[WaS] Tech Tree and Crafting Concepts

[Cervator]

Was talking to Marcin Sciesinski on IRC and he was working on a diagram for the tech tree you climb in WoodAndStone:

https://cacoo.com/diagrams/elqwy2OvjzixOZOR

The tree can branch out a lot though so I suggested a thread for ideas and feedback might be a good idea

WaS is meant as a sort of slow and realistic climb up the tech tree, as opposed to easy and streamlined. Keep this in mind! There will be other modules with more simplistic tech trees

To get started I think we should throw the wheel in there somewhere and make it possible to aspire to create, gasp, a cart! Maybe a hand-cart with one axle and a larger 2-axle version that could be pulled by animals (or in a pinch a flock of Oreons or something). And later on some sort of rails for a mining version

Of course putting actual vehicles in-game is a different topic altogether, although we did have the dynamically moving blocks pencilcheck put in ages ago (still needs an overhaul) or the rail carts Adeon had working (but not online yet - he's back on it and there's a new repo awaiting code)

 

[Marcin Sciesinski]

I have updated the technology-tree diagram with something I'm thinking of working on in the near future. If someone with maybe some game-design background has some great ideas on how to progress through bronze, iron, etc, please post here.

 

[Skaldarnar]

Some wild thoughts appeared :
- Bones could make for a good resource in the early stages as well. They can be used as/transformed to weapons and tools, similar to wood.
- Speaking of bones, you'll need tools to eviscerate slain animals (--> plug in hunger system )
- Thinking of the wood and stone ages some crude storage comes to my mind, like baskets made of twigs to collect gathered berries and stuff
- I liked the way of casting metal weapons from this MC mod on our Hexxit server (do you remember the name, Cervator?)

 

[Marcin Sciesinski]

Great ideas, but we don't have animals yet. I'm not sure how much of the Minions code can be reused to do AI for wild animals?
Great idea with the baskets (I was thinking before about creates, but these would require nails), will add it.

As for the mod, are you referring to TerrafirmaCraft?

 

[Skaldarnar]

Keep the animals/bones stuff for a later version then

The mod I'm referring to is Tinker's Construct (googled real quick). It uses a multi block construct as a smeltery and you have to craft casts for axe heads and stuff before you can fill them with a metal.

 

[Marcin Sciesinski]

It is actually quite far from how this would have been done in history. The first serious casting has been done in XVth century, before that, it was mostly hammering of the hot metal into desired shape. It is possible I'll add casting later in the "Steam Age".

 

[Josharias]

Terrafirma craft is definitely the more realistic minecraft mod. Although there is some special magic about "Better than Wolves" that you could glean some ideas from.

 

[Cervator]

Yeah TFC seemed very realistic and was one mod I checked out in single player once, while Tinker's Construct was the one in Hexxit with neat gameplay but maybe not quite as accurate

Better Than Wolves I keep hearing about but have not actually had the chance to try.

We need to start having the plain plants yield up useful drops

 

[nh_99]

I skimmed over that diagram and it seems as though a hoe is absent. That was extremely important to people as it marked the shift from nomadic culture to people settling down so I think it would be an important way to gain food.

EDIT: Something such as a scythe could work too.

 

[Marcin Sciesinski]

At the moment there is no farming, that is why it's missing. The reason why there is no farming, is that water is at the moment "broken", and water is quite substantial to farming, unless I add some crops which do not require a water source nearby.

 

[Marcin Sciesinski]

I have made some major changes to the diagram (and the implementation). I've added couple of items to the copper and bronze ages. Moved some items down to the wood and stone ages (clay, clay hearth). I'm considering moving clay hearth to Stone and require coal to operate it, therefore moving coal generation to WoodAndStone module.

 

[Mike Kienenberger]

Great ideas, but we don't have animals yet. I'm not sure how much of the Minions code can be reused to do AI for wild animals?

I don't think there's anything in Minions that would help for animals at present. Currently minions contains stuff for zones (which has been moved into a zones module) , stuff for creating prefabs using a book/card system, and an ai that terraforms/farms a specific zone, (possibly also gather but I haven't reviewed that yet), follows you, and maybe communicates (haven't reviewed this either).

There is an AI class in engine currently that seems like it was designed to be used for animals ("wild" is one of the the things it supports) if you don't want to do it with behavior.

 

[Esereja]

I made that ai code long ago and it is in engine atm(some one should export it in module). It works somewhat ok to simulate some simple animals (eat or attack or escape).

 

[Esereja]

I think twig should be prossed in to robe before used to construct things, and robe could be used as climping thing too, like ladders.

 

[Esereja]

Oh came to mind, historicaly same time copper apears, apear silver and gold and electrum(natural alloy of silver and gold has random mixture of those two and some other metals). Time of bronze, tin and zinc appear. Thus they should be possible melt from minerals. Tough I don't know what I would use them as they are soft but still. Maybe decorate house whit ignots.

And end of stone era, there should be pottery and mud bricks. That time they had also bow and bone/stone weapons(not that they are very usefull whitout combat framework) link

but this historical approach is nice and realistic . Me likes

 

[Skaldarnar]

As discussed a bit on IRC with Marcin Sciesinski here are my suggestions towards hand crafting in Wood And Stone - combined with brand new icons

I introduced two designated hand tools, the "tool stone" and the "sharpened stone", as the most basic tools the player can have. With these it should be possible to craft some other tools used in the first game minutes, as I think that "workstations" are kind of elaborated concepts for early stone age.

I also made some assumptions about what the player can get from trees/vegetation. First there are kind of "raw" sticks (basically because I like the sticky icon with leaves ) and you'll need a sharpened stone to trim these twigs into sticks. Secondly, there are "plant fibers" which can be used as early and cheap replacement of strings/ropes.

Let me hear what you think

 

[Marcin Sciesinski]

I really love this, and the fact that it is more historically accurate. However, I don't see any reason for having the extra step with "raw" sticks, other than the fancy picture.

As for the pictures themselves - brilliant!

 

[Skaldarnar]

Okay, I've updated the sheet:

 

[Skaldarnar]

Time for another concept sketch - Hand Crafting GUI!

Spoiler: GUI concept v1

Some explanation of what you can see here:
- Useful tools in the inventory are displayed on the left side (so to say all tools that can be used in hand crafting)
- depending on the resources in player's inventory a list of recipes is shown (maybe show grayed out recipes at the end of the list when the player has already "discoverd" them but does not have the required resources)
- if the player selects a recipe (clicks on it) the used/required tools will be highlighted as well
- crafting is done by clicking on the result item (in this case the stone blade)

Edit:
- selecting a hand tool can limit the presented recipes to those which require the selected tool

 

[Skaldarnar]

Going on this GUI concepts - Basic Woodworking interface.

Spoiler: Basic Woodworking Hexagon Log