[General] Why Not? or What is the point of...?

[Asatar]

I just want to create general for mechanics and gameplay loops that make you think why? or what is the point? I feel like it could be minor complaints, nonsensical, and inconsistent parts of the game.

What is the point?

Grafting

Firstly what is the point of grafting fruit trees? Really the only thing I can think of is directing the tree to grow how you want it but beyond that, there is no direct benefit to having a tree with multiple fruits and having a 20% increase of survival. Historically speaking, grafting was done to maintain quality of specific strains/species/varieties of apples. Perhaps different branches on apple trees have different fruiting traits?

 

Brown Sedge and Thule

Brown Sedge just gives dry grass. It is just tall grass. It would be nice if Brown Sedge gave additional dry grass, but doesn't even do that! And Thule/Thatch, at equal volume, is the same hay for building roofing. The only use case would for individual thatch roofing pieces. It would be cool if Thule gave additional thatch or thatch in recipe was more efficient. Other than that, Brown Sedge and Thule are just early game emergency food and serve no real long-term purpose

 

Bronze

The components for any kind of bronze are so logistically unfeasible in the long-term, most people that I've talked to usually collect enough for 9 bars (an anvil and pickaxe and maybe an additional amount for a helve-hammer head) and skip to iron. Although, I must admit this does track historically. But massing tin/zinc/bismuth/silver/gold for mass bronze bars or armor is incredibly difficult and you might as well skip to iron once you can

 

Why Not?

Quarter Logs

Honestly I love them and they easily make any build better when chiseled. But why can't I turn quarter logs into firewood? It is practically firewood at that point. Why not include a recipe to breakdown quarter logs into firewood. I already took an axe to it

 

Debarked Logs into Firewood or Planks?

Why not? 

 

Roof Tiles and their Blocks

My major gripe are with the half-roof blocks. I can't combine them to get the original block back or break them down to their tile components. Usually these blocks end up clogging up whatever storage before they are inevitably thrown away. Also the roofing blocks dont make sense, the bottom-half block is only on the bottom half and can't cover the upper half of a block. And the vertical-half clay-tile blocks just look plain ugly. The Roof Ridge block left and right halves dont make any sense and I've never seen anyone ever use it. Also, why not have a method of choosing the "base" of the roof block so it can blend in with builds? Finally, why not include the roofing mod as a base component or a system similar to these mods? Also, tbh the roofing mod is 100% better than vanilla/native roofing so why not integrate or take inspiration from it?

 

Separating Multimaterial Chisel Blocks

Sometimes I want to reclaim multimaterial chisel blocks for use in other chisel projects. However I can't in vanilla. Why is that?

 

The Hand Planer and Pantograph as Vanilla Tools?

Removing a plane and copy/pasting is such a QoL that seems like a no brainer why not include vanilla?

 

Bear Cubs

Why not include them? I wish to take my vengeance out on their children and raise bears for an unethical fat/pelt farm
 

 

Edited Friday at 11:09 PM by Asatar

[Asatar]

What is the point?

Wooden Club

the spear does a better job and you never will NOT have only 1 hard stone/flint/obsidian. Really only good for unga bunga roleplay

[Teh Pizza Lady]

1 hour ago, Asatar said:

What is the point?

Wooden Club

the spear does a better job and you never will NOT have only 1 hard stone/flint/obsidian. Really only good for unga bunga roleplay

the wooden club has 150 durability and can be crafted with a knife and a log. It's a good starter weapon for early game when you're low on stone, flint, or obsidian or need it for other things.

[LadyWYT]

2 hours ago, Asatar said:

Firstly what is the point of grafting fruit trees?

Bragging rights, in addition to aesthetics. Grafted fruit trees bearing multiple varieties of fruit look cool, but are difficult to actually create.

 

2 hours ago, Asatar said:

Brown Sedge and Thule

Tule may potentially be the only resource for thatch roofing one day, but we'll see. Sedge provides a source of dry grass in the winter, if you need it, since it never gets buried by snow. Aside from that, both create more visual interest in the world by providing more variety of plant life, which is always nice.

 

2 hours ago, Asatar said:

Bronze

The components for any kind of bronze are so logistically unfeasible in the long-term, most people that I've talked to usually collect enough for 9 bars (an anvil and pickaxe and maybe an additional amount for a helve-hammer head) and skip to iron. Although, I must admit this does track historically. But massing tin/zinc/bismuth/silver/gold for mass bronze bars or armor is incredibly difficult and you might as well skip to iron once you can

How difficult it is really just depends on the hand you're dealt when it comes to map generation. Bronze is rather easy to acquire en masse, since the ores required to create it are generally rather easy to find. Regarding the long-term though, no, you don't want to be relying on bronze, because it's a mid-game material. In the late game, you want to be refining and using better stuff, like iron and steel, but that doesn't mean that bronze doesn't still have its niche. It's still good for lanterns, nails, and other tools that you might want to be cheap and easy to make(ie, casting instead of forging, and no long refining process).

 

2 hours ago, Asatar said:

But why can't I turn quarter logs into firewood?

Oversight, I assume. They are still burnable though.

 

2 hours ago, Asatar said:

Debarked Logs into Firewood or Planks?

Because sawing a debarked log produces beams, not planks. Otherwise, I would assume it's oversight again.

Regarding the last four things listed, keep in mind that new items, systems, and creatures are going to require more time and effort to create, in addition to the testing required to make sure it's relatively balanced before a stable release. The devs do update older content as they have time, but it's not unusual for older content to get left on the back burner while the devs add other things that have been planned but aren't yet in the game at all(like herbalism).

[Asatar]

1 minute ago, LadyWYT said:

Sedge provides a source of dry grass in the winter

Farrowed farms regrow grass during winter (which is how I get dry grass during the winter). And if I am not mistaken, sedge doesn't regrow during winter and are too rare to do anything large scale.

 

4 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

Oversight, I assume. They are still burnable though.

Yeah it is burnable, but it isn't as good as firewood which is 96s (firewood) vs 60s (quarter logs). Just seems strange and inconsistent.

 

6 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

Because sawing a debarked log produces beams, not planks. Otherwise, I would assume it's oversight again.

Yeah, I know debarked logs are for beans, I dunno, it seems strange how debarking a log means no more planks. I also want to say, debarked logs also have a greater burn duration than regular logs. Very strange and very inconsistent

[MobiusvanMars]

Why? 

Indoor weather (room/greenhouse/cellar), the two indoor effects I find annoying are indoor fog and water swaying when there's high wind outside. 

Why not?

Not just the quartered logs!

Make firewood by hitting a log with an axe from the top side. Hitting a log or tree from the side (or the bottom) will be as normal and drop the log blocks. 

Time: equal to collecting the block, so it scales with tool tier. So with high tier axes it becomes a reasonably fast plop block-chop block-plop-chop-etc. And if you're out chopping mini-trees for firewood just hit them from the top side and skip the whole log block collection phase. 

Same for the saw: hitting a log with a saw from the top gives you boards, hitting a log with a saw from the side or bottom drops the block. 

<I reconsider recovering boards from planks in this way, as it would get increasingly complicated with stairs, slabs, ... keep this a crafting action for now and in the future maybe it can be done on a woodworking table>

There you go: some grid crafting options made more immersive without complicated woodworking required. And no more insta mass producing firewood or planks! 

AND THE IRON AGE BRINGS AUTOMATION TO THIS*:

One of the historic uses for windmills and watermills was as a sawmill. Then you can just feed a stack of blocks in (or more with chest and elbow) and have the machine chop of saw them at a decent rate. 

* the saw and "helve axe" must be made from iron (or better), then it's more reasonable to waive durability as with the helve hammer

Edited Sunday at 12:03 PM by MobiusvanMars
reconsider saw + planks

[Mac Mcleod]

I don't really have a problem getting to one of the Bronzes quickly.   I wonder what is different about our play styles?   Do you pan?  Do you travel in a 1000 block area around spawn so you can maybe find a trader for tin?

I dislike indoor fog a lot.  Especially when I have a chandelier and several lanterns and I can barely see across my 20 meter (60 foot) house.  They need to work on that.

I also dislike the no-fog artificial dark from midnight until 3am when there is no moon that makes a large lantern only illuminate about 7 blocks from me and I can't even see lanterns on the ground 20 meters away.