Suggestion: Stackable Objects

[Yolan]

How about making some smaller objects stackable up to ten? For example, apples, leeches, seeds, etc. The little number that is shown for crafting recipes could be similarly used to display how many of these things you have in that square.

[sami1337]

I have to agree. But you either have to limit stack size to something reasonable or add a weight system.

[loftar]

That is, for various reasons, not very likely to happen.

Game mechanics and similar issues (of which there are a few, to be sure) aside, the problem lies mainly with defining what would constitute item identity. To begin with, items in Haven have no primary type*, and therefore no obvious identity for grouping. However, even assuming that there were, it would still be non-obvious how to properly define type identity -- for instance; can bloated leeches stack with non-bloated leeches; can wheat seeds stack with flax seeds; and, assuming that we add food decay, can apples stack with rotten apples?

Even if it were possible to define such things in any useful manner, what, then, happens when objects spontaneously change identity characteristics? For instance, if one apple in a stack of five rots, should that apple be ejected from the stack; or should there be an item "on top" of the stack, so that the stack appears rotten only when the rotten apple is on top; or should it be completely hidden?

Therefore, I don't think that it's possible to define any useful characteristics for generic item stacks. It could be argued that Really Simple(TM) items, like pieces of linen cloth or straw, could stack, but that may not be too obvious either. Particularly so if we decide to change them later on; for instance, to add coloring capabilities to linen cloth or maybe rotting straw or something else (and what, then, would happen to existing stacks?). Instead, we plan on adding certain special-purpose inventory items, such as seed-bags (or quivers, which already exist, if in an imperfect implementation).

* If you've ever programmed in Common Lisp, you can probably relate to that; CL objects can be queried with various well-defined type predicates to check whether they conform to that type, but they can belong to several distinct such types, and the TYPE-OF function is quite unreliable and mostly informative. So, also, do items in Haven work; they can be queried if they belong to one class of items or another, but there is no reliable way to query them for "which" (singular) type they are. The analogy is not perfect, though; Common Lisp objects usually have a primary type returned by TYPE-OF, and the unreliability of TYPE-OF mostly depends on the fact that the primary type is implementation-dependent, while in Haven, there really is no primary type.

[kimya]

true. but some illogical things would be corrected. like one axe using as much space as seeds. same with yarn, butter, aso.
but the special items like the seeds-bags will do.

/edit
an idea i just had. what if stacked items would behave like an extra inventory? like, you put two seeds (no matter what kind of seeds) on top of each other, they are stacked (with a small symbol for stacked). when you right click them, a new window opens with the stacked objects. you can then treat them as if they were in a backpack. eat them, throw them away, aso. that way you could just stack all kinds of seeds, rotten, eaten and fresh apples aso.

hmm just an idea. though im not sure if i even like it, hehe

[sami1337]

stone axe if fine if you'd ask me. It's a small axe to start with.

[kimya]

stone axe if fine if you'd ask me. It's a small axe to start with.

nah its too small. you could plant half an acre with that amount of seeds

[theTrav]

yeah, you can cut down fully grown Fir trees with a stone axe, I doubt it's a simple tomahawk, perhaps it should be made as large as a board and two handed?

As for the stackable objects... I believe a certain amount of it is intended to convey 'bulk'. You can't really have a stack of 10 apples only taking up one inventory slot, 10 apples takes up quite a bit of space.

The seeds probably represent a few hand fulls of seed, which while not taking up as much space, probably need to be held in some sort of container that would take up a bit of space. It's probably not 100% realistic, but I think it's close enough.


I guess I'm not opposed to the idea of stackables, I just don't see a lot of need for it at this point in the game, it would just be allowing players to carry more stuff.


also:

If you've ever programmed in Common Lisp

The server is coded in lisp? Wow, may the curved-braces be with you!

[loftar]

The server is coded in lisp? Wow, may the curved-braces be with you!

No, it isn't (though I have been thinking of rewriting it in Lisp from one time to another) -- I just used it as a comparative example. The server is written in C.