On Clay and Pottery Durability and Chance of Breaking

[tony Liberatto]

If someone knows me at all, they know I am always in favor of realism. For me, the total immersion will be achieved when the player can see himself as being transported into a cube dimension. A dimension where the world is divided into cubes, and with strange physical laws.

When making clay and pottery to have a chance to break on every use, or a durability number and break after so many uses; I like to consider some big differences between the real world and VS world.

In real life, you have societies living for generation on the shores of a river and never running out of clay.

If we make Pottery as a breakable item that will need to be constantly redone, we will put a pressure on the player to have to go farther and farther just to get clay.

Attention, I am not in principle against the idea. I just think it needs some careful consideration on how to implement it. 

[redram]

In theory, it would contribute to making an economy on an SMP server.  No clay nearby?  Go to the market and buy some from someone who had extra.  In a single player game, with clay distribution as it is, I don't think it would ever become a real issue...

[Stroam]

There's already a high demand for clay and it'd also increase fuel costs which are already not low by any means. Bricks and cobble consume so much clay I've gone through three blue clay deposits. I've gone through 1 fireclay deposit just in bloomeries. I also like pouring molten metal into casts over smithing as it takes less effort to produce an item and currently takes less material. The only reason I'd start smithing over casting is if all but ingot molds broke which would be silly, or if items received smithing bonuses. In TFC one of the chores I hated was making ingot molds in bulk. Both because it was repetitive and the fuel costs. If I could choose one bonus in VS so far it'd be a way to reduce the number of trees I need to cut down.

[Milo Christiansen]

I made 64 ingot molds for epic smelting runs, and it was probably the most boring and tedious thing I have done in a long time.

I discovered a quite fast way to crank out double mold patterns (lots of using the 3x3 brush and duplicate layer), but it still took forever.

Making the first mold or two is kinda fun, making the next 10 isn't too bad, after that you just wish it was over already.

In short, I'm not a big fan of this idea. It isn't terrible, but it isn't all that great either unless there is a way to make pottery faster (say, with a skill), in which case it could help encourage an economy.

[Tyron]

Yea, generally I would liket to avoid highly grindy tasks like that unless there is a mechanic that makes it less grindy (i.e. automation tools)

[copygirl]

I welcome the addition of clay item durability, different tiers of clay (Fire clay has slightly more durability than regular clay?) and alternatives (Ceramics? Metal casts?). Something I liked from TerraFirmaCraft and TerraFirmaPunk is that pretty much all basic resources you will need a good amount of and seek out more with time. Right now, after you get the clay required to make the molds, you don't really need that much anymore, if at all. Unless you build with it. And straw was always needed for making clay too.

I like the idea of being able to hoard a lot of some basic resources because, eventually, they'll be useful. Whether it's for crafting (molds), asthetics (pots) or building (bricks). Say, someone could set up a shop for them on a server.

[redram]

I always look for openings for tiered improvement.  This is one such opportunity.  Machinery for mass-making clay molds could be a thing.  Sand-casting could be a thing.  Shops with clay could be a thing.  Materials that plateau in need are the bane of a functioning economy.

Smithing skill granting bonuses should absolutely be a thing.  It's already been discussed a lot.  Clay molds breaking should also be a thing.   The chance can be made adjustable all the way down to 0, for those who don't like it. 

As far as cobble, I have always kind of found the use of clay in it a weird thing.  For me, I guess I'd prefer to see cobble switched over to quicklime, which is effectively infinite once you find chalk right now, and I'm assuming in the future there will probably be more sources to get it.   Then, I want to see even more uses for clay in the form of clay floor and roof tiles and terracotta decorative elements.   Possibly also a clay 'large vessel' if leather working is going to be barrel-based, and available in the stone age.

[tony Liberatto]

6 hours ago, Milo Christiansen said:

I made 64 ingot molds for epic smelting runs, and it was probably the most boring and tedious thing I have done in a long time.

I discovered a quite fast way to crank out double mold patterns (lots of using the 3x3 brush and duplicate layer), but it still took forever.

Making the first mold or two is kinda fun, making the next 10 isn't too bad, after that you just wish it was over already.

In short, I'm not a big fan of this idea. It isn't terrible, but it isn't all that great either unless there is a way to make pottery faster (say, with a skill), in which case it could help encourage an economy.

That is exactly my point. 

I believe every time we introduce a change like making pottery to have a chance of breaking we should also at the same time introduce a way to make pottery faster. 

I do not mind the initial grind when creating something new or that will allow for automation, but to have to constantly be making the same thing over and over is not fun.

I would be more willing to have clay breaking if we could have some kind of inverted mold that we could just throw the clay over and be done with creating the mold. Also, we would need to have a big Clay Kiln that could burn several pieces at the same time and use less fuel.

I still think that if we are not careful on how easy clay breaks we can end up with a serious shortage on big servers. When players have to travel 3000 blocks to try and find clay.

Gotta remember, Some servers run for a full year. Manny for 6 months.