Freeform clay and smithing recipes

[williams_482]

It would be nice if smithing, clayforming, and potentially other in-world crafting systems had a "freeform" output option. The player could select this option and place/move voxels however they pleased without a guide, adding and expending material as normal, until the player decides they are done and can pick up a "finished", non-functional item of their desired shape. 

The purpose here is to allow an alternative to chiseling to create small freeform objects out of materials that are either not easily chiselable (clay) or very expensive and inefficient (metal blocks). For example, if I wanted to create a small figurine out of meteoric iron, I could craft a full block out of plates and then chisel that down, or I could place two hot ingots on an anvil and shape from there. Note that while this is possible by picking some other smithing output and ignoring the voxel placement indicators, those indicators are somewhat annoying while shaping the object, and the "finished" object will always appear as an incomplete knife or whatever in the inventory. 

For freeform clay, construction would still be layer by layer, with the player having to "lock" each layer before starting the next one, and then finally locking the final form before firing. Coloration post-firing would be very basic, matching the base color for a brick of the same clay type and firing conditions. 

For both clay and metal, the final product would be very slightly smaller (5-10%) but proportionally identical to the set of voxels which were just formed, mirroring the subtle shrinkage when a normal crafted item is completed and switches to it's standard texture. These finished freeform items would behave differently based on their size: if the item is less than or equal to eight voxels in both length and width, it is treated as a small ground-placeable item (like a bowl or crock), if larger than 8x8 then it is treated like a full block item (like a watering can or a vessel). 

This would be a purely cosmetic addition, with no practical benefit except some minor material savings. Nothing crafted freeform would be able to store fluid or items, hit for any extra damage, or have other characteristics that would have to be carefully balanced. They would simply exist, and (hopefully) look nice. 

[Vexxvididu]

This makes sense as a way to just make decorative blocks.  Obviously, it wouldn't be reasonable to make the game determine a function for them.  I like the idea.

[Neso Hiroshi]

Yes, I was thinking about this recently too

It would be nice to be able to forge not only figures, but also iron patterns for the wall as decorations, or create your own patterns from clay and cast them

[EmperorPingu]

I was recently thinking about a suggestion for being able to use different types of clay that would come out in the final product: eg.: using both red and blue clays to make a storage vase so in such a way if built right you could get a custom pattern out of it that you designed whilst building it. I'd still condone allowing for painting vases all the same mind. Also, it should allow just a flat plate "clay" so you could "draw" tablets using different clays too.

Just had another idea... Smashing pottery and fixing back up with melted gold. No reason, I just think the irl version is pretty.

Edit: Oh yeah, and what about glaze???

Edited January 13 by EmperorPingu

[redpant]

this is genuinely one of the only things the game feels like its "lacking" for me. making clay forms was the thing that drew me in in the first place, and i was a little disappointed to find it wasnt a customizable process. honestly, even just allowing patterns to be inlaid into clay forms that are already in the game (as in using red/blue/fire clay to create patterns during the forming process) is all i really want. it would be a really neat way to add some personal touches to the world, as well as being able to use multiple clay forms in one container being a really useful feature if you happen to run out in the middle of making something. imagining a starter base full of mis-matched pots and vessels that you just cobble together with whatever you have... xDD
this would also mean pit kilns would allow the clay colors to be reflected rather than just when you use a bee kiln. i think the colors definitely should be mute (or even somewhat random?) when fired in a pit compared to the proper thing, but it would be nice to have some early-game options for a little bit of color too. 

[Topminator]

I like the idea, but together with this we also need flipping upside-down forged stuff or manually raising pixels up, so you don't need to make a tower then split it all to get an unsupported pixel with space underneath it (the hoe recipe does this if you need an example)

[Facethief]

14 hours ago, Topminator said:

I like the idea, but together with this we also need flipping upside-down forged stuff or manually raising pixels up, so you don't need to make a tower then split it all to get an unsupported pixel with space underneath it (the hoe recipe does this if you need an example)

The shield recipes are awful about this.