Echo Weaver

It's the same shape file used by the fired version, though. There's no "normal" in the texture information of the foodcrate-opened shape.

Oh, I actually have an error message. Silly me. I still don't know how the json needs to change, but that's much more useful. Missing mapping for texture code #normal-blackbronze2 during shape tesselation of block foodcrate:foodcrateraw using shape foodcrate:block/foodcrate-opened, or one of its alternates ETA: Oh. That did tell me what the problem was. But why did the attribute type get prepended onto the identifier for the texture in the shape file?? That didn't happen with the fired version!

OK, so here's one I'm still stuck on. I went back and added a separate block to be the raw clay version of the the block, ala the 1.21 way. I haven't found an example in 1.20 of the raw and fired (burned) versions of a block defined as separate blocktypes in separate json files, but the json certainly looks like it would work.... So, the project is just a new instance of the crate blocktype that has a bonus to food spoilage like a storage vessel. I'm using the shape of two versions of the "metal barrel" clutter, barrel-metal1 (the open version) and barrel-metal2 (the closed version) and texturing them with the 1.20 ceramic texture. I had to copy the shapes into the filenames foodcrate-opened and foodcrate-closed because the Crate class switches between opened and closed versions by doing a string-replace of "opened" to "closed" in the path of the shape. (WTF, c'mon Anego, it was your idea to make all this stuff insanely customizable with json....) The code part of this mod is literally just a subclass of BlockEntityCrate to override the GetBlockInfo method to include the freshness info of the contents in the tootip using the method provided by the Shelf blocktype. By default, the container classes just report the spoilage rate, and you can't view the storage slots of a crate, so the tooltip has to tell you the state of the contents. So this is about the most baby of baby beginner code mods. All my trouble has been with the json for crate blocks. So. All the game mechanics seem to work with these two separate blocktypes, except that the raw blocktype has the REVERSE problem from the one I had earlier. It is textured correctly in the world, but in Inventory/Creative menu, the texture is a great big "?" Here's my json if there's anything to learn from it. { "code": "foodcrateraw", "class": "BlockGenericTypedContainer", "entityclass": null, "behaviors": [ { "name": "GroundStorable", "properties": { "layout": "SingleCenter" } }, { "name": "Unplaceable", "__comment": "The ground storable obsoletes this being a block. Should be an item, but is kept a block for backwards compatibility" }, { "name": "RightClickPickup"} ], "shape": { "base": "block/foodcrate-opened" }, "attributes": { "humanoidTraversalCost": 100, "reinforcable": true, "partialAttachable": true, "inventoryClassName": "crate", "defaultType": "normal", "types": ["normal"], "drop": { "normal": true }, "quantitySlots": { "normal": 20 }, "storageType": { "normal": 189 }, "retrieveOnly": { "normal": false }, "shape": { "normal": "block/foodcrate-opened" } }, "entityBehaviors": [], "creativeinventory": { }, "creativeinventoryStacks": [ { "tabs": [ "general", "decorative" ], "stacks": [ { "type": "block", "code": "foodcrateraw" } ] } ], "heldTpIdleAnimation": "holdunderarm", "shapeInventory": { "base": "block/foodcrate-opened", "rotateY": 0 }, "shapeByType": { "base": "block/foodcrate-opened", "rotateY": 0 }, "_comment": "Must declare textures so they get added to the block texture atlas", "textures":{ "blackbronze2": { "base": "game:block/clay/blueclay" } }, "blockmaterial": "Ceramic", "replaceable": 1000, "resistance": 0.8, "lightAbsorption": 0, "sideAo": { "all": false }, "sidesolid": { "all": false }, "sideopaque": { "all": false }, "combustibleProps": { "meltingPoint": 600, "meltingDuration": 45, "smeltedRatio": 1, "smeltingType": "fire", "smeltedStack": { "type": "block", "code": "foodcrate", "attributes": { "type": "normal", "lidState": "opened" } }, "requiresContainer": false }, "sounds": { "walk": "game:walk/stone", "break": "game:block/ceramicplace", "hit": "game:block/ceramichit", "place": "game:block/ceramicplace" }, "materialDensity": 600, "tpHandTransform": { "translation": { "x": -1.3, "y": -0.5, "z": -0.7 }, "rotation": { "x": 0, "y": 90, "z": -102 }, "scale": 0.44 }, "guiTransform": { "origin": { "x": 0.5, "y": 0.5, "z": 0.5 }, "scale": 1.16 }, "collisionSelectionBox": { "x1": 0.125, "y1": 0, "z1": 0.125, "x2": 0.875, "y2": 1, "z2": 0.875 } }

I can agree with this, both parts. No guarantee that it'll be successful, and they clearly know that.

Obviously you guys hang out here! And I am grateful. I probably spend more time on Discord than is healthy, so it's not that I hate the place. When I've lurked there, the modding channel is actually SO ACTIVE. It's multiple conversations going simultaneously. Well, I kinda wasted your time. I thought maybe there was an obvious thing that caused that behavior. I was able to copy over the vanilla object I started from and make piece-by-piece adjustments until it worked again. I'm still not totally sure what the problem was. I think I might've copied over a ".json" from a file path. After a while, you stare at these things, and they all run together. Now I have a git repository, and the damn thing is checked in properly, so at least I can back out to a state that works. I do want that clayworks recipe, though it now occurs to me that I'm using a model that has a flat block-sized top. That makes the pit kiln a bit weird. I don't have the model creator working, so it'll be what I can copy from vanilla until I go back to mess with that again. (I'm a Mac user, don't laugh.) The model utility requires an Eclipse framework I've never heard of. I'm much more a coder than a modeler.

Hmm. So, when the game crashes, I can get the details I need out of the crash logs. There was nothing unusual on load up. I'm not sure which log to look in for the error. Well, the complexity of managing both types in the same block definition makes me think that making them separate files is a good idea. There are something like dozen different fired ceramic colors, and several different ways to fire your clay with the nuances of the beehive kiln. I haven't actually tried to do anything with a beehive kiln, but I can see all those variants. Gotta say that moving from "burned" to "fired" is a great terminology change, though. Yeah. I've lurked on the Discord. I don't know why I'm more comfortable on forums. I'll make myself go ask there. Not that many experienced modders seem to hang out on this forum.

So, I created a custom block. It even had a very simple C# modded BlockEntity class. Everything worked. It was beautiful. Then I decided I wanted to my block to have a clayworking recipe. I created the recipe just fine, and it worked. Then I tried to add "-raw" and "-burned" variants to the blocktype json, using storagevessel in 1.20 as a template. At this point I blew up the json for my block in some way, and I haven't been able to recover. Does anyone know why a block would appear in the Creative menu and in my inventory hotbar with the correct model and texture, but then not appear when I try to place it in the world? I mean, the block is "placed." I see the mouse over for it with the correct information, but it's invisible -- I guess the shape, texture, or both are not loading. But clearly the game has access to SOMETHING for the shape and texture, since it was able to create the thumbnail for inventory. One thing I learned is that the json blocktype definitions are incredibly powerful, but they're also pretty fragile, and the same information is not necessarily represented the same way across blocktypes. This is really quite a baby mod I'm trying to build. I'm bemused that it has turned out to be such a challenge.

"Purely hypothetical" and "could spin it off," don't read like stated goals to me. They're possibilities that Tyron was excited about when he wrote them. If it were a stated goal, he'd say, "Assuming it takes off, we will spin it..." This seems particularly important because you're hanging a lot of criticism off of a statement that has no commitment in it at all. No, I understand the distinction you're making, or I think I do. There's a lot of room to argue about what counts as an entirely new game and what qualifies as a new mode of this highly customizable game. My guess is that the first iterations of Adventure Mode will be a new texture pack and one or two new bits of gameplay, and new features will be added over time. When it has expanded closer to whatever vision Tyron has for it, that will be the time to evaluate whether it should spin off or stay as a mode. I think the decision point will come in future years. It might end up being a bad way to build hype for a different experience on this game engine. OTOH, Hytale died in part because the team was working in a proverbial cave for a lifetime measured in game development years. If it's a game mode, fewer things have to change before it can be put in front of players. It doesn't NEED to be a completely different game for people to play it, even if it might eventually become so. Also, VS has grown its customer base largely by word-of-mouth, so if some existing VS players like the new mode, they can talk to their friends about it. Who knows?

Do you have a quote from Tyron that said it's definitely the goal to make it its own game? My memory is that he threw it out as a possibility. That's far from a stated goal. It's possible that he did say that it was a goal. I'd have to sift through his statements. But I think the distinction is important. There isn't any flip-flopping because nothing has been committed to yet -- just some brainstorming that Tyron apparently shouldn't have shared with players so early in the process. The only thing I recall Tyron saying is that IF it looks like should be its own game, existing players of VS would get free licenses. I guess I don't understand why a deviation from lore is such a concern. The rust world lore only applies to default survival mode. It's hard to deviate further from lore than existing modes have already done. We already have a Homo Sapiens mode that is totally different lore -- instead of playing as a Seraph in a post-apocalyptic eldrich-horror world, you're playing as a Human in the dawn of tool use. What makes fantasy adventure so much more of a jump? Honestly, this is the part that confuses me most. Why would this be a negative? You start a game in Adventure Mode, which will have a clear text description like the other modes. You see that it's more brightly colored and has magic and quests or whatever. Isn't that awesome? I think it's awesome. If I don't want to play like that, I just go back and make a world in default survival. We didn't lose eldrich horror.

I really need context for this -- cute pizza what? Video what?

I think it's worth keeping in mind that Tyron listed a bunch of possibilities, not concrete plans. At the very beginning, it's probably going to be a game mode in VS like Homo Sapiens or Exploration. Depending on how the project goes, it MIGHT become its own game. It MIGHT stay a game mode of VS. It's also not going to use Hytale IP. It's intended to be a fantasy adventure mode/game that incorporates a lot of the ideas that Hytale was trying to realize. Tyron left Hypixel due to creative difference over Hytale. I'm going to make a wild guess that Adventure Mode will embody his creative vision for what Hytale could have been. With that in mind, if the Hytale project is revived, that doesn't necessarily affect what VS does at all -- the result were already going to be different. The concrete things that were announced were that Anego was looking to hire some of the folks laid off from Hytale -- people Tyron may well have worked with in the past and holds in respect. The project will be fantasy adventure rather than gritty horror. Since at the time of the announcement, Anego hadn't even hired anyone, pretty much everything else is understandably going to evolve.

I didn't realize homo sapiens was harder than default. Honestly, I think in early game, lore content is not the source of most of the big challenges. Wolves and bears are a lot more dangerous than surface drifters. I admittedly can't talk to bowtorns, which are controversial amongst the player base, because my teen made me mod them out in the game we're playing together. She's a hunter and didn't want the ranged competition. I'd personally recommend turning off animal aggression over lore content. The rifts, rust monsters, and temporal storms might add spice to the experience -- make you feel like your survival efforts are working toward something important. But I don't think I'm clear on exactly what the OP dislikes.

Returning to the OP, I appreciate the frustration. One thing to keep in mind is that the early game is very hard the first couple of plays. There's a lot of stuff you just have to learn by doing. Some folks recommend that you play for a while on lighter settings, like keeping inventory on death and passive predators. It's possible to do some introductory play on Exploration mode, which can give you a good sense of the survival mechanics without dealing with the threats of predators, temporal stability, and rift monsters. I didn't go that way because I get very attached to my worlds once I get established. I just died a lot to wolves and nearly starved to death. I loved dealing with shortness of food, but dying to wolves was not a ton of fun. Like half of every noob, I complained on the forum about how over-the-top wolves and bears were. Now that I have a better sense of them, I think they're a good challenge. OTOH, not everyone wants to deal with crop rotation and animal domestication and 3-step leathermaking and the ordeal of finding salt so you can go through the time-intensive process of making cheese -- in addition to being ambushed by bears and shot at by bowtorns. I get why some folks think it feels like drudgery. I love it, but I can't necessarily tell you why -- a lot of it is that the in-depth survival mechanics make the world feel real to me. "Immersion" is my keyword. So I'm not trying to be dismissive. I just think that people should feel ok with not liking it. It's a niche game. I'm just in the niche.

Yeah, I haven't started a lot of new worlds, and my primary one was created in 1.19 on default settings. I've changed a few using system commands since then. So I probably don't have lighting that starts fires. I've started a couple of brush-fires from ignorantly set-up pit kilns. They can be really impressive.

Wow. That is an epic war story. I'll keep your lessons learned in mind. I've never dealt with lightning problems, and it makes me wonder if I unintentionally turned it off.

I'm not sure you are missing something. I nearly starved to death my first winter. I spent a chunk of January running out into the cold to dig cattail roots out of the ice, then dashing back to my base before I froze to death to cook and eat them. I haven't felt that desperate in a game before, and I loved it. Regarding the H-Key, this is a game that grew out of Minecraft, which has a lot less tutorial and relies heavily on looking details up on wikis. That's just how it rolls. I think if the survival details feel like drudgery, the game probably just isn't for you, and that's fine.

I think there's a world setting for chiseling glass, but I tried setting it and still wasn't able to. There are many places I might have made a mistake, though.

Also, where did it say you needed to update story locations in Creative mode?

Yeah, it seems like there ought to be a setting where ONLY holes to the outside negate insulating properties. I mean, technically thin glass lets a lot of cold through, but at some point you just have to say your simulation is good enough.

I had no idea they ate meat at all. Lesson learned.

I'm the wrong person to respond because I haven't done a lot of chiseling, but I'm under the impression that a chiseled block does not count as a solid block unless a certain percentage of the voxels are still in place. This mod makes chiseled blocks always count as solid. It's not officially updated to 1.21, but it probably works: https://mods.vintagestory.at/cbr The example shots look a lot like yours.

I didn't know columns of boiling water were a thing. Lesson learned. Of course, I haven't come in contact with any lava in VS either. It's a lot harder to come by than in that other game.

I didn't think the wild crop locations were part of the seed. Some stuff is added to the surface randomly. I could be wrong. I reused the same seed a bunch of times in 1.19 when I was figuring out how to play the game, and the landscape and flowers were always the same. (It was a plain with few trees in the immediate area.)

+1 on the naming scheme. "Storage Vessel (Dark Brown)" is much better.

Oh, thanks! I didn't realize those were two different settings. I play on a server on-and-off with falling soil and cave-ins. Not a fan. First of all, soil falls like sand, which is weird. Secondly, I strongly suspect that the falling soil was causing my (Mac) client to crash. I could watch my fps drop when dirt was falling, then whammo. So I think it has performance issues, at least for weirdo Macheads like me. The cave-ins were dreadful too, in part because I wasn't really braced for them. Those things are extra challenges that I'll think about when standard survival gets to feeling easy (read: probably never).