Wild crop growth?

[Thorfinn]

42 minutes ago, xXx_Ape_xXx said:

I have on several occasions found it in areas I frequently have travelled trough

Preach it, brother!

There was some just the other side of my pit kilns. I only stumbled on it yesterday when I was expanding to 24 pit kilns.

[Krougal]

1 minute ago, Thorfinn said:

Preach it, brother!

There was some just the other side of my pit kilns. I only stumbled on it yesterday when I was expanding to 24 pit kilns.

24 pits? Lordy. You sound like someone who needs the new beehive kiln!

 

[Echo Weaver]

I just picked my seed because it was lovely at spawn point, and I don't think I should have to be more discerning in order to survive. I don't know how far in 1000s of block radius I have searched, but it's been quite a bit. I also don't particularly care for being killed by wolves/bear a day's run from spawn point.

I think it's quite possible that I'm not seeing the color difference between low and medium.

I think the need to search for medium soil in Year 0 is a bad mechanic.

Edited October 30, 2024 by Echo Weaver

[Krougal]

5 minutes ago, Echo Weaver said:

I just picked my seed because it was lovely at spawn point, and I don't think I should have to be more discerning in order to survive. I don't know how far in 1000s of block radius I have searched, but it's been quite a bit. I also don't particularly care for being killed by wolves/bear a day's run from spawn point.

I think it's quite possible that I'm not seeing the color difference between low and medium.

I think the need to search for medium soil in Year 0 is a bad mechanic.

Hahahaha. You would love some of the spawns I have gotten. Killed by wolves/bear a days run from spawn point you say? Try killed at your spawn point. Repeatedly.

That is what happens when you spawn in a pine forest near a trader.

Assuming it isn't you missing something obvious, it sounds like you just had a bad encounter with RNG.

I may have had to look around a bit but I have not had to go far to find medium soil in any of my worlds (except the one where I spawned in large gravel fields).

[Echo Weaver]

9 minutes ago, Krougal said:

Hahahaha. You would love some of the spawns I have gotten. Killed by wolves/bear a days run from spawn point you say? Try killed at your spawn point. Repeatedly.

That is what happens when you spawn in a pine forest near a trader.

Assuming it isn't you missing something obvious, it sounds like you just had a bad encounter with RNG.

I may have had to look around a bit but I have not had to go far to find medium soil in any of my worlds (except the one where I spawned in large gravel fields).

At this point, I think my plan is to use that x-ray mod to find some of the stuff. Then I'll get some objective info on whether the problem is me or the seed. If it's me, I'll see the stuff in game for comparison. If it's the seed, then it's just bad luck, and I will feel zero guilt about digging up whatever the x-ray finds.

[Thorfinn]

37 minutes ago, Krougal said:

24 pits? Lordy. You sound like someone who needs the new beehive kiln!

Problem with the beehive is refractory bricks are too late in the game to be of much use to me. Once I process that big slug of a disc or two of iron ore, I usually don't need to do it again. I can build a couple dozen bloomeries if I've been firing bricks regularly, but the beehive is gated behind iron, so by that time, pointless.

Also, you never have to worry about replacing damaged bricks in a pit kiln.Hard for me to get too excited about the new tech.

[Thorfinn]

1 hour ago, Echo Weaver said:

I think it's quite possible that I'm not seeing the color difference between low and medium.

Since you mention wolves, the sides of forest floor soil are the same color as MFS, but forest floor only drops LFS. There can be MFS in forest, near water, but it's not very common. Better off looking for sloughs or fens or moors or swamps or whatever you call them in your neck of the woods. There still exist large prairies of MFS, but most of what's out there is LFS.

Edited October 30, 2024 by Thorfinn

[Krougal]

5 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

Problem with the beehive is refractory bricks are too late in the game to be of much use to me. Once I process that big slug of a disc or two of iron ore, I usually don't need to do it again. I can build a couple dozen bloomeries if I've been firing bricks regularly, but the beehive is gated behind iron, so by that time, pointless.

Also, you never have to worry about replacing damaged bricks in a pit kiln.Hard for me to get too excited about the new tech.

I feel the same, which is why I haven't built it yet either. I have T3 which almost never break, but I just can't be bothered at this point, and honestly the late game charcoal is such a drag I get the itch to restart again. Making coke isn't any less of a chore either and so the last thing I want is another furnace to feed. Just going to take my steel plate and head into the caves until I get bored.

[Thorfinn]

15 minutes ago, Krougal said:

late game charcoal is such a drag I get the itch to restart again.

Me, too. Charcoal isn't that bad by itself. Iron tools make short work of trees. If you have several stacks of flint axe heads, you can use those to make firewood.

But it's not great for trees you planted. The wood/leaf ratio is way too low. Which is why I like to look for old growth and take out those monster maple or oak or pine trees and build pits on the spot every time inventory fills up with logs, because you can carry so much more charcoal than wood. Better yet, redwoods are not that far away, and might have the best ratio of all. Spend a day or two making charcoal with bronze or iron and you will never have to do it again.

Coal is faster if you can find black coal to get the bombs going.

Edited October 30, 2024 by Thorfinn

[Krougal]

1 minute ago, Thorfinn said:

Me, too. Charcoal isn't that bad by itself. Iron tools make short work of trees. If you have several stacks of flint axe heads, you can use those to make firewood.

But it's not great for trees you planted. The wood/leaf ratio is way too low. Which is why I like to look for old growth and take out those monster maple or oak or pine trees and build pits on the spot every time inventory fills up with logs, because you can carry so much more charcoal than wood. Better yet, redwoods are not that far away, and might have the best ratio of all.

I can't be bothered to make flint tools after a certain point. Iron and steel durability too high to care.

The whole thing is too labor intensive. Cut trees. Make firewood. Make charcoal. Harvest charcoal. Rinse. Repeat. Ad nauseum.

I don't know what kind of automation/mass production scheme would work for this game, but there needs to be one end-game.

Play MP and enslave everyone to work in your coal mines? That could be fun for one, not so much for everyone else.

[Thorfinn]

The problem with not knapping axes for the firewood step is you go through your axe nearly twice as fast as you otherwise would. In the time it takes to mine iron, make bricks for the bloom, bloom it, process the bloom into an ingot, and forge it into an axe head, you could have knapped 100x that amount of durability. I'm just talking about the time you spent doing each of those operations, not the run-time.

Try it sometime. I think you will be amazed at how much more efficient that is.

Quote

I don't know what kind of automation/mass production scheme would work for this game, but there needs to be one end-game.

There is one. Ore blasting bombs. Charcoal is only for times you don't find the resources for bombs, or when you are waiting for something or other to finish up, and looking for something to do.

Edited October 30, 2024 by Thorfinn

[Echo Weaver]

33 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

Since you mention wolves, the sides of forest floor soil are the same color as MFS, but forest floor only drops LFS. There can be MFS in forest, near water, but it's not very common. Better off looking for sloughs or fens or moors or swamps or whatever you call them in your neck of the woods. There still exist large prairies of MFS, but most of what's out there is LFS.

This is also very useful. I may have been skipping the dirt blocks I want because they looked like forest floor.

It's really quite likely that I'm the problem. OTOH, I haven't really found a swamp. I've found a decent amount of land bordering water with high rainfall.

[Krougal]

23 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

The problem with not knapping axes for the firewood step is you go through your axe nearly twice as fast as you otherwise would. In the time it takes to mine iron, make bricks for the bloom, bloom it, process the bloom into an ingot, and forge it into an axe head, you could have knapped 100x that amount of durability. I'm just talking about the time you spent doing each of those operations, not the run-time.

Try it sometime. I think you will be amazed at how much more efficient that is.

There is one. Ore blasting bombs. Charcoal is only for times you don't find the resources for bombs, or when you are waiting for something or other to finish up, and looking for something to do.

Maybe iron, definitely not worth it with steel or even meteoric.

I have not played with the bombs yet, that's a good idea. Explosives make everything fun.

19 minutes ago, Echo Weaver said:

This is also very useful. I may have been skipping the dirt blocks I want because they looked like forest floor.

It's really quite likely that I'm the problem. OTOH, I haven't really found a swamp. I've found a decent amount of land bordering water with high rainfall.

Could try genning a new save and flying around in creative to cover more ground faster but not ruin your actual game save.

[Echo Weaver]

19 minutes ago, Krougal said:

Maybe iron, definitely not worth it with steel or even meteoric.

I have not played with the bombs yet, that's a good idea. Explosives make everything fun.

Could try genning a new save and flying around in creative to cover more ground faster but not ruin your actual game save.

Is soil quality part of the seed? Wild crops look like they're spawning later.

[Krougal]

10 minutes ago, Echo Weaver said:

Is soil quality part of the seed? Wild crops look like they're spawning later.

Indirectly. I don't know for sure, I would imagine it is tied to the temperature and rainfall, or maybe just the rainfall.

It could be completely random. Altitude might play into it too. It does seem that if you look in the places you would expect good fertility IRL you will find it here.

Like Thor said, swamps and bogs. If you are in the middle of a vast desert then you might legitimately not find any good soil.

[Thorfinn]

I think it is hard to justify using steel tools unless you have a massive black coal mine. It takes more than 10 charcoal to turn iron into steel. And for that you get an axe that is marginally faster with the same durability as two iron axes.

Since I always end the game with scads of blooms and ore, not wasting time on steel makes sense for me. YMMV.

[Krougal]

16 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

I think it is hard to justify using steel tools unless you have a massive black coal mine. It takes more than 10 charcoal to turn iron into steel. And for that you get an axe that is marginally faster with the same durability as two iron axes.

Since I always end the game with scads of blooms and ore, not wasting time on steel makes sense for me. YMMV.

I consider the time spent on an individual task being more important; I would rather spend less time chopping that tree or mining that block. Now I suppose if I wasn't making steel I wouldn't need to do either of those tasks. End game you could stop gathering any resources if you really wanted to. Just live off raw food that you are probably growing a large excess of. Maybe make a new sword or some arrows once in a while. Some repair material for your armor.

Speaking of armor, the vast superiority of steel plate alone seems to make it worth the effort to me. Or do all y'all just wear tailored gambiossed and call it good?

[Thorfinn]

Might as well keep cooking. Means you get by on a lot fewer farm plots. 

Regular old gambeson, when I bother. Mostly I count on speed and good looks.

At the moment,  there's nothing really worth fighting, so not much point in making new weapons. Mayhaps if drops changed. I'm not sure what would be a bigger draw to me than starting a new world. 

[Edit]

Part of my victory conditions are steel plate and a full set of tools. I just never use 'em. To my way of thinking,  too little bang for the buck. 

Edited October 30, 2024 by Thorfinn

[idiomcritter]

35 minutes ago, Krougal said:

Speaking of armor, the vast superiority of steel plate alone seems to make it worth the effort to me. Or do all y'all just wear tailored gambiossed and call it good?

 

22 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

Regular old gambeson, when I bother. Mostly I count on speed and good looks.

Lately, I've been switching it up between gambeson, and steel plate while cave diving.  Steel plate is luxury when brute force spamming hits on sawblades and bells.  All for a further chance on further gaining some jonas bits (terminus everywhere!)

gambeson for keeping movement quick, great during temp storms that allows throwing spears with some acuracy

(thread drift, whats that) 

[Maelstrom]

23 hours ago, Krougal said:

lacking in one thing or another

 

VS be like...

 

[Maelstrom]

21 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

but the beehive is gated behind iron, so by that time, pointless.

You sure refractory bricks require iron?  Going with tier 2 bricks we need: fire clay, quartz, bauxite and olivine.  ALL of which can be mined with bronze tools.

[Maelstrom]

19 hours ago, Krougal said:

Speaking of armor, the vast superiority of steel plate alone seems to make it worth the effort to me. Or do all y'all just wear tailored gambiossed and call it good?

Steel chain.  provides same tier 4 protection, less resources to manufacture and lower penalties.  The only time I use steel plate is when I'm heading someplace REALLY nasty, like a cave bottom below y=30 and nightmare drifters spawning almost as fast as I can kill them (blackguard with steel falx).  Taking 3-4 hits from a swarm of nightmares has led to death using steel chain.  Even using steel plate I had to retreat to heal a couple times before I could secure the area against such a high spawn rate.

[Krougal]

20 minutes ago, Maelstrom said:

You sure refractory bricks require iron?  Going with tier 2 bricks we need: fire clay, quartz, bauxite and olivine.  ALL of which can be mined with bronze tools.

Well, you need to make iron doors for it, so yeah, it's still gated behind iron.

 

[Thorfinn]

22 minutes ago, Maelstrom said:

You sure refractory bricks require iron?  Going with tier 2 bricks we need: fire clay, quartz, bauxite and olivine.  ALL of which can be mined with bronze tools.

The beehive has an iron door and 3 iron hatches, or something like that.

I only expanded my pit kiln area because I had become distracted in 1.20 and wasn't keeping the pit kilns I had running.

[EDIT]

So that's what happens when two reply at the same time. I thought maybe the browser locked up, or I lost my internet or something.

Edited October 31, 2024 by Thorfinn

[Maelstrom]

18 minutes ago, Krougal said:

Well, you need to make iron doors for it, so yeah, it's still gated behind iron.