Smelting and other things

[McFrugal 0]

I don't see why we can't bake clay into bricks. We can bake clay into molds, but not bricks to make a bloomery? Another method for low-level smelting that should be available is via kilns, which are hot enough for copper for sure.

Secondly, if we can't make stone swords, I suggest there be some similarly-effective melee weapon available at the start. A stone club, perhaps? The stone axe is almost good enough, but without any armor to speak of and without the ability to BLOCK, you're gonna die if you encounter more than one skeleton at a time. Because of the amount of wandering you need to do to find ore, this means you will lose your shit simply due to unlucky monster spawns. This is not fun. This is not even much more realistic than vanilla minecraft. The fact that you can't make a compass and thusly no MAP makes this problem even worse.

I would also like to suggest a different, more realistic, less exploitable way for the prospector's pick to work. Instead of a flat reading based on how much ore is in the scanning area, it should give a reading based more on distance to each individual block of ore, with a multiplicative effect on the reading. To keep things basically equivalent as far as accuracy is concerned, the distance readings would need to spread out in a nebulous fashion rather than a square.

Basically I'm saying that big deposits should be detectable from further away, and as you get closer to them the traces get larger- the pick shouldn't be just counting ore in a uniform detection cube. That's way too exploitable. Because you always detect ore from the same distance away, you can just triangulate and get a near-pinpoint location of where your ore is. This doesn't take skill, it takes MATH. You can just mine in two directions then take readings along the tunnels and mark where they stop to do the triangulation. If the points where readings stopped were based on distance AND quantity then you wouldn't be able to tell exactly how far away you were from the ore by when traces stopped; you'd have to take way more samplings and get a feel for the shape of the trace "cloud" and where it's most dense. It would be a hell of a lot more fun than just counting tiles, that's for sure.

Also, saplings not dropping when you cut down a tree is completely pointless. The leaves vanish, where do they go? They must've gone somewhere. If they got cut off during the logging process, then surely it would result in saplings being dropped just like if you cut them off yourself. Manually shaving trees every time you chop down a tree in order to get saplings is MAXIMUM NOT FUN. The scythe is not a solution; it is even worse than shaving them yourself for tree farms because you get less saplings. It is only useful for getting sticks. Lower sapling drops does not make wood more scarce- you can easily farm willow without even shaving half the tree, and maple/hickory drops enough saplings via shaving that it's renewable. Hey, that's the BEST WOOD. All the tree types that are hard to farm are only sought after for their wood color. If you want to make tree farming harder, make trees grow slower. Much slower. At least then we know we WILL get more of the same wood eventually, rather than gambling on a sapling drop on trees with less leaves while manually punching each leaf block. One at a time. Not fun, not realistic. All trees are renewable in real life, even sequoia.

[Sarethor 3]

Welcome aboard.

Without editorialising too much or discussing any specific points - you're obviously entitled to your opinions. The mod is in a constant state of development as pointed out by those on the team and evidenced by the constant scrolling of the Change Log.

Bioxx has stated the reasoning behind fair number of his design decisions and you can find many of them within other threads. Also, "fun" is highly subjective as is the perceived best design for any particular game mechanic. There are usually many factors to consider around balancing mechanics and only the team are privy to many of the lowest-level details.

He's been open to suggestions and discussion provided the dialogue is reasonable and phraseology is chosen carefully. It goes without saying that his is the final word so please try to keep that in mind when suggesting/discussing.

[DarkLadyPhoenix 62]

Hiya! Welcome to TFC!

You don't find looking for saplings fun? That's great because I don't like endlessly looking for ore. It's why I team up with other people- so I can stay "the tree farmer" and the others can look for metals. At least with trees when I have gone through a certain amount of leaves I get a reward in sticks and saplings. You can dig for hours and theoretically not find a single ore.

Make trees grow slower or saplings harder to find and my job and my own fun is compromised.

I hope you realize by now that my point is, fun is all subjective.

As for your other points, I suggest you look around the forum a bit. We're not that big! You'll find a great many discussions on sequioas, the propick and the like so maybe you can find a discussion or topic that you can actually contribute to instead of a post that just sounds like incessant whining about how the game is not fun for you.

While we can't make stone swords, we can make javelins out of flint and two sticks. I find them really neat as it doesn't require having to hunt down arrows for ammo, but it is a really good incentive to go out and find that ore so you can get to the next stage.

[bsb23 303]

Welcome! I suggested the same idea for the propick forever ago, it was ignored I figure he has his reasons but to me that makes much more sense. Oh, and for weapons for now use the javelin although i would assume more weapons will be eventually added.

[Just_Another_Guy_:) 1,066]

I don't see why we can't bake clay into bricks. We can bake clay into molds, but not bricks to make a bloomery? Another method for low-level smelting that should be available is via kilns, which are hot enough for copper for sure.

Secondly, if we can't make stone swords, I suggest there be some similarly-effective melee weapon available at the start. A stone club, perhaps? The stone axe is almost good enough, but without any armor to speak of and without the ability to BLOCK, you're gonna die if you encounter more than one skeleton at a time. Because of the amount of wandering you need to do to find ore, this means you will lose your shit simply due to unlucky monster spawns. This is not fun. This is not even much more realistic than vanilla minecraft. The fact that you can't make a compass and thusly no MAP makes this problem even worse.

I would also like to suggest a different, more realistic, less exploitable way for the prospector's pick to work. Instead of a flat reading based on how much ore is in the scanning area, it should give a reading based more on distance to each individual block of ore, with a multiplicative effect on the reading. To keep things basically equivalent as far as accuracy is concerned, the distance readings would need to spread out in a nebulous fashion rather than a square.

Basically I'm saying that big deposits should be detectable from further away, and as you get closer to them the traces get larger- the pick shouldn't be just counting ore in a uniform detection cube. That's way too exploitable. Because you always detect ore from the same distance away, you can just triangulate and get a near-pinpoint location of where your ore is. This doesn't take skill, it takes MATH. You can just mine in two directions then take readings along the tunnels and mark where they stop to do the triangulation. If the points where readings stopped were based on distance AND quantity then you wouldn't be able to tell exactly how far away you were from the ore by when traces stopped; you'd have to take way more samplings and get a feel for the shape of the trace "cloud" and where it's most dense. It would be a hell of a lot more fun than just counting tiles, that's for sure.

Also, saplings not dropping when you cut down a tree is completely pointless. The leaves vanish, where do they go? They must've gone somewhere. If they got cut off during the logging process, then surely it would result in saplings being dropped just like if you cut them off yourself. Manually shaving trees every time you chop down a tree in order to get saplings is MAXIMUM NOT FUN. The scythe is not a solution; it is even worse than shaving them yourself for tree farms because you get less saplings. It is only useful for getting sticks. Lower sapling drops does not make wood more scarce- you can easily farm willow without even shaving half the tree, and maple/hickory drops enough saplings via shaving that it's renewable. Hey, that's the BEST WOOD. All the tree types that are hard to farm are only sought after for their wood color. If you want to make tree farming harder, make trees grow slower. Much slower. At least then we know we WILL get more of the same wood eventually, rather than gambling on a sapling drop on trees with less leaves while manually punching each leaf block. One at a time. Not fun, not realistic. All trees are renewable in real life, even sequoia.

Let's start with a WELCOME TO THE FORUM before any critic.

Now, i will make this part by part, 'cause your post is pretty long.

"I don't see why we can't bake clay into bricks. We can bake clay into molds, but not bricks to make a bloomery? Another method for low-level smelting that should be available is via kilns, which are hot enough for copper for sure."

I think the clay is not the only bricks ingredient. And, sorry for my bad english, but someone can explain me what's a "kiln"? ._. it would be far more easy to say something about it.

"Secondly, if we can't make stone swords, I suggest there be some similarly-effective melee weapon available at the start. A stone club, perhaps? The stone axe is almost good enough, but without any armor to speak of and without the ability to BLOCK, you're gonna die if you encounter more than one skeleton at a time. Because of the amount of wandering you need to do to find ore, this means you will lose your shit simply due to unlucky monster spawns. This is not fun. This is not even much more realistic than vanilla minecraft. The fact that you can't make a compass and thusly no MAP makes this problem even worse."

As many many others said before me, we have javelins for close and long distance combat. What about wearing leather armor? And, finally, is it very difficult to go wandering on day time? or to go digging until you find a cave? or to simply run if you find those skeletons?

Also, i don't think it is believable to be able to create a exact map of the place you are by simply wandering around whit the map in your hands. Or to create it by surrounding a compass with paper.

One last thing before we go to the next section, TFcraft isn't looking for "realism", instead it's looking for "believability" -i think i mispelled it...-. TFcraft isn't like real life, but the way everything works in it is believable, makes sense. Or you always find some skeletons wandering around your garden in real life?

"I would also like to suggest a different, more realistic, less exploitable way for the prospector's pick to work. Instead of a flat reading based on how much ore is in the scanning area, it should give a reading based more on distance to each individual block of ore, with a multiplicative effect on the reading. To keep things basically equivalent as far as accuracy is concerned, the distance readings would need to spread out in a nebulous fashion rather than a square.

Basically I'm saying that big deposits should be detectable from further away, and as you get closer to them the traces get larger- the pick shouldn't be just counting ore in a uniform detection cube. That's way too exploitable. Because you always detect ore from the same distance away, you can just triangulate and get a near-pinpoint location of where your ore is. This doesn't take skill, it takes MATH. You can just mine in two directions then take readings along the tunnels and mark where they stop to do the triangulation. If the points where readings stopped were based on distance AND quantity then you wouldn't be able to tell exactly how far away you were from the ore by when traces stopped; you'd have to take way more samplings and get a feel for the shape of the trace "cloud" and where it's most dense. It would be a hell of a lot more fun than just counting tiles, that's for sure."

Long section is long. Just wanna say, not everybody is smart enought to know how to triangulate the distance -like me...-. No offense to nobody.

Except for that, i mostly agree with you. Although, i think it may be a little hard to code.

"Also, saplings not dropping when you cut down a tree is completely pointless. The leaves vanish, where do they go? They must've gone somewhere. If they got cut off during the logging process, then surely it would result in saplings being dropped just like if you cut them off yourself. Manually shaving trees every time you chop down a tree in order to get saplings is MAXIMUM NOT FUN. The scythe is not a solution; it is even worse than shaving them yourself for tree farms because you get less saplings. It is only useful for getting sticks. Lower sapling drops does not make wood more scarce- you can easily farm willow without even shaving half the tree, and maple/hickory drops enough saplings via shaving that it's renewable. Hey, that's the BEST WOOD. All the tree types that are hard to farm are only sought after for their wood color. If you want to make tree farming harder, make trees grow slower. Much slower. At least then we know we WILL get more of the same wood eventually, rather than gambling on a sapling drop on trees with less leaves while manually punching each leaf block. One at a time. Not fun, not realistic. All trees are renewable in real life, even sequoia."

Hmm, i'd also thinked about these. How about these: When you cut down a tree, the leaves has some chances of droping branches before they disappear. The branches are specific for every tree and can be crafted in some saplings and sticks -the amounts of sticks and saplings depends on the tree the branches came from-. I think this was sugested before in some other post, so i just adapted it to this one.

Also, besides all trees being renewable, they all need pretty much time to do it. Sequoias take centuries to grow to the height the have in the game. You feel like waiting a minecraft century for some sequoia trees to grow?

[Peffern 94]

A "kiln" is a type of fired oven used for baking clay into ceramic. Hope that helps

[Just_Another_Guy_:) 1,066]

Thank you, Peffern. Although, i took a look in the wikipedia before reading you... but, the intencion is what counts :3

Now i know what it is, i'm pretty interested in the kiln idea. Maybe it could be built like the bloomery, but with another material, and a fireplace in the bottom to provide the heat.

[Peffern 94]

Me too. Someone mentioned it at the structures thread(which is dead now ) so it's probably a good idea.

[daveris 6]

I would also like to suggest a different, more realistic, less exploitable way for the prospector's pick to work. Instead of a flat reading based on how much ore is in the scanning area, it should give a reading based more on distance to each individual block of ore, with a multiplicative effect on the reading. To keep things basically equivalent as far as accuracy is concerned, the distance readings would need to spread out in a nebulous fashion rather than a square.

bioxx has said plenty of times that hes not changing the propick because its already "realistic" and it works like in real life because you would find trace minerals that tells you there is a source of it nearby but you cant tell which direction and sorry but its not supposed to work like to diving rod from EE

Secondly, if we can't make stone swords, I suggest there be some similarly-effective melee weapon available at the start. A stone club, perhaps? The stone axe is almost good enough, but without any armor to speak of and without the ability to BLOCK, you're gonna die if you encounter more than one skeleton at a time. Because of the amount of wandering you need to do to find ore, this means you will lose your shit simply due to unlucky monster spawns. This is not fun. This is not even much more realistic than vanilla minecraft. The fact that you can't make a compass and thusly no MAP makes this problem even worse.

did you try a javelin?

as for your kiln idea idea id be very interested to see were that goes

[Peffern 94]

Maybe you would build a 3x3x3 out of bricks or something refractory that was missing the center three. The bottom would be a firepit with logs, the middle would be a kiln block with an inventory, and the tip block would be another brick.

[Paragon83 10]

Well, going from what I've read on wikipedia, if kilns are introduced into the game they could be made out of many different materials, the deciding factor would be the design of it. Earthen kilns, brick kilns, wooden kilns should all be possible but with differing specifications and heating potential. Speaking of which, I'd also like the ability to actually create bricks instead of requiring the chisel, because with the chisel you are basically just etching a brick design on to stone and it isn't really true brick. It would be cool if we can actually make bricks using clay, earth, sand, gravel, water, or some combination of these as a recipe and then either sun dry the bricks or bake them in a kiln.