multipart blocks

[Stroam]

In games long ago you would lay down a building plan, deposit the required materials into the said plan, and then continue to hit the plan with a hammer until constructed. This was a simplified version of the building process allowed one to interrupt the construction of a building and also allowed damage to be done to the building that would reverse the building process and delete a fraction of the building material. I've seen posts on here about people wanting building decay and I think this is just the sort of thing that could make it fun.

Right now you can carry heavy blocks and if attacked instantly build a fortification. Seems silly you can build so quickly. Seems silly you can carry so much. One way of making it more immersive is to simply limit the number of blocks one can carry, but it doesn't take many blocks to nerd pole. A better way is to allow people to carry around block plans. Plans are made by crafting the block on a workbench. Instead of the block, you get a stack of plans. When placed in the world it would look like scaffolding. Scaffolding is treated like clear blocks to mobs and instantly breaks when they touch it. To continue construction look at the scaffolding and it will indicate either a tool or a material. The player then would right click the scaffolding with the indicated object until it changes to the next material or tool. Using material consumes the material and using a tool damages the tool. This will repeat until the block is constructed. As the block is being built parts of the block will begin to appear.

For example, if building a half-timber block at first you'd see some stick scaffolding and it would indicate Aged Oak Timber. By right clicking with an Aged Oak Timber, the scaffolding would go away and be replaced by the timber bits of the block. Next, it'd show a stick. After adding four sticks you'd see wattle between the timbers. Next, it'd show dob. So you add the dob and it might consume four daub and the block is complete. For a brick wall, it might be brick, mortar, trowel, repeated four times, each time adding another layer.

Some of the benefits are getting away from the crafting bench(it gets tiring arranging items in a grid), stops nerd poling, allows one to rapidly layout a plan, allows friends to help construct without buggering it up, you can purposely leave blocks unfinished for aesthetic purposes, can show states of damage/decay that need repaired, makes tearing the blocks down more interesting then cracking until it shrinks, allows tools to be used in building process, blocks are no longer limited by the slots on the workbench grid. The downsides are making building more complex and requiring multiple models per block. 

Please comment and if pictures would help I can whip up a couple of models. Thank you for reading.

[redram]

Where VS has plans for several different modes, I guess this could be a thing in the more hardcore survival mode, while the build and survive mode is done as normal.  However I can say that I would not enjoy this sort of mechanic, even in the hardcore survival mode.  Too grindy.  I think there's better ways to nerf 'nerd poling'.  My opinion.

[Stroam]

It's to add immersion and to break up gameplay, not just nerf nerd poling. I don't know how many times you've arranged objects on a grid but if you look at some Minecraft lets plays, the youtubers sometimes spend most of the episode on the crafting grid. I know I spent a lot of time there specially with the tech mods. It also is a great setup if you want NPCs to help you build in the future. All you need to do is setup the block plans and the NPCs could grab supplies from nearby and help build. For truly massive projects it would be time-consuming no doubt, but a couple helpers would make this type of construction go quickly. For quickly building, there's always creative mode.

[redram]

The building aspect of these games has never really presented an immersion issue for me I guess.  Carrying around tons of dirt and stone in inventory is a big concession to believably, that I guess allows me to hand-wave it in my mind.    personally I'm a lot more interested in immersion in the tech areas of the game.  I like my building relatively simple so I can do big projects without tons of time invested.  I like my processes complicated so that there's some challenge in advancement.

[Stroam]

@redram What you never made a great dining lodge, cozy inn, mountaintop brewery, castle manor, crystal infusing chamber, high tech greenhouse, or dwarven city in a ravine?