TheAnarchitect wrote:Earlier in the thread, you summed your mod up in the best way I could think of: Little hobbies steve can take up that result in Aesthetic blocks. As long as any addition you add supports that theme, then you are doing it right. That said, perhaps each hobby could be a separate mod? That way you could install, say, BTW botany for the sakura trees and flowers, while BTW insectery adds lightning bugs and bees.
That's an interesting idea, and I'll definitely have to consider releasing this in different packages. In fact, that does seem like the best course of action, except that I may run into areas where its difficult to separate two parts of the add-on (for instance the fireflies being necessary for lanterns, so they would be required for a Japanese themed package)
TheAnarchitect wrote:Another thing to think about is that this is a mod for BTW. That doesn't just mean it uses BTW blocks in recipes, or adds recipes to certain BTW blocks. BTW adds processes to the game. If you want your mod to feel like a BTW add-on, it should add processes. Take the mead-barrel for example. Instead of crafting it around a flask of honey, I think it ought to be a fermenter. That is, you build the barrel, then click on it to get a UI. Put the honey in the inventory, and it slowly ferments into mead. Then you could add other recipes, like using wheat for beer. And perhaps these drinks then have a use as bases for potions.
Adding your own proccess blocks also frees you up from having to code new recipes for Flowerchild's process blocks, which frees you from having to touch his code. Another idea I had while brainstorming about this was a Press. This would be a block that took mechanical power from the top and pressed organic items to extract liquids. What would make it special is that it would always leave behind a leftover item that the stuff was pressed out of. For example, if you put a honeycomb in it, you'd get a flask of honey and wax leavings. I had a slew of recipe ideas for it: If you press a flower you get the appropriate dye and flower seeds, which will grow into the flower. Pressing sawdust would extract tannic acid, an alternative to dung for tanning hides, and leave behind paper (don't worry, this doesn't invalidate dung on the tech tree, because you have to have a saw to get sawdust, and that requires tanned leather). Sometimes what gets left behind or extracted could simply be useless. By adding the press, or the fermenting barrel, or whatever type of processing devices you imagine, you make a real splash on the tech tree, and maybe avoid having to do too much with existing processes.
This directly contradicts the idea of "little hobbies," by making them large processes. I decided I want to stay away from creating my own processing blocks, unless no block in BTW would make sense for that purpose. I do however want some of what I add to be automate-able in some way - it will add to BTW in the sense that you'll need to think of ways to automate these processes, simple as they are on their own. I currently don't have to touch any BTW code anyway to add recipes to it, as it seems certain bits of the API are already in place (it's literally as simple as one line of code in my mod file to add a recipe to the cauldron/crucible/anvil). Don't get me wrong I like these ideas - but it just feels like it would be too much work for very little reward.
TheAnarchitect wrote:I'm sorry, this was a big brain-dump of stuff I was thinking about at work today. I apologize if it's a slew of unwanted ideas.
No I definitely appreciate your input. I think you're very right that I should stick to the theme of little hobbies, and for each new addition I'm going to take that into account. :)
