Embargo Lifted! (Open Early Game Discussion)

[will_holmes]

Yeah, I'm totally on board with them needing to be tended more often, I've learned from my mistakes and I'm fairly consistently surviving while using them, it's just more of a visual feedback thing and the feel of using it when it was unfamiliar. The right strategy (e.g. putting in 7 sawdust or whatever is needed to get just below max blazing) doesn't feel different to the bad strategy (e.g. putting in 2 sawdust), which the game/mod as a whole otherwise does a good job of avoiding.

[FlowerChild]

Yeah, I'm totally on board with them needing to be tended more often, I've learned from my mistakes and I'm fairly consistently surviving while using them, it's just more of a visual feedback thing and the feel of using it when it was unfamiliar. The right strategy (e.g. putting in 7 sawdust or whatever is needed to get just below max blazing) doesn't feel different to the bad strategy (e.g. putting in 2 sawdust), which the game/mod as a whole otherwise does a good job of avoiding.

I'm not really sure why that would be man. Doesn't the idea of "more fuel = longer burn time" seem fairly obvious? Uncertain why someone would confuse 2 fuel items and 7 being somehow equivalent given that, and even if they did, why the smallest amount of experimentation wouldn't prove otherwise to them.

[LannyRipple]

Campfires are a neat puzzle. The starter campfire is worth 6 sawdust. A fire will "hold" 10 sawdust before becoming a big-fire on the 11th. I think there's another subtle mechanic going on which seems to be either a cumulative cooking effect or some sort of quanta of cooking. I find better success (as far as hitting the number of sawdust I think cooking should take) if I front-load the fueling. That is to say if I start with the fire and add a single sawdust and then run until I cook some meat I use a different amount than if I start the fire, add 4 to fuel it to max and then go with as many needed (in batches up to 10) until I cook the meat.

A campfire and 32 sawdust will see you through a gloom night. It's almost always the case that on the first dead moon I'm still building up food reserves. It's very refreshing not to *have* to find coal by then or be consumed by the gloom.

[DaveYanakov]

Am I crazy or are sharpened sticks and stones effectively the same tool with different durability?

[FlowerChild]

Am I crazy or are sharpened sticks and stones effectively the same tool with different durability?

Different harvest rates as well. But yes, they're both part of a "chisel" category of tools, same as with any other category of tools, like picks.

[Dr Ug]

I found that travel beyond HCS range is heavily rewarded. I spend enough time to get a large amount of bricks and a chisel, then travel in one direction by day, killing along the way for food, digging in and cooking with a cosy oven by night, harvest string and restock tools them continue traveling.

A non abandoned village or temple can give a very significant boost (in my SMP server we found two jungle temples, a desert temple and two villages, giving 18 gold ingots, close to 20 iron, 4 diamonds, Redstone, pistons, enchanting table, wheat and two vessels).

This can give compass to get back to spawn, renewable food, diamond to get to the nether, enough iron to find soul sand, and start a semi permanent base.

It almost felt overpowered, but I was probably lucky getting that many structures relatively quickly.

Another thing I noticed is spiderwebs use up chisels very quickly with the 4 levels, enough that I don't use them.

I also found a surface level spider spawner very close to our initial base, invaluable source of webs once walled in, a 1x1 killing hole was very useful pre hemp.

I was expecting to be able to use mouldings as frames to hold up loose cobble (ie building floor joists out of mouldings then placing cobble blocks on top, but they despawn back to items when placed so. I had thought this might make for some interesting architecture, and am disappointed that it doesn't work that way.

[Mesh]

So I finally got round to installing the "New Age" BTW, I've avoided reading about most of the spoilers, I ended up streaming my experience and I must say, it's amazing. The constant sense of achievement at almost every new item I discovered, I don't mind admitting I felt like (and acted like) a giddy schoolchild. Everything is just so intuitive, except the campfire which was an absolute ballache to use, which is a good thing of course, you've captured the rough estimating fuel sources perfectly with that one, which made the brick oven (something I've just mananged to make) all the more amazing to finally get.

The way torches now work, as soon as I discovered they dont last forever I immediately and logically figured that the infinite ones have been moved to nethercoal torches (assuming?), which in itself makes so much sense because of how netherrack burns forever! Also I spent far too long using the Bow Drill/Fire Plough before realising I could use the torch to light the campfires and vice versa, oops. I almost screamed with delight at that one haha.

Anyway I just wanted to say I'm thoroughly enjoying it. I feel like a genuine caveman, discovering fire and how it interacts with everything!

I'd have put this in the release thread but I needed to discuss the specific parts of what I liked so I put it here, so I apologise if this is slightly off-topic. I just needed to gush after building the Brick Oven :)

[Wibbles]

The change to torches was long overdue. It's something else to consider when choosing a place for a base. With no possibility to build a skylight that's high enough to stop mobs falling in, one risks mobs spawning in the darkness whilst out gathering resources.

Light has become a rather precious resource, much more so than it did before, and it's made new moon nights even more deadly. I've been caught with my pants down twice now since A*H*.

The purpose of bringing back netherrack has changed significantly, as before I wanted it to heat the cauldron. Before that, I had to resort to a hacky method of lighting logs underneath a cauldron to get it cooking, whereas this is solved now through the use of campfires. Another little change I really appreciate.

Netherrack in order to make nethercoal solves the lighting problem, even though it's harder to make than it used to be i.e. the recipe will only give 1 nethercoal now as opposed to 2.

Reaching the nether has become not just necessary for progression, but in a way, necessary to long-term survival, if you plan on staying in the same place rather than going nomad.

[dawnraider]

I do have to say that I am really enjoying the oven changes. I was skeptical at first, but in practice I think it works out quite well. The texture to show the fuel level is super clever and intuitive. The only issue I see is that it somewhat devalues the use of birch as the most efficient fuel, since you can't load multiple items to actually make use of that, but I think that it's a good enough tradeoff.

[the_fodder]

Congratulations FC! Better Than wolves now has an early game. No longer are we required to suffer through punching 13 wood or forced get copious amounts of blocks just to stay even until we reach the iron age. We just need to focus on getting to the next day. Sit, relax by the campfire, knit something.

As I tend to be long winded with items I am passionate about, I will try to restrict myself to just bullet points of what the game is telling as a player and pain point or ‘Would be nice’ statements. Since you already know your changes are awesome a lot of early game praises were left on the cutting room floor, but don’t think I am only negative I just don’t think you need me to explain I understand why you did things you did, and this is just already extremely long.

Hopefully some of this will be helpful while smoothing out the transition from the old game and i am not just adding noise.

AAAHHHH!ervations from a caveman
Just cool items that put a smile on my face.

1. Love the new unlock system that Tools give us. We don’t just get a better version of one tool, but access to new items.
2. Stonepicks dropping 1 plus 8, like the loose cobblestone recipe missing that one item is beautiful. Now they are divisible by 64 is just a happy little bonus for us click & draggers.
3. Being able to breakdown bows is a early game lifesaver as String is very scarce making it first tech hurdle we have to overcome.
4. Rain, You son of a bitch, that makes sense. (campfires,clay, torches)

Quality of life & expected functionality...

1. The Brick Oven feels like a tunnel with items showing all the way at the back of it.
2. Allow us to rebuild burnt out campfires as it is annoying to break and replace.
3. The ability to light a Crude torch off a lit one in 2x2 crafting grid.
4. The new Fire Starters need an audio / visual indicator so we know when when we are used correctly and ON a proper block type.
5. Expected breaking stoneblock to drop gravel piles in between rocks like the tree does with sawdust and Sticks.

Pain points

1. Too easy to accidentally remove food from campfire while adding fuel.
2. An audio indicator for Campfire changing to to low flame. I currently don’t have the opportunity to react while multi-tasking instead I am informed ‘I dun fukd up’ when it dies.
3. Importance of reeds in the early game is hindered by their biome rarity.
4. The club is underwhelming, making it a first day only tool. I only build another if I am low on string and can cheese spider AI.
5. The stone shovel has been nerfed into a luxury item, please move it back behind the crafting table and add a caveman digging tool.
6. Killing a spider should guarantee a spiderweb drop unless they have shoot their load.
7. Burning spiderwebs are near impossible to put out / harvest as all four sides can catch fire. This goes double for when you are stuck in one.

Feature adjustments or additions (not suggestions).

1. The campfire makes removing stumps a snap, basically circumventing any gameplay changes hardcore stumps intended. I suggest having fire change them into charred stump. This could open be an alternative path to obtaining coaldust in areas devastated by HC spawns.
2. Butthurt about jungle spawns being deathloops because jungle spiders are apex predators.

[FlowerChild]

As I tend to be long winded

Jesus dude. You're not joking.

You've got to try to keep in mind: that's not effective communication. When you saturate your message with too much noise, it doesn't get heard, defeating the whole point of trying to communicate.

Your first couple of points were interesting. Beyond that, I have no idea what I just read as I was a million miles away.

[the_fodder]

I appreciate that you took the time, not only to read but let me know when it wasn’t effective feedback. I can see how it felt like I asking you to sit through a 2 hour meeting of the past month of changes.

If you are up for giving me another chance at feedback, I attempted to reduce erroneous bits and broke it up into types of feedback instead of just features.

[karnak sam]

Was the stone oven replaced outright by the brick oven, or is it still there to discover?

I've tried obtaining cobble, using stone brick and smooth stone, but nothing's doing as of yet.

[FlowerChild]

Was the stone oven replaced outright by the brick oven, or is it still there to discover?

There are no stone ovens anymore, other than the ones leftover in old worlds.

I'll be adding additional bulk crafting functionality to the various mod blocks in the future to compensate for some of the lost functionality. Particularly bulk smelting ore in the Kiln, but maybe some other stuff as well.

Given the way the mod has evolved over time, the stone furnace was a bit of an oddity in that in many ways it was far more powerful than some of the cooking methods later in the tech tree. Not much point constructing an auto-Kiln for example when you can trivially bulk smelt a stack of ore in a GUI.

[Niyu]

To be fair once, you get a mob farm and a crucible, you don't really need to smelt iron. I still smelted it just to see my auto-kiln working.

[FlowerChild]

To be fair once, you get a mob farm and a crucible, you don't really need to smelt iron. I still smelted it just to see my auto-kiln working.

Yup, that's why I've been taking care of other things before the Kiln smelting issue: it's really not necessary, but would eventually be nice.

[karnak sam]

I can attest to that.

Last time i was building my autokiln, the thought "the only thing that this helps with is making charcoal... do i care enough for that?" crossed my mind.

I still finished it, but losing stone ovens is an interesting prospect.

One of the best things about watching this game develop is seeing how you tackle abundances/nerfings. I still remember thinking you'd have to play with worldgen to cut back on the ammount of iron...

... i can't think of a way youll inject this functionality into pre existing blocks/systems, and look forward to finding out how you do.

[Niyu]

If you plan to make any significant steel production, an auto-kiln is a necessity. A lot of soul urns for a complete steel beacon.

[Sarudak]

Anyone have any hints on how to work the new UI free brick oven? I can put items in but can't seem to insert any fuel nor light the thing.

Scratch that I think I figured it out.

[ion]

Anyone have any hints on how to work the new UI free brick oven? I can put items in but can't seem to insert any fuel nor light the thing.

use the lower part of it to put fuel into then light it up with a torch or fire making item

[PatriotBob]

I stopped by for my bi-annual visit and now there's a pile of updates...
I'm currently stuck in early game and it's kicking my butt. I'm not dying but I'm not progressing either. I always played overly cautious and slow in the early game and it seems like the change to early game torches doesn't allow me to stake out any sort of a safe area. I can't even keep my hole well lit. It's forcing me to cave dive way faster than I ever do as I can't ever seem to find hardly any coal or iron, so I'm constantly on my last torch and out of string.

Will report in if I can make it further.

[FlowerChild]

Hehe... yeah, I find there's a real tendency to plateau if you don't push yourself to advance to the next level. Base survival can take up close to all your time if you don't try to set some aside to make your life a little better.

What I try to do is come up with very specific objectives for the next day each night to make sure I'm always advancing.

[PatriotBob]

I get that.

I find it a little worrying how excited I got when I found a lava source in a cave near the surface and immediately considered relocating so I didn't have to cower next to my oven to avoid the gloom at night. I'm getting by at this point, but knowing I have to get all the way to the nether like this is kind of terrifying.

Edit: I burnt to death in my precious lava

[Mesh]

Edit: I burnt to death in my precious lava

Sorry but reading this made my day in a slightly sadistic way :D

[PatriotBob]

Sorry but reading this made my day in a slightly sadistic way :D

Yeah... I'm pretty sure I've been less upset at falling in lava with diamonds than I was to lose my stone pick and chisel.

I've died a lot since then...

I feel like I need like a montage for all the great times I had with that stone pick.