Shellfish!

[SJK]

Earlier sources of lime would be nice, particularly if you're in the neolithic era and don't yet have a hammer. Leather has been around for ages upon ages, well before we had copper tools, and with the new ocean stuff and the sailboat, I think it's high time we got some dang shellfish in this game. Shellfish have been a major part of the human diet for tens of thousands of years, to the point where shell mounds are a common archaeological feature - hundreds of years of continuous consumption in a single area creating massive piles that we can still find today. And I know you can find shells, but those are non-renewable and pretty, I don't wanna smash em up. To that effect, there's a few ideas I have:

Mussels: growing on rocky outcroppings in salt-water in groups of a few to a few dozen, mussels could act similarly to termites - an early game source of protein that you can eat, with each outcropping giving you 3-4 Mussel meat (30 sat) and one unit of "mussel shells" - four of those can be turned into a single lime. Regrows over time from a damaged state.

Freshwater Clams/Saltwater Oysters: Technically mobile, representing these guys as animals in-game that can move very slowly and can just be...picked up? Open them with a knife to get one meat (60 sat) and a shell, four shells one lime. Both can exist in the game, but just look different for their different biomes like all the types of goat.

Crabs/Lobster: I think primitive survival already has these but a vanilla incarnation that's water-exclusive and won't pinch you constantly would be nice. You could trap with special 'lobster traps' (reed basket and twine, maybe? to represent pulling it up out of the water?), but they can pinch and have to be released on land then killed. One meat (100 sat) and two shells, four shells to a lime, you get the picture I think.

All of these would spoil fast, within a day or two tops, and hopefully the conversion ratio means you can still make neolithic leather, just not in massive industrial quantities like you can with lime - to tan a single huge hide, you'd need about 40 shells from various sources. The fact regular shells become two lime, while all of these have a much steeper ratio is I think balanced by the fact these shellfish also give you food, making them something worth tracking down and repeatedly returning to see if they've respawned.

You could also make quicklime earlier, but quicklime doesn't nearly have as many uses I don't think. I think it'd just be fun to have some more life in the seas anyways, which I'm sure is planned.

Edited April 1, 2025 by SJK

[Thorfinn]

Welcome to the forums, @SJK

Good ideas. Yeah, sea life was supposed to be in the sailboat release, 1.20, but was not ready for prime time. 

[LadyWYT]

Welcome to the forums! I like these ideas too. Seems to be well-balanced and something that would remain useful through all stages of the game, for many different playstyles.

[Thorfinn]

9 hours ago, SJK said:

Earlier sources of lime would be nice, particularly if you're in the neolithic era and don't yet have a hammer.

I was thinking some mechanic like putting a shell on some solid surface and bashing it a few times with a rock, but maybe we already have something even better -- put a shell on the ground and use a rock of any kind to "knap" it into little bits. Or maybe something more "immersive", like actually beating on it with a stick. Oh, or a club. Give a reason to actually make the otherwise mostly useless thing.

[Tom Cantine]

Sure, smash them open with a rock to eat them raw, or pry them open with a knife to get a little more sat, but if you put them in the campfire they'll open up on their own when they're done!

[D3K01]

On 4/1/2025 at 10:55 AM, SJK said:

Mussels: growing on rocky outcroppings in salt-water in groups of a few to a few dozen, mussels could act similarly to termites - an early game source of protein that you can eat, with each outcropping giving you 3-4 Mussel meat (30 sat) and one unit of "mussel shells" - four of those can be turned into a single lime. Regrows over time from a damaged state.

Freshwater Clams/Saltwater Oysters: Technically mobile, representing these guys as animals in-game that can move very slowly and can just be...picked up? Open them with a knife to get one meat (60 sat) and a shell, four shells one lime. Both can exist in the game, but just look different for their different biomes like all the types of goat.

Crabs/Lobster: I think primitive survival already has these but a vanilla incarnation that's water-exclusive and won't pinch you constantly would be nice. You could trap with special 'lobster traps' (reed basket and twine, maybe? to represent pulling it up out of the water?), but they can pinch and have to be released on land then killed. One meat (100 sat) and two shells, four shells to a lime, you get the picture I think.

All of these would spoil fast, within a day or two tops, and hopefully the conversion ratio means you can still make neolithic leather, just not in massive industrial quantities like you can with lime - to tan a single huge hide, you'd need about 40 shells from various sources. The fact regular shells become two lime, while all of these have a much steeper ratio is I think balanced by the fact these shellfish also give you food, making them something worth tracking down and repeatedly returning to see if they've respawned.

if we considered making sea traps like the reed basket, we could even add making sea farms/hydroponics. if we added fertilizer mix to water in a barrel we could set up floating farms in this barrels which could speed up crop growth. it would be resource intensive but if we have a consistent grouping of fish from a sea farm we could keep growing High phosphorous plants like onions without needing Farm land that slowly withers because you didn't realize how much material the plant leeches from the soil with a single planting (i totally didn'ytget annoyed at watching my Terra Pretta with to a single plant... totally)

Also... Barrel o Fishes... why cant we make Barrels o Fishes yet!!!