redram

@heptagonrus  That's what Tyron says, but in practice you can get results different from block to block.  It's usually not a lot.  .1 to .2 variance within a 'chunk' (I've been assuming chunks are 16x16 but I don't actually know).  But I've seen much steeper dropoffs as well.  I don't know if such a small variance makes any real difference in actually finding the ores.  I've spent the last several versions experimenting, trying to figure out what works best.  The weirdest part is, it seems like you can actually get a different reading at the surface, compared to exactly below it like 12 blocks.  Which should not occur but I've seen multiple instances of it.    It would be an excellent idea to discuss techniques and experiences and opinions on the mechanic.  Finding ores is the core of the game, so I think this will make or break a lot of peoples' opinions on whether they want to get the game or not, and I think the devs will want to tune the system so it appeals to a lot of people, and not just mining masochists like me.

@Stroam  If you're exploring caves, narrowing in may or may not help, because caves can wander a lot and may leave the zone with your target ores.  Nevertheless, I do usually survey at a cave opening if it looks promising, and will enter or not based on what shows up.

I do feel like right now, all three bronzes have a rare component that makes them tough to complete.  Cass, gold, and bismuth are all pretty rare, hitting 'high' density around 4%, or 1% for gold.  I honestly think that since bismuth bronze takes two components, it would not be unreasonable to make bismuth similar in occurrence to sphalerite.  I will say that I just spent the last couple irl days exploring an insane cave network that has occurences of cass, sphalerite, and bismuth all in the same network.  That can occur.  I think I've seen up to nine minerals in one propick result.  Right now the game basically tests the player's tolerance for exploring and doing a lot of propicking.  It really is about perseverance.  It's interesting because a lot of people want an extended stone age, and we do have an extended copper age, in a way, so missed it by one age!  If copper were as hard to find the player would spend a lot of time in the stone age.  I'm assuming that maybe down the road, there might be more variety of loot in dungeon chests - perhaps the odd piece of bronze constituents - to alleviate the search somewhat.  You can already find sphalerite and cass in ruin urns, iirc.

But another problem with the ore situation is that geography can work heavily against you.  When I was looking for iron in a SP game, I did a ton of searching within about a 1k radius of my base.  I found about 4 iron zones, however, of those zone 1 was under a gigantic mountain range that made it impractical to find the center.  Another was under a large ocean - which isn't the worst thing right now because the player does not drown.  But down the road it'll be a non-starter I think.  And then another zone topped out at around 5% iron near as I could tell, which is not great - even when you do find a zone, it seems like sometimes the max density center is not all that dense.  Now add to these factors a presumed greater danger in caves down the road, and we might be increasing the difficulty yet further.  So ya, I think people very much need to share their thoughts and experiences.

I might also mention that there's been several suggestions for higher tech ore finding methods, up the tech tree.  For instance a core drill that sample only a single block column, but tells you exactly what and where the ores actually occur.   A little later, perhaps a larger version that actually makes 1 block shaft.    I've suggested that compasses have a use mode where they will search the immediate vicinity of the player for magnetic ores, and point in their direction if present (iron cobalt and nickel).   So eventually the player should have access to different methods. 

I just wanted to suggest that if VS is to have water wheels at some point (and why wouldn't it?!) that the groundwork and some rules be laid in the form of rivers.   You could add actual rivers to world gen, rather than just random water source blocks that go wherever.  These rivers would follow a path through multiple chunks.  And water wheels would function better inside a chunk that the world gen has flagged as a river.  Or even if we don't want to be that restrictive, I think rivers would still be a nice thing to have.

Have you read the propick section of the Starter Guide of the wiki?  As is mentioned in that explanation, the propick in VS does not detect actual ores present.   VS generates ore density maps, at a 1 chunk resolution.  It is these maps that the propick reads.  You could clear all the ore out of a chunk and every chunk around it, and the propick would read the same, because the density map does not change.  What you are detecting is effectively the *probability* of finding ore in a given area.   The density maps have a center, and get less dense as you move away (from what i can tell) so it is  possible to find the highest probability by surveying in different directions, and following the direction in which the permille increases.

When exploring I generally propick exposed rock, rather than dig down below the dirt.  In some areas (like swamps) that limits your opportunities.  Currently you can also place raw stone blocks yourself, and then use those, but this is a known exploit and will be phased out (the game will distinguish natural blocks from player-placed).   I generally consider every 100 blocks to be a good general survey.  I think that gives you a good chance of catching most occurrences.  But then once you find the occurrence of what you want, you have to do much closer surveys to find the center of the density.  Once I've got a general fix on the center, I sometimes get as detailed as 5 blocks between survey points.  But that's probably excessive.

3 hours ago, copygirl said:

If the game eventually gets some Smart Moving like abilities - charge jumping, grabbing onto ledges, climbing, dangling from certain ceilings, crawling through 1 block large holes, ... - this could be another thing you could take away from players wearing heavy armor.

Ya, those would also be good disadvantages.  Maybe if there were locked loot chests, and you could pick the lock (but not in heavy armor) and if you simply break the chest you only get like, half the stuff inside.  Ya, I agree there could be all kinds of disadvantages that don't depend on a speed nerf.

Well, depending on how the crafting works exactly, in theory the heavier armors could take dramatically more material and time.  As long as they eventually wear out, it will add up over time, and be a possible deterrent.  Speed reductions are possibly the worst penalty in a game like this.  It doesn't take much to make a thing totally undesirable.  The could implement a rule that you cannot sleep while wearing heavy armor.  That's make it more an inconvenience.  Possibly reduce the number of containers the player can carry, or limit the types.  But inventory is another penalty one has to be very careful about.

bony soil is useless - I think it should be able to be combined with medium soil to produce rich soil (btw did you know there is rich soil?  It's *extremely* rare, usually in swamps or jungles) 

Most crops are just food right now.  No alcohol or cooking system yet.  Flax produces both edible grain, and flax twine, which is used to make string, which is used to make bows and cloth.  Cloth is used to make ore bombs (<--you want these!) and sacks (an incredible costly version of a backpack) as well as maybe a bed type?  

Basically flax is by far the most valuable crop in the game.  You'll want as much of it as you can possible farm, because of ore bombs.  Food crops are honestly not worth the effort because berry bushes are better in every way right now.  But I'm sure this will change down the road.

Ya, if they catch you in a container or writing on a sign it's pretty much curtains.  I was wrong on the rock throwing btw, it's control and right click, not shift.  Another fun fact, you can place rocks back on the ground after you've picked them up.  That one is probably shift-right-click.   Can't do it with ores or flint though, sadly.  You also can't throw ores and and flint as weapons.

We just got clothing like, 2 updates ago.  I'm guessing we'll get armor fairly soon.  Even if it's just leather to start.  Wolves are fairly easy to deal with by pillaring, honestly.  Also some of you new players may not know, you can throw plain old rocks as weapon.  You just hold control and hold right click, iirc.

@Tyron Nice Update!   That anvil mold can be a little tricky with the overhanging portions - I like it.  I noticed that when I place flowers in the planter and flower pot, it does not remove them from my inventory, but does place them in the planter/pot.  So effectively I can infinitely copy flowers in them.

Wow awesome update!  Things are really looking survival-y!  And OMG the pumpkins!!!!!

Oh, and just to be clear, since I see I typoed before, I meant ingot *molds*, not the ingots themselves.  Which would be silly.  It would be an avenue to keeping clay necessary. 

Very nice update!  Love the steam effect when pouring the metal.  Is there or will there be a chance for ingots to break?  Or are they permanent once made?  Cane one make a 'bad batch' of metal?  Or will it only output when you have a valid mixture?

Ok, community story area, that makes sense.

As for my thoughts while reading the passage, it's just the technical side of me, which notices details like tense switches sometimes.  And I wasn't sure of the reason for that particular spot.   The switch to present tense overall is fine.  It puts in my mind, the sense that the storyteller is leaning in toward his audience, perhaps whispering, or perhaps a more hurried pace.  And then in the fine paragraph where it goes back to past tense, he's now backed away again, and is speaking broadly and louder, again to his audience and beyond.

So it's an allegory of the game I take it?  The dream and awaking is the player starting the game? It's a little light on details, but if it's serving to illustrate a general story arc, I supposed it needs to be to some degree?  Stories of our own could be a more personalized version, with details specific to our own gameplay experience?  Or are you looking for stories that explain some aspects in more detail, or just kind of seeing what people come up with? 

I have some technical comments I'll spoiler below. 
 

Just thought I'd upload a couple screenshots of landscape I thought was really cool.  The one is a giant mountain with streams coming down, and a huge ominous cave opening at the bottom!  Unfortunately the cave went nowhere, but it really looks neat from outside.  A dragon could live there!   

And then also some pretty cool 'badland' formations, again with waterfall.  I'm a sucker for waterfalls I guess.

Are you guys pretty set on your anvil implementation (presumably more or less like vintagecraft)?  I had some suggestions for a different way of doing it, but it'd be a bit of an involved suggestion post, so I don't want to go to that trouble if your plan is pretty much set in stone.

On 12/27/2016 at 2:21 PM, Tyron said:

• • Can now craft copper tools from copper ingots (same recipes as for stone tools)

Meaning they're made with crafting grid rather than anvil?  If so, is that just temporary till anvils are implemented?