Vratislav

I think that the temperature gradient is between 0,1 and 0,2 degree Celsius per block. Once, I have settled in a pass, about 30 blocks above sea level and the castle base I have build to "guard" the pass was further 20 blocks higher. My main rooms in the tower were more than 60 blocks above the sea level. In second winter I had to abandon the play, because It was unbearable. The winter lasted forever in the castle plateau and there was a mist half of the winter even inside heated valid rooms.

Having six rifts surroudning the base in Apocalyptic rift activity is of course something else, but still, one rift can make also a lot of trouble. When the rift generates close enough to the base to be activated by a player inside the base, then it can generate monsters repeatedly. They can finally accumulate in overwhelming numbers. Recently, I got a shiver spawned directly in my smithery during low rift activity, due to rift located less than ten block behind the wall...

I have started a new gameplay recently, and as I am geodetist irl, I decided to challenge myself to play both without map and coordinates. (The rest is pretty much standard gameplay, although with additional gelogy, flora and Terra Pretty.) I am in half of August with good bronze setup. Having explored about half a day every direction, with general map in one A4 sheet and much in the memory, and considering to start story chapters soon. So I am interested in your experience from longer distance traveling without map. What I have found so far: Worldgen setup to make landforms memorable is essential. I made first attempt with TP and without map with moreless recommended settings and the landforms were so widespread that I couln't orient myself properly, even with Farseer mod. I had to decrease landform size to about 1/2 of recommended values and bump up the view distance to maximum bearable by my computer: then the landscape started to work without map (do you remember that heated discussion about landforms size recently? ). Now I have beautiful hilly landscape I am really satisfied by (I will publish the settings after I get to the computer I play on). Write down prospecting results for the future. I made about 20 prospecting holes, wrote down levels of zinc and bismuth into map, and after several days... where the hell was that lead reading? Was it north, south or east from my base? No idea... Prospecting itself was quite easy to do systematically, as I have plenty of experience with this "next hole is 150 blocks in cardinal direction" method and I was able to replicate it without map quite easily. Care about landmarks around. Hill shapes, significant trees, fields of flowers. Never die in place you are not sure how you got there. On the opposite side, caving is not much different. Mark everything. I have added cairn mod that is nice, but when lacking stones, I have limited myself to fastest method: a "gallow" made from six packed dirt blocks (I play with soil gravity). They are ugly, but more prominent. I mark also caves I have explored using two cairns or dirt blocks next to the entrance. Also, I have marked my base that is in the slope by planting four "protective" pine trees that make the direction to the base clear also from behind, where the building itself is not visible. In important locations, I mark direction to the base using big and small cairn. Direction to the Sun is important for the orientation, heavy rain may get you lost, even in already travelled area. I have not tried Moon or stars for orientation yet, as haven't been outside in the night much. But still, I have not explored as much as with the mapy as I cannot just explore aimlessly. Thus my progress is bit slower than in playin with map, but not as much as I afraided. Here are my questions: Are some other mods helpful when playing without map? I have Cairns, Farseer and that's all. What to except from travelling to the game locations? I have no map to the RA yet, but I have read that the location mark is replaced by information about distance to the RA. So it is probably easy to find perpendicular direction (where distance does not change) and then turn 90 degrees to progress. For the return, I assume the distance and azimuth from the base is essential. If I really mess up when returning, the known landscape will be somewhere in the circle of the original distance. And what is your experience with playing without map?

I have started new gameplay recently and I have about ten seeds of flax planted in my field in half of August. Plenty of rye, on the other side. Agriculture trader (as @Professor Dragon suggests) will be helpful for me too, as without windmill, I am really lazy to do anything that requires metal plates, however, still not found one. (I may blame modding, as I changed worldgen and added flora mods and vanilla cattails are also scarce, but crops were not extended or replaced, so I still consider it to be just a bad luck).

However, there is one thing that makes me mad: I have plenty duds from chiseling windows, ornaments, roofs, railings and so on. Even if I make them full blocks that consist of the same materials, they do not stack in the storage. That's painful, as especially multimaterial blocks were pretty expansive, but if duds from one roof take whole trunk, I finally had to throw them away. Yeah, and they do not burn in firepit, despite being specified as "wood." There is probably ticket about it somewhere.

I may only guess as I did not burn my heavily chiseled manor yet . But if you make multimaterial chiseled block, the fire resistance may be still developed from original material that is either stone or wood. It is usually writen there, but probably it also can be distinguisled by using axe or pickaxe to break it. Theoretically, a stone block can be chiseled using wood to look entirely like wood (with some limits in wood or planks orienting I still have not fully grasped) and then, maybe, it will not burn if put into fire by accident. Will anyone try? Also a limit I have found was when trying to chisel stone blocks I have used as a wall: Sometimes there is message that the result will be unstable and chiseling is prohibited. It happened to me with blocks put above windows, both with cave-ins turned on and off, but not in all cases...

April rift weather.

Oh, nice extension. I was using it only for stacking bricks under pottery, so now I have piles of unused bricks on my courtyard, just in case I decided to build the Great China Wall...

And it would finally justify peat sky ladders!

Nice!

The idea of making bread on the spot is just too clever! I have not many traders that buy bread, but it is really worthwhile to establish bakeries next to these two that do. Most probably, I'll store flour, as I have automated quern in my base.

It does work well for lower settings as the requirements on the quality of the effect there are not as high as with high end setting. Also, the short view distance can be annoying even with actual landscapes, especially in multiplayer or in the late game, when your base (or developed area around) is so extensive that it is already not covered by one look. So, anything that helps, is... helpful. Of course, there is lot of space for improvement, as the principle here is much simpler than in the TOBG mod.

This is important. Although potato owners acknowledge the fact they have weak computer, it does not mean they are not affected. If the low view distance will make landscape unenjoyable for them, many may leave the game and if there becomes a word that the game has playable landscape only on strong iron, it would also affect its sales. It may be partially addressed directly in the world generation if many settings of world "hefniness" (world height, landform scale, gravity and so on) were coupled together. There may be several presets for the worldgen "heftiness" similar to these for graphical settings, coupled with recommended view distance.

I'll extend this, because it also says it is correct to keep rivers (at least the main ones) on the ocean level and to "fake" the flow by designating the flow speed, as it is in the mod. Only minor streams should run down from slopes. It will allow bigger local height differences so it decreases requirements to the overall world height, and also makes world generation easier.

There is one more good reason why so scaled down landscape is fitting to the game, and it is because of scaling down the time. If the day-night cycle takes 40 minutes, it is scaled from the reality 36times (not to speak about further scaling by the yearly cycle). So the landscape should be also scaled to reasonably to have realistic feeling time passing time when traveling. It should not take half a day to climb that 1 km high (1000 blocks high) mountain that is "realistically" generated mere 2 km (so 2000 blocks) behind the base! Actually the landscape height differences is about 128 blocks from the sea level to ice spikes (on default), this should be comparable with like 4000 metres in the real landscape (let's say Alps in Europe). So the "climate" of the landscape is scaled down about 30 times, that is quite comparable with the daily cycle speed. Also, the perception of scaling down is not so drastical. For realistically percieved landscape, the absolute elevation is not as important as local differences and the steepness of slopes under the mountain ridges. Bottoms of valleys under mountains are not as low as the ocean. For example Innsbruck, surrounded by 2,5 km high Alp ridges, is located in 600 meters, so local height differences are about 3/4 of the absolute height. The centre of Sklarzska Poreba, located in 650 meters under the 1,5 km high Krkonose, reduces the local height difference even more and no one will talk me out that the Krkonose ridge is impressive (see pic). You get feel of pretty impressive mountains with local height differences under 500 meters, if the slopes are rocky. Aslo, if distance is scaled down more, hills become more impressive despite lower elevation. So, if someone has beefy computer, he can bump both the world height and view distance to 512 and he will get local height differences up to about 300 blocks, that is already scaled about 1:10 to the Alps and on the edge of the perception of mountains in real scale. This is 1 km high mountain ridge, observed from the opposite ridge that is about 500 m above valley. The distance to the ridge about 6-8 km. Do we really need to have such landscapes 1:1?

We are getting close to simulate a water cycle, or at least to pretend its existence. Maybe with an atribute, how high water is actually at the source block, so small water bodies could be drained quickly, if a ditch is opened. Rain could add the water amount in the blocks and sunny hot weather could decrease it. But it might be difficult to maintain an ingame balance, not to speak about computation requirements.

Oscillascape has fresh interview with Tyron that deals also with this topic. I think it addresses these concerns quite well.

I think that it is possible to have good waterwheel mechanics even with almighty bucket, if the game can distinguish between "natural" and "bucket-created" water source blocks and if the bucket-created water source block wouldn't be considered as a valid power source. Then it is possible to to calculate a size of water body both upstream and downstream of the assumed waterwheel up to some distance, and use it as a base for waterwheel power output, without big risk of cheating. The size of downstream water body is as important as the upstream one to prevent unrealistic setups. If we place waterwheel into sea-level magically flowing river like in Rivers mod, the power should be pretty weak. Like to power one quern, you would need minimum 1000 water blocks (10 x 100 area of moving river) both upstream and downstream claimed by one mid-size wheel. It can be played that narrower rivers flow faster, thus providing higher output per water block. But even the fastest flowing "flat" rivers would still provide less power per block than waterwheel with water from above, placed between two water bodies with different height. Still, the power would depend on sizes of water bodies above and under the wheel, but multiplied by the wheel size that is able to fit there. The "bucketing" then would be used only to fill ditches necessary to join the wheel with both water bodies, but not contributing to the power calculation. This would allow enough creativity to build waterwheels in desired spots. connected to the naturally generated bodies of water by elaborate ditches. But maybe there are unsolvable issues with this approach... (Also the wheel size should play the role. It is feasible to have at least three wheel diameters, where 1-block one-resin-cheap wheel would be so weak that a quern would be powered only from upper water (and forget about helve hammer at all). 3-block wheels would be expansive like large gears and feasible for quern on lower water or one helve hammer for upper water. And the magnificent 5-blocks diameter waterwheel would be powerful on upper water but expansive as five large gears. Also, bigger waterwheels should be connected by axis on both sides as close as possible, and bigger clearance from supports should decrease the maximum output, maybe with exception of two wheels side by side. And if we wanted to play even more, then adding climate and weather patterns is the next step. The optimum power may achieved only when there is raining in the collector area, and falls almost to zero if the weather is hot and dry for a while. And of course, no waterwheel moves when temperature falls under zero!)

I do not want to discuss a technology I am not much familiar with. The actual Rivers mod defines areas (called "tectonic plates"), that probably works like continents, where rivers are generated in one run. Then terrain is set up but it cannot fully avoid crossing of rivers and hills, so tunnels are rough solution (at least as I understood it from my very superficial reading of the mod's source code). To provide really believable landscape, there is rule that water always flows down, and the landscape respects this, that is a bit against random generation methods, at least as I know. Of course, there is a lot things like meanders, canyons or rapids, that have reasons why they were created (like faults, or so) and whole concept of erosion. And this is a question how the terrain generation with rivers should aspire to be based on these "realistic" principles, or how clever tricks will be used to imitate them. I am sure that it will not be painful, if large rivers (that in real landscape flows with inclination much smaller than 1%) will be in the sea level, if they will pretend to flow and valleys will be generated with more random elements than in the actual mods. This will allow to simplify rules. In smaller scale, small rivers or streams (probably unusable for sailing) that will be not very long (up to like 100-200 blocks) can be inclined with occasional rapids that will increase the water level. This may cover the most of the landscape. Still, ravines or even river tunnels can be generated, it happens rarely in real world and it will work if it will be made with some noise. Also we are in game, so landscape that is a little wild is fully appropriate. Then, given by terrain generation, a rock strata can be developed from it. It would be nice to have deep layers of sediments in the valleys of wide rivers and the mountaineous regions had harder rocks just under the surface.

Really nice, all the combination with that aged pieces. Btw., where are these floor tiles from? I am planing a bathroom too and they looks very fitting...

I agree with both of you partially. The vanilla mechanics for releivng blocks is not very logical, on the other side, the Quarry mod is a bit OP. Maybe if the big slab just got placed in the quarry as unmovable item and we had to relieve particular stones and rocks to carry them. This way, the relielving rocks would be effective, but we would not allowed to put ten giant slabs into a chest under our bed. Also, 7x7x7 slab size with steel tools is huge. If one size was limited to 3, it would be still not bad.

I second to this advice. On grassy biomes, one can just take a copper that hits his nose when collecting other stuff. But for the rocky biomes, it is good opportunity just go to a nearest hill or other vantage point and take a good look around. (Also, a Zoom Button mod is my great friend for this ). The most unlucky I was with the copper, it took me like 10 days to find enough on the surface. And my mistake, I was wandering only in grass and around lakes, even looking for the copper there did not work. When I moved into rocky biome, I have found several copper deposits almost immediately.

Capturing animals can seem difficult but it is not as much. Also it needs to be done only once per animal kind (if you are lucky). For chicken and hare, basket traps work well, you just put them nearby animals. If lazy, you may dig a 2 deep hole and put the trap inside. Then you carry the trap with animals into prepared pen and feed them from small trough, that's all for taming them. Especially chicken are good starter, because eggs are sustainable source of the protein and feathers are useful for arrows or good to be sold. The only peculiarity is that two cocks cannot stand each other and fight to death. But the generation is determined by chick, so it does not matter which generation survives the fight. For pigs and goats, there is actually new kind of trap in 1.21 version I haven't tried yet. You may catch young animals there and feed them from trough till adult. Before 1.21 it was much more difficult as these animals had to be chased to desired location (or the player had to be chased by angry animal trying to attack him ). I suppose now it is much easier. When animals are in the pen, everything is about regular feeding, just keep troughs full. You may build some sophisticated pens to separate next generation from the old one, but I did never bother. It was easier to kill old generation animals before the new one grew into adults. From third generation, butchering is one-hit action, later the animals are calmer, goats are easier to milk and so on.

I think that trading effectively and successfully requires finding the best possible routine and practically to establish "trade route," depending on which traders occur around one thousand blocks around the base. Well established route means that you know what to make for selling and you may be quite sure that you sell the most od your load (and that you meet also the traders you want to buy from them). Also, well established route may mean that some parts of the route needs to be improved to make the errand fast, like making a path through a forest, or establish beacons for better orientation. My actual trading trip consists of several agriculture traders, some survival goods, clothiers and building material traders, about 8-10 in total. It takes 2 days on Elk and I already know the route so well that I can take the middle part during the night. I almost never take finished products to sell. I take universal ingredients and make required products on the spot. Because I visit only four kinds of traders repeatedly, I can focus on selected bronze tools (I am lazy to smith for trading, so I do casting of hoes, axes, shovels and picaxes for this purpose). I just make several tin-bronze and bismuth bronze variants od them, and I do not build the tools, as the casted parts are stackable. I make the finished tool at the moment the trader is offering to buy it. Then I take as much leather and threads I can, and also some blue and brown cloth. This allows me to make many finished products (bags, clothing, boots, etc.) just on the traders' spots. I was trying to take also black leather, but the amount of finished things is not as big to be effective. The second technique is just to load particular cheap things like linen sacks, beehives and store them (or their ingredients) directly in the traders' chests. Then the deal is done later, when the trader makes his offer. Similarly, I take soybeans when I have the harvest, and do the round among Agriculture traders, storing the soybeans in their chests till the moment the particular trader would be interested in it. I do not bother with bread and other quickly perishable items, as they cannot be stored this way, and if the shopping is unsuccessful, they lose too big part of durability during the trip. Exceptionally, if there is need for quick money, I may make scythes, saws or other smithed tools that are significantly better deal. Also lanterns are good deal to make.

My least utilized mechanic (i know about) is cheese making. I have never get to milking goats, so I did not have an opportunity to make cheese at all during 500+ hours of gameplay. My most favourite mechanic is chiseling.