materials (like iron and treated boards);
  • Advanced Gearboxes can have the option to power a system for some time with delays (clockwork and cranks. The amount of clockwork inside one refers to the time the signal is active and the amount of cranks, the delay length between them);
  • Enhanced Windmill Paddles [heavy] generate more power and are less variable.
  • Enhanced Watermill Paddles [heavy] generates more power as well, but still less than its wind counterpart at its peak.
  • Metal pipes!

Structures:

  • Same as before, but enhanced.
  • Elevators that can carry items, animals and players though vertical distances (chains and ropes in a pulley system).
  • Continuous water pumps can be used to create another stream of water.
  • Metal pipes would bring water to longer distances (as it leaks less) than it's bamboo counterparts.

 

4. Steam powered engines? Random extra ideas.

 

> Haven't tought of it yet, but maybe steam powered engines would be a nice addition to the game. What do you think?

> Some piston mechanic similar to the vanilla minecraft might be the door to create giant mechanisms.

 

 

 

 

 

Have you read, understood, and followed all of the rules listed in large text at the top of the suggestions forum?(Yes/No): Yes
Answering "no" to the above question will result in your post being deleted.

Edited by Yoseph
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This will never happen in TFC i guess, but it's a very good idea for an addon... :-)

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These are fun ideas, but TFC2 will need to be significantly different from the current game to really have enough use of these things, to justify the time it would take to code it all. 

In the current game, there's no notion of quality difference for products of querns.  So powering a quern wouldn't gain anything in terms of flour production.  And unless the food system is significantly changed to reduce the ease with which one can gain huge food surpluses, I don't really think it'll be a big benefit.  Changing the flour milling system to do like, 2oz at a time on the other hand, would probably greatly increase the incentive.

I can see some benefit to powering the quern for grinding of graphite or kaolinite, but not a whole lot.  I usually do that stuff during in-home nights anyway.  If there was a 'quality of process' involved - for instance hand-ground Kao/Graph only had a 50% chance to produce a product, while milled was 100%, that would be much more incentive to go to all that mill effort.  Still, the quantities of those two things needed are small enough the mill probably wouldn't even wear out any parts, and then it wouldn't be used anymore (unless the player is really into dyes)

 

Moving water to a barrel would be mildly useful, but I think only to pump water down into a mine, so you don't need to go refill.  Above ground barrels, it rains so often I don't think the pump would be useful there.  Even a mine barrel can use rainwater if it's a straight shaft down from the surface.   If your winters are long the rain barrel method won't work, but then - logically speaking - your pipes would freeze anyway.  In general it's pretty fast to pop outside and grab a barrel, which will last like, 15 days or more I think.

 

Blast Furnaces, I don't think it would be worth it.  As Kitty mentions in the myths thread, bellows do not increase the rate at which items in forges heat up.  Only the speed with which the forge itself heats up.  It's a common miconception.  Once the forge or blast furnace is at full heat, you're not helping anything.  Mechanical power for this would probably be largely wasted effort, unless this system changes in TFC2.

 

A big heavy gate, I'm not seeing the use for.  At least currently.  In TFC2 presumably mobs will have some block destroying power, and then a big drawbridge or something could be useful.  But I would think the use would be so intermittent, I'm not sure how worthwhile a mechanism setup would be there unless the speed of raising difference would be drastically faster.  But unless attacks are pre-warned well ahead of time, if the player-power method is super-slow, they're probably going to get surprised more often than not.  This would definitely be a legit use for a geared mechanism of some kind (ala dwarf fortress) even if player powered.

 

Elevators could be a legit use if there are more very-heavy items in the game that cannot be transported even on a player's back.  I suggest this in regard to magic crystals in the magic thread.   It could also be useful if one wants to build mountain-top settlements and have animals up there.  This could give both minecarts and hoists/elevators a use.

 

Steam power, I would love to see - but I'm not sure what it would do beyond the above systems, except power minecarts.  And unless minecarts get an actual game use, there's just no need for that right now. 

 

Believe me, I'd love to see these systems, especially steam power.  But the game in it's current form just doesn't have the need for any of these things imho.  They're all relatively easily accomplished by player power.   I have a whole sand-casting system dreamed up, but I've not bothered posting it because there's just no need for steam power right now.   I would suggest maybe focusing more on ways to bring a *need* for mechanical power into TFC2 because right now, I just don't see it.

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Personally, I would rather see machines as an addon, rather than in the core game.   I know TFC has technology capped at 1400 AD European, but is there a cap for TFC2?

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I'l agree with everyone, I love the ideas but they need a use.

Solution!!!!

Implement the Mechanical Power and the use for it at the same time. Is easy as that.

All we have to do is look in history and find what was mechanical power used for, and create the same need in game.

Examples: Pump water, if we have finite water, mechanical power will be the only way to have a fountain in a garden or for irrigation.

To grind wheat: We should still be able to grind without mechanical power, but if we make it so it takes a long time, people will make the Mill.

As for a Gate people would make it, even if is just to show off.

Elevators, make it so you cannot climb a ladder with a barrel on your back. If you think about it does not maker much sense.

BTW I did not really consider these ideas in depth, just making a point of implementing the need with the solution at the same time.

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All we have to do is look in history and find what was mechanical power used for, and create the same need in game.

Examples: Pump water, if we have finite water, mechanical power will be the only way to have a fountain in a garden or for irrigation.

To grind wheat: We should still be able to grind without mechanical power, but if we make it so it takes a long time, people will make the Mill.

As for a Gate people would make it, even if is just to show off.

Elevators, make it so you cannot climb a ladder with a barrel on your back. If you think about it does not maker much sense.

BTW I did not really consider these ideas in depth, just making a point of implementing the need with the solution at the same time.

To a degree.  I mean, a large part of mechanical power in history has been grinding grains.  TFC just doesn't work that way currently.  But it definitely could.  The other major use would have been moving around building materials - stone and lumber.  But the way TFC currently is obviates that as well.  It's the realism vs 'I want to build' conundrum.  I think TFC2 will largely need to offer some more specialized uses, because I don't see building material transport as likely to change much.  Making flour production more of a grind...might work.  I think there'd be a line to be careful of in making it *too* 'grindy'.  It'd definitely go a ways to making people value food more.  It might even make salads attractive to use sometimes again, since bread would be more time consuming to make.

 

I do rather like the idea of no more red/blue buckets.  You want water or lava somewhere?  You pump it there (or use magic?).  It'd be nice if water could be done at steel or black steel tiers though, rather than red.  Honestly, it feels like right now by the time you've achieved top tier metals, having water somewhere other than natural pools really isn't that big a deal. 

 

Ya, you could make barrels non-ladder-carry-able.  But I feel like I'd probably just carry 20 jugs with me on a water run instead, and/or build a stairway.   In imagining the effort to set up a working pump system for each mine, I just can't imagine it being less onerous than simply a massive jug run.  And that's only assuming I can't just have my ladder shaft go all the way up, so the rain fills the barrel at the bottom instead, which is easiest by far.

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Yeah I agree, like I said was just trowing ideas out.

But imagine if irrigation was actually needed?

No water sources, I don't care what color your bucket is.

That would make a Water pump and plumbing something very desirable. 

New settlements would need to be close to water though.

Other requirements could be set also.

For me the whole building thing is very overrated.

If you want building to be easy, just play creative.

I want to brag that my buildings were done legit, and people to know that it was hard to get the materials for it.

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I agree with you guys, there are little practical uses other from the awesomeness of having a functional mill.
But i miss needing "installations" while playing TFC, you know? A forgery, a mill, a pump station...

But as a regard to the uses of it, Darmo, what if the manual labor were a lot harder in the means that it would take a lot of time to grind something?

When i suggested the milling i was thinking about the manual quern taking more time to work and resulting in weight loss from resource to product. High quality tools should decrease this loss.
Another way to value machines: grind harder materials or to make something that needs to result in a finer powder (like kao and graphite?)

 

What about sawmills? They could make a processed log yield more planks than a handsaw.

About the water and the pumps, what if they create a "block" of flowing water while active? Or if barrels filled with water were impossible to carry? (elevators would be useful to transport full barrels, be the content liquid or solid, like ore). I guess these ideas would work a lot nicer and useful if there were a weight/carrying capacity system or something like that.

As for the big gates, flavour also... but a drawbridge would be nice if a zombie touching your walls would bring to utter disaster.

Edited by Yoseph
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I agree, it'd be interesting.  Everyone has their own 'thing'.  I'd be ok with more work to make flour for instance.  I think it would help the feel of progression in terms of food being a little harder to get at the beginning.  There's only one way to get bread and that's flour, and so by altering the milling mechanic, you can directly control how hard it is to get bread. 

 

And being able to create a water source block would certainly be useful for farming.  But I think only if it can be done before the 'end-game', and only in very cold regions, where the crop window is tight.  Or maybe if it could counter tropical heat.

 

But the notion of pumps for mine water supply interests me not at all.  I think it'd be too much work to set up for a mine, which is temporary.  Not only would the setup be tedious, but keeping the pump powered.  To me the most unattractive aspect of the game is dragging animals around, and the last thing I personally want to see is me having to drag animals from mine to mine in the early-ish game.    I think the incentive would always be to work around it by just using massive amounts of jugs, or simply put a barrel at the bottom of the shaft.  Heck, even just digging a sloped channel from the same water source down into the mine would probably be preferrable, as I wouldn't need to power that.  Getting water is a problem with multiple solutions and I don't think you can railroad the character into using pumps for it without changing all the other solutions as well.  And in general, water hauling isn't really a very interesting mechanic to me.  Now pumps at a home base - to make a mountain-top more livable for instance - that I can get behind, because it's a permanent investment.  But keeping it fueled still doesn't seem attractive to me.  I'd rather just put out rain barrels.

 

Other people would have different opinions - maybe they're not interested in making flour harder to get.

 

I think the best use of powered stuff will be for for 'new' purposes.   Things like hoisting non-carryable stuff from the depths, or to the tops of mountains.  Powering mine-cars (which isn't new, but redstone was always a placeholder from my understanding).  And, even though it doesn't currently work this way, there's nothing to say that the system couldn't be altered so that metal items in the forge *do* heat faster with a bellows, which would be a new mechanic, and one which I think players would use.  Maybe there is a powered roller-mill, into which the player put a hot ingot, and (after time) out comes a metal sheet, no smithing required.  Maybe there is a powered trip-hammer, which liberalizes the preciseness with which the smithing arrows must be aligned.  Maybe there are new ores - adamantine - which when the player mines them, they do not come out in ore form, but in block form.  The player must then put the block in a mechanical crusher to extract the ore.  Perhaps this crusher can be used by the player, to insert a piece of rich ore of any type, and they get back that piece of rich ore, plus a 10u nugget (takes some time). 

 

New uses.  Fun uses.

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I have to agree, to have to make a powered elevator for each mine is a bit too much.

I think elevators would be more a novelty, people would build it in towers, just to show off, that in my opinion is a valid reason.

Now water pump, specially if is powered by a water wheel, would be a interesting idea.

I do know that not all farms are irrigated, specially for grains, but as much as I know vegetables need a constant supply of water.

I live in Florida and we have lots of rain here. Even though, if I forget to water my vegetable garden the Bell Peppers dry off very quick.

So there are plants that require irrigation, and others that are more or less OK to rely on rain, but even those benefit from irrigation.

 The whole mechanic would need to be implemented at once. Make it so no vegetable can be planted more than 4 blocks from a water block. Finite Water, so the only way to bring water is by using the pumps.

Also another way to create an incentive for irrigation is to have animal hunger, so food is more necessary. If you have to feed your animals you need to produce more food.

In my model animals would not die of hunger,( because of servers) but they would require feeding for 5 consecutive days before they would produce anything.

Unfed cows would not give Milk, Chickens would not give eggs, sheep would not grow wool, and all animals would not give any, or almost any meat, since that is what you would get from a skinny animal. Even the leather could be damaged.

So there you go, a need for The Mechanic Power with the solution.

 Like I said before, just look in history, where the mechanical power were used? Most times you will find a way to simulate the same in game.

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We could do what many tech oriented mods could do, and increase the amount of metal gained (only if you're using mechanical stuff, of course) as well as increasing the need for metal.  We could stimulate the desire of more metal by increasing the amount needed for blast furnaces, and make you want to build a grinder to perhaps double your ore production. Another use could be trip hammers, which were used to pound wrought iron, which made it easier for the smith.

 

Another incentive could be rails, which would be good for transporting ore (perhaps the player's ability to carry ore would be nerfed) from faraway mines, using minecarts. Not terribly unlike railcraft, but more suited to TFC of course

 

I think the mechanical power should be generated by water wheels, windmills,  animal/player power, and steam. There should be shafts to connect the power sources and the power recipients, and gears to convert torque to speed and vice versa. Trip hammers, querns, and elevators would be what would be powered.

 

Elevators would be cool, and I've noticed lots of modmakers don't only add stuff because people will use them, they add them for fun because they enjoy modding. Maybe the stuff the other modmakers are doing easier stuff idk.

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Have you read, understood, and followed all of the rules listed in large text at the top of the suggestions forum?(Yes/No): Yes

Almost all the people who play Minecraft love automating things. Iron farms, xp farms, automatic sugarcanes... However this is too far away from terrafirmacraft, so I'm here to propose add a little bit of automation, but in a por Historical-Friendly way. Always keep in mind that this is not realistic but believable.
 
What I'm looking for is some sort of cog-mechanism, powered by windmills and water-mills (Steam possible also, but more difficult). This will generate rotation which will be transmitted by a series of cogs, as you can see in the following picture. The systems could give a specific strength (number of "Machines" it can hold) and a specific speed (speed in which the machines work [Just for some of them]):
 
       H3NQjtI.jpg?1 
This simple mechanism were used really commonly in my country, Spain, to various objetives. I am proposing some of them here:

  • Quern: This was obvious. I would recommend making the process of refining slower, if made by hand. A solution for better productivity is make some kind of outomated quern, which will rotate thanks to the cog-mechanism
  • Sawmill: Many people have talked about making the process of obteining planks a little bit slower, made by hand. If you want, however, to make wood in a large scale, you would need a sawmill to process the items faster and semi-automatically
  • Fan: If the temperature is a thing in TFC, the fan will be useful for cooling areas (ej: your home, a cellar...). Also could be useful to refresh the air in deep mines, which is could be poisonus.
  • Pump: Not only for ascending water but for "help" it go forward. A cog-powered system of pumps will help a river extend much further, allowing more spaces to be farmeable. This could help in the creation of some kind of aqueduct, to transport the water for long distances (already made by romans)

Some other mechanism which I think will fit into terrafimacraft, but are "more strange":

  • Presser: If the devs add products like sugarcanes, honeycombs, olives, soybeans, sunflowers... They could be processed by this to create cooking oil, sugar, paper, extract the honey, or create soy milk and tofu.
  • Pistons and trapdoors: Some kind of substitution for redstone, more realistic
  • Minecarts: A cog-powered rail will look more realistic than a golden magical rail, don't you think so?

 

Please, post in the commets your thoughts about this. I would love to get some recommendations and improve the idea!

Edited by Kittychanley
Duplicate suggestion merged into existing thread
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Utility issues aside, I think perhaps the best route for such power to take - should it ever be implemented -  would be simply mechanisms and rods.  Mechanisms will be familiar to DF players.  There they operated through quantum mechanics, no linkages required!  But TFC could simply have a block called a mechanism, and to transfer power between them, rods.  If you want to see a real-life example of this, check out this page, or this one which shows pictures from an oil field in Illinois that, at least in 2003 when the pictures were taken, was still operating off of what I'd call 19th century technology - a central power house, and then a series of rods that transfer that power to various wells on the property.  It's a fascinating system that is apparently nearly self-sustaining, being powered off the natural gas from the oil it pumps.  The hard part would be the maintenance of the rod lines I think.  But it's incredible to look at, being supported with simple Y-shaped logs and branches, and yet it does real work.

 

So, you'd basically have two mechanisms.  Between them you can string some specific length of rod.  Perhaps longer for higher tier metals.  Any time you change direction, you have to use a mechanism, except that they will go up and down with the terrain in a straight 45 degree diagonal, again, as long as there is a mechanism at each end.   Then whatever you want to power must be next to a powered mechanism.  It'd be graphically simpler I think, than try to do a bunch of gears and cogs convincingly, and would only require two types of blocks.  The mechanisms could be designed graphically to be not dependent on direction, so truly a single block for them.   The rods would need a variety to account for all the configurations, but they would be fast to create I think, and hopefully low overhead.

Edited by Darmo
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I like this, and have really think it should be added to tfc.

The main issue is that it needs to be added together with other changes. 

 

For example if you add any kind of mechanical power able to work a quern, you also need to change the default manual quern to make it so slow and  fatigue that the player will have a high incentive to mechanize the action. Right now is just to easy to just use the regular quern. So we need to make it very slow, diminish the output and cause a lot of fatigue.

 

Another example is the saw. Have you ever try to saw a log? It takes a long time and that in the end would be reason enough to make a powered saw.

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I agree that in keeping with the spirit TFC has always been, that automation should be a goal to reach and desired as well. I also agree that some things need to change between versions, but isn't that what this forum is for? They are completely rewriting the mod. 

 

* Windmills should run on wind power like Ancient Warfare and Immersive Engineering to grind grains/ores in a larger version of the quern that holds more stacks. This could also be used to crush ores for doubling too if that is a popular theme. But only in the larger quern/grinder.

 

* Sawmill to automate the plank making would be great as well. An expansion on woodworking could include treating the wood planks with linseed oil or some other type for more variations for building purposes and for perhaps waterproofing things. A mechanical workbench that is powered to make multiple wood products like barrels, buckets, signs, fences, etc. or anything else the devs might like to include. Just throwing out ideas :)

 

* I definitely like the idea of an automated presser for oils or anything else added by the devs 

 

* Hydrothermic power would be a great addition using the lava pools or the hot springs

 

* Would love an automated way to make the masonry bricks. Perhaps a machine for mixing and pouring into a form?

 

* Irrigation system of channels and sprinklers that works with the pump for those that live in drier areas that would affect crop growth. I like this idea a lot and I agree that the incentive should be no placeable water at all.

 

* I like the idea of unfed animals not being able to produce so feeding troughs would be a thing without the headache of dying animals.

 

* So wind, hydrothermal, and cog power would be great additons!

Edited by Teagan75
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For me the whole building thing is very overrated.

If you want building to be easy, just play creative.

I want to brag that my buildings were done legit, and people to know that it was hard to get the materials for it.

Well that is your opinion and seems to be shared by most modders as there are way more mods for power, machines, and anything to do with ore and smithing than really thought out mods that give the player who loves to build great structures a way to do that legit through automation. The best mod for that I have ever seen is Simcraft for Minecraft but unfortunately it never updated.

 

In that mod there was a crusher that made double rock powders (unlike the hammer that gave 1), then you mixed different rock powders with cement/mortar to make different bricks not obtainable the beginning way. They also had recipes for roof tiles and sloped roof pieces, pillars, walls, fences, paneling.

 

There was also treated wood for darker variations.

Edited by Teagan75
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another cool thing could be a power hammer that could be used to form your tools faster (or be a requirement for stronger metals)

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Some other thoughts for mechanical power:
   - More efficient bloomeries - A powered bloomery could either work faster, or perhaps have an ore-doubling type mechanic (probably not doubling, but maybe increasing by 150%). otherwise, powered bellows could be a thing.

           "Early European bloomeries were relatively small, smelting less than 1 kg of iron with each firing. Progressively larger bloomeries were constructed in the late fourteenth century, with a capacity of about 15 kg on average,

            though exceptions did exist. The use of waterwheels to power the bellows allowed the bloomery to become larger and hotter. European average bloom sizes quickly rose to 300 kg, where they leveled off until the demise of 

            the bloomery."

   - Automated textile production - This would have to come with an increase in the uses for large amounts of cloth, as currently it is only useful if for sails if you play with a ship mod. Regardless, using the loom gets boring fast as is.

   - Conveyor belts - Could be used to transport items

   - A few machines that could perform single smithing tasks, i.e. make ingots into double ingots and thus into sheets and double sheets, split and refine blooms into ingots, smith some of the cogs and axles that would be necessary 

     for this system, perhaps along with minecarts and rails.

   - Some sort of machine (wouldn't need to craftable by default) to convert mechanical power into RF and back to work in mod packs.

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In my opinion, maybe it would be sufficient to add handlers to power some structures by means of push-pull (RF) or rotational (Rotary craft) energy,

and give simple crank for converting push-pull to N*m and vice versa, and wooden bar to transfer rotational energy.

In such case, if somebody want, can use engines from other mods, or write own addition with horse/water/wind energy source.

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On 25/03/2016 at 5:46 PM, Therighthon said:

   - Automated textile production - This would have to come with an increase in the uses for large amounts of cloth, as currently it is only useful if for sails if you play with a ship mod. Regardless, using the loom gets boring fast as is.

If burlap bags are added to help preserve grains then there would be a use for automation. In addition, if clothing is implemented then textile will become a bigger part of the game.

 

On 23/10/2015 at 5:53 PM, TonyLiberatto said:

I live in Florida and we have lots of rain here. Even though, if I forget to water my vegetable garden the Bell Peppers dry off very quick.

So there are plants that require irrigation, and others that are more or less OK to rely on rain, but even those benefit from irrigation.

 The whole mechanic would need to be implemented at once. Make it so no vegetable can be planted more than 4 blocks from a water block. Finite Water, so the only way to bring water is by using the pumps.

Also another way to create an incentive for irrigation is to have animal hunger, so food is more necessary. If you have to feed your animals you need to produce more food.

 

I really hope this will be implemented, at least as a mid game objective. However currently in TFC I still find there's too much food lying around, thus I suggest a decrease in spawnable plants. Just as the more you stay in an area, the less mobs spawn, the number of wild crops would also diminish. This would prevent early gave starvation, but incite the player to develop durable food sources since he won't be able to find as many wild crops around his house. Of course, the player could simply travel further for wild crops, but travelling takes time to prepare. This might also prevent the player to discover all crops in a single season and push then to travel more than just for wood and rocks.

Edited by Donjons
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This is a very VERY interesting topic, and I LOVE it! The thing I'd like to see for TFC2 is that it would allow players to go from stone age, into the modern era, or at least close to it, so from stones, to electricity. so, just about everything would have ages associated with them. So, power generation (and I do mean real power, either watts or horsepower, or TFP, or whatever) one would start with manual power (human/animal) then satter/wind physically, then you'd get into steam power, from there into the age of diesel, then figure out how make electricity. Why would electrical systems and powered systems be beneficial? well, because doing everything manually is time consuming, so one would be able to make systems that will do loads of work quickly and automatically. This will also mean that there'd need to be more ores, some of which would be:

  • tin
  • iron
  • copper
  • lead
  • gold
  • silver
  • tungsten
  • aluminium
  • cobalt
  • neodymium
  • Platinum

and they would all be useful, and have a purpose.

Another point is what the mechanical tools would be, all of which would be able to be made using hand power all the way up to say, nuclear power. A list of them are:

  • drill press
  • table saw
  • lathe
  • power hammer
  • grinder/grind stone

These are really the only ones you need, although if you'd really like to go nuts, you could go with an end mill or something.

I'd also recommend adding locomotion mainly with rails, cars seem like they'd be a bit of a pain and more importantly, pointless. This would also go well with the staging and tiering of the rest of my suggestion. This would also give rise to plumbing and pipework, needing solder to join pipes and caps together.

I know that there are a number of things in this post that are already covered in this thread and even in other threads, this post is more to collaborate and condense a logical reason to have these features, tying them into other proposed features.

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Very interesting idea, but in TFC there are no corresponding problems for which these ideas could be implemented. It follows that, in addition to ideas about innovations, it is necessary to work out problems. What is MineCraft? Sounds like a game about a mining craft, and with almost no displayed problems associated with mining operations. And if TFC barely realized the collapse, then there is everything else. Namely:

- Filling the mines with dust and gases, forcing the hold ventilation. From the use of natural draft (which did additional vertical holes in the course of the mine) to the use of fans. What dangers threaten in the mine without ventilation – fire, explosion of gas and dust. Health is also very harmful or deadly.
- Filling the mines with groundwater, forcing to install pumps for pumping. If this is not done, the mine will be flooded quickly. 
- High temperature. The deeper the mine, the higher her temperature. This leads to further cool the supplied air. 
- Lighting. The game has this problem, but the solution in a fireproof torches doubtful. In TFC there are lamps, but their service is time-consuming. You need to enter other types of lamps operating on different fuels. This will give us an alternative choice.

This is a real problem and, even in simplified form, but they can be implemented in the game. You need to think like. And if there are problems, then you will need the input of various devices, items, and communications to solve these problems.

While the game does not have the difficulties with the transportation of rocks. The character in your inventory (count in your pocket) can carry tons of rock. It would be so in reality :) But limiting it, will be a need for wheelbarrows, carts, conveyors and rail transport, as well as the strength that is set in motion.

Another issue that is poorly represented in the game, but is one of the main is the strength of the rocks. With a pick of course you can dig, but only soft rock. For example, coal, chalk, rock salt you can still dig, but such as granite, quartzite, basalt and the like will be problematic. In TFC poorly implemented mining method using explosives and implemented other ways. Yes, there is a barrel of gunpowder. Use it with a small amount of gunpowder, ineffective and time consuming. With the maximum amount of gunpowder is the destruction of rocks from the explosion of the atomic bomb. In this case lost a significant portion of this breed. For fun might be okay, but for production is not effective. In addition, on servers it is often prohibited. Of course, servers don't want it used against players. But it is impossible to put an end to drilling and blasting method of development of the breed. Its objective should be to facilitate fracture of rocks when laying long tunnels and mining. At least by using a directed explosion (not effective) or blast hole method.

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Some metals and alloys need higher temperatures, and I remember reading in a fantasy manga that dwarfs used lava to process mithril. Also, that would require ceramics, which means more work to do, work that can be automated. And besides that, pumped lava can be used for heating, so you can have crops in the winter. You should be able to make heat-resistent glass, which to allow the light to pass through it, and with heating, one shall be able to have a farm that produces summer things in winter and vice-versa. Besides that, fruits should go through their stages depending on the temperature, so that if they're in a temperate biome, or in a greenhouse, they produce results all year round.

And besides that, through the use of gears (which loose energy at each joint), which can go up to 8 blocks (like the redstone), one shall be able to transfer energy over great distance, for a loss. And the heat can be used for steam engines, which can generate either electricity (for trains) or rotary power. So a minecart using rotary power (the player pedaling) should have a small acceleration, as well as a break that would not stop the minecart if it would be going 45degrees down.

 

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I think it'd be a good idea to be careful on the lava front.  I'd hate to see it become an easy cop-out that lets the player avoid fueling things for most of the game.  And I really think it'd be best to avoid the magma forge ala-dwarf-fortress, where you just build it over the top of the lava pool - that's kind of lame as long as surface lava is fairly common (unless it requires a very large pool).  I think it'd allow it to be a more controllable part of the tech tree if it always has to be pumped to be utilized.

I'd say pumping lava should be a late-game tech, that requires massive amounts of material.  Basically something like a sheet of upper tier metal, and two fire bricks, per section of pipe.  And maybe make it far, far, far less common to see at the surface.  So that the player has to pump it up from the depths.  I mean, irl you don't see lava just hanging around the surface in pools in the middle of fields.  It's around volcanoes.   That would give a good incentive for a rare volcano feature, which would provide easy surface lava access. That, or make 'lava' be distinct from 'magma'.  Magma pools are only found at the bottom (keeping in mind that in TFC2 the 'bottom' is only something like 50 or 60 blocks down, not the 150 of TFC1), and are the only things that can be pumped.   Lava can be found at surface, but is not pumpable.  Or, lava blocks are actually used up.  So the pump slowly over time consumes lava source blocks within it's radius.   On the other hand, magma blocks are not consumed.  But the pump must have a certain number of them within it's radius in order to pump them. 

If magma is only found at the bottom, then maybe it'd be ok to allow magma forges to be built directly over the pool.  So the player can do the easy-mode magma forge, but it's at the bottom of the world and pretty darn inconvenient if the rest of the base is on the surface.  But maybe that allows them to do the heavy smithing required to make the piping to bring it to the surface.

And you could even bring quality of smithing into the equation.  So a average quality magma pump might need 75 magma source blocks within it's effective pumping radius of 2.  This would make it's draw area a 5x5x5 cube, so 125 possible total, meaning an average pump would need a large pool to be effective, while an expert pump might need only 50 source blocks to draw from.  You could complicate it by making the draw area non-centered, with the pump at the bottom.  So the player must find deep pools to pump from.  I'd really like to see quality of smithing come out in more aspects of the game.

A disadvantage to the magma pool thing is that the player early-game won't necessarily know if their base has magma beneath.  It'd be disappointing to do tons of work on a base only to find there is no magma below.  But perhaps as long as hot springs and surface lava are a reliable indicator of magma below, that allows the player to plan accordingly.

As for power loss over distance, that seems a bit more fiddly than is necessary, to me.  But if it's easy to code and low cpu overhead, why not I guess.

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