Cows breedable only after stewing pot

[chaoticneutral]

Yes, "hardcore cows", bred with a special wheat + bone meal + potash (+ some acid substance?) mix made in the stewing pot.

In-game reason: food is plentiful, pigs are useless (overshadowed by cows), make bookshelves a bit harder to get. Tanned leather is unchanged, since it needs the stewing pot anyway, and bone meal got another use after BTW 3.97 nerf.

Real life reason: cows need a balanced mix of salts in order to grow and fat.

(I know it's almost suicidal posting a suggestion as my 2nd post, but it's a lesser evil than my head exploding.)

[Ribky]

The problem with this is the lack of leather, since potash requires not just a stewing pot, but a stoked stewing pot, which is quite aways down the tech tree and requires quite a few blocks that depend on tanned leather (saw, turntable, bellows). If you happened to be unlucky enough to be in an area with very few cows, you'd be boned on tech tree progression.

[Elevatator]

It is just suicidal if the suggestion is bad, what I think it is.

[Poppycocks]

Ah, I see you're following the trend that's currently in fashion.

*sigh*

Regardless of that, what Ribky said. Want to see the suggestion pull trough regardless? Let's look at the options, option A is to make it optional, which makes it superfluous with a side-order of incentivizing an overused system(wood farms). Option B is to change the recipe, which makes mince out of your reasoning and option C is to change how potash is made and well...

But anyway, ultimately, your basing your suggestion on an Idea of FC. And well, if it's his idea, that means he's probably got it pretty much figured out and there's probably no further need for suggestions here...

[chaoticneutral]

Ok. Nevermind, then.

[Calcifire3691]

In-game reason: food is plentiful, pigs are useless (overshadowed by cows), make bookshelves a bit harder to get. Tanned leather is unchanged, since it needs the stewing pot anyway, and bone meal got another use after BTW 3.97 nerf.

the thing is, pigs AREN'T overshadowed by cows, they just serve different purposes. it takes four beef to make 1 tallow, whereas it takes 1 pork, and since pork is the only product of pigs, it makes them the dedicated tallow producers. and with the recent change to rendering glue, cows have their niche as the only method of obtaining glue.

don't forget: the cauldron requires nether access to fuel it, and iron to make it. and since they are the only way of making leather, you'll either have to keep exploring further and further out for leather, and would make renewable leather be above diamond (or iron if you like making nether portals with buckets) in terms of initial difficulty to get, which as an early game material, seems pretty silly.

[Rianaru]

Personally, I would wait on suggesting a hardcore anything based upon the trend that FC is on now. He's recently done hardcore sheep and hardcore chickens, and has mentioned hardcore farming(I'm sure you guys know all the above, but just in case...), so I would wait to see what he does (or if he does it) before talking about it too much/making a suggestion.

[FlowerChild]

Pigs have also been further balanced by the recent addition to allow them to eat kibble, making them even more tempting for Tallow production in making use of the excess goods from your mob trap.

I'm not particularly concerned with cow balance in the early game. It seems fine, and in the late game, their automation is one of the most challenging already due to their dependence on wheat.

I think doing something like this would be going too far.

[Battosay]

I just wanted to add that, even now, wheat is one of the - if not THE - most difficult resource to automatically harvest, and even more to get a self-sustainable system :)