Better Than Wolves Forum

Version 4.A7 Squid A Swimming of Better Than Wolves is ready for download!

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This release contains the following changes:

-Added smoothstone stairs, made with 6 smoothstone blocks or 3 Moulding in the usual patterns.

-Added Rotten Flesh and Bone slabs. They're created with the usual 3 blocks in a horizontal line in the crafting grid.

-Added some localization (language translation) capacity to Better Than Wolves. At present it's limited to block and item names, with some message strings still hardcoded, but the underlying implementation allows translation into any language that Minecraft 1.5.2 supports, and also provides functionality for add-ons to easily add their own custom language files as well. I won't be maintaining or distributing translations myself, but anyone who wishes to do so is welcome to.

-Added Carved Pumpkins as separate blocks from Pumpkins. Carved Pumpkins are produced by crafting Pumpkins, while Jack'o'Lanterns are now created by combining Carved Pumpkins and a torch. Pumpkins found in the wild will now either be Carved, or regular Pumpkins depending on whether you're within the Hardcore Spawn radius.

-Changed Melon and Pumpkin growth so that they'll happily crush neighboring plants with their fruit to make growing them a little more interesting and space consuming. They will crush their own stem if all surrounding blocks are blocked for growth. They have been changed to grow on pretty much any block with a solid top surface. Their stems are also directional, attaching to a specific plant which will return to an earlier growth stage on harvest, and they have a greater number of growth stages now, slowing down overall production some.

-Changed (increased) hunger cost for jumping while sprinting to prevent several exploits.

-Changed cactus blocks so that they can only be placed /replanted in Planters. Similar to the recent lily pad change: too sploity.

-Changed boats so that they'll break apart if they fall from a height onto hard ground.

-Changed Blocks of Bone and Flesh to drop full blocks on harvest, rather than individual items, to better suit the inclusion of slabs of the corresponding types.

-Changed (increased) the player's movement rate on Bone Blocks to better facilitate paving the planet with the broken remains of your fallen foes.

-Changed the Hardcore Player Names config file setting to have an additional option so that names won't be visible behind blocks and other obstructions. This setting is server side and will be automatically relayed to players.

-Changed (refactored) how config file loading works internally to simplify things a bit. This should have no noticeable impact during play.

-Changed (refactored) how blocks determine which tools are effective on them internally.

-Changed (refactored) a bunch of other more minor aspects of how blocks and items initialize internally to help facilitate the process of creating new blocks and items.

-Fixed vanilla problem where boats would be considered to be falling indefinitely while on the surface of water, potentially killing the player after long journeys.

-Fixed problem where lily pads could still be placed on the sides of blocks.

-Fixed problem where villages and other structures far from spawn (beyond around 50 kilometers) would sometimes be abandoned or looted.

-Fixed vanilla problem where sitting wolf cubs would sometimes teleport to their owning player when they grew up.

Parsnip!

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If you'd like to say thanks for this release and help contribute to the further development of Better Than Wolves, please consider making a donation:

It's the Great Pumpkin Nerf, Charlie Brown!

Really looking forward to seeing how the early game plays now, since I've always rushed for pumpkins and then regretted it because of how cheaty they felt. Thanks, FC!

I'm really liking the melon and pumpkin farm changes, even if it does mean I have to entirely rebuild my farms. Though I do wonder what the problem of cacti was? I think it's fine now just curious as to how it could have been exploited.

dawnraider wrote:I'm really liking the melon and pumpkin farm changes, even if it does mean I have to entirely rebuild my farms.

Do you? I was actually trying to be careful not to mess with too many builds, and restricted myself to what I thought were low impact changes.

What in particular is going to throw off your farms? Or are you just talking traditional ones, and not the automated builds I was most worried about?

Because yeah, regular farms turn into a ripe old mess :)

Though I do wonder what the problem of cacti was? I think it's fine now just curious as to how it could have been exploited.

Early game base defense. Cheap damage inducing walls that always made me cringe. Planters aren't very expensive resource wise, so this just delays farming them to mid-game if you're so inclined.

dawnraider wrote:I'm really liking the melon and pumpkin farm changes, even if it does mean I have to entirely rebuild my farms. Though I do wonder what the problem of cacti was? I think it's fine now just curious as to how it could have been exploited.

i imagine it was because cactus walls were a cheap and highly effective wall against everything but skeletons and the occasional very persistent spider.

::edit:: beaten by our dear leader himself

I'm talking regular farms, like this one I posted a while back on show us your builds (I retuxured pumpkins to have better aesthetics for lighting):
I've never actually built an automated pumpkin farm but I'd imagine that it would likely be far less affected.

And I hadn't even thought about cactus base defense walls. I always focus heavily on aesthetics, so ugly cactus walls never even crossed my mind, but that does make sense.

dawnraider wrote:...Though I do wonder what the problem of cacti was? I think it's fine now just curious as to how it could have been exploited.

This is how, it's a very cheap and easy self-rising wall. (sorry large image)

dawnraider wrote:I'm talking regular farms, like this one I posted a while back on show us your builds (I retuxured pumpkins to have better aesthetics for lighting):

That'll be a hot mess all right :)

Yeah, as mentioned above, I was much more focused on trying not to mess with automated builds too much since I know they can be a real pain to redesign, especially if part of a larger system (like chicken breeding or what have you).

With something like what you pictured (or what I had in my own world for that matter), worst case it's a bit messy until you rearrange things, and your overall output will be reduced for the space allocated.

That one farm did have a kind out ridiculous output with 72 plants in that tiny area (6 rows of 12), so I do think it's a good change. If nothing else I could get rid of every other plant and it would work albeit much slower.

The only real impact I see it having on automated farms is if you managed to build a 1 wide tileable design (which wouldn't be easy), but even then it'd be a matter of spacing them out and nothing more. Most designs I can think of right now wouldn't have immediately adjacent plants, which is really the only thing that would break builds.

In regards to the pumpkin spawn changes does that mean the pumpkins I got searching around spawn are no longer legitimate?

Sarudak wrote:In regards to the pumpkin spawn changes does that mean the pumpkins I got searching around spawn are no longer legitimate?

I read that growth-spawning mechanics are changed. Gathering from dawnraider's photo and how FC said it would result in "a hot mess," I'm of the impression that the pumpkin-gourd will spawn in on any adjacent-available tile, whether or not it's occupied by something like a neighboring pumpkin stalk. I'm imagining that the way to get them to spawn into easily-harvested rows the way we're used to is to place full blocks between each seedling, thus halving a manual-harvest yield. If so, this is in line with the emphasis on rewarding mechanized builds.

MisterFister wrote: I read that growth-spawning mechanics are changed. Gathering from dawnraider's photo and how FC said it would result in "a hot mess," I'm of the impression that the pumpkin-gourd will spawn in on any adjacent-available tile, whether or not it's occupied by something like a neighboring pumpkin stalk. I'm imagining that the way to get them to spawn into easily-harvested rows the way we're used to is to place full blocks between each seedling, thus halving a manual-harvest yield. If so, this is in line with the emphasis on rewarding mechanized builds.

I'm sure he means that if the pumpkins appearing in the adandoned area are always carved, and asuming carved pumpins won't yield seeds, the pumkin seeds he now has in his base shouldn't really be there.

FlowerChild wrote: -Changed (increased) the player's movement rate on Bone Blocks to better facilitate paving the planet with the broken remains of your fallen foes.

Now I really will have to go relieve so excitement ;)
I'll now be paving the way to my future castle borne through the flesh of my enemies with their broken bones, tiki torches, and heads/skulls on shafts.

All the vanilla fixes and changes to pumpkins are all great too, but just the mental image of covering the planet with the broken remains of my enemies really appeals to me, especially once I finally progress enough in my current world to build up a mob grinder.

right when i just finished making some fields of crops you add hardcore melons

Awwww, an early valentine's day gift for me? You shouldn't have FlowerChild!

And my god I love the nerfs here. Thanks loads!

aaaaaAAAAAAAAaaaaaaAAAAAAAaaHHHHHHHhhhhhh!!!! FC woot!

Love all ! Excited To try a new adventure !

Thanks guys! With all the low-level changes in this one, it was a bit of a slog, so the enthusiasms are much appreciated!

I let things slide a bit in terms of housekeeping in the past given there were a finite number of blocks left that I could add. With the addition of additional blockIDs though, the messiness of some of what was in there really started to get on my nerves, and I went on a bit of a tear massaging the code into a more soothing form.

Suffice it to say, I'm glad that bit is over :)

Great changes FC! Like the carved pumpkin thing (didn't realize at first you get the seeds too from carving the pumpkin).

Thanks!

Mason11987 wrote:(didn't realize at first you get the seeds too from carving the pumpkin).

Hehe... yup, it made more sense to me for the seeds to go flying like with Logs + Saw Dust, rather than have the shell eject from the crafting grid leaving the seeds behind :)

Man the sprint jumping changes really bit me. Going to have to change some of my habits I think.

I think you definitely nailed the changes to pumpkins and melons. Hemp is looking more attractive than it used to be as a source of seeds.

Thank you!

Nice! Thank you for the release!

Excited for the new aesthetic blocks, including non-carved pumpkins. (Plus the new localization capabilities.)

I haven't played BTW in literally years but its looking like its a good time to get back into it. Melons and pumpkins were the easiest thing to automate, so I'm excited to see how systems will need to change to keep the process going.

I'm glad you're still around and updating the mod, FC. If it wasn't for BTW I probably wouldn't have bothered with Minecraft at all.