Soil blocks are weird and out of place.

[Thalius]

Am I the only one that finds it odd that clay, peat, all types of stone, as well as many other blocks always break as clumps that need to be reassembled into blocks using some other medium (if they can be reassembled at all); but soil, sand and gravel (which arguably should be the least likely to hold together when broken), all break as solid, place-able blocks? 

I could wish that soil, sand, and gravel also broke as clumps that would need to be managed in some way to be usable as building blocks if so desired, just as with any other medium. 

Trees breaking as blocks that can be placed and built with immediately is about the only one that makes logical sense, along with stone blocks that have been intentionally quarried out to keep them whole.

No complaints here. Love the game, and I know it is developing. Just had some thoughts on soil that have been nagging me for a while.

~TH~

Edited January 20, 2021 by Thalius

[Bastez]

Interesting. Maybe soil blocks could break into, say, 4 pieces of earth which might have different properties/nutrient values and could be reassembled to make better farmland?

[Thalius]

Something like that is what I'd have in mind.

If you would want to build with dirt blocks, mix with grass to make a building block called cob, which is already in the game.

Adding at world generation the option for soil instability helped some, since you can't build with dirt with that option activated. That helped placing/building with soil feel more natural,  but the mechanics for breaking and placing soil, sand, and gravel stills feels off to me compared to the way other materials work in the game.

[Hal13]

and maybe sand/gravel could break into parts that can be panned without partially using up the block, just by using the pan in your offhand with the sand/gravel items in your main hand?

Edited January 22, 2021 by Hal13

[Hirokazu Fujimoto]

I think it would be interesting If soil, sand, and gravel could be dug up like when you are panning, then you could use a barrel, clay pot, or basket to put it in. The game would need to have the feature like the mod carrying capacity to carry it.

[Hal13]

On 1/22/2021 at 8:39 PM, Hirokazu Fujimoto said:

I think it would be interesting If soil, sand, and gravel could be dug up like when you are panning, then you could use a barrel, clay pot, or basket to put it in. The game would need to have the feature like the mod carrying capacity to carry it.

with how many soil/sand you need for crafting building blocks i think that could be a bit too much realism, i mean you can very much carry several metric tons of stone but only a few (worst case one when you used something similar to carry capacity) items of sand/soil/gravel?

[Thalius]

I'm not sure what the ultimate solution would be, but I'll certainly be paying attention to the conversation as it unfolds.

On a separate note though:

 

On 1/24/2021 at 11:09 AM, Hal13 said:

i mean you can very much carry several metric tons of stone...

Bring on weight attributes and food/health mechanics that affect strength and how much one can carry!

Of course, we would need some varied modes of transportation to move bulk amounts of items before we could do that.

Here's to hoping.

Edited January 26, 2021 by Thalius

[Hal13]

On 1/26/2021 at 2:01 AM, Thalius said:

Bring on weight attributes and food/health mechanics that affect strength and how much one can carry!

tbh that won't do, a single block of granite weights 2.8 tons even an ant is only able to carry about 30-40 times their weight, meaning even if we'd assume seraphs to have superhuman strength (able to carry 40 times their weight) and a body mass of 200 kg, which both would come at other costs, you wouldn't even be able to lift the materials to craft a quern, of course that's assuming the gravity of earth would apply, which is unlikely as the world is per default 2times the surface of earth and with the mantle seeming to be some kind of metal and that shallow under the surface gravity should be way higher,

Not only that but i think, it would quite likely diminish the player base drastically if you'd need to carry more or less each individual block you might want to place anywhere for itself.

[Thalius]

I did not say it had to be THAT realistic.
But I would like to see something added to the game that took load into account, especially if animal drawn carts/wagons or some sort of rail system were introduced into the game. Make it part of the world difficulty settings and give players the option to add that to their game or multiplayer server.

[Hal13]

On 1/29/2021 at 2:42 PM, Thalius said:

But I would like to see something added to the game that took load into account

i thought that's one reason behind the different stack sizes? As the more stackables mod shows it would have been possible to have everything, that's identical, stack in the hundreds
Using different sized stacks in combination with limited inventory slots therefore is already a way to implement load.

But maybe a worldsetting adding options to change them? that way you'd have default stack sizes and via a stacksize setting you could have multiplied them with 1/1024 (rounded up, meaning nothing stacks), 1/4 (rounded up), 1/2 (rounded up), 1, 2, 4 and maybe another setting about normally unstackables, with which you could make them stackable (as long as data is identical) to 1, 8, 16, 32, 64?

Edited January 30, 2021 by Hal13

[Thalius]

Adjusting stack size though does nothing to implement such things as slowing you down and increasing hunger rate if you are over burdened, or allowing for a speed increase to movement if you are carrying nothing.  I was communicating that I'd like to see something more dynamic in load bearing other than just limiting amounts you can carry at a time.

Add "enable player load bearing mechanics" as a difficulty setting to turn this on at world gen, and an in-game world config option to adjust a character's weight bearing stats (strength) as you desire.

Edited January 30, 2021 by Thalius