New Release! (BTW V4.85)

[FlowerChild]

This is probably my favorite update as of late (I love the rebalance, but redstone is still where it's at, you know?)

True that, and you know how much time I've devoted to redstone and technical builds in the past, so it's clearly a love of mine, but it's also obviously not early game. I think we can take this as a sign that I am happy with how the early game is turning out now (still a few tweaks here and there, but I think the overall flavor is right), and am starting to look at the rest of the game again to get that final coat of paint on it.

[FlowerChild]

Thanks for another great update FC!
I was only just discovering the awesomeness of synthesising redstone, and ofcourse it gets ripped out the same week. :P

Hehe...yeah, I don't feel great about that one, but synthesizing redstone just really didn't fit the mod anymore. I think at some point in the past I threw up my hands and gave up on trying to preserve mining given everything Mojang had been doing with ores dropping off mobs and such, but obviously as of late I've been putting a lot of work into trying to make it an interesting and rewarding part of the game again.

At a certain point I just had to accept that I was working against myself in that regard with that particular feature, and that even I was beginning to ignore (or at least be decidedly non-excited about) redstone deposits in the early game due to my knowledge that I could just synthesize a shit-ton of it later.

As I've mentioned elsewhere, I'd really like to preserve the thrill of diamond-level mining by retaining some value to the resources that are found down there. The less "candy" you get while doing so, the duller it gets, and that in itself winds up fucking up the late-game balance as things like Lens blocks wind up feeling disproportionately expensive if you're mining *just* to get the diamonds to make them instead of mining for multiple resources at the same time.

Mining is also a useful way to find caves when attempting to light up the area around your mob-traps further, and since such traps have become such an integral part of the mod, I think further incentivizing that process is beneficial to the overall play experience.

Anyways...just to say, I thought a lot about that one before taking the decision to axe it ;)

[BobSlingblade679]

Wow, I'm really excited about the milk changes. I never really felt inclined to use them cuz mushroom omelots seemed to generate better returns.

My favorite change was to HCS, though. I had been concerned about it ever since the most recent hc wood change because punching that much wood in the middle of the night felt too punishing and at least felt like it was impossible to successfully do.. Thanks a bunch for this one. I think the way you handled it was rather ingenius. I've always loved how your incredibly simple tweaks can change gameplay so dramatically.

[devak]

Anyways...just to say, I thought a lot about that one before taking the decision to axe it ;)

Well you fell for the charms of Battosay on adding that one. i cant blame you ha ha.

[FlowerChild]

Well you fell for the charms of Battosay on adding that one. i cant blame you ha ha.

Hehe...true...he is one suave mofo :)

It did make total sense at the time mind you, but the mod has also come a very long way since, and the balance is rather different from what it used to be.

[Ethinolicbob]

Back in the day if you had ripped out synthetic redstone I would have curled into a little ball and cried.
But since the addition of beacons I have been gutting out everywhere in range of my gold beacon looking for diamonds. Since that point I have no longer needed to synthesize redstone =D

[jwideman]

that whole bit about "redstone devices that don't actually have any redstone in them" has always bugged the shit out of me in vanilla.

Same here. I see it as really encouraging late game mining. It also fixes some problems, as others have mentioned.
All the changes are good, but I especially like the changes to HC Spawn. It was a bit broken, I think. Now it's all fixed.

[Vexalor]

Thank you for another great update. I'm happy to see the early game finally being polished up and the mod moving back toward its original goals with the new redstone changes after fixing Mojang's numerous mistakes. With such a large release, I think I'll be doing a lot of playing today.

Synthetic redstone will be missed much, <sniffles>, but it is certainly for the best in terms of putting the 'mine' back in Minecaft; although, I'm not sure what I'll do with all my gold now--I guess with the new rebalancing of that particular ore, it's all heading for clocks and powered rails.

Anyways, keep up the good work. Every release, the gameplay feels more and more consistent and balanced and I just want to play more and more of BTW. It just never gets old. Thanks!

[nmarshall23]

-Changed the Turntable and repeater recipes to use clocks instead of netherquartz (or redstone dust in the older recipes) in order to increase the value of gold in the middle to late game, with the underlying in-game logic that gold is used as an interfacing material between redstone and quartz, and thus is required to create timing mechanisms.

I use a lot of repeater's in my builds. I'm kinda worried about the need to use gold for them.

I will try it out and get back to you.

Good job on rebalancing the game. After a few months break I hardly recognize it.

[Stormweaver]

meh, two ingots to a repeater isn't that big a deal. Plus, once you have decent armour and flame resistance potions, just run around the nether killing things ^.^

[Thalarctia]

meh, two ingots to a repeater isn't that big a deal. Plus, once you have decent armour and flame resistance potions, just run around the nether killing things ^.^

2 ingots? Nah, 4 nuggets, so less than half an ingot pr repeater.

[FlowerChild]

2 ingots? Nah, 4 nuggets, so less than half an ingot pr repeater.

Yeah, it's really not a lot of ingots at all (he may have meant 1/2 an ingot, which is about what it is), but hopefully it might be enough to make gold feel a little more valuable in the early game, and further encourage nether mob-trap construction.

I have some other potential changes in my back pocket if that doesn't do it. I mentioned them on IRC the other night, so I may as well here as well:

The idea would be to play off the concept already found in the powered rail recipe that gold acts as an interfacing element to get redstone to do some form of "work". So, I was thinking of creating some kind of "servo" item (obviously, that's not what it would be called as that's very un-Minecrafty) that would consist of redstone and gold, and would then be used in all block recipes that involve such work, instead of just redstone dust.

Stuff like pistons, iron doors, dispensers, etc.

I think such a change, if done right, would not only make gold more valuable, but would also help to resolve a lingering design hole in MC with regards to why powered rails are gold based, and turn that from more of a design-exception to a general gameplay "rule", kinda like what I just did with redstone in all redstone block recipes.

[PatriotBob]

-SNIP-
The idea would be to play off the concept already found in the powered rail recipe that gold acts as an interfacing element to get redstone to do some form of "work". So, I was thinking of creating some kind of "servo" item (obviously, that's not what it would be called as that's very un-Minecrafty) that would consist of redstone and gold, and would then be used in all block recipes that involve such work, instead of just redstone dust.

Stuff like pistons, iron doors, dispensers, etc.

I think such a change, if done right, would not only make gold more valuable, but would also help to resolve a lingering design hole in MC with regards to why powered rails are gold based, and turn that from more of a design-exception to a general gameplay "rule", kinda like what I just did with redstone in all redstone block recipes.

I've always been really fond of recipes that build common components that are used through out the tech tree. So this just makes me all manners of thrilled. Looking forward. :)

[FlowerChild]

Turns out Icy has stealth released an update video for the new release :)

[FlowerChild]

Just a brief note: I'm going to be putting together a 'b' version to handle a couple of recipe problems in this release (namely Scrambled Eggs returning a bowl on being eaten and the broken SFS Pressure Plate recipe). I'll also be including recipes to melt down SFS Pressure Plates and detector rails in the crucible, as that was another oversight on my part.

If there are any other small outstanding issue that you are aware of, please report them within the next couple of hours so I can take care of them as well at the same time.

[FlowerChild]

The aforementioned 'b' version can be found here (also updated the link in the OP):

Download Link

Changes are as follows:

-Added recipe for melting down Soulforged Steel Pressure Plates in the Crucible.

-Changed the recipe for melting down the trip wire hook in the Crucible to only return 1 nugget, to match the recipe change in the last release.

-Changed recipe to melt down Souflforged Steel Detector Rails in the Crucible so that the SFS used to make it is returned. Note that at least 3 are required for this to function given the amount of resources used in the recipe to create them. It might be time for me to add SFS nuggets ;)

-Changed the recipe for the Soulforged Steel Pressure Plate to be 4 SFS ingots in a row, with two redstone in the center slots below to better conform with an Anvil being required to work with SFS (this produces 2 plates, so it's actually cheaper than before). I decided to do this now as the recipe was just completely broken in the last release and needed to be fixed anyways.

-Fixed problem with Scrambled Eggs (both raw and cooked) still returning a bowl when eaten.

[TheGuy]

I love the change to hardcore spawn(from a fun/gameplay point of view); but logically, doesn't re-spawning the following morning mean that items should despawn due to time? In such a scenario it explains why mystery meat doesn't always drop. Or am I just thinking about this too deeply?

[turtlemuncher]

I love the change to hardcore spawn(from a fun/gameplay point of view); but logically, doesn't re-spawning the following morning mean that items should despawn due to time? In such a scenario it explains why mystery meat doesn't always drop. Or am I just thinking about this too deeply?

probley thinking about it too deeply. he may have used the same coding the bed used to use to skip it to morning?

anyway great update FC. it just keeps getting better and better

[johnt]

Haven't had a chance to play the update, but:

-Changed iron and gold ores so that they only drop in the specific color of strata mined if a silk touch enchant is used, otherwise they all drop in the lightest color of stone to prevent stacking issues.

and the Hardcore Spawn changes are both really subtle and thoughtful updates -- you could have just as easily have either made Silk Touch not work properly or let the stacking thing ride, but you figured out a way to fix the stacking thing while accommodating the kind of fringe use case of people decoratively using ore blocks.

Nice work.

[DaveYanakov]

It just hit me. The new change to hardcore spawn was a perfect response to everyone who has ever bitched about being unable to skip the 'boring' night.

Go die in a hole and you can!

[FlowerChild]

Ok, I just encountered my first abandoned mineshaft with the log supports during legit play (I had previously tested it through creative and such), and man, I'm terrified to go further down it. I almost got wrecked just in the area where I entered due to mobs sneaking up on me due to limited visibility, and every support I pass is freaking me out due to the dead zones they create.

I was going to ask for people's stories involving this change to get a better impression of how it operates during play, but having just experienced it myself, I'll consider this feature a success :)

[Taleric]

Well that is it, now I have to hunt down one of the new mineshafts :P
My most recent mineshaft run was near bedrock after stratification and it took several awesome sessions to clear. If the support beam adjustments are half as good as advertised it will be well worth the hunt.

[FlowerChild]

...and a short while later, Steve rests in pieces...

I knew I shouldn't be down there. Felt totally out of my league given the equipment I had, yet I felt compelled to "test" the new mineshafts and thus pushed further on.

Short while latter, I was blindsided by a zombie, wound up trapped in a corner with it, and met my demise.

On the bright side, I do believe that was a successful test :)

[RalphKastro]

just a small question, since the mineshafts intersections only have one block wide opennings, doesn't that greatly reduce the movement capability, and therefore the threat of cave spiders?

[FlowerChild]

Yup, it may indeed reduce the localized danger of cave spiders for the sake of the more general increase in danger to mineshafts in general.