Game Development: Camping Shovel

[Kamekono]

I love the mining changes. It gives some time to enjoy the initial part of the game, which otherwise is just a rush to getting a minehole.

TBH I was hoping for it to also be necessary on the surface, to reduce the usefulness of mineholes as raiding tools...

[Hadehariast]

We've been developing, and here's what's new.

[*] You can now inspect "Mine Pyre"s to determine how much time they have left to burn. Their timer is currently 7 RL days. I've seen some discussion on this already, but welcome more of it.

From what I've read about fire-setting as an historical mining practise, I feel like the concept needs to be further adapted-- this feels like a jumbled-up implementation, rather than a sound addition.

First, the question of the pyre itself-- the addition of sand suggests that you're creating an environment for pyrolysis, rather than an open fire. A pyrolytic fire is going to produce temperatures lower than an open fire-- 500 to 600 degrees celcius, rather than an open fire, which could reach 900 degrees celcius, or more. Given that fire-setting functions on the basis of thermal shock, you'd likely want to use a hotter fire, rather than a cooler fire, to increase the effectiveness of the pyre.

Secondly, the subject of thermal shock-- in order for fire-setting to be effective, the rock needs to be quenched with water after being heated. This isn't an invention of modern physics-- this was being done two thousand years ago.

That being said, let's look at your implementation of the idea. First, you've left out the thing that makes the process effective-- the quenching. Secondly, you've seemingly opted for a pyrolytic process-- have you at least had the good grace to give us some charcoal when the pyre burns down? Since the world hasn't been around for seven days, we don't know-- but I'm guessing you haven't. Now, you've created an inconsistency in your game design-- if a tar kiln produces charcoal in three days, then it doesn't make sense for another pyrolytic process to take seven days-- especially when it's less well-made than a tar kiln, and contains less fuel.

So, how do we make your implementation make sense?

1) First, ditch the sand. You want a blazing hot fire to increase the effectiveness of quenching.
2) Second, add a requirement to quench the pyre-- make it require a full barrel of water to complete the action.
3) Third, reduce the timer to correspond with the number of fuel ticks that the required blocks of wood produce. A fifty-block pyre would take 1082 minutes to burn-- little more than 18 hours. That seems like a more reasonable amount of time.
4) Fourth, scale the number of blocks required for a pyre based on the level of the mine-- begin with fifty blocks to move from level one to level two, followed by seventy-five blocks for level two to level three, and so on. This has some degree of real-world logic behind it-- the move from sedimentary to metamorphic to igneous rock should require additional work to get through.

While I realize that any sort of time gating will remain unpopular, a gate like this at least remains consistent with the systems which already exist in the game.

[VDZ]

TBH I was hoping for it to also be necessary on the surface, to reduce the usefulness of mineholes as raiding tools...

Wait, it's not required on the surface? I figured the silver lining would be that it at least fixed the stupid minehole raiding shenanigans (particularly the 'vandalism on any part of the claim = can drop visitor debuff' part).

[Vigilance]

I'd like to formally request a pink dev cape for discovering the existance of Sunstone and unintentionally bringing the, at the time, unknown bug to the dev's attention, consequently resulting in it being deleted and removed from Layer 1.

you dont really deserve a cape for nagging the devs with "hey i found a funny rock whats this???" or however you even discovered it was a bug. seems like a goofy situation.

[Massa]

i deserve a cape though

[Archiplex]

i want my cape back that i lost in w8 from discovering the instant boar spear throwing 5 minutes from the patch

[Kamekono]

TBH I was hoping for it to also be necessary on the surface, to reduce the usefulness of mineholes as raiding tools...

Wait, it's not required on the surface? I figured the silver lining would be that it at least fixed the stupid minehole raiding shenanigans (particularly the 'vandalism on any part of the claim = can drop visitor debuff' part).

Unfortunately not

But I'd urge the Devs to make it so.

[GamingRAM]

I'd like to formally request a pink dev cape for discovering the existance of Sunstone and unintentionally bringing the, at the time, unknown bug to the dev's attention, consequently resulting in it being deleted and removed from Layer 1.

you dont really deserve a cape for nagging the devs with "hey i found a funny rock whats this???" or however you even discovered it was a bug. seems like a goofy situation.

If I had not said anything, there could have been knarrs about before they are intended to be.

[Aceb]

Cool. This patch actually makes me really consider doing another "quest for a hat" trip around the world.

[Audiosmurf]

Hey I noticed you guys didn't add ceramic meat grinder back yes cape blease