general Issue with mushrooms

[AdrianNumbers]

The thing is in most (if not all) games where mushrooms are present devs forget or ignore the fact that mycelinium is the actual body of mushroom and that they can be huge in area they take (they are actually the biggest individual organisms to ever live on our planet well it might depend on definicion of "biggest" because im not sure if they are heaviest ,trees like seqouia might beat then here but in area taken there is no competition for mushrooms).

So i would like to propose new way to spawn and propagate mushrooms . Mycelinium would be type of dirt block that can spawn mushroom tops but any tops present would deacrese chance for or prevent spawn of others in area around them. Spread of mycelinium could be based on algorythm similar to conway's game of life with rules like :

1. If block of mycelinium have less than 3 others in spaces adjusted to it it tries to spawn new. Otherwise it becomes "inactive".

2. There is bigger chance to spawn new mycelinium in direction where it points away from others chances could be also influenced by light level , presence of trees , adjusted blocks like types of soil or air , moisture and/or presence of water source , rain frequency.

3. It dies if its exposed directly to sunlight for too long.

4. For mycelinium spawn means change adjusted soil block into another mycelinium block.

Its spread should be slow as to not overwhelm game engine.

As for generation i would imagine it as world generator first marks some vertical chunks as spawns of mycelinium (similar to slime chunks in Minecraft) then as you aproach them lets say 3 chunks away) makes simple 2d generation (flat soil plane) acording to the same or similar rules to normal spread , runs it for 40 or 50 generations (the size of this could be bigger than one chunk like 3x3 for example) and then when you arive at those chunks it checks if mycelinium can spawn on surface blocks (they need to be soil and so on). Tops would be then generated with small chance on each mycelinium block with random stage of growth.

If you find mycelinium you can dig it out as such with shovel (could need holding shift if you want to preserve mycelinium and holding shift would make it take longer to dig that block) but it will turn into normal soil block after few days (it dies) . Also mycelinium could be a semi hidden property of soil , no information on hud and texture change on grass surface of soil but visible on clear soil and in item info after diging it out.

With all of this we get immersive way to generate and farm mushrooms that can give rise to nice organic patterns in forests. 

[Heiress]

I'd love to see mushroom cultivation, that could lead into some proper cave farming for once; Imagine using the rot you collect from your spoiled food to cultivate new food in the form of mushrooms, it'd form a new way to process waste material like that. And mushroom cultivation appears to have been around since the BC's in china so its def not out of the scope of the game.

Though I have to mention some oddities to your suggestion, in game currently all the mushrooms spawn on grass which poses a problem, how is it going to interact with that?

Will the mycelium exist under the grass? Are you expecting a mycelium grass block?

as for digging it up I'm not sure the holding shift method is good, I feel there's a more elegant solution, maybe the player could hold right click to harvest it with the right tool like berry bushes and resin from pine trees which would turn the mycelium back into a dirt block and also give you a chance to get an item that lets you create a new mycelium block.

How big would you expect general mycelium networks to be as well, if a player digs down I doubt they should be swarmed with mycelium despite the fact that in forests it is everywhere so its not that simple of a suggestion to get right but it is one I like.

[Sengorn_Leopard]

Perhaps current mushroom blocks can convert the grass block they're atop into a mycelium species upon update; then new mushrooms can be introduced with a form of the proposed mechanism. 

[AdrianNumbers]

3 minutes ago, Sengorn_Leopard said:

Perhaps current mushroom blocks can convert the grass block they're atop into a mycelium species upon update; then new mushrooms can be introduced with a form of the proposed mechanism. 

That kinda makes the whole idea stand on its head because its the tops that grow from mycelinium not the other way around. 

4 hours ago, Heiress said:

Will the mycelium exist under the grass? Are you expecting a mycelium grass block?

I expect it to look similar to clay but with less visible differences (on top face maybe even none at all) from normal grass/soil blocks.

Size of network would be determined by the rules of spread and generation same for how frequently you encounter it and how dense it gets. Its mostly just fine tuning the numbers .

As for the whole machanic of tops spawning and preventing others from spawning nearby its to simulate irl shrooms gathering better . Once you gather all tops in your forest , you come back next time and find new ones in different places than last time.

The death of mycelinium if exposed to sun directly is to first prevent it from spreading out of forests and present players with a choice : should i leave the tree so mushrooms can still grow here and look for another forest for wood or maybe i dont really want/need those shrooms or maybe cut only some trees.

[AdrianNumbers]

Also one more thing mycelinium should be species locked meaning tops spawned coresponds to species of mycelinium network below them but rule for neightbor checks in spreading logic should ignore species so if two different networks met they wont "invade" each other "territories"

[AdrianNumbers]

I think from devs perspective it might be too much of work to get this sugestion in game (its just shrooms) but if they ever show interest im more than happy to make more detailed version of this sugestion. I also have an idea on plants but still need to think about it some more.

[allstreets]

I thought I saw a rotten log in creative mode in the last update, and given that a whole bunch of new mushrooms that grow on logs are coming to the game soonish (per the devlog), I wonder if mushroom farming via logs is also coming next? It makes sense for some type of mushroom cultivation to be possible.

[Sengorn_Leopard]

5 hours ago, AdrianNumbers said:

That kinda makes the whole idea stand on its head because its the tops that grow from mycelinium not the other way around. 

It's just a way for making older mushrooms in the world make sense if the new mechanism is implemented. Wouldn't make sense for some mushrooms to be growing out of plain grass. The grass-mycelium conversion I promoted is a one time event that happens only as part of updating your world version. I did not propose mushrooms always turn grass into mycelium as a basic game mechanic. I don't see how it turns the idea on its head. 

Edited July 31, 2021 by Sengorn_Leopard
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