Hardcore Nether Animals Discussion (Spoilers)

[Psion]

I'm thinking it's too complicated a system. FC doesn't waste time in coding, so it's probably something fairly intuitive once you grasp whats going on, but also simple to code. Personally, that mention of soulsand and exploding chickens reminded me: soul urns. You know how soul urns, when tossed, break and release a ghast, right? Well, chickens that explode also spawn a ghast if there's enough room for it.

BUT WHAT HAPPENS IF THERE'S NOT ENOUGH ROOM FOR A GHAST? Where do the spirits lingering in that chicken go?

This is making me think that possessed animals are acting as living "soul urns".

I'd test myself but our server isn't fully updated yet, and I'm pretty busy with RL atm. XD

[FlowerChild]

FC doesn't waste time in coding, so it's probably something fairly intuitive once you grasp whats going on, but also simple to code.

Come on man, you really don't need to start metagaming this kind of problem like that, at least not to that degree. Plus, I sincerely doubt most have a good idea what is easy or not for me to code, so I also doubt anything good can come from a conversation like that.

I figure I also put around 30 hours or so of work into the whole possession thing, so if you want to start guessing on the basis of how much I can do in that much time...good luck :P

[Psion]

FC doesn't waste time in coding, so it's probably something fairly intuitive once you grasp whats going on, but also simple to code.

Come on man, you really don't need to start metagaming this kind of problem like that, at least not to that degree. Plus, I sincerely doubt most have a good idea what is easy or not for me to code, so I also doubt anything good can come from a conversation like that.

I figure I also put around 30 hours or so of work into the whole possession thing, so if you want to start guessing on the basis of how much I can do in that much time...good luck :P

Lol, sorry. I guess I shouldve meant more that you tend to put things in the mod that adhere to the K.I.S.S. philosophy. All this talk of soulsand barriers and waterflow decontamination rooms and like makes it feel like it's going off into a wild tangent of guessing. Fun, but probably not the right answer. (although a nether portal building with a water decontamination room sounds kind of awesome to build.)

[Whuppee]

*Edit: Probably safe to assume this is all wrong.

Spoiler

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I doubt that introducing souls into the overworld is a product of merely climbing the tech tree.

Given that souls are being inadvertently loosed, it would seem to be a possible unthinking/unintended/etc outcome of climbing the tech tree.

Simply having portals open and traveling to/from the Nether doesn't seem to result in possession.

And I doubt the efficacy of my soul sand barriers: whether or not possession is particularly nuanced, I fully expect it's interesting; and piling soul sand everywhere just isn't interesting. However, nothing weird is going on with my animals, and aside from having not yet processed souls, it's the only noteworthy thing I've tried. I quite expect processing souls to be the cause.


Whatever the cause,

If possession is a forced outcome that cannot be immediately mitigated, then FC is fucking up everyone's animals in a very heavy-handed way. I find this implausible. Alternately, its mitigation must be within the means of one who has Nether access, prior to doing whatever leads to possession. This would heavily penalize anyone unaware of the specific mechanics necessary to preserve their animals, in addition to limiting the technology one could bring to bear. I find this similarly, if less, implausible.

If it is not forced, there must be some way to progress that will not result in possession. In my opinion, this likely entails doing whatever would otherwise lead to possession, not in the Overworld, but within the Nether.


I reject simple and uninteresting solutions as not like FC. Consider also that he likes to incentivize purposed/spread-out buildings and bases, multiple bases, and by way of distinctly purposing different realms, the building of bases in each realm.

He just made the Nether harder. We have the vertical windmill, at twice the cost of the horizontal, as the only means of continuous power within the Nether. And a new emphasis on and necessity for gold, which suggests an early Nether mob trap.

If you want early iron recycling, steel, and automation, for example, the cost might be coping with possession; you'll have better tools/armor asap, but you won't have easy access to arrows.

If you want to avoid possession, you might be better off investing in an enormous hemp farm, constructing a horizontal windmill, and using those in combination to mill the massive amount of hemp needed for a vertical windmill. It's slower, you'll be without recycling/automation longer, but you'll end up with a fuck ton of seeds, which suggests a large chicken farm, which provides a lot of arrows, which are amazing against ghasts, which just became a much more significant threat.

This would seem to commend establishing a base in the Nether on your first visit, installing your vertical windmill/etc, possibly getting a mob trap going, .. all in the Nether, gradually securing your foothold from Ghasts, and ultimately, finally, belatedly (and without fucking your livestock) getting you into recycling/steel, equipping you to much more successfully brave the Nether/find a stronghold. Without fucking your livestock.

In my opinion, this would be awesome. I've normally/previously just run to a fortress while marking my path, grabbed some blaze rods, run back to my portal, and all but never returned to the Nether (or established a base there) for a very long time.

Anyway, there would be options/tradeoffs. To me, this sounds like FC.


Rounding this out.. loosing souls in the Overworld is something players will eventually want to do, to automate squid/bat farming, among else.

Forced or not, this necessitates mitigation: how else are you ever going to farm chickens? Pushing this toward the mid/late game makes much more sense to me. Meaning not forced, thus avoidable, and I think most plausibly suggesting that we should establish a base and process souls within the Nether. After all, it's unlikely that you'll nomad or Nether your way to a village pre-stoked-fire (and all that entails). Renewable wheat, carrots, and potatoes are then unlikely. So you won't be breeding animals, and aside from creepiness, the only purpose possession so early would seem to serve is fucking you out of arrows. And pushing it into the later game allows for more interesting tech options by way of mitigation.

Think of how uninteresting it would be if, for example, the counter were as simple as stacking soul sand everywhere. Hard-counters especially don't make sense; like placing a few torches and suddenly nothing spawns, anywhere: what? Once souls are loose in the Overworld, I think it can be reasonably expected that they're there to stay. Maybe one could banish them from a region, but this should require, by analogy, the sort of investment that blanketing an area in thousands of torches takes.

Still, FC doesn't do random/artificial difficulty. So whatever expectedly-constant presence these souls enjoy, when properly addressed, it should be sufficiently ubiquitous so as to constantly menace, while being adequately, if properly, manageable.


In close, emphasis that ALL of this is speculation.

[jorgebonafe]

I was thinking about this idea that animals spread the nether corruption to clean animals... The thing is, I had those two corrupted cows, and I bred them over and over again until I got two healthy cows... But the first healthy cow I got stayed there with the others for a long time, several days, and it did not get corrupted... They were not on an enclosed space, I just separated them with fences to know which cows were which... so.. does that mean they have to touch to spread the corruption? or I was just lucky? Or they won't spread at all?

[Tekei]

I seriously doubt that FC would fuck every world that existed before the update (since I doubt that there were many who built dedicated portal buildings far from their bases before) by making the soul infestation permanent. Since we didn't know about it before the update, and therefor couldn't plan accordingly, I am certain that we have a way to mitigate/negate the damage that was/is caused by the update. We just have to figure it out. :)

[basneakyviper]

Has anyone tried having their infected walk over powered hoppers with a soul sand filter? To me if it pulls the souls out of ground netherrack why wouldn't it pull the souls out of the infected?

[Foxy Boxes]

I'm guessing it's all to do with eating. The following is all speculation from what I've seen mind you.

- Cows when bred produce random offspring. This only happens when bred, but allows you to eventually breed "pure" cows.
- Sheep only begin to float when they've eaten grass.
- Chickens Expload, but maybe only when fed? Which means to transport chickens of any use you'd have to carry them as eggs.

[FlowerChild]

Oi vey. I really didn't think it would be this hard to figure out.

I'm considering adding in some visual effects to make it a little clearer as a result. Will ponder it some more, but if it's really this difficult, that's likely a failing on my part.

[Sage]

^This sound like a "we are trying too hard"

@jorgebonafe

But you didn't kill the infected cows in presence of the healty ones, right?

[jorgebonafe]

@jorgebonafe

But you didn't kill the infected cows in presence of the healty ones, right?

I did. I waited until the second healthy one grew up, bred them to make sure they were still ok, and immediately killed the parents right there.

[jkievlan]

I'm considering adding in some visual effects to make it a little clearer as a result.

Please don't. That sounds like it's just gonna be obvious. I'd much rather figure it out and/or see somebody else figure it out. It can't be that hard...I'm going to do some serious experimenting this weekend. It helps that none of my animals have gotten infected at all, so I have a baseline to work from.

[FlowerChild]

Please don't. That sounds like it's just gonna be obvious. I'd much rather figure it out and/or see somebody else figure it out. It can't be that hard...I'm going to do some serious experimenting this weekend. It helps that none of my animals have gotten infected at all, so I have a baseline to work from.

Yeah, fair enough. I think with something like possession, the exact causes being mysterious is appropriate to the subject matter. Even all the whacked out theories as to what's happening and how to resolve it seem to fit rather well, although I'm a tad disappointed no one has suggested trying to use a screw as a makeshift trepan on possessed creatures ;)

I'm rather surprised here at how much difficulty people are having though. They seem to have all the information in front of them, but just aren't making the connections.

[jorgebonafe]

although I'm a tad disappointed no one has suggested trying to use a screw as a makeshift trepan on possessed creatures ;)

Oh! So you did add that feature after all, and didn't tell anyone... Sneaky Flowerchild...

Truth is after loosing all my cows and now all my chickens, I'm just too afraid to keep testing and loose my animals again, and I decided to leave that to those braver then me...

[Rob]

I've done it, done it I have! I've saved my pretties from the evil, the evil! I killed them all, all of them I've killed! *Pets dead cow head* Shhhh. Daddy keep you safe. Safe you are now, Precious.


((Still working on it.. I'm going crazy. I know it's got to be such a simple explination.. lol))

[Gabecraft1234]

My findings so far . . .

Both in the overworld and the nether animals (all my testing done with cows) in close proximity to portals will be possessed one at a time. Each time it happens the portal will make a "chirping" noise indicating a damned soul has escaped hell and entered an animal.

If the portal has been deactivated and healthy and possessed are penned together souls will not spread on there own. (to my knowledge)

However if a possessed animal is killed the soul will spread to a healthy one and possess it.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The next steps . . .

Determine the range of possession from a nether portal. From FC previous posts it is less than 100 blocks.

Determine if orientation to the portal is a factor.

Experiment with various forms of insulation.

[FlowerChild]

I've done it, done it I have! I've saved my pretties from the evil, the evil! I killed them all, all of them I've killed! *Pets dead cow head* Shhhh. Daddy keep you safe. Safe you are now, Precious.

Lol...well yes, that's one solution, and one I was hoping people would resort to at a certain point.

Bonus points if you purged them with fire :)

[Gabecraft1234]

All my testing has got me wondering . . . Why is Steve immune to possession?

My theory . . .

Steve is a damned soul escaped from the nether.

That would explain his immunity to being possessed himself.

His "freakishly long arms"

His inability to die . . . he is just temporarily "disincorporated" and reformed some distance away.

His burning desire to "RTH."

[Gilberreke]

It's weird that it takes people this long to figure out :/

I made a few test pens and figured it out in about 2 hours of mucking around. I still haven't found pigs, so I didn't test those and I haven't tested the latest release to see what's new.

Maybe a hint? Each animal has one effect, try finding them out. That's an effect on game-play, not visual effects.

[Gunnerman21]

The movie "Ghosts on Mars" is surprisingly similar to what gabecraft said in his findings, about the souls moving from dead hosts to live hosts. In the movie, archaeologists unearth an ancient tomb that released a bacteria that if one got in your body, you would become possessed and start mutilating yourself and killing others. It's a pretty bad movie but it fits the bill... The only way they could stop the infections was to quarantine the infected and not kill any of them. And then seal off the entrance to the tomb.

[Rob]

It's weird that it takes people this long to figure out :/

I made a few test pens and figured it out in about 2 hours of mucking around. I still haven't found pigs, so I didn't test those and I haven't tested the latest release to see what's new.

Maybe a hint? Each animal has one effect, try finding them out. That's an effect on game-play, not visual effects.

If you're not going to contribute spoilers to the spoiler thread than be gone! Lol. No need to "haha I got it and you didn't." Makes us(me) feel bad because I'm over thinking it.

[Gabecraft1234]

More test results . . . (still all done with cows)

cows > 20 block away from the portal facing them are safe from possession.

cows < 20 blocks away will be possessed.

If a possessed cow is killed another host cow must be within the 20 block range for possession to occur.

From these results I doubt that an insulating material exists as it appears to be easy enough to prevent possession and possible but difficult to remove possessed animals and slaughter them a safe distance away from the healthy ones.

[jorgebonafe]

I assume possession when you kill an animal is not a 100% certain to happen?

[Gabecraft1234]

I haven't killed enough possessed animals to know for sure (about five) but every time I have (and a host animal was in range) the soul changed host.

[jorgebonafe]

I guess I was extremely lucky then...