Early game foraging

[redram]

So now that I have a better idea of the plans for animal rarity and ease of hunting (and I'm very glad to hear there's some possibility that they won't be simple to catch) I thought I might open a topic on early game foraging.  At the current point (1.2.7) food isn't easy to find, especially if you spend any time at all making tools and gathering ore.  And it'll be tweaked in the future of course, but things could be kept a bit rarer perhaps, if there were one-off options for the player to survive early days.  So I'm going to ramble off some ideas in that regard.

There was the temporary fish trap mentioned in the above quoted thread.  There could also be a small animal snare or trap, again limited use.   Possibly even a simple fish spear using flint, though that would probably be a more complicated mechanic, involving spawning actual fish under controlled conditions.

Another idea might be have the beds of some rivers and lakes have gravel, and the player can dig the gravel and occasionally get crayfish or mussels.  This could only happen for gravel with a water block above.  The chance should probably be small so the player has to do it a lot to get many, and it's more of any emergency survival method.  To prevent the player farming gravel for crayfish, it might be good if any time the player places a block, a no-yield timer is put on it for like, 24 hours, so there's no chance at all of getting anything from that block in the next 24 hours.   If the game had oceans or saltwater I'd suggest clams in sand under that water, but I'm guessing there's not plans for saltwater or oceans?

Then of course there's forage-able plants.  Oak tree leaves might rarely give acorns, Kapoks could drop fruits.  Cattails could have a small chance of yielding roots if dug with a shovel (side-question, is it possible to change drops based on harvest tool used?  So for cattails a knife harvest could drop reeds, shovel could drop roots?).  Various scenic non-farmable flowers and plants might yield food of some type if cut with a knife (destroying the flower in the process).  Here's a page listing wild edibles.  Not mentioned there, nasturtiums are considered edible.  Palm hearts, if there's ever palms.  Here's a page with some desert edibles, which include cactus pears that could be their own cactus, or addons to saguaros.  Cassava and Taro bushes in the tropics (for the roots),  There could be bird nests with eggs, both in trees and on the ground.   There could be bee hives (later tied in to a beekeeping mechanic).  Arid plains termite mounds (which I think should be a thing anyway) could have a delicious queen hidden in one of the blocks.   Of course there's already mushrooms - it might be fun if some were ok to eat, but maybe the ones that are ok change per world seed, so it takes some experimentation!

So ya, just tossing out some ideas for non-farmable food sources for early game foraging, if needed.

 

 

 

 

[Tyron]

You have a lot of interesting ideas for sure!

Mushrooms are already edible. Cactus fruit are awesome, I already though of that a few days ago - and i just discovered saguaro cacti fruit are edible! \o/
I'll add them to my todolist. 

[redram]

7 minutes ago, Tyron said:

Mushrooms are already edible.

Yes but they also hurt!  I had to eat the red one twice to see how much damage it did, because the first time I was already low and it killed me.  It takes half your life!  If there were eventually like, 20 types of mushroom, and only a couple were non-damaging, it'd be fun to see if a player is willing to take the risk.  The wise player might know that you can toss them down near pigs or other animals, and they'll only eat the edible ones   The others could have uses in potions or something maybe. Or as spices if prepared specially.  Oh, and it'd be of course fun if some were edible, but made psychedelic graphics changes!

[Saraty]

Adding saguaro fruit right away!

[redram]

Another thought, there could be 'rotten logs' in the woods, and inside might be grubs.  The rotten log would drop no wood, so it could just be one block type for any and all forests.  The grubs could be early foraging food, but might also serve as bait with an actual fishing pole, increasing fish size and/or speed of getting a bite.  They could be tossed into water (at least a 10x10 area of water) to make fish appear, for spearing! 

Perhaps a player could be allowed to 'farm' grubs by placing up to 3 or 4 normal logs in a row, and then using a handful of grubs to 'infect' them.  This would only work when the temperature is above like, 60 degrees.  The logs then get a timer and must not be moved for several days or a week or something.  Eventually they all turn to rotten logs with grubs.  This would allow continued fishing bait, but be too long of a time scale probably for farming them in early foraging days.  If composting was ever a thing, they could play into that.  And maybe the player could some day be able to hatch them to randomly produce insects, either for useful purposes - though I can't imagine what that would be atm - or for butterflies.  I know, butterfly larvae aren't ever log-dwelling.  But it'd still be something people would enjoy I think.  Especially if they could get specific ones by using the grubs on specific flowers.  Milkweed produces monarchs, etc. 

Another thought, burrows.  Find a group of small hillocks, dig them up, maybe get a prairie dog or rabbit to kill for food.  Or maybe get a snake!  Burrows in the side face of a block (a tile entity on that face?) would instead have a badger or warthog, which is more food but dangerous.  Once in awhile you can get an aardvark, mongoose, or groundhog, in which case they're not dangerous so lucky you.  Though only the groundhog would be easy to catch.

[Tyron]

Yeaaa not so sure about those ideas

Butterflies will be added someday though, as we already had a mod for minecraft for butterflies.

[Thalius]

I like the idea of multiple types of mushrooms, a few edible and many that are poisonous with various effects.  Have fun figuring out which is which...  The poisonous ones could be used in animal traps or to poison your enemies.  the edible ones can be used for food prep or bait.

[Thalius]

I also like the idea of a simple fish trap that could be made with reeds.  It would be a great early food source that would fit nicely with the theme of the game.  Catching a fish should not be guaranteed in a day,  and you should have to set out a lot to stand a chance at staying fed on fish.  A fish trap is a common device still used in rural communities in many different parts of the world.  We see them here in the jungles of Ecuador still being used by the natives that have cell phones and electricity in their homes.  They have been in use as a basic food source forever.  Not very dependable, but useful under the right conditions and better than nothing.  You will not stay well fed on them, but you won't die of starvation either if you put enough of them out... usually.

[Thalius]

For visual's sake- we see fish traps similar to these here, but with the mouth completely open.  Set in the water on the edge of a lake or creek and cover with leaves, except for the opening.  Small fish back in because it feels secure.  When you check it you approach and pick up quickly from the mouth section.  You only catch small fish in them.  You won't feast, but you won't starve if you put enough out.  The concept would be easy and simple to produce in the early part of the game.  All you would need are a sufficient number of reeds and some vines to bind them with.  A very real-world, primitive solution to starving to death!

[Saraty]

12 hours ago, Thalius said:

Brilliant.  Fish trap like this, made from reed, is exactly what I would go for!  

[Tyron]

12 hours ago, Thalius said:

For visual's sake- we see fish traps similar to these here, but with the mouth completely open.  Set in the water on the edge of a lake or creek and cover with leaves, except for the opening.  Small fish back in because it feels secure.  When you check it you approach and pick up quickly from the mouth section.  You only catch small fish in them.  You won't feast, but you won't starve if you put enough out.  The concept would be easy and simple to produce in the early part of the game.  All you would need are a sufficient number of reeds and some vines to bind them with.  A very real-world, primitive solution to starving to death!

Great idea, plus you just solved the issue saraty and me were having of fishing rods becoming useless if we were to introduce fish traps. We can just define that fishing traps only catch small fish and fishing rods catch any size fish \o/

Though the model should probably be a bit more blocky, to fit with the blocky style. By the way, if you ever feel like making concept models - our model creator is pretty easy to use and can be quite helpful in certain situations to quickly get ideas across.
-> https://github.com/anegostudios/vsmodelcreator/releases

[Thalius]

Thanks!  I'll check it out.  I've never seen a reed trap that was made to catch large fish, only larger reed traps to allow for the possibility of catching greater quantities of small fish. I'm sure they are probably out there, but I've not laid eyes on one.  All the large fish traps I've seen are made from better material.

I've never worked with anything like a model creator... I'll see what I can come up with!