Research Bench Add-On development thread.

[Six]

So I've got most of the code written for this add-on and now I just need some help writing descriptions for, well... all the items in the entire game. What's this mod all about? Well here's a picture showing the general idea:

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The core concept behind the add-on is to get away from the need to reference the mcf thread or wiki while playing the game blind. The end goal is that a player who has never played Minecraft (not just people new to BTW, but those people too) would be able to progress through the entire tech tree and game, working out things in an in game way. And the way I've decided to try and do that is through adding a single new block, the Research Bench.

The Research Bench is crafted with a single wooden plank (nicely meshes with the BTW change to the wood button recipe) and as you can see in the picture above, provides a single slot on the left. When an item is placed into that slot text shows up on the right, giving a bit of flavor and direction as to what the player can try with that item. I've always found the recipes in MC to be pretty consistent and BTW pushes this up 100 fold. It almost seems like it was intended for them to be 'discoverable' and Mojang seemed to push this a bit further with the achievements, but then abandoned those in a half finished state, like so many other things.


So anyway, what I need help with now is writing more of these descriptions. They need to be succinct (in line with the length of the examples below), cover all the things the item needs to point towards and be in line with the BTW lore without spelling things out too much. I'm looking for people who have been playing the mod for a long time and who are well versed in the BTW lore. Post below if you are interested and I'll send you a link through to a google doc to keep work together. Here are a few more descriptions to give you an idea of the general feel I'm going for:

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Blaze Rod
The rod is warm to the touch and it seems it could be crumbled by hand. With a cobble base it may also be useful to heat and brew potions.

Blaze Powder
This powder gives off an intense heat. If boiled with redstone and fiber, the heat could likely be better controlled. Mixing it with slime could also stabilize into another form.

Ender Pearl
This pearl gives off strange pulsing energies. Throwing causes sudden dangerous distortions in space. Seems to react to heat, perhaps mixing with blaze powder may yield interesting results.

Eye of Ender
Intense energies can be felt around this object. If thrown, it drifts in a direction as if trying to return somewhere... Binding with obsidian or gold may allow some harnessing of these powers.

Also, if you have any thoughts on the sticky points of guiding people though the tech path in this way, I'd appreciated hearing them. There's a few tough bits, like what to say about wood, cobble, shafts and the like. Ideally every item should have some path pointing to it from components it is made from, but for something like a piston this gets tricky. Suggestions on what would need to point to what would be very handy.

[FlowerChild]

Very nice man, and great idea. I might be interested in contributing a few descriptions here and there if the mood strikes me.

This is the kind of thing I'd love to see in the mod, but which I can't really afford the time investment to make a reality, so props on taking the initiative here.

[JakeZKAM]

I'd be happy to write up some vague-ish descriptions of blocks and Items for uses, the higher tiered blocks are fairly tricky. Pistons, BD's, lenses, and all the other items/blocks that require a lot of components are just too complicated to effectively hint at with a line of text. Maybe allowing two slots to introduce materials together as a way to gather hints for a final product?

[johnt]

Suggestion: sacrifice the item to get a single recipe which uses it returned to you.

[Ethazeriel]

I'd definitely be interested in contributing a little. I started to make a recipe book of sorts at one point, so some of my descriptions might be useful with a little modification.

[xou816]

That's a really good idea and I'm looking forward to this mod!
Im not quite good at writting this sort of thing but if ever I have an idea I'll write it down here.
Nice work!

[Rob]

I would love to help as well.

Also, I know nothing of coding difficulty, but how hard would it be to add a left and right arrow in their respective bottom corners of the brown box to allow for longer descriptions? Because as stated above, end game items would be very hard to describe with such a limited space.

Another thing, are you looking to have research descriptions for everything? Because it would be easy to hint at items with limited end results, but items with a large possible recipe list could go on for ever.

Edit: My attempt to contribute and show proof of competency. :-)

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Dirt
This abundant resource may make for a great pathway if multiple blocks were compacted by hand. A slab could also be formed by laying blocks out by hand. ( I'm not sure I like this hint at making dirt slabs.)

Bone
This Bone could make for a nutrient enriched powder if milled with mechanical power. It would also make a great stock if combined with water in a cauldron.

Bone Meal
This Meal could be used to speed up crop growth. Mixing it with sugar and rotten meat would make for an adequate live stock feed.

[Sandrew]

I gave it a go, but writing descriptions is pretty hard to do without straight-up writing what people are supposed to do with it. Especially considering the fact that most items don't have all their uses until you're further up the tech-tree. For example, detailing the recycling of rotten arrows for flint or the recipe for kibble would be far better suited to the respective tools used.

Anyway, I tried to cover all common hostile mobs (minus skelletons, as Rob covered bones already) found in the overworld. Hope they are of use.

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Rotten Meat: The flesh of slain undead. It looks unappetizing. Some animals might like it though.

String: A short bit of spider silk. Its elastic properties could prove useful in crafting a bow or fishing rod.

Creeper Oyster: You're not really sure what they are, or wether you even want to know.

Nitre: A white crystalline powder that might be key to the creeper's explosive tendencies.

Slime ball: A gelatinous, green, sticky ball of slime. It could make a decent adhessive.

Bat wing: A bat wing. You notice nothing special about it.

Witch wart: A small wart from the nose of a witch. It might contain magical properties.

Rotten arrow: A rotten arrow. It can still be used but looks fragile.

Spider eye: The eye of a spider. It looks unappetizing, toxic even. [Further preparation might make it usefull in potion crafting]

[eternal8phoenix]

Eh, I have spare time. Here's my attempt:

Raw food

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Raw Beef: Meat from a cow. It may be safer to eat cooked.

Raw Porkchop: Meat from a pig. It may be safer to eat cooked.

Raw Mutton: Meat from a sheep. It may be safer to eat cooked. Delicious on a kebab with mushrooms and carrots.

Raw Chicken: Meat from a Chicken. It may be safer to eat cooked.

Raw Wolf: Meat from a Wolf. It may be safer to eat cooked. Best not give it to the pooch.

Raw Mystery Meat: Best not ask where it came from. It may be safer to eat cooked.

Raw Fish: A fish fresh from the water. Might entice a feline.

Raw Egg: It could be fried, poached, made into scrambled eggs or an omelette.

Wheat: A staple crop that can be mechanically ground into flour. It makes good grazing animal feed.

Flour: A wheat based powder. Can be baked into various desserts or boiled in a stew.

Sugar cane: A water loving plant that doesn't require strong soil to grow in. It's sweetness can be exploited through grinding, and it's fibrous nature means it could make usable paper, with enough of it.

Sugar: Ground up sugar cane. Used in desserts, usually with flour.

Pumpkins: The seeds make for a great snack. With some flour, eggs and sugar you could make a pumpkin pie. It could also make a jack-o-lantern, if a source of light was added. They are incapable of defying gravity and exploded with sufficient impact.

Melons: The slices make a great snack. The seeds are great for feeding the poultry.They are incapable of defying gravity and exploded with sufficient impact.

Melon slice: Delicious. It may also possess strange properties if mixed with gold.

Carrot: An orange vegetable. Great boiled, in a kebab or in a hearty stew. Pigs love them. It may also possess strange properties if mixed with gold.

Potato: A root vegetable. Goes great with steak, or in a selection of dinners.

Brown Mushroom: It looks safe to eat. It'd be nice in a stew, kebab or omelette.

Red Mushroom: It looks poisonous. It could be used to ferment things though.

Bucket of Milk: Great for scrambling eggs and might be good for poisoning. Can also be used for creamy soups or chowders.

Cocoa bean: Chocolaty goodness. It'd make a good cookie with some flour.


Raw Mushroom Omelette: Needs to be cooked, but looks promisingly tasty.

Raw Scrambled egg: Needs to be cooked, but looks promisingly tasty.

Cooked food

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Bread: Made from flour and baked in a furnace. Great for making sandwiches.

Cooked Steak: Safe for consumption or use in a variety of meals. Great with potatoes.

Cooked Porkchop: Safe for consumption or use in a variety of meals. Goes a treat with eggs.

Cooked Mutton: Safe for consumption or use in a variety of meals.

Cooked Chicken: Safe for consumption or use in a variety of meals. With some carrots potatoes and milk could make soup like granny used to. Don't forget the bowls.

Cooked Carrot: Great in soups and stews. Don't forget bowls. Can also be combined with steak, porkchops or wolfchops and some potatoes to make a nice dinner.

Cooked potato:Great in soups and stews. Don't forget bowls. Can also be combined with steak, porkchops or wolfchops and some carrots to make a nice dinner. Or skip the carrots for some steak and potatoes.

Cream of Mushroom: A delicious soup made from mushrooms and milk or taken from the strange walking ones with a bowl.

Chicken soup: Chicken, carrots and potatoes boiled up and served in a bowl.

Chowder: Milk and fish, boiled and served in a bowl. Tasty.

Hearty stew: Meat, carrots, potatoes, mushrooms and flour boiled and served in a bowl. Excess comsumption made lead to weight gain.

Cookie: Delicious but fattening. Made from cocoa and flour.

Cake: Delicious but fattening. Made from flour, eggs, sugar and milk. Serve in slices.

Pumpkin pie:Delicious but fattening. Made from flour, eggs, sugar and pumpkin.

Donut: Delicious but fattening. Made from boiled flour and sugar.

[LJEKadeshi]

I would be willing to help write any descriptions needed, and could probably help edit down the number of words used in each description to help save on space if need be.

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Leather: This hide looks like it might make a decent armor, but in its current state it's not as efficient if you were to process it somehow.
Netherrack: It seems to be made of an almost flesh-like substance and you think you can hear screaming; perhaps the souls within it could be contained in a small jar for later use.

Those are what I could come up with quickly, if you'd like more let me know.

[weldaSB]

String: A short bit of spider silk. Its elastic properties could prove useful in crafting a bow or fishing rod.

The string of a bow is not elastic, it is taught. All of the power comes from the flex of the wooden bow. I am not sure how to change it, but maybe just a different adjective.

On Topic: I remember you talking on #btwaddon about this and I love it. I will see if I can come up with any good descriptions.

[Six]

Yeah, jumping into #btwaddon in irc would be the best place to come if you want to help out.

We've worked out the style we're going for a bit better now too. General format is <observation> <important uses>, so rather than repeating the item name, it's more about first describing something which tells you about the nature of the item itself, ala "This powder gives off an intense heat". And as people have touched on here, the <important uses> don't need to include everything that the item can be crafted into. For example shafts are used in torches, but we can describe that in the coal description and leave it out of the shafts. So long as everything is reachable though some component the player has learned to craft, or through reverse engineering things they find in the world, it should be good.

Finally, we're trying to stick to the passive voice for the most part. Think of it as the internal dialog going through Steve's head as he pulls apart and looks at items. he finds

[Six]

Still subject to change, but this has to be one of my favorites so far:

"Ancient lost craftsmanship must have been required to craft this sword from solid stone. Runes and images are engraved down the side, depicting 3 skulls atop what appears to be soul sand."

The concept just fits in so damn well with the BTW changes. Also, too bad Steve don't know the runes actually translate to "Warning, don't do this!".

[Tekei]

Still subject to change, but this has to be one of my favorites so far:

"Ancient lost craftsmanship must have been required to craft this sword from solid stone. Runes and images are engraved down the side, depicting 3 skulls atop what appears to be soul sand."

The concept just fits in so damn well with the BTW changes. Also, too bad Steve don't know the runes actually translate to "Warning, don't do this!".

That description is just awesome, and something that I will need to reflect in my TP once I get more time to work on it. :)

[Sage]

Wow, this is clever and really fits with the spirit of a "persistent roguelike" :)

If you don't mind a suggestion/idea, how much is hard to impement new paintings (or canavas, or using maps)? One of the last thing that vanilla got right in my opinion was the wither painting, so it would be nice to be able to find image instruction for compex procedures (completed with unreadable text/missing parts) in loot chests in the world.

[Stormweaver]

Hmmm, I'd probably go with a more subtle route. For example, the blaze rod/powder texts as a hint for filaments; say things more along of the lines of 'The blaze rod may be more useful if ground into powder' 'The cauldron could be useful for mixing things together' 'redstone seems to have the ability to bring out the properties of other materials when mixed together' 'hemp fibres/silk is a strong thread which may be able to be cooked with other materials to make them more convenient to use'. Then you'd have texts for glowstone dust, blaze powder and gunpowder that simply state their properties 'This could be used to generate light/heat etc' so people come to associate the ideas together.

I remember dumping everything I found in the cauldron back in the day when new stuff was added to see what would stick; give the player the impression that that has to be done, and they get a sense of discovery instead of an in-game wiki.

If you don't mind a suggestion/idea, how much is hard to impement new paintings (or canavas, or using maps)? One of the last thing that vanilla got right in my opinion was the wither painting, so it would be nice to be able to find image instruction for compex procedures (completed with unreadable text/missing parts) in loot chests in the world.

Well, replace the vMC art with arty depictions of bits of BTW's 3d constructions (with the occasion eldritch horror shown in 16x16) and there you'd have it:

"A prophetic vision scrawled on rough wool. A better frame and canvas may inspire madness even further"

[Six]

Hmmm, I'd probably go with a more subtle route. For example, the blaze rod/powder texts as a hint for filaments; say things more along of the lines of 'The blaze rod may be more useful if ground into powder' 'The cauldron could be useful for mixing things together' 'redstone seems to have the ability to bring out the properties of other materials when mixed together' 'hemp fibres/silk is a strong thread which may be able to be cooked with other materials to make them more convenient to use'. Then you'd have texts for glowstone dust, blaze powder and gunpowder that simply state their properties 'This could be used to generate light/heat etc' so people come to associate the ideas together.

I remember dumping everything I found in the cauldron back in the day when new stuff was added to see what would stick; give the player the impression that that has to be done, and they get a sense of discovery instead of an in-game wiki.

Sure, but there is a balance between leaving things open and narrowing the combinations of things the player needs to try. There are a ridiculous number of items in the game (the list is sitting at around 600-700 or so) giving a massive number of possible combinations. The cauldron is at least the easiest to randomly try things in, as it automatically finds valid combos of everything in it, but when it comes to things like arrangements on a crafting bench I think you need to be a bit more direct. It's a bit of a hard balance to strike between the two.

[Stormweaver]

True, true.

Was thinking about the whole painting ^ thing while I nipped to the chemist, and I really like the idea of Steve insanely scribbling ideas down - something that could act as a visual aid to describe the more complex crafting table/anvil recipes. Otherwise...imagine trying to explain the buddy block with text.

[Six]

Yeah, we've been tossing around idea in the chat about different ways to do the anvil recipes. We've already got a bit of a 'flash of insight' thing going for a few bits, like obsidian -> portal. One thought someone mentioned was ancient manuscripts could actually give hints to the complex recipes, or even 'rough sketches' of the recipe shape itself, bu I'm not sure about discovering later tech rely on finding something so rare.

And the tricky thing with changing / adding paintings is texture packs.

[FlowerChild]

Yeah, we've been tossing around idea in the chat about different ways to do the anvil recipes. We've already got a bit of a 'flash of insight' thing going for a few bits, like obsidian -> portal. One thought someone mentioned was ancient manuscripts could actually give hints to the complex recipes, or even 'rough sketches' of the recipe shape itself, bu I'm not sure about discovering later tech rely on finding something so rare.

I'd advise against the ancient manuscript approach. I included those in the mod for a very specific purpose which is still to come.

[WeedFather]

May I make a suggestion for a description for tanned leather?

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Tanned Leather: It was hard and dirty work making it (referring to the dung), but the results seem worth it. This tanned leather hide seems sturdy enough to be used in creating some interesting and possibly powerful things for all kinds of construction, and it would seem logical for it to also make for sturdier leather armor.

[Wafflewaffle]

I'd advise against the ancient manuscript approach. I included those in the mod for a very specific purpose which is still to come.

I have a solution for that. Book shelves! As you progress through the tech tree you can spend time and resources creating bookshelves (they are like the crystalization of "learning") and the more bookshelves you have the more later recipes you unlock. Its also a building investment and matches the concept of a research bench thourgh investment of time and resources.

just a tought.

[Rob]

I'd advise against the ancient manuscript approach. I included those in the mod for a very specific purpose which is still to come.

I have a solution for that. Book shelves! As you progress through the tech tree you can spend time and resources creating bookshelves (they are like the crystalization of "learning") and the more bookshelves you have the more later recipes you unlock. Its also a building investment and matches the concept of a research bench thourgh investment of time and resources.

just a tought.

Using a bookshelf mechanic like the enchanting table would be awesome. Six, scrap everything and get on it. :P

On a serious note, I should be on again tonight after work to help out some more with descriptions. Until the wife says otherwise at least.

[weldaSB]

Edit: nevermind

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I just had a more fully fledged idea based on the above posts:

Have bookshelf sensing similar to the infernal enchanter. When you "research" a crafting table and there is at least one bookshelf nearby a 3x3 grid appears in the interface. you can arrange items in this grid but not actually craft anything. If you place a valid recipe, it will store the recipe in the bookshelves nearby so you can view it later. From a coding perspective, the research block would find all valid bookshelves and have a recipe limit per bookshelf (ie. 5). It would then store the recipes in a tile entity of the research block. If a bookshelf were to be removed, the research block would remove 5 random recipes from its memory. I don't know how hard it would be to code, but afaik it wouldn't even need a base class mod.Obviously another system (if any) would have to be done for crucible/stewing pot, but this seems to me like a very usable system.

[Wafflewaffle]

I just had a more fully fledged idea based on the above posts:

I think its best if we refrain from posting pre-fabricated ideas. FC does not like it, so i think its just common cortesy we extend this treatment to Six too. Im sure he can come up with something interesting on his own if he decides to adopt the book shelves. Also having try and error recipe storage is not really a disencourage to using the wiki, it just makes it so you have to go there once for every recipe. The hint base system Six has come up with sounds a lot more interesting and allows for some good ol' dark humor descriptions.