Issues with Mining Charges

[Sockthing]

Using Mining Charges I have observed that Smooth Stone will not drop a Cobble variant, but Stone items.
Powder Kegs will cause Smooth Stone to drop Stone items, but this is expected.

Further experiment showed that:
Loose Cobble will drop itself, as expected.
Mortared Cobble will drop Gravel Blocks, but Gravel will drop Gravel Piles instead of Sand Blocks. Shouldn't this conversion method still work?
Any Dirt variant will drop Dirt Piles as well as Sand will drop Sand Piles.

I thought using a Mining Charge was supposed to be lossless on Blocks it explodes?
This is obviously mostly a post Dragon issue, but I thought to mention it at least.

[Niyu]

I think mining charges turning gravel into sand was never a thing, a hopper with a wicker filter will do that. At least looking at the Change Log i find references to mining charges turning cobblestone into gravel, but nothing about turning gravel into sand.

[Sockthing]

Hmm according to the wiki conversion gravel to sand by mining charge is supposed to be a thing. Maybe the wiki is wrong? My main issue is not getting full blocks of cobble from smooth stone, but the stone item.

[FlowerChild]

This wiki is user maintained. Not my department :)

It seems unlikely I would double up on the conversion methods from gravel to sand like that. As for the other thing, what are you trying to do?

[Sockthing]

I'm just trying to find a reason why to use mining charges. As at the moment they feel too expensive to use for mining as like dynamite or powder kegs smooth stone will only drop stone items.
I feel like that just the advantage of getting 100% ore drops from mining charges isn't enough for me to use them as they are.

[FlowerChild]

I'm just trying to find a reason why to use mining charges. As at the moment they feel too expensive to use for mining as like dynamite or powder kegs smooth stone will only drop stone items.
I feel like that just the advantage of getting 100% ore drops from mining charges isn't enough for me to use them as they are.

Ok, then the feedback would be: "Mining charges currently feel underpowered relative to cost".

"I thought using a Mining Charge was supposed to be lossless on Blocks it explodes?" is a suggestion phrased as a question.

[Sockthing]

Sorry, bad at expressing my thoughts correctly :) Glad you got what I meant in the end.

[FlowerChild]

Sorry, bad at expressing my thoughts correctly :) Glad you got what I meant in the end.

No worries. I agree btw. At present explosives are just kinda safely tucked away at the end of the tech tree to prevent them causing balance issues while I was working on everything else. I was thinking myself during recent play that I miss them :)

[EpicAaron]

With development officially wrapped up, explosives seem like a gaping hole in the endgame. Mainly, I feel like smooth stone should maybe drop a block of cobble? Of course, not dropping a block would encourage stone packing, but that was never really an intended feature. You still need to use wacky falling mechanics to harvest cobble blocks.

Automated hole digging is something I really want, but I need to figure out leather automation first. I've got some ideas for that, but it's a big project.

[Sarudak]

I would really like explosives to be a bigger part of the game overall...

[dawnraider]

Making mining charges drop what you drop when mining and not what drops from explosions seems like a good change. after all they're called "mining" charges.

[EpicAaron]

I would really like explosives to be a bigger part of the game overall...

Seriously, the game kind of needs it after enough hours. Projects that require hollowing out massive spaces are not great to navigate in a world without efficiency V.

[dawnraider]

Yeah silverfish farms to get efficiency are another thing that needs to be looked at as the rates currently are abysmally low.

[hawk]

My experience is that mining charges are expensive because of meat/tallow and brimstone/gunpowder (pre end). I'm confident the animal/meat side will get sorted. On the other side, what if glowstone dust was added as a semi rare drop to pigmen? A good pigman trap is far enough along in the tech tree for explosives, in my opinion. Plus, filtering it from the gold crucibles adds some complexity to the collection method in a standard gold trap...at least in my traps where the pigmen just fall 25+ blocks directly on to stoked crucibles to burn the flesh and smelt the swords

Selfishly, I'm at the point in my current game where I used to build a gold farm, but I'm not nearly as gold hungry with the gearbox change a while back. So, I'm considering not building it, which makes me kinda sad, lol. It's a fun trap to build and forces you to pave and groth the nether for max efficiency. It's pretty much the only reason I ever used cement and definitely the only reason I messed with nether groth.

Plus, I liked glowstone and light blocks even before torches could burn your house down :) Even in the exterior surrounding my base (under bushes, because aesthetics, lol) when I can afford it.

[hawk]

With the above, I'm taking it for granted mining charges will once again drop what a pick would. It's just my wishlist to make a small portion of the game more interesting.

[Niyu]

I don't think it's a bad idea to keep that level of terraforming power gated by the end. You can use glowstone in a pinch, but needed enderstone for mass production doesn't look like a bad idea. In the end there has to be at least some reason to go to the end.

[EpicAaron]

This is something I have been thinking a lot about. I want to make mining charges more accessible in BTW in my own addon, but I think I will start a new thread to lay out my ideas and invite fresh discussion.

[dawnraider]

Explosives as a whole need a pass, but for now at least I have changed mining charges to drop what you get from mining the block instead of the normal explosion drops.

[hawk]

I don't think it's a bad idea to keep that level of terraforming power gated by the end. You can use glowstone in a pinch, but needed enderstone for mass production doesn't look like a bad idea. In the end there has to be at least some reason to go to the end.

Please take this in the spirit intended. I’m not trying to be contentious or anything like that. Anyone posting here nowadays probably has I bit of love for the mod and is most likely coming from a good place with what they say. That said, I think you are seriously overestimating the power of explosives in their current state. I seriously doubt the vast majority of players think “awesome, now I can blow a a bunch of 3x3x2-ish holes in the ground one at a time with a very manual crafting process” after killing the dragon and 150+ hours in a single world. In my opinion, post end is where all OP stuff belongs. Infernal Enchanter maybe. Steel definitely. I just don’t think mass produced mining charges cross that threshold. Maybe I’m missing an exploit you’ve found, but the only thing I would want post end that intact block removal could help with is lots of diamonds. Mining charges aren’t reliable at that with plentiful lava at that level. Strip mining is way more efficient. In summary, I just think things should be available while they are still relevant.

To be honest, I don’t know how any of the explosives help with useful and controlled terraforming. Do you have an example I’ve missed? And do you honestly feel that there isn’t enough stuff locked behind the end currently? I’ll admit I’m not the best judge of this. I rarely play much post end and tend to loose motivation after this point…which might play into your argument. Though, I always play to the end unless I end up hating my world gen. I don’t know. I don’t pretend to have all the answers. But I firmly believe explosives are misplaced in the tech tree.

[dawnraider]

Explosives were originally moved post-end before even hardcore hunger, let alone the villager trading overhaul, so they have been moved significantly back from where they originally were placed in the tech tree simply by the extensive expansion of pre-end gameplay. I think allowing access to brimstone through blazes would be both thematic and help put explosives in a more appropriate place in the tech tree.

The end is so late in the game now that it's tough to justify gating much behind it as it is already hundreds of hours into the game, which is its own issue (that I'm not sure really even can be reasonably addressed).

[jackatthekilns]

The end is so late in the game now that it's tough to justify gating much behind it as it is already hundreds of hours into the game, which is its own issue (that I'm not sure really even can be reasonably addressed).

This discussion may need to take place in a more specialized thread, but at some point a decision should be made at what stage in the game does it become building for building's sake. It feels to me that the way the game has been developing so far, the End and killing the Dragon set that point. It seems, that the goal of automation is to make villager trading practical in order to get to the End. It always felt odd to me, even pre-Ahhhh, that you had to go through massive villager trading to get to a point where you could truly automate things only to lose the motivation to do all the trading. I think its not such a bad thing for the End to be hundreds of hours into the game if it can be seen as the final goal, after which the game becomes much more sandboxy.

[dawnraider]

Yeah I think the end is a fine marker for the game becoming building for its own sake. It just makes it difficult to lock anything meaningful behind the end for those who don't want to do that. And as I've mentioned elsewhere, I do have some plans to encourage and enable more automation while you are trading with villagers instead of only giving access to it afterwards.

[Hiracho]

It seems, that the goal of automation is to make villager trading practical in order to get to the End.

Almost none of the things we can automate save time if your goal is to rush to the end really. progress trades are really not that intensive and building automation things usually takes up more time than you would have spent getting those minimal amounts manually.

I think the only things that really become a lot more feasible with automation is beacons. Villager trades for emerald beacon and post end for a tier 4 soulforged steel beacon.

[EpicAaron]

Almost none of the things we can automate save time if your goal is to rush to the end really. progress trades are really not that intensive and building automation things usually takes up more time than you would have spent getting those minimal amounts manually.

I think the only things that really become a lot more feasible with automation is beacons. Villager trades for emerald beacon and post end for a tier 4 soulforged steel beacon.

To do the poison gland trade, you need a spider trap. I got lucky and didn't need to automate ghast tears, but that is also a large project (regardless if it is built into the ground or above).
Other trades, like the multiple feather-based trades, would have been awesome to automate. The time I wasted wandering the wilderness with a looting sword in search of every stray chicken would have been more pleasurably spent at home building a chicken factory.

I think the current state of gold production and building in general really pushes players to play in that lame grindy way that FC always hated. Sure, you CAN grind out villager trades, but it isn't really all that fun. In multiplayer it isn't hard, but in singleplayer it sucks.

EDIT: basically, players are pumped to build auto stuff when trading is happening. It just feels right, and that is when players are most into the game. I would be in favor of making the scientist trades even harder if it meant players could spend more time pre-dragon automating and building. I've also thought of making a new tier of noble villagers (super variants of the basic villagers) that require massive amounts of resources in trades to give post-end players some added incentive to go big.

[hawk]

Almost none of the things we can automate save time if your goal is to rush to the end really. progress trades are really not that intensive and building automation things usually takes up more time than you would have spent getting those minimal amounts manually.

I think the only things that really become a lot more feasible with automation is beacons. Villager trades for emerald beacon and post end for a tier 4 soulforged steel beacon.

That may be heart of why I have always disliked the villager trading system as implemented from the beginning. I absolutely love the concept, but It seams like a missed opportunity to encourage large or technical builds... or something else fun and challenging. Instead, the trades seem tailored to introduce the various items the mod allows you to make (which I do find kind of cool... the first few times each comes up) and way too many different things that are annoying to collect... made way more annoying by having to do them multiple times without any level progress being made. A few of them felt grindy and repetitive at inception, quite a few more are now. There isn't much of a way to do them smart and at times no progress is being made for your effort. None of the other challenges in the mod have ever felt like that, except fucking oceans which nearly killed the game for me (Better Terrain Addon might be the only reason I'm playing again and you all are subjected to this rant, lol). Even dying and having to repeat a good chunk the early game, after the initial rage, is fun and was avoidable anyway. But, villager trading is mandatory and the vast majority is decidedly not fun for me.

I know a trade overhaul is planned, and when implemented will make this suck less. Which is fantastic, because it's by far my least favorite part of the game.