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logwet

Burning animal fat for fuel / Alternative light sources

51 posts in this topic

51 minutes ago, Darmo said:

Ya, candles burning things down does seem like overkill.  lamps would have a larger light radius than candles I'd assume, which would probably be enough incentive. 

As far as the rendering process, it seems like there's basically two steps - the cooking and the filtering.  So maybe just place a vessel containing the raw fat inside the fire pit, cook it for awhile, get back a vessel of simply fat.  Or perhaps a large clay vessel can be 'placed' above the fire, and used for the rendering.  Then filter it somehow.  End result is tallow.  The filter would be a good use for burlap I think.  But jute can be hard to get in early game.  Plus it requires a saw to make the loom.  Raw chunks of wool?  Something along those lines.  But basically a cooking component, and a filtering component.

Then to make candle, take some yarn and dip it in hot tallow.  Something like the loom process, where each click advances it a bit further.  Or just combine a chunk of tallow and a piece of yard in crafting grid, for simplicity.

However, wouldn't making the player have to go through two steps to get tallow be overkill/too much effort/against easy game progression? Personally I think that the player should be able to extract tallow from suet without filtering and get a 'dirty' tallow that doesn't burn for that long and not  at a high brightness. But if the player filters the tallow, he/she gets a higher quality tallow that burns for longer and at a higher brightness. The textures would be the same, it's just that the tallow used is better. I think that this could be achieved using NBT tags but I may be wrong. This way the player gets the best of both worlds; if they want tallow quickly they don't have to go to much effort but if they want a higher quality tallow they can make it.

In addition, I think that we have different ideas of candles in mind. You're thinking of stick candles that don't have shells and I'm thinking of smaller candles that are contained in some sort of containers. Fire hazard is actually a real issue for stick candles because the wax is hot but not for contained candles. We need to clarify which sort of candle should be implemented into the game.

ps: Stick candles should be made the exact way you have suggested, but contained candles would be made by filling a bowl or other container with tallow, then sticking a wick in.

Edited by logwet
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5 hours ago, logwet said:

I can understand how torches could light things on fire, after all, it's just a stick on fire that has been stuck in a wall. It could easily fall out. Candles however, are a lot safer. At its most crude form, candles would be an enclosed, controlled burn inside a ceramic bowl. Unless the bowl spills, or unless if the fumes it emits are hot enough, I can't see how it could light wood or even thatch on fire.

If torches light wood on fire, the player still needs something to light up their homes. And in the Stone Age, the player doesn't have access to stone and other non-flammable blocks. I'd prefer it if the player didn't have to constantly worry about their roof burning out when their away from home, or even worse, when their still inside.

Of course, this is just my personal opinion and others have theirs, so please contribute, criticise or comment your thoughts!

I don't think candle fire is enough lighting(i'd say 8/15, stronger than the moonlight yet so weak), and a fire big enough for lighting and is an open fire should still be considered a fire hazard.

Another alternative would be to build a clay hut instead of a wooden one, then pour all your fuel into a container and burn it.

And who the heck doesn't blow off candles when going out?

You can easily beat fire one-on-one. It's annoying, but that's my point.

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42 minutes ago, Miner239 said:

I don't think candle fire is enough lighting(i'd say 8/15, stronger than the moonlight yet so weak), and a fire big enough for lighting and is an open fire should still be considered a fire hazard.

Another alternative would be to build a clay hut instead of a wooden one, then pour all your fuel into a container and burn it.

And who the heck doesn't blow off candles when going out?

You can easily beat fire one-on-one. It's annoying, but that's my point.

Even though candles IRL don't give off a lot of light, if they were to be added to TFC2 they should at least be as bright as torches, because otherwise there wouldn't be any incentive to make them.

To begin with, clay cannot be used as a building material in TFC1 (I'm pretty sure) but there are add ons for that; So I think you are referring to them. As a side topic, it would be nice if fired clay bricks were to be implemented in TFC2, it would add a strong yet easy to make Stone Age material. But anyway, clay and other non-flammables wouldn't be affected by torches, candles or other open flames but thatch, straw and wood would be. So if you make a starter house entirely out of clay bricks, you wouldn't have any issue with candles or torches, but if you built it out of wood or thatch, there is a chance that it will burn down.

But anyway, If you are suggesting that candles and torches be manually extinguishable by the player, I think that it would be a useful feature. Assuming that candles and torches pose a fire hazard, it would be immensely useful for the player to unlight the candles when they go out. This could perhaps be implemented by a simple right click by the player on the torch or candle in question. 

Please contribute to, criticise or comment on the points outlined above.

Edited by logwet
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7 hours ago, Miner239 said:

I'd say that candles should also have a small chance to burn down wooden stuff around it when it expires so that making lamps are urged more. Open, spreading fires aren't exactly safe.

The rudimentary candles we are talking about here would be inside a clay bowl. We call it candle, but is more like a lamp.

7 hours ago, logwet said:

If torches light wood on fire, the player still needs something to light up their homes. And in the Stone Age, the player doesn't have access to stone and other non-flammable blocks. I'd prefer it if the player didn't have to constantly worry about their roof burning out when their away from home, or even worse, when their still inside.

Agree, and that is the reason I propose we have changes to the campfire. 4 logs should last for the whole night and emit a lot more light.

Also we should be able to build a rudimentary fireplace using rocks and clay. It would be the main light source until the player have access to fat to make fat lamps.

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9 minutes ago, TonyLiberatto said:

The rudimentary candles we are talking about here would be inside a clay bowl. We call it candle, but is more like a lamp.

Agree, and that is the reason I propose we have changes to the campfire. 4 logs should last for the whole night and emit a lot more light.

Also we should be able to build a rudimentary fireplace using rocks and clay. It would be the main light source until the player have access to fat to make fat lamps.

So what you are suggesting here Tony are changes to the firepit so you only require a few logs to last the night. I like it. IRL, you don't need like 13 logs to keep a campfire burning all night. If you make it right, and pick only dry logs, you only really do need a few logs.

However, I don't like the way how current TFC1 fire pits work. Dropping a few sticks on the ground and lighting them isn't really a firepit, it's more of a blaze. A firepit is a self-contained controlled blaze. Lighting sticks on the ground would do nothing but start a bush fire. However, when you contain the sticks, usually by surrounding them by rocks, the fire cannot spread any further and is contained. Here is how I suggest firepits in TFC2 work:

1. Place 8 rocks (of any type) in a O shape (A square with an empty block in the middle)

2. Drop 3 sticks (or any other suitable fuel) into the centre

3. Light with firestarter.

4. The 9 blocks will automatically be converted into a one block format (Basically into the current TFC1 texture.

Done, now you have a self contained firepit/campfire that isn't going to make you an arsonist :P (Note: The rocks could possibly be replaced with clay)

Personally, I don't think that there is any need for a 'fireplace' of any sort. A firepit could serve as a rudimentary way of cooking food and extracting tallow until the player can create another cooking device. (Perhaps a clay oven as outlined here?) In addition, tallow/suet lamps/candles should be easily avaliable to the player after they have a firepit but preferentially before they have clay oven.

I am aware that I have delved away from the topic of lighting and a little bit into cooking mechanics, so perhaps the things I've suggested here would be better suited as another post on the suggestions forum.

I am aware that my upgraded firepit design will not suit everyone so I'd appreciate it if you could contribute to/criticise/comment on the things ive outlined above.

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8 hours ago, logwet said:

We need to clarify which sort of candle should be implemented into the game.

Just to be clear, that's not really up to us, that's up to the devs.  We're just making suggestions here. 

manual torch extinguishing is already a feature of TFC1.  I'm sure it'll be in TFC2

If the devs wanted to have two kinds of tallow, great.  Seems a bit finicky to me, but I'm not against it.  The form of the candle doesn't concern me much, but having a use for clay bowls besides panning and salads, neither of which I ever do personally, would be good.  Might be nice if there were also metal bowl options, which would result in a nice looking candle, for decoration purposes.

Regarding fire pits; with the 8 rocks and 3 sticks, you're talking each on separate blocks right?  So this pattern will be on 9 blocks and then combine down to one?  I don't think you can get the rocks to stay separate.  they'll just combine into stacks when they're that close.  It'd also be extremely annoying to set up, without picking up components. 

I'd suggest making fire pits an actual block, like the forge, in order to be able to place vessels directly on top, like a crucible on a forge.  This would be done simply by placing a cobble block, tossing the sticks on top, and lighting them.  This changes the cobble block to a firepit block that uses a generic stone texture (or inherits that of the cobble it was placed on, if possible?).  Players can make cobble right from the start, they just can't move it.  So they could do this right from the beginning.  It probably should require solid blocks on all sides.   It could be made so that a firepit block can be removed with a shovel, but does not drop the cobble.  This way players can still remove the block if they want, before having a pickaxe.  This would make it so fire pits can only be started on cobble, but I can't really think of any reason that would be particularly bad.

Fat Rendering

Spoiler

 

As for fat rendering, whether or not two processes is too much depends in part on how they're implemented.  If it's a process where the player tosses 4 logs in the fire and comes back to a pot of tallow, then no big deal.  It's a walk-away task.  If however it takes so long the player has to come back and refill the logs in the fire, that becomes more onerous.  The filtering could be instant, or it could take time.  If instant the player just combines burlap and fat in grid, out comes tallow.   But if we want to treat the fat a bit like molten ore, where it remains liquid for a time and then solidifies, then perhaps a filter block could be invented, and this might take time, like olive oil.  All depends how much work the devs want to put in.

I could see a situation where a large vessel is placed above a fire pit, and filled with water.  Then the player puts in the raw fat chunks, and seals the vessel.  As long as the fire is burning for x hours, when the player comes back and looks in, there are now chunks of congealed fat.  The player takes out those chunks, combines them in the grid with burlap, and out comes tallow.  This might have a 5% or so chance to ruin the burlap.  In this way it's basically just a large vessel recipe with a fire pit component.  That seems like it might keep things simple, and use existing large vessel functions.  

It gets more complicated if you want to incorporate a notion of liquid fat, and the player having to complete steps before the fat congeals.  So now when the player comes back after x hours of cooking, the vessel contains not chunks of fat, but is actually now full of liquid fat.  Now there should be code for this liquid fat to cool down and turn into chunks eventually, requiring reheating to work with (fat chunks can perhaps be melted down again without water).  This adds a heat tracking function to large vessels, which complicates them.  Then the player uses a bucket to remove liquid fat, and right click on a filter block.  This makes a bucket also need a heat tracking component.  If the fat cools too much, it instantly removes the liquid fat from the bucket and pops chunks of congealed fat, which the player picks up.  Or it could congeal in bucket, and the player has to put it in their grid to remove the fat.   But while it's liquid, if the player right clicks the filter block, out comes tallow chunks either into a gui, or they just pop out of the filter block if devs don't want to bother with a gui.  OR if a time component is desired for the filtering, maybe the bucket of liquid fat can be placed on top of the filter, like a normal vessel can be placed on a block, and after a certain time the bucket is emptied and out comes tallow chunks - this allows four buckets to filter at a time.  In this time-taking scenario it'd be best if the filter block had a gui so the player doesn't have to wait around for the tallow chunks to pop out.  Unless the devs want the player to wait around.

I envision the blubber rendering process to be the same, but take much longer to cook, so the player probably has to tend the fire.  Maybe also require a better filter, or use up filters more quickly.   For balance.

 

 

Edited by Darmo
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2 hours ago, TonyLiberatto said:

The rudimentary candles we are talking about here would be inside a clay bowl. We call it candle, but is more like a lamp.

Alright, alright, now I get what y'all mean. 

4 hours ago, logwet said:

Even though candles IRL don't give off a lot of light, if they were to be added to TFC2 they should at least be as bright as torches, because otherwise there wouldn't be any incentive to make them.

I'd say that making candles would be safer than torches and firepit at the cost of slightly dimmer light.

 

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7 hours ago, Darmo said:

Just to be clear, that's not really up to us, that's up to the devs.  We're just making suggestions here. 

manual torch extinguishing is already a feature of TFC1.  I'm sure it'll be in TFC2

If the devs wanted to have two kinds of tallow, great.  Seems a bit finicky to me, but I'm not against it.  The form of the candle doesn't concern me much, but having a use for clay bowls besides panning and salads, neither of which I ever do personally, would be good.  Might be nice if there were also metal bowl options, which would result in a nice looking candle, for decoration purposes.

Regarding fire pits; with the 8 rocks and 3 sticks, you're talking each on separate blocks right?  So this pattern will be on 9 blocks and then combine down to one?  I don't think you can get the rocks to stay separate.  they'll just combine into stacks when they're that close.  It'd also be extremely annoying to set up, without picking up components. 

I'd suggest making fire pits an actual block, like the forge, in order to be able to place vessels directly on top, like a crucible on a forge.  This would be done simply by placing a cobble block, tossing the sticks on top, and lighting them.  This changes the cobble block to a firepit block that uses a generic stone texture (or inherits that of the cobble it was placed on, if possible?).  Players can make cobble right from the start, they just can't move it.  So they could do this right from the beginning.  It probably should require solid blocks on all sides.   It could be made so that a firepit block can be removed with a shovel, but does not drop the cobble.  This way players can still remove the block if they want, before having a pickaxe.  This would make it so fire pits can only be started on cobble, but I can't really think of any reason that would be particularly bad.

Fat Rendering

 

You're right, it is up to the devs. I'm sorry if I'm sounding a bit controlling, I  really don't mean it.

Yeah, I guess that my 9 block idea of a firepit isn't really viable and would be very annoying. But what if, instead of having to place 8 rocks in a ring, you put three sticks on a block, three rocks (of any kind) on the block and then light it. It's almost exactly like the current TFC1 method, except you place 3 rocks as well. This way it would add a bit of believability, without being too annoying.

Im not explicitly against your idea of having firepits only being able to be made on cobble, per say, I think that it would be an interesting game mechanic. However, personally, I just think that it's too much work for the player to have to make cobble at the start for light. However, the devs should go over this and see if they like it and add it if they want. But one thing that I fully support is firepits being 3D! This could allow the possibility of meats on spits, interactively grilling food and cooking things in pots and pans! I'd love to see it implemented.

However, I envision fats to be an early game light source, avaliable to the player from the very start. Your suggestions for ways to filter suet and tallow are all great, and would really add to the interactive process of making fat but I don't think that the player should be forced to filter fat because jute (for burlap) and saws (for making looms) are either not easily found at the start of the game, or Casting Age resources/tools.

Anyway, we're actually going really off topic from the subject of lighting. You should post a new thread on suggestions for cooking and the firepit.

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5 hours ago, logwet said:

I just think that it's too much work for the player to have to make cobble at the start for light.

Um, you make cobble from 4 rocks in the crafting grid (at least in TFC1). It's primitively easy, like what Darmo said.

I envision fat to be mid-game lighting, before plant oil, alcohol and something more sophisticated like lava, magic or dedicated chemicals, and after wood.

Does crude oil counts as animal fat?

EDIT: It seems like somebody upvoted all posts but logwet's (but one). Are you doing that, logwet?

Edited by Miner239
Noticed something.
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50 minutes ago, Miner239 said:

Um, you make cobble from 4 rocks in the crafting grid (at least in TFC1). It's primitively easy, like what Darmo said.

I envision fat to be mid-game lighting, before plant oil, alcohol and something more sophisticated like lava, magic or dedicated chemicals, and after wood.

Does crude oil counts as animal fat?

EDIT: It seems like somebody upvoted all posts but logwet's (but one). Are you doing that, logwet?

Is it weird that I've NEVER made cobble in TFC? :P I've just never had the need to do so. My first house is always built into the side of a mountain... (I know, not really the most secure of places)

And err... um... does it count if I think that it's valuable contribution to the discussion? Am I not allowed to do that... Sorry! :(

 

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There's a reason why the daily upvote quota exist, logwet. We all have different standard on what to upvote. I upvote when the poster has a clever idea. It's up to you, really. Almost all posts contribute to the idea, but I think those that stand out and are generally better than the rest are the posts you should upvote. Honestly, it felt like a bot visited here and blanket us all with votes.

 

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18 minutes ago, Miner239 said:

There's a reason why the daily upvote quota exist, logwet. We all have different standard on what to upvote. I upvote when the poster has a clever idea. It's up to you, really. Almost all posts contribute to the idea, but I think those that stand out and are generally better than the rest are the posts you should upvote. Honestly, it felt like a bot visited here and blanket us all with votes.

 

Oh, :( sorry. I haven't really been on forums before (aside from reddit, this is actually the first forum I've visited frequently) I promise I won't do it again.

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As much as I really love the idea of 3d building, I would not be opposed to just make the firepit as a recipe , thus requiring rocks, logs and sticks.

I would of course prefer if there was a way to make it as a construction.

The main point for me is that campfire was the main light source for primitive societies.

I just cannot justify have to burn 3 or 4 whole  trees just to have a campfire burning for 1 night.

Somehow the mechanics of the campfire need to change to allow us to use a clay pot or container on top. Something to cook soups and boil water, and of course melt fat for candles.

As for the fireplace, it is just a construction around a fire with a chimney to Carry the smoke outside of the house. Gotta remember that maybe we will have body temperature add to the game, so a fireplace would server multiple purposes. They were also used for cooking.

 

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On 5/26/2016 at 11:29 PM, logwet said:

TFC1 torches currently burn for 8 hours

Just needed to correct this. TFC1 torches currently burn for 48 hours, not 8.

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8 hours ago, Kittychanley said:

Just needed to correct this. TFC1 torches currently burn for 48 hours, not 8.

Whaat? :blink: 

How did I miss that?

However, (in my opinion) 48 hours seems a bit long. A wooden stick can burn for 2 days? Nah. I think that in TFC2 it should be balanced a bit more.

Edited by logwet
I can't do maths...
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48 hours is 2 days, not 4.

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3 minutes ago, Kittychanley said:

48 hours is 2 days, not 4.

Ershdhudjusdmhsndh! (Facepalm) 

Ignore that bit! I forgot Maths!

Edited by logwet
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The important thing to keep in mind is the length of a Minecraft day. 48 hours in-game is less than a real-life hour. If torches were to burn out in as short a period of time as 8 in-game hours, that's less than 10 minutes in real life, and it would seem like you're constantly relighting them.

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9 minutes ago, Kittychanley said:

The important thing to keep in mind is the length of a Minecraft day. 48 hours in-game is less than a real-life hour. If torches were to burn out in as short a period of time as 8 in-game hours, that's less than 10 minutes in real life, and it would seem like you're constantly relighting them.

Yeah, you're right. I've kinda forgotten how short a Minecraft day is. I mean, it feels like I'm waiting an eternity for my pit kiln to finish.

When I was trying to balance my suggestions, I was thinking of their burn times in relation to a Minecraft/TFC day; not of how long it would take in real life. But now I need to go back and rethink them and how they would fit in to the player's experience, not how believable they should be.

Edited by logwet
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15 hours ago, logwet said:

When I was trying to balance my suggestions, I was thinking of their burn times in relation to a Minecraft/TFC day; not of how long it would take in real life. But now I need to go back and rethink them and how they would fit in to the player's experience, not how believable they should be.

Believable torches are not possible either way. They would have to smoke far more, use up oxygen in small rooms (caves, inside buildings) and because of the big flame and it's emitting brightness, it needs far too much fuel (lasts about half an hour irl).

Edited by drkoaeg
mixed pit kiln and charcoal pit together
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Pit kilns burns for 18 hours. But I agree light sources need a rethinking and re balancing. 

If we make torches burn for only 8 in game hours, for example. enough for one night. We would need something else that we can use for mining.

Right now the 2 days that torches burn are good for in home, but not really enough for mining. every time you need to go out of the mine, specially in early game when you do not have access to a lot of food and your clay jugs do not give you enough water, when you go back to the mine the torches will be off and the mine will be full of mobs.

within my vision of what stone age should be, the player should not go mining until he/she have a steady source of food and thus enough animal fat to make candles.

Those would also burn for let's say 7 in game days.

Making the game more believable would require to make sticks on fire ( Torches ) to burn for 8 in game hours. Also make candles available in stone age and burn for 7 in game days.

I also do believe that once the player have access to metal they should have access to permanent light. They already proved themselves by surviving through the whole ordeal of stone age and mining metal. At this point, light sources are more a decoration item.

 

 

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What I wanted to say was lighting should be treated special, I don't think there is any way to make it believable, simply because of most of the time people did not have light source in our sense. That had many reasons, so it will not get believable. I would propose to take this subject mainly in game mechanics way.

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2 hours ago, TonyLiberatto said:

I also do believe that once the player have access to metal they should have access to permanent light. They already proved themselves by surviving through the whole ordeal of stone age and mining metal. At this point, light sources are more a decoration item.

Thing is you can get metal without ever opening a mine.  If you luck upon an exposed vein you can get a LOT of metal without having a mine.  Just getting metal is not that great an achievement.  Getting to steel is a pretty good achievement.  If you're doing serious mining with ladders, you already have metal, for your crafting grid to be big enough to make them.  Although I suppose that may change in TFC2.

I've never had a problem with the current torch mechanics.  I do mine level by level though, so once I'm done with one level I can close it off and not worry about it again.  Mostly I just leave pumpkins till I'm done, but that might not be an option in TFC2.  I also take 2-3 jugs, and utilize barrels of water to Maximize my time in the mine.  You build up a significant amount of spawn protection mining, which helps when you just make a short run for water or food.  Light is pretty significant in minecraft.  I'd hate to just give it away for finding 10 nuggets on the ground.  That would cut off an entire progression possibility.

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Now I am forced to reconsider, I could agree with steel, but at the same time, let's consider the Decorations addon. Even though you are able to make copper lanterns, they are still Expensive and demand some work. Is not just because you unlock metal that suddenly your lights are permanent. You have to work the lanterns in an anvil and have enough extra ore to justify the expense.

If you pay attention to I am proposing, I prefer to make things harder  on the start of the game, but I really think blue still and lava to be too expensive for permanent light.

I think if we had candles as an upgrade for the torches we could have metal lanterns as the next upgrade.

What kind of fuel they should use is another discussion.

Historically it should be whale oil and next petroleum.

 

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