Thinking about Digging in BTW (where are mining charges?)

[EpicAaron]

Hawk in the ideas thread did the great service of reminding me about mining charges. I am currently working on a small overhaul addon that seeks to make various portions of the game (from early to endgame) more fluid and enjoyable, and bringing back mining charges has popped up in my thoughts quite a bit. I think we seriously need a solution to digging in BTW, and automated blasting is not only incredibly fun--its on brand. :)

So here's the paradox that the latest versions of BTW present to us:

BTW encourages mega builds. To climb the technology tree and conduct villager trading, we are expected to build various mob traps of immense size. In my single player world, I have built a standard mob trap that goes two strata deep into the ground. I have also built a separate jungle spider trap that goes even deeper (in an attempt to farm bats as well). I have an unfinished nether trap that required me to dig a truly massive pit through solid netherrack, and I have also started digging a second mob (even larger) overworld trap in an attempt to double my drop output and generally improve the look and design of my main iron resource. Players don't HAVE to do these things, of course, but I think we can all agree that a big reason we continue to play this beautiful mod is because is gives us reasons to work on big things.

Now, despite encouraging mega builds, newer versions of BTW have routinely nerfed the player's mining capabilities. Getting efficiency V on a pickaxe is pretty much impossible. Hiracho on the community server did discover a way to farm silverfish for efficiency scrolls using fortress silverfish spawners and End portals, but this is such an incredibly endgame project that I do not think it solves the problem. Players are stuck with efficiency III for pretty much the entire game. It gets exhausting. The golden beacon is useful here, but again, you need a crazy amount of gold to make one of those and that requires a shit ton of digging.

The alternative to mining by hand, explosives, are not only locked behind gunpowder/End access, they are also not automatable. Thanks to the animageddon changes, farming cows for glue and pigs for tallow is incredibly difficult/impossible. As has been discussed, this is largely because keeping animals from starving to death is a task that few have managed to succeed at, and the breeding items themselves are no longer automatable. It is pretty clear to me that FC stopped development before he could address these gaping holes in tech progression. Animal farming is just incomplete.

TLDR: I think we need to either give players earlier access to high efficiency picks or make mining charges accessible again. Since explosives are really fucking cool, I think the latter is the better option.

So, how do we address this? I haven't quite gotten to this stage of development, but my quick and easy solution for animal products in my addon was to just boost the hell out of wheat nutrition values. If cows could survive on a handful of straw and wheat a day (numbers uncertain), I bet we could get old style animal farms up and running again. Of course, cows should still eat a lot, but it needs to be possible. My addon also boosts glue production by making a single piece of leather render into two glue, so even manual hunting is a little less taxing. It might already be possible to keep pigs alive with automated kibble, but I haven't tried this yet.

And where do we put mining charges? Gunpowder is locked behind End access, but Hawk suggested making glowstone easier to farm so players could potentially use charges before killing the dragon. While I am not certain about how this should be implemented, I think the idea of giving players more stuff to do before tackling the dragon is important. So few players make it past dragon these days, and I assume that is because the mega builds required to get there are a bit of a grind at times. I think it would not be a terrible idea to give players access to most of the tech tree before the big boss fight.

I want to blow stuff up and create massive fissures in my world!

[dawnraider]

Making items feed animals much more effectively is definitely something on the todo list for CE. Right now you need several hundred wheat plants per cow which is completely absurd. Mining charges don't actually require glue, but they do require a shit load of tallow.

I think moving explosives up in the tech tree is perfectly fine. Witches drop glowstone in vanilla, though that has been removed in BTW. Perhaps adding that back in would help with explosives, as well as providing easier access to glowstone as a light source (which I don't think is a bad thing given that it's kind of a pain to get right now).

[EpicAaron]

Ah, they require slime balls! Perhaps I was thinking of pumps.

That actually makes things simpler. Cows are a herculean project to automate at a reasonable scale, but I think pigs should not be too difficult to balance for midgame automated farming.

Witch glowstone drops is a fine solution, but maybe we should have a cool new system? Preferably nether based, but I don't have a clue what it would be.

[Hiracho]

I'm all ears for a new way to get glowstone, but witches already have a lot going on for them :) Maybe something that has to do with the nether instead?

Having it be a rare drop from blazes might work. once you have enough blaze rods you don't really care about those anymore.. or instead of having glowstone dust be filtered into brimstone, have blaze powder filter into brimstone instead! taming a blaze spawner is already a lot smaller project compared to a full blown nether trap which many people still find extremely daunting. this would surely boost the dynamite economy by a ton without changing any other balance! (still need to fix explosions dropping actually nice stuff)

I'd still like more glowstone dust but eh, keeping value in risking your life for glowstone feels pretty special to ruin with something that becomes farmeable..

Ah, they require slime balls! Perhaps I was thinking of pumps.

Maybe you were thinking about barrels that you need for "tnt" ?

[EpicAaron]

I like blazes dropping glowstone dust, it sounds natural. Do you mind if I steal that idea?

I've never explicitly automated a blaze spawner. I always build a funnel for them and then manually cull. This might be a good incentive for players to make the jump to kill mechanisms. Not an easy task when working on an exposed fort, I might add...

EDIT: Switched pork to render into 3 tallow instead of 1. If automated pig farming proves easy/difficult, this number can be tweaked. At this rate, a stack of 64 pork can ultimately create two stacks of blasting charges. That's worth a pretty good hole or two!

[Hiracho]

go ahead. I prefer the blazepowder taking over the function of turning into brimstone as it is way more balanced :) making glowstone farmeable is potentially devastating for other light source uses. maybe if it were to be locked into only dropping from non-spawner blazes. cause that way it'd be locked behind an actual mobtrap to get it in big numbers..

I've never automated a baze spawner either, in part because spawners feel lame. this could indeed incentivise investing a bit more effort in securing a spawner for that transition phase into a real nether trap. Playing whack a mole is probably still preferred since you have to be near anyway, but adding a kill mechanism somehow might be in people's interest(around this time you can get looting swords pretty easily so whacking is mostly a lot better)

There's ways of securing it in such an open fort :) it's called invis potions hehe

[EpicAaron]

I suppose I just feel a little weird about adding yet another brimstone recipe. Perhaps if glowstone is rare enough of a drop, it wouldn't allow players to use glowstone on a massive scale until a real large nether trap is built. One dust every few blazes? Manual mining will still be way faster I bet, and it will be cute to have players smashing these beautiful natural glowstone clusters to make explosives.

I am eagerly working on my addon today. Just setting up my first github repository. I want to start playtesting ASAP as it has been far too long since I've had a good long session of BTW.

[Hiracho]

we can just replace, not add. adding does indeed feel weird.. That would make glowstone dust and blaze powder sort of the same stuff. I don't see value in people smashing glowstone for explosives plus its never really been something that is done. its far too rare and has a huge value as a lightsource in such a way that only some people transform one or two pieces to brimstone so they can make a few splashpotions in order to progress the game.. Afaik FC just wanted to unlock brimstone pre end. Glowstone was a nice fit for that idea, but blaze powder is one too, and one that is more balanced to get more explosives

[jackatthekilns]

For whatever my opinion is worth, I think blaze powder is a more appropriate material for explosives than glowstone.

[EpicAaron]

I'm considering having a config for the option players prefer haha.

I'm in love with Blazes dropping glowstone, and I'm a fan of glowstone becoming brimstone. Glowstone is pretty much a sulfurous clump.

EDIT: Of course, if CE wants one, I can just have my mod do the other.

[hawk]

For what it’s worth, I’m loving this discussion ;)

When I suggested glowstone as a rare drop in a pig man trap, I was trying to suggest changing as little as possible…as well as gating it behind a high effort mega project. Blazes probably fit thematically better, but I think the spawners are a problem (lame as Hiracho said). And it’s really hard to make a trap for blazes with out a spawner due to their floaty nature. Now, maybe it shouldn’t be an automated kill and collection process, but I 100% agree with EpicAaron; my opinion is that this mod shines with huge up front effort with large builds and a low effort windfall afterwards. I don’t know how to do that with blazes. But maybe someone does!

[hawk]

...
If cows could survive on a handful of straw and wheat a day (numbers uncertain), I bet we could get old style animal farms up and running again. Of course, cows should still eat a lot, but it needs to be possible.
...

I've done a significant in-game testing on this with an auto-feeder.

Spoiler

Show

60 straw or tall grass (What I call standard food) per day per cow, same for grass blocks but field size and configuration makes sustainable field size per cow more of an experimental value. Wheat counts as 4 standard food (what I call premium food), so 15 per day per cow.

Sheep and pigs are 40 standard food per day per animal. For pigs, carrots and potatoes are 4X premium food in addition to wheat, and wont eat straw.

Chickens: 15 standard food, I didn't find a 4x premium food for them but admittedly didn't test them as much as the others. They will eat grass under posts unlike other adult animals.

Edit: None of this takes into account shearing, milking, or breeding which doubles those values. Breeding for the babies only (and they eat grass under posts, the bastards, lol), not parents (two days of double eating). Shearing and milking (one day of double eating). Will kill your entire field if you're not prepared!!!

The above is just items needed. Farm plots per animal is not something I documented when I did this testing.
/spoiler]

[dawnraider]

And it’s really hard to make a trap for blazes with out a spawner due to their floaty nature.

Blazes only fly if they are aggro'd on the player or another entity. If they are not aggro'd then they will drift towards the ground and normal waterless trap mechanisms work fine for them.

Invis potions are incredibly helpful for building large-scale nether projects, although the recent ghast spawn rate reduction should help with that as well compared to older versions and make invis less completely necessary.

[EpicAaron]

Spoiler

Show

60 straw or tall grass (What I call standard food) per day per cow, same for grass blocks but field size and configuration makes sustainable field size per cow more of an experimental value. Wheat counts as 4 standard food (what I call premium food), so 15 per day per cow.

Sheep and pigs are 40 standard food per day per animal. For pigs, carrots and potatoes are 4X premium food in addition to wheat, and wont eat straw.

Chickens: 15 standard food, I didn't find a 4x premium food for them but admittedly didn't test them as much as the others. They will eat grass under posts unlike other adult animals.

Edit: None of this takes into account shearing, milking, or breeding which doubles those values. Breeding for the babies only (and they eat grass under posts, the bastards, lol), not parents (two days of double eating). Shearing and milking (one day of double eating). Will kill your entire field if you're not prepared!!!

The above is just items needed. Farm plots per animal is not something I documented when I did this testing.
/spoiler]

This is awesome data, thank you. Yeah, 40 food per day sounds a little beyond the reach of even the most efficient and massive factories. Perhaps I ought to sit down and try it so I know it is a fool's errand, but players much better than myself have tried and failed.

10 potatoes per day... could be possible with a truly gargantuan farm. Extremely endgame--too late for most players to have any fun with it.

So, blazes dropping glowstone materials is too much? I thought it might be a nice secondary reward for conquering a fortress and aid in aesthetic builds. I suppose the question is, does having a farmable source of light blocks really kill balance all that much? Would players want to waste hours grinding away glowstone dust from blazes when they could just mine a few veins of coal for a stack of nether torches?

[hawk]

Blazes only fly if they are aggro'd on the player or another entity. If they are not aggro'd then they will drift towards the ground and normal waterless trap mechanisms work fine for them.

Oh yeah... good call. I wasn't being imaginative enough here. My mind automatically goes to fall traps in the nether.

So, blazes dropping glowstone materials is too much? I thought it might be a nice secondary reward for conquering a fortress and aid in aesthetic builds. I suppose the question is, does having a farmable source of light blocks really kill balance all that much? Would players want to waste hours grinding away glowstone dust from blazes when they could just mine a few veins of coal for a stack of nether torches?

In my opinion, it depends if we're talking a spawner trap or a natural spawn trap. I am firmly in the camp that there are not many crafting materials that should be off the table as trap farm-able, as long as the trap production matches the effort in building it. And taming a fort to constrain the majority of spawns to your trap is about as high effort as a trap gets. But if Hiracho is correct and most players don't even build a normal nether trap, they probably don't go the extra mile to cement or manually pave an entire fort (groth doesn't spread on brick very well) along with stopping spawns in the surrounding nether.

But it seams the majority are in favor of blaze powder instead of glowstone turning into brimstone. I'll admit, it does fit better thematically. Though I still selfishly want a way to build a productive glowstone farm no matter the upfront effort required, lol.

[Hiracho]

So, blazes dropping glowstone materials is too much? I thought it might be a nice secondary reward for conquering a fortress and aid in aesthetic builds. I suppose the question is, does having a farmable source of light blocks really kill balance all that much? Would players want to waste hours grinding away glowstone dust from blazes when they could just mine a few veins of coal for a stack of nether torches?

that depends on the droprate, and with a nether trap you're effectively automating lightblocks. which is a big deal. Not sure if that's a bad thing.. But its a huge thing in and by itself for sure

the thing is, if we're talking about a balance change to get explosives a lot more easy and earlier in the tech tree, linking it to also getting glowstone in the same amount is troublesome. In order to get enough glowstone to make reasonable amounts of explosives, it would effectively make glowstone dust itself super cheap as well.

Personally I wouldn't mind glowstone being something attainable on a renewable way(other than hell being infinite). I just think I'd like the droprate of brimstone to be like in the range of 10s of times as high as the droprate for glowstone

[Hiracho]

On that note, why not both, have glowstone be a rare drop from non-spawner blazes.. have blaze powder be the stuff that's filterable to brimstone :)

[EpicAaron]

I would say most players do not build a nether trap in single player, especially nowadays. Until my most recent world, I never built a successful one outside of a server filled with folks smarter than myself. Well my current trap isn't operational yet... but I bet it will be successful eventually! Anyway, I think nether traps are a lot harder than end traps, and I opted to build my ender trap before my nether.

I think blaze spawner traps are as far as many folks get, and I have long held that the difficulty of securing even a blaze spawner is a big contributor to the midgame slump. Some people try to squeeze by with only two hibachis, it's silly. So, with that in mind, I think some shiny dust is a good incentive to get players going.

You guys are working your magic, perhaps the blaze powder could have some brimstone in it...

Good point about quantities though... basically, I want there to be a enough brimstone for players that are really eager to blow some shit up to be able to do so. To make explosives available for constructing traps like a nether trap, I feel like it would have to be available via spawner. This would be a striking and fundamental change to the tech tree.

[dawnraider]

This would be a striking and fundamental change to the tech tree.

I feel like you're severely overselling the impact of explosives here.

Also tbh I'm honestly more inclined to make blazes drop brimstone directly vs filtering from blaze powder.

[Hiracho]

How so? In my mind everything in the nether is contaminated with souls, simply dropping brimstone doesn't feel thematically fitting(blazes are living flames, their rods are burnable materials infused with souls kinda)..Plus it doesn't hurt to have it needing a filter, making the process a little bit more involved and the droprate for rods is also just fine for this purpose. it also helps remove the uselessness of blaze rods after you've gotten your needed amount..

[dawnraider]

How so? In my mind everything in the nether is contaminated with souls.

I don't think blazes should be a source of souls as doing so would largely invalidate any reason to use blood wood for souls. That would leave normal filtering, but blaze powder is already a fine dust that would pass through wicker just fine.

[EpicAaron]

Does a single person use bloodwood dust for souls?

[dawnraider]

I have definitely used soul dust for souls before, in conjunction with netherrack, for my semi-auto soul bottling. However, soul dust is the only way to automatically get souls for filtering and I think it should stay that way, as adding another way to automatically get souls would further reduce the value of soul dust (which as you alluded to does not see much widespread use anyways).

[Hiracho]

Using blood wood for souls is already invalidated by making a nether network, souls are like dirt.. not really something to be concerned about in that way i would say. It only opens up alternative methods and thus builds of gathering and processing them. that plus the amount of souls you'll be getting is still less and maybe even neglible by the other means..

One of FC's prime statements is that you shouldn't tailor stuff around having a use. artificially trying to bring souldust use up because its useless is a bad way to go about imo

[Hiracho]

Souls are just a bonus resource on everything in the nether. they aren't particularly rare, but are something dangerous and should be handled with care.

for my semi-auto soul bottling. However, soul dust is the only way to automatically get souls for filtering and I think it should stay that way,

multiple things: it is realistically impossible to fully automate bloodwood in such a way that you actually get workable amounts of souls. A nether network brings so much souls that it would be comparing getting a grain of sand versus having a warehouse full of sand at the ready. Sure not truly infinite, but practically is.
I'm not saying bloodwood farms are supposed to be the way to get souls, and that it somehow needs to get buffed to go there. I'm saying it's just not important what souls bloodwood brings per say. any balance change on them should be in and on its own topic of how Bloodwood could be more interesting.